Double Indemnity (2 page)

"I love the Chinese. Whenever I make chow mein I buy all the stuff at the same place near the park. Mr. Ling. Do you know him?"

"Known him for years."

"Oh, you
have!"

Her brow wrinkled up, and I saw there was nothing washed-out about her. What gave her that look was a spray of freckles across her forehead. She saw me looking at them. "I believe you're looking at my freckles."

"Yes, I was. I like them."

"I don't."

"I do."

"I always used to wear a turban around my forehead when I went out in the sun, but so many people began stopping by, asking to have their fortunes told, that I had to stop it."

"You don't tell fortunes?"

"No, it's one California accomplishment I never learned."

"Anyway I like the freckles."

She sat down beside me and we talked about Mr. Ling. Now Mr. Ling wasn't anybody but a Chinese grocery dealer that had a City Hall job on the side, and every year we had to bond him for $2,500, but you'd be surprised what a swell guy he turned out to be when we talked about him. After a while, though, I switched to insurance. "Well, how about those policies?"

"He's still talking about the Automobile Club, but I think he's going to renew with you."

"I'm glad of that."

She sat there a minute, making little pleats with the edge of her blouse and rubbing them out. "I didn't say anything to him about the accident insurance."

"No?"

"I hate to talk to him about it."

"I can understand that."

"It seems an awful thing to tell him you think he ought to have an accident policy. And yet—you see, my husband is the Los Angeles representative of the Western Pipe and Supply Company."

"He's in the Petroleum Building, isn't he?"

"That's where he has his office. But most of the time he's in the oil fields."

"Plenty dangerous, knocking around there."

"It makes me positively ill to think about it."

"Does his company carry anything on him?"

"Not that I know of."

"Man in a business like that, he ought not to take chances."

And then I made up my mind that even if I did like her freckles, I was going to find out where I was at. "I tell you, how would you like it if I talked with Mr. Nirdlinger about this? You know, not say anything about where I got the idea, but just bring it up when I see him."

"I just
hate
to talk to him about it."

"I'm telling you.
I'll
talk."

"But then he'll ask me what I think, and—I won't know what to say. It's got me worried sick."

She made another bunch of pleats. Then, after a long time, here it came. "Mr. Huff, would it be possible for me to take out a policy
for
him, without bothering him about it at all? I have a little allowance of my own. I could pay you for it, and he wouldn't know, but just the same all this worry would be over."

I couldn't be mistaken about what she meant, not after fifteen years in the insurance business. I mashed out my cigarette, so I could get up and go. I was going to get out of there, and drop those renewals and everything else about her like a red-hot poker. But I didn't do it. She looked at me, a little surprised, and her face was about six inches away. What I did do was put my arm around her, pull her face up against mine, and kiss her on the mouth, hard. I was trembling like a leaf. She gave it a cold stare, and then she closed her eyes, pulled me to her, and kissed back.

"I liked you all the time."

"I don't believe it."

"Didn't I ask you to tea? Didn't I have you come here when Belle was off? I liked you the very first minute. I loved it, the solemn way you kept talking about your company, and all this and that. That was why I kept teasing you about the Automobile Club."

"Oh, it was."

"Now you know."

I rumpled her hair, and then we both made some pleats in the blouse. "You don't make them even, Mr. Huff."

"Isn't that even?"

"The bottom ones are bigger than the top. You've got to take just so much material every time, then turn it, then crease it, and then they make nice pleats. See?"

"I'll try to get the hang of it."

"Not now. You've got to go."

"I'm seeing you soon?"

"Maybe."

"Well listen, I
am."

"Belle isn't off every day. I'll let you know."

"Well—
will
you?"

"But don't
you
call
me
up. I'll let you know. I promise."

"All right then. Kiss me good-bye."

"Good-bye."

I live in a bungalow in the Los Feliz hills. Daytime, I keep a Filipino house boy, but he don't sleep there. It was raining that night, so I didn't go out. I lit a fire and sat there, trying to figure out where I was at. I knew where I was at, of course. I was standing right on the deep end, looking over the edge, and I kept telling myself to get out of there, and get quick, and never come back. But that was what I kept telling myself. What I was doing was peeping over that edge, and all the time I was trying to pull away from it, there was something in me that kept edging a little closer, trying to get a better look.

A little before nine the bell rang. I knew who it was as soon as I heard it. She was standing there in a raincoat and a little rubber swimming cap, with the raindrops shining over her freckles. When I got her peeled off she was in sweater and slacks, just a dumb Hollywood outfit, but it looked different on her. I brought her to the fire and she sat down. I sat down beside her.

"How did you get my address?" It jumped out at me, even then, that I didn't want her calling my office asking questions about me.

"Phone book."

"Oh."

"Surprised?"

"No."

"Well I like that. I never heard such conceit."

"Your husband out?"

"Long Beach. They're putting down a new well. Three shifts. He had to go down. So I hopped on a bus. I think you might say you're glad to see me."

"Great place, Long Beach."

"I told Lola I was going to a picture show."

"Who's Lola?"

"My stepdaughter."

"Young?"

"Nineteen. Well,
are
you glad to see me?"

"Yeah, sure. Why—wasn't I expecting you?"

We talked about how wet it was out, and how we hoped it didn't turn into a flood, like it did the night before New Year's, 1934, and how I would run her back in the car. Then she looked in the fire a while. "I lost my head this afternoon."

"Not much."

"A little."

"You sorry?"

"—A little. I've never done that before. Since I've been married. That's why I came down."

"You act like something really happened."

"Something did. I lost my head. Isn't that something?"

"Well—so what?"

"I just wanted to say—"

"You didn't mean it."

"No. I did mean it. If I hadn't meant it I wouldn't have had to come down. But I do want to say that I won't ever mean it again."

"You sure?"

"Quite sure."

"We ought to try and see."

"No—please...You see, I love my husband. More, here lately, than ever."

I looked into the fire a while then. I ought to quit, while the quitting was good, I knew that. But that thing was in me, pushing me still closer to the edge. And then I could feel it again, that she wasn't saying what she meant. It was the same as it was that first afternoon I met her, that there was something else, besides what she was telling me. And I couldn't shake it off, that I had to call it on her.

"Why 'here lately'?"

"Oh—worry."

"You mean that down in the oil fields, some rainy night, a crown block is going to fall on him?"

"Please don't talk like that."

"But that's the idea."

"Yes."

"I can understand that. Especially with this set-up."

"...I don't quite know what you mean. What set-up?"

"Why—a crown block will."

"Will what?"

"Fall on him."

"Please, Mr. Huff, I asked you not to talk like that. It's not a laughing matter. It's got me worried sick...What makes you say that?"

"You're
going to drop a crown block
on
him."

"I—what!"

"Well, you know, maybe not a crown block. But something. Something that's accidentally-on-purpose going to fall on him, and then he'll be dead."

It nailed her between the eyes and they flickered. It was a minute before she said anything. She had to put on an act, and she was caught by surprise, and she didn't know how to do it.

"Are you—joking?"

"No."

"You must be. Or you must be crazy. Why—I never heard of such a thing in my life."

"I'm not crazy, and I'm not joking, and you've heard of such a thing in your life, because it's all you've thought of since you met me, and it's what you came down here for tonight."

"I'll not stay here and listen to such things."

"O.K."

"I'm going."

"O.K."

"I'm going this minute."

"O.K."

So I ran away from the edge, didn't I, and socked it into her so she knew what I meant, and left it so we could never go back to it again? I did not. That was what I tried to do. I never even got up when she left, I didn't help her on with her things, I didn't drive her back, I treated her like I would treat an alley cat. But all the time I knew it would be still raining the next night, that they would still be drilling at Long Beach, that I would light the fire and sit by it, that a little before nine the doorbell would ring: She didn't even speak to me when she came in. We sat by the fire at least five minutes before either one of us said anything. Then she started it. "How could you say such things as you said to me last night?"

"Because they're true. That's what you're going to do."

"Now?
After what you've said?"

"Yes, after what I've said."

"But—Walter, that's what I've come for, again tonight. I've thought it over. I realize that there have been one or two things I've said that could give you a completely wrong impression. In a way, I'm glad you warned me about them, because I might have said them to somebody else without knowing the—construction that could be put upon them. But now that I do know, you must surely see that—anything of that sort must be out of my mind. Forever."

That meant she had spent the whole day sweating blood for fear I would warn the husband, or start something, somehow. I kept on with it. "You called me Walter. What's your name?"

"Phyllis."

"Phyllis, you seem to think that because I can call it on you, you're not going to do it. You
are
going to do it, and I'm going to help you."

"You!"

"I."

I caught her by surprise again, but she didn't even try to put on an act this time. "Why—I couldn't have anybody help me! It would be—impossible."

"You couldn't have anybody help you? Well let me tell you something. You had better have somebody help you. It would be nice to pull it off yourself, all alone, so nobody knew anything about it, it sure would. The only trouble with that is, you can't. Not if you're going up against an insurance company, you can't. You've got to have help. And it had better be help that knows its stuff."

"What would you do this for?"

"You, for one thing."

"What else?"

"Money."

"You mean you would—betray your company, and help me do this, for me, and the money we could get out of it?"

"I mean just that. And you better say what you mean, because when I start, I'm going to put it through, straight down the line, and there won't be any slips. But I've got to know. Where I stand. You can't fool—with this."

She closed her eyes, and after a while she began to cry. I put my arm around her and patted her. It seemed funny, after what we had been talking about, that I was treating her like some child that had lost a penny. "Please, Walter, don't let me do this. We can't. It's simply—insane."

"Yes, it's insane."

"We're going to do it. I can feel it."

"I too."

"I haven't any reason. He treats me as well as a man can treat a woman. I don't love him, but he's never done anything to me."

"But you're going to do it."

"Yes, God help me, I'm going to do it."

She stopped crying, and lay in my arms for a while without saying anything. Then she began to talk almost in a whisper.

"He's not happy. He'll be better off—dead."

"Yeah?"

"That's not true, is it?"

"Not from where he sits, I don't think."

"I know it's not true. I tell myself it's not true. But there's something in me, I don't know what. Maybe I'm crazy. But there's something in me that loves Death. I think of myself as Death, sometimes. In a scarlet shroud, floating through the night. I'm
so
beautiful, then. And sad. And hungry to make the whole world happy, by taking them out where I am, into the night, away from all trouble, all unhappiness...Walter, this is the awful part. I know this is terrible. I tell myself it's terrible. But to me, it doesn't
seem
terrible. It seems as though I'm doing something—that's really best for him, if he only knew it. Do you understand me, 'Walter?"

"No."

"Nobody could."

"But we're going to do it."

"Yes, we're going to do it."

"Straight down the line."

"Straight down the line."

A night or two later, we talked about it just as casually as if it was a little trip to the mountains. I had to find out what she had been figuring on, and whether she had gummed it up with some bad move of her own. "Have you said anything to him about this, Phyllis? About this policy?"

"No."

"Absolutely nothing?"

"Not a thing."

"All right, how are you going to do it?"

"I was going to take out the policy first—"

"Without him knowing?"

"Yes."

"Holy smoke, they'd have crucified you. It's the first thing they look for. Well—anyway that's out. What else?"

"He's going to build a swimming pool. In the spring. Out in the patio."

"And?"

"I thought it could be made to look as though he hit his head diving or something."