Double Indemnity (3 page)

"That's out. That's still worse."

"Why? People do, don't they?"

"It's no good. In the first place, some fool in the insurance business, five or six years ago, put out a newspaper story that most accidents happen in people's own bathtubs, and since then bathtubs, swimming pools, and fishponds are the first thing they think of. When they're trying to pull something, I mean. There's two cases like that out here in California right now. Neither one of them are on the up-and-up, and if there'd been an insurance angle those people would wind up on the gallows. Then it's a daytime job, and you never can tell who's peeping at you from the next hill. Then a swimming pool is like a tennis court, you no sooner have one than it's a community affair, and you don't know who might come popping in on you at any minute. And then it's one of those things where you've got to watch for your chance, and you can't plan it in advance, and know where you're going to come out to the last decimal point. Get this, Phyllis. There's three essential elements to a successful murder."

That word was out before I knew it. I looked at her quick. I thought she'd wince under it. She didn't. She leaned forward. The firelight was reflected in her eyes like she was some kind of leopard. "Go on. I'm listening."

"The first is, help. One person can't get away with it, that is unless they're going to admit it and plead the unwritten law or something. It takes more than one. The second is, the time, the place, the way, all known in advance—to us, but not to him. The third is, audacity. That's the one that all amateur murderers forget. They know the first two, sometimes. But that third, only a professional knows. There comes a time in any murder when the only thing that can see you through is audacity, and I can't tell you why. You know the perfect murder? You think it's this swimming pool job, and you're going to do it so slick nobody would ever guess it. They'd guess it in two seconds, flat. In three seconds, flat, they'd prove it, and in four seconds, flat, you'd confess it. No, that's not it. The perfect murder is the gangster that goes on the spot. You know what they do? First they get a finger on him. They get that girl that he lives with. Along about six o'clock they get a phone call from her. She goes out to a drugstore to buy some lipstick, and she calls. They're going to see a picture tonight, he and she, and it's at such and such a theatre. They'll get there around nine o'clock. All right, there's the first two elements. They got help, and they fixed the time and the place in advance. All right, now watch the third. They go there in a car. They park across the street. They keep the motor running. They put a sentry out. He loafs up an alley, and pretty soon he drops a handkerchief and picks it up. That means he's coming. They get out of the car. They drift up to the theatre. They close in on him. And right there, in the glare of the lights, with a couple hundred people looking on, they let him have it. He hasn't got a chance. Twenty bullets hit him, from four or five automatics. He falls, they scram for the car, they drive off—and then you try to convict them. You just try to convict them. They've got their alibis ready in advance, all airtight, they were only seen for a second, by people who were so scared they didn't know what they were looking at—and there isn't a chance to convict them. The police know who they are, of course. They round them up, give them the water cure—and then they're habeas corpused into court and turned loose. Those guys don't get convicted. They get put on the spot by other gangsters. Oh yeah, they know their stuff, all right. And if we want to get away with it, we've got to do it the way they do it, and not the way some punk up near San Francisco does it, that's had two trials already, and still he's not free."

"Be bold?"

"Be bold. It's the only way."

"If we shoot him it wouldn't be accident."

"That's right. We don't shoot him, but I want you to get the principle through your head. Be bold. It's the only chance to get away with it."

"Then how?"

"I'm coming to that. Another trouble with your swimming pool idea is that there's no money in it."

"They'd have to pay—"

"They'd have to pay, but this is a question of how much they'd have to pay. All the big money on an accident policy comes from railroad accidents. They found out pretty quick, when they began to write accident insurance, that the apparent danger spots, the spots that people think are danger spots, aren't danger spots at all. I mean, people always think a railroad train is a pretty dangerous place to be, or they did, anyway, before the novelty wore off, but the figures show not many people get killed, or even hurt, on railroad trains. So on accident policies, they put in a feature that sounds pretty good to the man that buys it, because
he's
a little worried about train trips, but it doesn't cost the company much, because it knows he's pretty sure to get there safely. They pay double indemnity for railroad accidents. That's just where we cash in. You've been thinking about some piker job, maybe, and a fat chance I'd be taking a chance like this for that. When we get done, we cash a $50,000 bet, and if we do it right, we're going to cash it, don't make any mistake about that."

"Fifty thousand dollars?"

"Nice?"

"My!"

"Say, this is a beauty, if I do say it myself. I didn't spend all this time in this business for nothing, did I? Listen, he knows all about this policy, and yet he don't know a thing about it. He applies for it, in writing, and yet he don't apply for it. He pays me for it with his own check, and yet he don't pay me. He has an accident happen to him and yet he don't have an accident happen to him. He gets on the train, and yet he don't get on it."

"What
are
you talking about?"

"You'll find out. The first thing is, we've got to fix him up with that policy. I sell it to him, do you get that?—except that I don't sell him. Not quite. I give him the works, the same as I give any other prospect. And I've got to have witnesses. Get that. There's got to be somebody that heard me go right after him. I show him that he's covered on everything that might hurt the automobile, but hasn't got a thing that covers personal injury to himself. I put it up to him whether a man isn't worth more than his car. I—"

"Suppose he buys?"

"Well—suppose he does? He won't. I can bring him within one inch of the line and hold him there, don't you think I can't. I'm a salesman, if I'm nothing else. But—I've got to have witnesses. Anyway, one witness."

"I'll have somebody."

"Maybe you better oppose it."

"All right."

"You're all for the automobile stuff, when I start in on that, but this accident thing gives you the shivers."

"I'll remember."

"You better make a date pretty quick. Give me a ring."

"Tomorrow?"

"Confirm by phone. Remember, you need a witness."

"I'll have one."

"Tomorrow, then. Subject to call."

"Walter—I'm so excited. It does terrible things to me."

"I too."

"Kiss me."

You think I'm nuts? All right, maybe I am. But you spend fifteen years in the business I'm in, maybe you'll go nuts yourself. You think it's a business, don't you, just like your business, and maybe a little better than that, because it's the friend of the widow, the orphan, and the needy in time of trouble? It's not. It's the biggest gambling wheel in the world. It don't look like it, but it is, from the way they figure the percentage on the oo to the look on their face when they cash your chips. You bet that your house will burn down, they bet it won't, that's all. What fools you is that you didn't
want
your house to burn down when you made the bet, and so you forget it's a bet. That don't fool them. To them a bet is a bet, and a hedge bet don't look any different than any other bet. But there comes a time, maybe, when you
do
want your house to burn down, when the money is worth more than the house. And right there is where the trouble starts. They know there's just so many people out there that are out to crook that wheel, and that's when they get tough. They've got their spotters out there, they know every crooked trick there is, and if you want to beat them you had better be good. So long as you're honest, they'll pay you with a smile, and you may even go home thinking it was all in a spirit of good clean fun. But start something, and then you'll find out.

All right, I'm an agent. I'm a croupier in that game. I know all their tricks, I lie awake nights thinking up tricks, so I'll be ready for them when they come at me. And then one night I think up a trick, and get to thinking I could crook the wheel myself if I could only put a plant out there to put down my bet. That's all. When I met Phyllis I met my plant. If that seems funny to you, that I would kill a man just to pick up a stack of chips, it might not seem so funny if you were back of that wheel, instead of out front. I had seen so many houses burned down, so many cars wrecked, so many corpses with blue holes in their temples, so many awful things that people had pulled to crook the wheel, that that stuff didn't seem real to me any more. If you don't understand that, go to Monte Carlo or some other place where there's a big casino, sit at a table, and watch the face of the man that spins the little ivory ball. After you've watched it a while, ask yourself how much he would care if you went out and plugged yourself in the head. His eyes might drop when he heard the shot, but it wouldn't be from worry whether you lived or died. It would be to make sure you didn't leave a bet on the table, that he would have to cash for your estate. No, he wouldn't care. Not that baby.

"Then another thing I call your attention to, Mr. Nirdlinger, a feature we've added in the last year, at no extra cost, is our guarantee of bail bond. We furnish you a card, and all you have to do, in case of accident where you're held responsible, or in any traffic case where the police put you under arrest, is to produce that card and if it's a bailable offense, it automatically procures your release. The police take up the card, that puts us on your bond, and you're free until your case comes up for trial. Since that's one of the things the Automobile Club does for members, and you're thinking about the Automobile Club—"

"I've pretty well given that idea up."

"Well then, why don't we fix this thing up right now? I've pretty well outlined what we do for you—"

"I guess we might as well."

"Then if you'll sign these applications, you'll be protected until the new policies are issued, which will be in about a week, but there's no use your paying for a whole week's extra insurance. There's for the collision, fire, and theft, there's for the public liability—and if you don't mind sticking your name on these two, they're the agent's copies, and I keep them for my files."

"Here?"

"Right on the dotted line."

He was a big, blocky man, about my size, with glasses, and I played him exactly the way I figured to. As soon as I had the applications, I switched to accident insurance. He didn't seem much interested, so I made it pretty stiff. Phyllis cut in that the very idea of accident insurance made her shiver, and I kept on going. I didn't quit till I had hammered in every reason for taking out accident insurance that any agent ever thought of, and maybe a couple of reasons that no agent ever had thought of. He sat there drumming with his fingers on the arms of his chair, wishing I would go.

But what bothered me wasn't that. It was the witness that Phyllis brought out. I thought she would have some friend of the family in to dinner, maybe a woman, and just let her stay with us, there in the sitting room, after I showed up around seven-thirty. She didn't. She brought the stepdaughter in, a pretty girl, named Lola. Lola wanted to go, but Phyllis said she had to get the wool wound for a sweater she was knitting, and kept her there, winding it. I had to tie her in, with a gag now and then, to make sure she would remember what we were talking about, but the more I looked at her the less I liked it. Having to sit with her there, knowing all the time what we were going to do to her father, was one of the things I hadn't bargained for.

And next thing I knew, when I got up to go, I had let myself in for hauling her down to the boulevard, so she could go to a picture show. Her father had to go out again that night, and he was using the car, and that meant that unless I hauled her she would have to go down by bus. I didn't want to haul her. I didn't want to have anything to do with her. But when he kind of turned to me there was nothing I could do but offer, and she ran and got her hat and coat, and in a minute or two there we were, rolling down the hill.

"Mr. Huff?"

"Yes?"

"I'm not going to a picture show."

"No?"

"I'm meeting somebody. At the drugstore."

"Oh."

"Would you haul us both down?"

"Oh—sure."

"You won't mind?"

"No, not a bit."

"And you won't tell on me? There are reasons why I don't want them to know. At home."

"No, of course not."

We stopped at the drugstore, and she jumped out and in a minute came back with a young guy, with an Italian-looking face, pretty good-looking, that had been standing around outside. "Mr. Huff, this is Mr. Sachetti."

"How are you, Mr. Sachetti. Get in."

They got in, and kind of grinned at each other, and we rolled down Beachwood to the boulevard. "Where do you want me to set you down?"

"Oh, anywhere."

"Hollywood and Vine all right?"

"Swell."

I set them down there, and after she got out, she reached out her hand, and took mine, and thanked me, her eyes shining like stars. "It was darling of you to take us. Lean close, I'll tell you a secret."

"Yes?"

"If you hadn't taken us we'd have had to walk."

"How are you going to get back?"

"Walk."

"You want some money?"

"No, my father would kill me. I spent all my week's money. No, but thanks. And remember—don't tell on me."

"Hurry, you'll miss your light."

I drove home. Phyllis got there in about a half hour. She was humming a song out of a Nelson Eddy picture. "Did you like my sweater?"