Double Indemnity - James M. Cain [12]
It was the day after that that Lola and Sachetti came in for their loan. When I handed them the check she did a little dance in the middle of the floor. "You want a copy of Nino's dissertation?"
"Why—I'd love it."
"It's called 'The Problem of Colloids in the Reduction of Low-Grade Gold Ores.'"
"I'll look forward to it."
"Liar—you won't even read it."
"I'll read as much as I can understand."
"Anyway, you'll get a signed copy."
"Thanks."
"Good-bye. Maybe you're rid of us for a while."
"Maybe."
Chapter 4
All this, what I've been telling you, happened in late winter, along the middle of February. Of course, in California February looks like any other month, but anyway it would have been winter anywhere else. From then on, all through the spring, believe me I didn't get much sleep. You start on something like this, and if you don't wake up plenty of times in the middle of the night, dreaming they got you for something you forgot, you've got better nerves than I've got. Then there were things we couldn't figure out, like how to get on a train. That was tough, and if we didn't have a piece of luck, maybe we never would have put it over. There's plenty of people out here that have never been inside a train, let alone taken a ride on one. They go everywhere by car. That was how he travelled, when he travelled, and how to make him use a train just once, that was something that gave us a headache for quite some time. We got a break on one thing though that I had sweated over plenty. That was the funny look that came over his face when I got that check. There was something back of it, I knew that, and if it was something his secretary was in on, and especially if he went out after I left and made some crack to the secretary about getting $20 he didn't expect, it would look plenty bad later, no matter what kind of story I made up. But that wasn't it. Phyllis got the low-down on it, and it startled me, how pretty it broke for us. He charged his car insurance to his company, under expenses, and his secretary had already entered it when I came along with my proposition. She had not only entered it, but if he went through with what I wanted, he still had his cancelled check to show for it, the first one, I mean. All he had to do was keep his mouth shut to the secretary and he could put his $20 profit in his pocket, and nobody would be the wiser. He kept his mouth shut. He didn't even tell Lola. But he had to brag to somebody how smart he was, so he told Phyllis.
Another thing that worried me was myself. I was afraid my work would fall off, and they'd begin talking about me in the office, wondering why I'd begun to slip. That wouldn't do me any good, later I mean, when they began to think about it. I had to sell insurance while this thing was cooking, if I never sold it before. I worked like a wild man. I saw every prospect there was the least chance of selling, and how I high-pressured them was a shame. Believe it or not, my business showed a 12% increase in March, it jumped 2% over that in April, and in May, when there's a lot of activity in cars, it went to 7% over that. I even made a hook-up with a big syndicate of secondhand dealers for my finance company, and that helped. The books didn't know anything to tell on me. I was the candy kid in both offices that spring. They were all taking off their hats to me.
"He's going to his class reunion. At Palo Alto."
"When?"
"June. In about six weeks."
"That's it. That's what we've been waiting for."
"But he wants to drive. He wants to take the car, and he wants me to go with him. He'll raise an awful fuss if I don't go."
"Yeah? Listen, don't give yourself airs. I don't care if it's a class reunion or just down to the drugstore, a man would rather go alone than with a wife. He's just being polite. You talk like you're not interested in his class reunion,