Double Indemnity - James M. Cain [32]
"I mustn't do that."
"Why not?"
"Lots of reasons. It's not fair to you, for one."
"Did you hear me squawk?"
"You do like me, don't you?"
"I'm crazy about you."
"I'm pretty crazy about you too, Walter. I don't know what I'd have done without you these last few weeks. Only—"
"Only what?"
"Are you sure you want to hear? It may hurt you."
"Better hear it than guess at it."
"It's about Nino."
"Yes?"
"I guess he still means a lot to me."
"Have you seen him?"
"No."
"You'll get over it. Let me be your doctor. I'll guarantee a cure. Just give me a little time, and I'll promise to have you all right."
"You're a nice doctor. Only—"
"Another 'only'?"
"I did see him."
"Oh."
"No, I was telling the truth just now. I haven't talked with him. He doesn't know I've seen him. Only—"
"You sure have a lot of 'only's'."
"Walter—"
She was getting more and more excited, and trying not to let me see it.
"—He didn't do it!"
"No?"
"This is going to hurt you terribly, Walter. I can't help it. You may as well know the truth. I followed them last night. Oh, I've followed them a lot of times, I've been insane. Last night, though, was the first time I ever got a chance to hear what they were saying. They went up to the Lookout and parked, and I parked down below, and crept up behind them. Oh, it was horrible enough. He told her he had been in love with her from the first, but felt it was hopeless—until this happened. But that wasn't all. They talked about money. He's spent all of that you let him have, and still he hasn't got his degree. He paid for his dissertation, but the rest he spent on her. And he was talking about where he'd get more. Listen, Walter—"
"Yes?"
"If they had done this together, she'd have to let him have money, wouldn't she?"
"Looks like it."
"They never even mentioned anything about her letting him have money. My heart began to beat when I realized what that meant. And then they talked some more. They were there about an hour. They talked about lots of things, and I could tell, from what they said, that he wasn't in on it, and didn't know anything about it. I could tell! Walter, do you realize what that means? He didn't do it!"
She was so excited her fingers felt like steel, where they were clutched around my arm. I couldn't follow her. I could see that she meant something, something a whole lot more important than that Sachetti was innocent.
"I don't quite get it, Lola. I thought you had given up the idea that anybody was in on it."
"I'll never give it up...Yes, I did give it up, or try to. But that was only because I thought if there was something like that, he must have been in on it, and that would have been too terrible. If he had anything to do with it, I knew it couldn't be that. I had to know it, to believe it. But now—oh no, Walter, I haven't given it up. She did it, somehow. I know it. And now, I'll get her. I'll get her for it, if it's the last thing I do."
"How?"
"She's suing your company, isn't she? She even has the nerve to do that. All right. You tell your company not to worry. I'll come and sit right alongside of you, Walter. I'll tell them what to ask her. I'll tell them—"
"Wait a minute, Lola, wait a minute—"
"I'll tell them everything they need to know. I told you there was plenty more, besides what I told you. I'll tell them to ask her about the time I came in on her, in her bedroom, with some kind of foolish red silk thing on her, that looked like a shroud or something, with her face all smeared up with white powder and red lipstick, with a dagger in her hand, making faces at herself in front of a mirror—oh yes, I'll tell them to ask her about that. I'll tell them to ask her why she was down in a boulevard store, a week before my father died,