Double Indemnity - James M. Cain [37]
I held my watch in my hand. The hand crept around to 12:30. Still she hadn't come. I put my watch back in my pocket. A twig cracked—off in the bushes. I jumped. Then I wound down the window on the right hand side of the car, and sat there looking off in the bushes to see what it was. I must have stared out there at least a minute. Another twig cracked, closer this time. Then there was a flash, and something hit me in the chest like Jack Dempsey had hauled off and given me all he had. There was a shot. I knew then what had happened to me. I wasn't the only one that figured the world wasn't big enough for two people, when they knew that about each other. I had come there to kill her, but she had beaten me to it.
I fell back on the seat, and I heard footsteps running away. There I was, with a bullet through my chest, in a stolen car, and the owner of the car the very man that Keyes had been tailing for the last month and a half. I pulled myself up by the wheel. I reached up for the key, then remembered I had to leave it in there. I opened the door. I could feel the sweat start out on my head from what it took out of me to turn the handle. I got out, somehow. I began staggering up the road to my car. I couldn't walk straight. I wanted to sit down, to ease that awful weight on my chest, but I knew if I did that I'd never get there. I remembered I had to get the car key ready, and took it out of my pocket. I got there and climbed in. I shoved the key in and pulled the starter. That was the last I knew that night.
Chapter 12
I don't know if you've ever been under ether. You come out of it a little bit at a time. First a kind of a gray light shines on one part of your mind, just a dim gray light, and then it gets bigger, but slow. All the time it's getting bigger you're trying to gag the stuff out of your lungs. It sounds like an awful groan, like you were in pain or something, but that's not it. You try to gag it out of your lungs, and you make those sounds to try and force it out. But away inside somewhere your head is working all the time. You know where you're at, and even if all kind of cock-eyed ideas do swim through that gray light, the main part of you is there, and you can think, maybe not so good, but a little bit.
It seemed to me I had been thinking, even before I began to come to. I knew there must be somebody with me there, but I didn't know who it was. I could hear them talking, but it wouldn't quite reach me what they were saying. Then I could hear it. It was a woman, telling me to open my mouth for a little ice, that would make me feel better. I opened my mouth. I got the ice. I figured the woman must be a nurse. Still I didn't know who else was there. I thought a long time, then figured it out I would open my eyes just a little bit and close them quick, and see who was in the room. I did that. At first I couldn't see anything. It was a hospital room, and there was a table pushed up near the bed, with a lot of stuff on it. It was broad daylight. Over my chest the covers were piled high, so that meant a lot of bandages. I opened my eyes a little bit further and peeped around. The nurse was sitting beside the table watching me. But over back of her was somebody. I had to wait till she moved to see who it was, but I knew anyway even without seeing.
It was Keyes.
It must have been an hour that I lay there after that, and never opened my eyes at all. I was there in the head by that time. I tried to think. I couldn't. Every time I tried to gag more ether out, there would come this stab of pain in my chest. That was from the bullet. I quit trying to gag out the ether then and the nurse began talking to me. She knew. Pretty soon I had to answer her. Keyes walked over.
"Well, that theatre program saved you."
"Yeah?"
"That double wad of paper wasn't much, but it was enough.