Double Indemnity - James M. Cain [39]
"I couldn't be certain."
"We are. We checked it all up, with Nettie, with the finance company records, with the records in the policy department. He was in there, and the girl was in there, and that's what we've been waiting for. That gives it to us, the hook-up we never had before."
"What do you mean, hook-up?"
"Listen, we know Nirdlinger never told his family about this policy. We know that from a check we've made with the secretary. He never told anybody. Just the same the family knew about it, didn't they?"
"Well—I don't know."
"They knew. They didn't put him on the spot for nothing. They knew, and now we know how they knew. This ties it up."
"Any court would assume they knew."
"I'm not a court. I'm talking about for my own satisfaction, for my own knowledge that I'm right. Because look, Huff, I might demand an investigation on the basis of what my instinct tells me. But I don't go into a courtroom and go to bat with it without knowing. And now I know. What's more, this ties the girl in."
"The—who?"
"The girl. The daughter. She was there, too. In your office, I mean. Oh yeah, you may think it funny, that a girl would pull something like that on her own father. But it's happened. It's happened plenty of times. For fifty thousand bucks it's going to happen plenty of times again."
"I—don't believe that."
"You will, before I get done. Now listen Huff. I'm still shy something. I'm shy one link. They put you on the spot for something you could testify to when this suit comes up, I can see that. But what?"
"What do you mean, what?"
"What is it you know about them they would knock you off for? Their being in your office, that's not enough. There must be something else. Now what is it?"
"I—don't know. I can't think of anything."
"There's something. Maybe it's something you've forgotten about, something that doesn't mean anything to you but is important to them. Now what is it?"
"There's nothing. There can't be."
"There's something. There must be."
He was walking around now. I could feel the bed shake from his weight. "Keep it on your mind, Huff. We've got a few days. Try to think what it is."
He lit a cigarette, and pounded around some more. "That's the beauty of this, we've got a few days. You can't appear at a hearing until next week at the earliest, and that gives us what we need. A little help from the cops, a few treatments with the rubber hose, something like that, and sooner or later this pair is going to spill it. Especially that girl. She'll crack before long...Believe me this is what we've been waiting for. It's tough on you, but now we've got them where we can really throw the works into them. Oh yeah, this is a real break. We'll clean this case up now. Before night, with luck."
I closed my eyes. I couldn't think of anything but Lola, a lot of cops around her, maybe beating her up, trying to make her spill something that she knew no more about than the man in the moon. Her face jumped in front of me and all of a sudden something hit it in the mouth, and it started to bleed.
"Keyes."
"Yeah?"
"There was something. Now you speak of it."
"I'm listening boy."
"I killed Nirdlinger."
Chapter 13
He sat there staring at me. I had told him everything he needed to know, even about Lola. It seemed funny it had only taken about ten minutes. Then he got up. I grabbed him.
"Keyes."
"I've got to go, Huff."
"See that they don't beat her."
"I've got to go now. I'll be back after a while."
"Keyes, if you let them beat her, I'll—kill you. You've got it all now. I've told you, and I've told you for one reason and one reason only. It's so they won't beat her. You've got to promise me that. You owe me that much. Keyes—"
He shook my hand off and left.
While I was telling him I hoped for some kind of peace when I got done. It had been bottled up in me a long time. I had been sleeping with it, dreaming about it, breathing with it. I didn't get any peace. The only thing I could think of was Lola, and how she was going to find out about it at last, and knew me for what I was.
***