The Postman Always Rings Twice - James M. Cain [25]
Next thing I knew, the guys on the stretcher picked me up, and followed the young guy, White, out of the courtroom. Then they went with me on the double across a couple of halls into a room with three or four cops in it. White said something about Katz, and the cops cleared out. They set me down on the desk, and then the guys on the stretcher went out. White walked around a little, and then the door opened and a matron came in with Cora. Then White and the matron went out, and the door closed, and we were alone. I tried to think of something to say, and couldn't. She walked around, and didn't look at me. Her mouth was still twitching. I kept swallowing, and after a while I thought of something.
"We've been flim-flammed, Cora."
She didn't say anything. She just kept walking around.
"That guy Katz, he's nothing but a cop's stool. A cop sent him to me. I thought he was on the up-and-up. But we've been flim-flammed."
"Oh no, we ain't been flim-flammed."
"We been flim-flammed. I ought to have known, when the cop tried to sell him to me. But I didn't. I thought he was on the level."
"I've been flim-flammed, but you haven't."
"Yes I have. He fooled me too."
"I see it all now. I see why I had to drive the car. I see it, that other time, why it was me that had to do it, not you. Oh yes. I fell for you because you were smart. And now I find out you're smart. Ain't that funny? You fall for a guy because he's smart and then you find out he's smart."
"What are you trying to tell me, Cora?"
"Flim-flammed! I'll say I was. You and that lawyer. You fixed it up all right. You fixed it up so I tried to kill you too. That was so it would look like you couldn't have had anything to do with it. Then you have me plead guilty in court. So you're not in it at all. All right. I guess I'm pretty dumb. But I'm not that dumb. Listen, Mr. Frank Chambers. When I get through, just see how smart you are. There's just such a thing as being too smart."
I tried to talk to her, but it wasn't any use. When she had got so that even her lips were white, under the lipstick, the door opened and Katz came in. I tried to jump for him, off the stretcher. I couldn't move. They had me strapped so I couldn't move.
"Get out of here, you goddam stool. You were handling it. I'll say you were. But now I know you for what you are. Do you hear that? Get out of here!"
"Why, what's the matter, Chambers?"
You would have thought he was a Sunday school teacher, talking to some kid that was crying for his chewing gum that had been taken away. "Why, what's the matter? I am handling it. I told you that."
"That's right. Only God help you if I ever get you so I got my hands on you."
He looked at her, like it was something he just couldn't understand, and maybe she could help him out. She came over to him.
"This man here, this man and you, you ganged up on me so I would get it and he would go free. Well, he was in this as much as I was, and he's not going to get away with it. I'm going to tell it. I'm going to tell it all, and I'm going to tell it right now."
He looked at her, and shook his head, and it was the phoniest look I ever saw on a man's face. "Now my dear. I wouldn't do that. If you'll just let me handle this--"
"You handled it. Now I'll handle it."
He got up, shrugged his shoulders, and went out. He was hardly gone before a guy with big feet and a red neck came in with a little portable typewriter, set it on a chair with a couple of books under it, hitched up to it, and looked at her.
"Mr. Katz said you wanted to make a statement?"
He had a little squeaky voice, and a kind of a grin when he talked.
"That's right. A statement."
She began to speak jerky, two or three words at a time, and as fast as she said it, he rattled it off on the typewriter. She told it all. She went back to the beginning, and told how she met me, how we first began