The Postman Always Rings Twice - James M. Cain [33]
"You're lying to me."
"Oh no, I'm not lying. I never meant anything more in my life."
"You don't see the ghost of any Greek, that's not it. Somebody else might see it, but not Mr. Frank Chambers. No, you want to go away just because you're a bum, that's all. That's what you were when you came here, and that's what you are now. When we go away, and our money's all gone, then what?"
"What do I care? We go away, don't we?"
"That's it, you don't care. We could stay here--"
"I knew it. That's what you really mean. That's what you've meant all along. That we stay here."
"And why not? We've got it good. Why wouldn't we stay here? Listen, Frank. You've been trying to make a bum out of me ever since you've known me, but you're not going to do it. I told you, I'm not a bum. I want to _be_ something. We stay here. We're not going away. We take out the beer license. We amount to something."
It was late at night, and we were upstairs, half undressed. She was walking around like she had that time after the arraignment, and talking in the same funny jerks.
"Sure we stay. We do whatever you say, Cora. Here, have a drink."
"I don't want a drink."
"Sure you want a drink. We got to laugh some more about getting the money, haven't we?"
"We already laughed about it."
"But we're going to make more money, aren't we? On the beer garden? We got to put down a couple on that, just for luck."
"You nut. All right. Just for luck."
That's the way it went, two or three times a week. And the tip-off was that every time I would come out of a hangover, I would be having those dreams. I would be falling, and that crack would be in my ears.
Right after the sentence ran out, she got the telegram her mother was sick. She got some clothes in a hurry, and I put her on the train, and going back to the parking lot I felt funny, like I was made of gas and would float off somewhere. I felt free. For a week, anyway, I wouldn't have to wrangle, or fight off dreams, or nurse a woman back to a good humor with a bottle of liquor.
On the parking lot a girl was trying to start her car. It wouldn't do anything. She stepped on everything and it was just plain dead.
"What's the matter? Won't it go?"
"They left the ignition on when they parked it, and now the battery's run out."
"Then it's up to them. They've got to charge it for you."
"Yes, but I've got to get home."
"I'll take you home."
"You're awfully friendly."
"I'm the friendliest guy in the world."
"You don't even know where I live."
"I don't care."
"It's pretty far. It's in the country."
"The further the better. Wherever it is, it's right on my way."
"You make it hard for a nice girl to say no."
"Well then, if it's so hard, don't say it."
She was a light-haired girl, maybe a little older than I was, and not bad on looks. But what got me was how friendly she was, and how she wasn't any more afraid of what I might do to her than if I was a kid or something. She knew her way around all right, you could see that. And what finished it was when I found out she didn't know who I was. We told our names on the way out, and to her mine didn't mean a thing. Boy oh boy what a relief that was. One person in the world that wasn't asking me to sit down to the table a minute, and then telling me to give them the lowdown on that case where they said the Greek was murdered. I looked at her, and I felt the same way I had walking away from the train, like I was made of gas, and would float out from behind the wheel.
"So your name is Madge Allen, hey?"
"Well, it's really Kramer, but I took my own name again after my husband died."
"Well listen Madge Allen, or Kramer, or whatever you want to call it, I've got a little proposition to make you."
"Yes?"
"What do you say we turn this thing around,