We lay there a few minutes, then, like we were doped. It was so still that all you could hear was this gurgle from the inside of the car.
“What now, Frank?”
“Tough road ahead, Cora. You’ve got to be good, from now on. You sure you can go through it?”
“After that, I can go through anything.”
“They’ll come at you, those cops. They’ll try to break you down. You ready for them?”
“I think so.”
“Maybe they’ll pin something on you. I don’t think they can, with those witnesses we got. But maybe they do it. Maybe they pin it on you for manslaughter, and you spend a year in jail. Maybe it’s as bad as that. You think you can take it on the chin?”
“So you’re waiting for me when I come out.”
“I’ll be there.”
“Then I can do it.”
“Don’t pay any attention to me. I’m a drunk. They got tests that’ll show that. I’ll say stuff that’s cock-eyed. That’s to cross them up, so when I’m sober and tell it my way, they’ll believe it.”
“I’ll remember.”
“And you’re pretty sore at me. For being drunk. For being the cause of it all.”
“Yes. I know.”
“Then we’re set.”
“Frank.”
“Yes?”
“There’s just one thing. We’ve got to be in love. If we love each other, then nothing matters.”
“Well, do we?”
“I’ll be the first one to say it. I love you, Frank.”
“I love you, Cora.”
“Kiss me.”
I kissed her, and held her close, and then I saw a flicker of light on the hill across the ravine.
“Up on the road, now. You’re going through with it.”
“I’m going through with it.”
“Just ask for help. You don’t know he’s dead yet.”
“I know.”
“You fell down, after you climbed out. That’s how you got the sand on your clothes.”
“Yes. Goodbye.”
“Goodbye.”
She started up to the road, and I dived for the car. But all of a sudden, I found I didn’t have any hat. I had to be in the car, and my hat had to be with me. I began clawing around for it. The car was coming closer and closer. It was only two or three bends away, and I didn’t have my hat yet, and I didn’t have a mark on me. I gave up, and started for the car. Then I fell down. I had hooked my foot in it. I grabbed it, and jumped in. My weight no sooner went on the floor than it sank and I felt the car turning over on me. That was the last I knew for a while.
Next, I was on the ground, and there was a lot of yelling and talking going on around me. My left arm was shooting pain so bad I would yell every time I felt it, and so was my back. Inside my head was a bellow that would get big and go away again. When it did that the ground would fall away, and this stuff I had drunk would come up. I was there and I wasn’t there, but I had sense enough to roll around and kick. There was sand on my clothes too, and there had to be a reason.
Next there was a screech in my ears, and I was in an ambulance. A state cop was at my feet, and a doctor was working on my arm. I went out again as soon as I saw it. It was running blood, and between the wrist and the elbow it was bent like a snapped twig. It was broke. When I came out of it again the doctor was still working on it, and I thought about my back. I wiggled my foot and looked at it to see if I was paralyzed. It moved.
The screech kept bringing me out of it, and I looked around, and saw the Greek. He was on the other bunk.
“Yay Nick.”
Nobody said anything. I looked around some more, but I couldn’t see anything of Cora.
After a while they stopped, and lifted out the Greek. I waited for them to lift me out, but they didn’t. I knew he was really dead, then, and there wouldn’t be any cock-eyed stuff this time, selling him a story about a cat. If they had taken us both out, it would be a hospital. But when they just took him out, it was a mortuary.
We went on, then, and when they stopped they lifted me out. They carried me in, and set the stretcher on a wheel table, and rolled me in a white room. Then they got ready to set my arm. They wheeled up a machine to give me gas for that, but then they had an argument. There was another doctor there by that time that said he was the jail physician, and the hospital doctors got pretty sore. I knew what it was about. It was those tests for being drunk. If they gave me the gas first, that would ball up the breath test, the most important one. The jail doctor went out, and made me blow through a glass pipe into some stuff that looked like water but turned yellow when I blew in it. Then he took some blood, and some other samples that he poured in bottles through a funnel. Then they gave me the gas.
When I began to come out of it I was in a room, in bed, and my head was all covered with bandages, and so was my arm, with a sling besides, and my back was all strapped up with adhesive tape so I could hardly move. A state cop was there, reading the morning paper. My head ached like hell, and so did my back, and my arm had shooting pains in it. After a while a nurse came in and gave me a pill, and I went to sleep.
When I woke up it was about noon, and they gave me something to eat. Then two more cops came in, and they put me on a stretcher again, and took me down and put me in another ambulance.
“Where we going?”
“Inquest.”
“Inquest. That’s what they have when somebody’s dead, ain’t it.”
“That’s right.”
“I was afraid they’d got it.”
“Only one.”
“Which?”
“The man.”
“Oh. Was the woman bad hurt?”
“Not bad.”
“Looks pretty bad for me, don’t it?”
“Watch out there, buddy. It’s O.K. with us if you want to talk, but anything you say may fall back in your lap when you get to court.”
“That’s right. Thanks.”
When we stopped it was in front of a undertaker shop in Hollywood, and they carried me in. Cora was there, pretty battered up. She had on a blouse that the police matron had lent her, and it puffed out around her belly like it was stuffed with hay. Her suit and her shoes were dusty, and her eye was all swelled up where I had hit it. She had the police matron with her. The coroner was back of a table, with some kind of a secretary guy beside him. Off to one side were a half dozen guys that acted pretty sore, with cops standing guard over them. They were the jury. There was a bunch of other people, with cops pushing them around to the place where they ought to stand. The undertaker was tip-toeing around, and every now and then he would shove a chair under somebody. He brought a couple for Cora and the matron. Off to one side, on a table, was something under a sheet.
Soon as they had me parked the way they wanted me, on a table, the coroner rapped with his pencil and they started. First thing, was a legal identification. She began to cry when they lifted the sheet off, and I didn’t like it much myself. After she looked, and I looked, and the jury looked, they dropped the sheet again.
“Do you know this man?”
“He was my husband.”
“His name?”
“Nick Papadakis.”
Next came the witnesses. The sergeant told how he got the call and went up there with two officers after he phoned for an ambulance, and how he sent Cora in by a car he took charge of, and me and the Greek in by ambulance, and how the Greek died on the way in, and was dropped off at the mortuary. Next, a hick by the name of Wright told how he was coming around the bend, and heard a woman scream, and heard a crash, and saw the car going over and over, the lights still on, down the gully. He saw Cora in the road, waving at him for help, and went down to the car with her and tried to get me and the Greek out. He couldn’t do it, because the car was on top of us, so he sent his brother, that was in the car with him, for help. After a while more people came, and the cops, and when the cops took charge they got the car off us and put us in the ambulance. Then Wright’s brother told about the same thing, only he went back for the cops.
Then the jail doctor told how I was drunk, and how examination of the stomach showed the Greek was drunk, but Cora wasn’t drunk. Then he told which cracked bone it was that the Greek died of. Then the coroner turned to me and asked me if I wanted to testify.
“Yes sir, I guess so.”
“I warn you that any statement you make may be used against you, and that you are under no compulsion to testify unless you so wish.”
“I got nothing to hold back.”
“All right, then. What do you know about this?”
“All I know is that first I was going along. Then I felt the car sink under me, and something hit me, and that’s all I can remember until I come to in the hospital.”
“You were going along?”
“Yes sir.”
“You mean you were driving the car?”
“Yes sir, I was driving it.”
That was just a cock-eyed story I was going to take back later on, when we got in a place where it really meant something, which this inquest didn’t. I figured if I told a bum story first, and then turned around and told another story, it would sound like the second story was really true, where if I had a pat story right from the beginning, it would sound like what it was, pat. I was doing this one different from the first time. I meant to look bad, right from the start. But if I wasn’t driving the car, it didn’t make any difference how bad I looked, they couldn’t do anything to me. What I was afraid of was that perfect murder stuff that we cracked up on last time. Just one little thing, and we were sunk. But here, if I looked bad, there could be quite a few things and still I wouldn’t look much worse. The worse I looked on account of being drunk, the less the whole thing would look like a murder.
The cops looked at each other, and the coroner studied me like he thought I was crazy. They had already heard it all, how I was pulled out from under the back seat.
“You’re sure of that? That you were driving?”
“Absolutely sure.”
“You had been drinking?”
“No sir.”
“You heard the results of the tests that were given you?”
“I don’t know nothing about the tests. All I know is I didn’t have no drink.”
He turned to Cora. She said she would tell what she could.
“Who was driving this car?”
“I was.”
“Where was this man?”
“On the back seat.”
“Had he been drinking?”
She kind of looked away, and swallowed, and cried a little bit. “Do I have to answer that?”
“You don’t have to answer any question unless you so wish.”
“I don’t want to answer.”
“Very well, then. Tell in your own words what happened.”
“I was driving along. There was a long up-grade, and the car got hot. My husband said I had better stop to let it cool off.”
“How hot?”
“Over 200.”
“Go on.”
“So after we started the down-grade, I cut the motor, and when we got to the bottom it was still hot, and before we started up again we stopped. We were there maybe ten minutes. Then I started up again. And I don’t know what happened. I went into high, and didn’t get enough power, and I went into second, right quick, and the men were talking, or maybe it was on account of making the quick shift, but anyhow, I felt one side of the car go down. I yelled to them to jump, but it was too late. I felt the car going over and over, and the next thing I knew I was trying to get out, and then I was out, and then I was up on the road.”
The coroner turned to me again. “What are you trying to do, shield this woman?”
“I don’t notice her shielding me any.”
The jury went out, and then came in and gave a verdict that the said Nick Papadakis came to his death as the result of an automobile accident on the Malibu Lake Road, caused in whole or in part by criminal conduct on the part of me and Cora, and recommended that we be held for the action of the grand jury.
There was another cop with me that night, in the hospital, and next morning he told me that Mr. Sackett was coming over to see me, and I better get ready. I could hardly move yet, but I had the hospital barber shave me up and make me look as good as he could. I knew who Sackett was. He was the District Attorney. About half past ten he showed up, and the cop went out, and there was nobody there but him and me. He was a big guy with a bald head and a breezy manner.
“Well, well, well. How do you feel?”
“I feel O.K., judge. Kind of shook me up a little, but I’ll be all right.”
“As the fellow said when he fell out of the airplane, it was a swell ride but we lit kind of hard.”
“That’s it.”
“Now. Chambers, you don’t have to talk to me if you don’t want to, but I’ve come over here, partly to see what you look like, and partly because it’s been my experience that a frank talk saves a lot of breath afterwards, and sometimes paves the way to the disposition of a whole case with a proper plea, and anyway, as the fellow says, after it’s over we understand each other.”
“Why sure, judge. What was it you wanted to know?”
I made it sound pretty shifty, and he sat there looking me over. “Suppose we start at the beginning.”
“About this trip?”
“That’s it. I want to hear all about it.”
He got up and began to walk around. The door was right by my bed, and I jerked it open. The cop was halfway down the hall, chinning a nurse. Sackett burst out laughing. “No, no dictaphones in this. They don’t use them anyway, except in movies.”
I let a sheepish grin come over my face. I had him like I wanted him. I had pulled a dumb trick on him, and he had got the better of me. “O.K., judge. I guess it was pretty silly, at that. All right, I’ll begin at the beginning and tell it all. I’m in dutch all right, but I guess lying about it won’t do any good.”
“That’s the right attitude, Chambers.”
I told him how I walked out on the Greek, and how I bumped into him on the street one day, and he wanted me back, and then asked me to go on this Santa Barbara trip with them to talk it over. I told about how we put down the wine, and how we started out, with me at the wheel. He stopped me then.
“So you were driving the car?”
“Judge, suppose you tell me that.”
“What do you mean, Chambers?”
“I mean I heard what she said, at the inquest. I heard what those cops said. I know where they found me. So I know who was driving, all right. She was. But if I tell it like I remember it, I got to say I was driving it. I didn’t tell that coroner any lie, judge. It still seems to me I was driving it.”
“You lied about being drunk.”
“That’s right. I was all full of booze, and ether, and dope that they give you, and I lied all right. But I’m all right now, and I got sense enough to know the truth is all that can get me out of this, if anything can. Sure, I was drunk. I was stinko. And all I could think of was, I mustn’t let them know I was drunk, because I was driving the car, and if they find out I was drunk, I’m sunk.”
“Is that what you’d tell a jury?”
“I’d have to, judge. But what I can’t understand is how she came to be driving it. I started out with it. I know that. I can even remember a guy standing there laughing at me. Then how come she was driving when it went over?”
“You drove it about two feet.”
“You mean two miles.”
“I mean two feet. Then she took the wheel away from you.”
“Gee, I must have been stewed.”
“Well, it’s one of those things that a jury might believe. It’s just got that cockeyed look to it that generally goes with the truth. Yes, they might believe it.”
He sat there looking at his nails, and I had a hard time to keep the grin from creeping over my face. I was glad when he started asking me more questions, so I could get my mind on something else, besides how easy I had fooled him.
“When did you go to work for Papadakis, Chambers?”
“Last winter.”
“How long did you stay with him?”
“Till a month ago. Maybe six weeks.”
“You worked for him six months, then?”
“About that.”
“What did you do before that?”
“Oh, knocked around.”
“Hitch-hiked? Rode freights? Bummed your meals wherever you could?”
“Yes sir.”
He unstrapped a briefcase, put a pile of papers on the table, and began looking through them. “Ever been in Frisco?”
“Born there.”
“Kansas City? New York? New Orleans? Chicago?”
“I’ve seen them all.”
“Ever been in jail?”
“I have, judge. You knock around, you get in trouble with the cops now and then. Yes sir, I’ve been in jail.”
“Ever been in jail in Tuscson?”
“Yes sir. I think it was ten days I got there. It was for trespassing on railroad property.”
“Salt Lake City? San Diego? Wichita?”
“Yes sir. All those places.”
“Oakland?”
“I got three months there, judge. I got in a fight with a railroad detective.”
“You beat him up pretty bad, didn’t you?”
“Well, as the fellow says, he was beat up pretty bad, but you ought to seen the other one. I was beat up pretty bad, myself.”
“Los Angeles?”
“Once. But that was only three days.”
“Chambers, how did you come to go to work for Papadakis, anyhow?”
“Just a kind of an accident. I was broke, and he needed somebody. I blew in there to get something to eat, and he offered me a job, and I took it.”
“Chambers, does that strike you as funny?”
“I don’t know how you mean, judge?”
“That after knocking around all these years, and never doing any work, or even trying to do any, so far as I can see, you suddenly settled down, and went to work, and held a job steady?”
“I didn’t like it much, I’ll own up to that.”
“But you stuck.”
“Nick, he was one of the nicest guys I ever knew. After I got a stake, I tried to tell him I was through, but I just didn’t have the heart, much trouble as he had had with his help. Then when he had the accident, and wasn’t there, I blew. I just blew, that’s all. I guess I ought to treated him better, but I got rambling feet, judge. When they say go, I got to go with them. I just took a quiet way out.”
“And then, the day after you came back, he got killed.”
“You kind of make me feel bad now, judge. Because maybe I tell the jury different, but I’m telling you now I feel that was a hell of a lot my fault. If I hadn’t been there, and begun promoting him for something to drink that afternoon, maybe he’d be here now. Understand, maybe that didn’t have anything to do with it at all. I don’t know. I was stinko, and I don’t know what happened. Just the same, if she hadn’t had two drunks in the car, maybe she could have drove better, couldn’t she? Anyway, that’s how I feel about it.”
I looked at him, to see how he was taking it. He wasn’t even looking at me. All of a sudden he jumped up and came over to the bed and took me by the shoulder. “Out with it, Chambers. Why did you stick with Papadakis for six months?”
“Judge, I don’t get you.”
“Yes you do. I’ve seen her, Chambers, and I can guess why you did it. She was in my office yesterday, and she had a black eye, and was pretty well banged up, but even with that she looked pretty good. For something like that, plenty of guys have said goodbye to the road, rambling feet or not.”
“Anyhow they rambled. No, judge, you’re wrong.”
“They didn’t ramble long. It’s too good, Chambers. Here’s an automobile accident that yesterday was a dead open-and-shut case of manslaughter, and today it’s just evaporated into nothing at all. Every place I touch it, up pops a witness to tell me something, and when I fit all they have to say together, I haven’t got any case. Come on, Chambers. You and that woman murdered this Greek, and the sooner you own up to it the better it’ll be for you.”
There wasn’t any grin creeping over my face then, I’m here to tell you. I could feel my lips getting numb, and I tried to speak, but nothing would come out of my mouth.
“Well, why don’t you say something?”
“You’re coming at me. You’re coming at me for something pretty bad. I don’t know anything to say, judge.”
“You were gabby enough a few minutes ago, when you were handing me that stuff about the truth being all that would get you out of this. Why can’t you talk now?”
“You got me all mixed up.”
“All right, we’ll take it one thing at a time, so you won’t be mixed up. In the first place, you’ve been sleeping with that woman, haven’t you?”
“Nothing like it.”
“How about the week Papadakis was in the hospital? Where did you sleep then?”
“In my own room.”
“And she slept in hers? Come on, I’ve seen her, I tell you. I’d have been in there if I had to kick the door down and hang for rape. So would you. So were you.”
“I never even thought of it.”
“How about all those trips you took with her to Hasselman’s Market in Glendale? What did you do with her on the way back?”
“Nick told me to go on those trips himself.”
“I didn’t ask you who told you to go. I asked you what you did.”
I was so groggy I had to do something about it quick. All I could think of was to get sore. “All right, suppose we did. We didn’t, but you say we did, and we’ll let it go at that. Well, if it was all that easy, what would we be knocking him off for? Holy smoke, judge, I hear tell of guys that would commit murder for what you say I was getting, when they weren’t getting it, but I never hear tell of a guy that would commit murder for it when he already had it.”
“No? Well I’ll tell you what you were knocking him off for. A piece of property out there, for one thing, that Papadakis paid $14,000 for, cash on the nail. And for that other little Christmas present you and she thought you would get on the boat with, and see what the wild waves looked like. That little $10,000 accident policy that Papadakis carried on his life.”
I could still see his face, but all around it was getting black and I was trying to keep myself from keeling over in bed. Next thing, he was holding a glass of water to my mouth. “Have a drink. You’ll feel better.”
I drank some of it. I had to.
“Chambers, I think this is the last murder you’ll have a hand in for some time, but if you ever try another, for God’s sake leave insurance companies out of it. They’ll spend five times as much as Los Angeles County will let me put into a case. They’ve got detectives five times as good as any I’ll be able to hire. They know their stuff A to izzard, and they’re right on your tail now. It means money to them. That’s where you and she made your big mistake.”
“Judge, I hope Christ may kill me, I never heard of an insurance policy until just this minute.”
“You turned white as a sheet.”
“Wouldn’t you?”
“Well, how about getting me on your side, right from the start? How about a full confession, a quick plea of guilty, and I’ll do what I can for you with the court? Ask for clemency for you both.”
“Nothing doing.”
“How about all that stuff you were telling me just now? About the truth, and how you’d have to come clean with the jury, and all that? You think you can get away with lies now? You think I’m going to stand for that?”
“I don’t know what you’re going to stand for. To hell with that. You stand for your side of it and I’ll stand for mine. I didn’t do it, and that’s all I stand for. You got that?”
“The hell you say. Getting tough with me, hey? All right, now you get it. You’re going to find out what that jury’s really going to hear. First, you were sleeping with her, weren’t you? Then Papadakis had a little accident, and you and she had a swell time. In bed together at night, down to the beach by day, holding hands and looking at each other in between. Then you both had a swell idea. Now that he’s had an accident, make him take out an accident policy, and then knock him off. So you blew, to give her a chance to put it over. She worked at it, and pretty soon she had him. He took out a policy, a real good policy, that covered accidents, and health, and all the rest of it, and cost $46.72. Then you were ready. Two days after that, Frank Chambers accidentally on purpose ran into Nick Papadakis on the street, and Nick tries to get him to go back to work for him. And what do you know about that, he and his wife had it already fixed up they were going to Santa Barbara, had the hotel reservations and everything, so of course there was nothing to it but Frank Chambers had to come with them, just for old times’ sake. And you went. You got the Greek a little bit drunk, and did the same for yourself. You stuck a couple of wine bottles in the car, just to get the cops good and sore. Then you had to take that Malibu Lake Road, so she could see Malibu Beach. Wasn’t that an idea, now. Eleven o’clock at night, and she was going to drive down there to look at a bunch of houses with waves in front of them. But you didn’t get there. You stopped. And while you were stopped, you crowned the Greek with one of the wine bottles. A beautiful thing to crown a man with, Chambers, and nobody knew it better than you, because that was what you crowned that railroad dick with, over in Oakland. You crowned him, and then she started the car. And while she was climbing out on the running board, you leaned over from behind, and held the wheel, and fed with the hand throttle. It didn’t need much gas, because it was in second gear. And after she got on the running board, she took the wheel and fed with the hand throttle, and it was your turn to climb out. But you were just a little drunk, weren’t you? You were too slow, and she was a little too quick to shoot the car over the edge. So she jumped and you were caught. You think a jury won’t believe that, do you? It’ll believe it, because I’ll prove every word of it, from the beach trip to the hand throttle, and when I do, there won’t be any clemency for you, boy. It’ll be the rope, with you hanging on the end of it, and when they cut you down they’ll bury you out there with all the others that were too goddam dumb to make a deal when they had the chance to keep their neck from being broke.”
“Nothing like that happened. Not that I know of.”
“What are you trying to tell me? That she did it?”
“I’m not trying to tell you that anybody did it. Leave me alone! Nothing like that happened.”
“How do you know? I thought you were stinko.”
“It didn’t happen that I know of.”
“Then you mean she did it?”
“I don’t mean no such a goddam thing. I mean what I say and that’s all I mean.”
“Listen, Chambers. There were three people in the car, you, and she, and the Greek. Well, it’s a cinch the Greek didn’t do it. If you didn’t do it, that leaves her, doesn’t it?”
“Who the hell says anybody did it?”
“I do. Now we’re getting somewhere, Chambers. Because maybe you didn’t do it. You say you’re telling the truth, and maybe you are. But if you are telling the truth, and didn’t have any interest in this woman except as the wife of a friend, then you’ve got to do something about it, haven’t you? You’ve got to sign a complaint against her.”
“What do you mean complaint?”
“If she killed the Greek, she tried to kill you too, didn’t she? You can’t let her get away with that. Somebody might think it was pretty funny if you did. Sure, you’d be a sucker to let her get away with it. She knocks off her husband for the insurance, and she tries to knock off you too. You’ve got to do something about that, haven’t you?”
“I might, if she did it. But I don’t know she did it.”
“If I prove it to you, you’ll have to sign the complaint, won’t you?”
“Sure. If you can prove it.”
“All right, I’ll prove it. When you stopped, you got out of the car, didn’t you?”
“No.”
“What? I thought you were so stinko you didn’t remember anything. That’s the second time you’ve remembered something now. I’m surprised at you.”
“Not that I know of.”
“But you did. Listen to this man’s statement: ‘I didn’t notice much about the car, except that a woman was at the wheel and one man was inside laughing when we went by, and another man was out back, sick.’ So you were out back a few minutes, sick. That was when she crowned Papadakis with the bottle. And when you got back you never noticed anything, because you were stinko, and Papadakis had passed out anyhow, and there was hardly anything to notice. You sat back and passed out, and that was when she slid up into second, kept her hand on the hand throttle, fed with that, and as soon as she had slid out on the running board, shot the car over.”
“That don’t prove it.”
“Yes it does. The witness Wright says that the car was rolling over and over, down the gully, when he came around the bend, but the woman was up on the road, waving to him for help!”
“Maybe she jumped.”
“If she jumped, it’s funny she took her handbag with her, isn’t it? Chambers, can a woman drive with a handbag in her hand? When she jumps, has she got time to pick it up? Chambers, it can’t be done. It’s impossible to jump from a sedan car that’s turning over into a gully. She wasn’t in the car when it went over! That proves it, doesn’t it?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean you don’t know? Are you going to sign that complaint or not?”
“No.”
“Listen, Chambers, it was no accident that car went over a second too soon. It was you or her, and she didn’t mean it would be you.”
“Let me alone. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Boy, it’s still you or her. If you didn’t have anything to do with this, you better sign this thing. Because if you don’t, then I’ll know. And so will the jury. And so will the judge. And so will the guy that springs the trap.”
He looked at me a minute, then went out, and came back with another guy. The guy sat down and made out a form with a fountain pen. Sackett brought it over to me. “Right here, Chambers.”
I signed. There was so much sweat on my hand the guy had to blot it off the paper.