Read Double Indemnity for Free Online

was afraid my work would fall off, and they'd begin talking about me in the office, wondering why I'd begun to slip. That wouldn't do me any good, later I mean, when they began to think about it. I had to sell insurance while this thing was cooking, if I never sold it before. I worked like a wild man. I saw every prospect there was the least chance of selling, and how I high-pressured them was a shame. Believe it or not, my business showed a 12% increase in March, it jumped 2% over that in April, and in May, when there's a lot of activity in cars, it went to 7% over that. I even made a hook-up with a big syndicate of secondhand dealers for my finance company, and that helped. The books didn't know anything to tell on me. I was the candy kid in both offices that spring. They were all taking off their hats to me.
    "He's going to his class reunion. At Palo Alto."
    "When?"
    "June. In about six weeks."
    "That's it. That's what we've been waiting for."
    "But he wants to drive. He wants to take the car, and he wants me to go with him. He'll raise an awful fuss if I don't go."
    "Yeah? Listen, don't give yourself airs. I don't care if it's a class reunion or just down to the drugstore, a man would rather go alone than with a wife. He's just being polite. You talk like you're not interested in his class reunion, and he'll be persuaded. He'll be persuaded so easy you'll be surprised. "Well I like that."
    "You're not supposed to like it. But you'll find out."
    That was how it turned out, but she worked on him a whole week and she couldn't change him on the car. "He says he'll have to have it, and there'll be a lot of things he'll want to go to, picnics and things like that, and if he doesn't have it he'll have to hire one. Besides, he hates trains. He gets trainsick."
    "Can you put on an act?"
    "I did. I put on all the act I dare put, and still he won't budge. I put on such an act that Lola is hardly speaking to me any more. She thinks it's selfish of me. I can try again, but—"
    "Holy smoke no."
    "I could do this. The day before he's to start, I could bang the car up. Mess up the ignition or something. So it had to go in the shop. Then he'd have to go by train."
    "Nothing like it. Nothing even a little bit like it. In the first place, if you've already put on an act, they'll smell something, and believe me Lola will be hard to talk down, later. In the second place, we need the car."
    "We need it?"
    "It's essential."
    "I still don't know—what we're going to do."
    "You'll know. You'll know in plenty of time. But we've got to have the car. We've got to have two cars, yours and mine. Whatever you do, don't pull any monkey business with the car. That car's got to run. It's got to be in perfect shape."
    "Hadn't we better give up the train idea?"
    "Listen, it's the train or we don't do it."
    "Well, my goodness, you don't have to snap at me."
    "Just pulling off some piker job, that don't interest me. But this, hitting it for the limit, that's what I go for. It's all I go for."
    "I was just wondering."
    "Quit wondering."
    Two or three days later was when we had our piece of luck. She called me at the office around four in the afternoon. "Walter?"
    "Yes."
    "Are you alone?"
    "Is it important?"
    "Yes, terribly. Something has happened."
    "I'll go home. Call me there in a half hour."
    I was alone, but I don't take chances on a phone that runs through a switchboard. I went home, and the phone rang a couple of minutes after I got there. "The Palo Alto trip is off. He's broken his leg."
    "What!"
    "I don't even know how he did it, yet. He was holding a dog or something, a neighbor's dog that was chasing a rabbit, and slipped and fell down. He's in the hospital now. Lola's with him. They'll be bringing him home in a few minutes."
    "I guess that knocks it in the head."
    "I'm afraid so."
    I was at dinner before it came to me that instead of knocking it in the head, maybe this fixed it up perfect. I walked three miles, around the living room, wondering if