Double Indemnity Read Online Free PDF Page A

kind of grinned at each other, and we rolled down Beachwood to the boulevard. "Where do you want me to set you down?"
    "Oh, anywhere."
    "Hollywood and Vine all right?"
    "Swell."
    I set them down there, and after she got out, she reached out her hand, and took mine, and thanked me, her eyes shining like stars. "It was darling of you to take us. Lean close, I'll tell you a secret."
    "Yes?"
    "If you hadn't taken us we'd have had to walk."
    "How are you going to get back?"
    "Walk."
    "You want some money?"
    "No, my father would kill me. I spent all my week's money. No, but thanks. And remember—don't tell on me."
    "Hurry, you'll miss your light."
    I drove home. Phyllis got there in about a half hour. She was humming a song out of a Nelson Eddy picture. "Did you like my sweater?"
    "Yeah, sure."
    "Isn't it a lovely color? I never wore old rose before. I think it's going to be really becoming to me."
    "It's going to look all right."
    "Where did you leave Lola?"
    "On the boulevard."
    "Where did she go?"
    "I didn't notice."
    "Was there somebody waiting for her?"
    "Not that I saw. Why?"
    "I was just wondering. She's been going around with a boy named Sachetti. A perfectly terrible person. She's been forbidden to see him."
    "He wasn't on deck tonight. Anyway, I didn't see him. Why didn't you tell me about her?"
    "Well? You said have a witness."
    "Yeah, but I didn't mean her."
    "Isn't she as good a witness as any other?"
    "Yeah, but holy smoke there's a limit. A man's own daughter, and we're even using her—for what we're using her for."
    An awful look came over her face, and her voice got hard as glass. "What's the matter? Are you getting ready to back out?"
    "No, but you could have got somebody else. Me, driving her down to the boulevard, and all the time I had this in my pocket." I took out the applications, and showed them to her. One of those "agent's copies" was an updated application for a $25,000 personal accident policy, with double indemnity straight down the line for any disability or death incurred on a railroad train.
    It was part of the play that I had to make two or three calls on Nirdlinger in his office. The first time, I gave him the bail-bond guarantee, stuck around about five minutes, told him to put it in his car, and left. The next time I gave him a little leather memo book, with his name stamped on it in gilt, just a little promotion feature we have for policy holders. The third time I delivered the automobile policies, and took his check, $79. 52. When I got back to the office that day, Nettie told me there was somebody waiting for me in my private office. "Who?"
    "A Miss Lola Nirdlinger and a Mr. Sachetti, I think she said. I didn't get his first name."
    I went in there and she laughed. She liked me, I could see that. "You surprised to see us again?"
    "Oh, not much. What can I do for you?"
    "We've come in to ask a favor. But it's your own fault."
    "Yeah? How's that?"
    "What you said the other night to Father about being able to get money on his car, if he needed it. We've come to take you up on it. Or anyway, Nino has."
    That was something I had to do something about, the competition I was getting from the Automobile Club on an automobile loan. They lend money on a member's car, and I got to the point where I had to, too, if I was going to get any business. So I organized a little finance company of my own, had myself made a director, and spent about one day a week there. It didn't have anything to do with the insurance company, but it was one way I could meet that question that I ran into all the time: "Do you lend money on a car?" I had mentioned it to Nirdlinger, just as part of the sales talk, but I didn't know she was paying attention. I looked at Sachetti. "You want to borrow money on your car?"
    "Yes sir."
    "What kind of car is it?"
    He told me. It was a cheap make.
    "Sedan?"
    "Coupe."
    "It's in your name? And paid for?"
    "Yes sir."
    They must have seen a look cross my face, because she giggled. "He