[邮差总按两遍铃].(The.Postman.Always.Rings.Twice.).(美)詹姆斯.凯恩.英文文字版.pdf

THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE
by James M. Cain
Copyright 1934 by James M. Cain
Copyright renewed 1962 by James M. Cain
TO Vincent Lawrence
CHAPTER 1

They threw me off the hay truck about noon. I had
swung on the night before, down at the border, and as
soon as I got up there under the canvas, I went to sleep. I
needed plenty of that, after three weeks in Tia Juana, and
I was still getting it when they pulled off to one side to let
the engine cool. Then they saw a foot sticking out and
threw me off. I tried some comical stuff, but all I got was a
dead pan, so that gag was out. They gave me a cigarette,
though, and I hiked down the road to find something to
eat.
That was when I hit this Twin Oaks Tavern. It was
nothing but a roadside sandwich joint, like a million
others in California. There was a lunchroom part, and
over that a house part, where they lived, and off to one
side a filling station, and out back a half dozen shacks
that they called an auto court. I blew in there in a hurry
and began looking down the road. When the Greek
showed, I asked if a guy had been by in a Cadillac. He was
to pick me up here, I said, and we were to have lunch. Not
today, said the Greek. He layed a place at one of the tables
and asked me what I was going to have. I said orange juice,
corn flakes, fried eggs and bacon, enchilada, flapjacks,
and coffee. Pretty soon he came out with the orange juice
and the corn flakes.
"Hold on, now. One thing I got to tell you. If this guy
don't show up, you'll have to trust me for it. This was to be
on him, and I'm kind of short, myself."
"Hokay, fill'm up."
I saw he was on, and quit talking about the guy in the
Cadillac. Pretty soon I saw he wanted something.
"What you do, what kind of work, hey?"
"Oh, one thing and another, one thing and another.
Why?"
"How old you?"
"Twenty-four."
"Young fellow, hey? I