Most scenes together: Walter Neff & Phyllis Dietrichson (15), Walter Neff & Barton Keyes (4)
I caught her eyes in a mirror. They had that look in them they had before my mother died. That same look...I loathe her. Because she did it. She did it for the money. Although you're not going to pay it, are you, Mr. Neff? She is not going to get away with it this time, because I'm going to speak up. I'm going to tell everything I know.
They wouldn't ever sell me any. They said I had something loose in my heart.
Have you made up your mind?
Jackson Mr. Keyes, I'm a Medford man - Medford, Oregon. Up in Medford, we take our time making up our minds.
Well, we're not in Medford, we're in a hurry.
Every month, hundreds of claims come to this desk. Some of them are phonies. And I know which ones. How do I know? Because my little man tells me.
Garlopis What little man?
The little man in here. Every time one of these phonies comes along, it ties knots in my stomach. I can't eat.
How would you like a fifty dollar cut in salary?
How would I -- Do I laugh now, or wait until it gets funny?
I'm serious, Walter. I've been talking to Norton. There's too much stuff piling up on my desk. Too much pressure on my nerves. I spend half the night walking up and down in my bed. I've got to have an assistant. I thought that you...
Me? Why pick on me?
Because I've got a crazy idea you might be good at the job.
That's crazy all right. I'm a salesman.
Yeah. A peddler, a glad-hander, a back-slapper. You're too good to be a salesman.
Nobody's too good to be a salesman.
Phooey. All you guys do is ring doorbells and dish out a smooth line of monkey talk. What's bothering you is that fifty buck cut, isn't it?
That'd bother anybody.
Look, Walter. The job I'm talking about takes brains and integrity. It takes more guts than there is in fifty salesman. It's the hottest job in the business.
It's still a desk job. I don't want a desk job.
A desk job. Is that all you can see in it? Just a hard chair to park your pants on from nine to five. Just a pile of papers to shuffle around, and five sharp pencils and a scratch pad to make figures on, with maybe a little doodling on the side. That's not the way I see it, Walter. To me a claims man is a surgeon, and that desk is an operating table, and those pencils are scalpels and bone chisels. And those papers are not just forms and statistics and claims for compensation. They're alive, they're packed with drama, with twisted hopes and crooked dreams. A claims man, Walter, is a doctor and a bloodhound and a cop and a judge and a jury and a father confessor, all in one...And you want to tell me you're not interested. You don't want to work with your brains. All you want to work with is your finger on a doorbell. For a few bucks more a week.
What kind of an outfit is this, anyway? Are we an insurance company or just a bunch of dim-witted amateurs to write a policy on a mug like that?
Now wait a minute, Keyes. I don't rate this beef. I clipped a note to that Garlopis application to have him thoroughly investigated before we accepted the risk.
I know you did, Walter. I'm not beefing at you. It's the company. It's the way they do things. The way they don't do things. The way they'll write anything just to get it down on the sales sheet. And I'm the guy that has to sit here up to my neck in phony claims so they won't throw more money out the window than they take in at the door.
Okay, turn the record over and let's hear the other side.
Well, I get darn sick of tryin' to pick up after a gang of fast-talking salesmen dumb enough to sell life insurance to a guy who sleeps in the same bed with four rattlesnakes. Walter, I've had twenty-six years of this and let me tell ya, I -
And you loved every minute of it, Keyes. You love it, only you worry about it too darn much, you and your little man.
Now that's enough out of you, Walter. Now get outta here before I throw my desk at you. [looks in his pocket for a match]
I really did, too, you old crab. Always yelling your head off, always sore at everybody. You never fooled me with your song and dance, not for a second. I kinda always knew that behind all the cigar ashes on your vest was a heart as big as a house.
She's putting on an act for you, crying all over your shoulder, that lying...
Keep her out of this. All I'm telling you is, we're not going to sue.
Because you don't want the money any more even if you could have it, because she's made you feel like a heel all of a sudden?
It isn't the money any more. It's our necks. We're pulling out. Do you understand?
Because of what Keyes can do? You're not fooling me, Walter. It's because of Lola. What you did to her father. You're afraid she might find out someday and you can't take it, can you?
I said, 'Leave her out of this.'
It's me I'm talking about. I don't want to be left out of it.
Stop saying that. It's just that it hasn't worked out as we wanted. We can't go through with it, that's all.
We have gone through with it, Walter. The tough part is all behind us. We just have to hold on now and not go soft inside. Stick close together the way we started out...I loved you, Walter, and I hated him. But I wasn't going to do anything about it. Not until I met you. You planned the whole thing. I only wanted him dead.
And I'm the one that fixed it so he was dead. Is that what you're telling me?
And nobody's pulling out. We went into this together and we're coming out at the end together. It's straight down the line for both of us. Remember?
Yes, I remembered. Just like I remembered what you had told me, Keyes. About that trolley car ride and how there was no getting off until the end of the line where the cemetery was. And then I got to thinking what cemeteries are for. They're to put dead people in. I guess that was the first time I ever thought about Phyllis that way. Dead, I mean. And how it would be if she were dead.
He has a lot on his mind. He doesn't seem to want to listen to anything except maybe a baseball game on the radio. Sometimes we sit here all evening and never say a word to each other.
Sounds pretty dull.
So I just sit and knit.
Is that what you married him for?
Maybe I like the way his thumbs hold up the wool.
Anytime his thumbs get tired. Only with me around, you wouldn't have to knit.
Wouldn't I?
You bet your life you wouldn't. [He sips from his iced tea glass] I wonder if a little rum would get this up on its feet.
He's got me worried sick.
You mean, some dark night a crown block might fall on him -
Please don't talk like that.
But that's the idea.
The other day, a casing line snapped and caught the foreman. He's in the hospital with a broken back.
That's bad.
It's got me jittery just thinking about it. Suppose something like that happened to my husband.
It could.
Well, don't you think he ought to have accident insurance?
Hmm, mmm.
What kind of insurance could he have?
Oh, enough to cover doctors and hospital bills, say a hundred and twenty-five a week cash benefit, and you rate around a fifty thousand capital sum.
Capital sum, what's that?
In case he gets killed. Maybe I shouldn't have said that.
I suppose you have to think of everything in your business.
Well, your husband would understand. I'm sure I could sell him on the idea of some accident protection. Why don't you talk to him about it?
You could try, but he's pretty tough going.
Oh, they're all tough at first.
I hate him. I loathe going back to him. You believe me, don't you, Walter?
Sure I believe you. [They kiss]
I can't stand it anymore. What if they did hang me?
They're not going to hang you, baby.
It's better than going on this way.
They're not gonna hang you because you're gonna do it and I'm gonna help you.
Do you know what you're saying?
Sure I know what I'm saying. We're gonna do it and we're gonna do it right. And I'm the guy that knows how.
...
There's not going to be any slip up. Nothing sloppy, nothing weak, it's got to be perfect. [They kiss each other and then he leads her toward the door.] Call me tomorrow. But not from your house. From a booth. And watch your step every single minute. This has got to be perfect, do ya understand? Straight down the line.
Straight down the line.
I was just fixing some ice tea; would you like a glass?
Yeah, unless you got a bottle of beer that's not working.
I'm a native Californian. Born right here in Los Angeles.
They say all native Californians come from Iowa.
We're both rotten.
Only you're a little more rotten.
What do we do now, Walter?
Nothing. We just wait.
Wait for what?
Until he can take the train. I told you, it's gotta be the train.
But we can't wait. I can't go on like this.
Look, we're not gonna grab a hammer and do it quick just to get it over with.
There are other ways.
We're not gonna do it other ways.
But we can't leave it like this. What do you suppose would happen if he found out about the accident policy?
Plenty, but not as bad as sitting in that death house.
Don't ever talk like that.
Don't let's start losing our heads, that's all.
It's not our heads. It's our nerve we're losing.
We're gonna do it right. That's all I said.
It's the waiting that's getting me.
It's getting me just as bad, baby. We've got to wait.
Maybe we have, Walter, only it's so tough without you. It's like a wall between us.
I better go, baby. I'm thinkin' of you every minute.
When she died, he was terribly broken up. I-I pitied him so.
And now you hate him.
Yes, Walter. He's so mean to me. Every time I buy a dress or a pair of shoes, he yells his head off. He never lets me go anywhere. He keeps me shut up. He's always been mean to me. Even his life insurance all goes to that daughter of his. That Lola.
Nothing for you at all, huh?
No, and nothing is just what I'm worth to him.
So you lie awake in the dark and listen to him snore and get ideas.
Walter, I don't want to kill him. I never did. Not even when he gets drunk and slaps my face.
Only sometimes you wish he was dead.
Perhaps I do.
And you wish it was an accident and you had that policy for $50,000 dollars. Is that it?
Perhaps that too.
