DOUBLE INDEMNITY 2013 (The Remake)
On a noir night/morning at 1am, a mature well dressed noir man sits in an office of the National Life building, in the noir little city of Montpelier, Vermont, dictating a message into some kind of high-tech noir gadget:
“Memo from Walter Neff, 64 year-old part-time life insurance salesman, to Barton Keyes, Claims Manager. Thursday, September 4, 2013, National Life offices, Montpelier, Vermont.
“Dear Keyes. Well, I guess you’d call this a confession. I like to think of it as a story. A kind of gritty down and dirty story that you’ll appreciate, Keyes. You always said that the little man inside your gut could smell out anything suspicious about a claim. You were a hotshot on phony claims, Keyes. You always guessed all the angles and motives. You and that little man inside you.
“Well, here’s one time you missed something, Keyes. That Dietrichson/Moonbeam claim. Yeah, your little man told you that was a phony. Dildo Dietrichson making his younger girlfriend, Karma Moonbeam, his sole beneficiary on his new life insurance policy. The one I, Walter Neff, 64 year-old part-time life insurance salesman, signed him up for. With that new Double Indemnity clause on death by second-hand cigarette smoke. Yeah, Keyes. You said Dietrichson’s death was fishy. Check. You said nobody could die from a dose of second-hand cigarette smoke they got outside Charlie Os, even if they stood out there all year. Check. You said Moonbeam’s claim was a phony. Check. You said it was murder. Double check, Keyes. You figured Moonbeam for the killer. You were going to throw the claim right back in her face, and prove it was murder. Well, check again, only there’s another double check coming. So hang on to that ratty old paisley tie you always wear, Keyes. You want to know who helped Moonbeam kill Dietrichson? That’s right, Keyes. Me, Walter Neff, 64 year-old part-time life insurance salesman. Your colleague. Sitting in the office right across from you. Single. Everybody’s pal. Man about town. Your best salesman. Quick with a joke or a story. Or to light up a lady’s cigarette. No visible scars. (Neff looks down at his left foot) Until now, that is. I killed him for money, and for a woman. Well, I didn’t get the money, and I didn’t get the woman. All I got was a .25 caliber slug in my left foot. And another murder rap to face.
“It all started four months ago in Charlie Os. I was there about 5pm on my usual stool trying to joke Cutie-Pie, the youngest bartender there, into signing up for that youngest employee package we have. The one we developed for the little kids selling lemonade at the yard sales. Cutie-Pie was joking it all back at me, but I knew if I just kept it up, I’d wear her down. Like I’ve done with so many sales before. Why I’m you’re best salesman, Keyes. And then, SHE walked in. That’s right, Keyes. Check again. Karma Moonbeam. You know the type, Keyes. You’ve seen her. The blonde you always dreamed about since you were in junior high. Forty-something, but looked in her thirties. Slim and sort of smokey-eyed. Sort of noir.
“She sat right down next to me. She had this just-short-enough skirt on. Great legs. And this sexy tattoo on her right ankle. She kept crossing and recrossing her legs. Rocking the right one, and twitching her foot and that ankle with the tattoo. A tattoo of a spider. Yeah, and I was the fly, Keyes. I introduced myself and bought her a drink. A martini, no olive, only lemon peel. Classy lady. Right away, I started talking life insurance to her, just to see what she was made of. And you know what she said, Keyes? She said ‘That’s fascinating, Walter.’ Yeah, calling me Walter right off. She said: ‘I’ve always thought life insurance salesmen were fascinating and… mysterious.’ Yeah, that’s me, Keyes. Good old fascinating and mysterious Walter Neff, 64 year-old part-time life insurance salesman. And 14 carat sap.
“Well, you can guess the rest, Keyes. One thing led to another, like it does if you hang out in Charlie Os often enough. But I want to tell it to you, Keyes, so maybe you’ll understand. Explain it to that little man inside you.
“Karma had this older boyfriend, Dildo Dietrichson. He was one of those politically correct uptight activists. Karma said he had a broomhandle shoved up his asshole. He was one of those anti-smokers. No fun for her. She wanted him gone. But first she wanted him insured, with her as sole beneficiary. I added the double indemnity second-hand cigarette smoke clause in. Nice touch there, right Keyes? And Dietrichson didn’t know I was signing him up. I did it when he was shooting pool at Charlie Os. I’d bought him a couple of drinks, and he’d bought himself a few too. Told him he was signing a petition to make State Street in Montpelier a smoke-free zone. He was all for that. Dietrichson had that thing up his ass. He said cigarette smoke was worse that war and global warming. That it was going to kill us all. And that cigarette smoke lowered property values and screwed-up his investments. What an asshole, right Keyes? Well, it was easy. The only thing that might have nixed it was when Four-Eyes, the bartender on duty that night, spilled some beer all over the papers. I kind of got upset, and almost made a scene. And I worried later, when you were interviewing everyone about Dietrichson, if Four-Eyes would remember my little snit. But I’d lucked out there. After I pocketed Dietrichson’s future, Four-Eyes had to help this yuppie clown with the ATM, and she sort of accidentally knocked the machine over on him. He wailed like hell, and called her a nasty name. She’d forgot all about me.
“So, Karma and I planned-out Dietrichson’ death. We waited two months. And then one night he got shut-off at Charlie Os by Junior, the head bartender. All nice and neat, Keyes. Dietrichson stood outside a while waving his one hand at the smokers and holding his other hand over his mouth. I was lurking in that little alley across the street. When he staggered off, I waited to catch up to him discreetly in the dark on Elm Street. And took him home to Karma. He was passed out cold on the couch. Karma and I took turns blowing cigarette smoke down his throat and up his nose. It wasn’t pretty, Keyes. Good thing I’d brought along an extra pack. It took us a good two hours to smoke him. And then we fucked. Right in front of his dead body. In all that cigarette smoke haze. Just like in one of those forties classic movies, Keyes.
“But that little man inside you, Keyes, told you to sit on Karma’s claim til you could prove it was murder. So, in the last few weeks, everything fell apart. Karma got antsy about waiting it out. She wanted the money. She was supposed to give me half of it, and we would wait a respectable time, and then head off separately and meet somewhere. Some country with no extradition. And no claims managers with little men inside their guts. Well, it played-out different. We’d been in Charlie Os a lot of nights together, only not together. She’d sit at the end of the bar, pretending she didn’t know me. Except for once and a while making snide comments about me and you and National Life and all life insurance salesmen everywhere being crooks, and corporate exploiters of single working women. It was this big act to make her and us look as pure and innocent as the snow outside the Hunger Mountain Co-op. She almost got me into a couple of fights, just to make it look better. But then one night I went in there, and there was Karma with somebody else. Another woman. That’s right, Keyes. She played the lesbian card on me
“The other woman’s name was Bowling Ball. Some kind of handle. She had a shaved head, Keyes. Well, I found out quick what Karma and Bowling Ball were up to. They had it all planned to make me the patsy. That Karma would have to shoot me dead in self defense because I came on too strong. Make her look more innocent and exploited. She’d get the claim settled after Bowling Ball and her friends vigiled National Life into the national news. Then take off for wherever it is lesbians go after they kill a man. But I wasn’t ready to be a patsy, Keyes. I caught up with Karma at the Three Penny Taproom. Got her outside. Got her little gun away from her after a struggle that put a round in my left foot. I put two slugs in her right there on the sidewalk, Keyes. She died in my arms saying oh Walter. I said goodbye baby and put her on the bench in front of Three Penny. Nobody in there heard the shots or saw me limp away. They were all wound up and noisy as hell in there about the soccer game on the TV.
“I wonder if she’s still there, Keyes. Probably not. Somebody on a smoke break must have found her by now. Unless they don’t take smoke breaks during soccer matches. I don’t know. She’s still dead. And I should get going now, Keyes. It’s a long hitch up to Canada. I’m glad Jake, the custodian, left his fancy solid oak cane in the hallway. It’ll help. So, Keyes. Love? Money? Hell. Yeah. This life insurance game is Hell. I wonder if I’d never gone to Charlie Os that day, how would…Hello, Keyes. How long you been standing there?”
“Just got here, Walter. Jake called up after he left. Said you were working late. Now Walter, I’ve told you the company doesn’t like us using the offices and equipment for personal…”
“Keyes. I was just doing a memo on the Dietrichson claim. All finished, in fact. I’ll be taking off.”
“Well, Walter, I won’t be able to listen to it til way late in the day, or tomorrow. We’ve got the Governor and Sanders and all kinds of Vermont hot shits in all morning and all afternoon about this Vermont Yankee closing. How to figure out covering the state’s ass when the toxic crap starts leaking all over the place after Entergy shuts it down and takes off on us.”
“Okay, Keyes. I’m outta here.”
“What happened to your foot, Walter?”
“Nothing much. Four-Eyes and Curie-Pie were trying to move one of the pool tables at Os and they accidentally put one of the legs down on my foot.”
“Ouch. Good thing for you, Walter, that you’re covered by that special new accidental spills and incidentals clause we put in the Charlie Os account. You shouldn’t hang out there anyway, because that Moonbeam broad does. And the little man inside me tells me she’s not going to be a very happy camper in a couple of weeks.”
“Yeah, Keyes. I’ll take that advice. Thanks.”
“And take the rest of the week off, Walter. We’ll go over the Dietrichson case on Monday.”
“Thanks again. Good night, Keyes.”
“Good night, Walter. Rest that foot…Oomph…”
“What, Keyes?”
“Oh…nothing, Walter. That damn little man inside me’s been jumping around all day and all night. Damnedest thing. Take it easy, Walter.”
“Yeah. See ya, Keyes.”
And now, it is 3am on the same early noir morning on a noir highway headed for the Canadian noir border. Walter Neff is answering questions from the driver of the SUV who picked him up. A very sexy noir blonde lady with a tattoo of a bowling ball on her neck:
“So, what’s it like to be a life insurance salesman…Walter, is it?”
“Yeah. Well, it’s sort of like being a writer, I guess. There’s a story in every policy. In every claim.”
“My, Walter, that sounds…well...fascinating.”
“Yeah. And sometimes it can even get mysterious. Sometimes.”
“Oh, Walter. Tell me more. Talk insurance to me, Walter. Please. I need it bad. I want…”
THE END
Happy Noir
Peter Buknatski
Montpelier, VT.
(Oh yeah. Starring ME as Walter Neff & Jennifer Aniston as Karma Moonbeam. I figure Sean Penn for Keyes. And for Dildo Dietrichson, well…for my own sense of self-esteem and sense of the pre-verse, I’d like to cast George Clooney or Richard Gere or, if there were real justice, some younger hunk of the Brad Pitt mold, made up to look much older, with a broomhandle up his ass. Also need Julia Roberts, wearing glasses, for Four-Eyes, some Meg Ryan type for Junior, and some underage Lindsay Lohan type for Cutie-Pie. I’ll talk to Clint Eastwood about other casting when we go over things at Charlie Os next week. (Bowling Ball?–Ani DiFranco?) This movie will make up for IBM and Entergy, and make ME a candidate in 2016. Eat your heart out, Michael.)