The Postman Always Rings Twice

After Cora’s mother dies, Cora returns to the diner. Frank tells her that he “took a trip while you were away. I went up to Frisco” (88). Cora says that she doesn’t mind. She also tells Frank that she won’t be drinking anymore. One day, Kennedy is waiting at the diner for them with a gun. He tells Frank that he and Katz fell out, that he got a hold of Cora’s signed confession before he left, and that he wants “a little money” (89) in exchange for it. Kennedy figures that he can extort $25,000 from them, considering the $10,000 they got from the insurance check, the money they earn at the diner, and the money that they could take out against the diner’s property value.

Frank offers Kennedy $18,000 instead of $25,000, claiming that is what he has. Kennedy replies, “If you’ve got it, I’ll tell you what to do. If you haven’t got it, that thing goes to Sackett” (91). As Kennedy is leaving, Frank blinds him by turning on the diner sign, and then he punches Kennedy and drags him inside. Frank repeatedly beats Kennedy until Kennedy agrees to call his accomplices and tell them to bring Cora’s confession to the diner the following day. Cora tells Frank, “We ought to have gone away. Now I know it” (94). Franks stays with Kennedy all night to ensure his cooperation.

The next day, Kennedy’s accomplices show up, and Cora retrieves the confession along with “photostats of it, six positives and one negative. They had meant to keep on blackmailing us” (95). After Frank and Cora burn the confession and photostats, she says, “It isn’t the last of me, though. I’ve got a million Photostats of it, just as good as they were” (95). She also reveals that Madge stopped by the diner while Frank was guarding Kennedy. Madge told Cora everything about her and Frank’s trip to Mexico. Cora brings in a kitten and tells Frank, “The puma had little ones while you were gone, and she brought you one to remember her by” (96). She intends to turn Frank in to the police since she cannot be tried for manslaughter again.

Frank and Cora tiptoe around each other after Cora exposes Frank’s affair with Madge: “It kept up all day, me following her around for fear she’d call up Sackett, her following me around for fear I’d skip” (97). Eventually, Frank falls asleep. He wakes up to the sound of Cora calling a taxi. Later, when Frank and Cora are lying in bed together, Cora tells Frank, “You’ve been lying there, trying to think of a way to kill me” (98). Frank admits that he has and that he was going to run away with Madge but couldn’t because he feels tied to Cora.

Cora tells Frank, “I’m going to have a baby” (99). She also admits that if she wasn’t pregnant, she probably would have called Sackett instead of trying to run away. Cora explains that she no longer has any interest in betraying Frank “because I had my chance, and I had my reason, and I didn’t do it” (100). She claims that while Frank was thinking of a way to kill her, she was also thinking of ways for him to kill her. Cora says, “You can kill me swimming. We’ll go way out, the way we did last time, and if you don’t want me to come back, you don’t have to let me” (100).

Cora and Frank get married and then go to the beach. After she tells Frank that their baby is “a new life for us both” (101), Cora begins to feel sick. Frank rushes her out of the water and starts driving her to the hospital. In his haste, he tries to pull around a truck and accidentally crashes into a wall. Frank regains consciousness and discovers that Cora has died in the crash.