Pity Him Afterwards

Haldemann spoke hurriedly again, burying about half of Mel’s line: “Arnie says he can use Mel today if you don’t need him, Ralph.”

“Need him? Need him? Perish the thought. No, we went ahead and cast our first production without you, Daniels. A real shame. I’m looking forward to seeing you act.”

Haldemann touched Mel’s arm. “Come along,” he said, rather hurriedly. “You can meet the others later.”

Mel followed him out to the hall. Haldemann closed the double doors and said, “His bark is worse than his bite, Mel, it really is. If you’re afraid he’ll be down on you all season, don’t worry. He’ll forget all about this by tomorrow.”

“Great.”

“We’re all under pressure here, Mel. Don’t let Ralph get under your skin.”

“Perish the thought.”

Haldemann smiled, nervously. “You go on up and find yourself a room now,” he said. “Get changed into work clothes, and then report to Arnie.”

“Right.”

“Just try doors up there. We all keep our room doors locked. You never know who’ll come into the house here.”

Which meant, Mel knew, there’d been a history of petty thieving here. And it would be some member of the company doing it, no stranger wandering in from outside.

He was beginning to wonder if summer stock was such a good idea.

Haldemann went out, with one last encouraging smile, and Mel took his suitcase and went upstairs. There were six doors in the second-floor hall, and five of them were locked. The sixth was the bathroom. So he went on up to the third floor.

Another six doors. The first two were locked, but the third one opened. Mel stepped inside, looked around, and froze.

Cissie Walker was lying on the bed. She was wearing white socks and one sleeve of her blouse. The rest of her clothing, ripped to pieces, was scattered around the room. Her arms and legs were spread-eagled, and her fingers were curved into taut claws. Red streaked her face, and the pillow beneath her head. Her throat was livid with gray and purple bruises. Her tongue protruded, fat and dry, from her crushed mouth. Her eyes were red and staring, straining up out of her face like gory marbles. A band of yellow sunlight angled across her chest.

Mel turned, stumbling, and took two steps, and vomited in the hall.

The madman had forgotten about women.

He’d forgotten the feel of their thighs, the roundness of their rumps, the heavy promise of their breasts. He’d forgotten the clothes they wore, and the way they walked, and the way their arms moved, and the lines of their throats, and the softness of their lips, and the looks in their eyes. He’d forgotten the sound of their voices, and the way they smiled, and the way they climbed stairs or sat in a chair or bent over a table.

He’d forgotten about women; so he forgot to be clever.

The awareness hadn’t really started until he’d gotten to the theater. There had been women on the bus, and women on the streets of Cartier Isle, but then he’d been too full of his plans, thinking and scheming and trying to find fault with the way he’d worked it all out. It wasn’t until he was set, until Haldemann had accepted the idiotic story of the wrong photograph, until the madman was sure no one suspected him, that the awareness had really started.

It had begun with Mary Ann McKendrick. She had a good-looking face, but that was secondary. It was the body that drew him. She wore tight blue jeans, and he could almost feel the rough texture beneath his palm, him stroking her legs. His palms grew damp and he kept staring at her, watching the movement of her, imagining her without the blue jeans, imagining himself conjoined with her. He tried to visualize her breasts, too, but the man’s white shirt she wore was too loose for accurate observation.

He watched her all during Haldemann’s opening speech, in the theater on Wednesday afternoon. Haldemann and Ralph Schoen stood up on the stage, and the company sat in the first few rows below them. There were five actors and four actresses, the light man, the stage manager, the carpenter, and Mary Ann McKendrick. Mary Ann McKendrick wasn’t an actress. She was Haldemann’s secretary, and she did the theater’s publicity, and she would be assistant director throughout the season and hold the prompt book during rehearsals.

Mary Ann moved around a lot during that first meeting, Wednesday afternoon. She distributed the forms for all of them to fill out, and ball-point pens to those who didn’t have pens of their own. And during the speechmaking she sat on the stage apron, up where the madman could stare at her.