Pity Him Afterwards

After that, there had been a silent awkward dinner, with all of them only picking and poking at the food. For a while they could hear Captain Sondgard in the hall, talking with the doctor who had examined Cissie Walker, and then an ambulance had come to take Cissie away, and for a while the house was full of the rumbling of men going up and down the stairs.

Mel spent ten or fifteen minutes at the table, but ate practically nothing, and finally gave up and went upstairs. The door to Cissie’s room was open, and though he tried to avert his eyes he couldn’t help looking in there. She was gone now, of course. The other policeman, the one called Mike, had a little kit laid out on the bed and was dusting all likely places in search of fingerprints. Also, Mel’s suitcase was still there, just inside the door, where he had dropped it and forgotten it.

He went to the doorway. “Excuse me,” he said.

The policeman looked around at him, stolid and impassive.

“That’s my suitcase.”

“It is? What’s it doing here?”

“I dropped it when I — found her.”

“Oh, yeah, that’s right. You’re Daniels. Go ahead, take it.”

“Thank you.”

He had taken the suitcase, and then at last he had found the empty room, this room in which he now lay on the bed and stared at the ceiling. Across the hall, the policeman named Mike was or was not still looking for fingerprints; Mel had his own door closed, and didn’t know if the policeman had left yet or not. Elsewhere in the house, presumably, the other members of the company were sitting around and waiting, as he was waiting.

They wouldn’t be working any more tonight, of that he was sure. Would they work together at all again here this summer? They would all be staying here, at least for a while, but only because they couldn’t leave.

If there was no season here, that would mean no Equity membership this fall. It was far too late to get a spot at some other theater. This whole thing could throw him back a full year.

And then, while he was thinking this, suddenly on the white ceiling, like a color slide all at once projected there, he saw again Cissie Walker’s bedroom this afternoon, and Cissie herself dead on the bed. He shut his eyes, and the color slide was projected on the inside of his eyelids instead.

The knocking at the door startled him so that he leaped up from the bed. “Who is it?” He shouted it much louder than necessary.

“Bob,” said the muffled voice. “Bob Haldemann.”

“Oh. Come in.” Mel started across the room to open the door, but it opened before he got there, and Haldemann came in. Mel said, “You shook me up a little bit. Knocking on the door there.”

“I’m sorry. I know, we’re all nervous here now.”

“Sit down.” Mel went back to sit on the edge of the bed. “I wish I had a radio in here,” he said. “A television set would be nice, too, but I’d settle for a radio.”

“Some of the boys have gone over to the Lounge,” Haldemann told him. “You could go on over there, if you like.”

“I think I will. You going over?”

“No, I can’t. There’s still work to do. What I wanted to see you about, I imagine we’ll be getting reporters tomorrow morning. I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t talk to them, Mel. I’m asking everyone the same thing; if a reporter approaches you, refer him to me. I imagine they’ll be flocking around you in particular, since you found the bo — uh, well, found the body, I guess that’s the only way — but all I mean is, I wish you’d just refer them to me.”

“Sure.”

“At first glance,” Haldemann said, “I suppose this — this thing here, I suppose it looks like it would be, well, publicity for us. As though it would bring us a lot of additional business, from the curious, you know, the people who always flock to a thing like this. But— You see, the way I look at it, it wouldn’t be good publicity at all. This whole affair is sensational enough as it is, and if it looked as though we were trying to capitalize on it, well, we’d attract the curious, of course, the kind of people who come once and then never show up again. But I think we’d drive away the people we need to support us for an entire season, and for next season, and so on. I mean, it’s going to be very difficult not to look as though we’re trying to capitalize on it. An affair like this, you know, it’s bound to be given sensational treatment in the newspapers anyway. But I want to, I want to limit it as much as I possibly can, and so that’s why I don’t want anyone to talk to reporters, but just to refer them to me. Because you might have the best intentions in the world, but you never know how what you say is going to look in print, or how they can take things out of context. So if you’ll just do that for me, I’d appreciate it.”

“Then, we will have a season here?”