Pity Him Afterwards

The madman smiled and laughed and nodded his head, and affectionately patted the cheek in the photographs, because all at once he knew what he would do. He would take the dead driver’s place. He would go on to that summer theater, and he would be safe there until the end of August, and then he would decide what to do next.

Could it be done?

The madman cocked his head to one side, and touched a fingertip to his chin. Sitting cross-legged amid the dead driver’s effects, a faint smile on his face, he looked like a child beneath the tree on Christmas morning, having been asked by a kindly uncle with which toy he intends to play first, and trying pleasurably to decide on an answer.

And could it be done?

He thought back to things the driver had told him: This was the driver’s first season at this particular summer theater. He knew no one else who’d been hired, nor did he know the producer.

But there would be a photograph. One of the glossy photographs with the résumé on the back. The driver would have sent it when he applied for the job.

The madman sucked on his lower lip between his teeth, and squinted at the darkness in the dining-room archway. Could he be clever? Could he overcome the problem of the picture?

What if it was the wrong picture?

“Why, I must have sent you the wrong picture,” the madman said aloud, smiling. “That’s my roommate’s picture. We were both sending out pictures at the same time and I must have sent you his picture by mistake.”

Was that possible? Yes, of course, but would it be believed?

What if he got more pictures like it? Tomorrow morning he could go down to the nearest city, and go to a photographer, and have the photographer take pictures of himself in the same style as these pictures of the dead driver. Then he could switch the résumés to the new pictures, and give one of them to the producer to take the place of the wrong picture in his files.

If he had legitimate-looking pictures, and all the right cards, wouldn’t they have to believe him? They wouldn’t even consider the possibility that he wasn’t what he seemed.

Unless they already knew the driver was dead.

Would they know that? The summer theater was over four hundred miles from here, in another state. The dead man’s home was three hundred miles in the opposite direction, and in a different state altogether.

Besides, it would take them a while to find out who the driver was. The car was all blown up, and the madman had the driver’s identification papers.

But it would mean that he would have to act, have to be in plays all summer. Could he do that? He didn’t have any experience in that at all.

But he did have a good memory, an excellent memory. There was a heightened clarity in his mind, because not all of it was functioning, and so the part that was working had more concentrated power. He had a really magnificent short-range memory. He tended to forget things after a month or two, forgetting much more completely than a normal mind, but to the same extent he remembered recent things with more sharpness and detail than a normal mind.

So he wouldn’t have trouble learning parts in plays. And he could remember a lot of what the driver had told him about himself.

But would he be able to act well enough to fool them? Could he convince them he was an actor?

Well, wasn’t acting simply being clever? He had consciously trained himself in being clever. Surely he was more clever than the driver had been, because he had seen the driver’s intentions at once but the driver hadn’t known he knew until it was too late.

He nodded to himself. He would at least try it. At the worst, they would decide he was a bad actor and they would fire him. There was no real risk of exposure, if only he remembered to be clever, to lie and make believe and fool them.

The driver had told him he was due at the theater on Wednesday. This was Monday night. So he had all day tomorrow to get the pictures taken and to think about his plan and see if there were any problems he’d overlooked.

But now his original idea had to be changed. He couldn’t stay here till morning. He had to leave as soon as possible, and be in the city by morning, so he could find a photographer.

He scrambled to his feet, closed the suitcase, and carried it upstairs with him. He went into the bathroom and stripped and took a quick hot shower and then dressed again, in the driver’s clothes. The shirt and suit coat fit perfectly, but the trousers were too tight around the waist. He left the button open, with the belt concealing the V opening. The shoes were too large, but that was all right. A lot better than being too small.