ABSTRACT
Jim Cain started his writing career as a newspaper man, first in Baltimore, then in New York. When he eventually turned to fiction, he had a success uncommon among former members of the Fourth Estate. He wrote a lot of good sharp short stuff, then the memorable. The Postman Always Rings Twice and Double Indemnity. His fiction shows a decided interest in murder, not so much with regard to a murderer’s relation to society as his relation to himself. The present story, “Dead Man,” came to him while waiting one night for a freight train to pass, and noting the hundreds of hoboes perched on the cars. He got to speculating what would happen to one of these men if he became involved, perhaps unwittingly, in some scrape, such as a murder. As usual, he became more interested in the man s subjective reactions to it than in his battle with the law, and from that point of view the story was written. It is Cain’s belief that a murderer has a better than even chance to win with the law, but that eventually, by the forces inside of him, his crime catches up with him.
