I find as I grow older that this episode has the most resonance for me
The notion of becoming so irrelevant that "they" forget all about you it's a very scary prospect to me

That's what I thought. That the gunshot was supposed to mean the chase was back on.
-packrat1

Is the character's death shown on camera?
All we know is that a gunshot was fired. I think it was left up to the viewer to wonder what exactly happened to him.

This guy wanted to kill himself. They stopped running after him so he missed the action. He said that after some time you wish for them to come after you. He missed that thing and his life made no sence without them chasing him. So Tom did him a favor, to go down the way he wanted to and not be simply killing himself.
THey didn't kill him because they though it was Tom. They killed him because they 've been trying for 20 years, since he invented the petrolium substitute.

Thanks for our reply and time. I appreciate it. Are you saying that Tom Vail, when he rang the murderers, gave the impression that the person who they thought they were going to kill was Tom Vail and so Tom planned it so that the person who got murdered assumed Tom's identity in the minds iof the murderes. Also, the fact that the murdered person had a teddy bear in his suit case meant that he would have eventually have killed himself even if he got away from them. Thanks.

Wasn't that he wanted him shot, was because he craved for being chased after, if he didn't have them chase after him, he would have killed himself anyway.