City of the Dead

by Herbert Lieberman

  4:15 P.M. OFFICE OF THE CHIEF MEDICAL EXAMINER,

  DIVISION OF MISSING PERSONS.

  Konig sits opposite a tall, sinewy man, late fifties, with red leathery skin, a craggily handsome pockmarked face, and the small, vivid blue eyes of a china doll. The man wears sleeve garters and a shoulder holster. With his boyish face and flocculent, cotton-candy hair, he gives the impression of a man gone prematurely white overnight.

  “What the hell’s the difference?” Konig bellows.

  “Plenty, my friend, plenty. And stop shouting at me.”

  A shaft of dust-blown sunlight streams through the window at Francis Xavier Haggard’s back, slants across his litter-strewn desk, and falls on a 6" x 9" white form headed DD13. The form trembles ever so slightly in Haggard’s long, bony, curiously artistic hand—the hand of a sculptor or a musician, certainly not the hand of a detective.

  “She knows the calls are being traced.” Konig’s face flushes a violent red. “Sounds like a goddamned drum when that thing starts banging.”

  “But still she keeps right on calling—right?”

  “Right. But I want that thing off my phone. Here, as well as at home.”

  “Fine. Take it off. But when that goes, I go, too—right? I’m off the case—right?”

  “I don’t want you off the case. I want you on.”

  “Oh, no, pal. It doesn’t work that way. My way or no way.”

  “It’s been your way for five months.”

  “Fine. It may have to be my way another five months.”

  “Oh, no. No, sir.”

  “Fine. Do it your way. I’m off the case.”

  Konig flings his hands upward in despair. “That tracer is no goddamned good. It inhibits her. She won’t even talk to me with—”

  “A minute ago you said she knew there was a tracer on that phone—right?”

  “Sure, but—”

  “Never mind the ‘buts.’ You said it—right?”

  “Well, you’d have to be one helluva God-awful idiot not to—”

  “So obviously it doesn’t matter to her whether the line’s bugged or not—right?”

  “Will you please stop with that ‘right’ thing every other minute?”

  “She calls, doesn’t she? Lemme see—she’s called”—Haggard’s long, bony fingers moves like fate down the black-ruled lines of the DD13: Konig, Lauren. Age 22. Sex female. Caucasian. Ht. 5' 6". Wt. 118... Last seen—“six times the past three months—right? So bug or no bug, she keeps calling—right?”

  “Sure. Then hangs up the minute the goddamned clicking starts.”

  “That doesn’t mean anything. I’ve seen enough of this kind of stuff in my time to know this kid’s calling for a reason. She needs to hear a friendly voice. And this card—” Haggard plucks up Lolly’s birthday card and examines it. “You know, you do look a little like this goddamned bear.”

  “Christ!” Konig bolts up, winces at the sharp pain in his leg, then starts prowling up and down the room. “I want results. I want something to happen.”

  “Sure you do. Sure you do. So do I. But I told you this wasn’t gonna be easy. No Social Security. No work record. An assumed name. If she keeps still, minds her own business, what the Bell are we supposed to go on?”

  “I don’t care what the hell you’re supposed to go on.”

  “There are eight million people in this city—eighteen thousand kids each year on the lam.”

  “I don’t care if there are ten—fifteen—fifty million. Spare me the statistics. I want my kid back.”

  The small blue china doll’s eyes fix on Konig very steadily. “And that’s another thing, Paul. Your kid isn’t a kid anymore—”

  “My kid—”

  “You gotta start to accept that. She’s over eighteen now. Leaving home’s not a criminal offense when you’re over eighteen. As far as the law’s concerned, technically she isn’t even a missing person.”

  “Well, if she’s not”—Konig’s face is now a dangerous purple—“if she’s not, I wish to hell you’d tell me exactly what she then A girl gone five months from her home, without once notifying family or giving whereabouts—” The detective rolls a pen slowly back and forth across his desk beneath the palm of his hand. “You know what she is? I’ll tell you what she is—I’ll be glad to. She’s a young lady, twenty-two years of age, who lost her mother, the best friend she ever had, and it knocked her for a loop. So she wakes up one morning, withdraws twenty-five hundred dollars, all her personal savings, from the bank and decides she’s had enough of home. As far as this department is concerned, she’s breaking no laws. A solid citizen-right? Listen, I got refrigerators downstairs full of kids from ten on up who come to the Big Apple from as far west as Texas, California, with parents out there screaming for some kind of lead, some kind of positive identification. What I’m doing for you, I’m not doing as a detective. I’m doing it as a friend, a good, personal friend of over twenty-five years. And when I say that I want that tracing device on your phone—”

  “It’s no goddamned good,” Konig half shouts, half pleads. “She’s not calling from her bedroom or the phone down the hall.”

  “That’s right. She’s calling from some phone booth outside.”

  “Then she may as well be calling from the moon. We’re never going to find her.”

  “Come on, Paul—for Chrissake.” Haggard flings the birthday card down on the desktop. “That isn’t postmarked the moon. Grand Central Station isn’t the goddamned moon. That kid’s right here. In this city. Around the corner, for all I know.”

  “If she’s not calling from some fixed address, some permanent base of operations, what the hell do we need this disgusting little tracing device for?”

  “Because,” the detective groans wearily, “it gives us a pattern of her movements.”

  “When you’re lucky enough to get a reading, before she rings off.”

  “I tell you, this kid wants us to find her. How come she calls you here, knowing all the while we got a tracer on your phone?”

  The question brings Konig up sharply. His fingers plow his hair exasperatedly.

  “Answer me, Paul. How come? You can’t answer because you know it’s true. She wants us to get a reading on her.”

  “Baloney.”

  “We got two, didn’t we?”

  “Two out of six—quite a pattern.”

  “One, a phone booth at First Avenue and East Houston. Another, a luncheonette on Astor Place. That’s a pattern, isn’t it?”

  “The East Village from First Avenue and East Houston to Astor Place?” Konig laughs scornfully. “It might as well be Bulgaria.”

  “Okay. It is pretty feeble. But it’s a pattern. The next reading we get we can triangulate—narrow down. And I gotta feeling this kid’s gonna be calling more often now the warm weather’s coming. I gotta feeling she’s getting a little homesick out there. And the more she calls, the better our chances to zero in. We got descriptions—DD13’s and DD26’s—out in every borough and precinct, every station house knows ‘Konig, Lauren. Age twenty-two.’ They got pictures of her on the walls. You happen to be luckier than most They know it’s the Chiefs kid. They’re keeping it very quiet, but they’re all out there looking. So I say the tracing device stays.”

  “It goes,” Konig shouts and flings a fist in the air. “And you can goddamn well go too.”

  “Fine. Delighted. As of now, this minute, I’m off the case.”

  “Fine with me too. I can do a helluva lot better by myself.”

  “Help yourself, pal.”

  “Thanks. I will.” Konig whirls around and starts out.

  “A pleasure to do business with you. Happy birthday.”

  The door slams. A picture slides on the shuddering wall, shatters in a heap on the floor. Moments after Konig’s departure, the dusty, warm air is still reverberating from the sharp concussion.

  Haggard sits quietly in the warm, slanting sunbeams of the dying afternoon, the steely blue eyes still ponder
ing the tidy 6" x 9" form.

  Konig, Lauren. Age 22... Ht 5' 6"... Medium build. Hair light brown. Eyes blue. Light complected. Freckles on nose and cheeks. Two vaccination marks upper left arm.

  Scars: Thin white pencil-line scar above right eyebrow. Appendectomy scar, approximately thirteen years old.

  Distinguishing marks: Small, dark mole, left cheekbone. Raspberry mole, right scapula. May have scar on back of left hand from...

  In the next moment he swivels round in his chair and reaches into the inside pocket of his jacket draped across the top of a dusty file cabinet. From the pocket he withdraws a crumpled yellow sheet of paper, a police teletype, dated that day.

  SUBJECT—DD26. Apr. 12, 1974. Female, white, age 22-25, resembling attached photo, your description, DD26, Dec. 14, 1973, observed walking small dog, black-and-white markings, vicinity Houston and Varick Streets. Believed residing loft-warehouse residence—324 Varick—under assumed name Emily Winslow. First called our attention by local residents that neighborhood complaining of activities of quasi paramilitary group operating in area and describing themselves as the “New World Militia”—NWM. Subject has been observed several times in company of members of this group. Though not suspected of any criminal activity, subject under surveillance past three days as per your instructions. Now checking work records, Social Security, and FBI files—Emily Winslow.

  Kindly advise.

  Sgt. Leo Wershba

  17 Precinct

  NYPD

  The detective’s eyes linger for several moments over the crumpled sheet of teletype. After a moment longer, he crushes the paper slowly in his fist. The squealing swivel action of his chair rotates him a full 180 degrees until once more the sun is at his back, and he is facing his desk, reaching for the phone.

  »8«

  4:45 P.M. TOXICOLOGY LAB.

  Alembics. Beakers. Flasks. Bubbling distillers. Cardboard tubs of brain and liver, kidney and stomach. Plastic bags of blood and urine; jars of feces, vomitus, gastric remains. Envelopes of hair, fingernails, mucosa, nail scrapings. The high whir of electric blenders liquefying brains and livers soon to pass through boiling alembics and gas chromatographs, the distillates then to be analyzed for traces of alcohol, morphia, barbiturates, hypnotics, amphetamines, hydrocyanic acid gases, potassium cyanide, ethyl chloride, phosgene, cyclopropane, ethylene, Avertin; all the common phenol derivative acids—nitric, muriatic, sulfuric, oxalic, carbolic; the metallic poisons—arsenicals, lead arsenate, calcium arsenate, acetoarsenite of copper, arsensic trioxide, known as ratsbane. Bichloride of mercury. Lead. Antimony. Phosphorus. Bismuth. Thallium. Strychnine. Nicotine. The belladonnas, or the “three dream sisters”—atropine, scopolamine, hyoscine. The opium derivatives—morphine, heroin, codeine, papaverine, paregoric, laudanum. The hypnotics—chloral hydrate and paraldehyde, and the barbituric acid group—barbital, Nembutal, Amytal, Ipral, phenobarbital, Seconal. The “flying drugs”—speed, Benzedrine, Dexedrine, caffeine. The hallucinatory, lysergic acid. Then marijuana (hashish), the alkaloid, cocaine—and most deadly of all, aconite, known also as monkshood or wolfsbane.

  Konig sits opposite Dr. Ozokawa, the Chief Toxicologist, in a miasmic fog of uric acid fumes wafting fitfully out of the chromatography laboratory next door, where several hundred beakers of the urine of expired people boil through various stages of analysis. The ammoniacal level in the air is so high that it causes tearing of the eyes and a burning sensation in the nostrils.

  Hunched over, in shirt sleeves, Konig and Ozokawa sit in this poisonous air corroborating toxicological data with autopsy findings. They sit like old friends trading bits of gossip-—Ozokawa’s strychnine for Konig’s convulsions; Ozokawa’s hyoscine for Konig’s dilated pupils; Ozokawa’s cyanide for Konig’s mouth froth; Ozokawa’s arsensic for Konig’s ulceration of the small intestine; Ozokawa’s barbiturates for Konig’s cyanosis and respiratory arrest.

  They chat easily of the facial discolorations found in strychnine, aniline, and nitrobenzene poisonings; of the cherry-red flush of carbon monoxide and cyanide poisoning; of the dilated pupils of scopolamine, the pinpoint pupils of heroin, the emaciation of metal poisonings, the ghastly burns of corrosive acids, the peach-pit odor of cyanide, the garlic odor of oxalic acid.

  Ozokawa’s voice drones on through the dying afternoon, his clipped, percussive pronunciation struggling for clarity. “Evans, Rebecca. Age nineteen. DOA. Morphine, two milligrams in blood, urine, brain, and vomitus. Whittaker, Otis. Age thirteen. DOA. Morphine, three milligrams in urine, brain, and feces. Perriguex, Willi. Age fourteen months. Lead—” Ozokawa glances up from the small white 6" x 9" file card, sun flashing through his lenses. “You find no external signs of abuse on the child?”

  “None.” Konig shakes his head. “Straight lead poisoning.”

  Ozokawa nods his great glabrous dome of a head, then continues. “Peruda, Miguel. Age twenty-three. Dexedrine, Benzedrine, I suspect also lysergic acid, though it was not detectable.”

  Konig makes note of that on his pad. “Must have been on the ceiling most of the time.”

  Ozokawa’s head nods sleepily.

  “Kowalski, Peter. Age eighteen. DOA. Alcohol in blood and urine, .3 percent. Amytal, seven grams. Cooper, Margaret. Age forty-one. Lysol infusion—self-administered.” Ozokawa grimaces and makes a queasy face. The noise of horns and traffic drift up from below. “Campbell, Eugene. Age twenty-nine. Oh, here’s an interesting one. At first it looked like acute alcoholic poisoning. Nearly .5 percent ethyl alcohol in the blood and urine—phenomenal. Then we came up with acetoarsenite of copper.”

  “Paris green—pretty fancy.”

  “Caught it in the kidneys and bone tissue.”

  “Hair and nails?”

  “All over.”

  “Thought something was funny about those ileocecal ulcerations.”

  “Soon as I read your report I tested for arsenic. Somebody slipped him something.”

  Konig grunts and makes a notation on his pad to call Flynn. “Go on.”

  “Oh, yes. Let me see now...” Ozokawa’s drowsy eyes move up and down his list. “The chap whose car rolled over the embankment and exploded—”

  “Oh—Doblicki.”

  “Yes, your human torch.”

  “Not too much left to work with there, I’m afraid.”

  “Serology was able to get us a blood sample. About four cubic centimeters. Levels of .4 percent of ethyl alcohol—”

  “Surprised he was able to get behind the wheel and drive, little less get the goddamned car over the embankment. What were the CO levels?”

  “None.”

  There is a pause in which the Chiefs eyes rise slowly to Ozokawa’s. “None?”

  Baffled, Ozokawa looks down at the card again. “Troopers’ report says they found liquor bottles in the wreck. Tests show the man was certainly drunk.”

  “I know he was drunk, and I don’t care what the goddamned troopers say.” Konig’s voice rises. “But you can’t die in a fire without having CO levels in the blood appreciably elevated. Unless, of course—”

  Ozokawa’s bilish eyes seem perplexed.

  “—you weren’t breathing at the time.”

  “I’m almost certain, but I can go back and check. There was no appreciable CO in the blood.”

  “There wasn’t any soot or cinders in the larynx or trachea either.” Konig’s on his feet now, nearly shouting, barging from the room.

  Baffled, Ozokawa rises, trailing after him. “Where are you going?”

  “To try and get that body back.”

  “Where is it?”

  “New Jersey. Someone out there claimed it. I’ve got to see it again.” Suddenly he laughs harshly. “The bastards nearly got away with it. That guy Doblicki was dead before he ever got into the goddamned car.”

  »9«

  “You mean you’ve known about this all along?”

  “For at least three years.”

  “And you’ve done nothing about it?”

&nb
sp; “Done? What should I have done? Torn the office apart? Ferreted out the man? Had a public departmental hanging for you and The New York Times?”

  5:15 P.M. KONIG’S OFFICE.

  Gathering shadows. The day drawing to a close. The Chief’s voice ringing on the thick, dusty air. “Answer me, Carl. What should I have done?”

  Strang sits cross-legged, glacial, unflinching, across the desk, the high slope of dusty mortuary records behind him. “When did you find out?”

  “I told you. About three years ago. And goddamn it, don’t take that smug, stuffed-ass tone with me.” Konig flings a wad of papers across the desk. “Why do you go on with this innocent, babe-in-the-woods routine, Carl? Like some goddamned Boy Scout. You know this racket as well as I do. The phony friend routine. The phone petition for pauper’s burial. The phony put-up by some sleazy mortician looking for an unclaimed stiff he can bury at City expense. Five hundred clear for him and maybe kick back fifty, seventy-five bucks—”

  “For some scab working right here,” Strang snarls. “In this department. Supplying the guy with a monthly list of unclaimed bodies. That’s what bothers me. Don’t you see what you’ve got here, Paul? It’s a body-snatching operation. Going on right under our noses. The City’s being bilked for thousands and we’re in complicity with these morticians. If the papers ever got hold of this—”

  “If they do—” Quiet settles over the room. Konig’s voice is suddenly very calm. “If they do, I’ll have a pretty good idea who their source of information was. It wouldn’t be the first time, would it, Carl?”

  “Now just a min—”

  “Not the first time your outraged sense of propriety would’ve prodded you into sending private little memoranda to the newspapers or to the Mayor’s office.”

  Strang flinches. The hooded lids flicker and a bright flush creeps upward above his collar to his throat. “I’m afraid it’s out of my hands, Paul.”