City of the Dead

»26«

“We’ve got all the lower limb articulations correct.”

“Good. What about the casts of the hip joints and femora?”

“Appear to match perfectly.”

McCloskey is glowing as he makes his report to the Chief. The others, assembled about the trays, are all busy at individual tasks.

“You boys really burned the midnight oil last night, didn’t you?” Strang smiles expansively.

“Radiographs are beautiful, Paul,” says Pearsall. “Beautifully clear articulations.”

“Absolutely no doubt,” says Delaney, gazing up at the ghostly gray-white bone configurations on the screen. “Those are perfect limb assignments.”

“Any serology yet?” Konig mutters, disregarding all the glowing chatter.

“We’ve got a Type O and a Type AB,” Hakim reports. “Which is which?”

“The long set is O and the short AB,” says McCloskey. “Toxicology?”

“Negative,” Bonertz replies. “No drugs. No appreciable alcohol levels. Gas chromatograph picked up reserpine traces in the liver of the short set. Probably hypertensive.” He’s about to go on but Konig cuts him short. His manner is rude and abrupt. Konig has a number of unpleasant traits, but rudeness is not one of them. He has never been known to be rude to a colleague. Now, this sudden churlishness has them all puzzled and wary. Uncertain what to expect next Konig’s bleary eyes are once again scanning the trays and the partially reconstructed corpses. “Any progress?”

“We’ve made preliminary assignments on both sets of humeri, Paul.” For the first time in their relationship, McCloskey is emboldened to use the first name. After all, last night, during dinner and throughout work, they had been more than merely colleagues.

“Oh?” Konig replies and there is something clearly cold and admonitory in the tone of that single syllable.

The young pathologist, however, doesn’t detect it. He runs right on, absolutely glowing, full of professional pride and enthusiasm. “We’ve dissected out the ligament and muscle tendon surrounding the shoulder joints, the sockets on the scapulae, and the ends of the humeri. Then we—”

“What’s this pin doing in the scapula?” Konig cuts him short. There’s a moment of portentous silence.

“I put it in,” McCloskey murmurs, beginning to sense something awry.

“You put it in?”

“Yes, sir. You see, I thought I’d try one of the shorter humeri first—the way we did the other night—and the—”

“So you forced the head in and busted the goddamned acromion—right?”

A hot pink suffuses the young man’s face. “Yes, sir, I’m afraid so.”

“You’re afraid so?” Konig jeers. “You’re afraid so? Couldn’t you see it was all wrong? Are you a fool? Are you blind? If you’ve got the longer pair of femora fitting the hip joints of your trunk, you ought to goddamned well know that it’s the longer pair of humeri that should fit at the shoulder.”

“I did, sir. I was merely trying to eliminate any other possibility—”

“And in doing so, eliminated the acromion. In fact, you busted the goddamned thing.”

Young McCloskey appears shattered. His eyes have grown watery; his cheeks are scorched with the shame of public denunciation. “But, Dr. Konig, I do have the longer humeri now fitted in place and the articulations seem perfect.”

“Perfect?” Konig shouts. “How can it be perfect? It’ll never be perfect. You busted the goddamned acromion. How the hell can you ever expect now to restore the exact fitting in relation to that humerus?”

“But, Paul,” Pearsall steps in, trying to draw some of the withering fusillade away from the boy, “the X rays are showing nearly perfect articulations. These arms do go with this trunk.”

“Who asked you?” Konig wheels, turns his fire now on Pearsall, whose features blanch under the heat. “Who the hell asked any of you?” He wheels again, his raging, accusatory eyes flashing from one man to the next. Disheveled, bleary-eyed, unshaven, his gray hair tousled wildly, seeming suddenly white, as if it had turned right there before them, Konig has the look of some Old Testament prophet, crazed, half-lunatic, half-divine, a Jeremiah or an Ezekiel, full of lamentation and woe. “Who the hell asked any goddamned one of you?” He flails the air with his fists.

Strang, standing off to the side, arms akimbo, quietly observes this maniacal performance, a slight, enigmatic smile on his thin, taut-cord lips. Konig wheels again, just in time to catch that smile, then turns on him. “What the hell’s so funny?”

“Funny?” Strang affects a deeply aggrieved look. “I don’t think it’s funny, Paul. I think it’s very sad. Very goddamned sad.” He turns sharply on his heel and strides out.

“Go on,” Konig shouts after him. “Go ahead. Run to the Mayor or the District Attorney. Run to The New York Times. Maybe they’ll take your picture. Put it in the goddamn paper—right on the front page—”

By this time Konig is ranting, his voice bouncing off cold porcelain and stainless steel, shattering the normally sepulchral hush of the mortuary. An elderly Negro attendant inadvertently stumbles on to the scene. His wide, startled eyes blooming open in fright like huge white peonies, he turns and stumbles back out.

“I don’t need any of you. I’ll do better by myself. Get the hell out.” Konig flails the air as the others still stand about, heads lowered out of shame for their leader.

“Go on. Get the hell out. All of you,” he bellows like a wounded animal. “Go on. Go on. Get out.”

Slowly, one by one, they turn and go—Bonertz, Delaney, Grimsby, Hakim, Pearsall, still white and shaken from the ordeal, until no one is left there but Konig and young McCloskey, facing each other across a table, the two partially reconstructed corpses, stony and recumbent, like figures on Egyptian sarcophagi, between them.

“Well, what the hell are you waiting for?” Konig snarls. “You get the hell out of here too.”

McCloskey doesn’t stir. For a moment they stare at each other, the younger man still flushed with shame, his questioning gaze full of puzzlement and hurt. His lips move, attempting speech, but no sound comes. In the next instant he turns and goes.

For a long while after Konig stands there, riveted to the spot, silence rushing in upon him, in a solitude of his own making. Having driven everyone from him, alienated his staff, denounced colleagues, and humiliated a young man whose crimes were nowhere near as great as Konig had magnified them, he is at last profoundly alone.

In the next moment he flings off his jacket and seizes a pair of radii there in the trays awaiting assignment.