City of the Dead

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“You might have told me before.”

“I didn’t know before.”

“But you suspected.”

“I did suspect. That’s true.”

“And yet you didn’t tell me. Not a word.”

“About my suspicions? Why? What the hell for?”

“You could’ve at least let me know.”

“Know what?”

“For God’s sake, man, just to let a person know that things are going on.”

“Things were always going on—I couldn’t tell you more than that until I knew for sure.”

“And you know for sure now?”

“Now I know for sure.”

Konig and Haggard sit opposite each other across a narrow space of cluttered desk over which they shout back and forth. Their conversation is like an angry tennis match in which two old rivals bang, chop, and slash at each other remorselessly. It has a Vengeful quality about it and the room is hot, like a gymnasium, just as if men had been exercising strenuously there.

“What the hell are you doing for me now?” Konig bawls, red in the face.

“Right now?”

“Right now.”

“Right now I’m sitting here wasting my time talking to you.”

Konig’s eyes bulge; the red in his face deepens. “Don’t smart-ass me. I warn you. I asked you a question. I want an answer. Now what are you doing for me?”

“For you?” Haggard’s expression is a smirk of bitter delight. “For you?”

Konig, catching the significance of that smirk, falters, suddenly aware that he has overstepped the bounds of propriety.

“For her, then,” he snarls, suddenly all self-righteousness. “You know what the hell I meant.”

For a moment they sit there not speaking, regarding each other warily, getting their second breaths, while the big Regulator wall clock ticks and black, vaporous coffee gurgles in the beaker over the Bunsen burner behind them.

“I’ll tell you what I’m doing for her,” Haggard seethes. “Christ, I’ll tell you what I’m doing. I’ve got you the name of the guy who’s got her.”

“Meacham,” Konig sneers. “What the hell does the name mean to me? What the hell does—”

“Will you let me finish, goddamnit?” Haggard flings the FBI dossier down on the desk where it lands with the sound of a whip cracking. “I’ve got his name. I’ve got his profile. I’ve got his prints.”

“But you don’t have him,” Konig thunders. “Crap. Bunkum. That’s what you’ve got.”

“I’ve got verification that the prints in that FBI file are the same as—”

“—the ones in the loft and in that bomb factory. Crap. Bunkum, I say. Without him, you’ve got nothing. Nothing, I tell you. Nothing. You understand? And meanwhile, he’s got my kid. Meanwhile—” Konig’s voice trails off, his face flushed, twitching with a thousand unspoken questions. Thoughts shuttle wildly through his head like burning cinders. Charges. Recriminations Suspicions. Deeply seated fears. At one point his fists, clenched, knuckle-white, seem about to pummel the desk But they don’t. Instead they shudder in midair as if contending with an invisible force, and a question leaps to his lips. That too hovers there unexpressed, and dies, leaving his great jaws moving unceasingly, as if he were chewing rubber.

Having answered nearly a full hour of questions, Haggard sits coiled, awaiting the next assault. But it doesn’t come. At least not then. The Chief’s line of interrogation, for the time being, appears to be at an end. And now the rigidity, that state of alert that has kept Konig sitting ramrod-stiff for the past sixty minutes, suddenly lapses. He hunches forward, elbows propped on desk, hands on either cheek, supporting the immense, teetering dome of his head. Then slowly, like a pair of curtains being drawn, his fingers, reeking with the scent of formalin and decayed flesh, slide woefully across his face, covering completely his red, bleared eyes. “Sorry, Frank,” he says. “I’m sorry.”

For a while they sit there silently, Konig rubbing his eyes, Haggard watching him oddly, embarrassed, and wishing he were not there. “You’re right. Paul,” he says finally. “You’re absolutely right. I’ve got crap and bunkum. But while I don’t know where Meacham is, I might have a lead on a few of his buddies. I got about a dozen guys picking through that place up in The Bronx. Going through there with a fine-tooth comb. Sifting, analyzing, lifting prints. They weren’t very careful when they left. Smeared prints all over the place. Apparently had to get out fast. What I’m hoping for is to pick up a couple of ’em. Even one. If I can get my hands on just one, I’ll sweat it out of him. I promise you that, Paul. I’ll nail this Meacham bastard.”

Konig says nothing, merely sits slouched there at his desk, hiding behind his hands, rubbing his eyes with that slow, fierce rhythm, profoundly unconsoled.

“Tell me again,” the detective goes on. “What happened when he called?”

“I told you.”

“Tell me again.”

“She screamed,” Konig mutters blankly. “He spoke first and then they made her scream.”

“What did he say?”

“I told you,” Konig wails. “I told you. Nothing—just ‘That was your daughter.’ No hello—no goodbye—nothing. It was all just crazy.”

“Why didn’t you ask them to put her on?”

“Put her on?”

“Sure. Let her speak to you. Verify it. Next time they call—”

“Next time?” Konig gapes.

“Sure. When they call again. You know they’re gonna call again.”

“Oh, Christ.”

“Sure they’ll call again. Put her on. Make her scream. Make you squirm.”

“Oh, Christ—no.” Terror curdles Konig’s eyes. He puts his hands up as if to ward off a blow. “I can’t. I can’t sit through another one of those things.”

Haggard slumps back in his chair, pushes his fedora to the back of his head. “You don’t think this guy is finished with you?” A short, cruel laugh rips from him. “You don’t know the Meachams of the world if you think that one call is the end of it. That’s only the beginning, my friend. Now the game really starts.”

“Game?” says Konig, stunned, bewildered. “What game?”

“Oh, come on, Paul. Don’t give me that wide-eyed crap. Like you never heard this kind of thing before. You know men like. Meacham. You’ve been around station houses long enough to know guys like this. Now comes the shakedown. Money. Moola. Oh, he’ll tell you it’s for some lofty purpose,” the detective jeers. “Wants to feed starving Lithuanians. Milk for the children of Rumanian gypsies. All very nice, but believe me, pal, it’s a crock. It’s pure shakedown.”

“But why me? Why shake me down? I’ve got no money.”

“You’ve got enough,” Haggard hammers on. “I’m sure he’s ascertained the approximate amount from your daughter. He knows there’s enough there anyway so he can play Robin Hood for his pals and show a nice profit for himself too. These new idealists are pretty cynical. If Meacham were in paradise he’d be up there running a protection racket. Shaking down the angels. Agitating for reform among the gods while picking their pockets at the same time.”

“Reform?” Konig is puzzled. “What the hell does reform have to do with my kid? My kid’s no revolutionary.”

“No. But that’s how she got mixed up with him. She thought he was and I guess she thought it was kind of attractive.”

“Lolly’s not gullible. She’s not stupid.”

“Right.” Haggard nods vigorously. “She’s not stupid. Just vulnerable and human. But after a while she saw right through this guy. Saw he wasn’t as interested in starving kids and social justice as he was in guns and explosives. Violence and the sense of constant danger. That’s Meacham’s real kick. The thing that really turns him on. He’s the sort of a guy who can only get a hard on when he kills—”

“Quit it.” Konig’s hands fly to his ears. “For God’s sake, quit it.”

“I’m giving it to you straight—just like you want it. Do you want it?”

“Yes—yes.” Eyes closed, Konig’s huge head swings slowly back and forth. “I want it.”

“Lolly was a perfect set-up for Meacham,” the detective hurtles forward ruthlessly. “An innocent, gullible kid with a few bucks of her own who cared about other people. A perfect set-up for him. He’s clever all right. Had a few years of college. Knows when to say Marx, Lenin. ‘Power to the People.’ There’ll aways be some dumb little chick who’ll be impressed.”

“Like Lolly?”

“Oh, Christ.” Haggard reddens. “I didn’t mean—”

“Skip it. I know what you meant.”

Haggard sighs, much of his momentum gone. “Anyway, make no mistake. He’ll call again.”

Konig’s brows arch ominously. “Then what?”

“Then—then we’ll take it from there.”

“Come on, come on.” Konig drums the table. “You started, now finish it.”

“Well”—the detective eyes him warily—“first he’ll probably denounce you. Read you the ‘Pig Cop’ number. Call you an enemy of the people. Accuse you of crimes against fruit-pickers, fags, anything! You’re responsible for it. You did it. So you have to pay.”

“Okay, okay.” Konig waves this aside. “I’ve heard all that. What’s next?”

“Then he’ll try and shake you down.”

“Okay—how much?”

Haggard leans back uncertainly, his tongue gliding slowly across his lower lip. “Idealism is big business nowadays.”

“Come on, Frank. For Chrissake, how much?”

“A quarter of a mil.” The detective shrugs. “Maybe a half.”

“A half million?” Konig gapes.

“Sure. Why not? That’s peanuts compared to what some of these guys ask. Make no mistake, Paul. Meacham’s a businessman. He’s got something to sell. He’ll call again. Maybe four, five times. Maybe a dozen times. He’ll put her on the phone again. Make her scream again, this time louder. Loud enough so your tongue is hanging out and you’re ready to pay whatever he asks.”

“Where the hell would I get a half million?”

“Don’t worry about that.”

“That’s all well and fine for you to say,” Konig blusters.

“Don’t worry about that. I said.” The detective’s quiet, forceful manner calms him. “You leave that to me.”

Konig sits there trembling, in a sweat. “Sure,” he snarls, starting up. “Sure. A sack of marked bills from the City vaults.”

Haggard rises, trying to head him off. “Paul—”

“You’re not pulling any fancy stuff.”

“No fancy stuff—”

“Not with my kid’s life, you’re not.”

“Leave it to me, I said.”

“This guy—this Meacham—he can’t be that big a fool. He’s not gonna fall for that old sucker game. You guys crouching behind the bushes while I hand him a satchelful of marked bills.” Infuriated, Konig starts to pace the floor, Haggard following in his steps.

“Paul, will you—”

“No, sir. No, goddamnit. No. You’re not going to play that game. Not with my kid’s life. One slip and they’ll send her home to me in a box.”

“There won’t be any slips.”

“Goddamned right there won’t.” At the head of the room, Konig wheels and turns, the detective panting right behind him. “Because, one way or the other. I’ll get the money and go out there myself, wherever the hell he is. None of this crouching behind the bushes stuff.”

Utterly exhausted, Haggard at last gives up the chase, leaving Konig to barge and flail about the room by himself. The detective slumps back into his chair, lights a cigarette, and puffs deeply. “That’d be a goddamned fool thing to do,” he says, spewing smoke through his nostrils, “because, having got your money, he may very well kill her anyway. That’s a whole lot less risky than exchanging her for money with the possibility of the law crouching, like you say, behind the bushes?”

Baffled, weary, deeply agitated, Konig regards the detective warily. Sensing-a momentary advantage, Haggard continues. “One way or the other, he’s gonna call again. And he will try and shake you down. Now when he does call, and suggests a deal, you string along. You say yes to everything he wants. You—”

From somewhere far away, outside himself, Konig hears a thin, high voice, the voice of a young girl. Then for a moment he sees a soft, pretty face. Large startled eyes peer up at him, vexed, anxious, reproachful.

“When have you ever—”

“How many times have I come to you and—”

“When have we ever been able to—”

“Did it ever once occur to you—”

Each rebuke is delivered with the rhythm of a lash regularly applied.

“—agree to everything.”

Haggard’s voice crowds back in upon him, even as Lolly’s eddies and recedes until it is no more. Then Konig is gazing blankly down through the broken, dusty slats of the jalousie windows at the cluttered, huddling roof tops across the way. A soft, muted sky glow of yellow decanting downward like a slowly spreading paint stain nuzzles through the dirty gray of early morning; it pushes out the shadows of the night from where they still crouch in alleyways and dark, mean streets.

“I want to see the place,” Konig murmurs aloud, abstractly, not to anyone in particular.

“What place?”

“The place where she was. I want you to take me there.”

“You mean the loft? Varick Street?”

Konig nods, and once again resumes his seat behind the desk. “And the other place up in The Bronx, too.”

“Christ, why?” Haggard is on his feet again, the rumpled tail of his raincoat swaying behind him as he moves up and down the length of the office. “What in hell for? Nothing there for you to see—”

“I want to.”

“If at least it would help anything, I’d—”

“It would help me. Make me feel somehow—a little—”

“Just a lotta junk—dirt. Nothing to—”

“—closer. Somehow closer.”

“—see. What the hell you gonna do up there anyway?” Haggard nearly shouts, in his mind a vision of the loft, smashed walls, battered canvases, the sour defilement of the mattress, the awful violence visited upon the place.

“I want to see it. I want to see the place where my kid was.”

“Nothing lo see there, I tell you.”

“I don’t care, goddamnit. I want to go.”

“Aah,” the detective fumes, starts for the door. “Go. Who the hell cares? You don’t need my permission.”

“Goddamned right I don’t need your permission.” Konig is on his feet bellowing after the fleeing figure. “Don’t you forget that, either.”

Haggard wheels, starts back, veering toward Konig like a locomotive, all steam and hurtling mass. Then he shudders to a halt before him. “I don’t give a goddamn where you go. But if that creepy son of a bitch calls again—”

“Yeah—”

“Before you do a thing, you better damned well let me know. I got a pretty good lead now on one of Meacham’s buddies, see? If I get hold of him, I’m pretty sure I can smoke Meacham out too. I’m convinced Meacham is still right here in this city. Now if you go and fuck this up for me—”

“Don’t you talk that way to me. Goddamnit, don’t you ever—”

“Shut up,” Haggard bawls. “You shut up now. I’m goddamned sick of you, you pigheaded son of a bitch. You think you know it all. You don’t know nothing. You hear that? Nothing. You know bones and blood and wounds of the flesh—but you don’t know nothing.” He lunges swiftly over the desk, a motion so sudden and monitory that Konig rears back, like a man trying to evade a blow. But the motion ends merely with the detective reaching into a pot of pencils and yanking one out, causing the pot to topple, its contents to spill out fanlike across the desk. The next moment he’s scribbling an address furiously onto a pad of paper. “I’ve seen some of her paintings.”

Konig’s jaw drops and he gapes up at Haggard. “What?”

“I’ve seen some of your kid’s paintings—a gallery over on Madison and Sixty-seventh.” He rips the scrap of paper from the pad and with a gesture of infinite scorn flings it across the desk at Konig. “Go see them. They’re good.”