City of the Dead

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“This is far too big, Max. It’ll never fit.”

“Push a bit harder.”

“I am. It won’t go, I tell you. It’s no fit. The damned sneaker’s about ready to burst.”

“All right. Hand me the other mold.”

“Want me to powder this one too?” Arthur Delaney asks.

“Sure,” says Bonertz. “But slip the sock on first.”

It’s near the end of the day now. All the autopsy tables are cleared and the dieners are scrubbing and scouring them in preparation for the daily morning onslaught.

A number of the others, finished for the day, stand about—Grimsby, Hakim, Strang, McCloskey, Pearsall—taunting and teasing their colleagues. There’s a great deal of jesting, the objects of which are two casts of the human left foot. One of these is the foot of Ferde, the other that of Rolfe.

For each foot, a skilled specialist has produced a master cast taken directly from the badly mutilated left foot of each corpse. From that a piece mold was produced in plaster, and from that a further refinement—a perfect copy of each left foot reproduced in a flexible material made from gelatin, glycerin, and zinc oxide, a compound used because of its great plasticity and because it can be made to imitate very well the consistency of the living foot. Also, there is virtually no risk of breakage.

With great comic flourish, Carl Strang applies huge puffs of talcum powder to the inside of the ragged sneaker, filthy to the point of a green moldy patina—the same sneaker found in the shack near Coenties Slip. At the same time Delaney slips a navy-blue sock onto the moulage of Ferde’s left foot.

“All right, Carl.” Bonertz scowls. “Enough with the powder already. I’m choking on the stuff.”

“Sorry, old man,” Strang clucks sympathetically, “but the foot odor from this thing is atrocious.”

More jesting and bawdy hilarity as Bonertz snatches the powdered sneaker from Strang and prepares to fit it onto the mold. “Now, gentlemen,” he proclaims, “the big test.”

For a moment there’s breathless silence as the sneaker slides smoothly onto the stockinged mold.

“Voilà,” squeals Hakim and ties a huge bow with the laces.

“Perfect,” says Delaney.

“Looks pretty good,” Bonertz agrees dourly. He removes the sneaker from the mold and studies the inside of it. “The widest part of the foot corresponds perfectly with the widest part of the sneaker,” he murmurs. “And the projecting base of the big toe fits reasonably well into the concavity of the sneaker.”

The others gathered around him nod their assent.

Suddenly Strang snatches both molds and proceeds to march them around the room and up the walls. There is something wildly funny about the way these two disembodied left feet stride up and down the walls, and soon several of the others are marching after the feet with a great deal of hooting and raucous laughter. Shortly the place resembles a locker room full of boisterous, hellbent undergraduates.

“What the hell’s all this?” Konig booms, appearing suddenly, like a specter, through the swinging doors. The laughter dies on a stifled guffaw and for a moment Strang, standing on a chair, teeters foolishly off balance, still holding the two molds wearing their oddly incongruous cotton navy socks.

“Anything wrong?” Konig stares up at Strang.

Strang grins sheepishly and steps down from the chair. “Nothing, Paul. Just cutting up a bit.”

The two men regard each other silently while the others shuffle awkwardly and study the floor.

“Had a bit of luck, Paul.” Bonertz bustles forward with the sneaker.

“Oh?”

“We’ve matched the sneaker to the mold of Ferde’s left foot.”

Konig limps stiffly to the table. “May I have a look?” Strang hands the mold to Konig, who silently examines it, along with the sneaker. “What size did the chiropodist say the mold is?” he asks.

“Eight and a half, triple E,” says Bonertz. “Same as the sneaker.”

“Luck.” Konig smiles. “The other mold must’ve been far too big.”

“Couldn’t even begin to get it on,” says Delaney.

Konig whips out a pad and jots a few notations in the Ferde section. “Chiropodist find anything else unusual on the foot?”

“Well, of course,” says Bonertz, “there was a great deal of mutilation. Some toes missing. Skin stripped from the foot. A deep slash right through the sole of the foot.”

“Right,” Konig snaps, the line of his jaw tautening as he waits for information. “So?”

“The chiropodist’s report says that from what was left of the foot, toe bones specifically, he could determine that several of the toes were bent up and humped. Evidence of bunions.”

“Right.” Konig nods emphatically. “I know that already. Anything else?”

“X-ray examination of the foot showed that the first phalanx of the left big toe was deviated outward.”

“Ah, exostosis of the first metatarsal bone.” Konig scribbles hastily into his pad. “Hallux valgus.”

“Right,” says Bonertz. “And that’s about it.”

“Good. Every little bit helps, gentlemen.” Konig glares around, snaps his pad shut and starts to turn.

“Paul,” a voice calls after him.

Konig turns and stares into the faintly mocking eyes of Carl Strang.

“Will you clear up a problem for us?”

“Problem?”

“Yes.” Strang saunters forward now, jaunty, self-assured. “A few of us are still a bit confused as to the sexing of Ferde.”

“Why?” says Konig, seemingly perplexed. “It’s a male cadaver.”

“Yes.” Strang nods. “We know you’ve said that, but it has the classic dimensions, musculature, bone formation of a female. What made you tag it male?”

Konig gazes quietly at Strang. He can hear the taunt and challenge in the voice, read the smirk of cocky self-assurance on the face. His gaze now swings around at the others, who all appear to be watching him rather closely. Alert, vigilant, looking for a falter, a fatal hesitation, that first sign of weakness in the Chief.

“In all honesty, Paul,” Pearsall says almost apologetically, “it is ambiguous.”

“Ambiguous? How so?”

“Well, as Carl said, all evidence of sex in this cadaver seems to come down more heavily in favor of a female than a male.”

“Oh?” says Konig. A small pulse begins to throb just beneath his eye. “Such as?”

“Well,” says Pearsall, “since we don’t have any primary sexual organs with this trunk, the skull, the larynx, the limb bones—”

“You used Pearson’s tables for sexing the limb bones?” Konig asks.

“Yes, sir,” McCloskey blurts out. “I did all that.”

“And?”

“I found that the lengths of both upper and lower limbs were much closer to the female average than the male.”

“They are.” Konig smiles. “But what about the heads of those limb bones?”

“The heads, sir?”

“Right. The heads of the humeri and femora. Did you also measure those?”

“No, sir. I’m afraid I—”

“Perfectly natural oversight.” Konig’s voice is suddenly soft, unnaturally gentle. As if he had a need now to make amends for the inexcusable attack on McCloskey the day before. “That’s a mistake a lot of older, more experienced pathologists than you still make. That’s because length of limbs is so frequently enough to make a fairly accurate sexing of skeletal remains. But in this case, it isn’t. You’re absolutely right, Tom. The sex of this cadaver is ambiguous. Highly ambiguous. I went through all the same measurements you did—skull, larynx, limb bones. But because it was so ambiguous, I also did the heads of the humeri and femora.”

As Konig speaks the men have drawn almost unconsciously around him, until they encircle him. A hush has fallen over the place, the levity of a few moments before all gone, and once again he, Konig, is the teacher and they the students.

“I found a vertical diameter in the humeral head of 48.7 millimeters and a transverse diameter of 44.6 millimeters. For the femoral head I found a vertical diameter of over 48 millimeters. Those are distinctly male scores.”

There is a stir in the room. Murmurs of approval. Only Strang is scowling.

“Still, Paul,” he persists, “you’re not suggesting that those measurements by themselves are sufficient to impute male sex?”

“Certainly not, Carl.” Konig smiles, more expansive than ever. “And I appreciate your passion for thoroughness and accuracy.”

Now it is Strang who can hear the ring of mocking irony in the Chiefs voice.

“So, in the absence of more conclusive proof,” Konig goes on, warming wonderfully to the subject, “I also measured the sternum of this cadaver. As you very well know, Carl, the proportion of the two main sections of the sternum is also influenced by sex. The upper part—the manubrium—is larger in proportion to the middle part in the female than it is in the male. The average proportion in the male varies from 1 : 2.0 millimeters to 1 : 2.6 and in the female from 1 : 1.4 to 1 : 1.9. You know that, of course, Carl.” Konig’s eyes have narrowed and they are glowing like ingots. He is using his voice like a whip. “I measured the sternum of this cadaver and found a proportion of manubrium to middle section of 1 : 2.3. And as you, above all, Carl, know very well, that is the score for a male, not a female, sternum.”

By this time Strang’s features have turned a pasty white. And the cocky smirk he wore so self-assuredly only moments before has turned into a look of positive queasiness.

“But let’s skip all the fancy stuff, boys,” Konig goes on, more expansive than ever, for he’s flying high right now, zeroing in for the kill. “Just go over and look at the hand on that cadaver. Look at the fingernails with the pretty polish that makes you all think it’s a female; then look at the way that polish has been applied. Then tell me what woman you know has ever applied her nail polish widthwise on the nail rather than lengthwise. In forty years of practicing medicine, and nearly sixty-five years of life, I have never seen nail polish applied to a woman’s nail in that fashion. Women simply don’t do that. It would be like buttoning your fly from the top button down.”

There’s a burst of laughter and a bit of scattered applause.

“No, gentlemen,” Konig continues, “that badly battered, pitifully mutilated cadaver over there, the one I call Ferde, is male—a young boy, eighteen or so, slight, frail, with a fairly common sexual hang-up. He liked to wear fingernail polish, and I’d be willing to bet he also enjoyed dressing up like one of the girls.” The Chief beams about at his staff, then suddenly, his mood shifting, his stem gaze falls on Strang. “Now, Carl, if you don’t mind, I’d like a word with you. Upstairs in my office, please.”