City of the Dead

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“Personally I don’t believe half of it.”

“Half of it is true.”

“Then it’s the other half that’s important.”

“I’m afraid that half won’t sell newspapers.”

“And the figure of a million dollars a year is greatly exaggerated.” The Mayor strides up and down the length of the study. He is a short, burly man with unremarkable features that nevertheless convey a sense of inner strength. It is Saturday morning, not normally a working day, and so he is not yet dressed, but simply attired in a silk paisley bathrobe. There’s a pot of coffee on his desk. “When the auditors finish going through the books, I think we’re going to find the amount of money paid out to these chiseling morticians considerably less—”

“Nevertheless,” Konig says bitterly, “money was paid out. The situation was there. I was aware of it and I did nothing about it.” From where he sits, stony and resigned, in a capacious leather wing chair beside a large picture window, Konig has an unimpeded view of the East River flowing swiftly past.

“But I’m not worried about that.” The Mayor marches truculently forward, waving a copy of the morning’s Times before him. “We can get past all that. There’s not an agency or department on the City payroll that doesn’t have its share of chiselers and grafters. A certain amount of that is unavoidable. For Chrissake, Paul—you’re not a god. Why should your office be different from any other office? It’s not that I’m worried about.”

“You’re worried about the Robinson business.”

Something apprehensive and troubled clouds the Mayor’s features as he sits down at his desk. “If it were just your office, Paul. But it’s not. It involves several other departments. Even the DA’s office. Binney’s very upset. This other chap—What’s his name?”

“Carslin.”

“Right, Carslin. This bastard had the gall to suggest to me that even the DA’s office is in collusion with innumerable City agencies to cover up this thing. Have you seen the papers yet?”

“I saw the Times this morning. I gather a grand jury is unavoidable.”

“Binney thinks so. And of course you’ve heard about the two congressmen?”

“Yes.” Konig stares resolutely out at the river.

“Both up for re-election this year, and this, of course, is the cheapest form of campaign advertising.”

“I understand,” Konig says, watching a tug beat its way upriver against the current. Looking south he can see the towers of the Queensboro Bridge wavering phantomlike through a yellow morning haze. “What would you like me to do?”

The Mayor folds his hands before him on the desk and stares fixedly at Konig. “I’d like you to think about taking early retirement.”

Konig sits unmoving, his gaze still riveted on the gauzy spires of the distant bridge. “Do you want me to just think about it or do it?”

“Oh, for Chrissake, Paul,” the Mayor fumes. “Don’t make this thing any harder on me than it is now. I don’t want you to do anything for the time being. For the next few weeks the newspapers are going to be beating their chests, clamoring for a public execution. There are men in this Administration I’d gladly consign to the scaffold in a minute. You’re not one of them. You’ve served six Administrations loyally. Your career has been distinguished throughout. You’ve built up one of the finest forensic departments in the world. You’ve run it with integrity and guts. I will not permit these self-righteous media bastards to make hay out of one foolish, ill-considered slip. Why in hell have you been protecting Strang?”

Konig’s head snaps quickly about, his burning gaze locking with the Mayor’s. “Who told you that?”

“Oh, come on, Paul.” The Mayor yanks acigarette from his pocket. “I’ve known that for weeks. Just as Strang was so eager to inform on you in this mortician scandal, there are others just as eager to inform on him. You’ve got some very ambitious boys down there on your staff.” The Mayor grins slyly. “But I really didn’t need anyone to tell me. The minute Strang walked in here, I had him pegged. Show me a selfless, dedicated public servant, and I’ll show you a very ambitious man.”

“Who told you?” Konig asks again.

“That Strang had done the Robinson autopsy?”

“Yes—who told you that?”

Once again the sly smile spreads across the Mayor’s features. “You keep your secrets, Paul, I keep mine.”

“Probably Bonertz. Or Delaney—he’s unhappy enough.” The Mayor shrugs, smiles, touching his fingers to his lips to show they are sealed. “In any event,” he goes on, “I don’t want you to leave immediately. That would give it the look of a public hanging, and I will not permit that to happen.”

Konig stares grimly back out the window. “Then what do you propose?”

“I want you to slowly reduce your responsibilities over the next three months.”

“Phase myself out?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

“It’s only a matter of two more years, George,” Konig suddenly pleads. “Couldn’t you possibly—”

“No.” The finality of the Mayor’s word has the effect of a great gate closing. Konig’s hurt eyes linger for a moment on the Mayor’s stern but not unkindly features. Then they wander back out the window and south to the bridge. “It’s not only this Robinson business either, is it, George?”

“No,” the Mayor replies flatly. “It’s your health too.” Konig shakes his head and laughs bitterly. “They tell you everything around here, don’t they, George?”

The Mayor laughs out loud. “I’ve got an office full of selfless, dedicated public servants. But seriously, Paul. You’ve got to quit. You’re killing yourself. If you don’t leave soon, you’ll be carried out in a box.”

“I’d prefer that to this slow but discreet retreat you’ve got planned for me.”

“Skip the self-pity, Paul,” the Mayor snaps irritably. “It doesn’t become you. The minute you leave the City, a dozen foundations, universities, hospitals, will be banging at your door. You’ve still got a great deal of living ahead of you. Why the hell aren’t you under a doctor’s care?”

“I’m under my own care,” Konig’s voice rises harshly. “Who’s to be my successor?”

“Up to you entirely. I presume it won’t be Strang.”

“Pearsall’s your man,” Konig goes on matter-of-factly. “First-rate pathologist, and a good administrator. I trust him.”

The Mayor scratches the name on a pad. “Then so do I.”

“And just for future notice,” Konig continues, “I’ve got a man down there now, a kid, actually, but worth while watching.”

“How old?”

“Late twenties. Just out of school a few years but definitely a comer.”

“Name?”

“McCloskey—Tom McCloskey.”

Once again the Mayor scribbles hastily on his pad. The discussion ended, Konig now rises to go. The Mayor rises, too, and for a moment the two of them stand there awkwardly searching for a graceful way to end their talk. Suddenly the Mayor is laughing. “Thirty years I’ve known you, Paul, and you haven’t changed a bit. Not in all that time. You’re still the same surly, tough old son of a bitch you were then.”

Still laughing, the Mayor comes around his desk and throws an arm warmly about Konig’s shoulders. “Only Ida could take the bite out of you. Take the wind right out of your sails. God, how well I remember Ida, bless her soul. Remember the picnics and all the kids?” His arm still about Konig’s shoulder, they move slowly toward the door. “Your little girl—”

“Lauren? She’s a big girl now. Twenty-two.”

“Twenty-two.” The Mayor repeats the number wistfully, the march of all these years passing suddenly before his eyes. “Twenty-two, is it? I’m a grandfather three times over. What’s she doing with herself?”

“She’s an artist.”

“An artist?”

“They’re showing her paintings right now,” Konig says, swelling a bit with pride. “Some fancy gallery over on the East Side. Charging very fancy prices for them too. She’s coming home tomorrow,” he blurts out irrepressibly, not having intended to mention anything about Lolly. But the moment he says it, the moment the words are out, a great weight lifts from him, as if the saying of it actually makes it so. Suddenly he feels giddy and happy. “Yes, she’s coming home.”

“She been away?” the Mayor asks.

“Oh, just for a while,” Konig says, a kind of shy evasiveness in his eyes. “Little misunderstanding. But that’s all behind us now.”

“Good—very good, Paul.” The Mayor clasps his hand warmly. “All the better. Then the free time in the months ahead will be a good time for the both of you to get to know each other again.”

“Yes—I think so.” Konig’s face is glowing. “I think the first thing we’ll do is open up the place in Montauk. We can go out and stay for the whole summer. Lolly loves the ocean, you know.”

“Can’t say I blame her,” the Mayor booms. “Say hello to her for me. Tell her my Joanie is the mother of two now.”

Konig stands there by the door smiling rather idiotically, the Mayor still clasping him warmly by the hand but all the while jostling him gently out the door, a political liability now to be quietly, but swiftly, dispatched. “And, Paul,” he adds, lowering his voice a little conspiratorially, “don’t worry about all the trash you read in the papers. You’re still the best.”

A short time later Konig is back downtown at his desk trying to tunnel through more of the unfinished paperwork. The unanswered letters sit there, a quiet reproach, awaiting him.

It is Saturday morning and so the place is empty. He has it to himself and he relishes the quiet of it. His mind still harks back to his conference with the Mayor. The forced retirement had disheartened him, but he knew, of course, that it was coming. The fact that their conversation took place in the informality of the Mayor’s home rather than at City Hall, as well as the fact that Konig was permitted to pick the time, was the tip-off to what the purpose of the meeting was. So it came as no shock. That he was disheartened was quite true. But walking out of there this morning, he’d also felt a curious exhilaration, as if a great weight had been lifted from him. It had all to do, he knew, with Lolly. The fact that she was coming home now, and that thing the Mayor had said (quite inadvertently, because he knew nothing of Lauren Konig’s situation) about their having “time to get to know each other again.” It was that that had set him off, buoyed him so, had him whistling all the way down from 89th Street to the Medical Examiner’s Office on 30th. In slightly more than twenty-four hours now they’d be together again. After a separation of five months, they’d be a family once more.

Then, too, when he’d walked in that morning around 11:30, made his coffee on the Bunsen burner, watered his plants, lit his first cigar of the day, he’d seen a plain white envelope on his desk with his own name typed across the face of it. It was Carl Strang’s resignation. Curt, succinct, devoid of acrimony, it simply declared he was leaving. It asked for nothing in the way of favors or references. Konig was relieved. It even added to his exhilaration.

Then he turned to his correspondence.

And so it went for several hours until he’d actually come within striking distance of the bottom of the pile. He’d typed his own replies, fully enjoying the afternoon’s work. The old communication with colleagues, the reaching out, so to speak, across the land, across the sea, to perfect strangers who’d reached out to him, sought his advice. The common bonds that joined them. That pleased him mightily. His concentration had been deep. His mind keen. He’d even felt a touch of the old vigor surging through him.

Glancing at his watch now, he is astonished to see that it is nearly 3 p.m. He rises instantly, anxious to get home. There are several errands to run before nightfall. Before his rendezvous at the bridge. There had to be food in the larder if Lolly was coming home. He had to stock up. The girl had probably been starved, or at least minimally fed, during the course of her ordeal. Then, of course, there were the paintings. Her paintings. The ones he’d bought at the Fenimore Gallery. He would hang them on the walls as a kind of surprise for her homecoming. Gleefully, he imagines her reaction when first she’d see them there, hanging throughout the house. He can barely contain himself at the thought of it.

When he’d rinsed out the beaker of coffee, extinguished the Bunsen burner, stubbed out his smoldering cigar, then put out the lights, he was at last ready to go.

Striding out the door of his office, he suddenly catches sight of a small white calling card that had been slipped beneath the outer door. On one side it read “Francis Haggard. NYPD.” On the other, in a rather bold, untidy scrawl, it said merely: “Please don’t try to go it alone.”