Herbert Lieberman - City of the Dead

The head whirls, and the man freezes there, crouching, winded, his face gone the sickigh color of raw mushrooms.

They stand there regarding each other for a moment. Then Konig speaks. “Go to my office now, Angelo, and wait there for me.”

“Stop crying,” Konig shouts, red in the face, at the slumped, disheveled figure seated opposite him. “For Chris-sake—stop crying. That’s not going to help anything.” Angelo Perriconi slumps deeper into his seat, as if he were trying to osmose himself into the wood and vanish. His face is hidden behind trembling hands, and he sobs like a baby, pausing only from time to time to wipe his running nose across his sleeve. “Oh, my God, my God.”

“Forget about God, Angelo. What the hell do you think you were doing down there?”

Muffled wails issue from behind the old man’s hands. “Answer me. What the hell do you think—”

“ Dio mio, Dio mio. Now I gonna lose my job. Now I gonna lose everything—”

“Will you stop that goddamned bawling and—”

“What I gonna do?”

“Listen to me. I’ll tell you what you’re—”

“What I gonna do?”

“Listen to me.” Konig’s thunder is so loud that the frenzied little man halts abruptly and gapes up at him.

“I’ll tell you what you’re going to do, Angelo. First of all you’re going to give me the name of every mortician in this city to whom you’ve ever sold the names of unclaimed bodies.”

“Unclaimed bodies?” The man half rises out of his seat. “I never—I never—”

“Come on, Angelo. Cut the crap. I’ve known about your little sideline for years—”

“Oh, no, Chief. I swear—I never—”

“Angelo!” Konig bellows, his fist smashing into the center of the desk; papers fly, glasses rattle, pencils roll.

“Oh, no, Chief. No. I never—I swear—I never—” The little man hiding behind his hands again, shaking like a leaf, is reduced to inconsolable sobbing.

“Angelo”—Konig starts again, more reasonably, more restrained—“you’re going to give me those names or else I’m going to file a formal report of what I saw downstairs tonight.”

“Oh, no. No—please, Chief. No, don’t do dat.”

“If I file such a report,” Konig hammers on remorselessly, “it won’t be a private matter. Your wife, your family, everyone, will hear about it.”

The old man whines behind his hands. “I givva those names, they gonna breaka my legs.”

“Angelo, I want those names.”

“They breaka my head—they gonna kill me.”

“No one’s going to kill you.”

“ Dio mio, Dio mio. ” The man wails like a mourning spirit.

“Listen to me, Angelo.”

“ Ma che vergogna, ma che disgrazia .”

“Listen to me.” Konig’s voice shatters once more through the office. Cringing from the sound, the man slumps deeper into a sour heap in his chair, and while he continues to whimper softly to himself, shaking his head incredulously back and forth, Konig stands above him like the wrath of God and speaks. “Now, this is what we’re going to do. Number one, you’re not going to be fired. You will resign for purposes of health. I’ll certify that. You’re only one year from retirement. I’m pretty certain I can get you your full pension.”

The little Italian starts to protest but Konig waves him to silence.

“Number two, you’re going to give me that list of names—”

Angelo Perriconi resumes his loud wailing.

“Shut up, Angelo. Let me finish. You’re going to give me that list and no one is ever going to know that you gave me the list. Your resignation has come about for reasons of health—right?” Konig peers down hard at him. “Right, Angelo?”

The man snivels and shakes his head.

Konig continues. “So no one will connect your resignation with this goddamned body-snatching racket. You understand?”

Whimpering, sniveling, the man nods his head and Konig continues. “Actually, I blame myself as much as you for this whole thing. I’ve known for about three years that you’ve been selling names and taking kickbacks from shady people. I figured you needed the extra money. I know you’ve got kids, a big family. I know there’s a boy in college. I suppose I looked the other way, hoping you’d quit yourself. I was wrong. I should’ve stopped you the moment I learned about it. Oh, will you stop that goddamned sniveling.”

The little Italian jumps, like a child recoiling from a blow, making Konig feel more angry with himself, more desolate. Averting his gaze from the little man’s shame, Konig’s eyes search desperately around the room, lighting finally on the coffeepot. “Want some coffee?”

Angelo shakes his head and slumps deeper into his seat. “As it is now,” Konig goes on ruefully, “I’m pretty sure we’ve got a full-fledged scandal on our hands. The newspapers will pounce on this like vultures. They won’t let go. Leave that to me. I’ll handle that.”

“My wife—my kids—Whadda hell they gonna say?”

“They’re going to say nothing because they’ll never know.”

The sobbing comes abruptly to a halt and the slumped, piteous figure turns a startled face toward Konig.

“I certainly don’t propose to tell them,” Konig goes on. “Do you?”

Still puzzled, not quite certain of the drift of thought here, the man shakes his head negatively.

“Do you, Angelo?”

“No, sir.”

“Good. Then it’s our secret. Right?”

Again the baffled man shakes his head, but a ray of hope has begun to creep into his features.

“Our secret—right, Angelo?”

“Right” The man sobs huskily, humiliation and defeat carried in the slump pf his shoulders.

“Now go home, Angelo. You’re tired.”

The man gazes up at Konig with red, teary eyes, mouth struggling to form words. But Konig, knowing all the arguments and all the old evasions, places his large index finger firmly against the little Italian’s lips. “Go home, I said.”

Once again in the solitude of his office, Konig, rattled and exhausted, settles wearily down to the municipal ledger sheets, the innumerable lines and columns, interminable figures, debits and credits, the shaving here in order to pad there, the small duplicities, the shabby fudging in order to wangle a piece of new equipment. The whole silly mosaic of evasions and petty frauds to be completed by the end of next week, delivered to City Hall, and there somehow to make sense to the jaded eye of the City Comptroller.

At approximately 11 p.m., eyes burning, the ache of his leg having spread up into the small of his back, Konig flings his pencils down and makes ready to go home. Stacking the ledgers neatly in the center of his desk, he reaches behind him and flicks off the Bunsen burner under the coffeepot. He is ready to go. But something still gnaws at him. Some bit of uncompleted business.

In the next moment he falls back in his chair, reaches for the phone and is dialing information, long-distance operator, Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Shortly, there is a high-pitched ringing on the wires, a number of gongs and bells, voices of unseen people caught momentarily in the lines stretching across the darkened continent. Fathers, uncles, sisters, brothers, enemies, and friends. Then a phone picked up thirteen hundred miles away and suddenly the receiver flooded with a roar of voices and twanging guitars.

“Will you turn that goddamn thing lower,” a woman’s voice shouts from the other end.

Konig shouts back. “Hello—”

“Wait a minute, f’Chrissake—will you?”

Konig hangs there amid a pause of mutterings and movements coming to him from Tulsa, Oklahoma. Then suddenly silence, as if a radio or TV has been rudely snapped off.