Herbert Lieberman - City of the Dead

“Very noble, very magnanimous,” the Deputy Mayor whines gratingly. “None of that, you realize, mitigates one iota the fact that you are now up to your ass in a cover-up scandal that’s cost the City—”

“Fine. I plead guilty. What does the Mayor want me to do? Resign? Very well. I resign.”

“I didn’t say anything about—”

“I’m a doctor. Not a policeman. If the Mayor wants a policeman to supervise the ethics of the personnel in this office, let him goddamned well hire one. I’ll serve him gladly. He’ll have my complete loyalty and affection.”

“Paul, for Chrissake—”

“And my pity, I might add. I’ve had it with fiscal budgets, requisition forms, bureaucratic Neanderthals, hack politicians, retrograde morons—”

“Paul, listen to me—”

“—petitioning the City in triplicate for pencils and paper clips. I’m a doctor. I’m a—”

“Paul—Carl Strang is in the Mayor’s office right now.” There’s a pause in which both men listen to each other breathing. Konig can feel a pulse beginning to drum at his temple. “So?”

“They’ve been closeted for half an hour.”

Rue and anger rising in his gorge, Konig suddenly has an image of Strang, unctuous and sycophantic, telling his tale, spilling his guts to the Mayor. He can see the hand-wringing, the breast-beating, hear the woeful litany of such typical Strang adjectives as “regrettable,” “deplorable,” “unfortunate.” And Strang sitting there before the Mayor in the leather-mahogany sanctum sanctorum of City Hall, bowing and scraping, genuflecting like a mandarin, dizzy with adulation, and Uriah Heeping before that exalted personage, His Honor the Mayor.

“Was he summoned?” Konig spits the words out. “Or did he just show up on the doorstep?”

“A little of both, I’m afraid. The Mayor called him early this morning, after he’d read the story. Suggested offhand that they might chat at some vague, indefinite time in the future. About two hours later, Strang walked through the front door. Paul—this man is no friend of yours.”

Another pause in which Konig drops a ball of wadded paper from his fist. “Thank you, Maury. Thank you for telling me that. And if it’s any consolation, you may tell His Honor the Mayor that the man responsible for leaking the names of unclaimed bodies has been relieved of his duties. I will also have a complete list of all those morticians and funeral parlors in question on the Mayor’s desk tomorrow morning.”

No sooner has he slammed the phone down than it rings again.

“Konig here.”

“Dr. Konig?”

“Speaking.”

“Bill Tracy at the Times. You’re a tough man to reach.”

“Been busy.”

“I’ll bet you are. I was wondering about your reactions to the Post story.”

“What story is that?”

“Story in yesterday’s Post. ”

“Haven’t read it yet so I’ve got no reactions. Is that all?”

The baffled pause that follows produces in Konig a mild lift of pleasure.

“Well,” the reporter plods on, “do you know what it’s in regard to?”

“You mean the body-snatching thing?”

“Right.”

“What about it?”

“Is it true?”

“Oh, sure—we’ve been in the body-snatching racket here for years. Been selling the stiffs to fertilizer manufacturers.”

“Fertilizer manufacturers?”

“Sure,” Konig rants on spitefully. “Good money in stiffs. Too bad some loudmouth had to go blow the whistle and ruin it for all of us. Supported my drug habit for years.”

Another baffled pause. Konig lights his cigar with mounting fury.

“I see,” says the reporter, a note of chill creeping into his voice as he catches the gist of Konig’s quirky humor. “Is it true that you’ve been aware for several years that people in your office have been selling names of unclaimed bodies to local morticians?”

“Who says so?”

“I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to disclose my sources of—”

“Never mind,” Konig snaps, “I know who. Well, if Strang says so, it must be so. Strang’s an honorable man.”

“Well, I didn’t mean, sir—”

“Quite all right,” Konig says. “I know exactly what you meant.”

Another pause. Konig can almost reach out and touch the puzzled consternation at the other end.

“Well, I was just wondering—” the reporter struggles on. “There’s a rumor going around—”

“Rumor? What rumor? I never listen to rumors.”

“I don’t either—but this one is pretty solid.”

“Solid?”

“Impeccable sources. It’s about the DA’s office.”

“DA’s office?” Konig’s ears perk.

“According to a report we’ve had here, the DA is planning a full-scale investigation of the Medical Examiner’s Office.”

“Full-scale investigation?” Konig mumbles, all former levity gone.

“Yes, sir. According to well-placed sources, you’ve been in collusion—”

“Collusion? What in God’s—”

“Yes, sir—with several people in your office. Demanding kickbacks from morticians for the names of unclaimed bodies, knowing full well these bodies were being buried at public expense, and that you plotted to conceal—”

“Plotted to conceal—” Konig mumbles the words without comprehending them.

“Yes, sir—and that you were fully aware that—”

Konig quietly places the receiver on the cradle. For several moments he sits at his desk, numb, spent, musing distantly while the cigar expires in a smog of smoke between his fingers. A variety of emotions churns within him, none of which he is able to define. But fear—fear is not one of the emotions he is feeling. He is not afraid of the District Attorney, or the Speical Investigator, or the Mayor, or public chastisement from the press. What he is feeling principally is shame.

A sudden vision of old Bahnhoff rises before him, the stern, iron-gray visage glowering at him—he who has brought shame on the Office. Body snatching, faked and shoddy protocols, deliberate concealment of wrongdoing. What would Bahnhoff have done about such shenanigans during his own tenure? The old German would have rooted them out mercilessly. There would have been excoriations, public hangings, all hell to pay, but the Office would have been cleansed.

The phpne rings again, jarring his ruminations. A picture of Lolly flashes through his mind as he snatches it up, expecting to hear her voice, or her captors demanding money.

“Konig here.”

“Where the hell you been?” Flynn’s voice comes pant-ting and susurrant out of the receiver. “Been tryin’ to reach you for hours. Listen—I’m over in Jersey. That Doblicki job. You were right. Gotta hand it to you. The Jersey boys finished with him a couple of hours ago. Pulled a thirty-eight-caliber slug outta the inside of the head. Reason you guys missed it was the goddamn thing was all buried and covered with ash. In the back, just like you said. How the hell didja know it was the back of the head?”

“Never mind, Flynn. Just get on with the story.”

“I am—I am,” Flynn whines. “For Chrissake, gimme a chance, will ya? What I’m tryin’ to say is they got the guy dead drunk, shot him in the back of the head, doused him with gasoline, dumped him into a car along with a lot of gin bottles, and set the whole thing on fire. Then they pushed the car over an embankment to make it look like he drove off drunk. The guy was a big lush anyway. So they figured it would all look pretty plausible.”

“They? They?” Konig snaps. “Who’s they? Did you get the bastards?”

“Relax—relax,” Flynn goes on, barely able to suppress the triumph in his voice. “I’m comin’ to that. It was the goddamned brother. Got him dead to rights. Soon as we had the autopsy report from your pal Weinstein, we marched right over to the wife with the remains of the bullet. The brother’s right there”—Flynn giggles spitefully—“just happened to be spendin’ the night. Consolin’ the newly bereaved widow, don’tcha know? Soon as we laid it on him, he put the whole blame on her. Then she put the blame on him. Ain’t love grand? There was a hundred-thousand-dollar straight life policy plus a double-indemnity rider on Doblicki’s life. These two bastards were gettin’ ready to ride off into the sunset with nearly a quarter of a mil. How d’ya like them apples?”