Herbert Lieberman - City of the Dead

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.”