City of the Dead

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Old dresses. Old blouses. Old jeans, patched and faded. Tartan kilts. Slacks. Skirts. Suits—a navy, a plaid. The gown of silk organza with the faint fragrance of orange blossoms still clinging to it. An old terry bathrobe, buttons missing. On the door a shoe bag. Pumps and sandals. Loafers. Saddle shoes. A pair of clumsy cork-soled brogans purchased on a trip to Scotland. She used to rake leaves in them in the fall. Sneakers on the floor. Moccasins. A pair of absurd, floppy purple powder-puff slippers.

Paul Konig stands inside the closet in his daughter’s bedroom, sorting through her things. It is a large walk-in closet, full of good, familiar odors. The orange blossoms, of course, but also that unmistakable mixture of soap and cologne that used to permeate her hair, the slightly animal smell of youthful exuberance; these are still in the closet, clinging to the dusty, mote-filled shadows that hover there above the racks of garments.

Konig removes the terry robe with the patches and the missing buttons, folds it carefully and packs it into a large cardboard carton, along with a lot of Lolly’s other old things. He’ll buy her a new robe this weekend, he tells himself. Take a trip down to Saks or Lord & Taylor’s. She’s had that old robe since high school. She’ll need a new one. And all those shoes in the bag are shot now. All badly scuffed and some are out of style. Hardly worth repairing. She’ll need new ones. What about some of these new things the girls are wearing now? Damned pretty, he laughs. Much more stylish than in my time.

He takes the shoe bag down from the door and starts to carefully pack all of Lolly’s old shoes in a separate carton. He whistles softly to himself as he works, feeling a curious exhilaration, totally inexplicable in the light of the events of that day. Still, he feels good. Relieved about the Strang business, and, oddly enough, optimistic about Lolly. Yes, Lolly was going to be all right He had no reason to make such an assumption but he knew that, down deep inside. He knew it with as great a certainty as it was possible to know anything.

These people would no? harm his daughter. They wouldn’t be that stupid. Oh, they would threaten to all right. Taunt him and demand a large sum of money, which he would give them if he had to. But they wouldn’t hurt Lolly. She was, after all, the daughter of a fairly influential man. The Chief Medical Examiner of New York City, with powerful connections and very close links to the NYPD. It would be a little foolhardy to invoke the wrath of that kind of man. They might rip him off for a goodly sum, but they wouldn’t be stupid enough to hurt his child. The police would never close the books on a case like that. Yes, he would pay them the money and they would give him back his daughter. Fairly straightforward business. Almost routine in this lunatic day and age. The police might even recover some of the money, but he didn’t care particularly about that Yes, he was certain—very soon now his little girl would be coming home to him.

He whistles as he pulls out three or four pairs of old jeans in execrable condition. What in God’s name do kids see in these old rags? Christ. Make a religion out of them, they do. Buy ’em already torn and filthy. He laughs and chucks them onto a pile of other old things in a corner, destined to be tossed out with the morning trash.

Still, as he works, whistling, spirits lifted as they had not been for weeks, months, something gnaws at him. Some queasy unease; a faint sense of constriction in the chest. He is waiting for the phone to ring. He has been waiting for it to ring ever since he got home that evening. Not consciously waiting, for he doesn’t even know that his ears are cocked, and every nerve of his body coiled, waiting to spring at the sound of a bell. For several hours, in fact, he has been waiting to hear that voice—what did Carver call it, “Lovely—soft-spoken—said he’d call you at home tonight.”

Still, that is not what he’s been thinking about. He’s been thinking only of her. What it will be like having her home. How he will try to make things up to her. They might take a trip. Now that it was spring and the weather beautiful, they might go off somewhere together. Ideal time for Europe or why not even the-Orient? Both Lolly and Ida had always wanted to see the Orient. But he’d always pooh-poohed it. There was always a conference he had to go to in England, France, or Germany. So they’d always wind up going there. More civilized anyway, he’d tell them. Less chance of disease. Orient’s a filthy place. Can’t stand the food, and besides, the weather’s beastly. So, in the end, they’d do it his way. Always his way. God—what a selfish, insufferable bastard. Well, things would be different now.

Suddenly he wheels, staring down hard at the floor. “What was that?” he murmurs half aloud to himself, thinking he’s heard a phone ringing. But it isn’t. At least not in his house. Possibly across the way at the Cruikshanks’.

He goes back to the cartons once again and the old clothing, working in a desultory way now. Soon, he feels a little tired. That Strang thing—nasty business. Ugly, unpleasant. But glad it’s done with. Should’ve been done years ago. Cleared the air. Never liked Strang. Competent enough pathologist. But sloppy. No passion. Really doesn’t care. Just intent on rising. Next-step-up sort of thing. That’s the whole game with him. All this young breed—just winning—no real passion. Relieved now it’s over. Although he knows that as far as Strang’s concerned, it’s only just begun. Won’t take it lying down. Probably on the phone right now with his bigshot City Hall pals. But even that won’t help. Mayor might very well have my head Friday, but Strang will never be my replacement. Strang will not be ME of New York City. Not over my dead body, he won’t. “Now what in hell do you s’pose she wants with these?” he mutters, pulling out a pair of bright, filmy culottes, shaking his head and holding them up to the light. “Good Christ.” He laughs. “There’s a side of her I never knew.” And suddenly the phone is ringing. Not in his head this time, but somewhere in the house. So intently has he been awaiting that sound that hearing it now, at last, he doubts its actuality. Or at least he doesn’t understand it. Instead, he stands there stunned and baffled, listening to it ringing in his bedroom down the hall.

Then, finally, the significance of the sound dawns on him. He stirs, and in the next moment he is moving, first walking, then running, actually running. He turns the corner to his room, stumbles, barks his knee, trips, then bangs his jaw down hard on the edge of the night table. His teeth crack together and for a moment, sprawled there on the floor, hugging his knee, a cold, numb spot in the center of his forehead, he sees stars. The ringing, like a pulse, stabs relentlessly through the shadows of the room. Terrified it will stop, he staggers to his feet and lurches at the phone. Mustn’t stop. Mustn’t.

“Hello. Hello.”

“Dr. Konig?”

“Speaking.”

A pause, then suddenly the awful shriek. One, then another. A high, stricken sound, like a small animal being slaughtered.

“Hello,” Konig shouts. “Hello.”

Someone is breathing back at him from the other end but doesn’t speak. Then another shriek. A long, sustained wail of unutterable horror that stands Konig’s hair on end. “Leave her alone,” he shouts, but there’s a note of pleading to it. “Goddamn you. Leave her alone.”

Another pause in which he can still hear the breathing on the other end. Then another ghastly scream. A sound so awful, so horrifying, he must make it stop. Must get it out of his head.

He flings the receiver down with a crash onto the cradle and crouches there shivering on his bed with the sound still shrieking in his ears, and, curiously, the taste of salt in his mouth. He’s unaware of the blood seeping from a broken tooth in his jaw.

In the next moment the phone rings again. Just as violently as he slammed it down before, he now snatches it up; and there again is that awful, hideous sound.

“Leave her alone. Please. I beg you, whoever you are. Leave her alone. I’ll pay. I’ll pay you anything. Anything. Just don’t hurt her anymore.”

Suddenly the screaming ceases as abruptly as it had started. And he’s left there, beads of sweat glistening on his forehead, blood streaming from his mouth onto the bedspread.

“Good night, Dr. Konig,” says a refined voice whispering at him from the other end.