Kaufman surveyed the report that sprawled across the front page of the newspaper. He had no prurient interest in the story, unlike his elbow mate along the counter of the Deli. All he felt was a mild disgust, that made him push his plate of over-cooked eggs aside. It was simply further proof of his city’s decadence. He could take no pleasure in her sickness.
Nevertheless, being human, he could not entirely ignore the gory details on the page in front of him. The article was unsensationally written, but the simple clarity of the style made the subject seem more appalling. He couldn’t help
wondering, too, about the man behind the atrocities. Was there one psychotic loose, or several, each inspired to copy the original murder? Perhaps this was only the beginning of the horror. Maybe more murders would follow, until at last the murderer, in his exhilaration or exhaustion, would step beyond caution and be taken. Until then the city, Kaufman’s adored city, would live in a state somewhere between hysteria and ecstasy.
At his elbow a bearded man knocked over Kaufman’s coffee.
‘Shit!’ he said.
Kaufman shifted on his stool to avoid the dribble of coffee running off the counter.
‘Shit,’ the man said again.
No harm done,’ said Kaufman.
He looked at the man with a slightly disdainful expression on his face. The clumsy bastard was attempting to soak up the coffee with a napkin, which was turning to mush as he did so.
Kaufman found himself wondering if this oaf, with his florid cheeks and his uncultivated beard, was capable of murder. Was there any sign on that over-fed face, any clue in the shape of his head or the turn of his small eyes that gave his true nature away?
The man spoke.
‘Wannanother?’
Kaufman shook his head.
‘Coffee. Regular. Dark,’ the oaf said to the girl behind the counter. She looked up from cleaning the grill of cold fat.
‘Huh?’
‘Coffee. You deaf?’
The man grinned at Kaufman.
‘Deaf,’ he said.
Kaufman noticed he had three teeth missing from his
lower jaw.
‘Looks bad, huh?’ he said.
What did he mean? The coffee? The absence of his teeth?
‘Three people like that. Carved up.’ Kaufman nodded.
‘Makes you think,’ he said. ‘Sure.’
‘I mean, it’s a cover-up isn’t it? They know who did it.’
This conversation’s ridiculous, thought Kaufman. He took off his spectacles and pocketed them: the bearded face was no longer in focus. That was some improvement at least.
‘Bastards,’ he said. ‘Fucking bastards, all of them. I’ll lay you anything it’s a cover-up.’
‘Of what?’
‘They got the evidence: they’re just keeping us in the fucking dark. There’s something out there that’s not human.’
Kaufman understood. It was a conspiracy theory the oaf was trotting out. He’d heard them so often; a panacea.
‘See, they do all this cloning stuff and it gets out of hand.
They could be growing fucking monsters for all we know.
There’s something down there they won’t tell us about.
Cover-up, like I say. Lay you anything.’ Kaufman found the man’s certainty attractive. Monsters, on the prowl. Six heads: a dozen eyes. Why not?
He knew why not. Because that excused his city: that let her off the hook. And Kaufman believed in his heart that the monsters to be found in the tunnels were perfectly human.
The bearded man threw his money on the counter and got up, sliding his fat bottom off the stained plastic stool.
‘Probably a fucking cop,’ he said, as his parting shot. ‘Tried to make a fucking hero, made a fucking monster
instead.’ He grinned grotesquely. ‘Lay you anything,’ he continued and lumbered out without another word.
Kaufman slowly exhaled through his nose, feeling the tension in his body abate.
He hated that sort of confrontation: it made him feel tongue-tied and ineffectual. Come to think of it, he hated that kind of man: the opinionated brute that New York bred so well.
It was coming up to six when Mahogany woke. The morning rain had turned into a light drizzle by twilight. The air was about as clear-smelling as it ever got in Manhattan. He stretched on his bed, threw off the dirty blanket and got up for work.