The Face

had time to conduct at least cursory postmortems.
        In death, as in life, these castaways were served last.
        A telephone hung on the wall to the right of the door, as though considerately provided to enable the deceased to order pizza.
        Most lines permitted only in-facility communication, functioning as intercom links. The last of six lines allowed outgoing calls.
        Corky keyed in Roman Castevet’s cell-phone number.
        Roman, a pathologist on the medical examiner’s staff, had just come on duty for the evening shift. He was probably in an autopsy room elsewhere in the building, preparing to cut.
        More than a year ago, they had met at an anarchists’ mixer at the university where Corky taught. The catered food had been second-rate, the drinks slightly watered down, and the flower arrangements less than inspired, but the company had been engaging.
        On the third ring, Roman answered, and after Corky identified himself, he said, “Guess where I am?”
        “You’ve crawled up your own ass and can’t get out,” Roman said.
        He had an unconventional sense of humor.
        “It’s a good thing this isn’t a pay phone,” Corky said. “I don’t have any change, and none of the cheap stiffs here will lend me a quarter.”
        “Then it must be a faculty function. Nobody’s more miserly than a bunch of anticapitalist academics wallowing in the high life with fat checks from the taxpayers.”
        “Some might see a wide vein of meanness in your humor,” Corky said with a severe note that wasn’t characteristic of him.
        [166] “They wouldn’t be mistaken. Cruelty is my creed, remember?”
        Roman was a Satanist. Hail the Prince of Darkness, that kind of stuff. Not all anarchists were also Satanists, but many Satanists were also anarchists.
        Corky knew one Buddhist who was an anarchist-a conflicted young woman. Otherwise, in his experience, the vast majority of anarchists were atheists.
        In his considered opinion, pure anarchists didn’t believe in the supernatural, neither in the powers of Darkness nor in the powers of Light. They put all their faith in the power of destruction and in the new and better order that might arise from ruin.
        “Considering your backlog of work,” said Corky, “it seems to me academics aren’t the only ones who don’t always earn their fat checks from the taxpayers. What do you guys do here on the evening shift-just play poker, swap ghost stories?”
        Roman must have been only half listening. He didn’t pick up on the word here . “Banter isn’t your strong suit. Get to the point. What do you want? You always want something.”
        “And I always pay well for it, don’t I?”
        “The ability to pay cash in full is the virtue I admire most.”
        “I see you people have solved the rat problem.”
        “What rat problem?”
        Two years ago, the media had given extensive grisly coverage to the fact that sanitary and pest-control conditions in this very room and elsewhere in this facility had been deplorable.
        “The place must be rat-proof now. I’m looking around,” Corky said, “and I don’t see any lowbrow cousins of Mickey Mouse noshing on anyone’s nose.”
        The silence of shocked disbelief greeted this statement. When Roman Castevet could speak, he said, “You can’t be where I think you are.”
        “I’m exactly where you think I am.”
        [167] The smug self-satisfaction and sarcasm in Roman’s voice abruptly vaporized into a whisper fierce with self-concern. “What’re you doing to me, coming here? You’re not authorized. You don’t belong anywhere in the morgue, and especially not in there .”
        “I have credentials.”
        “The hell you do.”
        “I could leave here and come to you. Are you in one of the autopsy rooms or still at your desk?”
        Roman’s whisper grew softer but even more intense: “Are you nuts? Are you trying to get me fired?”
        “I just want to place an order,” Corky said.
        Recently Roman had supplied him with a jar containing tissue preservative and ten foreskins harvested from cadavers destined for cremation.
        Corky had given the jar to Rolf Reynerd with instructions. In spite of his congenital stupidity, Reynerd had managed to pack the container in a black gift box and send it to Channing Manheim.
        “I need another ten,” Corky said.
        “You