A Dog's Ransom Read online

  Clarence dialed the Reynoldses’ number. It was just before six. “Mrs. Reynolds? This is Clarence Duhamell. I would like very much to see you . . . Yes, there is news, we’ve caught Rowajinski, in case the precinct house didn’t tell you.” (They hadn’t.) “I—I’d rather tell you when I see you,” Clarence said with tortured awkwardness. She had asked about the dog, of course, and he could tell she knew there was no hope. “I’ll come right away, if I may.”

  Clarence took the subway, not wanting to arrive too soon, because he wanted Mr. Reynolds to be there. The rush hour was on, worst at Grand Central where he took the shuttle, difficult to breathe due to the pressure of people. Newspapers were crushed under passengers’ arms. It was a sea of disgruntled, grim, blank, brooding faces, waiting for the roaring train to spill them into a little more space somewhere. Out of habit, Clarence looked around for pickpockets, then realized that everyone’s hands were pinned at the spot they had been in when the last person had been thrust in by a guard, and the door slid shut. Clarence got out at the 103d Street station, and walked to the Reynoldses’ apartment house. The colored doorman was on duty.

  By this time it was 6:40 p.m. Mr. Reynolds was in.

  “So they’ve caught the Pole again,” Mr. Reynolds said after he had greeted Clarence in the foyer. “And what about the dog?”

  “The Pole says now—” Clarence was following Mr. Reynolds into the living-room, “Good evening, Mrs. Reynolds.” She was standing by the coffee-table. “The Pole says that—that he killed the dog the night he caught her. That he hit her on the head with a rock.”

  “Oh, Jesus.” Ed turned away. He pulled the palm of one hand down his face.

  “All right, Eddie,” said his wife. “We almost knew, didn’t we?”

  “What’re they going to do with this psychopath?” Mr. Reynolds asked.

  “I don’t know, sir. He ought to be locked up. In a mental institution, I mean.”

  “So—he hit her on the head. Then what? He took her away? She wasn’t there in the bushes. I looked. No sign of blood. I looked the next morning.”

  “He said he carried the dog to his house. His room. He said he wrapped her in something and—left her somewhere. I don’t know where.”

  “Buried her somewhere?” Ed gave a slight laugh.

  “Eddie—” Greta’s voice trembled.

  “I don’t know, sir,” Clarence said.

  Ed shoved his hands into his pockets. He walked towards the window, his shoulders hunched.

  Clarence said, “I’m surprised the precinct house hasn’t called you. They found most of the money on the fellow. He was in a hotel in the Village.”

  “Oh, the hell with the money,” Ed said. He was thinking what a disgusting city New York really was. You had to rub elbows, you did rub elbows with creeps like this one every day of the week, every time you rode a bus or a subway. They looked like ordinary people but they were creeps. His heart was beating rapidly, and he was imagining tearing Rowajinski limb from limb, catching him by the throat and smashing his head against a wall. He could do it, he thought.

  Greta was weeping without a sound, wiping her tears from time to time. Almost mechanically she was putting ice into three glasses, pouring scotch.

  Clarence accepted the glass she gave him.

  Ed Reynolds was wandering about with slow steps, looking at the floor.

  “I’m now accused,” Clarence said, “of having taken five hundred dollars to let Rowajinski escape. Rowajinski accuses me.”

  “Oh?” said Ed. It registered, but not much. What if it were true? So what? He glanced at the young cop’s serious blue eyes. Was he serious? Was he honest? Did it much matter?

  “I don’t think my precinct Captain thinks I took it. They certainly won’t find the money on me at any rate. What I do reproach myself for—” He stopped, realizing that since the dog was dead, Mr. Reynolds wouldn’t give a damn about his inefficiency, or whether he reproached himself for it. And indeed, Mr. Reynolds might not have heard what he said.

  Mr. Reynolds was talking quietly to his wife. He put his arm around her shoulder and kissed her cheek.

  Clarence felt the sooner he left the better. He finished his drink at one draught. The drink hit his stomach and almost came up again, and Clarence tightened his throat, wincing.

  Mr. Reynolds looked at him with mild surprise.

  Just then Clarence remembered that he had to call Marylyn to arrange where to meet tonight. Was the play at 9:30 or 8:30? Since he could not possibly ask the Reynoldses to use their telephone for this, Clarence became slightly more rattled.

  “Mr. Reynolds,” Clarence said, “I’m going to see that Rowajinski gets the maximum, gets all we can give him.”

  Again, Mr. Reynolds did not seem too interested.

  “Won’t you sit down, Mr. Duhamell,” said Greta.

  Clarence handed her his glass automatically, because she reached for it. He sat down carefully on an upholstered straight chair. Greta returned in no time with a fresh drink for him.

  “I have to tell you,” Clarence began, “that I am very ashamed that I let Rowajinski get away the first time. I told my precinct that. My Captain. I blame myself.”

  “I understand,” Ed mumbled, wishing the fellow would leave. “Just what, frankly, can they do to this Pole? Just lock him up in a mental institution?”

  Clarence shrugged. “I know they’re crowded. They can detain him now, anyway. I mean—a fine and imprisonment. It’ll be a long time before he’s out.” It was not what he had meant to say, and was it true that it would be a long time? “I’ll do my best. It’s strange that they suspect me of taking money, when I gave them the most careful description of this fellow, the Pole. A limp, that’s already a great help in looking for someone. But Manzoni—the one who found Rowajinski at the hotel in the Village—There’s no doubt he was lucky. I wish I’d found him. I—” Clarence had started to say he spent many nights in the Village himself.

  The telephone rang. Ed seemed not to hear it. Greta answered it, then called her husband.

  “Hello?” said Mr. Reynolds. “Yes . . . Yes, thanks. I heard.”

  Clarence knew it was his precinct house, that they had waited until Mr. Reynolds was home to telephone. Clarence hoped Mr. Reynolds would not say he was here. Nervously, he took a swallow of scotch and water.

  “Yes, I can do that,” Mr. Reynolds was saying in a bored tone.

  They wanted him to pick up his money. Clarence was feeling the scotch. How could life get any worse? Clarence stood up when Mr. Reynolds put the telephone down.

  “I’m supposed to go to the precinct house for the money,” Ed said. “Asked them to send a check, but they won’t. I’m supposed to go now.”

  “Sit down, Eddie,” said Greta. “Relax for a minute.”

  Ed paid no attention, only walked about.

  Clarence thought of offering to accompany Mr. Reynolds to the precinct house. But Mr. Reynolds might not even want him to. “I must go now,” Clarence said. “I want to state my promise again. I will see that some justice is done. To the best of my ability.” He blurted suddenly, “Don’t think I like it, Mr. Reynolds, that I’m accused of taking five hundred dollars to let this psycho go! Not accused exactly but suspected.”

  “I suppose that’ll blow over,” Ed said, bored with it. Lisa, his and Greta’s dog, was dead. Ed realized he was enduring grief such as he had endured when he knew definitely that his daughter was dead, had been killed. A dog, a daughter—there should be a great difference, yet the feeling was much the same. At least at that moment. And he could not sit still, he had to walk about, looking at the floor, wishing the cop would go. “I don’t think I want to see this Pole,” Ed said. “I don’t suppose I have to see him, do I?”

  Clarence said, “Not if you don’t want to, sir, I’m sure.—Good-bye, Mrs. Re
ynolds. Thank you.”

  Clarence went to the door. Even Mrs. Reynolds did not say anything except “good night” as she closed the door behind him. Clarence decided to take a taxi straight to Marylyn’s rather than look for a telephone. He felt ashamed, stupid, and somehow weak, as if he had behaved weakly. I swear I’ll make it up to him, Clarence said to himself.

  ED REYNOLDS TOOK OFF HIS SHIRT and washed at the bathroom basin. What was he washing off this time? “Darling, I promise,” Ed shouted over the running water to something Greta was saying, “they won’t keep me more than ten minutes, because I’ll refuse to stay there. You can start dinner, really.”

  Ed walked to the precinct house. A black policeman, as before, sat on a straight chair at the door and barely glanced at Ed as he came in. Ed had asked him where to go. It was again Captain MacGregor whom he was to see.

  There were two or three other police officers in the room where MacGregor was. “Edward Reynolds,” Ed said to MacGregor.

  “Oh, yes,” said MacGregor. “Would you have a seat?”

  Ed sat reluctantly.

  “The kidnapper of your dog, Kenneth Rowajinski, was found today at the Hotel George on University Place. About twelve hundred dollars of the money was found in his room. He seems to have a savings account of about four hundred dollars . . .” MacGregor was consulting a paper on his desk.

  Ed was suffering boredom. There were more details.

  “. . . tomorrow,” MacGregor was saying. “At least we hope tomorrow. The psychiatric department is busy these days.”

  Ed gathered that someone would come tomorrow to the station here to see the Pole.

  Captain MacGregor went to a drawer and unlocked it, pulled out an envelope. “This is your twelve hundred and twenty dollars, Mr. Reynolds. We’ll get what we can to make up the rest for you. I am sorry about your dog.” He laid the envelope on the edge of his desk.

  “What’re you going to do to this fellow, besides have a psychiatrist look at him?” Ed asked.

  “Well—he’ll be under surveillance for several weeks. Maybe locked up. What they decide to do isn’t really for me to say.”

  It never was, Ed supposed. There was always somebody just above, someone with more, or different authority, someone you never saw and who didn’t even exist in a sense.

  “Would you like to speak with Rowajinski? He’s in the cage back there.”

  Ed got up suddenly. “No, no, thank you. Serves no purpose, does it? My dog is dead.—How many police patrol Riverside Park, by the way?”

  “Oh—a hundred, maybe more. It was very bad luck, Mr. Reynolds. I know the Park’s a rough place after dark. I know.”

  Ed felt his anger rise. He hated it. Anger without purpose, hurting only himself. He tried to appear calm, but his bitterness found another outlet. “And this young officer—Duhamell? He let the Pole escape?”

  “Ah, Patrolman Dummell! Yes. He’s new, fairly new on the force. He made a mistake there. It was another officer who picked up Rowajinski, not Dummell. Dummell’s got a lot to learn.”

  “What’s this about his having taken five hundred dollars?”

  “You know about that?”

  “Dummell just told me.”

  “Told you he took it?” The man’s small eyes widened.

  “Oh, no. He says he didn’t. Says the Pole accuses him. But what do you think?”

  MacGregor glanced down at his desk and shifted on his feet. “Dummell telephoned you?”

  Ed hesitated, feeling disrespect for all of it, even a curious detachment. “Yes.”

  MacGregor shrugged.

  Ed sensed that MacGregor didn’t know what to say to be correct, safe. Did the police have to protect the police, Ed wondered, no matter what? Probably.

  “About five hundred is missing from what we found on Rowajinski. Nothing that shows how he spent it. We are asking Dummell, yes. It seems funny to all of us that Dummell would’ve caught this guy and then left him for half an hour while he talked to you about a second thousand dollars. Isn’t that right?”

  “Right,” said Ed dully. He didn’t give a damn. To hell with the police. They hadn’t even recovered his dog’s corpse. “So I thank you very much, Captain.”

  “Oh, don’t forget your money, Mr. Reynolds! And you’re supposed to sign this, if you will.”

  Ed did not even read the paper, just signed it.

  “That’s a receipt for twelve hundred and twenty,” said MacGregor. “And we’ll certainly get the rest. We’ll attach this guy’s compensation.”

  Ed nodded. Nods meant nothing. He walked to the door and out.

  Ed took the familiar avenue homeward, Riverside Drive. What a funny city New York was—eight million people, and no one knew anybody and didn’t really want to. It was a conglomeration to make money, not because people were fond of their fellow men. Everyone had a fragile web of friends on the map of New York—friendships that had nothing to do with geography, neighborhood. Everyone in his way excluded the masses, the unknown, the potential enemy. And Duhamell or Dummell (easy to imagine his name becoming Dummell in another generation), was he honest? Did he need some money just now? Was there a girl in the picture? Ed stopped and turned half around, facing the river, thinking to go back to the precinct and tell them that he didn’t care, personally, whether Dummell had taken the five hundred dollars or not. No, even that was dramatic, Ed thought. And the police didn’t care, personally, either.

  Ed pushed his doorbell and Greta—after looking through the peephole—let him in. Ed embraced her in silence. Then he hung his coat, and seeing the white envelope in the coat pocket, he pulled it out.

  “What’s that?” Greta asked.

  “They gave me twelve hundred dollars back. Said they’d get the rest.” He dropped the envelope on the hall table. Lisa’s leash, hanging inside the closet door, made a last tap as it swung and was silent. Ed suddenly remembered that Lisa’s water bowl was no longer on the kitchen floor. Greta had removed it one day—Monday?—when he had not been here. Must get rid of the leash, or put it somewhere else, but not just now.

  “What do you think of the young cop? Duhamell.”

  “Oh?—why do you ask? He’s a little strange.”

  “Strange?” Greta was intuitive. Ed was interested in what she might say. “Do you think he’s honest?”

  “Yes. But a little weak.” Greta was preoccupied, and drifted into the kitchen.

  Ed followed her. “Weak how?” Ed expected her to say, “Why are you interested?” or “What does it matter?” Duhamell had twice seen Rowajinski, and that, somehow, was why Ed was interested. Duhamell was, in a sense, a link with this evil.

  “I don’t know. He’s young. Too young,” said Greta, opening the oven door. “I don’t feel much strength from him.” She pulled out a slender, browned loaf of bread that smelled of butter and garlic.

  “His precinct captain thinks—seems to think he might’ve taken the five hundred bucks. Or they simply don’t know. What do you think?” Ed was talking, he realized, to avoid thinking about Lisa.

  “No, I don’t think so,” said Greta, pronouncing “think” like “zink.” She looked tired.

  They should go to bed early, Ed thought, and then what, and then what? It was possible to be tired without sleeping. And he ought to read another hour tonight, at least. He had to make his report on two books which bored him, but which he knew C. & D. would publish whatever he said, one on pollution, the other an excruciating four hundred pages called Horizon with Seagull (he wished he could forget the title) about a young American girl’s first trip to England with ensuing romance. Bilge. Incredibly, C. & D. made a little money on such books. Then he might lie with Greta in his arms, as if she were his mother, his sister, a female comforting him. Ed set his drink down and plunged suddenly into the bathroom. He bent over the basin an
d pressed his hand against his forehead, grimaced, and let the tears come, turned the water on to drown out a brief, choking sound. Okay, he told himself, one long minute, two, and never again. As with Margaret. He blew his nose on toilet paper, washed his face in cold water, combed his hair, all as quickly as possible. Never again. Good-bye, little Lisa.

  Greta had put shrimp cocktails on the table. There was a cool bottle of Riesling already uncorked. Ed turned on WQXR and put the volume low. A Mozart concerto. He had no appetite, but without Greta he would not have eaten at all. She wore a pink blouse with a darker pink flower pattern. Ed suddenly remembered that the night he met her she had been wearing a pink blouse also, at the party given by Leo somebody, down on 8th Street. Greta had looked painfully shy, sitting with a stemmed glass that she was not drinking from, the only person in the room alone, not talking, and Ed had gone towards her. She had been born in Germany, she had told him by way of explaining her accent, and her parents had moved to France when she was four, in 1933. She was half-Jewish. She had come to America when she was eleven. “I am not good at languages, zat is why I have an accent,” she had said, laughing. (But she spoke French perfectly, Ed discovered later.) Ed had a Russian grandmother. That was all he could muster by way of matching her exoticism, the rest was American for some time back. He had been twenty-eight. Less than a year before Ed had been divorced, and he had custody of Margaret, because Lola had left him for another man. Ed had not said anything of that to Greta that evening, nothing about his marriage or his five-year-old daughter, but a new world had opened with Greta. He had entered it cautiously, like Greta herself. He had been living in a small apartment on West 18th Street, working on a novel, earning money by writing articles that didn’t always sell, and by reading for publishers. He had had a baby-sitter, a woman who lived in the same street and who could come on short notice, for the times when he had to be out of the house. Greta had changed all that like a fairy queen with a magic wand—effortlessly. She had been busy with concerts in New York, Philadelphia, and Boston, but it was amazing the time she had found for him, evenings, weekends, amazing the way she had transformed his apartment into a home where one could laugh, eat, relax, and be suddenly happy. Greta and Margaret adored each other. “I am afraid to have children. I have seen too much,” Greta said. Ed never had tried to persuade her to change her mind.