A Dog's Ransom Read online

  Clarence assisted the man in hauling things out of his pockets—some wadded bills, keyring, filthy handkerchief, a couple of grimy shopping lists. Clarence was interested only in the address of the sister, and was already imagining having to search New York census departments to get it. “Haven’t you got a wallet? An address book?”

  “No.” Kenneth pulled out the third drawer. He hated that anyone saw and also touched his belongings.

  Next the table. It had a drawer, but in it were mainly knives and forks and spoons, some stolen from Horn and Hardart, a can-opener, and in one corner Kenneth’s Social Security card and papers pertaining to his disability money. The policeman copied his Social Security number.

  Now the books. Kenneth had eight or ten paperbacks and a couple of books from the public library on the floor under the front window. Clarence flipped through them. He also looked under the bed, and pulled the bed out so he could see behind it. He looked in the toilet, and also on the kitchen shelf above Kenneth’s hanging clothes, and in the pockets of all the clothes there.

  “I suppose the address is in your head,” Clarence said, frustrated and angry now, because he hadn’t found the money either.

  “My sister has instructions,” said Kenneth, “to kill the dog tomorrow night unless I have the thousand dollars by eleven p.m.”

  “And you expect to get away with this? And get more money? You’ve written another letter to Mr. Reynolds?”

  “I was going to phone him,” Kenneth said boldly, “at his house. If he wants his dog—” Kenneth’s temper burst forth. “The address of my sister is in my head and you’ll never get it!”

  Torture it out of the bastard, Clarence thought. He lit a cigarette. Haul him in, Clarence thought. Let a tough guy like Santini or Manzoni work him over. But how far would Santini or Manzoni bother going? One would have to whet their appetite somehow. Suppose they weren’t interested? Suppose Rowajinski didn’t crack? Could he himself crack Rowajinski? Here or at the precinct house? Would MacGregor let him, for instance? “Who’s bringing the dog over from Queens?”

  “My—my sister. I’ll meet her somewhere.”

  “She has a car? Her husband?”

  “She’ll come with her husband in their car.”

  What a fine family you have, Clarence wanted to say, but was afraid of antagonizing the man any further. The important thing, as Mr. Reynolds had said, was to get the dog back alive. But was he to believe this story? “Your sister lives in an apartment?”

  “A little house,” said Kenneth.

  “Can you give me some kind of guarantee?”

  “What kind?”

  “That’s for you to think of. Maybe I can speak with your sister on the telephone, make sure the dog’s alive, that she’ll bring it. Can I?”

  “I told you my sister has no telephone. I don’t want my sister involved!”

  The guy was really cracked. For the first time since he had been questioning him, Clarence averted his eyes out of a curious fear. Insane people—well, they disturbed him. You never knew what they were going to do. This fact reminded him that he had better keep his eyes on Rowajinski. But Clarence, much as he wanted the distinction of having found his man by his own effort, realized with comfort that he wasn’t alone. He’d ask Santini or MacGregor to have him worked over for the sister’s address. Meanwhile he would tell the Reynoldses he’d caught the kidnapper. His gloom lifted at the thought.

  “Mr. Rowajinski, you’ll please come with me to the station house,” Clarence said.

  There were protests. What a bore the man was!

  “Get your coat!” Clarence said.

  Kenneth was on the defensive, yet he felt a core of security in himself. How could they find a sister? At least on Long Island? His sister was in Pennsylvania. Kenneth once had her address somewhere, but he had lost it, and it certainly wasn’t in his head. “You will see it’s no use, if you want the dog. My sister will kill the dog by tomorrow night at six, if I don’t tell her the money is coming.”

  “How’re you going to communicate with her?”

  “I’ll call her some place. We have an arrangement.”

  Clarence hesitated. Was it true? The man hadn’t sent a letter to Mr. Reynolds, but it might be true that he was going to telephone him, and if he didn’t get the money, inform his sister. What did he have to lose by waiting another eighteen or twenty hours, Clarence asked himself. He put on an air of contempt and self-assurance. Officially, he should report Rowajinski at once at the precinct. But Reynolds wanted his dog. If the sister heard nothing, she would probably just kill the dog to be rid of it.

  “You see what I mean,” said Kenneth, pressing his advantage. The dog’s life was indeed a great weapon. “You know very well Mr. Reynolds can pay another thousand dollars. I promised my sister.”

  Work him over here, Clarence thought, and tried to gather his anger, his resolution. Wasn’t it what any of the fellows at the precinct would do, beat him up? Clarence was also convinced of his greater strength, though the Pole was a sturdy fellow. He walked towards Rowajinski slowly. “But there’s no harm in telling me where your sister is, is there? Let’s have it, mister!” Clarence slapped the Pole’s face with a half-closed fist.

  Rowajinski’s pink lips shook with the impact and he looked startled.

  Clarence grabbed the Pole’s clothes over his stomach and pushed him back against the wall. Clarence caught a whiff of frankfurter. He was doing what the books didn’t advise and what every cop did, under certain circumstances. He slapped downward on the bridge of the Pole’s nose. Clarence had seen Manzoni do it in a back room.

  “I’m not telling you! She’ll kill the dog!” Rowajinski said in a suddenly shrill voice.

  Clarence dropped his hands, and took his first breath in several seconds. He glanced at his watch. He ought to speak with Mr. Reynolds, he thought. “How did you catch the dog?”

  The Pole squirmed with pleasure, it seemed, and relaxed.

  “Oh, she just came. She’s a friendly dog. Just walked away with me.—I got in a taxi. I took the dog to Long Island.”

  “Your sister has a garden there?”

  Hesitation. “No, an apartment.”

  “You said a little house before.”

  “It’s an apartment.”

  “What area in Queens?”

  “I’m not saying!”

  Clarence thought of alerting the Queens patrol cars in regard to a black miniature poodle answering to the name Lisa. Wouldn’t the woman have to air the dog? Unfortunately not necessarily. And Queens was huge. “I want this dog delivered safe and sound. You understand?”

  “Of course.”

  “I’ll speak with you in a few minutes. I’ll be back.”

  Rowajinski looked suddenly suspicious, turning his head, peering with one eye at Clarence like a bird. “You’ll come back here?”

  “Yes.” Clarence went to the door and started to slide the bolt with the metal behind it.

  Rowajinski helped him. One had to pull out the metal before the bolt could slide. Clarence was thinking he should have tapped around the floorboards for the money, or what was left of it. Yet how could the bastard get away with it? If the sister was keeping the money, which was likely, the police could trace her—even if she wasn’t his sister. Torture it out of the Pole, once the dog was back.

  As Clarence went into the hall, the door to the right, up the steps, was closing. The landlady had been listening, of course. He heard the Pole locking and bolting his door as he went up the steps to the outside door.

  Clarence ran across the streets to the Reynoldses’ apartment house. It was now ten past 5 p.m. Mr. Reynolds wouldn’t be home from work. Breathless, Clarence asked the black doorman please to ring the Reynoldses’ apartment.

  “Mrs. Reynolds? Clarence Duhamell here. Can I com
e up to see you?”

  “Of course! Come up, please.”

  Clarence rode up and pressed the bell on the eighth floor. When she opened the door, Clarence went into the foyer, turned and smiled. “I’ve found the man. The letter-writer.”

  “You found him! And where is Lisa?”

  “He says the dog is with his sister on Long Island. He won’t say just where. He’s a man with a Polish name, lives on West End and a Hundred and third Street. The problem is, he wants another thousand dollars by tomorrow night, or his sister will kill the dog, he says.”

  “Oh, mein Gott!”

  “So I’ve come to discuss this with you. I’d like very much to speak with your husband, too. Can he come here? Now?”

  “Oh, I can call him. Sure!” She looked at the telephone. “But I’m sure he will say yes, give it. Is that the problem?—Oh, I don’t understand!”

  “I wish you would call him, Mrs. Reynolds—anyway.”

  She dialed a number, and asked to speak to Edward Reynolds. “Hello, Frances? Greta. Listen, I must speak with Ed. It is urgent . . . It’s more important than an interview. You must interrupt him.” A longer pause.

  Clarence waited nervously with his hands in his pockets. Greta was staring at the floor, biting her underlip.

  “Hello, Eddie! The policeman is here. They have found the man! . . . Yes! Now can you come home at once because there is something we must discuss . . . I can’t explain now but you must come . . .”

  Clarence wanted to settle it by telephone, but apparently Ed could leave his office at once.

  “He will be here in about fifteen minutes,” Greta said to Clarence. “He is very pleased. Won’t you sit down, Mr. Duhamell?”

  Clarence sat down on the edge of a chair.

  “How did you find him?”

  Clarence told her about trailing him to the house on 103rd Street. “I had him print something. This.” He pulled the folded paper from his inside pocket and stood up to hand it to her.

  “Ach, ja! It’s the same!”

  “Oh, yes. I’m positive.”

  “It’s not possible to make him tell where his sister is? They can make people tell things, can’t they?”

  “Oh, yes. Usually. I’d like to take him to the station house, but I’m not sure the fellows there would bother, frankly. I don’t know if he would crack. He’s an oddball.”

  It crossed Clarence’s mind that Greta might have been put to the torture herself, in her youth. Maybe she’d been held by the Germans, or her parents had. Greta got the ice bucket from the kitchen and asked Clarence if he would like a drink, or a coffee. Clarence declined. He wanted to get back to the Pole’s house.

  Then he heard a key in the lock, and Mr. Reynolds came in.

  “Hello! So you found the man.”

  “Yes. A Pole named Kenneth Rowajinski,” Clarence said, remembering now even the spelling.

  “Darling, he wants another thousand dollars,” Greta said.

  “Well—tell me more.” Ed dropped a briefcase on the sofa.

  “He wants you to leave a thousand dollars tomorrow night at eleven in the same place as before,” Clarence said. “Lisa’s now with the Pole’s sister in Queens. Or so he says.”

  “Um-m,” Ed groaned. “Did you speak with his sister?”

  “That’s the trouble. He won’t say where his sister lives, or her name. So there’s no way of telling if the dog is there. He says his sister will—she’ll kill the dog tomorrow night by six unless the money is promised. Now my—”

  “It’s unbelievable!” Ed said.

  “My idea,” Clarence continued, “is to try to trace the sister and meanwhile promise him that you’ll give the money tomorrow night. If we can find the sister between now and tomorrow night, we’ll get the dog and there’s no money involved. He’s supposed to confirm the money to his sister by—by tomorrow afternoon.”

  “Good God,” Ed murmured. He took the drink that Greta offered him. “Thanks, my dear. Now why won’t this Pole—What’s he like?”

  Clarence described him, and wrote the Pole’s name and address on a piece of paper torn from his notebook. “I searched the room for the sister’s address, but I couldn’t find anything. Not the money, either, the money you gave him.”

  “Oh, the money!” Ed said with impatience.

  “I had him print this.” Clarence took the piece of paper from the coffee-table, and showed it to Ed. “So I know he’s our man.”

  “Ye-es,” said Ed, and gave it back.

  “What shall we do, Eddie? It’s worth a try, no?” Greta asked.

  “Sure.” Ed sipped his drink. “I’m to get a letter tomorrow morning about this?”

  “He said he’d telephone you.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “At his apartment. That’s why I have to go back. To arrange something. To tell him if you’re in agreement about the money.”

  Ed smiled and shrugged. “You could’ve told him I was whether I was or not. Then look for the sister.” Ed was at once sorry he had said that. The young man was so proud of having found the man. And Ed knew he should be grateful. “You can tell him I’ll have the money. Do you think he’ll telephone me anyway?”

  “I don’t know, sir.”

  “The same place, same time? Between the eleventh and twelfth spikes in that fence?”

  “The same time, he said, anyway. May I use your telephone, sir? Then I’ll take off.”

  Ed gestured to the telephone. “Help yourself.”

  Clarence dialed Centre Street and identified himself. “I would like to find the whereabouts of the sister of Kenneth Rowajinski . . .” He spelled it. “Sister or sisters, possibly in Long Island.” Clarence gave Rowajinski’s address, his approximate age, and his Social Security number. Clarence said he would like the information as soon as possible to be telephoned in to his precinct house.

  “Who wants it? Your captain?”

  “Give the information to anybody there but be sure they take it down. It’s urgent.”

  Clarence turned back to the Reynoldses. “I hope to get some information about the sister tonight.” Clarence was inspired to extend his hand to Mr. Reynolds.

  Ed took his hand. The young man’s grip was firmer, more confident than his own.

  “This is the first interesting case I’ve had in a year. I hope to achieve something,” Clarence said.

  “Call us back tonight,” Ed said, “even if nothing happens. Doesn’t matter how late it is. Call us.”

  Clarence departed. Three minutes later he was knocking on the green door, down the few steps from street level, which opened to Rowajinski’s basement hall. Clarence knocked again, sure that Rowajinski could hear him, because his window was only three feet away in the front wall. Then the main door up the front steps opened, and Clarence went round on the sidewalk, and up the front steps to confront the landlady.

  “I’ve put him out. He’s gone.”

  “When? Just now?” Clarence looked up and down the street. “He’s gone? Where?”

  “I haven’t the slightest idea, but he’s out of my house!”

  “He took a—suitcase—?”

  “I think he had a suitcase. Good riddance! Trouble with the police! That’s all I need!”

  “Can I see his room?”

  “Why should you? No.”

  Clarence stammered, “Madam—if you please—I’m a police officer. I’m not going to damage anything.”

  Mrs. Williams opened the door wider, muttering something. She and Clarence went down the hall, and she unlocked the green door. “Filthy mess. Disgusting! What’s he done?”

  Clarence looked around him in astonishment. The drawers in the chest hung open, and some articles of gray-white were draped over them. The unmade bed looked
the same. A dirty trodden-on tie sprawled across the floor. A couple of cans of something remained on the shelf by the stove.

  “Did he say anything about Queens?” Clarence asked.

  “Queens?”

  “Long Island. About going there?”

  “I don’t know where he’s gone. He didn’t owe me any rent, that’s all I can say for him. And what’s he in trouble about?”

  “Can’t say just now, ma’am,” Clarence said quickly. “Did he ever speak to you about his sister?”

  “No. Never anything about a family.”

  Clarence believed her. “How long was he living here?”

  “Seven months. Seven months too long.”

  Clarence backed towards the door. “Good-bye, ma’am. Thank you. Oh—your name, please?”

  “Mrs. Helen Williams,” she asserted, as if it were nothing to be ashamed of.

  Clarence took a taxi downtown. It was a diagonal journey to Marylyn’s, and hell on the subway at rush hour. God damn it, he thought, Rowajinski gone! How would he find him in New York? If he asked for the help of the precinct house, the fellows would say (if they bothered to say anything), “What a dope! Found the guy and let him get away! Dummox Dummell!” Rowajinski would come to York Avenue tomorrow night for his money, however, of that Clarence was pretty sure. Pick him up then. All was not lost.

  “This is it, isn’t it?” asked the taxi driver, impatient.

  Clarence had thought they’d been sitting at a red light, but they had arrived at Macdougal Street, and he hastened to pull out his money.

  Marylyn was in. “What’s up?” she asked when she saw him.

  “Nothing,” Clarence said. Seeing her, he woke a little from his trance. He had told her about Edward Reynolds and his wife. It had been something interesting for a change, and success had come—and now this. Clarence looked at the telephone, wondering again if he should alert his precinct house to look for Kenneth Rowajinski. But Rowajinski wouldn’t communicate with his sister if they picked him up.

  “Something about the man with the kidnapped dog?” Marylyn asked. “You went to see him again?” Marylyn was sitting on her sofa, sewing a zipper into something.