A Dog's Ransom

by Patricia Highsmith

  Besides Edward Reynolds, there were a couple of other people whom Kenneth watched now, one a woman with a white poodle, as it happened, smaller than the Reynoldses’ dog, and she wore high-heeled shoes and had dyed black hair as frizzled as her dog’s, and she met, now and then, a tall, flashily dressed man who was probably her boyfriend-unbeknownst-to-her-husband on a corner of Broadway and 105th Street, then they went either to a bar on Broadway or back to the woman’s house, where they stayed for about an hour. Another person he watched was a well-dressed but sad-looking adolescent boy who plodded every morning at 8:15 towards the 103rd Street subway. He looked somehow vulnerable. It had crossed Kenneth’s mind to kidnap the white poodle of the woman (once in a while she took it to Riverside Park and let it off the leash) and he might have done this, except for one small thing: one morning as Reynolds (whose name Kenneth hadn’t known then) came out of his building, he had opened a letter and dropped the envelope into a trash basket at Broadway and 106th. Kenneth had cautiously followed, and had taken the envelope out of the basket. Thus he had learned Reynolds’s name. This enabled Kenneth to write letters to Reynolds. Letters gave Kenneth pleasure, because he knew he got his message across, and knew he upset people. He was also aware that the letters were dangerous for him, but Kenneth’s attitude was that the pleasure that letters gave him made them worth it. He had written thirty or forty letters, he supposed, to a dozen people. Some of these people he had watched afterwards, as they came out of their apartment houses, and it amused Kenneth to see their frightened expressions as they looked around on the street, sometimes looking right at him. He got some names by seeing them on parcels being delivered to apartment buildings. He assumed the people were well-to-do, which meant any kind of threat could scare them.

  Now, Kenneth knew that since Reynolds had spoken to the police at the local precinct house, it was dangerous for him to cruise in that neighborhood, yet Kenneth knew that he would take walks, just around there. Would they put any extra police on to watch out for “suspicious characters”? Kenneth doubted that. The police had other jobs to do—yes, indeed, like sitting on their asses in the hamburger shop on Broadway, guns, notebooks, nightsticks and asses draped on either side of the stools as they slurped coffee and gobbled banana pie à la mode.

  Sunday evening, Kenneth strolled westward towards Riverside Drive around 8 p.m., the time when Reynolds or his wife had used to air Lisa. Maybe tonight he’d see Reynolds and wife, walking along the Drive in a melancholic way, without their Lisa. On either side of him, on 106th Street, the yellow squares of light in people’s windows were coming on. Castles, fortresses of snobs. You couldn’t get past their doormen to get at them, a thief couldn’t, or someone who might want to murder them. However, some thieves did. Kenneth smiled to himself, his pink lips curling up at the corners. Murder wasn’t his dish. He liked more subtle means. Slow torture.

  There was a cop. The tall blondish fellow Kenneth had seen three or four times before. Kenneth deliberately did not look at him as they passed each other on the east side of the Drive, only six feet apart on the pavement. But Kenneth felt the cop’s eyes on him. Kenneth much wanted to cross the Drive, to stroll down to 100th Street before making his way home, and there was no reason not to cross the Drive, in fact. Kenneth hesitated with one foot off the curb, his good foot on it, and the light was with him, but he hesitated. He was at 108th Street now, and he looked to his left, down the Riverside Drive pavement, to see if the policeman was going on southward. The policeman had stopped and was looking back, at him, Kenneth thought. Kenneth turned and walked east into 108th Street.

  Mustn’t go straight home, Kenneth thought, in case the cop decided to follow him. The street was rather dark. Kenneth concealed his limp as much as possible. He wanted to kill some time in a coffee-shop, or by buying beer and eggs in a delicatessen, but these places had lights, and if the cop did come in, he didn’t want the cop to have a good look at him. He wished very much to know if the cop was following him or not.

  Kenneth reached Broadway and turned downtown, walking on the east side of the street. At 105th Street, Kenneth stopped and casually looked behind him. There were at least eight people on the sidewalk, but no cop. Good. Kenneth decided to head for home. He had a sense of fleeing now, but also a sense of being in the clear. He let himself in the front door and slammed it, then limped to his own door and unlocked it.

  He was safe.

  Kenneth went to his table and hastily folded the page he had written to Reynolds. He put it in the top drawer of his chest of drawers under some articles of clothing. He looked at the unmade bed, thinking of the money. Relax, he told himself. Have a beer. But there wasn’t any beer. Now he didn’t dare go out again. Just do without, unfortunately. He set about making his dinner.

  Open a can of beans. He had a specially good brand of beans a little more expensive than Heinz, and that was one small treat for tonight. Kenneth read the paper, which he had already looked at, while he ate. Politics scarcely interested him. International conferences, even wars, were like things going on thousands of miles away from him, not touching his life at all—any more than a stage production could touch a person’s actual life. Sometimes a news item captured his attention, a woman mugged in a doorway on 95th Street, or a suicide found in a New York apartment, and he read every word of these things.

  Kenneth had tidied up and was stripped to the waist, washing himself at his basin, when there came a knock at his door. Because of the running water, he hadn’t heard any steps. Kenneth cursed, feeling extreme annoyance and slight fear. He buttoned his shirt again, but left it hanging out of his trousers.

  “Who is it?” he called sharply to the door.

  “Mrs. Williams!” came the assertive voice, as if the name itself were enough to gain admittance. It was his landlady.

  Kenneth irritably unlocked his door and slid the bolt back.

  Mrs. Williams was tallish, stout, shapeless. Her hair was gray, her expression anxious and sour. Under her arched eye-sockets her pinkish eyes were always stretched wide, as if she had just been affronted. “Are you in any trouble, Mr. Rowajinski?” She had an abominable way of pronouncing his name.

  “I am not.”

  She came back at him: “Because if you are, you’re getting out, do you understand? I’m not so fond of you, you know, or of your twenty dollars a week. I’m not going to have any doubtful characters on my property.” And so forth.

  Kenneth wondered what had happened.

  At last she came to it. “A policeman was just here asking me what your name was and what you did for a living.”

  “A policeman?”

  “He didn’t say what it was about. I’m asking you.”

  “How should I know? I haven’t done anything.”

  “You sure you haven’t? Spying in people’s windows or something like that?”

  “Did you come here to insult me?” said Kenneth, drawing himself up a little. “If you—”

  “A policeman doesn’t come asking questions unless there’s a reason,” she interrupted him. “I’m not having any creeps in my house, Mr. Rowajinski, because I don’t have to have them, there’s too many decent people in the world. If that policeman comes again, I’m putting you out, you hear me?”

  She’d have to give him some notice, Kenneth thought, but he was too taken aback to point this out. “All right, Mrs. Williams!” he said bitterly. He was holding his doorknob so fiercely his fingers had begun to hurt.

  “I just want you to know.” She turned and went.

  Kenneth closed the door firmly and relocked it. Well! At least the cop hadn’t asked to see him, hadn’t wanted to talk to him or search his room. Or was he coming back with a search warrant? This thought caused perspiration to break out on Kenneth’s body. The rest of the evening was miserable for him. He took the folded letter from his top drawer and destroyed it. He kept listening for footsteps,
even when he was in bed.

  6

  Clarence had been on the brink of asking to see the little man called Kenneth Rowajinski, but by that time it was nearly nine, and Clarence had not yet covered his beat once on foot, and he was to be rejoined by his partner for that night, a fellow named Cobb. Cops went in pairs after nightfall. MacGregor had told him and Cobb at the briefing to pay special attention to 105th Street tonight, because a woman had reported a strange man today in her apartment building, a man who had entered in some way other than by passing the doorman, and maybe he was in hiding there still, or maybe he had been casing the place for a robbery. Since 8 p.m. when he had gone on duty, however, Clarence had had eyes only for possible poison-pen letter-writers—that was to say odd- or furtive-looking people, and parting from Cobb for a few minutes, he had followed a stooped man, who did look very furtive, to a house on West 95th Street.

  This man was an Italian named John Vanetti, aged sixty or more, who didn’t speak English very well, and seemed to have a speech impediment besides. He had been terrified by Clarence’s following him, of his insistence on coming into his apartment, although Clarence had been as polite and gentle as anyone could possibly have been.

  “I’m going to ask you to print something for me.”

  “What? What?” The Italian had been shaking.

  “Write. Please. Just print. ‘Dear Sir. Will you meet me at York Avenue . . .’ ” It had been difficult, agonizing.

  The old fellow was a shoe repairman and worked in a shop on Broadway. Of this Clarence was sure. There were some cobbler’s tools in his crummy little one-room place. The man could hardly print at all, and kept making letters in script, so that Clarence was positive he was not “Anon.” Clarence had apologized and left. Astounding, Clarence thought, that old guys like that still existed in New York. He had thought they had died out in his childhood.

  After that, back with Cobb, Clarence had spotted the cripple, and at the sight of him Clarence felt that he had seen him before in the neighborhood. This was a quicker, brighter type than the Italian, with a slight limp and something about him made the word “eccentric” come to mind. That was the type he was after. Clarence had followed him and spoken to his landlady. But by then it was nearly nine, and Clarence had to make his hourly call to the precinct house on the hour tonight, so he had rejoined Cobb. But he knew the name now, Rowajinski, and where he lived, and he intended to come back tomorrow.

  To Clarence and Cobb, 105th Street looked as usual. They stopped to ask the doorman at the apartment house if all was well. The doorman seemed glad to see them. All was well, he said, as far as he knew.

  Just after 10 p.m., Clarence again parted from Cobb and went to Mr. Reynolds’s building. He asked the doorman to ring the Reynolds apartment. Mr. Reynolds answered.

  “This is Patrolman Duhamell. I wondered if you’ve had any messages. Any news.”

  “No, we haven’t. And you?”

  “Nothing. No clues from the letters, sir. I’ll check with you again tomorrow.” Clarence had rung Centre Street, but they said they had no letters in a similar handwriting.

  “Thanks. Thanks very much.”

  Clarence was touched by the disappointment in Mr. Reynolds’s voice.

  The next afternoon, Monday, around 4 p.m., Clarence went to the house of Kenneth Rowajinski. He was in civilian clothes. The landlady answered, and Clarence was in luck: she said Mr. Rowajinski was in. She showed him through a door and then down some steps into a hall. Then she recognized him from yesterday.

  “You’re the policeman!” she said, and seemed to be horrified.

  “Yes.” Clarence smiled. “I spoke with you yesterday.” It was astonishing the difference a uniform made. People seemed to think cops weren’t human, or didn’t own any ordinary clothing.

  “Tell me,” she whispered, “has this man done anything wrong? Because if he has—”

  “No. I just want to speak with him.”

  Clarence could see that she was dying to ask about what, but she led him to the pale-green door.

  “It’s here.” She knocked. “Mr. Rowajinski?”

  Kenneth opened the door, after sliding some bolts. “What is it?” He jumped back a little at the sight of Clarence.

  “Patrolman Duhamell,” Clarence said, and produced his billfold with his police card visible. “Can I talk to you for a few minutes?”

  Mrs. Williams gave a jerky nod at Rowajinski, as if to say now you’re going to get it. Clarence went into the man’s apartment. Mrs. Williams was still standing there when Rowajinski closed the door. He bolted it, and slid some kind of metal piece back through the bolt. It was a depressing, untidy room, quite big but ugly with grime and unfinished paint efforts. There was no sign of a dog.

  “What is it?” asked Rowajinski.

  Clarence looked at him directly and pleasantly. “We’re looking for someone—in this neighborhood—who has kidnapped a dog. Naturally we have to talk to a lot of people.” Clarence hesitated, startled a little by the man’s eyes that had grown suddenly sharp; but his dark pink lips were almost smiling. “Do you mind printing something for me? Just a few words?”

  Rowajinski shrugged, fidgeted, half turned away, and turned back. “Why should I?”

  Clarence didn’t know how he meant that. But he decided to assume it was an affirmative, so he pulled a notebook from his inside pocket and took it to the table, where lay a soiled plate, a fork, pens, pencils, a couple of newspapers. The man whisked the dirty plate away.

  He accepted the ball-point pen Clarence handed him, and sat down.

  “Please print,” Clarence said, “in block letters, ‘Dear Sir. Will you meet me at York Avenue.’ ”

  Kenneth had every intention of disguising his printing and started out with a D that swept back at top and bottom, followed by a small e, but by the time he got to “meet me at” he was printing the way he usually did, almost, and his heart was racing. It was curiously pleasant, as a sensation, and at the same time terrifying. He had been discovered, found out. No doubt about that. After “avenue” he handed the paper to the young man, trembling. He saw the recognition in the blue eyes.

  “Mr. Rowolowski—”

  “Mr. Rowajinski—uh—I’ll have to ask you some more questions.” Clarence pulled a straight chair near the table and sat down. “Your writing has a similarity to the letters at the station house. You wrote, didn’t you, to a Mr. Edward Reynolds, who lives at a Hundred and sixth Street?”

  Kenneth was trembling slightly. There was no way out now. “I did,” he replied, though not in a tone of total surrender.

  “And you have Mr. Reynolds’s dog?” Clarence asked on a gentler note. “Mr. Reynolds is mainly interested in getting his dog back.”

  Kenneth smiled slightly, stalling for time. Tell a story, he thought, prolong it. An idea was coming to him, out of the blue. “The dog is with my sister. In Long Island. The dog is all right.” At the same time, Kenneth realized it was an awful admittance: he had just admitted kidnapping the dog. The same as admitting he had pocketed a thousand dollars.

  “I suggest you get that dog here as quickly as possible,” Clarence stood up, smiling.

  The cop looked triumphant, Kenneth thought. Kenneth rubbed his chin.

  “Will you give me your sister’s address, Mr.—Rowajinski? I can pick up the dog right away.”

  “No,” said Kenneth quickly.

  “What do you mean ‘no’?” Clarence frowned. “I want that dog today and no nonsense about it! What’s your sister’s address?”

  “Queens.”

  “Has she got a phone?”

  “No.”

  “What’s her name? Her married name?—Look, Mr. So-and-so, I’m not going, to fool around with this. I want the answers, you get me?” Clarence took a menacing step towards him, and could have shaken the he
ll out of him by his shirt-front so eager was he to get on with it, but he was afraid this wasn’t quite the right moment, that he might gain more by a few minutes’ patience. “Let’s have her name and address.”

  “I would like another thousand dollars,” said Kenneth.

  Clarence gave a laugh. “Mr. Rowalski or whatever, I’m going to turn this place upside-down and get her address—now—or you’re going to the precinct house where you’ll get worse treatment. So let’s have it.”

  Kenneth was still seated at the table, and now he folded his arms. He was braced for slaps, blows, whatever. “You won’t find her address in this house,” he said rather grandly. “Also she knows if I do not receive another thousand dollars by tomorrow night, the dog is to be killed.”

  Clarence laughed again. He put his hands on his hips and surveyed the room, turning. “You can start by opening that chest of drawers or whatever it is,” said Clarence. “Okay, start.” He gestured.

  Kenneth got up. He had to. At that moment, no doubt because of their raised voices in the last seconds, footsteps sounded in the hall, the busy carpet-slipper-shuffling footsteps of the old bag Mrs. Williams, also the clump of Orrin whom she had probably summoned. They were going to listen outside the door, damn them. Kenneth went to his low chest which had three long drawers in it.

  “Empty your pockets first, would you?”

  “Have you got a search warrant? I’d like to see it.”

  “I’ll go on that,” Clarence replied, pointing to the paper Kenneth had printed, which lay on the table.

  As Kenneth moved towards it, Clarence leapt for it, folded it and pocketed it.