A Dog's Ransom (2 page)

2

L
isa had disappeared on a Wednesday evening. Thursday morning early, Ed returned to Riverside Drive and the Park and looked over the ground. Now he even looked for blood. He did not know what to think, what he should imagine. He saw no odd signs on the ground, yet he realized it was absurd to look for disturbed leaves, even a scrape in the earth, in a public park like this. It wasn’t exactly virgin territory where one could read a broken twig, in case one noticed one. He felt compelled to look along the curb of the street above, to see if Lisa had been hit by a car and her body possibly not yet removed.

He went back to the apartment to report to Greta that he hadn’t found anything. Greta gave him another half cup of coffee. The
Times
had arrived, delivered to the door by George, but the notice about Lisa would not be in until tomorrow, Friday. Ed had arranged to run it for three days unless he canceled. He could have put an ad in the
Post
too, he realized.

“Don’t worry so, Eddie. Maybe someone found her last night and didn’t telephone because it was late. Maybe this morning I’ll hear something.” Greta had said she was going to stay in all day.

“Call me, would you?—Call me anyway this afternoon.”

“Of course.”

Greta was just over five feet, and rather plump, German-Jewish, and born in Hamburg. She had slightly buck teeth with a space between them, reddish-brown hair that was fine and short-cut, eyes that could look green or light brown. She played the piano well, and had been a concert pianist with a philharmonic orchestra until she married Ed thirteen years ago. Her marriage had put a stop to her concert career, but she did not regret it, or had ever seemed to, to Ed. Her early life had been rough, exile with her parents first into France, where she had gone to school until 1940, then America where her parents had had a difficult time settling and making a living in Philadelphia. Ed always thought of Greta as older than himself, but she was forty while he was forty-two. She was older in experience, Ed felt. Anyway, he liked to think of her as older, it made her more attractive to him. She was not the mother of his daughter Margaret. Margaret was the only child of a marriage Ed had made when he was twenty-two, an unwise marriage.

Ed did not want to leave the apartment, and left as late as he dared, 9:12. He had a 9:30 appointment, and treated himself to a taxi. In the taxi, he thought, “Something ghastly has happened, and we’ll never see Lisa again.”

Then after a good lunch with a writer named MacCauley, and Ed’s secretary, Frances Vernon, Ed’s spirits lifted. As he puffed a cigar (he smoked about four a week) and laughed at a story MacCauley had told, he thought. “There’ll be news this afternoon or tonight about Lisa for sure.”

But that evening brought nothing. Eric Schaffner—a retired professor of art history who had been a friend of Greta’s father—came for drinks and as usual Greta urged him to stay for dinner. Ed was glad he declined.

“Oh, you’ll get Lisa back,” said Eric with confidence.

Sometimes Greta and Eric lapsed into German, which Ed did not understand, though he had picked up a few phrases from Greta. That evening he did not try to understand and was slightly irked by their German.

“Darling, tomorrow is another day, and tomorrow the ad is in,” Greta said, when Eric had gone.

“Even tonight it’s in,” Ed said. “By around ten the papers are on the stands.”

But the telephone did not ring that evening.

Ed took his time Friday morning. The mail came around 9:30. He had no appointment until 11:30. “I want to wait for the mail,” Ed said in answer to Greta’s remark about his lateness. It was then ten past nine. George or Mark, another doorman who was white, delivered the mail under people’s doors. “I think I’ll go down, in fact.” He avoided looking at Greta, and in a deliberately casual way walked to the door.

Ed had been braced for the clumsy printing on the cheap envelope, but the sight of the envelope when Mark handed it to him downstairs—along with three other items—sent a shock of dread through him.

“No word about your dog, Mr. Reynolds?” Mark asked.

“No, not yet,” Ed said.

“We’re certainly keeping a lookout down here. I even told the delicatessen fellow and his wife this morning.”

“Good. Thanks,” Ed said. He wanted to get to the safety of his apartment before he opened the letter, but on the other hand Greta was there—and he wanted to spare her. He opened the letter in the moving elevator.

DEAR SIR:

I HAVE YOUR DOG LISA. SHE IS WELL AND HAPPY. BUT IF YOU WANT HER BACK LEAVE $1,000 (ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS) BETWEEN ELEVENTH AND TWELFT PIKES OF FENCE EAST SIDE OF YORK AVENUE BETWEEN 61 & 62 ST. FRIDAY NITE AT 11 P.M. IN NEWSPAPER WRAPPING IN BILLS OF NOT BIGGER THAN TEN DOLLARS. IF YOU DON’T LEAVE THIS MONEY THE DOG WILL BE KILLED. I GATHER THE DOG IS IMPORTANT TO YOU? WE’LL SEE! A NICE LITTLE DOG. MAYBE NICER THAN YOU.

ANON

LISA WILL BE TIED TO SAME PIKE ABOUT ONE HOUR LATER. NO COPS PLEASE—OR ELSE.

So there it was. The nightmare had come true, Ed thought—a phrase that reminded him of clichés in the not very good books he sometimes had to read. He let himself into the apartment.

“Eddie—”

Ed supposed he was white in the face. “Well, I know where Lisa is. My dear, I could use a neat scotch—despite the hour.”

“What’s happened? Where is she?”

“The poison-pen guy has her.” Ed went to the kitchen, bent over the sink and with his free hand splashed water on his face.

“He wrote another letter?” Greta brought a scotch in a tumbler.

“Yes. He wants a ransom by tonight. A thousand dollars.”

“A thousand
dollars
!” Greta said in a tone of astonishment, but Ed knew it wasn’t the sum so much as the crazy situation that shocked her. “Should we do it? Where is she?—Who is he?”

Ed sipped the scotch and held on to the sink. The crumpled letter was now on the drainboard. “I’ll have to think.”

“A thousand dollars. It’s insane.”

“This guy’s insane,” Ed said.

“Eddie, we’ve got to tell the police.”

“That’s sometimes the way to lose something—something kidnapped,” Ed said. “If the fellow gets scared—I mean if he sees police waiting for him—” But a plainclothesman, Ed thought, with a gun, might be different. Telling the police might not be a bad idea.

“I want to see the letter.” Greta took it and read it. “Oh, my God,” she said softly.

Ed had a vision of Lisa breaking away from the leash or whatever Anon was holding her with, running to him on the dark sidewalk of York Avenue at 61st Street tonight at midnight. What made sense? Should he get the money? The returning of the dog one hour later, written at the bottom of the letter, seemed an aftermath, something Anon might not mean.

“Darling you should get the police to watch that spot and don’t fool around with the money,” Greta said earnestly.

“If we get Lisa back, isn’t it worth a thousand dollars?”

“Of course she’s worth it! That isn’t the point! I’m not trying to save a thousand dollars!”

“I’ve got to think about it. I’d better get to the office.” He was thinking, if he got the cash, he would have to go to the bank before 3 p.m. He felt he would go to the bank. He could always decide about the police after he got the money. Ed wished, not for the first time, that he was a type who became angry quickly, made a decision quickly, based on the right, as he saw it. Even if such a person were occasionally wrong, he had at least acted, decided, because of what he thought right.
I hesitate, without any of the eloquence of Hamlet
, Ed thought with a faint amusement, but he did not smile.

“Will you telephone me this morning?” Greta asked, following him to the door.

Ed realized she was physically afraid here in the apartment. And what was more logical, because Anon probably knew Greta by sight as well as himself. Ed had an impulse to stay home. He said with difficulty. “Don’t go out, darling. And don’t open the door to anyone. I’ll speak to Mark downstairs. I’ll tell him not to let anyone up to see you. All right? Do you have to go out for anything?”

“No. I had sort of a lunch date with Lilly, but I can cancel it.”

“Cancel it. I’ll call you during the morning. Bye-bye, darling.”

That morning, during a Publishing Committee meeting—which was so full of agenda it would be resumed in the afternoon—half Ed’s mind was on the Lisa situation. By 11:30 a.m. he had decided that to have a plainclothesman, who might insist on trailing Anon after he collected the money, would jeopardize Lisa’s life: Anon might realize he was being trailed and be afraid to return an hour later with the dog, or to have anyone else bring the dog. So when Ed telephoned Greta just before he went out to lunch, he told her that he had decided to get the money and to have no police. Greta was still in favor of a plainclothesman.

“If we lose, we’ve lost only a thousand bucks, darling. I mean if we can’t identify him later and so forth. There’s more chance of losing the other way—losing the dog.”

Greta sighed. “Could you telephone me again this afternoon, Eddie? I am worried.”

“I’ll call you twice if I can.”

He and Greta had four letters from Anon now. If he took them to the police, which he certainly intended to do eventually, the police might have in their files letters to other people from the same Anon. Identifying printing was just as easy as identifying script writing. If Lisa were dead or alive, Anon would be found and stopped. Even his own letters were bound to provide a clue. And yet—just how exactly?

After a quick lunch alone at the Brass Rail on Fifth Avenue, Ed walked to his bank and withdrew a thousand dollars in ten-dollar bills. He had foreseen the bulk and brought his black briefcase. As he left the bank, Ed wondered if he was being watched even now by Anon? Ed did not glance at anyone on the street and made his way at a moderate pace back to his office. It was a fine, crisp day full of sunshine. He wondered if Lisa were outdoors or in at this moment? Surely she’d bark, surely she was unhappy and mystified. How had the bastard grabbed her?
How?
It was quite possible she was dead, Ed realized.

When Ed came home, with the briefcase, Greta said she had had no telephone calls other than Ed’s and one from Eric who wanted to know the news about Lisa.

They had a simple dinner. Greta was depressed about the money, and didn’t want to look at the briefcase. But she wanted to go with him at 11 p.m. Ed tried to dissuade her. Where would she wait for him?

“Oh, there are bars on York Avenue. Or Third. I’ll order a drink. I’ll ask Eric to come. Sure!” she interrupted his protest. “Why not? What’s the harm? Do you think I want to leave you alone with this bastard?”

Ed laughed for the first time since Lisa had disappeared.

Greta telephoned Eric, who was nearly always in. Ed had not been able to stop her from telling Eric his mission, and maybe it wasn’t a bad idea, Ed thought, if Eric came.

It was ten to 11 p.m., when Ed went out the door of a bar on Third Avenue and 60th Street, leaving Greta and Eric on their scotch and sodas. He carried the newspaper-wrapped parcel under his left arm. The parcel was held by two big rubber bands. He was to rejoin Greta and Eric in about fifteen minutes—and Ed did find it comforting to have a date with them. He walked slowly, but not too slowly, eastward, and at York Avenue crossed to its east side and continued north. He was not anticipating a physical encounter, but one never knew with a psychopath, he supposed. However, he pictured Anon as a short fellow, fortyish, maybe even fifty, a weakling, a coward. Anyway, Ed was five feet ten, sturdily enough built—in fact he had to watch his waistline—and in college, Columbia University, he had boxed for a year or so, and played football, though neither with much enthusiasm. Ed took a breath and walked straighter. Now he could see the rail fence across 61st Street.

Ahead of him, a slender figure of a young man walked, hands in coat pockets, away from Ed, northward. Trees along the curb shaded the sidewalk from the street lights. Behind the rail fence was some kind of medical research center, Ed recalled vaguely. Ed glanced behind him, and seeing nothing to worry about, began to count off the pikes. Between the eleventh and twelft (he remembered the spelling) he stuck the newspaper-wrapped bundle, pushing it so that nothing of it projected, yet it was right there, not in danger of falling to the ground behind, but resting on the cement.

Ed turned, and feeling that this was no time to look around if he was to be a good sport, retraced his steps towards 60th Street and crossed discreetly with the light. He entered the red-neon bar casually.

Greta waved to him with a gleeful face from a booth on the right. Eric half rose, beaming to see him back.

“Nothing at all,” Ed said as he sat down beside Eric. Suddenly all his muscles ached.

Greta was gripping his forearm. “You didn’t see anything? No one?”

“No one.” Ed sighed and looked at his wrist-watch. Five minutes past eleven. “Be nice to have a scotch.”

“A double!” Eric said gaily.

A single, Ed thought, then reflected that he could make a double last a long time with water. He had nearly an hour to wait.

Ed hardly listened to what Eric and Greta were saying. Greta was talking about seeing Lisa tonight, and Ed realized from her confidence that she was either feeling her drinks or was a bit hysterical. Eric was optimistic, and the same time trying to be sensible: “You can’t tell with psychotics. It is foolish to be
over
confident.
Wahnsinnig!
What a crazy story!”

Yes, Ed thought, and Eric looked as entertained as if he were watching a TV show instead of being present at something real. Ed kept glancing at the wall clock, which seemed to be stuck at 11:23, so he stopped looking at it. Now Greta was spinning out her own drink with water. She believed she would see Lisa tonight. Ed could see that. She had been very stoic, or brave, since Wednesday night: not a sentimental word in regard to Lisa. All bottled up, Ed thought. She adored Lisa as much as he. And maybe Anon would be a good egg, and have Lisa tied to the rail by two minutes to midnight. Ed was going to appear on the dot of midnight and not before. Even if he saw Anon, and took the dog’s leash from his hands, Ed thought, he wouldn’t try to remember Anon’s face so that he could run him in. No, he’d be too glad just to see Lisa again. Ed found himself grinning at a joke Eric had told Greta, which Ed hadn’t even listened to.