Free A Dog's Ransom by Patricia Highsmith Page A

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 hell 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