A Dog's Ransom

  Fenucci, who had been listening attentively, got up also, and paying no mind to the others in the room, went out and closed the door.

  Ed gave a sigh, and glanced at Marylyn and Clarence, knowing without even thinking about it that the office must be bugged, and that he had best not say a word.

  Clarence stretched his legs out in front of him and reached for a cigarette. He smiled at Marylyn, but didn’t catch her eye. Ed evidently suspected also that a recording was being made, Clarence thought, and that was why Ed was silent.

  Then Marylyn said, “This is so we can all yak and spill the beans,” and Clarence and Ed laughed. Marylyn almost laughed, and pursed her lips to control her smile. “Why don’t we sing a hymn? I—” Then she stopped.

  How long do you think they’ll keep you? Ed wanted to ask Clarence, but even this question, or Clarence’s answer, might for some reason be inadvisable. Held against Clarence.

  Morrissey came back. How Morrissey had changed since that first affable evening interview, Ed thought. Now he looked weary, mechanical, no longer human. He was doing a job. Ed felt that he was on no side at all. He was neutral. Or a blank. Except that he wanted to nail somebody.

  Morrissey was leaning against the desk again, drumming with his finger-tips as he composed his next words. “Mr. Reynolds, we’re going to get the truth from this man,” he said, indicating Clarence. “It’s only a question of time. You can help us, if you will. Just tell us what you know. Tell us the truth—please.” The tone was politely pleading.

  It irritated Ed more than anything else. It implied that he hadn’t been telling the truth, and that he was protecting Clarence because Clarence was a friend. “I have nothing more to say. And if you haven’t any other question, I wouldn’t mind taking off.”

  Morrissey nodded. He looked disappointed. “Very well, sir. I thank you for coming.” He pushed himself off the desk.

  Ed had stood up. “Bye-bye, Marylyn. Bye-bye, Clarence.”

  “Good-bye, sir,” Clarence said. The “sir” was a slip. “Thanks for troubling to come.”

  Morrissey gave Clarence a smirk as he opened the door for Ed.

  Ed went out of the building and took a deep breath of cold air. The dismalness! Suddenly even the ugly buildings on the street, a row of four ashcans, looked better, nicer than what he had just left. He wanted to telephone Greta at once, just to hear her voice. Instead he got the first taxi he saw and headed for 9th Street.

  By 5:30 p.m. Clarence was feeling sleepy and also a little angry, but he was still repressing his anger. Marylyn had been told that she could go some ten minutes after Ed had left. Morrissey’s dismissal of her had been rather off-hand, and Marylyn had said, “This is my last visit here, by the way, because I have better ways of spending my time. I intend to report the wop pig whether he visits me again or not, and if he’s dumb enough to visit me again, I’ll resort to that famous weapon—screaming. The whole neighborhood’s going to know about his next visit.”

  Morrissey, rude as stone, had nodded absently, not looking at her, not replying anything.

  Morrissey had heard worse, Clarence supposed. The following hour, Morrissey went over the same things—the gun in Clarence’s apartment, the fact that Rowajinski had accused him of taking five hundred dollars, his friendship with the Reynoldses. He was sucking up to the Reynoldses, wasn’t he? He thought they were upper class, didn’t he? Swank? Clarence made no reply. It was more like a lecture than a questioning, anyway.

  “Am I the only person who ever wanted to take a swat at Rowajinski?” Clarence said to Morrissey.

  “No. No,” Morrissey said, happy at some response. “No, we had a guy a few days ago—Andrew something. A janitor in one of the buildings where Rowajinski used to live. He hated Rowajinski. Rowajinski’s landlady told us about him. Okay, they had some kind of feud, because he once bumped Rowajinski when he was rolling out ashcans or something. They once had a fistfight on the street. All right. But Andrew didn’t come down to Barrow that night. He didn’t know where Rowajinski was living.”

  Clarence twice got up and walked around the room. The straight chair had become painful, a chore to go back to, but Clarence was afraid they might keep him standing all night. Surely the rough stuff would take place in the basement, or somewhere else. And they would try to make him angry, because now he had the reputation of a bad temper.

  “Getting tired of the subject, eh?” Morrissey said, sitting on the edge of the desk, munching a sandwich.

  Clarence had not been listening.

  “You’ll get plenty tired of it. Look what you’re putting your friends through, Clarence. They’re not going to be your friends any longer. You know that.”

  Clarence calmly sipped the bad coffee. There was a ham and cheese sandwich on a paper plate on the desk, but he wasn’t hungry. He imagined Ed Reynolds and Marylyn trying to telephone him this evening, getting no answer at his apartment, and immediately realized that neither would telephone, probably. For different reasons, neither would telephone. Ed had looked fed up, depressed by it all. Were they going to speak with Ed again? But Morrissey, at some point, had already said they would. Was that true? Perhaps they were going to grill Ed, in a way, as they were grilling him. Bore him into admitting what he knew. As Morrissey said, Clarence hated that, would do anything to save Ed from it. But no, he hadn’t said that, Morrissey had said it. Clarence was becoming weary. He wanted to take a walk. Or a nap. The room was stuffy again.

  “You want to make a telephone call, go ahead,” said Morrissey, indicating the telephone on the desk. “Just press the green button before you dial.” Morrissey went to the door. “Somebody else’ll be here in just a minute.”

  Alone, Clarence went to the window and opened it ten inches from the bottom. Then he slumped in a different chair, a swivel chair behind the desk, and put his feet up on the radiator under the window. He tried to sleep, his head back on the wood of the chair.

  Fenucci came in. Clarence looked at his watch and saw that it was 7:44 p.m.

  BY A QUARTER TO 10 P.M., Fenucci was droning on in a soporific way: “. . . just the facts. That’s all I’m telling you, Clarence. No rough stuff. Not my style.” Fenucci strolled about, hands in his pockets. “Feeling sleepy? Stand up.”

  Clarence stood up. “I want to open the window a little.”

  Fenucci had closed it.

  “Don’t jump out,” Fenucci said, smiling.

  Clarence was too tired to react. For some reason, perhaps tension, his injured collarbone had begun hurting, hours ago, and it hurt worse as he lifted the window.

  “No rough stuff except this,” said Fenucci, slapping or jabbing Clarence’s face suddenly as Clarence turned from the window. “That’s an insult. You deserve it. Or this.” Fenucci jabbed at the pit of Clarence’s stomach.

  It did not hurt much, but it was a shock. Clarence felt a cool film of perspiration break out over his face. His eyes widened. The atmosphere changed suddenly. This was what Clarence had expected.

  Fenucci now stamped on his toe.

  That didn’t hurt much either, and Clarence almost smiled. Stamping on toes was silly. One had to see things in perspective. Clarence walked around, feeling awake now.

  “. . . a matter of time, Clarence. There’re several of us and only one of you . . . if not tonight then another night, eh? Tomorrow night or the next night. Or the third morning, who knows? There won’t be any let-up, Clarence, until you spill the beans.”

  Clarence remained calm. He felt it might be an advantage to feel tired, therefore relaxed. Mustn’t let his nerves “wear thin” however. Fenucci seemed to be talking just to be saying something, and Clarence also let his thoughts ramble where they would. Marylyn, maybe at a pleasure dinner party tonight, regaling her friends about police methods. Ed, reading, or maybe at a film with Greta, Ed no doubt trying to forget the minutes wit
h Morrissey.

  “Call up Mr. Reynolds. I insist.”

  Fenucci’s words caught Clarence’s attention. “I don’t care to call him up. For what?”

  “I insist. You’re taking my orders. Call him up, Clarence.” He nodded at the telephone.

  “But I have no reason to call him up.”

  “Afraid you’ll annoy him? Fine. The reason is, I order you to call him up!” Fenucci lit a cigarette viciously, as if he were very angry. “So go ahead.”

  “I don’t know his number.” It was true, Clarence at that moment wasn’t sure of Ed’s new number.

  Fenucci pressed a button on the desk, scowled absently at the scattered papers before him, then a cop in uniform appeared at the door. Fenucci asked him to bring a Manhattan telephone directory. Clarence had to look up the old number, dial it, and get the new number. This he dialed.

  Greta answered.

  “Hello. It’s Clarence. I’m sorry to bother you. I—”

  “Are you—Do you want to speak with Ed?”

  “It’s not that I want to, they’re—”

  Fenucci swatted Clarence on the back of the head. Clarence gripped the telephone and wanted to slam it down, but Fenucci would only make him ring again, Clarence realized.

  “Tell him you wanted to call him,” Fenucci said.

  “Hello, Ed,” Clarence said. “Please excuse me for—” He received another swat on the back of the head. “They are making me telephone you!” Clarence shouted. “I wish to excuse my—”

  Fenucci yanked the telephone from Clarence’s hand. “Hello, Mr. Reynolds? Detective Fenucci here. I think Dummel is going to confess for us. He wanted to talk with you.”

  “I did not!” Clarence yelled.

  “I’ll pass you to Clarence.” Fenucci handed the telephone to Clarence.

  “Ed—”

  “What’s up?”

  “I am not confessing anything! I want to say I’m sorry that I bothered you at this hour but I was not able—”

  This time Fenucci delivered a harder punch in the stomach, almost casually, and took the telephone from Clarence and dropped it into the cradle.

  Clarence’s heart was pounding. He couldn’t speak for a few seconds, because the blow had knocked some breath out of him. “And what—what’s the purpose of that crap?”

  Fenucci smiled thinly. “Just to show your chum Ed what a sap you are. We succeeded. Now you can call up your ex-girlfriend.”

  Clarence could breathe again. “No, I can’t. I don’t know where to reach her.”

  “We do. We’ve got the number.” But it took Fenucci a ludicrously long time to find it, thumbing through notebooks and scraps.

  Clarence recognized it as Dannie’s number. He dialed this. To his joy, there was no answer.

  Around 1 o’clock, Fenucci said, “Okay, you can go home.”

  Clarence was startled out of a semi-daze, although he was on his feet. He stood straighter. He had been standing, at Fenucci’s request.

  “Go, I said. Home. See you tomorrow. Say around two in the afternoon? Give you a chance to get some sleep,” said Fenucci.

  Clarence pulled on his coat, started to close his shirt collar and tie and gave it up.

  “You are disgusting,” Fenucci said.

  Clarence went out. He let the cold air chill him awake. The air blew down his shirt collar, icy against his sweat. He caught a taxi. At his apartment, he took off his shirt and washed, brushed his teeth and drank two glasses of water. He was thinking of calling Ed, explaining, despite the hour. Then he decided against it: wouldn’t it be more annoying to ring at this hour, when perhaps they were asleep? Clarence wanted to take a shower. Then he thought, no, ring the Reynoldses now, before the shower, because after the shower it will be even later. Yes, he had to apologize, and tonight, otherwise he wouldn’t be able to sleep for thinking about it. Clarence dialed their number which he now recalled exactly.

  Ed answered.

  “It’s Clarence again. I’m home. I hope I didn’t wake you.”

  “That’s all right. What’s the trouble now?”

  “They forced me to telephone you. I didn’t want to call you at all!” The rise in Clarence’s voice shocked him, and he tried to control it. “I am sorry, Ed. They were at me all day, you know. I did not confess.” It suddenly occurred to him that his telephone could be bugged also, same as the room where he’d spent all day. Clarence laughed a little crazily. “I have no intention of confessing. It’s absurd! But I—I wanted to apologize for disturbing you in a—a way I never would have done.”

  “That’s all right,” Ed said, thinking Clarence was a bit hysterical. “Get some sleep.”

  “You didn’t possibly see Marylyn?”

  “No,” said Ed.

  “They made me telephone her, too. Fortunately she wasn’t in. Down on Eleventh Street.” Clarence felt that Ed wanted to wind up the conversation, and Clarence desperately wanted to hang on, to explain, above all to make sure that Ed was still on his side. “Thank you for today, Ed. Thank you.”

  “No need to thank me.—But I really hope it’s the last of it. I’m not coming to see them again. I don’t know if I can refuse to let them in the house again, but I’m going to be too busy to come to see them again. Enough is enough.”

  Words, in a surge, rose in Clarence’s mind. He couldn’t get them out, couldn’t decide which words to say first. Gratitude. Shame. Failure. Regret. And the fact that he blamed no one, certainly not Ed. The fact that he understood why Ed, why Marylyn—and really maybe everyone except Greta—considered him a pariah, because he had killed someone.

  “Better try to get some sleep, Clarence.”

  “Can I—I don’t suppose I can see you some time tomorrow? I’ve got to see them again at two but—”

  “Clarence—no. It’s for your own good. Can’t you understand that? Do you want them to think we’re in conspiracy? They’ll be watching you, won’t they? Or mightn’t they?”

  “Yes, sir,” Clarence said, exhausted. “It’s true I’m upset.—Good night, sir.”

  Ed hung up. “Good God,” he whispered.

  Greta was awake. She had been almost asleep, and Ed had been reading by the lamp on his side of the bed. “What’s happened?”

  Ed walked on bare feet to the window, and turned around. “He says he hasn’t confessed. He must’ve had twelve hours’ questioning today—questioning or worse.”

  “Where was he calling from?”

  “From his apartment. He says it’s not finished yet. He’s going to see them at two tomorrow. But he’s surely going to confess. They mostly do. Don’t they?”

  Greta didn’t answer at once.

  “Sure they do,” Ed said. “Well, I really don’t care. I’ve lied. Clarence will say he told me—days ago. So I’ve lied.”

  “And so have I then. I was questioned too. I am not sorry. I really am not sorry.”

  Ed wished he could see it as simply as Greta did. She must be right, he thought. Yet he couldn’t see it. At the same time he didn’t think he had been completely wrong. Was there such a thing as being half right and half wrong? No. “I only know I—”

  “Come to bed, Eddie. Talk in bed.”

  Ed was walking about. “I can’t stand the sight of him. I ought to be—more tolerant. Stronger. I don’t know.”

  “You know zomezing,” Greta said, yawning a little, but giving her attention to what Ed was saying, “I am not sure he will confess.”

  That was a possibility, a strange one. It might be true. Yet somehow it wasn’t the point. The point was not even that he had protected Clarence Duhamell. It was that he simply and profoundly disliked him now.

  24

  The ringing of his telephone awakened Clarence. He was groggy, and reached slowly for the phone, d
ropped it in the darkness and found it again on the floor.

  “Hello?”

  “Hello. This is Pete. How are you, Clarence?”

  Manzoni’s voice shocked Clarence awake, to a pained alertness.

  “I hear you’re cracking up,” said Manzoni.

  Clarence’s anger rose only slightly. He put the telephone down, and fell back on the bed. Slowly he grew more awake, and blinked his eyes quickly in the black of his room. What had Manzoni found out? Maybe nothing. He hadn’t come anywhere near cracking up. He wouldn’t. He damned well wouldn’t. Clarence made himself close his eyes and breathe regularly. The dawn was beginning.

  Clarence was half awake when the telephone rang again. But now it was a quarter to 10 a.m.

  “Hello, Clare? It’s Mother. How are you, darling? We’ve been trying to reach you. Are you all right?”

  “Yes, I’m all right.”

  “Why didn’t you telephone us? We didn’t want to ring the Reynolds because—I wasn’t sure you’d still be there.”

  “No.” Clarence shook his head to try to wake up. “No, I left Friday.”

  “You’re sleepy. I woke you. I’m sorry. Are you feeling all right? Not hurting anywhere? . . . Why don’t you come out, Clare? You’ve still got so many days of leave.”

  Clarence struggled inwardly. He could lie, insist that he wanted to spend the time alone in his apartment. Or he could tell the truth which was so much easier.

  “Clare?”

  “Mom, they’re questioning me. On the Pole thing. They want me here in town.”

  “Really? Do you know so much about it? . . .”

  He ended by lying after all. He had seen the Pole several times, he said. Yes, he would call her as soon as he knew when he had any free time.

  Clarence tried to sleep again.

  By 2 p.m. Clarence was at the 126th Street Headquarters. He wore tennis shoes, a turtle-neck sweater. He had breakfasted on two eggs and as much toast as he could manage. Again he had to wait a long while, and it became 3:10 p.m. Clarence had brought the Sunday Times and a paperback of short stories by Ben Hecht, which he had read twice before.