A Dog's Ransom

  After a couple of inquiries, Clarence discovered how he might be useful: Greta needed something that might be obtainable in Macy’s basement, a kitchen gadget. Clarence set out as if in quest of the Holy Grail. He was not going to return without it, even if the task required A & S in Brooklyn. He had made a reservation at a Hungarian restaurant where he wanted to invite Greta and Ed that evening. It was nearly eleven as he approached the West 4th Street subway, an hour at which he could try Marylyn without being afraid of awakening her. He went into a drugstore and looked up Dannie Sheppard’s number.

  A man’s voice answered.

  “Hello. This is Clarence Duhamell. Is this Dannie?”

  “Ye-eah.”

  “Sorry to bother you, but is Marylyn there?”

  Brief pause. “Listen, Clarence, that fuzz is at it again. That wop. He just phoned here. He’s still tailing Marylyn and it’s a pain in the ass, if you know what I mean. So the least you can do, please, is disappear. Understand? This is my house—”

  “Can I speak to Marylyn?” Clarence asked.

  “I don’t think she wants to speak to you.”

  “Why don’t you ask her?” Clarence at that point heard Marylyn’s voice in the background.

  “Hello,” Marylyn said.

  “Hello, darling. How are you?”

  “How do you think?”

  “Marylyn—I do want to see you.”

  “That’s obviously not such a good idea, is it?”

  “But—I must see you. Just for five minutes. I’m very near just now. I’ll meet you—even on a street corner. Please, Marylyn!”

  Marylyn refused.

  Clarence went on in a daze to Macy’s. He found the gadget that Greta wanted. He telephoned Greta to say he had succeeded (she was going to stay in and work, painting, that afternoon) and then he went to a film just to take his mind off Marylyn, and also to leave his room free for Greta, although she had said she could work as well in the living-room.

  THE NEXT DAY, THURSDAY, Clarence had thought to leave the Reynoldses and go to his apartment, but it happened to be Greta’s birthday. Eric Schaffner and Lilly Brandstrum were coming for dinner, and Greta said she hoped Clarence would stay for dinner, too, and it would be silly to go to his apartment late at night, so why not stay another night? So Clarence had agreed. He bought for Greta a silver chain necklace at a shop on 8th Street, a fairly expensive present but not so expensive, Clarence hoped, that it could be considered a wrong thing to do. Buying the present for Greta made him feel more optimistic, and he telephoned Dannie’s apartment, hoping a note of cheer in his own voice could make Marylyn agree to see him.

  This time she answered.

  “I don’t want to see you but I will. But just for five minutes.”

  They were to meet at once on the corner of 11th Street and Sixth Avenue. Clarence hurried.

  Marylyn had only a block or so to walk, and she arrived when he did, on the northwest corner. Her face looked angry and pinched. He didn’t recognize her fringed suede jacket, and because it was too big for her, he assumed it was Dannie’s.

  “Hello,” he said. “Do you want to go somewhere? Somewhere we can sit?”

  “No.” She was restless in her moccasins, hands in her pockets, stiff as if with cold though it was not very cold. She wore no socks. Marylyn was always careless about socks and scarves when it was too cold to go without them. “There’s a fair chance we’re being watched anyway, so if we walk or go somewhere, what’s the dif?”

  “You’re cold.”

  “Something conked out with the heating at Dannie’s this morning.”

  “Oh.” Clarence was inwardly glad it wasn’t the luxury establishment he had envisaged.

  They walked, Marylyn with her stubborn, short steps, her head down. They walked downtown.

  “I’m completely sick of this fascist pig,” Marylyn said.

  “I know. Dannie said he telephoned.”

  “He turned up! Last night. Called up first, all right, but he was there before we could get out of the house. How could we get out and why should we? Dannie had guests. He said he’d just seen Mr. Reynolds. Well, how interesting!”

  “He’s lying. What time did he come?”

  “Around eight. He said Mr. Reynolds was protecting you and so was I and that you—you know. Seven or eight people heard it. I told him to shove it but what good does that do? Dannie’d tried to keep him outside the door, but just because he’s a pig, he muscled in. Dannie said have you got a search warrant, and the pig said no, because he wasn’t searching for anything. No, he’s only heckling. It’s a fascist state, Clare! You can’t even fight them. They’ve got the guns!—You’re in a spot, I know, but don’t drag me into it.”

  Clarence was thinking that Ed hadn’t seen an author last night, he had seen Manzoni. Now Clarence realized that Ed had seemed uneasy, a little cool, at the restaurant last night. Ed had probably had enough, too, like Marylyn.

  “I never meant to drag you in.”

  “No? I told them you were with me that night, for Christ’s sake. You told them that, too. And you didn’t mean to drag me in!”

  Clarence knew. It was true he had dragged her in.

  “I’d be better off in the Bronx or Long Island. But a lot of my work’s down here. I’ve got to stay.”

  “I know. I’m sorry, Marylyn.”

  “You’re always sorry. Let Mr. Reynolds protect you, but get it off my back, will you?—Only you can’t.” She added sarcastically, “We shouldn’t look like we’re quarreling in case we’re being watched. This wop lives on Jane, you know, God knows when he’s off duty. We ought to be just casual friends. Medium-like.”

  Marylyn’s sarcasm was something new. They had stopped at the corner of the Women’s House of Detention, where five busy streets met.

  “Maybe they’re letting you recuperate,” Marylyn said, “but that cop said they’re going to question you again.”

  “Look, Marylyn, I’m going to pull through this, I’m sure of it.”

  “Really? I’ve heard they beat people up.”

  “I can take it.”

  Marylyn turned to the right, onto Greenwich Avenue, walking slowly back uptown. Clarence walked beside her.

  “It’s not that I want to be a bitch, Clare. But you can’t blame me if I can’t take it, can you?”

  He understood. He wanted to say words of comfort and strength and couldn’t find them. “But you will see me later, I hope—when this has blown over.”

  She shrugged evasively. “Sure, maybe. Now and then.”

  Less than a minute later—Marylyn did not want him to walk back with her to 11th Street—Clarence was alone, walking back down Greenwich Avenue towards the Reynoldses’. Now and then. It was somehow worse than if Marylyn had broken off completely. She neither loved nor hated him. She was in between. What it seemed to mean was that she had never loved him and never would.

  Greta was busy with her dinner much of that afternoon, and Ed came home at four to do some work. He said he worked the entire day at home two or three days a month. Clarence was happy to go out, twice, for something that Greta had forgotten to buy at the grocery store. Greta in the afternoon went to the piano and began to play a Chopin waltz, and when Clarence came to listen at closer range, she smiled mischievously and launched into “Second-hand Rose,” which she sang, making Clarence laugh.

  “What we sing,” Greta explained, pounding away, “when one lousy poet after another gets up to read his stuff.”

  This was followed by “Somebody Else Is Taking My Place,” until Ed yelled, “What is this, old Sammy’s on the Bowery? She’s going to break the lease!”

  “On my birthday I can risk to break the lease!” Greta retorted.

  The apartment filled with the aroma of baking ham, cloves, and brown
sugar. By seven, the sparkling table held a plate of rollmops in sour cream.

  The guests arrived, by accident in the same elevator. Eric brought flowers, Lilly a large flat box of chocolates, and there were wrapped presents as well. Greta told them that Clarence was staying until tomorrow, as their house guest. Lilly and Eric greeted him in quite a friendly way. Cocktails and canapés. Greta opened her presents. From Lilly, a box to hold paints and brushes which seemed to please Greta enormously, and Lilly explained that it was the latest and most efficient paint box, designed in Denmark, to hold the maximum in minimum space. Eric’s present was a pair of Italian candlesticks of wrought iron. Ed’s gift was a startling jacket of silvery green which shimmered with sequins—for evening wear. Greta exclaimed over each gift. It was a pleasure for Clarence to watch her. Of Clarence’s necklace she said, “Oh, Clarence! It’s so glamorous!” And she put the necklace on.

  Clarence began to feel easier. They were evidently not going to refer to the Rowajinski affair. But also he felt like an outsider looking in. The Reynoldses and the other two were such old friends, like a family, despite the German accents of Greta and Eric versus the New York accents of Ed and Lilly. They were all pleasant to Clarence. The difference was only in Ed: Clarence felt that Ed avoided looking at him.

  “Oh, Greta said you were in the hospital,” Lilly said to Clarence during dinner. “I haven’t extended sympathies. Wounded in the course of duty, Greta said.” She wasn’t cynical now. She was merry on the dinner and the wine.

  “What we call a little shoot-up,” Clarence said. “Nothing serious.”

  “Some people were shooting up glass doorways,” Ed said. “Uptown in our old neighborhood.”

  “And what’s the news about the man with the Polish name? Didn’t you say he was murdered, Greta? Yes!” said Lilly, as if it had slipped her mind.

  “Yes,” said Greta, and bit into a celery heart. “I told you that a couple of weeks ago.”

  “Of course. I heard,” Eric said. “I heard it on the TV before Greta told me.”

  “Do they know who did it?” Lilly asked.

  “No,” Greta said. “Someone on the street. Who knows?”

  “That Verrückter! He was asking for it!” Eric declared.

  “Did you say stabbed or shot?” Lilly asked.

  “Just beaten up,” Greta said.

  “Clobbered,” Ed added.

  “What a subject,” Eric said, “what a subject for a birthday party!”

  “More wine!” Greta got up to fetch another bottle from the kitchen.

  Ed took a long time lighting a cigar. The subject was not exactly changed by anyone, but it drifted off to something else. Lilly remembered that she had brought an electronic record for them to hear. They played it while they had coffee. Eric chuckled and made comments. The few words, said in German by a female voice, were interspersed by eerie, owl-like moaning and screeching. Clarence’s thoughts drifted. He saw a garden of metal flowers, then a dark tunnel, an airless hell in which anything could happen, or spring out. It was an unknown world, yet completely known, as one knew one’s own dreams, and yet did not know them—because one could not completely interpret them, but not because one did not know them and their peculiar atmosphere. Clarence was thinking of Marylyn: she had her way of life, and suppose it was essentially incomprehensible to him? If she had a lurking doubt that her life was incomprehensible to him, she would sense it and reject it, Clarence was thinking. She would reject him. As perhaps she had already done. He wished he had seized her in his arms that morning and somehow impressed upon her—how?—that they must be together and stay together. As usual, he had not done the right thing at the right time.

  Eric was the first to leave, kissing Greta on both hands, exchanging German pleasantries with her. Then Lilly left, bearing her mysterious record under her arm.

  It was nearly midnight. Clarence complimented Greta on her dinner and said good night to her and Ed, thinking that they might want to be alone.

  Ed knocked on Clarence’s door half an hour later. Ed was in pajamas on dressing-gown. “Hello, Clarence. I saw your light.”

  “Come in!” Clarence had been reading in bed.

  Ed sat down. “Well. All this—I gather you’re not out of the woods yet?”

  “No.” Clarence sat up higher in bed. “I heard you saw Manzoni last evening.”

  “Oh?”

  “Marylyn told me. I saw her this morning.”

  “How did she know?” Ed asked, and at once knew how.

  “Manzoni came to see her. Where she’s living. She’s fed up with the police questioning, of course. I hate it—for her.”

  “There’ll be more questions, I understand.”

  “Yes. And they’ll try to break Marylyn down, too. I don’t mean they’ll be rough but—It’s mainly because I said I spent the night there, you know, and Marylyn said so, too.”

  “I know. Of course.” Ed’s mind formed sentences, then they disappeared and he was lost again.

  “I’m sure Manzoni wasn’t pleasant,” Clarence said, “because he knows I’m staying here.”

  “True, and I was thinking—for your own good it might be better if you didn’t appear to be too friendly with us. For obvious reasons. If it isn’t already too late.” Until it blows over, Ed thought of adding, but would it blow over? If they kept hammering at Clarence, wouldn’t he finally break? Didn’t people always break? “I certainly don’t mind your staying here now. Neither does Greta. But I mean in the future—”

  “I understand.” Clarence felt wretched, unable to get out of the house, now, because of the hour, because it would be awkward. And even tomorrow morning, at best, would be a retreat because of what Ed had just said.

  “Marylyn’s friendly?” Ed asked.

  Clarence almost choked. “She doesn’t like Manzoni visiting her. In fact, she’s furious about it. So I won’t be visiting her, seeing her either. That’s inevitable.”

  Ed stood up, unable to look at Clarence’s unhappiness any longer, unable also to find any reassuring words to say. “Yes, inevitable. For the time. I’m tired. I’ll say good night.”

  “Good night, Ed.”

  In the bedroom, to Greta, Ed said, “I’ve made the worst mistake of my life.”

  “It is not so serious. Think about it tomorrow, Eddie.”

  Ed lay in bed with his eyes open in the darkness. “It’s not just tonight that I think about it. I’ve thought about it days ago.” He spoke softly, imagining Clarence in the room across the hall. “I can’t stand the sight of him. I don’t know what it is.—Yet I do know what it is. I don’t trust him.”

  “Why? Eddie—” Greta found his hand, patted it and held it.

  “I don’t know what went wrong. I should never have said—It was that time in the bar of the Fifth Avenue Hotel. I had the feeling then. Keep away, I thought. There’s something odd about him. And here I am protecting him, just as this—this Manzoni said.”

  “What’s odd about him? He got angry, Eddie.”

  Ed closed his eyes. Angry. It was something more than that. Greta’s attitude was a funny one for a woman to have, Ed thought. But Greta often saw things in a different way from him. She had seen more than he. More brutality. It had struck close in her family. All right, but had she ever had one of the cool killers as a guest in her house? Or had possibly one of her own family retaliated in like manner against a German killer? Had Greta heard about it with maybe a sense of justice? Maybe. But Ed couldn’t completely fathom it. That had been war, anyway. This wasn’t.

  23

  Clarence went to his 19th Street apartment by taxi on Friday morning. He had been up and dressed in time to say his thanks and good-bye to Ed before Ed went to work. He had drunk two or three cups of coffee with Greta (she had a passion for coffee) in the course of his packing. Greta had b
een cheerful, optimistic, and also realistic. Thinking over their conversation as he rode in the taxi, Clarence wondered how she had managed it. “Marylyn might not be the girl for you . . . You are in a state of shock, you can’t realize it all yet . . . Never mind Eddie. He is complicated . . . So? Yes. If you have such a temper, you must control it, really.” Clarence had devoured her words, weighed them, savored them, and it was no effort for him to commit them to memory. He felt that Greta was wise. Not because she was on his side, in fact she wasn’t entirely. He had said his temper got the better of him. He had said his temper had been bad enough the time he called on Rowajinski at his Morton Street room. “You must not let it ruin your life . . . Look at the murders in New York! Who cares? They say the cops do their best. Maybe they do, but what about the people the cops kill? Who does their best for them—if one speaks about human life?” Clarence had pointed out that he killed Rowajinski for a personal reason, and that he hadn’t been shooting a robber in the act of running from the scene.

  The conversation with Greta, inconclusive as it may have been, was of the greatest comfort to Clarence. He felt he would have collapsed—maybe not confessed, but somehow collapsed—if he had not been able to talk about his problems to someone like Greta.

  Because of Greta, he now had morale.

  Clarence turned on his radio for company and set about unpacking, straightening his apartment, dusting and sweeping, shopping, starting the fridge which his mother had evidently cut off. Larry Summerfield, a college chum who lived in Manhattan, had written a note: where was he? His telephone wasn’t answering. And Nolan, of all people, had written a friendly note on a postcard with a soppy picture of a pair of brindle kittens in a basket: “Get well soon. The old shithouse misses you. Bert.” The postcard had been enclosed in an envelope.