A Dog's Ransom Read Free Page B

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.
    “We are watching the clock,” Eric said in his smiling, precise way.
    The minutes before midnight went swiftly. Ed stood up at six minutes to twelve.
    “See you soon again!” Ed said.
    Greta’s face looked strained, not hopeful now. “You’ll come back when?” she demanded.
    “Twelve-twenty at the latest,” Ed said for at least the third time. They had arranged that if Lisa wasn’t there, he was to return and tell them, though Ed was prepared to go back and wait longer. Eric and Greta had of course wanted to accompany him to get Lisa, but Ed thought it a bad idea, because Anon might notice them (however much they tried to make themselves inconspicuous) and veer away.
    Ed walked more quickly now, and only on the east side of York slowed up and peered ahead in the darkness. He was trying to see the black four-legged dot of Lisa near the fence, perhaps alone and straining first in one direction then the other to see who was coming to untie her. It was too dark to see anything really, and when Ed paused to read his watch under a streetlamp, he saw it was only three minutes to midnight. He stopped in the block between 61st and 62nd Streets, leaned on one hand against a tree, and waited. How easy it was to wait now. Anon ought to blow himself to a taxi, and