Read Online A Dog's Ransom by Patricia Highsmith - Free Book Online
Authors: Patricia Highsmith
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see through them. Kenneth had taken the animal to his room. Only one or two people had glanced at it in his arms—Kenneth had kept away from streetlamps, of course—and those people hadn’t said anything, even though the dog’s head had been dripping a little blood. At home, Kenneth had wrapped the dog in one of his bed-sheets, the oldest one he had. Then he had walked with this nearly twenty blocks uptown to the Spic district and got rid of it in a rubbish basket—a wire one, but it didn’t matter with the dog in a sheet and in that neighborhood, littered with newspapers and garbage, and those people tossed newborn babies into rubbish baskets, so who was going to make a fuss about a dog?
Then Kenneth remembered feeling the dog’s collar in his pocket as he walked home, and how he had not wanted to look at it, to read it—though he had, as he killed the dog, imagined examining this complicated collar at home and at leisure. It had dangling tags, a name plate, a couple of metal rings, studs, and the yellow leather was stiff and good. Kenneth had whipped it out of his pocket and flung it down a drain in a gutter.
He had intended to ask a ransom of Reynolds, and now he had it. He had annoyed Reynolds, causing him to put an ad in the paper. He had deflated the pompous Edward Reynolds who wore swanky dark-blue overcoats and expensive shoes and sometimes gloves when it wasn’t particularly cold. And he had put an end to the dog who wore a plaid raincoat in bad weather and a red turtleneck sweater when it was cold.
Kenneth liked to take walks, even aimless walks. His foot did not hurt when he walked, and his limp was caused mainly by the absence of toes there, but Kenneth occasionally exaggerated the limp, he even admitted to himself, when he could use a little extra consideration from people, or when he badly wanted a seat on a bus or a subway. Not that anyone had ever got up and given him a seat, but in case he was competing with someone for an empty seat, a limp helped. Kenneth liked his walks, because his mind raced madly, inspired by the ever-changing objects that his eyes fell upon—a baby carriage, a policeman, a couple of overdressed women glimpsed briefly in a taxi, a fat woman lugging home still more to eat in huge grocery bags, and the smug people into whose living-room windows he could see—men in shirt-sleeves watching television, a wife coming in with a tray of beers, warm yellow lights falling on bookshelves and framed pictures. Snobs. Crooks, too, otherwise how’d they get so rich, how’d they get a woman to live with them and serve them? Kenneth had little use for women, and believed they gravitated only towards men with money to buy them and to spend on them. He was convinced women had no sexual drive at all, or not enough to warrant mentioning, and that they used their physical charms merely to lure men towards them.
Besides Edward Reynolds, there were a couple of other people whom Kenneth watched now, one a woman with a white poodle, as it happened, smaller than the Reynoldses’ dog, and she wore high-heeled shoes and had dyed black hair as frizzled as her dog’s, and she met, now and then, a tall, flashily dressed man who was probably her boyfriend-unbeknownst-to-her-husband on a corner of Broadway and 105th Street, then they went either to a bar on Broadway or back to the woman’s house, where they stayed for about an hour. Another person he watched was a well-dressed but sad-looking adolescent boy who plodded every morning at 8:15 towards the 103rd Street subway. He looked somehow vulnerable. It had crossed Kenneth’s mind to kidnap the white poodle of the woman (once in a while she took it to Riverside Park and let it off the leash) and he might have done this, except for one small thing: one morning as Reynolds (whose name Kenneth hadn’t known then) came out of his building, he had opened a letter and dropped the envelope into a trash basket at Broadway and 106th. Kenneth had cautiously
Then Kenneth remembered feeling the dog’s collar in his pocket as he walked home, and how he had not wanted to look at it, to read it—though he had, as he killed the dog, imagined examining this complicated collar at home and at leisure. It had dangling tags, a name plate, a couple of metal rings, studs, and the yellow leather was stiff and good. Kenneth had whipped it out of his pocket and flung it down a drain in a gutter.
He had intended to ask a ransom of Reynolds, and now he had it. He had annoyed Reynolds, causing him to put an ad in the paper. He had deflated the pompous Edward Reynolds who wore swanky dark-blue overcoats and expensive shoes and sometimes gloves when it wasn’t particularly cold. And he had put an end to the dog who wore a plaid raincoat in bad weather and a red turtleneck sweater when it was cold.
Kenneth liked to take walks, even aimless walks. His foot did not hurt when he walked, and his limp was caused mainly by the absence of toes there, but Kenneth occasionally exaggerated the limp, he even admitted to himself, when he could use a little extra consideration from people, or when he badly wanted a seat on a bus or a subway. Not that anyone had ever got up and given him a seat, but in case he was competing with someone for an empty seat, a limp helped. Kenneth liked his walks, because his mind raced madly, inspired by the ever-changing objects that his eyes fell upon—a baby carriage, a policeman, a couple of overdressed women glimpsed briefly in a taxi, a fat woman lugging home still more to eat in huge grocery bags, and the smug people into whose living-room windows he could see—men in shirt-sleeves watching television, a wife coming in with a tray of beers, warm yellow lights falling on bookshelves and framed pictures. Snobs. Crooks, too, otherwise how’d they get so rich, how’d they get a woman to live with them and serve them? Kenneth had little use for women, and believed they gravitated only towards men with money to buy them and to spend on them. He was convinced women had no sexual drive at all, or not enough to warrant mentioning, and that they used their physical charms merely to lure men towards them.
Besides Edward Reynolds, there were a couple of other people whom Kenneth watched now, one a woman with a white poodle, as it happened, smaller than the Reynoldses’ dog, and she wore high-heeled shoes and had dyed black hair as frizzled as her dog’s, and she met, now and then, a tall, flashily dressed man who was probably her boyfriend-unbeknownst-to-her-husband on a corner of Broadway and 105th Street, then they went either to a bar on Broadway or back to the woman’s house, where they stayed for about an hour. Another person he watched was a well-dressed but sad-looking adolescent boy who plodded every morning at 8:15 towards the 103rd Street subway. He looked somehow vulnerable. It had crossed Kenneth’s mind to kidnap the white poodle of the woman (once in a while she took it to Riverside Park and let it off the leash) and he might have done this, except for one small thing: one morning as Reynolds (whose name Kenneth hadn’t known then) came out of his building, he had opened a letter and dropped the envelope into a trash basket at Broadway and 106th. Kenneth had cautiously
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