A Dog's Ransom Read Online Free PDF

Saturday morning around eleven? Often they took Lisa with them and tied her outside to a rail.
    Greta propped her face on one hand. “Oh, Eddie, I’m discouraged.”
    “I know, darling. I’m going to ring them back, the police. If they sound vague, I’ll go to Centre Street myself.”
    “Three days now almost. I wonder if they give her enough to eat?”
    Ed was glad Greta assumed Lisa was still alive. “Don’t worry about that. She’s in good health.”
    Greta put her cigarette down and covered her eyes with her finger-tips. “If she’s dead, I don’t know what I’ll do, Eddie,” she said in a voice squeaky with tears.
    Ed knelt beside her. He wanted to say, “We’ll get another dog, right away,” but it wasn’t time to say that—a statement that would sound as if Lisa were definitely gone.
    “She’s such a darling. As a dog, she is perfect, you know?”
    Lots of their friends said that. As a puppy, even, she had not chewed up shoes, only chewed—with the greatest pleasure—the silly things they sold in pet shops for puppies to teethe on. Ed laughed. “Yes, she’s perfect, and I love her, too, darling!—Dry your eyes and we’ll think about the shopping. Got a list? Then—” He remembered he had to read the biography this week-end, and it was a thick one. Well, he’d sit up at night doing it, if he had to. “How about a movie this afternoon? Or would you rather go tonight? What was that thing we wanted to see? Catamaran , no? I’ll look up the time.”
    Greta came out of it slowly. Her face was still unhappy, but she was probably already composing her shopping list. Usually on Sunday they had a good lunch at two or three, and a snack in the evening. “I think I’ll make a Sauerbraten . Marinate it overnight, you know?”
    They went to the supermarket together, Ed first taking the laundry in two pillowcases to the launderette near the supermarket on Broadway. Then he joined Greta in the supermarket and held a place on the line with her nearly full carrier cart while she came and went, adding small items like tinned crabmeat or pâté. There were simpler ways of shopping and doing chores, Ed supposed, and men in his position didn’t usually frequent supermarkets, but Ed and Greta had shopped together in the same way when they first met, and Ed still liked it. They bought their meat at a shop on the other side of Broadway. Ed told himself that when they walked out of the supermarket in a couple of minutes, he wasn’t going to think of Lisa tied to the rail, brightening at the sight of them. A dog wasn’t everything in life. It was just that Lisa took the place of a child now, for both of them. That was obvious.
    “Okay, okay!” said the check-out operator, because Ed was a few seconds slow in starting to unload his carrier on to the belt, which at once began to move. He looked around for Greta, and was relieved to see her approaching, carrying a pineapple in her hands, a smile on her face as she looked at him, as if to say, “An extravagance, I know, but I want it.” She squeezed in behind Ed, unperturbed by a woman behind her who was annoyed by their maneuvers.
    At 5 p.m., Ed telephoned the police station. They had sent the letters to Centre Street, but as yet no report, the man said.
    “Is this Captain MacGregor?”
    “No, he’s not on duty now.”
    “When will they know anything?”
    The man sighed audibly. “That I can’t tell you, sir.”
    “Can I call Centre Street?”
    “Well, no, they don’t like that.—You wouldn’t know who to talk to. Even I don’t.”
    “When can I know something? Tomorrow?”
    Ed was given to understand there was less staff on Centre Street on Sundays, or something like that. Especially painful to Ed was the idea of waiting till Monday for information.
    “It’s not just the letters, you know. My dog has been stolen. I explained all that to Captain MacGregor and—an officer named Santini.”
    “Oh. Yeah,” said the voice without a hint of