Otherwise what? I’m damned if I know what kind of a threat I was prepared to make. But Carolyn didn’t give me the chance. She clutched my arm. She said, “Bernie-”

“Ve vill kill ze cat,” the woman said, her voice much louder and suddenly accented. The effect was somewhere between an ad for Viennese pastry mit schlag and that guy in the World War II movies who reminds you that you’ve got relatives in Chermany.

“Now let’s be calm,” I said, to both of them. “No need to talk about violence.”

“If you do not pay ze ransom-”

“Neither of us has that kind of money. You must know that. Now why don’t you tell me what you want?”

There was a pause. “Tell your vriend to go home.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Zere is somesing in her mailbox.”

“All right. I’ll go with her, and-”

“No.”

“No?”

“Stay vere you are. You vill get a phone call.”

“But-”

There was a click. I sat looking at the receiver for a few seconds before I hung it up. I asked Carolyn if she’d heard any of it.

“I caught a few words here and there,” she said. “It was the same person I talked to last night. At least I think it was. Same accent, anyway.”

“She switched it on in midstream. I guess she forgot it at the beginning, and then she remembered she was supposed to sound threatening. Or else she slips into it when she gets excited. I don’t like the idea of splitting up. She wants you to go to your apartment and me to stay here and I don’t like it.”

“Why?”

“Well, who knows what she’s going to try to pull?”

“I have to go downtown anyway. Somebody’s bringing me a schnauzer at eleven. Shit, I don’t have much time, do I? I can’t face a schnauzer with a head like I’ve got. Thank God it’s a miniature schnauzer. I don’t know what I’d do if I had to wash a giant schnauzer on a day like this.”

“Stop at your apartment on the way. If you’ve got time.”