Chapter 25 Breakfast at Tiffany's-25

She said, "Rah, team, rah," and blew smoke in my face. She was impressed, however; her eyes were dilated by unhappy visions, as were mine: iron rooms, steel corridors of gradually closing doors. ," she said, and stabbed out hercigarette. "I have a fair chance they wont catch me. Provided you keep your bouchefermez. Look. Dont despise me, darling." She put her hand over mine and pressed it with sudden immense sincerity." I havent much choice. I talked it over with the lawyer: oh, I didnt tell him anything regarding Rio -- hed tip the badgers himself, rather than lose his fee, to say nothing of the nickels OJ put up for bail. Bless OJheart; but once on the coast I helped him win more than ten thou in a single pokerhand: were square. No, heres the real shake: all the badgers want from me is a couple of free grabs and my services as a states witness against Sally -- nobody has any intention of prosecuting me, they havent a ghost of a case. Well, I may berotten to the core, Maude, bu t: testify against a friend I will not. Not if they can prove he doped Sister Kenny. My yardstick is how somebody treats me, and oldSally, all right he wasn't absolutely white with me, say he took a slight advantage, just the same Sallys an okay shooter, and Id let the fat woman snatch me soonerthan help the law-boys pin him down." Tilting her compact mirror above her face, smoothing her lipstick with a crooked pinkie, she said: "And to be honest, that isntall . Certain shades of limelight wreck a girls complexion. Even if a jury gave me the Purple Heart, this neighborhood holds no future: theyd still have up every rope from LaRue to Peronas Bar and Grill -- take my word, Id be about as welcome as Mr  … .

Frank E. Campbell. And if you lived off my particular talents, Cookie, you dunderstand the kind of bankruptcy Im describing. Uh, uh, I dont just fancy a fadeout that finds me belly-bumping around Roseland with a pack of West Side hillbillies. While the excellent Madame Trawler sashayes her twat in and out of Tiffanys. Icouldn't take it. Give me the fat woman any day." A nurse, soft-shoeing into the room, advised that visiting hours were over. Holly started to complain, and was curtailed by having a thermometer popped in hermouth. But as I took leave, she unstoppered herself to say: "Do me a favor, darling.

Call up the Times, or whatever you call, and get a list of the fifty richest men in Brazil. Im not kidding. The fifty richest: regardless of race or color. Another favor --poke around my apartment till you find that medal you gave me. The St. Christopher. Ill need it for the trip." The sky was red Friday night, it thundered, and Saturday, departing day, the city swayed in a squall-like downpour. Sharks might have swum through the air, though it seemed improbable a plane could penetrate it. But Holly, ignoring my cheerful conviction that her flight would not go, continued her preparations -- placing, I must say, the chief burden of them on me. For she had decided it would be unwise of her to come near the brownstone. too: it was under surveillance, whether by police or reporters or other interested parties one couldn't tell -- simply a man, sometimes men, who hung around the stoop. Soshed gone from the hospital to a bank and straight then to Joe Bells Bar. "She dontfigure she was followed," Joe Bell told me when he came with a message that Hollywanted me to meet her there as soon as possible, a half-hour at most, bringing: "Her jewelry. Her guitar. Toothbrushes and stuff. And a bottle of hundred-year-oldbrandy: she says you'll find it hid down in the bottom of the dirty-clothes basket.

Yeah, oh, and the cat. She wants the cat. But hell," he said, "I dont know we should help her at all. She ought to be protected against herself. Me, I feel like telling the cops. Maybe if I go back and build her some drinks, maybe I can get her drunk enough to call it off." Stumbling, skidding up and down the fire escape between Hollys apartment and mine, wind-blown and winded and wet to the bone (clawed to the bone as well, for the cat had not looked favorably upon evacuation, especially in such inclementweather) I managed a fast , first-rate job of assembling her going-away belongings. Ieven found the St. Christophers medal. Everything was piled on the floor of myroom, a poignant pyramid of brassieres and dancing slippers and pretty things Ipacked in Hollys only suitcase. There was a mass left over that I had to put in papergrocery bags. I couldn't think how to carry the cat; until I thought of stuffing him in pillowcase.

Never mind why, but once I walked from New Orleans to Nancys Landing, Mississippi, just under five hundred miles. It was a light-hearted lark compared to the journey to Joe Bells bar. The guitar filled with rain, rain softened the papersacks, the sacks spilled and perfume spilled on the pavement, pearls rolled in the gutter: while the wind pushed and the cat scratched, the cat screamed -- but worse, I was frightened, a coward to equal Jose: those storming streets seemed aswarm with unseen presences waiting to trap, imprison me for aiding an outlaw. The outlaw said: "Youre late, Buster. Did you bring the brandy?"

And the cat, released, leaped and perched on her shoulder: his tail swung like abaton conducting rhapsodic music. Holly, too, seemed inhabited by melody, some bouncy bon voyage oompahpah. Uncorking the brandy, she said: "This was meant of tobe part my hope chest. The idea was, every anniversary wed have a swig. Thank Jesus I never bought the chest. Mr. Bell, sir, three glasses." "You'll only need two," he told her. "I won't drink to your foolishness." The more she cajoled him ("Ah, Mr. Bell. The lady doesnt vanish every day. Wontyou toast her?"), the gruffer he was: "Ill have no part of it. If youre going to hell, youll go on your own. With no further help from me." An inaccurate statement: because seconds after hed made it a chauffeured limousine drew up outside the bar, and Holly, the first to notice it, put down her brandy, arched her eyebrows, as though she expected to see the District Attorney himself aware. So did I. And when Isaw Joe Bell blush, I had to think: by God, he did call the police. But then, with burning ears, he announced: "Its nothing. One of them Carey Cadillacs. I hired it. Totake you to the airport."

He turned his back on us to fiddle with one of his flower arrangements. Holly said: "Kind, dear Mr. Bell. Look at me, sir."