I went straight upstairs, got the bird cage, took it down a it in front of herdoor. That settled that. Or so I imagined until the m when, as I wasleaving for work, I saw the cage perched on a sidewalk ash- waiting for thegarbage collector. Rather sheepishly, I rescued it and carried it bay room, acapitulation that did not lessen my resolve to put Holly Golightly absolutely out of mylife. She was, I decided, "a crude exhibitionist," "a time waster," "an utter fake":someone o be spoken to again.
And I didnt. Not for a long while. We passed each other oairs with loweredeyes. If she walked into Joe Bells, I walked out. At one point, Madame SapphiaSpanella, the coloratura and roller-skatihusiast who lived on the first floor,circulated a petition among the brownstoher tenants asking them to join herin having Miss Golightly evicted: she was, said Madame Spanella, "morallyobjeable" and the "perpetrator of all-night gatherings that endahesafety and sanity of her neighbors." Though I refused to sigly I felt MadameSpanella had cause to plain. But her petition failed, and as April approachedMay, the open-windowed, warm spring nights were lurid with the party sounds, theloud-playing phonograph and martini laughter that emanated from Apt. 2.
It was no y to enter suspicious spes among Hollys callers, quitethe trary; but one day late that spring, while passing through the brownstoibule, I noticed a very provocative man examining her mailbox. A person in hisearly fifties with a hard, weathered face, gray forlorn eyes. He wore an old sweatstainedgray hat, and his cheap summer suit, a pale blue, hung too loosely on hislanky frame; his shoes were brown and brandnew. He seemed to have no iioning Hollys bell. Slowly, as though he were reading Braille, he kept rubbing afinger across the embossed lettering of her name.
That evening, on my way to supper, I saw the man again. He was standing acrossthe street, leaning against a tree and staring up at Hollys windows. Sinisterspeculations rushed through my head. Was he a detective? Or some underwent ected with her Sing Sing friend, Sally Tomato? The situation revived mytenderer feelings for Holly; it was only fair to interrupt our feud long enough to warhat she was being watched. As I walked to the er, headi toward theHamburg Heaven at Seventy-ninth and Madison, I could feel the mans attentionfocused on me. Presently, without turning my head, I khat he was followingme. Because I could hear him whistling. Not any ordinary tune, but the plaintive,prairie melody Holly sometimes played on her guitar: Dont wanna sleep, dontwanna die, just wanna go a-travelin through the pastures of the sky. The whistlingtinued across Park Avenue and up Madison. Once, while waiting for a traffic lightto ge, I watched him out of the er of my eye as he stooped to pet a sleazyPomeranian. "Thats a fine animal you got there," he told the owner in a hoarse,trified drawl.
Hamburg Heaven was empty. heless, he took a seat right beside me at thelong ter. He smelled of tobacd sweat. He ordered a cup of coffee, but whenit came he didnt touch it. Instead, he chewed on a toothpid studied me in thewall mirror fag us.
"Excuse me," I said, speaking to him via the mirror, "but what do you want?"
The question didnt embarrass him; he seemed relieved to have had it asked.
"Son," he said, "I need a friend."
He brought out a wallet. It was as worn as his leathery hands, almost falling topieces; and so was th