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And the cat, released, leaped and perched on her shoulder: his tail swung like a baton conducting

rhapsodic music. Holly, too, seemed inhabited by melody, some bouncybon voyage oompahpah.

Uncorking the brandy, she said: "This was meant to be part of my hope chest. The idea was, every

anniversary we'd 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 doesn't vanish every day. Won't you toast her?"), the

gruffer he was: "I'll have no part of it. If you're going to hell, you'll go on your own. With no further help

from me." An inaccurate statement: because seconds after he'd 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 alight. So did I. And when I saw Joe Bell blush, I had to

think: by God, hedid call the police. But then, with burning ears, he announced: "It's nothing. One of them

Carey Cadillacs. I hired it. To take 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."

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

Look at me, sir."

The Carey chauffeur was a worldy specimen who accepted our slapdash luggage most civilly and

remained rock-faced when, as the limousine swished uptown through a lessening rain, Holly stripped off

her clothes, the riding costume she'd never had a chance to substitute, and struggled into a slim black

dress. We didn't talk: talk could have only led to argument; and also, Holly seemed too preoccupied for

conversation. She hummed to herself, swigged brandy, she leaned constantly forward to peer out the

windows, as if she were hunting an address -- or, I decided, taking a last impression of a scene she

wanted to remember. It was neither of these. But this: "Stop here," she ordered the driver, and we pulled

to the curb of a street in Spanish Harlem. A savage, a garish, a moody neighborhood garlanded with

poster-portraits of movie stars and Madonnas. Sidewalk litterings of fruit-rind and rotted newspaper

were hurled about by the wind, for the wind still boomed, though the rain had hushed and there were

bursts of blue in the sky.

Holly stepped out of the car; she took the cat with her. Cradling him, she scratched his head and asked.

"What do you think? This ought to be the right kind of place for a tough guy like you. Garbage cans. Rats

galore. Plenty of cat-bums to gang around with. So scram," she said, dropping him; and when he did not

move away, instead raised his thug-face and questioned her with yellowish pirate-eyes, she stamped her

foot: "I said beat it!" He rubbed against her leg. "I said fuck off!" she shouted, then jumped back in the

car, slammed the door, and: "Go," she told the driver. "Go. Go."

I was stunned. "Well, youare . Youare a bitch."

We'd traveled a block before she replied. "I told you. We just met by the river one day: that's all.

Independents, both of us. We never made each other any promises. We never -- " she said, and her

voice collapsed, a tic, an invalid whiteness seized her face. The car had paused for a traffic light. Then

she had the door open, she was running down the street; and I ran after her.

But the cat was not at the corner where he'd been left. There was no one, nothing on the street except a

urinating drunk and two Negro nuns herding a file of sweet-singing children. Other children emerged from

doorways and ladies leaned over their window sills to watch as Holly darted up and down the block, ran

back and forth chanting: "You. Cat. Where are you?