about.
«See?» she shouted. «It’s great!» And suddenly it was. Suddenly, watching the
tangled colors of Holly’s hair flash in the red-yellow leaf light, I loved her enough to
forget myself, my self-pitying despairs, and be content that something she thought
happy was going to happen. Very gently the horses began to trot, waves of wind
splashed us, spanked our faces, we plunged in and out of sun and shadow pools, and
joy, a glad-to-be-alive exhilaration, jolted through me like a jigger of nitrogen. That
was one minute; the next introduced farce in grim disguise.
For all at once, like savage members of a jungle ambush, a band of Negro boys
leapt out of the shrubbery along the path. Hooting, cursing, they launched rocks and
thrashed at the horse’s rumps with switches.
Mine, the black and white mare, rose on her hind legs, whinnied, teetered like a
tightrope artist, then blue-streaked down the path, bouncing my feet out of the
stirrups and leaving me scarcely attached. Her hooves made the gravel stones spit
sparks. The sky careened. Trees, a lake with little-boy sailboats, statues went by
licketysplit. Nursemaids rushed to rescue their charges from our awesome approach;
men, bums and others, yelled: «Pull in the reins!» and «Whoa, boy, whoa!» and
«Jump!» It was only later that I remembered these voices; at the time I was simply
conscious of Holly, the cowboy-sound of her racing behind me, never quite catching
up, and over and over calling encouragements. Onward: across the park and out into
Fifth Avenue: stampeding against the noonday traffic, taxis, buses that screechingly
swerved. Past the Duke mansion, the Frick Museum, past the Pierre and the Plaza.
But Holly gained ground; moreover, a mounted policeman had joined the chase:
flanking my runaway mare, one on either side, their horses performed a pincer
movement that brought her to a steamy halt. It was then, at last, that I fell off her
back. Fell off and picked myself up and stood there, not altogether certain where I
was. A crowd gathered. The policeman huffed and wrote in a book: presently he was
most sympathetic, grinned and said he would arrange for our horses to be returned
to their stable.
Holly put us in a taxi. «Darling. How do you feel?»
«Fine.»
«But you haven’t any pulse,» she said, feeling my wrist.
«Then I must be dead.»
«No, idiot. This is serious. Look at me.»
The trouble was, I couldn’t see her; rather, I saw several Holly’s, a trio of sweaty
faces so white with concern that I was both touched and embarrassed. «Honestly. I
don’t feel anything. Except ashamed.»
«Please. Are you sure? Tell me the truth. You might have been killed.»
«But I wasn’t. And thank you. For saving my life. You’re wonderful. Unique. I love
you.»
«Damn fool.» She kissed me on the cheek. Then there were four of her, and I
fainted dead away.
That evening, photographs of Holly were frontpaged by the late edition of the
Journal-American and by the early editions of both the Daily News and the Daily
Mirror. The publicity had nothing to do with runaway horses. It concerned quite
another matter, as the headlines revealed: PLAYGIRL ARRESTED IN NARCOTICS
SCANDAL (Journal-American), ARREST DOPE-SMUGGLING ACTRESS (Daily News),
DRUG RING EXPOSED, GLAMOUR GIRL HELD (Daily Mirror).
Of the lot, the News printed the most striking picture: Holly, entering police
headquarters, wedged between two muscular detectives, one male, one female. In
this squalid context even her clothes (she was still wearing her riding costume,
windbreaker and blue jeans) suggested a gang-moll hooligan: an impression dark
glasses, disarrayed coiffure and a Picayune cigarette dangling from sullen lips did not
diminish. The caption read: Twenty-year-old Holly Golightly, beautiful movie starlet
and cafe society celebrity D.A. alleges to be key figure in international drugsmuggling racket linked to racketeer Salvatore «Sally» Tomato. Dets. Patrick Connor
and Sheilah Fezzonetti (L. and R.) are shown escorting her into 67th St. Precinct.
See story on Pg. 3. The story, featuring a photograph of a man identified as Oliver
«Father» O’Shaughnessy (shielding his face with a fedora), ran three full columns.
Here, somewhat condensed, are the pertinent paragraphs: Members of café society
were stunned today by the arrest of gorgeous Holly Golightly, twenty-year-old
Hollywood starlet and highly publicized girl-about-New York. At the same time, 2
P.M., police nabbed Oliver O’Shaughnessy, 52, of the Hotel Seabord, W. 49th St., as
he exited from a Hamburg Heaven on Madison Ave. Both are alleged by District
Attorney Frank L. Donovan to be important figures in an international drug ring
dominated by the notorious Mafia-führer Salvatore «Sally» Tomato, currently in Sing
Sing serving a five-year rap for political bribery … O’Shaughnessy, a defrocked
priest variously known in crimeland circles as «Father» and «The Padre,» has a history
of arrests dating back to 1934, when he served two years for operating a phony
Rhode Island mental institution, The Monastery. Miss Golightly, who has no previous
criminal record, was arrested in her luxurious apartment at a swank East Side
address … Although the D.A.’s office has issued no formal statement, responsible
sources insist the blond and beautiful actress, not long ago the constant companion
of multimillionaire Rutherfurd Trawler, has been acting as «liaison» between the
imprisoned Tomato and his chief-lieutenant, O’Shaughnessy … Posing as a relative
of Tomato’s, Miss Golightly is said to have paid weekly visits to Sing Sing, and on
these occasions Tomato supplied her with verbally coded messages which she then
transmitted to O’Shaughnessy. Via this link, Tomato, believed to have been born in
Cefalu, Sicily, in 1874, was able to keep firsthand control of a world-wide narcotics
syndicate with outposts in Mexico, Cuba, Sicily, Tangier, Tehran and Dakar. But the
D.A.’s office refused to offer any detail on these allegations or even verify them …
Tipped off, a large number of reporters were on hand at the E. 67th St. Precinct
station when the accused pair arrived for booking. O’Shaughnessy, a burly redhaired man, refused comment and kicked one cameraman in the groin. But Miss
Golightly, a fragile eyeful, even though attired like a tomboy in slacks and leather
jacket, appeared relatively unconcerned. «Don’t ask me what the hell this is about,»
she told reporters. «Parce-que Je ne sais pas, mes chères. (Because I do not know,
my dears). Yes — I have visited Sally Tomato. I used to go to see him every week.
What’s wrong with that? He believes in God, and so do I.» …
Then, under the subheading ADMITS OWN DRUG ADDICTION: Miss Golightly
smiled when a reporter asked whether or not she herself is a narcotics user. «I’ve
had a little go at marijuana. It’s not half so destructive as brandy. Cheaper, too.
Unfortunately, I prefer brandy. No, Mr. Tomato never mentioned drugs to me. It
makes me furious, the way these wretched people keep persecuting him. He’s a
sensitive, a religious person. A darling old man.»
There is one especially gross error in this report: she was not arrested in her
«luxurious apartment.» It took place in my own bathroom. I was soaking away my
horse-ride pains in a tub of scalding water laced with Epsom salts; Holly, an attentive
nurse, was sitting on the edge of the tub waiting to rub me with Sloan’s liniment and
tuck me into bed. There was a knock at the front door. As the door was unlocked,
Holly called Come in. In came Madame Sapphia Spanella, trailed by a pair of civilianclothed detectives, one of them a lady with thick yellow braids roped round her head.
«Here she is: the wanted woman!» boomed Madame Spanella, invading the
bathroom and leveling a finger, first at Holly’s, then my nakedness. «Look. What a
whore she is.» The male detective seemed embarrassed: by Madame Spanella and
by the situation; but a harsh enjoyment tensed the face of his companion — she
plumped a hand on Holly’s shoulder and, in a surprising baby-child voice, said:
«Come along, sister. You’re going places.» Whereupon Holly coolly told her: «Get
them cotton-pickin’ hands off of me, you dreary, driveling old bull-dyke.» Which
rather enraged the lady: she slapped Holly damned hard. So hard, her head twisted
on her neck, and the bottle of linement, flung from her hand, smithereened on the
tile floor — where I, scampering out of the tub to enrich the fray, stepped on it and
all but severed both big toes. Nude and bleeding a path of bloody footprints, I
followed the action as far as the hall. «Don’t forget,» Holly managed to instruct me as
the detectives propelled her down the stairs, «please feed the cat.»
Of course I believed Madame Spanella to blame: she’d several times called the
authorities to complain about Holly. It didn’t occur to me the affair could have dire
dimensions until that evening when Joe Bell showed up flourishing the newspapers.
He was too agitated to speak sensibly; he caroused the room hitting his fists
together while I read the accounts.
Then he said: «You think it’s so? She was mixed up in this lousy business?»
«Well, yes.»
He popped a Tums in his mouth and, glaring at me, chewed it as though he were
crunching my bones. «Boy, that’s rotten. And you meant to be her friend. What a
bastard!»
«Just a minute. I didn’t say she was involved knowingly. She wasn’t. But there,
she did do it. Carry messages and whatnot — «
He said: «Take it pretty calm, don’t you? Jesus, she could get ten years. More.» He
yanked the papers away from me. «You know her friends. These rich fellows. Come
down to the bar, we’ll start phoning. Our girl’s going to need fancier shysters than I
can afford.»
I was too sore and shaky to dress myself; Joe Bell had to help. Back at his bar he
propped me in the telephone booth with a triple martini and a brandy tumbler full of
coins. But I couldn’t think who to contact. José was in Washington, and I had no
notion where to reach him there. Rusty Trawler? Not that bastard! Only: what other
friends of hers did I know? Perhaps she’d been right when she’d said she had none,
not really.
I put through a call to Crestview 5-6958 in Beverly Hills, the number longdistance information gave me for O.J. Berman. The person who answered said Mr.
Berman
