Nothing That Meets the Eye by Patricia Highsmith

Author:Patricia Highsmith
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Published: 2012-05-13T16:00:00+00:00

It was one of those remodeled brownstone houses with the kitchen downstairs in front and a chime doorbell that was answered by a maid—as different from Mr. McKenny’s brownstone as a palace is from a third-class rooming house. The maid glanced at the bulky shopping bag.

“Ah! The man with Felix! Yes! Come in!” She swung the door open.

“Thank you.” As soon as Mr. McKenny stepped into the hall, he heard a confusion of voices. A couple of men—they looked like reporters—came out of a door into the hall. Then, before he could turn to try to escape, a young woman with blond hair ran past the two men toward him.

“Oh, you dear man! You’ve got Felix?” she asked excitedly.

Mr. McKenny was surrounded. The shopping bag was taken from his hand. Somebody pulled the cage out of the bag and a shout went up at the sight of the bird.

“It is my Felix!” the young blond woman cried. “Oooooh!” She embraced the cage, sending Felix into a flutter of excitement himself.

A couple of cameras clicked and flashed.

“Tell us how you found the parakeet, sir,” a reporter said in Mr. McKenny’s face. “Just come in here, sir, will you, please?”

The whole group, including a couple of women reporters, moved into a large living room filled with red roses.

“This story’s big. You know who Dianne Walker is, don’t you?” the reporter asked.

“I’m afraid—”

“She’s number one box office of the year in Hollywood and on Broadway,” the man whispered in Mr. McKenny’s ear.

Mr. McKenny did not understand the sentence. He supposed she was an actress. She was posing for photographers now with Felix sitting on her red-nailed finger, kissing her lips. In fact, a hush came over everybody as all eyes turned to where the camera focused. Once more Mr. McKenny thought of escape. A reward—whatever it was—would not be worth what the publicity would do to him.

“She just told us,” the same reporter was saying in his ear, “that she wouldn’t go on tonight if she didn’t get her parakeet back. She says Felix brings her all her luck.”

Click!

“All right, Miss Walker, thank you!”

“Will you tell us how you caught the parakeet?” one of the women reporters asked.

Cameras swung around on Mr. McKenny.

“Well, I—I was getting my own parakeet cages in from my fire escape a little before eight this morning, when I—” At that moment, Mr. McKenny’s eye fell on a familiar face: it was the face of the tall young reporter who had come to his house to interview him last month.

“Go on, Mr. McKenny,” he said, giving Mr. McKenny a little smile and a wave. It did not somehow look friendly to Mr. McKenny. He plunged on. “I saw this parakeet—Felix—sitting on the rail of my fire escape. I knew it wasn’t one of mine because I haven’t any just this color.” He had told the young reporter he hadn’t any parakeets of his own, he remembered suddenly. “So I called to it—I took my own birds in and set them on the floor—in their cages.

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