Free Found in the Street by Patricia Highsmith

shaking a finger at her.
    â€œ No! — No, you’re . . .” She flew off to the coffee machines.
    Jack looked at the man she had been talking to, and recognized him. He was the man who had returned his wallet. Yes, certainly. There was his ugly dog on a leash. Now the man was getting up, ready to leave. Jack turned toward the wall, not wanting to be seen and maybe buttonholed. The guy was a bore, Jack remembered. Plainly he’d been boring the blond girl tonight too. Jack dared a glance, when the man reached the door, and watched him go out with his dog.
    The rain was abating. Five more people departed.
    Jack was curious about the girl, about the man, about what she thought of him. He sat down at a counter stool.
    â€œCoffee white, please,” Jack said to a waitress who was not the blond girl. The coffee arrived. The waitress was busy and didn’t take his two quarters which lay on top of the check, but the blond girl swept by like a flying canary and did. Jack watched her, amused. She breezed back from the cash register with his partly torn check and his three cents, and as Jack slid his hand forward to take the change, their fingers touched, and the girl smiled at him. She had very white teeth, blue eyes that were not large but clear and intelligent. Her hair made him think of the word flaxen. It was straight, not thick, and cut carelessly and short.
    â€œYou’re back again,” she said.
    â€œYes. Say—that fellow you were talking with—with the dog.” Jack gestured toward where the man had sat.
    â€œOh, him! He’s nuts!” She gave a quick laugh.
    â€œHow so?”
    The girl glanced around to see if she were urgently needed somewhere. “Giving me lectures all the time.—Oh, New York’s full of screwballs.” She was about to leave.
    â€œI met him once before.”
    â€œDid you? He comes—Okay, Lorrie!” The girl went off. A short order was ready at the cook’s window.
    Jack lifted the hot coffee.
    The girl came back. “He lives around here. He’s a security guard, he says. You’d think he was getting paid to guard me. You’d think he was tailing me. Except I’m not the paranoid type, I hope.—How come you know him?”
    Jack smiled. “He returned my wallet—after I’d lost it. I have to admit he’s honest.”
    â€œOh-h, you’re the one!” Her eyes showed intense interest. “He told me all about that. He thought it was great, something like a miracle. He thinks you’re great. He’s blown all out of his mind by that wallet story.—Anyway, I’m glad to find out it’s true. I wasn’t even sure, y’know? He’s so bananas. So now—” She looked off, for an instant dreamily, as if questing for words. “He keeps telling me that’s the way I oughta be—honest and so on. Ha-ha!” She rocked back with laughter, holding to the counter edge in front of her.
    â€œEl- sie !” cried one of the waitresses.
    â€œI’ll come back!” Elsie dashed away.
    Jack found himself smiling. Elsie could be an actress, Jack thought, or was her intensity confined to what happened to her?
    â€œGoddam lamb stew,” Elsie murmured, returning. “Well—this nut lectures me about my sexlife, f’Chris’ sake, morals. He doesn’t know what a clean life I lead! Does he think I’m a prostitute or something? And what about him, I often think. Or say. Sure, I say it to him. ‘Weren’t you ever young and happy?’ Maybe he wasn’t. In that case, he’s just repressed and it’s too late for him to do anything about it, isn’t it?” She laughed without bitterness, with an amusement that brought moisture to her eyes. “He’s weird! Especially since he doesn’t believe in religion. And he calls his dog ‘God’, did you know that?”
    Jack nodded. “I know.”
    â€œSay,