The Devil's Cook (4 page)

Jay's lean face was wooden as he turned away; Farley, having caught the innuendo, understood Jay's reluctance to pursue the matter. Further inquiries about Terry were an open invitation to ribaldry, and no man enjoys the cuckold's role.

On the way upstairs Farley asked, “Does Terry often use the back door?”

“She does when our car's parked out on the apron. Today it wasn't. I had it on campus.”

“Well, she must have gone out that way. Maybe it was a shortcut. In the same direction she was going, I mean.”

“Of course. There's nothing odd about using the back door. All of us do on occasion.”

Having reached the first floor, they ascended the longer flight of stairs to the second. Beyond the Bowers's door, someone moved in response to Jay's knock. It was Otis Bowers himself who opened. Behind Otis, wearing an apron and holding a dish towel, and watching curiously from the kitchen, was his wife Ardis.

Otis was approximately the same age and height at Jay. He had a weight problem, as Jay did, but in reverse. Where Jay was lean, with the prospect of growing leaner, Otis was fat, with the prospect of growing fatter. He was an assistant professor of physics. Ardis was a graduate student and instructor in the Department of English. Her claim to prettiness, which had some basis, was disputed by a hint around eyes and mouth of chronic acrimony; even her speech had a sour flavor.

“Hello, Jay,” Otis said. “Farley. Come in. We've just finished our dinner.”

“Sorry to intrude, Otis,” Jay said, stepping into the room with Farley at his shoulder. “We won't be a minute.”

“No intrusion at all. Sit down and stay a while. We have nothing planned for the evening.”

“Thanks, Otis, but we just came up to ask if you've seen Terry. She invited Farley to dinner, and she seems to have gone off and forgotten all about it.”

Ardis had retreated into the kitchen. She now reappeared, as if on cue, without her towel and apron.

“Otis hasn't seen her,” she said. “Have you, Otis?”

“No, no, I haven't seen her. Sorry, Jay.”

Otis's chubby pink face, normally benign, was a picture of misery. As they all knew, Ardis's abrupt interception of Jay's question was an oblique allusion to a painful episode involving Otis and Terry. The affair, if it could be so exaggerated, had been incited by Terry, not Otis, and he nursed no ill feelings. Ardis, however, would neither forgive nor let Otis forget.

“I meant the question to include you, Ardis.” Jay's face was again wooden. “She might have been on campus. If so, you might have seen her.”

“Well, we didn't. Neither Otis nor I.”

“That's right, Jay,” said Otis. “We haven't seen her today at all. She's probably been delayed by something or other.”

“Yes,” said Ardis. “Something or other.”

Jay turned to the door. Otis hurried forward and held it open in a gesture of courtesy. His embarrassment was still pinkly evident.

“I'm sorry, Jay. I wish I could help you.”

“Forget it, Otis,” Jay said.

He and Farley went out into the hall, and the door closed behind them. Ardis's voice immediately began beyond the door.

“What a bitch!” Farley said.

4

Farley's remark, as it developed, was a cue. The door across the hall swung open and Fanny Moran popped out.

“Did someone mention me?” she said.

Farley stared at his half-sister in amazement, as if he had witnessed a minor miracle when it was least expected.

“Would you mind telling me,” he said, “how in hell you managed to hear me through that closed door? By God, you must have rabbit ears!”

“No such thing. The door was cracked open, as a matter of fact. I was listening.”

“Spying, you mean. Has anyone ever told you that you have acquired some deplorable habits?”

“There was no spying to it. I was curious, that's all. I heard you two when you knocked on the Bowers's door, and I was waiting for you to come out. What did you want to see Ardis and Otis about?”

“I won't tell you. It would only be rewarding your eavesdropping.”

“Jay will tell me. Won't you, Jay?”

But Jay and Farley had moved off down the hall. Fanny trailed after them. They paused again at the head of the stairs.

“We were inquiring about Terry,” Jay told her. “We thought they might have seen her, or might know where she went.”

“Hasn't she come home yet?”

“No.”

“How odd. I wonder where she could be.”

“It's not so odd, really. It isn't even particularly unusual. I keep telling everyone.”

“Well, in my opinion, it is odd. I consider it most unlikely that Terry, after inviting Farley to dinner, would deliberately stay away.”

“We've been over that point, too. There's nothing to be gained by discussing it again. Farley, you must be starving. Let's go down and eat the damn ragout, if it's still edible.”

“Haven't you eaten it
yet?
” asked Fanny.

“No. We kept thinking Terry would be along any minute.”

“There you are, Farley,” Fanny turned to big brother with a frown. “You said I couldn't share the ragout because there wouldn't be enough. As it happens, there would have been plenty for all.”

“How the hell was I to know Terry wouldn't show up? I'm no fortune-teller.”

“There would probably have been enough in any event. You were determined to exclude me, that's all.”

“Anyhow,” said Jay, “there will be plenty now. Will you join us, Fanny?”

“It's too late,” Fanny said. “I've already gone to the trouble of cooking and eating a steak and a baked potato. However, I'll come along to keep you company. Perhaps you can give me a drink or something.”

“Agreed,” said Jay.

“She's incorrigible,” said Farley. “She has absolutely no sense of propriety whatever.”

In the downstairs hall, outside Jay's apartment, Farley paused and looked down the hall toward the alley exit. Like the vestibule, it was at the bottom of a shallow flight of stairs.

“I don't suppose there is anything to be learned from checking the back door,” he said.

“I don't see what,” Jay said, pushing his own door open. “It has a nightlatch. Anyone can go out that way. Besides, it's left unlocked most of the time, so that anyone who parks on the apron can get in. I think Orville locks it for the night at eleven. After that, anyone who wants in has to come around to the front entrance. Damn it, don't try to make a police case out of this, Farley. You know and I know that Terry's simply on the loose. Let's leave it like that.”

They went inside; the ragout, keeping warm, still smelled good. Fanny and Farley stopped in the living room, and Jay went into the kitchen. China and silverware, being removed from the places where they were kept, made identifiable noises.

“Are you wearing pants,” Farley said, “or has your skin turned blue?”

“Don't be absurd,” Fanny said. “All girls wear tight pants these days. It's the style.”

“It's a wonder to me how they get in and out of them.”

“You mustn't be prudish, big brother. It doesn't suit you. If I am any judge of male character, you know perfectly well how they do.”

Jay appeared in the kitchen doorway holding a large serving spoon, with which he gestured like a cop directing traffic.

“Come and get it, Farley,” he said. “There's no use making a production out of this. Serve yourself from the skillet and eat here in the living room if you like.”

“I'll serve,” said Fanny. “I can be useful as well as ornamental.”

She went into the kitchen, relieving Jay of the serving spoon as she passed, and began to fill a plate from the skillet. She passed the plate to Farley, who had followed, and began to fill another.

“Just a little for me,” Jay said. “I'm not very hungry.”

“Neither am I,” said Farley.

“The ragout looks wonderful,” Fanny said, “in spite of cooking so long. I must learn how to make it.”

“Won't you have some?” Jay said. “There's more than enough.”

“I couldn't possibly. I'll put some coffee on to perc.”

“Thanks, Fanny. As long as you're being useful, would you mind fixing your own drink? The stuff's there in the cabinet,”

Fan put the coffee on and got a bottle of gin out of the cabinet. She couldn't locate any vermouth for a martini, but she found a bottle of quinine water and made a minimum gin and tonic, not bothering with lemon or lime. She carried it into the living room, where Farley and Jay were eating the good ragout with less enthusiasm than it deserved. Sipping her gin and tonic, she looked at a Picasso print on the wall; she went over and stared for a moment at the record player; she examined carefully, one by one, all the items on the telephone table; finally she drifted into the bedroom. When she returned her glass was empty, and so was Farley's plate. Jay's plate, however, still held some of the ragout, pushed to one side as if it had been emphatically scorned and rejected.

“Shall I serve you some more ragout?” Fanny asked.

“No more for me,” said Farley.

“No, thank you,” said Jay.

“How was it?”

“Delicious,” Farley said.

“Too damn many onions,” Jay said. “Terry knows very well that I like her to use fewer onions than the recipe calls for. They don't agree with me—a soupçon is plenty. She did it deliberately. We haven't been exactly congenial lately.”

“Oh, nonsense!” Fanny's derision was palpable. “If you ask me, Jay, you are simply being petty. There was nothing to compel her to fix your dinner at all.”

Jay said something impolite. “See if the coffee's ready, will you, Fanny?”

Carrying the two plates, she went to see. The coffee was.

“Sugar or cream?” she called.

“Black,” they both said.

She delivered the coffee and returned to the kitchen. She found a plastic refrigerator dish and put the leftover ragout in it. Then she washed and dried the two plates, the silverware, and the electric skillet. She considered another gin and tonic, decided against it, and went back into the living room. She sat down on a sofa, raising her knees and hugging them to her chest, thereby creating a perilous tautness over a choice section of her anatomy.

“While you guys were eating,” she said, “I looked for clues.”

“Clues to what?” Jay said.

“Clues to wherever Terry might have gone.”

“Of all the colossal nerve!” Farley said. “I wondered what the devil you thought you were doing, prowling around and prying into everything.”

“Looking for clues is not prowling or prying. Obviously, Farley, you're determined to put everything I do or say in the worst possible light. If Terry had an appointment, it's reasonable to assume that she might have made a note of it somewhere.”

“Now that you mention it, it is,” Farley conceded.

“I couldn't find it, however. Not on the table by the telephone or on her dressing table in the bedroom. Can you think of any place else likely to look?”

Jay's voice was quietly desperate. “Terry's appointments are rarely the kind she'd make written notes of to leave lying about. I don't want to appear ungrateful, but I'd appreciate your just cutting it out. I have a notion where Terry went, if you must know, but I have no intention of proving myself right by going after her. I've become weary of painful scenes.”

“Well,” said Fanny, “I have no wish to intrude where I'm not wanted. But I'm compelled to point out that a lot of people seem to be jumping to a certain conclusion. It's being assumed Terry is out having a time. That is not, as I see it, necessarily so.”

Jay shrugged angrily. “What do you expect me to do?”

“If I were her husband, I would at least call the hospitals and see if there have been any accidents or anything like that.”

“She was carrying a purse with identification in it. If she'd been in an accident, I'd have been notified.”

“Perhaps she was mugged and robbed. If so, the mugger would have run off with the purse and thrown it away somewhere.”

“All right, damn it! If she isn't back by ten, I'll call the hospitals. Nothing will come of it, but I suppose I'm expected to act like a husband.”

“If you ask me, you aren't even acting like a husband whose wife may be out having a good time.”

“I used to act like one,” said Jay, “but I got tired of it.”

Farley had been pinching his lower lip, thinking hard. Now he said suddenly to Fanny, “Was there a memo pad on the table by the telephone?”

“I didn't see any. Why?”

“I was just thinking. When there isn't anything else handy, don't women often make notes of appointments on old envelopes, the margins of magazines, things like that?”

“Farley, sometimes you show faint signs of intelligence,” Fanny said. “There are some magazines in that bucket at the end of the sofa. I believe I'll look at them, Jay, if you don't mind.”

“Help yourself,” said Jay.

The bucket was just that. Fanny removed its contents, half a dozen magazines and a newspaper. Kneeling, she began to examine the magazines, looking at the covers, riffling rapidly through the pages to check the margins. Jay leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes, bearing the futility of it all with a pretense of patience; Farley, after a moment, went over and sat down on the end of the sofa, by the bucket He reached for the newspaper and began to examine it, holding it folded over in his hands just as he had picked it up. It was folded twice at a page of classified ads, including a column of personals.

“Wait a minute!” Farley's voice had acquired all at once an excitement qualified by incredulity. “What's this?”

“What's what?” said Fanny, looking up.