“I guess that’s the way she went. Thanks, Orville.”
“I wouldn’t worry none if I was you, Doctor.” Orville’s little eyes had acquired a sly expression; his lips, surrounded by the day’s growth of gray stubble, twitched on the verge of a grin. “She’ll be back in her own good time, I expect.”
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.