Cities of the Dead by Linda Barnes

she’d memorized one of the turgid soap opera scripts his agent kept sending him. Her words had a strange sort of rhythm, an unfamiliar melody that reminded him of other voices, Dora’s lilting French, Rawlins’ twangy Southern.
    â€œWhat paper did you way you were from?” she repeated.
    â€œThe Star, ” he hastily amended.
    â€œI mostly read the Enquirer, ” she said apologetically. “This was going to be our restaurant.” She motioned him inward. “You said you might take some photographs … The kitchen was my husband’s own design. If you had a camera …”
    â€œI was just going to ask where I could find the nearest drugstore,” Spraggue said smoothly. “My photographer’s out of film. If I can send him for supplies, we can take care of the whole story this morning.”
    â€œWonderful. I was worried you might not make it until late this afternoon, like you said. Hmmmm. A drugstore. How about a regular camera store? There’s one close by.” She pointed off toward a distant intersection and said, “It’s just three blocks east of the light. Right by the KB. Big place. Can’t miss it.”
    â€œThanks.” Spraggue hoped the “other” reporter would get called to a fire. He went back out to the cab, gave detailed instructions to the rear window, trusting the glare to hide the fact that only Flowers was inside.
    He opened the cab’s front door, rummaged in the pillowcase, and came out with a notebook, two pens for his breast pocket, and the cassette recorder he always traveled with when he was acting. He’d stuffed it in his luggage by mistake, from force of habit, ready to record his lines and cues. Now he was glad of the error. Grasping the recorder, he realized he felt comfortable in the reporter role. He’d played one in a TV cop show once. Then he’d worn horn-rimmed glasses and a cap.
    â€œCome right in,” Mrs. Fontenot said when he climbed back onto the porch.
    The foyer was dark and cool, and smelled of newly varnished wood floors. Several interior walls had been knocked down to make one large main dining area. Ceiling fans spun lazily overhead. The decor was haphazard, here and there a stab at elegance: flocked red wallpaper, gold wall sconces. But the floors were bare, and the walls covered with unframed maps and menus. Chairs and tables were crowded into the room as if Fontenot had anticipated an overflow crowd. The overall effect was contradiction, a ritzy diner.
    â€œI can just hear my Joe say how fine the publicity would be.” Mrs. Fontenot let out a mournful sigh. “Only now, I don’t know. I doubt I’ll ever open this place. People would have come out to Gretna to eat Joe’s cooking. Yes, they would. They would’ve come miles and miles. Me, I’m a good cook myself. Pretty near good as Joe. But I haven’t got Joe’s reputation and now, well, I don’t know if I’ve got the strength.”
    Spraggue made sympathetic noises and scribbled in his notebook.
    â€œI suppose I could sell it,” she went on. “But it would seem like, oh, such a betrayal. Joe worked so damned hard for this place. It was his great dream. Just come see the kitchen.”
    Spraggue got a guided tour, complete with relics (Fontenot’s favorite cast-iron griddle) and anecdotes (the time Fontenot had made bread pudding with bourbon and lemon sauce for, well, a very well-known actress who’s a trifle overweight, and she—well, Mrs. Fontenot wouldn’t want that in the paper!). Joe Fontenot hadn’t skimped in his kitchen; his restaurant was either deep in debt or well-endowed. His wife waxed eloquent over the eight-burner Vulcan gas ranges and the stacks of skillets. For a time she seemed to forget entirely the reason for his visit. Her plain face beamed and all the sharp separate parts blended into a whole that could only have been called