Free Obit Delayed by Helen Nielsen

response to this observation. Rita’s mood changed abruptly. She tossed back her head, emitting a rather frightening sound that must have been laughter, and then grabbed his arm with an exuberance that almost jerked him off the bar stool. “You know,” she babbled into his collar, “you’re a very funny man. You’re cute, too.”
    “Thank you,” Mitch said. “It’s been a long time since anyone called me cute.”
    “That’s because you’re so unfriendly. Why don’t you be nice to Rita? Rita gets lonely!”
    “With Davey away, you mean.”
    “Davey!”
    Mitch had said the wrong thing—or the right one, depending on the point of view, because Rita immediately turned loose the grip on his arm and went back to work on the glass again. When she looked up another mood had taken over. She wore a vague smile and a look of cunning in her bloodshot eyes.
    “Still trying to pump me about Dave, aren’t you?” she said. “Still trying to find out what he was doing at Pinky’s.”
    “Aren’t you?”
    “I know what he was doing there—and I’m not telling you! Rita’s not opening her mouth!”
    “Then I guess I’m wasting my time,” Mitch conceded. “But at least I know he wasn’t there to see Virginia. You did tell me that much this afternoon.”
    “I did?” Rita frowned thoughtfully, but she was in no condition to remember details. “Well, maybe he wasn’t and maybe he was,” she murmured. “Davey always did like playing with dolls.”
    It must have been a very happy mixture in that glass, because the second blast of laughter was even louder than the first. “Playing with dolls,” she howled. “Get me!” and since the barstools weren’t equipped with rockers the admonition seemed a good idea. Rita teetered wildly but a large masculine shoulder blocked her backward descent—a shoulder that wasn’t Mitch’s and hadn’t been standing behind her a moment ago. The discovery had a sobering effect. She whirled about, and then her hilarity suffered sudden death.
    Herbie Boyle’s presence did that to some people. It must have been the dead-fish expression in his eyes.
    “You had too much to drink,” he said. “Let’s go.”
    Not much of a statement, surely. Nothing to make anyone turn sickly pale.
    “I didn’t say anything,” Rita whimpered. “I didn’t open my mouth.”
    “It’s open now!”
    Herbie’s hand moved too fast to be followed, but the red patch that suddenly appeared on Rita’s cheek was no birthmark. After that she didn’t make a sound. She just climbed down off the barstool and followed him out like a puppy on a leash, leaving Mitch something new to think about during that fruitless watch for Dave Singer.

8
    THE HANDS OF THE BIG CLOCK over the desk were pointing straight up when Mitch and Norma returned to the El Rey Hotel. Everything seemed normal. Ernie’s sedan was no longer parked at the curbing, and all that remained of the law-enforcement convention was McMahon, armed with a comic book, who was holding down the softest chair in the lobby. He glanced at his watch as they appeared, shaking his head reproachfully.
    “I told you not to wait up,” Mitch scolded.
    “Oh, I don’t mind,” McMahon sighed, “I get paid for it. But there’s been a lady trying to get you on the phone for half an hour or so. I don’t think she’s so happy.”
    For a moment Mitch had the wild hope that it might be Rita wanting to warm up that cold shoulder. She might have resented having her face slapped and her drinks rationed, and remembered that Mitch Gorman was interested in her memoirs; but a visit to the desk dashed that hope. A call for Mr. Gorman? Oh, yes, several calls. The lady was most insistent— But at that moment the phone rang again, and Mitch learned for himself how insistent the lady was.
    “So you finally came back!” The Duchess stormed in his ear. “What a time to go cementing Latin-American relations—and with another man’s wife!”
    “How did you know where