“Eek,” Rita said.
R O B E R T B . P A R K E R
She drank some of her martini.
“That’s like the last time I saw you,” she said.
“I stopped shortly after.”
“Scared you sober, huh?”
Jesse smiled.
“There were other issues,” he said.
“Yeah. I know. Like the ex-wifey-do.”
“She would be one,” Jesse said.
“How you and she doing.”
Jesse held up crossed fingers.
“We’re living together at the moment.”
“Oh,” Rita said, “how nice for you.”
“Aw, come on,” Jesse said. “You and I weren’t going any -
where.”
“Maybe
“You were?”
“Seemed like a good idea at the time,” Rita said.
Jesse didn’t say anything. Rita wore her thick copper hair long. She was wearing a short skirt, and sitting sideways on the bar stool with her legs crossed. Jesse studied her for a moment. Rita watched him and raised her eyebrows.
“You would be a good idea,” Jesse said. “Anytime.”
“But not a keeper,” Rita said.
Jesse smiled and didn’t answer. Rita gestured to the bar -
tender for another martini. She turned back toward Jesse and smiled widely.
“Okay, so you’re not here to propose,” she said.
“I sent a couple of sisters to you awhile ago,” Jesse said.
1 9 6
S E A C H A N G E
“The Plum twins,” Rita said.
“Anything work out?” Jesse said.
“Hey, you think just because you got my clothes off a cou -
ple of times, I’ll betray professional confidences?”
“I was hoping,” Jesse said.
“Actually they didn’t employ me. I have no obligations to them. They wanted help finding out who killed their sister.”
Jesse nodded.
“I sent them to a guy I know. But it didn’t work out.”
“They see him at all?”
“Yes,” Rita said. “But they didn’t tell him anything and when he asked them stuff they were evasive, so he told them to blow.”
“Excuse me?” Jesse said.
“In a manner of speaking,” Rita said.
“They say anything to you?” Jesse said.
“I think they were worried that you are a small-town doofus,” Rita said, “rather than a high-powered urban hotshot . . . like, say, me.”
“Anything else?”
“I’d say their combined intelligence is about that of a mud puddle.”
Jesse nodded.
“They told me they were staying at the Four Seasons,” he said.
“Yep. That’s what they told me.”
“Too bad they didn’t hook up with your guy.”
Rita shook her head.
