Tourist Trap (Rebecca Schwartz #3) (A Rebecca Schwartz Mystery) (The Rebecca Schwartz Series)

I was beginning to lose count and not to feel very well myself. The crowd was buzzing, repeating two words over and over, high, low, soft, loud. “Food poisoning,” they were saying. “Food poisoning, food poisoning. Food poisoning.” But I didn’t for a second think it was. Even a restaurant dumb enough to name itself for a watery grave could hardly screw up this badly. Further, I imagined that food poisoning wouldn’t really get into its nastier manifestations until a few hours after one had dined. Also, I knew something no one else in that crowd knew—someone who signed himself Tourist Trapper had written Rob to ‘look for action at Pier 39.’ Not only had Jack Sanchez been a tourist, but San Francisco’s Castro district—our gay ghetto—was certainly the hottest attraction in town for gay tourists. Pier 39 was frequented almost exclusively by tourists; as for Full Fathom Five, it was unlikely any native other than its employees and the random health inspector had even passed its swinging doors. If this was the Trapper’s work—and I felt sure it was—there was certainly no doubting his intent; he was out to kill or hurt tourists in San Francisco.
    But why? I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what he could possibly have against them. I spotted Rob and waved him over to me. “Think it’s the Trapper’s work?”
    “It has to be. But I can’t get the cops to say so. In fact, I can hardly get a word out of them. All they’ll say is that eleven people fell ill after dining at Full Fathom Five.”
    “Eleven!”
    Rob nodded, his face unfamiliarly grave. “You’d think since I told them about the Trapper in the first place, they’d cooperate. But suddenly, it’s ‘Forget it, Charlie; who needs you?’ Next time I’ll keep it to myself.”
    “You had to tell them.”
    “Oh, I know. But you’d think—”
    “You’d think there’d be justice in the world. Guess again, pussycat.”
    He grinned. “Fine thing for a lawyer to say. Come help me phone in my story.”
    Rob is one of those rare reporters who can dictate off the top of his head. He tells me all the hawks and hens of the Ben Hecht era could do it—it was just part of the job—but it’s now a dying art, technology making it obsolete. He told me about a time when he left a trial to phone in the verdict, getting the booth next to the AP reporter. For some reason, his city desk had put him on hold for a minute or two; by the time he actually got through, the verdict had already come over the wire, phoned in, indirectly, by the guy in the next booth. Now there was no point in rushing to beat the competition—the machines did it for you. But my pal Rob took pride in his craftsmanship; he’d probably have been a lot happier back in the days of
The Front Page
.
    I listened admiringly as he was transferred to a “rewrite man” named Kathy, and went into his act.
    “Eleven persons were hospitalized last night after dining at Full Fathom Five, Pier 39. Police Captain Michael (‘Slim’) McGarrity characterized it as ‘the worst disaster in the history of the pier.’ McGarrity said diners began to fall ill shortly after 9:00 P.M. , but he declined to comment on possible causes of the mysterious ailment. Asked whether poisoning was involved, he said, ‘I can’t say—forgot to renew my medical license…’”
    That last, I knew, was going to end up on the cutting-room floor. Rob was always putting jokes into serious stories and complaining when editors took them out. He couldn’t help it, he said—he was only quoting. But his city editor seemed to believe in certain kinds of censorship—on grounds of “good taste.”
    I tuned in on Rob again as he was switched back to the city desk. “Listen,” he was saying. “You know what McGarrity said after he made that crack about his medical license? He said you didn’t have to have one to know it was poisoning—but don’t quote him on it. The thing is, it’s got to be the Trapper’s work. The cops will say so in the morning, just in time for the
Examiner
to get it first; if we don’t go with it… oh, okay. I guess not.”
    He hung up. I said, “You guess not what?”
    “I guess we’d look like fools if we ran the Trapper’s note and it turned out the chef spilled soap powder in the soup or something. So I guess we can’t.”
    “I see what you mean.”
    “Listen, the police have the place sealed off, but I’m going to wait and see if I can talk to people on their