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

you.” I turned back to Kruzick. “I’d like to go on record as saying I don’t care to be insulted first thing in the morning.”
    “Okay, okay. Maybe not drab. Just a shade on the unexciting side.”
    “Thanks a lot.”
    He shrugged. “Hey, boss, you gotta remember—the competition’s a multiple murderer.”
    He had a point. I was certainly a bore compared to the Trapper. I was cross at the notion of having to compete with a psychotic killer; and annoyed with Rob for going overboard on the Trapper stories; and for ignoring me; and for putting me in the position of having to defend him when I didn’t really feel I could support him. And I was annoyed at myself for being ambivalent. Thus, I may not have been in the best of moods when I called him back.
    “Hi, babe,” he said. “How’d you like the stories?”
    “Frankly, I think they’re a bit much.”
    “Rebecca, the guy’s killing people.”
    “Maybe I spoke harshly. I’m sorry, but you asked for my opinion. I find them upsetting.”
    “Upsetting how?”
    “Scary.”
    “The Trapper’s scary.”
    “The stories were needlessly scary. Nightmarish.”
    “You’ve got to remember the guy poisoned eleven people at a restaurant. As it happened, only one person died, but he didn’t care how many he killed. It
is
a nightmare.”
    “I just don’t think the stories are in very good taste, that’s all.”
    “Rebecca, sometimes you are the most amazing sushi-eating, Volvo-driving,
New York Times
-reading, Saks-shopping, foreign-movie-going Yuppie prig. Would it be good taste to report the antics of a maniac who wanted to wipe out every Jew in Germany and damn near did?”
    “It’s not the same thing.”
    “Okay, what’s different about it?”
    “It’s not important to the whole world—it only matters in San Francisco.”
    “Sweetheart, have you noticed that the
Chronicle
is a local San Francisco paper?”
    “Rob, I can’t talk to you when you’re in this mood.”
    “When
I’m
in this mood! Rebecca, do you have any idea how hard I’ve been working lately? How do you think it makes me feel when you of all people don’t support me in my work? Instead, I haven’t talked to you in days, and finally when I do you tell me I’m in bad taste.”
    “It was your choice not to talk to me for days.”
    “I couldn’t, don’t you understand? I literally didn’t have a spare second.”
    “People always find time for what’s important to them.”
    “Listen, it’s no good trying to talk on the phone. Let’s have dinner tonight, okay?”
    “I have a date with someone else.”
    For a moment he didn’t speak. Then he said, “Another man?”
    “Yes.” I wondered why my voice sounded like a croak. “Another man.”
    “I see.”
    I didn’t say anything.
    “How about tomorrow then? Or lunch—today or tomorrow; you name it.”
    “I think maybe we shouldn’t see each other for a while.”
    I didn’t realize I thought that before I said it, but as soon as it was out, I knew it was true. Jeff had helped to distract me, but actually talking with Rob, I realized how deeply hurt I felt about his temporary abandonment—and how very much my brain felt like scrambled eggs when I tried to sort out my feelings about the Trapper stories. I really did need some time away from him to try to figure things out.
    * * *
     
    Jeff brought flowers—purple irises that were perfect for my apartment. The first time Rob and I had gone out—gone to lunch, actually—he’d brought daisies. If Rob and I were really breaking up, I realized that similar scenes would be played out hundreds and thousands and tens of thousands of times in the next few months or maybe even the next couple of years. No matter what happened, no matter how insignificant or how seemingly happiness-producing, it would remind me of Rob and would sting. The thought was profoundly depressing.
    I wanted to go someplace loud and cheerful, someplace with pasta, and Jeff had asked me to name the spot, so I picked Little Italy in Noe Valley.
    Since I knew the city better, we took my old gray Volvo instead of Jeff’s rented car. And practically had the streets to ourselves. If fear stalked, he was doing it in solitary splendor. And he was certainly stalking—or
it
was, I should say. Fear was nearly palpable on those not normally mean streets. The few people who were out walked close to the buildings, glancing around far too frequently.
    Even Castro Street, the liveliest in the city, looked