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

Quentin, had been a cable car gripman; in other words, one of the few people in the world who might know how to wreck a cable car. On learning that, I hopped into my gray Volvo and pointed it toward the Hall of Justice.
    Lou seemed more sullen than ever, and my heart sank. But could I blame him? The man had just gotten out of the joint and now it looked as if he was almost certainly on his way back—for six or eight decades, maybe, if he lived that long. A most unfortunate situation if one were innocent—and I believed he was—but maybe it wasn’t my problem.
    I started out with the basics. “Lou, do you want me to represent you?”
    He looked as if I’d whacked him with my briefcase. “Don’t you want to? I thought you thought I was innocent.”
    “I do.” I told him why, hoping it would make him open up. In a modest way, it worked. He closed his eyes and let his body sag back against the chair, as if the knowledge that one person in the world thought him innocent, and not because that person was his brother, but because there was actually some reason to believe him innocent, was all he’d ever wanted out of life. That gave me a lot of power; it also made me more vulnerable than anything else he could have done. I realized that I’d be his lawyer, not just till he could get another one, but all the way, if he really wanted me to. My parents had raised me to have a social conscience and I still had it; this man was getting a bum rap and I didn’t want it to happen. I seized my temporary advantage.
    “Lou, do you really want me to represent you?”
    This time he nodded. “I don’t want no other lawyer.”
    “Okay. I’ll do the best I can. Let’s shake on it.” We did, and then I continued: “But you’re going to have to help me. You might have learned to keep your mouth shut in the joint, but you’re going back if you don’t start learning to talk, okay?”
    He nodded.
    “Say it, please.”
    “Okay.”
    “How about, ‘Okay, Rebecca’?”
    “Okay, Rebecca.” He smiled. He was pleased, as I thought he’d be, that I wanted to be called by my first name.
    “Okay, Lou. You know the cops found the gun that killed Sanchez in your room?”
    “They’ve mentioned it once or twice.”
    “How’d it get there?”
    He shrugged.
    “Cat got your tongue?”
    He stared at me, and I was looking at a desperate man. “I don’t know.” It was almost a whine. “I don’t have a gun. Never have.”
    “What were you in prison for?”
    “Assault.” He lowered his eyes, sullen again.
    “Tell me about it.”
    “It wasn’t like this. I did it.”
    “Lou, could you tell me about it, please?” I spoke a little sharply, just to get my point across.
    And Mr. Leave-Me-Alone-Sister-I-Don’t-Need-You-Or- Anybody-Else started sobbing. I didn’t want to wait till it was over, knowing I’d lose some of the momentum I’d finally got going.
    “Tell me,” I said again, as gently as I could.
    And finally, he did, as if he’d been dying to tell someone for the last few years. “My wife left me.”
    I nodded encouragement.
    “It hit me hard; real hard, man. See, I didn’t think I’d miss her. I guess I sort of took her for granted. But then, all of a sudden she wasn’t there. She left me for another guy, see? Like… I don’t know. It just hit me real hard.
    “One night on the cable car there were all these drunks, singing and acting out of hand.”
    “Violent?”
    “No. Just loud. They get like that sometimes—you just have to put up with it. But my nerves were raw, man. I couldn’t take it worth a damn.”
    “So you told them to be quiet.”
    “Hell, no, you can’t do that. I didn’t do nothin’. I mean I didn’t do nothin’ till this other drunk starts getting abusive. See, he wasn’t with the group that was singing. He was pissed off about the singing and feeling sorry for himself, so he tries to get me to make them stop.”
    “And you told him it was a free country.”
    “Yeah. So then he starts getting abusive.”
    “What did he say?”
    Lou had more or less stopped crying, but now his eyes filled again. “He says, ‘I lost my wife, man. I lost my wife, and it’s your goddamn fault. It’s your fault, man; if you guys would do something about this kind of crap like you’re supposed to, do your goddamn jobs properly, I wouldna’ lost my goddamn wife.’”
    “Sounds exactly like a drunk rambling.”
    “Yeah, it does now. But, man, at the time it pushed all my buttons. See,