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

I’d lost my wife, and now here were these drunks driving me crazy when I felt so low and he’s blaming me not only for the drunks, which are driving me out of my own fucking mind, but not only that, he says it’s my fault he lost his goddamn wife. You know what I mean? It pushed all my goddamn buttons.”
    “So what happened?”
    “I ordered him off the cable car.”
    “And then?”
    “He wouldn’t get off; just kept laying the same trip on me.”
    “So you hit him.”
    “Yeah, man, I hit him. I remember hitting him once, but I don’t remember nothin’ after that. Except things turned red.”
    “I beg your pardon?”
    “You know that expression, right? Seeing red. Well, it happened to me. It’s no joke, man. Everything turned red for me after I hit him and I don’t remember another goddamn thing.”
    I was beginning to have a horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach.
    “I kept hitting him, they told me later. Fractured his goddamn skull. The drunks had to sober up and pull me off of him or I guess I’d of killed him. They said I was beating his head against the concrete. But I don’t remember a goddamn thing about it. Just everything went red and then some people were holding me, waiting for the cops. I went nuts for a while, you know? My buttons got pushed.”
    “Did the guy recover okay?”
    “Oh, yeah. Testified against me. You know what? I didn’t hardly recognize him. He looked like some guy I’d never seen before in my life. I didn’t want to hurt him, man—we were just two guys on the wrong cable car at the wrong time. I’ve felt awful about it ever since. If there was anything I could do for him, I would.”
    “Who was he?”
    “Guy named Les Mathison.”
    “I like the name.”
    “You like the name? You’re my goddamn lawyer and all you can say is you like the name of the guy I beat up? What’s so great about the guy’s goddamn name?”
    “It sounds like ‘Lou.’ And also ‘Lee.’ ” I told him about Terry Yannarelli, who had been told the first name of the Trapper and had promptly forgotten it, just, I suspected, as he forgot the names of his sex partners.
    I was ready to call it a day as soon as I checked a couple of other points. “Sanchez was killed on Saturday, the night before Easter. Were you doing anything special that night? Seeing Art or anything? Maybe seeing a girlfriend?”
    “No. I don’t have no girlfriend and Art works Saturdays. I don’t know nobody else.”
    “Then what were you doing?”
    He shrugged. “Same thing as always. Watching television.”
    “Do you remember what you saw?”
    “Hell, no; it all runs together.”
    “Was that all you did that night? Watched television?”
    He brightened. “Probably not. It was Saturday, man. Once in a while on Saturday—I mean the few Saturdays since I been out—I treat myself to a few beers.”
    “Great. Where do you usually go?”
    “Different places. I’m looking for a place to hang out.”
    “So where were you that night?”
    “Hell, I don’t know.”
    “Well, I want you to think about it, Lou. It might be extremely important.” I was stern, like a schoolmarm. Extremely important wasn’t the half of it. If I could find someone who saw him at the same time the Trapper was at the Yellow Parrot, I might have the beginnings of a defense.
    “Rebecca, tell me something.”
    “Sure.”
    “When you went out to ask for the coffee, did you tell your guy to call the cops?”
    “Of course not.”
    “Then how’d they know how to find me?”
    It was a question I’d been dreading. “They had Art’s phone tapped.” He looked down at his lap. That had to be a hard thing to learn for a man who clearly hated to ask for help as much as this one did.
    “Listen, Lou, I’m going to try to turn it to our advantage. You came to me because you wanted to turn yourself in, didn’t you?”
    I held my breath; I’d certainly been leading the witness—I hoped he’d pick up the lead.
    He gave me one of his shrugs. “Yeah. Why else?” Not only was it the right answer, I was pretty sure he meant it. “That should help us in the bail hearing.”
    But it didn’t. The city of San Francisco wanted blood, and Lou Zimbardo’s would do as nicely as anyone else’s. Bail was denied.

11
     
    Chris and I kicked the thing around over a couple of glasses of wine. I had a very nasty little theory and I wanted to see how it hit her.
    “Tell me the truth. Do you think he’s guilty?”
    “Rebecca, I know he’s