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

greeting me with a hearty “Where’s Rob?”
    “Why? Want your picture in the paper again?”
    “I got a lot of tricks out of that.”
    “I’m sure you do okay without benefit of press agent.”
    He shrugged. “My face
is
my fortune.”
    “You know, Terry—you’re the only person I know who’s actually seen the Trapper.”
    “What do you mean? You haven’t seen your own client?”
    “Well, see, I’m pretty sure my client didn’t do it. Did you see his picture in the paper?”
    “Sure.”
    “What did you think?”
    “Not bad. More or less my type, to tell you the truth.” The blond kid made a face and walked away. I cocked an eyebrow. Terry shrugged. “No problem. There’s plenty more where he came from.”
    “Could you get serious for a minute?”
    “About what?” He looked genuinely surprised.
    “My client. Was he the guy you talked to the night Sanchez was murdered?”
    “Who’s Sanchez?”
    “Rhinestone, dammit. How many murderers have you talked to lately?”
    He smiled. “Maybe lots. I like danger, remember?”
    “Terry, can I buy you a drink?”
    “I thought you’d never ask.”
    Jake the bartender set us up and I started over. “Now, about my client. Did he look familiar to you?”
    “I couldn’t really tell. He’s clean-shaven and the trick had a beard.”
    “I thought he wasn’t a trick.”
    “They’re all tricks. He just didn’t work out.”
    “If you actually saw my client, do you think you could tell? Maybe if he talked to you—could you recognize his voice?”
    “Maybe.”
    “But you don’t think so.”
    He shook his head. “I don’t remember a damn thing about the guy except he didn’t want to su—”
    “Never mind. Listen—that name he gave you. Was it Les, by any chance?”
    He thought for a minute. “Could have been.”
    “I’ll bet you’re a whiz at Trivial Pursuit.”
    “Huh?”
    “Having total recall and all.”
    He laughed. “I do too many drugs.”
    “Les, Lee, or Lou?”
    “Haven’t a clue.”
    So much for my only possible witness.
    * * *
     
    The next day was Saturday and I had it all to myself. Rob and I had never finished our conversation about a “trial separation,” but things were sort of working out that way. We were wary of each other. I was preoccupied with Lou’s case and he, I think, had gotten his feelings hurt by my admission that I’d had a date with someone else. To tell the truth, I think he might have been dating someone else, freed to do it by my admission. I didn’t know what I wanted from him right then and didn’t have the energy to confront the thing at the moment.
    I fed my fish, played a little Beethoven, and looked up two names in the phone book—Miranda Waring and Les Mathison. There wasn’t even an M. Waring, but there was a Leslie Mathison on Twelfth Avenue.
    For a while, I stared at the fish, trying to figure out what to do next. If this was my Les, he was a guy I suspected of being a lunatic who’d as soon murder me as put on his socks. I could hardly phone such a person—that would serve no purpose except to put him on his guard. But I couldn’t see the point of confronting him either. At least not yet. The thing to do first was figure out if he was my pigeon.
    I drove out to Twelfth Avenue and looked at his house. It was a duplex, his address being the second-floor apartment. A perfectly nice place, if slightly characterless—big enough for a family. I remembered Lou’s telling me that Les had lost his wife—though whether she’d died or left him I didn’t know; I wondered if he had children. It was hard to think of the Trapper as someone’s dad.
    I got out of the Volvo and stood on the sidewalk, staring rudely until I saw a curtain move in the downstairs apartment. Gathering my nerve, I rang the doorbell. Two scruffy children answered my ring in about two seconds, followed instantly by a tired-looking woman, overweight and lank of hair. “You look too old,” she said, “for a baby-sitter.”
    “I am, I think. Are you expecting one?”
    She looked downcast. “She’s half an hour late already.”
    “I’m actually looking for Les Mathison.”
    “Les moved out six months ago.”
    “I’m not sure I’ve got the right Les. Is this one married?”
    “He was. You must have been out of touch for a long time if you don’t know about all that.”
    “We sort of lost track of each other.”
    “Are you his friend or Darlene’s?”
    I hated it when Rob lied to get a story, but I