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

I feel like God’s made a monkey out of me. Right now I feel like burning every church in this miserable hellhole.” Ms. Ballard closed with this one: “When I think about what’s happened to me since I came here, I’d like to do to San Francisco what the God I used to believe in did to Sodom and Gomorrah.”
    I got goose bumps reading—worse ones than when I’d read the Trapper’s notes to Rob, because those were just the maunderings of a sick mind; now I felt as if I knew the man behind the sickness. He was real to me, and scarier than the shadow man; there wasn’t a shred of doubt in my mind that Les Mathison was the Trapper.
    Rob said, “The Trapper’s words are even in there. ‘Hellhole’; ‘Sodom and Gomorrah.’”
    “Rob, do you realize the most horrifying thing about this? That wasn’t even the end of it—after all that, he got beat up by Lou Zimbardo.”
    “Poor sucker. No wonder he went nuts.”
    “Excuse me, but did I hear Rob ‘Hard-Case’ Burns call a multiple murderer a poor sucker?”
    He shook his head unhappily. “I never heard of anything like this.”
    “You’re just jealous because someone else got the story.”
    “I’ve got feelings, too, you know.”
    I patted his hand. “I forget sometimes.”
    “So now what? Do we go to the D.A. and lay it on him?”
    “I don’t think it’s good enough. He’s got physical evidence against Lou.”
    “What? The gun that killed Sanchez? All part of the frame-up.”
    “It reads like that if you don’t think he’s guilty, but what if you do? And he’s got reason to prosecute Lou—he can get a conviction.”
    “But surely if you know about Mathison, there’s a reasonable doubt.”
    “Yes, but there’s no proof against him; there’s proof against Lou.”
    “So let the cops get some.”
    “I don’t think this will convince them; I think we have to have more.”
    “I thought you’d be thrilled.”
    “I am,” I said. “I’m beside myself.”
    “You know what he must have done? He must have been planning the thing all the time Lou was in prison, waiting for him to get out.”
    “My goose bumps have goose bumps.” I shivered and reached for Rob, for comfort, just as the bartender shouted: “Phone for Rob Burns.”
    Rob answered the page and came back flushed. “A bomb went off at the Bonanza Inn. An elevator crashed with a load of conventioneers aboard.” He was fumbling in his pocket for money to pay up so he could get out fast. “Want to come?” I did not. Not in the least. But the Bonanza Inn on Union Square was one of the top five hotels in the city—enormous, nicely appointed but not fabulously expensive, maybe fifty years old (which made it historic without being a relic), newly redecorated, conveniently located near Union Square, and currently, due to the massive refurbishing, very much in vogue—in other words, a prime Trapper target. I remembered my premonition the night of the cable car crash that the Trapper would strike a hotel. I followed Rob out the door, though I knew I wouldn’t catch him. He’d slammed down a couple of bills and charged out like a rhino; I was reminded rather sickeningly of the night the Trapper struck Full Fathom Five, when Rob left me in a cloud of dust at the Eagle Cafe. As I clacked after him this time, wishing ardently for Nikes to replace my Joan and Davids, I was discomfited that I was now using the Trapper’s shenanigans as mileposts, that I’d done it twice in the last five minutes. In a way, as I thought about what the city had been through and might be about to go through again, I wished Lou really were the Trapper.
    The police hadn’t yet cordoned off the building, and the emergency vehicles hadn’t yet started to arrive; apparently, the second word came over the police radio the city desk had called Rob, who was known to hang out at John’s Grill and could be at the scene in about three minutes, only half hurrying. But on a breaking story Rob wouldn’t have dreamt of half hurrying and had no doubt kicked small children and helpless winos out of his way in his relentless protection of the people’s right to know. I’d say I got there in about three minutes ten seconds, and already he was nowhere to be seen.
    A phalanx of security guards blocked the doors. “Is something happening?” I said in a concerned voice.
    “We can’t let you in right now, ma’am.”
    “But I’m staying here.”
    “I’m sorry, ma’am. We can’t let you in.”
    “What is