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

lovely morning and I wasn’t going to be bullied. Still, I can’t say I enjoyed the walk; in spite of myself, I had sweaty palms by the time I got to the office. The rest of me was slightly damp, too—I’d run the last couple of blocks.
    Kruzick was just making a pot of his execrable coffee. I said, “Any calls?”
    “No. Expecting any?”
    I told him about the ad. And the rest of the day, every hour on the hour, he amused himself by reporting sweetly that no one had called about it. So I was feeling fairly depressed at quitting time, as I took off my workaday heels and put on Nikes for the walk home—upset that the ad hadn’t worked and decidedly not looking forward to the walk.
    The day that had started out so beautifully had turned nasty with evening fog. The sidewalks were nearly empty, and once again the streets were jammed with traffic. Damn the Trapper! I walked fast, nervous but eager as well—I had an evening with Rob and a home-cooked meal to look forward to.
    I tried to cheer myself up—and get my mind off the Trapper with thoughts of Rob. I wondered what he’d make me for dinner. He might have learned some new tricks in his cooking class, but I was betting they were new tricks with chicken; he never made anything else. Basil was in season, though—maybe he’d make a pasta with pesto sauce. As I turned into Green Street, I hardly noticed that I was now off the beaten track—not only weren’t there any pedestrians, there wasn’t even any auto traffic. I’d succeeded in distracting myself rather thoroughly. Even so, I thought to look behind me once or twice, just in case. But I guess, in retrospect, I should have tried the trick they teach you in rape-prevention lectures—walking in the middle of the street. Someone was waiting for me, hiding in a doorway; someone wearing tennis shoes. I never heard a thing; I just felt a sudden, awful pain at the back of my head, followed by the certain feeling that I was going to throw up, followed by nothing at all, not even a sense of losing my balance.

14
     
    I was literally lying in the gutter when some kind soul found me—or more accurately, a little knot of kind souls, ringing my battered body and looking concerned. I think I can best express the unutterable pain of the headache I had if I say I wasn’t the least bit upset that my panty hose were no doubt destroyed or my lavender raw-silk suit would have to be-cleaned, and I never even considered the probability that my clothing might have been immodestly rearranged by my fall.
    “Are you all right?” asked an unfamiliar male voice.
    “I’m not sure,” I said, and my rescuers fairly heaved a collective sigh of relief, reassured, I guess, that I still had the power of speech. Some of them drifted off to their various chicken or pesto dinners.
    “Can you walk?”
    But that didn’t seem to me to be the first order of business. “Someone hit me,” I said.
    “You were mugged?”
    I nodded. The kind souls began to whisper and fret; we like to think Telegraph Hill is as safe as Our Town.
    “But here’s your briefcase. And you’re lying on your purse. ” I sat up to retrieve the purse, sending new waves of pain down my neck and shoulders. Looking in, I saw what I thought I’d see—my wallet, still holding the twenty dollars I’d just gotten from an automatic teller machine.
    “You’re sure someone hit you?”
    With supreme prudence, I touched the back of my head and felt a doorknob. “Feel this.”
    But the stranger stepped back; fear of AIDS had made folks in these parts unduly fastidious. “Maybe you got that when you fell.”
    You can’t imagine what a frustrating feeling it is to get mugged and then have people argue with you about it. I’m sorry to say there was an unfortunate whine to my voice: “Didn’t anyone see him?”
    Blank looks all around. And finally: “Who?”
    “The guy who hit me?”
    No response at all. I had a sudden urge to regain my dignity—anger was doing wonders for my headache. I needed to get out of that gutter, and fast. I pushed up into a crouch, ready to stand—and promptly toppled back. It took four brave people, unafraid of exotic diseases carried on the skin of strangers, to get me upright, and even then I still felt dizzy. A kind woman about my age helped me up the hill to my apartment; I didn’t have to lean on her exactly, but it was good to know she was there just in case. We walked very slowly, she carrying my briefcase.
    Rob had