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

something to people. Even Jews. You can’t help what you are”
    “Being a loser, you mean.”
    He shrugged.
    “But I gave some other impression before.”
    “You seemed sort of competent—on the surface.”
    “Did you say I had a Superwoman image?”
    “Not Superwoman, exactly. Just sort of superficially—”
    “Oh, never mind.”
    “Sorry things turned out this way.”
    He left, imagining, I suppose, that he’d leveled me. But in a small way he’d made my day, as we say in California. I couldn’t get him to repeat the remark that was balm to my battered ears, but I like to think that the things people really mean come out under duress. I might not be Liz Hughes, but maybe I could fool some of the people some of the time.
    “Rebecca! Have you heard from Dad?” Mickey had come barreling in while I was congratulating myself. “Where’s Alan?”
    “Alan’s still at lunch, I think, but it’s nearly two. He ought to be back in a few minutes. And I just talked to Dad. Why—what’s up?”
    “You haven’t heard about the bridge?”
    “Mickey, you must be the only person in all of San Francisco who doesn’t listen to a news broadcast at least once a hour.”
    “I was just on my way to a late lunch when I heard some people talking about it. I heard twenty people were killed.”
    “No one was killed; Daddy was hardly inconvenienced—he played poker on the freeway.”
    “Oh. Well, I didn’t really think anything was wrong.”
    “You know what I did when I heard? Tried to drive to the accident.”
    She sighed. “We’re our mother’s daughters.”
    “Not really. Mom said she would strongly have advised me not to go there.”
    Mickey laughed. “As long as I’m here, have you had lunch yet?”
    “I’m starving.”
    A heaping spinach salad—one with lots of bacon—fixed me up. “I just got told I’m a loser by a guy who flew up from L.A. so I could cry on his shoulder.”
    “And did you?”
    “He’s going to have a great-granddaddy of a cleaning bill—as Chris would say.”
    “Whizbang.”
    “What?”
    “She’d really say ‘great-granddaddy of a whizbang.’”
    “So how’re you feeling?”
    “Fine. How about you?”
    “Awful. Rob’s disappeared.” I told her the whole story. “The Trapper didn’t get him,” she said. “Rob doesn’t know any more than you do. Why not kill you, too?”
    “He tried. I got mugged a while back.” And I told her that story.
    She said, “Pretty inept for a multiple murderer.”
    “Sometimes he’s not really all that slick. He caused the bridge pileup by throwing a rock.”
    “Simple. But undeniably effective. I think he does fine when he puts his mind to it. So he must not have really wanted to kill you. Or else you were mugged by a common thug.”
    “Maybe. But about Rob. You think Les really has no motive for killing him?”
    “Oh, he might. But he always moves fast—does the job, then claims credit. Or ‘responsibility’ as the newspapers say. He called you and didn’t say a word about Rob; ergo, he didn’t kill him.”
    I didn’t think it was quite that simple. The Trapper
might
have killed Rob. Still, Mickey had put the thing in perspective. He hadn’t necessarily done it. I felt better. “So if he isn’t dead, where is he?”
    “Same place he always is when he disappears—on a story.”
    “But he’s on leave.”
    “It doesn’t mean he’s off the story.”
    The ramifications of that sent me into a new depression. When I got back, there was a glass bowl on Kruzick’s desk. In the bowl was a large, nasty-looking rock, smeared with ketchup. Kruzick had affixed a typewritten label to the bowl: “Exhibit Z.”
    “I found the weapon,” said my faithful amanuensis.
    “Not funny, Alan. Distinctly not funny.”
    “Hey, listen. The ‘Z’ isn’t for Zimbardo. Honest. Chosen at random, you know what I mean?”
    “I’m not in the mood, Alan.”
    “Just trying to help. But listen, I’ve got another idea—in case you lose. I mean, you and I know that’s impossible, of course, but just in the slight eventuality. You could become a best-selling author. In fact, maybe you and Lou could collaborate. How’s this:
The Tourist Trapper’s Guide to Scenic San Francisco
… It could have, maybe, a little pop-up cable car, and when you open the book to the right page, not only does the cable car pop up, but little paper dolls spill out of it, you know? And then there’s the spin-offs. We could sell vials labeled