Free Tourist Trap (Rebecca Schwartz #3) (A Rebecca Schwartz Mystery) (The Rebecca Schwartz Series) by Julie Smith Page A

neighborhood safe to walk in?”
    “Sure. One of the safest in the city.” We headed toward his rented car.
    “It doesn’t look all that savory.”
    “You’ve got a nerve. Just about anywhere in New York makes me quail and quake.”
    “But New York’s got so much
character
.”
    I was still feeling guilty about pouring out my troubles, and wanted to ask if I could buy Jeff dessert, but I was afraid he wouldn’t like any place I suggested, so I let it go. I did scrape up the courage to ask him in for coffee and almost instantly regretted it. “It’s Italian roast,” I said.
    “That’s okay. I’ll just have tea.”
    “Oh. Sorry, I haven’t got any.” I did, but it was only Lipton’s, and I was damned if I was going to admit that.
    Jeff took my hands in both of his. “I don’t care what we drink, Rebecca. I just want to be with you.”
    I breathed a sigh of relief. “You mean the Italian roast’ll be okay?”
    Jeff made a face. “No. I meant I really don’t need anything.”
    I made some for myself, anyway. I feel that when you ask someone in for a cup of coffee, he is obligated to drink one, but if he declines to drink one, he is certainly obligated to leave when the time has elapsed that it would normally take him to drink one. I didn’t want Jeff to lose track of time.
    To tell the truth, I guess I was policing myself as well. When Jeff got started on my favorite subject—what a really sterling person I am and how lucky he was to have met me—he was at his most charming. I was learning that he was a little frightened of the world, a little picky—in short, a bit of a wimp, perhaps—but nonetheless I thought him a mensch.
    So. Did I kiss him good night? Of course.
    And I was glad I had when I saw the
Chronicle
the next morning—glad because it made me cross with Rob. The headlines screamed; the prose was pretty shrill, too. “Random Killer Targets S.F. Tourists,” said the banner, and underneath was Rob’s story, connecting the so-called gay murder of Jack Sanchez of Gallup, New Mexico, the man Rob and I had found nailed to the cross, with the poisonings of eleven people at Pier 39 that resulted in the death of Brewster Baskett of Winnemucca, Nevada. Photos of the Trapper’s notes were reproduced, but the last sentence was blocked out of the second note—the part about the mussels in the men’s room. That meant the
Chron
had made a deal with the cops to withhold it.
    Along with the main story were four sidebars. One contained opinions of selected psychiatrists as to the sort of person who would do such a thing. “An angry, vindictive person,” deduced one. “Someone with a grudge,” another proclaimed. “A fruitcake with half a dozen screws loose” wasn’t among the opinions. Maybe the shrinks thought it was self-evident, or maybe they were saving themselves to be expert witnesses.
    The second sidebar was about PSP—paralytic shellfish poisoning—which you get from quarantined mussels. The next was a gory little walk down Memory Lane, detailing the fearsome activities of yesteryear’s Zebra and Zodiac serial killers. And the fourth, headed, “S.F. Tourism Endangered,” outlined the chilling truth about what the Trapper’s work could actually do to the economy of the city. Explaining that tourism is San Francisco’s largest industry, it noted that approximately 2.5 million tourists visit the city each year, dropping over a billion dollars, supporting some 60,000 jobs and bringing in almost $60 million in local taxes. If the hordes stayed away even for a few weeks—especially now, in the peak spring and summer months—if, as the Trapper predicted, he “closed this hellhole down,” jobs would be lost, hotels and restaurants would get shaky, places like Pier 39 and companies like the one that gives boat rides on the bay would be history in no time at all. The story quoted the Trapper himself: “What would this crummy joint be without tourists?” Rob admitted in the story that