Read Tourist Trap (Rebecca Schwartz #3) (A Rebecca Schwartz Mystery) (The Rebecca Schwartz Series) for Free Online Page B

all, I wondered whether they’d be safe, these people who wandered so innocently, so unsuspecting, down the seemingly harmless Embarcadero, stopping to stare at kids in punk garb, listen to a drummer, absorb the exotica they wouldn’t find back in Illinois. I was beginning to understand what Rob meant by “fear stalks.” I was terrified for these people—and for myself, a little bit. How could the Trapper be absolutely sure of hitting tourists instead of natives?
    “Easy,” Rob would have said. “Test their clothes for polyester count.”
    Thinking of Rob made me smile, and turn around and head back toward him. I still had to slither my way through a slow-moving mass of bodies, but at least I had a goal. A well-marked goal at that—a line of police cars was still parked in front of Pier 39. I slithered past the Balclutha, the old squarerigger anchored in the bay, and past the punks and past the police cars; past the first one, past the second, and almost past the third. The cop inside the third was talking on the radio, quite audibly, and to my mind, quite interestingly. He was a macho kind of guy, I’d guess, who just couldn’t keep his voice down if there was a chance to make himself sound important by raising it. He came in clear as a foghorn: “Nothing on Zimbardo yet.”
    I hesitated, hoping to hear more, but the cop lowered his voice, catching on, I guess, that he’d been indiscreet.
    Back outside the restaurant, I found Rob winding up an interview with a couple from Oregon. He turned to me: “Nice walk?”
    “Productive. How’d you do?”
    He shuddered. “It must have been awful in there. What do you mean, ‘productive’?”
    “Does the name Zimbardo mean anything to you?”
    “No. Why?”
    “I think he or she might be a suspect.”
    I told him what I’d overheard.
    “Let’s find a phone book.” His blue eyes were bright with the thrill of the chase. Sometimes I get upset with the newshawk side of Rob, but when he’s infused with energy like that he’s irresistible. I was getting drawn into his excitement against my better judgment—and not for the first time. Once we’d gotten involved in a high-speed car chase, caused an accident, and one of us had landed in jail by the end of the evening—not, I’m afraid, the one with the bright blue eyes.
    “Zimbardo, Zimbardo—” Rob was tracing a finger up and down a page of the phone book. “Art Zimbardo; on Bush Street—let’s go.”
    Zimbardo lived on the edge of the Tenderloin, not far from the Stockton Tunnel. A poor place for parking, normally, but Rob pulled up in front of a fire hydrant, put his Working Press Parking Permit in his windshield, and hopped out. I caught up with him as he was pressing the buzzer for a third-floor apartment. It was a long time before a sleepy voice answered. “Who is it?”
    Rob drew a deep breath. I knew what he was thinking: The Trapper would know his name. “Rob,” he said finally, and quite as heartily as if he were visiting his mother.
    “Rob?” The voice sounded genuinely puzzled. “I think you’ve got the wrong apartment.”
    “No.” Rob spoke urgently. “You’re Art Zimbardo, aren’t you? It’s important.”
    “Important? It’s not about Lou, is it?”
    “I’m afraid it is.”
    Zimbardo buzzed us in without another word. The hallway was dim; the carpet on the wide, no-longer-grand stairs smelled of feet. As we started to climb, Rob said, “Listen, Rebecca, just withhold judgment a few minutes, okay? I know I lied, but being from the
Chronicle
has a strange effect.”
    He knew me well enough to know I hadn’t liked the lie, and I could see he was sheepish about it himself. But I thought he must know what he was doing if he said so; if I didn’t withhold judgment, at least I held my tongue.
    The kid who opened the door had on jockey shorts; his eyes widened, horrified, when he saw the two of us. “Excuse me. Just a minute. Oh, man.” And he shut the door again.
    I relaxed. I