Tourist Trap (Rebecca Schwartz #3) (A Rebecca Schwartz Mystery) (The Rebecca Schwartz Series)
Authors: Julie Smith
Tags: #Mystery, #comic mystery, #cozy, #romantic suspense, #funny, #Edgar winner, #Rebecca Schwartz series, #comic thriller, #serial killer, #women sleuths, #legal thriller, #courtroom thriller, #San Francisco, #female sleuth, #lawyer sleuth, #amateur detective
Tourist Trap is the THIRD Rebecca Schwartz Mystery by Edgar-winning author Julie Smith.
“Warmth, wit and local color in a fast-moving story—with some neat twists and turns along the way. Smith’s best work so far.”
—
Kirkus
“An attractive and amusing heroine.”
—
The San Diego Union-Tribune
“Smith is a very funny writer with a nice feel for the absurdities of urban life.”
—
San Francisco Examiner
DEATH TURNS A TRICK
THE SOURDOUGH WARS
TOURIST TRAP
DEAD IN THE WATER
OTHER PEOPLE’S SKELETONS
The Skip Langdon Series
NEW ORLEANS MOURNING
THE AXEMAN’S JAZZ
JAZZ FUNERAL
DEATH BEFORE FACEBOOK
(formerly NEW ORLEANS BEAT)
HOUSE OF BLUES
THE KINDNESS OF STRANGERS
CRESCENT CITY CONNECTION
(formerly CRESCENT CITY KILL)
82 DESIRE
MEAN WOMAN BLUES
The Paul Macdonald Series
TRUE-LIFE ADVENTURE
HUCKLEBERRY FIEND
The Talba Wallis Series
LOUISIANA HOTSHOT
LOUISIANA BIGSHOT
LOUISIANA LAMENT
P.I. ON A HOT TIN ROOF
As Well As
WRITING YOUR WAY: THE GREAT AMERICAN NOVEL TRACK
TOURIST TRAPNEW ORLEANS NOIR (ed.)
A Rebecca Schwartz Mystery
By
JULIE SMITH
booksBnimble Publishing
New Orleans, LA
Tourist Trap
Copyright © 1986 by Julie Smith
All rights are reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
Cover by Nevada Barr
ISBN: 9781617507939
Originally published in hardcover by The Mysterious Press. First Mysterious Press Paperback Printing: August, 1987
First booksBnimble Publishing electronic publication: June 2012
eBook editions by eBooks by Barb for
booknook.biz
ContentsTo Jere Hoar, Evans Harrington, John Foster, Joan Heil, and Steve Gavin; and to the memory of Sam Talbert and Kevin Wallace.
I’ll see your quarter and raise you another quarter.”
“I’m out.”
“Me, too.”
That meant it was my turn to bet. I had two kings and a nine showing, a pair of sevens down. We were playing baseball, a kind of seven-card stud in which nines and threes are wild and fours entitle you to another card. I already had what the others called a full boat, and I had another card coming. That sounds good, but in a game like baseball, as I had already discovered, five of a kind isn’t unusual.
Alan Kruzick, my secretary, had three aces showing, though two of them were really nines. To have Kruzick take my last quarter was too much like real life. He was not only my secretary but also my sister Mickey’s boyfriend and the bane of my every working day. I was about to fold—true to my conservative nature—when I caught the blue and attractive eye of Rob Burns. He shook his head and pointed to the quarter. Since I’d never played poker before in my life, I thought I’d better take advice where I could get it. Reluctantly, I pushed the coin into the pot.
Alan and I were the only two left in the game, but Rob was dealing. He gave each of us our last card, down. Mine was a two. Excuse me, a deuce. No help, as the others would say. Kruzick put in another quarter.
“I’m out,” I said. “Flat broke.”
Chris Nicholson, my law partner, put in her two cents: “Why don’t you go light?”
“I don’t think so.”
“That’s my boss,” said Alan. “The gutless wonder.”
That settled it. I borrowed two cents from the pot. “Your quarter and another quarter.”
“And another,” he said, throwing one in.
There was a three-raise limit, so what could I do but continue to bluff? I took another quarter out of the pot. And Alan turned over a pair of sixes.
“You’re fired,” I said.
“You can’t fire me, I’m pregnant.”
Mickey said, “Alan!”
And then there was dead silence.
Our friend Bob Tosi—who was Chris’s current flame—got up to get some more wine. Finally, I asked Alan what he meant.
Mickey spoke. “He means I’m pregnant.”
“Hey, I’m no sexist. We’re pregnant.”
“Mickey, honey,” said Chris. “Congratulations. I mean, if they’re in order.”
Mickey squirmed in her chair. “I’m not sure yet.” She looked at me as if pleading for mercy. “I mean I’m sure I’m pregnant. I’m just not sure what—Rebecca, I didn’t mean to tell you this way.”
I could only think of one thing to say and it was the wrong thing: “How could this happen to a counselor at Planned Parenthood?”
Mickey burst into tears. Instantly, Chris put her arms around her. “You poor peach.” She looked at me as if I’d hit my own sister. Rob, bless him, put his arms around me. I needed comfort as much as the next person.
“So that’s why you aren’t drinking,” I said, still putting things together. “Mickey, listen, baby, I’m sorry. If it’s what you want—”
She broke away from Chris. “I don’t know what I want. Yes, I do. I want to go home.”
In about thirty seconds, she and Kruzick were out of there. And then Chris and Bob were gone.
“It’s midnight,” said Rob. “Happy Easter.”
For some reason, that broke me up. Things didn’t seem so bad all of a sudden. Mickey would have an abortion and everything would be fine. Lots of women did—she should know; she spent her life advising them.
Rob found some brandy and gave me some. “You okay?” he said.
“I think so. I’m a horrible sister, I guess. But for a minute there, I thought we might all be stuck with Kruzick for life.” Mickey phoned then. “Congratulations. I’ve made up my mind. You’re going to be an aunt.”
“Listen, Mickey, I’m really sorry—”
“Oh, that’s okay. I know it was a shock.”
“I’m glad you’re not mad. I’ll dance at your wedding to make it up to you.”
“Who said anything about a wedding?”
“But I thought—”
“Oh, I’m going to have the baby, all right. But I’m not sure I want to be tied down.”
Alan took the phone from her. He said, “She’ll come around,” and hung up.
Rob poured me another brandy. “Mom Schwartz is going to love this.”
I nodded. “Thank God she’s in Israel.”
“How do you feel?”
“Woozy. I think I need a Coke.”
He got me one and sat on the white sofa across from the one I was sitting on, looking as if he’d be glad to speak if only someone hadn’t cut his tongue out. “This is awful,” I said. “If I fire him, I’m taking bread out of the mouth of my own niece.”
“Or nephew.”
“Nephew, yes. At least she can’t name him Alan.”
“Why not?”
“You don’t know?” Rob is half Jewish, but doesn’t know the first thing about Jewish tradition. He shook his head.
“You shouldn’t name a kid for a living relative.”
“It doesn’t matter. Auntie Chris’ll call it Diddley-bop whatever its name is.”
It was true. Chris could never remember names—or common household words—and substituted whatever nonsense syllables came into her head. Somehow, remembering that homely fact made me laugh again.
Rob put a hand on my thigh. “You want to have an adventure?”
“Sure,” I said, and got up. Having an adventure was our plan for the next few hours—an odd kind of adventure for a Bay Area native who thought she’d done everything San Francisco had to offer. I’d certainly done most of it in my nearly thirty years—I’d even once played the piano in one of our better bordellos, the dumbest prank of my life. But one thing I’d never done, partly because I’m Jewish and partly because I hate to get up in the morning, was go to the Easter sunrise service on Mount Davidson. This year, Rob, a reporter for the
San Francisco Chronicle
, had the honor of covering it—a punishment, he said, for insubordination. He’d enlisted me for company and dreamed up the idea of an all-night poker game so we wouldn’t have to wake up. Everyone had accepted, but no one wanted to stay all night. So he came up with a new plan—we’d play poker
almost
all night, then borrow Bob Tosi’s van, drive it to the foot of Mount Davidson, and nap for a couple of hours before sunrise.
The van was parked downstairs, equipped with a blown-up air mattress and sleeping bags. I fed the finny fellows in my hundred-gallon saltwater aquarium, and Rob and I were off.
It was about 2 A.M. when we got to Mount Davidson, and very quiet. I, for one, was exhausted, faint even, heavy with alternating thoughts of Kruzick as a brother-in-law and breaking the news to Mom that her baby daughter was going to be an unmarried mother.
Rob set his wristwatch alarm and we snuggled down in each other’s arms on the air mattress, still wearing our jeans—this I’d insisted on. If a cop knocked on the window, I wanted a layer of dignity between myself and him.
“Rebecca,” said Rob, “if you were pregnant, would you marry me?”
“Maybe—if you were responsible.”
I don’t know what made me say a jerky thing like that—the strain, I guess—but it made him turn away from me. That was disconcerting enough, but then a dog started howling somewhere in the west. I couldn’t sleep at all.
“Rebecca, will you be still?” was all the sympathy I got.
And then, Mickey
was
getting married. I got the invitation in the mail and ripped it open. But it wasn’t Mickey after all. It was someone with a French name, and
she
was marrying Alan. Or Alan was her father. Or something. “Mr. and Mrs. Alan DuPis,” said the card, “announce the marriage of their daughter, Ani.” Ani DuPis. I’d had two years of high school French and I knew how to pronounce it—
Ahnee Dupee
. But who could it be?
The effort of puzzling it out woke me up. That meant I’d been asleep after all. But how could that be? Because I hadn’t. But I must have because now I was awake and the dream was right—I did indeed need to pee. I’d heard that people dreamed in puns and now I’d caught my own subconscious at it. There wasn’t a public bathroom around, but there was certainly a wooded area—I could simply get out and pretend I was camping.