Betrayers nd-35

by Bill Pronzini

  She’d be working now, he thought, as she did most afternoons. Maybe on one of her watercolors or charcoal sketches, maybe on the computer-generated graphic designs that paid her bills. She’d refused spousal support when her cold, selfish ex-husband divorced her after the stroke. Too proud, too self-sufficient. She’d even insisted on paying a share of the support for her only kid, nine-year-old Robert Jr., Bobby.

  Bobby had spent this past weekend with her-one of the two weekends a month she was allowed to have her son to herself. The ex-husband, the kind of lawyer that gave the profession a bad name, had manipulated it that way. Made some sort of arrangement with a family court judge who granted him full custody except for the monthly weekend visits and one week in the summer, the decision based on the lie that Bryn’s stroke and disfigurement made her less than fit to raise the boy as a single mom. Bastards. And now Robert Sr. was getting married again, which meant a new “mother” for Bobby, an increased feeling of alienation for Bryn.

  Nothing she could do about it. Nothing Runyon could, either, except be there for her when she needed him-particularly during one of her periodic bouts of near-suicidal depression. He’d been suicidal himself after Colleen died, come close more than once to eating his gun; he knew all about the waves of black melancholy and the death-wish impulses. He’d fought them, beat them off, finally buried them. Bryn would do the same with his help and support. He believed that and he felt that she was starting to believe it, too.

  He hoped the weekend had gone well. He hadn’t talked to her since Thursday night, didn’t feel it was right to intrude on her private time with her son. Had she taken his advice to be more affectionate with the boy? So afraid Bobby would pull away from her because of her deformity that she’d let an uncomfortable distance build up between them, not once in his presence removing the scarf she wore constantly over the frozen side of her face.

  That wouldn’t change, at least not for some time. She still wouldn’t let Runyon see her without the scarf, or touch her face or kiss her. Sex in the dark, bodies close but heads apart at awkward angles.

  Hurt and lonely, both of them. It was what had drawn them together, what would keep them together until something happened to end their relationship or make it permanent.

  Better not think about that now. Carpe diem. It had been so long since he’d felt like seizing any day, looked forward to something other than filling up the long empty hours with work and aimless driving. Enjoy it while it lasted. Be grateful for the chance to feel alive again.

  Noe Valley, between the east side of Twin Peaks and the Mission District, was one of the city’s thriving upscale neighborhoods. Fashionable older homes and apartment buildings, and along 24th Street blocks of restaurants, coffee-houses, bookstores, taverns, small businesses. Parking was at a premium; it took Runyon ten minutes to find a space within a block and a half of 24th and Castro, where Noe Valley Arts amp; Crafts was located.

  Small place: long, narrow, with shelves and displays along the walls, more shelving down the middle, and an upfront counter. The girl behind the counter was eighteen or nineteen, gold rings and studs in her ears, nose, and upper lip, and fingernails painted the color of a ripe eggplant. The stud in her lip sparkled when she told him, smiling, that Mr. Madison was in his office in back. She offered to go fetch him, but Runyon said he’d just go on back, he had some personal business to discuss.

  The office door was open, revealing a small, tidy office and the man standing at an old-fashioned file cabinet along one wall. He was taller than his brother, a couple of inches over six feet, and also red haired, but with the kind of smooth baby-skin face that would sprout only enough whiskers for twice-weekly shaves. A weak chin and close-set eyes kept him from being good-looking. He glanced around, blinking, as Runyon stepped into the doorway.

  “This is a private office,” Madison said. “The girl at the counter can get you anything you need-”

  “Afraid not, Mr. Madison.” Runyon introduced himself, showed his license. “I’m here about your brother.”

  Madison said, “Oh, God,” in a voice that was half-pained, half-irritated. “Come in; shut the door.” Then, when Runyon had complied, “I suppose that bondsman, Melikian, hired you to find Troy.”

  “My agency. That’s right.”

  “Well, I don’t have any idea where he went.” Madison moved away from the file cabinet, around behind his desk. Most men of his height had an easy way of walking, but his movements were awkward and loose-jointed, almost a duck waddle. “A long damn way from here, I hope. So far away you never find him.”

  “If you feel that way, why did you arrange for his bail?”

  “You don’t know him,” Madison said. “Nobody knows him like I do.”

  “Meaning?”

  “He puts on a good act, pretends to be easygoing, everybody’s friend. But inside he’s just the opposite. A mean, violent son of a bitch. He used to beat me up when we were kids, just for the hell of it. I took more abuse from him than anybody else in my life, including my wife.”

  “He threatened you, is that it?”

  “Not at first. Claimed he was innocent, that he’d been set up and could prove it at his trial. Swore he’d pay the money back as soon as he could-a crock; he never paid anybody back a dime in his life. I told him no, we couldn’t afford it. That’s when he turned ugly. He knew we had the money. Said he’d hurt me, hurt Arletta, if we didn’t bail him out.”

  “You could’ve ignored the threats, left him in jail.”

  “Sure. Maybe he’d’ve been convicted and maybe he wouldn’t, and even if he was he’d spend, what, a couple of years in prison. What do you think he’d do when he got out? No, you just don’t know him and what he’s capable of.”

  “Did you expect him to jump bail?”

  “I thought he might. He was in jail for six months a few years ago; you probably know that. He hated it, hated the idea of going to prison.”

  “So you were hoping he would jump, go on the run.”

  “Well, what if I was? I didn’t help him do it, did I?”

  Same as. But Runyon didn’t put the thought into words.

  “I have a right to protect myself and my wife,” Madison said defensively. “The best way I can.”

  “She agree?”

  “Sure she agrees. Why ask that?”

  “I understand it was her money that paid Melikian.”

  “Her money.” Madison’s mouth thinned down even more, until his smooth baby face seemed lipless. “Christ, I get tired of hearing that. So she’s gotten lucky with those sculptures of hers, darling of the critics and gallery owners, so what? We’re married, it’s my money, too.”

  Runyon said mildly, “Abe Melikian says you had to ask her for the thirty-five hundred. Prenup?”

  Anger kindled in Madison’s pale blue eyes. “That’s none of your business. My personal affairs have nothing to do with my brother skipping out on his bail.”

  Runyon let it go. “When did you last see him?”

  “The day he got bailed out.”

  “No contact with him since? No demands for more money?”

  “No. At least not yet.”

  “Then he might have some of his own stashed away. Or a supply of drugs or a source to get him some that he can turn into ready cash. Any idea who his suppliers are?”

  “No.”

  “His friends?”

  “No. They’re all drug freaks like that bitch he lives with. I don’t have anything to do with people like that.”

  “But you do know her. Jennifer Piper.”

  “Not before he was arrested. I hardly ever saw Troy, except when he needed money. She was at the jail when I went to see him. Christ, what a piece she is. Tattoos, greasy hair, body like a scarecrow. She gave me the creeps.”

  Runyon asked, “He still have ties to anyone in Bakersfield?”

  “Not that I know about. He wouldn’t’ve gone back there, if that’s what you’re thinking. He hated growing up there; we both did.”<
br />
  “What do you think, then, Mr. Madison? Is he running or hiding out somewhere locally?”

  “I can’t answer that. Troy’s not smart; he’s just cunning-and so messed up on drugs there’s no telling what he might do.”

  Runyon laid one of his business cards on the desk. “Let me know if he contacts you for any reason.”

  “I don’t think so,” Madison said. “I help you catch him and he finds out, Arletta and I will be the ones to suffer when he gets out of prison. I hope to Christ none of us ever sees his ugly face again.”

  5

  TAMARA

  Vonda’s brother James was a partner in a construction company called Three Brothers. Specialized in home repair for black home owners and landlords in Bayview-Hunters Point, the Fillmore, and other parts of the city. In the last couple of years Three Brothers Construction had expanded their operation, moved to a bigger location, and started bidding on small developments of new houses both inside and outside the city. James was the smartest of the three, the driving force behind the expansion. Natural-born hustler and promoter, so he ran the white-collar end of the business while his two partners did the blue-collar work.

  Back in his high school days in Redwood City, James had run with a bunch of local gangbangers hooked in with an even tougher crowd in East Palo Alto. Got into heavy stuff for a while-drugs, using and selling both, and Tamara had heard rumors of weapons dealing and strong-arm robberies. What had straightened him up was watching a shotgun blast blow off most of his best friend’s face during a drug deal gone sour. Standing right next to the dude when it went down, took some of the blast himself and spent a week in the hospital. There hadn’t been enough evidence to charge him with anything, so he came out free and clear-with a whole new attitude. Changed his life around. Found some new, nonviolent friends to hang with, got himself a construction job, learned the trade, then hooked up with his two partners and started Three Brothers Construction with a loan from a minority small-business packager.

  Funny how things turned out sometimes. Good and bad both. Tamara and Vonda had both been pretty wild themselves, chasing with some rough homies, experimenting with weed and sex, all cornrowed and grunge dressed and party ready. Done the racist thing, too, hating and cussing the white man’s world same as James did. And now here they were ten years later, all three of them living in San Francisco and holding down jobs they would’ve sneered at in their bad-ass days. Tamara partnered with a white man in a detective agency, Vonda a sales rep at the S.F. Design Center, James a damn-near executive in a successful construction outfit. Solid members of the establishment they’d once scorned-a world that still belonged to the white man but that had opened up and changed and was still changing. Any damn thing was possible for an African American or any other minority now. A half-black man being elected president proved that.

  Tamara and Vonda had shed the racist bullshit, learned how to get along with people of any color or no color. Not James. He’d escaped the gang jungle and built a good life for himself, but when it came to white folks, the best he’d learned to do was tolerate them. Went off like a rocket when Vonda announced she was pregnant and going to marry Ben Sherman, who was not only white but Jewish besides. Showed up at Ben’s apartment on Tel Hill and got right in his face and tried to warn him off. No way that was gonna happen, a real love match there between those two. Ben had been cool and stayed cool with James. Made a real effort to turn him around. Hadn’t worked, but Ben had gotten further than any other white guy had. James still didn’t approve of the marriage, but he’d shaken Ben’s hand at the wedding and toasted him with a glass of champagne at the reception.

  James had had a thing for Tamara in their bad-ass days, but she hadn’t given him any encouragement. Just not her type. He still resented her for the rejection, and the fact that she’d gone into the investigation business hadn’t made him like her any better. She was fuzz to him, not much different from her old man-a detective on the Redwood City PD who’d given James and his gangbangers plenty of grief. Sellouts, the way he saw the Corbins. Oppressors of their own people. And nothing she or Vonda or anybody else said or did was ever likely to change his mind.

  So she had to be as cool with James as Ben had been. Not let him goad her into losing her temper. Last time she’d seen him was at the wedding and reception, and he hadn’t said ten words to her that day. Looked right through her most of the time. Well, this wasn’t a social event; this was business-important business. She was a professional, and professionals could get information out of anybody if they handled it right.

  Three Brothers Construction’s new home was on Industrial Street, near the 280 and 101 freeway interchange. Tamara closed up the agency early and drove over there, calling first to make sure James would be in. But she didn’t make an appointment or give her name, just told the woman who answered that she was a friend. If James knew she was coming, be just like him to refuse to see her or duck out early himself.

  She’d never been to the new place before and she had to admit it was steps up from the old one on 3rd in Hunters Point. Offices at one end of a big warehouse that the brothers had renovated themselves, and an equipment and storage yard that took up half a block. Fifteen full-time employees and twenty more part-timers, plus a handful of subcontractors on the bigger jobs. Mr. James McGee, contractor. Mr. James McGee, capitalist. She’d never have believed it possible, down in Redwood City. Neither would Vonda. And Pop least of all. He’d figured James would end up dead or in prison like so many others.

  The business offices were plain and functional; so was Nancy, the office manager. Tamara said she was the friend who’d called and if James wasn’t busy, she’d just go on into his private office and surprise him. He wasn’t busy and Nancy didn’t offer any objections, so in she walked.

  James was behind a big messy desk with a batch of blueprints spread out in front of him. He glanced up, then fixed her with a long scowly stare. “Shit,” he said.

  “Good to see you, too.”

  “I got no time for you. Or any other Oreo.”

  “I’m no more white inside than you are.”

  “Partner’s a white man, isn’t he? Clients mostly white?”

  “None of your disrespect, okay? You work for whites yourself.”

  “The hell I do.”

  “The hell you don’t. Who you think runs the Franchise Tax Board in Sacramento, the IRS in Washington? Black men?”

  Right thing to say. It wiped away the glare and brought a wry little chuckle out of him. He leaned back in his chair, clasped his hands behind his head. Handsome dude, she had to admit, much better looking than he’d been in his grunge days. Lean and mean, thick beard trimmed short, skin smooth as brown silk. Those bushy-browed black eyes had once burned like fire; the heat was still there, but the fire had been banked by time and success. He cleaned up pretty well, too. She remembered his wedding outfit: pin-striped charcoal suit, saffron-colored shirt, pink tie. Dressed more conservatively here on the job-tan sports jacket, open-necked blue shirt-and none of it showed a wrinkle or rumple. No question the new James was a big improvement on the old one.

  He said, “So what the hell you doing here?”

  “Vonda didn’t tell you about me and Lucas Zeller?”

  “We don’t talk much since she married her white Jew.”

  “Yeah, well, Lucas and I had a thing a couple of weeks ago.”

  “Uh-huh.” James scratched one long finger through his beard, looking at her narrow eyed. “Why’d you hook up with that ugly dude anyway? You that hard up for a man?”

  Tamara said between her teeth, “Wasn’t nobody else asking.”

  “No surprise there.” But his eyes were on her body, roaming. “Lost some fat around your middle, looks like.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Stand to lose some more.”

  She bit off a sharp comeback, said instead, “You’re not exactly buff yourself, my man.”

  “I’m not your man, and damn glad of
it.” Lopsided grin. “You may be hard up, but I’m not. Saw the fox I was with at the wedding, right? She gives me all the lovin’ I can handle.”

  Fox? “Cat” was a better word-sleek black cat with claws and a big red tongue in a big red mouth. “I’ll bet she does,” Tamara said.

  “So what you want from me?”

  “I’m looking for him.”

  “Who? Zeller?”

  “His name’s not Zeller.”

  “No? Well, I could give a shit less.”

  “I know that.”

  “Then what you doing here, bugging me?”

  “Answers to a few questions, James, that’s all I want.”

  “Yeah? What’d you ever do for me?”

  “Been a good friend to Vonda, helped her out a couple of times when she needed it. How about that?”

  Now the scowl was back. But then he said, “What’d the dude do, throw you over for some guy?”

  “No.”

  “Vonda tell you he’s on the down low?”

  “You know she did.”

  “He give you a disease?”

  “No. I had myself tested.”

  “So?”

  “The man’s more than just on the down low,” Tamara said. “He’s a thief and maybe worse. Stole the real Lucas Zeller’s briefcase, wallet, identity, and some cash from his checking account. Stole his identity.”

  James took that in, not saying anything. The look he gave her then was a little less hostile. “You sure about all that?”

  “I’m sure.”

  “Well, you know that much, how come you can’t find him? Hot-shit de-tective like you.”

  “Not enough information yet.”

  “Who you working for, the real Zeller?”

  “No. For myself.”

  “Uh-huh, I get it. The woman-scorned bit.”

  “Let’s cut out the bullshit, James, all right? I need some help and I’m not ashamed to ask for it. Even from you. You gonna talk straight to me or you just gonna go on dissing me?”