Betrayers (Nameless Detective Novels) by Bill Pronzini Read Free Book Online

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