Bill Pronzini: Betrayers

Her turn to be silent.

“He’s another one like you,” the judge said flatly. “A paid snoop.”

“Operative.” No reason not to admit it. There wasn’t any need now for Stewart to keep working undercover. “That’s right; he is.”

“Why? Why the deception?”

“To find Antoine Delman.”

“And what other purpose?”

“No other purpose.”

“I don’t believe you. You know what Stewart knows.”

Be straight with the man, she thought. Always the best way to go, and besides, it’d give her a certain amount of leverage. “About the club. Yes.”

“The club,” he said in that talking-about-the-weather tone again. “Tell me how you found out about it.”

“I knew Delman was on the down low, never mind how.”

“I don’t like that term.”

“Okay, then I won’t use it again.”

“How many people have you told about the club?”

“None except Stewart. And I guarantee he won’t repeat it.”

Another long silence. Then, “Do you realize how serious a crime blackmail is, Ms. Corbin?”

“Blackmail? That what you think I’m here for?”

“Well?”

“You couldn’t be more wrong,” Tamara said. “My agency has one of the best reps in the city.”

Silence.

“I don’t care what you do in private, Judge. Or what any consenting adults do in private. None of my business. Believe it.”

“Why are you here, then?”

“To save you and Mrs. Inman and Doctor Easy and anybody else who’s thinking of investing in Operation Save from being ripped off. Call it my Operation Save.”

“Very noble of you.”

“I’m not trying to be noble. Like I said before-”

“ As I said before.”

She almost smiled. Correcting her grammar in the middle of a conversation like this. Judge Mantle was some piece of work.

“ As I said before, I’m trying to put Antoine Delman and his mother behind bars where they belong.”

Another silence, a short one this time. “Do you have proof they’re who and what you claim?”

“Enough to be sure I’m right about them and Operation Save.”

“Then why haven’t you gone to the police? Or have you?”

“Not yet. The one thing I don’t know for sure is whether or not any money has changed hands. The Delmans’ scam doesn’t become a felony until that happens.”

“You don’t need to explain the law to me, Ms. Corbin.”

“ Has any money changed hands, far as you know?”

Mantle said carefully, “It’s my understanding that some investments in the charity have been made.”

“By anyone you know personally?”

“Yes.”

“Who? Doctor Easy?”

“Yes.”

“How much were you planning to invest?”

The look. She thought he was going to stonewall the question, but he didn’t. He said, “Twenty-five thousand dollars.”

“Mrs. Inman?”

“The same.”

“Doctor Easy?”

“Thirty thousand.”

“Cash?”

“There was never any mention of cash.”

“Doesn’t need to be on this kind of scam. Cashier’s checks are just as good. Even personal checks, if they’re guaranteed to clear right away.”

Silence.

“Delman been pressuring you and Mrs. Inman to invest?”

“Not exactly.”

Uh-huh. The soft sell, while Alisha worked on her. “Delman steered you to Alisha when he found out Mrs. Inman was into psychics, right?”

“He gave me her name, yes.”

“And you’ve been waiting for Mrs. Inman to make up her mind. If she decides to go ahead, so do you.”

“Yes.”

“You believe in psychics, too, Judge?”

Silence.

“Has Mrs. Inman made up her mind?”

“Yes.”

“Going ahead?”

“Yes.”

“When? How soon?”

“Next Monday. At her home.”

“So there’s plenty of time for the SFPD to set up a sting. All we have to do-”

“We? You expect me to go to the police with you?”

“Somebody has to.”

“And you picked me. Do you have any idea what the publicity on something like this could do to my reputation, my career on the bench, my marriage?”

“How can it hurt you? You’re a potential victim, that’s all. All you’ve done is consider an investment in what you believed was a legitimate charity.”

“That’s not what concerns me,” Mantle said.

“No? Oh… the club.”

“That’s right, the club.”

“None of that has to come out-”

“Unless Delman brings it out. Or it comes out some other way.”

“Well, that’s a risk whether you go in with me or not. The Delmans are going down, one way or another-I promise you that. Do us all a favor and help me bust them.”

“And if I refuse?”

“Then I’ll have to talk to Mrs. Inman,” Tamara said. “Tell her I went to you first and you turned me down. And tell the police the same thing.”

Mantle deliberated again. Somewhere in the house a clock bonged; it was so quiet Tamara could hear the faint after-echoes.

He said finally, “It’s my place to discuss this business with Mrs. Inman, not yours. Dr. Hawkins as well. They have a right to know the situation before I agree to do anything.”

“That’s fair. Maybe you could convince them to go in, too. The more witnesses, the better.”

“They may want their names kept out of it, if possible.”

“But you’ll come with me in any case? If I have to go in alone, I won’t keep anybody’s name out of it.”

“You seem to have left me no choice.”

“Can you talk to them tonight?”

“Not Mrs. Inman. She’s attending a charity benefit in San Jose. Sometime tomorrow. That should be soon enough to suit you.”

“You don’t sound very grateful, Judge.”

“It remains to be seen if I have anything to be grateful for.”

Tamara laid one of her business cards on the desk in front of him. “You can reach me at one of those numbers anytime. The sooner the better, okay? For everybody’s sake.”

Mantle didn’t answer. Didn’t say another word to her. Just got up and looked at her until she did the same, then ushered her out into the cold night.

The owner of the old two-toned van and the DDTDAWG license plate was an ex-con named Joseph Hoffman.

Tamara got me that information on Thursday morning. She also tracked down Hoffman’s felony record. The crime that had landed him in Folsom for twenty-seven months had nothing to do with drugs and was the only blot on his record: receiving and selling stolen property. He’d owned a junk shop out near the Cow Palace, and when the cops raided it they found a storeroom full of small appliances, computers, and other goods taken in various burglaries throughout the city. He claimed he hadn’t known any of the stuff was hot; the judge and jury didn’t believe him. His sentence had been three years, with time knocked off for good behavior. Since his release eighteen months ago, he’d been living in Daly City, working for a reputable salvage dealer in South San Francisco, and apparently avoiding any further trouble with the law.

Nothing in any of that to tie him to a middle school teacher like Zachary Ullman, at least on the surface. There was one potentially interesting fact: the police had found out about Hoffman’s fencing operation not on their own hook but through a tip from a source so reliable that they’d had no trouble getting a search warrant for the premises raid.

The tipster had been Hoffman’s wife, Rosette.

She’d also testified against him at his trial, claiming she’d discovered what he was up to by accident and felt it her duty to “do the right thing” and turn him in. The last honest citizen. But there were other motivations in such cases. One possibility was that she’d known about the fencing or suspected it all along, the marriage had turned rocky, and she’d made up her mind to throw Hubby to the wolves. Another was payback for some offense other than a failing marriage. A third was sheer malice. In any case, she’d divorced Hoffman immediately after he was convicted, taken her seven-year-old son and her share from the sale of the junk shop, and started a new life under her maiden name, Prescott. Current address: 1499 Javon Street, El Cerrito. Current place of employment: Sweet Treats Bakery, Fairmount Avenue, El Cerrito.