Bill Pronzini: Betrayers

“Not if he’s guilty.”

“Jake… please. Don’t get involved.”

Runyon was thinking about what he’d seen tonight in Ullman’s bedroom. Different kind of child abuse, but abuse nonetheless. Little kids being hurt by adults without conscience or humanity.

“I already am,” he said.

Kerry said, her voice thick with disgust, “It must have been like walking into a chamber of horrors.”

“Pretty close. What the cops found on Ullman’s computer and in those scrapbooks was even worse than what was on the walls. There must’ve been five thousand individual images, plus more than a hundred videos.”

“My God. How long has he been wallowing in it?”

“Fifteen years. Started while he was still married.”

“Is that why his wife divorced him?”

“No,” I said. “He was careful about keeping it hidden from her. Joe Hoffman wasn’t careful at all. Kept his collection in his workshop where his wife stumbled on it. He didn’t have much back then, just a batch of photos that she burned without thinking.”

“How could Ullman keep all his garbage out in the open like he did

… blown-up photographs on the walls in plain sight? Somebody might’ve walked in there by accident. Or did he want to get found out?”

“I think he did. He confessed readily enough. But he protected himself pretty well just the same. Has no friends, male or female, never invited anybody to his house except other sickos like Hoffman.”

“Hoffman was his supplier?”

“One of them. They were part of a Bay Area cell-buying, selling, trading with one another.”

Kerry pulled her robe more tightly around herself. We were in our bedroom with the door shut, talking in low voices. Emily was either in bed or still doing homework-I hadn’t checked when I came in a few minutes before-and probably listening to music on her iPod. But we weren’t taking any chances.

“The police found a dozen names on Ullman’s computer,” I said. “There’ll be a lot more arrests in the next few days.”

“Well, I hope Ullman rots in prison for the rest of his life.”

“Not much chance of that. He’s in a pretty bad way-guilt, remorse, self-loathing. I won’t be surprised if he ends up in a psychiatric facility.”

“You believe him that he never actually… you know, harmed a child?”

“If he ever did, he’ll confess to it eventually. But I doubt it. He’s a voyeur and a coward, and it’s a good bet he was molested by somebody as a child, but I don’t see him as a molester himself. Except in his imagination.”

“He’s a monster just the same.”

“No argument there.”

“Visualizing himself with all those poor kids in the photos?” Kerry made a faint gagging sound. “With the kids he taught at Whitney? With Emily?”

I didn’t say anything.

“She liked and trusted him-one of her favorite teachers. Protected him, for God’s sake. And the whole time…”

“Easy,” I said. “Don’t go there.”

“I can’t help it. It makes me want to vomit.”

“Emily thought she was doing the right thing. She’s young; she believes people are basically good and honest and authority figures don’t lie.”

“She’ll be devastated when she finds out.”

“For a while. But she’ll get over it.”

“I don’t want her to find out at school, from the other kids. We’ll have to tell her.”

“First thing in the morning.”

“It won’t be easy.”

“It was a lot harder telling her what happened to her birth mother. She survived that-she’ll survive this, too.”

“So much pain in her life,” Kerry said. “Only thirteen, and all that ugliness and betrayal. She’s such a good kid, she deserves so much better.”

“I know.”

“I wish we could protect her the way she protected Ullman. Keep any more of the ugliness from hurting her.”

“We can try,” I said. “That’s all any parent can do-try.”

TAMARA

For a while the place was a madhouse. Uniformed cops, inspectors, EMTs, even a couple of firemen with axes. Delman had busted his ankle in the fall; they had to cut him moaning out of the dining room ceiling. Her nose had fared better. Sore and a little swollen, but not broken. Lucky. Down the line tonight-lucky.

She’d told the inspectors everything she knew about Antoine and Alisha and their con game, along with everything that had happened tonight. Hadn’t kept any of the victims’ names out of it. Hadn’t spared herself, either-fessed up her motives for going after the Delmans. Talked and answered questions until her mouth and throat were so dry she had to keep pouring down glasses of water, which only made her have to call time-out while she went in to pee.

The last of them were gone now and she was all juiced out, physically and mentally. What she wanted was a hot bath and about ten hours’ sleep. But not here, not tonight. Broken laths and plaster all over the dining room, some of that white dust still in the air. Flashes of the rage and terror she’d felt up there in the dark attic giving her the jimjams. A too-quiet stillness that had already begun to press down on her like a heavy weight.

She got her coat and car keys and beat it out of there.

Could’ve gone to Bill and Kerry’s, Vonda and Ben’s, some of her other friends, but then she’d’ve been stuck with another round of Q amp; A and she wasn’t up to that. When in doubt, pick on your nearest relative, even if it’s one you’ve had a prickly relationship with all your life. So that was where she went, to sister Claudia on Telegraph Hill-Tel Hi, the residents were calling it now, stupid name.

Claudia was in bed when Tamara got there-alone, fortunately. Her Oreo boyfriend, another lawyer like her, had his own crib; he’d been trying to get her to move in with him, but she kept saying no, she didn’t want to give up her independence. Why anyone would want to live with Claudia was beyond Tamara. Girl was a born-again vegan, wouldn’t eat anything that wasn’t grown organically and scrubbed in purified water, had about as much sense of humor as a duck, refused to own a TV set, and spent her spare time reading obscure law precedents.

She’d also inherited Pop’s sigh when dealing with her “difficult” little sister. She let loose three or four of them when Tamara told her she needed a place to crash for the night, she’d explain why in the morning. But Claudia didn’t argue or lecture, as she might’ve done some other time. Didn’t call her Tammie, either, a name she hated as much as Pop’s Sweetness and wouldn’t’ve put up with tonight. Claudia could be a pain in the ass sometimes, but she was a rock when it came to family unity. She cared in her own tight-assed way. Vice versa, though Tamara didn’t go around admitting it.

The guest room had a private bath. She soaked in a hot tub for half an hour, then swallowed three Tylenol and crawled between cool sheets. Was sure she’d be able to sleep right away, but it didn’t happen. Still too wired. Thoughts and emotions and flash images kept tumbling around inside her head.

So it was over, finished. The Delmans were going down-payback complete, and a good deed done besides, even if Judge Mantle and Doctor Easy didn’t agree. Revenge is sweet, right?

Then how come she felt low again? How come the taste was more bitter than sweet?

Somebody’d said that it was like eating a skimpy meal: you wanted it bad and it went down pretty easy when you got it, but it didn’t fill you up; it didn’t satisfy you for long. Yeah. Could be.

Could also be emotional wipeout. You couldn’t go through what she’d gone through tonight without a bad reaction. Happened that way twice before, hadn’t it? The Christmas hostage thing in the old agency offices and the kidnapping nightmare in the East Bay. The high might come back again tomorrow and last for a while. And every time she looked back on this week in her life she’d smile, feel satisfied and vindicated.