Betrayers(15)

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.