Betrayers

29

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.

Maybe.

And maybe the high wouldn’t come again; maybe she’d be looking back and wondering if she hadn’t been six kinds of fool, and a lucky fool at that, to let herself get caught up in a personal vendetta that’d almost cost her her life.

She knew what Claudia would say when she found out, the same thing she’d said any number of times before. “When are you going to grow up, Tamara? When are you going to get wise to yourself?” She’d scoffed at that before because she’d always thought she had grown up, was wise to herself. Wrong?

No.

Yes.

Anyhow, she’d learned some things, some hard lessons. About men and relationships, about professional ethics and self-protection, about herself. One thing for sure: she wouldn’t make the same mistakes twice.