"I'm just out of my element. Where I come from, people don't try to deck each other for entertainment." Maybe I didn't understand sports at all.

"I'm looking for a handle on all this."

"That," he retorted, "is why I haven't already fired you." Then he relented a bit.

"I can tell you one thing. That woman" he indicated the head table "Rasmussen. She's a lawyer. She handles Mr. Sternway's negotiations with the hotel. And she plays hardball. Bargain basement rates aren't enough for her. She wants two or three suites and maybe thirty more rooms comped. Discounts on food. Airport shuttles. We wouldn't put up with it,

but the IAMA sells out the hotel. For the whole weekend. And let me tell you, these people eat."

He glanced at me.

"Considering what they charge for registration and spectators, they must turn one hell of a profit."

My, my, I thought. And the tournament isn't about money? Curiouser and curiouser.

I wanted to think about that. I touched Bernie's shoulder briefly to thank him, then wandered away.

Around the hall, the tournament was heating up. Events already occupied half the rings, and more were getting ready. Competitors warming up, teachers hectoring their students, and friends helping each other stretch used just about every possible patch of floor, but that didn't stop the crowd, or even the spectators, from being in constant motion. People shifted in all directions, following Rasmussen's instructions, or improving their view of particular events, or just working off jitters.

Meanwhile tension and active bodies accumulated against the chill of the AC. If the hall got warm, the fact that I hadn't slept would start to cause problems. Vaguely I wondered whether I'd call too much attention to myself by dragging a caffeine IV around behind me.

From the rings, yells punctuated the general hubbub. They were probably supposed to sound fierce, but the kids' voices in particular gave me an impression of pain. Being stubborn about it, I ordered myself to relax, and went to take a look.

Except for the differences in size and rank, all the kids competing in the four rings at the far end of the hall might've entered the same event. At each ring, five judges sat holding clipboards while as many as fifteen or twenty kids lined up opposite them. Most of the kids looked lost, but one or two acted like they already understood bloodshed. Parents who should've been in the stands squeezed as close as they could get. From the corner, a scorekeeper called out a name, and a kid moved into the center of the ring. Alone, the kid performed a bowing ritual, shouted something Oriental, and went to work.

Presumably this was kata, forms. The kid moved through a series of steps, turns, kicks, punches, blocks, all obviously choreographed. At intervals one of the movements included a yell. Most of them came out sounding like questions or pleas for help. After a minute or so, the kid stopped, repeated the bows,

and withdrew. The judges held up their clipboards to the score-keeper.

Then another kid was called to compete.

Trying to understand, I watched most of one event, even though it made me queasy. At first I thought each kid had different choreography.

That at least made the katas interesting to compare. But then I saw more and more of the patterns repeated. Apparently the forms were inherited. Traditional. All these kids had been taught to duplicate someone else's ideas about violence.

Muttering disgust under my breath, I turned away. As child abuse, this form of competition struck me as more elaborate, but less useful, than ordinary domestic brutality. A kid who got hit at home at least learned what hitting meant, for God's sake. As far as I could tell, these kids were being taught to act out lies.

If I wanted to survive this weekend, I'd have to concentrate on watching adults. Them I could hold responsible for their own illusions.

As promised, unfortunately, the adults including a few teenagers were engaged in grappling, katame. It looked just like wrestling to me, and I couldn't pretend I cared. Sure, the more you knew about leverage and joints, the better. But every ground-scrabble I'd ever seen or been in eventually came down to muscle and bulk. Here, however, the grapplers had the shit supervised out of them. The center judge and the four corner refs called breaks whenever a competitor drew breath. Then they awarded points arbitrarily, and after a while the score-keeper announced a winner.

No question about it, I was having a wonderful time. For a couple of minutes, I drifted into a waking nightmare where I went out on the floor to teach some of these true believers what real pounding was all about.

Fortunately I was on duty and this was a job, not a cause. It didn't have anything to do with me. If I earned my paycheck, I could forget the rest.

With an effort, I resumed trying to tune in to the tournament so that I could feel its rhythms and interruptions without being distracted by particular events. Let the yells and foolishness of the competitors, and the uncomfortable squirming of the crowd, sink into the background, where I could monitor them automatically instead of trying to evaluate them objectively.

What I really wanted, however, was someone to talk to. Someone who could explain all this.

Or Ginny. But that was a separate problem.

Halfway through the morning, I arrived back at the head table. The heat and the crowd and the yelling climbed along my nerves, and I was starting to feel stupid. Luckily someone had juiced up the AC, and the heat didn't get any worse.

Rasmussen and Parker Neill were there, along with the record-keeper and a couple of people in street clothes who looked like they might be reporters. In the staging area, Ned Gage directed an increasing press of traffic karate-ka, judges, instructors. Down on the floor, younger kids received their trophies while older ones competed in other rings.

A trickle of competitors and spectators visited the chops, but they weren't keen on it. Maybe Watchdog had overrated the danger.

The Master of Ceremonies left her microphone to approach me. She still looked mad. Apparently my earlier disrespect was like the German invasion of Russia never forgotten, never forgiven.

"Mr. Axbrewder," she demanded, "don't you have a job to do?"

Obviously she didn't want me on the dais.

"I'm doing it." By then I was in no mood to placate her.

"I can see better from here."

"So what? If you see anything, you'll be too far away to do anything about it."

"Ms. Rasmussen," I retorted heavily, "I don't know anything about karate, and I sure as hell don't know anything about karate tournaments. But I know my job. If you want me to do it better, let me ask you some real questions. Then give me some real answers."

She didn't bother. Turning away sharply, she went back to her microphone. When she announced the latest katame winners, she didn't sound angry at all. She knew how to turn it on and off.

I didn't like that much. Being such a paragon of self-control myself, I naturally distrusted it in others.

Time crept along. I made another circuit of the hall. Fascinated or horrified in spite of myself, I watched a few rounds of kids' sparring.

They flailed away at each other with such seriousness and ineffectuality that I wanted to barge into the ring,

take them by their ears, and send them to their rooms. Fortunately they wore so much gear Styrofoam on their hands and feet and heads, shin-protectors, presumably cups as well that they were in no danger of hurting each other, even by accident. I couldn't figure out how the refs chose winners. Divination, maybe.

By the time I got back to the head table, Neill had gone elsewhere. But Sternway was there, accompanied by a man I hadn't seen before. Ignoring the IAMA director's stolid demeanor, the other man carried on an artificially animated conversation with the reporters.

The reporters were done shortly. Sternway and his companion withdrew to the back of the dais possibly the most private spot in the hall and Sternway beckoned me to join them.

I obeyed. I figured I knew what was coming.

For once I was right.

"Mr. Axbrewder," he said flatly, "this is Mr. Lacone. Alex Lacone."

Then he told Lacone, "Mr. Axbrewder is a private investigator. I've mentioned him. The Luxury hired him to provide extra security, on Marshal Viviter's recommendation."

"Mr. Axbrewder." The other man and I shook hands. His voice seemed to boom even when he spoke quietly, but no one turned to look at him, so maybe he didn't attract as much attention as I thought.

"Good to meet you. I've been looking forward to it."

He was a big guy, about my size, only heavier and a truckload heartier.

An incessant grin split his square face, exposing perfect teeth that would've been blinding by sunlight. With his cosmetic tan and precise grooming, he looked like a poster boy for an expensive salon. But under the tan his skin tone was slack, and the lines around his eyes and mouth ran deep, which made me think that he'd lubricated his way through too many power lunches. I knew the signs.

In a budget like his, I was petty cash. Since I couldn't imagine why he'd been looking forward to meeting me, I asked, "What's your interest in all this, Mr. Lacone?"

He chuckled easily.