Trying not to think about Deborah Messenger, I grinned back.

"Not if I can help it, anyway."

This opportunity was too good to miss, despite my impatience.

"Can you spare a minute?" I asked.

He spread his hands.

"As many as you want. Until the next crisis." The prospect of another testosterone outbreak obviously didn't trouble him.

"I'm congenitally nosy," I said by way of explanation.

"I always want to know why people do what they do." Then I got to the point.

"I hear you're a volunteer?"

Ned faked a scowl as he indicated his IAMA patch.

"We all are." He sighed heavily.

"Such is life." With that gleam in his eyes, he might as well have been laughing.

"Apparently," I drawled.

"But I don't get it." I nodded toward the registration table.

"From here it looks like you're taking in serious bucks. And I'm told you'll have a bigger crowd tomorrow and Sunday. But you work free. Why do you bother?"

He shrugged off his scowl like it was too much effort. With a sidelong grin, he chuckled, "If I thought you'd believe me, I'd say karate changed my life which is true, by the way and I'm expressing my gratitude. But I'm not that unselfish." He met my gaze straight on.

"The real reason is, it's fun. All this intensity and seriousness.

"The thrill of agony, the victory of defeat,"

" he misquoted sententiously.

"It's as good as a circus. And I'm the ringmaster.

"Besides," he added softly, as if he were revealing a great secret, "I don't need the money. I have my own school in LA. I already make 'serious bucks' teaching stunt men how to fake kung fu and karate for the cameras."

"Well, gosh," I breathed, wide-eyed. Playing along.

"What refreshing candor." Then I lowered my voice.

"But you can't tell me that Parker Neill and Sue Rasmussen are in it for the fun. He looks like a spectator at his own life. She acts like she's on some kind of Holy Crusade."

I expected him to laugh, but he didn't. Still softly, he advised, "Don't underestimate them, Brew. They're both fine martial artists.

They may not be having fun, but they know what they're doing. They volunteer for the obvious reason that Mr. Sternway is their sensei.

When your sensei wants something done, volunteering isn't optional."

I wanted to ask what gave sense is so much clout, but he must've assumed that I already knew the answer.

"They'd both do it anyway, of course," he went on.

"For Parker, this is the world he knows best. Until he gave up competing, he lived on tournaments and adrenaline. Part of what you see in him now is simple letdown. He misses putting himself on the line in the ring.

"And then" Gage chuckled easily "well, he's what you might call a 'true believer."

" The match in front of us ended, allowing us a moment of quiet before other rings took up the slack. I could smell sweat and anxiety despite the laboring AC.

"He used those words himself," I put in.

"But he was talking about other people."

The Director of Referees nodded.

"I know. He does that. And sometimes he's right. But sometimes he's just projecting.

"He considers himself a better person than he was before he joined Mr.

Sternway's dojo. For all I know, that's true. I can't see inside him.

Or possibly he can't tell the difference between competition endorphins and spiritual growth. The point is that he believes it. If he had his way, everyone would study karate and all the teachers would be volunteers. The fact that the IAMA is really a business depresses him."

I could imagine how he felt. The mix of dollars and thumping on all sides bothered me, and I wasn't involved.

I wanted to move on. But when I scanned the far side of the hall, I couldn't locate Deborah Messenger. Sternway and Lacone must've swept her off somewhere. In the space of about five seconds, my morale sagged like Parker's.

The heat was getting worse. If the AC couldn't cope any better than this now, conditions on Saturday would become positively sulfurous.

With a grimace, I wrestled my attention back to Gage.

"How about Sue? What's her excuse?"

"Oh, she'd volunteer even if her sensei didn't run the LAMA," he answered casually. If he caught my lapse, he was too polite to comment on it.

"She's ambitious, our Sue." His tone suggested affection as well as amusement.

"She wants to be a Power. Lawyer, civic leader, karate-ka, you name it. Working tournaments helps her connect with every heavy hitter in this world. She eats lunch with Bill Wallace, does favors for Fumio Demura, knows Chuck Norris by his first name. At the end of the day she can take all that to the bank."

Leaning toward me, he lowered his voice again.

"Rumor also has it that she sleeps with Anson. But you didn't hear it from me.

"She still competes," he added less privately.

"You might get a chance to see her tomorrow, or Sunday. But watch out.

Sometimes her kata and kumite have so much fire they'll scorch your clothes if you stand too close."