I snorted to myself. I'd seen Sue Rasmussen get heated, but I couldn't picture actual fire.

However, I knew what would happen if I mentioned my doubts. Ned would make some reference to her ripping me apart. Apparently I was expected to consider every third person here some kind of ambulatory bucksaw. In any case, he obviously liked her, and I didn't want to alienate him. He was more forthcoming than anyone else I'd talked to.

"But she and Parker aren't having fun," I remarked as if I wanted confirmation.

His eyes gleamed.

"That's true. Neither of them."

"And you are," I prodded.

"Don't I look like it?" he countered. Then he admitted, "But it's easier for me. Anson Sternway isn't my sensei. That man is one hell of a fighter, but he's death on fun."

He gave me the opening I'd been angling for. I grabbed my chance while I had it.

"How about Mr. Sternway? Why is he involved in all this?"

For the first time, Ned paused to consider what he said. After a moment, he pronounced judiciously, "The LAMA is a valuable organization. It benefits everyone involved. And it was his idea. He deserves what he gets out of it."

Drawing me with him, he took a couple of steps backward. Apparently he didn't want to risk being overheard. Almost whispering, he told me, "But down at the bottom, he's in it for the money. It's a survival issue. His wife has been bleeding him dry for years. They're separated now, but that hasn't made her any less ereedv. She'd take every oennv he made while he starved to death, as long as the money kept coming after he died."

Aha, I thought. Here was something I could pass on to Marshal Viviter.

No wonder Sternway focused so hard on the lAMA's balance sheet. There's nothing like a grasping spouse to make anyone desperate. If he'd been reduced to harassing her, at least he had a reason.

"Thanks," I murmured sincerely.

"That helps."

Ned waved my gratitude away.

"Don't mention it."

"Too late," I retorted.

"I already did." Then I added abruptly, "So how do you know all this?"

Suddenly Gage looked like he might get hurry.

"He doesn't hide it." I could feel the edge in his voice.

"Ask him yourself."

I raised my hands to ward him off.

"No offense. I'm a private investigator. I ask questions like that on automatic pilot. I wasn't implying anything."

Clearly the IAMA Director was a sensitive subject. And I didn't want to make Ned suspicious of my interest. If he mentioned this conversation to Sternway, I could probably kiss my job goodbye.

Ned relaxed visibly.

"Forget it. I'm not that easily offended."

Swallowing my relief, I changed the subject.

"Then I hope you won't mind one more question. You said karate changed your life." I made a show of incomprehension.

"How?"

His laugh told me that the question didn't bother him.

"Basically, Brew, I'm just a short round guy in a world full of big biceps and bigger egos. That's an intimidating prospect, let me tell you. For years I survived by keeping a low profile. But now I don't have to get along with any of them. I can laugh whenever I feel like it, instead of when it might placate some muscle-bound hothead who thinks I need an attitude adjustment.

"When an ego like Nelson Brick gets in my face, we both remember that I won Master's kobudo here three years in a row." He grinned broadly.

"And I didn't work up a sweat doing it."

I did my best to look suitably impressed.

"That would've been worth seeing."

He dismissed the idea cheerfully.

"Not really. It was fun at the time. It's still fun. I like having the rep. But I wouldn't take it too seriously if I were you. All I did was swing a long stick around the ring for a while."

In a strange way, he was the only karate-ka I'd met so far that

I did take seriously. Intuitively I felt sure he'd earned his self-assurance.

Pretending that I didn't want to impose on his good nature, I thanked him again and moved away. The truth was that I preferred to conceal my accumulating gloom. The more questions I asked, the more obvious it became that I didn't understand the martial arts. Or martial artists.

They all took safe risks, generated the sensation of danger without any actual hazard, but they acted like it meant something.

I felt stupid with heat and lack of sleep. Not to mention loneliness.

When Ginny dropped me as her partner, she'd cut off my anchor to the only reality that made sense.

Black belt team kumite occupied the rings. Since I didn't have anything else to do, I paid a certain amount of aimless attention. If we had thieves working the room, they were too good for me to spot. And my nerves didn't catch any other alarms.

Now that I'd watched some of the brown belts, I could see that the black belts were definitely better if "better" was the right word for it. They struck and withdrew faster, with more efficiency and better balance. But they didn't seem to hit as hard. If "better" meant that they sparred more safely, they'd left the brown belts miles behind.

I was tired of safety. If karate was good for people if it made you "a better person" maybe the time had come for me to go out on a limb by asking Sifu Hong why he gave a shit about Nakahatchi's chops. Better yet, I could ask Sternway what made him think it was a good idea to hassle his wife.

Oh, right. That'd be smart.

But the IAMA was being smart by keeping the tournament safe. I'd had about all the smart I could stand.

I must've been praying, although I didn't know it. Like an act of Divine Intervention, the doors near the registration table opened, and Deborah Messenger reappeared. She wasn't more than twenty yards away.

Sternway, Lacone, and Sammy Posten were still with her. The developer beamed on all channels while Posten laughed and Sternway lifted the corners of his mouth like a man who'd forgotten what amusement felt like. Deborah Messenger managed a polite distant smile, but her heart wasn't in it.

As soon as my eyes caught hers, hormones I didn't know I still had hit me like a cattle prod. From the rings, yells assaulted the soundproofing, but I hardly heard them. Trying not to hyperventilate, I sifted through the crowd toward her.