I'd already heard Moy ask Wisman whether Bernie had any enemies. Until then I hadn't known that the detective was interested enough to consider alternative explanations.

Moy didn't keep Sternway long. When the IAMA director left, Deborah Messenger took his place. She gave me a worried look as she came into the men's room. After that she concentrated on Moy.

To Marshal I said, "He reminded me that this isn't my problem. But I'm not going to drop it. The pieces don't fit."

"You mean," Marshal put in, "why did a guy facing a minor rap like petty theft raise the stakes on himself by committing murder?"

"That," I admitted.

"And there's something else."

I didn't risk saying what it was, and Viviter was too clever to ask.

Damn him anyway. I wanted to loathe him, but he made it bloody difficult. After a pause, he repeated his earlier question.

"How can I help?"

"I don't know if it's possible," I told the phone quietly, "but I want to see the ME's report. And I want to know if Bernie ever had any dealings with Sternway, the IAMA, Alex Lacone, the schools in Martial America, or Watchdog Insurance. I mean, outside his job here."

Again Marshal refrained from questions.

"Might be possible," he mused instead.

"Or not. I'll let you know.

"Anything else?"

Moy had finished questioning Deborah. Like Wisman and

Sternway, she'd reported that she hadn't seen Bernie go into the men's room. She hadn't seen anyone like the heavyset man. When the detective let her go, she threw me another anxious look, but didn't hesitate on her way out.

Next the uniforms in the lobby admitted Bernie's designated second-in-command, an untidy man named Slade who managed to make his blazer look slept in. I wanted to concentrate on what he said, but I needed one more thing from Marshal.

"Can you give me a direct phone number? In case I have to get in touch with you fast?"

"Sure." He recited a number.

"That's my cell phone. It's always on."

Brusquely I thanked him and hung up.

Slade was telling Moy, "You want to talk to Max Harp. He's on monitor duty. If one of our cameras saw it, so did he. But the odds aren't good." Then he added, "Of course, we keep everything on tape, at least for a couple of weeks."

His tone gave off hints of truculence or defensiveness.

Prodded for more, he explained that the Security cameras in the lobby only swept this men's room door at intervals. On top of that, images at the edges were blurred. Even if one of the cameras happened to swing in the right direction at the right time, it focused on more vulnerable locations, like registration and the cashier's desk.

Moy made Slade go over it a couple of times, but I stopped listening.

So much for catching the drop on tape.

The detective received the news with his usual enthusiasm. He said, "We'll talk to Mr. Harp," the way he might've said, It's raining off the coast of Bangladesh.

"But while you're here, you can help with something else.

"Did Mr. Appelwait have any enemies? Do you know of anyone who might've wanted him out of the way?"

Slade scowled.

"Why would he? We're hotel security. It's not the kind of job that makes enemies." Now he sounded bitter, like a man who hadn't forgiven life for wounding his self-importance. But the detective stared at him nervelessly, and he finally conceded, "Some of the men don't like him very much." He may've meant, I don't like him very much.

"But we all think he's OK." After a moment, he added, "He's fair with us. And he backs us up when the brass get a twist in their shorts."

"Interesting," Moy observed. He didn't sounded interested. With a shrug, he dismissed the senior guard.

As Slade left, a uniform came in and whispered something to Moy, then withdrew when Moy nodded. Casually the detective turned toward me.

"Axbrewder," he inquired numbly, "what's your connection to Ms.

Messenger?"

He startled me. I almost retorted, What fucking business is it of yours? But I caught myself in time. Instead I kept my mouth shut, looked confused, and waited for an explanation.

"I've just been told," he said slowly, "that when she heard we wanted to question her, she asked, "Has anything happened to Brew?" I assume that's you?"

I did my best to shrug, but it felt like a flinch on my shoulders. I didn't know what to make of Deborah's concern.

"There's no connection," I replied as smoothly as I could which probably meant that I sounded like I wanted to hit him.

"I met her for the first time yesterday. We had dinner together. It didn't go anywhere. End of story."

That last assertion was a lie. But the truth had nothing to do with Bernie, or the heavyset man, or my job here. Besides, I didn't trust her reaction. Or mine.

"She didn't find you attractive?" Moy considered the notion.

"I can't imagine why." Despite his general catatonia, I thought I saw a spark of humor in his eyes.

Finally the stretcher boys arrived. After Moy signed a couple of forms for the ME, and Bernie was carted out, I was released.

The urgency of my desire to get away had eased a bit. The chops hadn't been touched. Instead of rushing back to the tournament, I wanted to follow Bernie's cart all the way to the ambulance. He deserved at least that much attention. At the same time, I had an impulse to join Moy when he went to question Max.

But I didn't do either one. I'd been sequestered for the better part of an hour plenty of time for reality to shift on its axis, assume an entirely new bearing.

As I left the men's room, I saw Ginny.

There were dozens of people in the lobby now cops and hotel staff, curious guests, martial artists, plus Deborah and Ned Gage, who'd presumably helped Security lock up the picks but I hardly noticed them.

The lobby itself was the size of an aircraft hangar, and lit like a playing field, but suddenly it seemed to contract around me, concentrating like the focus of a searchlight. Voices and feet scattered echoes off the tile floor, the glass of the high windows, but they meant nothing to me. I had time to wonder just for a second how my life had come to this. Then I went for her like a gale-force wind.

She was here because she cared about me, had to know whether I was all right.

Or because she thought I couldn't cope without her.