Maybe I owed him a little less intransigence.

Sighing to myself, I asked, "Where do you want to meet?"

"Meet?" His frown said, What the hell are you talking about? Obviously he'd forgotten his invitation.

"You offered to show me how you earned respect." I tried to sound deferential, but I wasn't much good at it.

He nodded.

"You'll come with me." Apparently he considered that good news. All at once he resumed his usual expressionless-ness.

"We can meet in the parking lot here." Almost smiling, he added, "This may help you understand martial artists."

Before I could say anything, he asked, "Shall we finish the tour?"

Since there weren't any other anthills in sight, I shrugged.

"Sure." Then I let him lead me along the catwalk toward the nearest ladder.

By then my feet were so damp that I squished when I walked.

The catwalk complained again as we moved, hinting at the screech of tortured metal. But it didn't pull loose from the wall or collapse under us. I wasn't that lucky.

Fifteen.

All in all, it reminded me how dependent I'd become on Ginny. She and I'd balanced each other. When I kicked over anthills, she put the pieces together that made it worthwhile. And when she went to tear out someone's throat, I kept her in check.

Without her I felt just about as childish as Sternway thought I was.

But I had nothing else to work with, so I paid attention while my guide showed me the rest of the fire escape route. When I'd followed him down the ladder to the ground level, I discovered four more fire doors there, one for each school, and an open corridor in a corner of the well that presumably led out of the building.

With my master key, I unlocked Essential Shotokan's door and found that it opened into a room lined with lockers, obviously one of the changing rooms Sternway had mentioned earlier. Like locker rooms everywhere, it smelled damply of sweat, anxiety, Tiger Balm, and rotting jockstraps.

Men's or women's, I couldn't tell. According to Ginny, they both smelled the same.

Satisfied, I let the door swing shut, and Sternway took me to the exit along a corridor lit by a couple more flood lamps Fortunately the air here was a bit cooler. If I'd stayed in the utility well much longer, I might've started to drip skin.

Right angles to accommodate the design of the dojos on either side blocked the view ahead, but the corridor tended generally toward one of the corners of the building, and in a moment we reached the exit, which turned out to be a small room built into the intersection of this building and the next one. Heavy glass doors with bar-latches gave us an exit on either side. Sternway chose the door away from the parking lot, and we stepped out into the glare of Garner's afternoon.

I felt a wash of relief, like I'd escaped being boiled for dinner by cannibals. Despite the pressure of the sun, some of my sweat started to evaporate, cooling my overheated emotions. I practically staggered with a kind of giddiness as I confirmed that my key worked on the glass door.

Sternway watched until I was finished. Moisture darkened his shirt under his arms, but other than that he hardly looked damp at all. Maybe he'd reached 8th dan in Shorin-ryu by being so tough that he almost didn't need to sweat.

"What do you think?" he asked when I'd put the key away.

I was still off balance.

"About what?"

He studied me without blinking.

"Are the chops safe?"

I wiped my face dry with both hands.

"Not unless you confiscate every set of lock picks in the city." Maybe I hadn't escaped after all. Maybe I was just being cooled off to garnish a salad.

"And not if there's a fire."

An entire team of rock climbers couldn't get the display case down that ladder. Not without rope.

Sternway didn't glance away.

"What will you tell Mr. Lacone?"

Apparently he always called the developer "Mr. Lacone." Maybe he worshipped Lacone's money.

I treated my tour guide to a false grin.

"I'll have to think about it." I wasn't about to tell him what I really had in mind, so I mentioned something that was too obvious to miss.

"At the very least, I'll want him to install a heavy bolt on the inside of that conference room door. Or I'll advise Nakahatchi to do it."

Sternway gave an almost subliminal shrug. Without comment he moved off along the side of the building we'd just left.

I dug out my sunglasses and followed dutifully.

Almost immediately we reached the entrance to Traditional Wing Chun.

Under the shelter of its awning, I found that it'd been customized to resemble the portal of a Chinese temple. It had a heavy red door and frame, with a gracefully curved red lintel and brass door handles in the shape of a circle. Stamped or molded into the brass was an image that reminded me vaguely of one of the chops a stylized figure holding a long staff over its head, apparently levitating.

Sternway pulled the door open and went inside.

I joined him, grateful to get back into the air-conditioning.

The main dojo to my right was in use. T'ang Wen, the man who'd talked to me about ch'uan fa the other day, stood in the middle of the floor, leading half a dozen barefoot men and women in silk pajamas through a sequence of movements as rigidly stylized and implausible as kabuki theater. Nevertheless T'ang and his class focused on the pattern as if it were a matter of life and death. None of them seemed aware of our arrival.

"We'll wait until they're done." Sternway kept his voice low, apparently out of respect for training-in-progress.

That was fine with me. I needed to cool down anyway.

The pattern took another minute or two to complete. Then T'ang bowed to his students, his left hand cupped over his right fist in front of him a different bow than the one Sternway used. At once he beckoned a student to take his place, and left them to practice while he came to greet us.

In the doorway he and Sternway bowed at each other.

"Sternway sensei," he said quietly.

"You honor us. How may I serve you?"

Despite the lines on his face and the sharpness of his features, I couldn't read his expression. He was a man who smiled easily, however, and he wasn't smiling now. The silver chips in his eyes seemed to concentrate on Sternway like hints of distrust.