In other words, I was afraid. Which I hated to admit, even to myself.

But at the tournament he'd moved with Sternway's plastique lightness and I'd just watched Sternway demonstrate what that ease meant.

Hounded by expletives and raspberries, I pushed into the changing room and let the door swing shut behind me. At once the smells of effort and aching muscles replaced the club's cigarette stink. Gripping the cell phone, I checked the stalls, urinals, and showers to be sure I was alone. Then I dialed 911 and chewed the inside of my cheek while I waited for the dispatcher.

The phone hadn't stopped ringing when it was snatched out of my hand with enough force to jolt my head.

Instinctively I turned and pitched a fist that would've caught Sternway dead in the face if he hadn't been light years too fast for me. He flicked my punch away with his fingers like he'd seen it coming for the past week.

At the same time, he canceled my call.

"What the hell's the matter with you?" he demanded almost cheerfully.

"Don't you listen to anybody"? If you call the cops, we're both history." He must've heard me dial only three digits.

"And I do not mean barred from the club. We'll be left in so many pieces nobody will ever identify them."

A shiver of cold fury gathered in my stomach. As if I hadn't just tried to clobber him and failed, I held out my hand.

"My phone." Deliberately I snapped my fingers.

"Give it back. Or explain to Detective Moy why you're obstructing his investigation."

Sternway returned my gaze with an air of vague amusement. No doubt he could've killed me with one hand. And I believed him about the danger.

If a bouncer caught me calling the cops, I'd be in serious shit. But at the moment I didn't give a damn.

I stared him down anyway.

"The goon Bernie followed into the men's room is here." I put all the acid I had into it, every scalding drop of heartburn and grief.

"Moy wants him for murder.

"He didn't do it. That's obvious. But he knows who did."

I hoped that was a punch Sternway hadn't seen coming.

A muscle at the corner of his jaw twitched. He didn't betray any other reaction.

"Moy is a cop," I flung at him.

"He's going to think you and that asshole are in this together, so give me the damn phone."

Just for a second, I thought he would drive his hand right through me and pull out my heart. But then his head made a small movement like a nod. Half smiling to himself, he looked away so that he wouldn't have to watch while he dropped the phone into my hand.

"It's your funeral, Axbrewder," he said softly.

"Don't expect me to back you up. Not here."

With a gentle shrug, he left the room.

Abruptly its smell seemed to shift. Now the odor of Tiger Balm and bruises felt more threatening than the rank hunger of the fight club.

Hurrying because I was scared and because I didn't want the goon to get away I went to the door and braced my back against it while I re-dialed. Then I held my breath.

When the dispatcher answered a woman's voice I didn't give her time to ask questions.

"Just listen," I told her.

"My name is Axbrewder. Get a message to Sergeant Edgar Moy. He's investigating a murder at The Luxury, and I've spotted his suspect. He better get here fast. I don't think I can handle him myself."

Quickly I gave her the best directions I could. Five seconds later, the phone back in my pocket, I headed for the ring to find out whether the heavyset man was still there.

Now no one noticed me. For all I knew, the whole club had forgotten I existed. A new fight transfixed the room. The tattooed bouncer had found an opponent, one of the lean fast men who looked like he'd styled his body after a greyhound. At the moment the lean fool was getting killed. He could scarcely stand, and as soon as the bouncer found a handhold that dragon would start to crush bones.

The heavyset man remained in his seat, observing the fighters with a look that resembled clinical detachment.

For a heartbeat or two, relief left me woozy, and the smoke almost smelled good to me. Finally, I thought. A break. Now I can get somewhere.

Trying to stay calm, I found my way back to Sternway's table and sat down.

He hardly glanced at me.

"Satisfied?" Maybe the fight interested him somehow.

I waited for a pause in the grunt-and-slap of the struggle, the halfhearted encouragement and disgust from the spectators, then said, "Ask me later. Moy isn't here yet."

A moment later I heard the unmistakable sound of bones breaking, the sharp anguish of the bone itself muffled and moistened by battered flesh. I looked up just in time to see the bouncer fold his opponent's elbow in several different directions at the same time. The lean man squealed once, like a horse with a shattered leg. Then the bouncer punched him to the canvas, and he stopped complaining. For a few seconds I wasn't sure that he was still alive. But eventually he coughed, splashing blood across his cheek, and then I saw his chest shudder with pain as he breathed.

I didn't realize that I was on my feet until the bouncer faced me and pointed at his opponent, "That's you, motherfucker!" he snarled over the crowd.

"He took your place!"

After a few ragged heartbeats, I managed to sit back down.

"Dickless bastard!" the tattoo offered viciously.

"Left your cock in your momma and never got it back. You like watching what you can't have?"

I didn't take him up on it. Under other circumstances, I might've thought I had something to prove. But at the moment I did not need to get my back broken while the heavyset man disappeared into the night.

I'd given him a good look at me. If he recognized me from the tournament Sternway leered contemptuously, but I ignored him the same way I ignored the jibes and catcalls around me. I had too many other things to worry about.

While the dragon tattoo stomped around the ring, waving his arms and demanding a new challenger, another bouncer and a stricken woman, a wife or girlfriend, got the lean man off the canvas.

"What happens now?" I asked Sternway.

He shrugged dismissively.

"He gets left outside. If she doesn't have a phone, the bar next door calls an ambulance." A cold smile stretched his mouth.