Without being obvious about it, he intended to maneuver us into working together.

"They're separated," she was saying, "and she wants a divorce. But she's been getting threatening phone calls. And that's not all. Rocks have been thrown through her windows. Once her tires were slashed while she was out shopping. Buckets of shit have been smeared on her doors, front and back."

Damn it to hell. What kind of man assigned cases so that he could force his girlfriend to deal with her former partner?

"Mai says her husband's doing it," she continued.

"She claims he wants to scare her so she won't demand what's rightfully hers.

"I'm supposed to protect her, but so far I haven't been very effective."

A man who considered their partnership too valuable to lose.

A man who didn't think of her as his girlfriend.

I wanted to howl, but my insides hurt too much.

Unfortunately it was my turn to say something. For a moment I put my hands over my face to keep my eyes shut. Then I pulled them down again. I hardly knew what we were talking about.

"The calls," I ventured.

"She recognizes his voice?"

"No." Ginny spoke as if we sat in the dark together carefully, distinctly, unsure of the distance between us.

"He's muffled his voice somehow. But she's sure it's him."

"And you believe her?"

"I answer her phone when I'm with her. Those are definitely threatening calls. Sometimes they're obscene. The voice is muffled, but it's male. She played me a tape he left behind. One of those pocket recorders, just reminders to himself. I can't tell if it's the same voice."

That wasn't what I'd asked, but I let it pass temporarily.

"I assume you've covered all the obvious stuff." I could go that far without understanding the conversation.

"Caller ID. Traces. ID blockers."

She may've nodded. I didn't open my eyes to check.

"He moves around. Most of the numbers have turned out to be pay phones. The rest are in bars and nightclubs. None of them belong to Sternway. Or his karate school. Or that organization he runs, the IAMA. An ID blocker shows up every once in a while. I don't have the equipment to crack it." She was referring to a piece of electronics that could hold a connection open long enough to trace even after the ID-blocked number hung up.

"So far Marshal's source at the phone company hasn't reported any results."

Striving to focus past a chest full of old grievances, I asked unnecessarily, "Sternway doesn't have a blocker on his home phone?"

"If he does," she stated, "he only turns it on when he's harassing Mai."

Vaguely I wondered where he found the time. I'd have thought he was too busy to hassle anyone who wasn't standing right in front of him.

"How's she taking it?"

Ginny let some of her studious neutrality drop.

"Mad as hell. That woman is a refined, cultivated harridan. She looks like one of those frail creatures who gets the vapors. She even dresses that way. A china doll too delicate to trim her own fingernails. But she doesn't act like it.

"She wants his blood, as much of it as she can get. And she has a scream that can bleed you dry at thirty yards. Of course, I don't know what he's like. But he must've had a death wish when he married her.

"And by the way," Ginny added, "Mai lives pretty high. I didn't know karate honchos made the kind of money she spends. Unless one of them inherited bucks, they've both been in trouble for years."

By degrees I found myself starting to relax. As long as I kept my eyes shut and concentrated on Ginny's voice, I could let Marshal Viviter and Turf Hardshorn drift away into the background. If I didn't distract myself by sitting up or arguing with her I might be of some use after all.

"If it means anything," I offered through the phosphene dance inside my eyelids, "the people I've met around Sternway think that Mai wants to castrate him financially. Presumably that's the story he tells.

"But he's" I searched the dark for an adequate description "complicated. I've seen quite a bit of him, especially today, but I can't tell you if he's the kind of asshole who bullies his wife. In the martial arts world, he's Mr. Hell-on-Wheels. Impressive sonofabitch. The beating I got tonight " I tried a shrug, but it hurt too much to complete.

"It would've been worse," a lot worse, "but he rescued me. Jumped in there and killed the clown who was trying to kill me."

Ginny might've reacted to that information, but I kept going.

"On the other hand, you couldn't call him a nice guy and feel comfortable. The way he talks, you'd think he sees everything in terms of money. Money and fighting. If he actually believes in anything or cares about anybody he keeps it to himself."

She considered that for a moment.

"None of which makes him an abusive husband," she concluded.

I nodded, just a slight shift of the muscles to show myself that I was still alive.

What the fuck are you doing?

If she'd been there in the alley, I would've asked her if I'd heard Hardshorn right. In my condition, I may've missed something. The clangor in my ears had confused the details.

"You didn't answer my question a minute ago," I observed casually.

"I get the impression you don't believe Mai's story."

Ginny snorted.

"Most men would have a hard time living up to an image as black as the one she paints." Then she admitted, "But it's more than that. I'm not convinced he could do what she accuses him of without being in at least two places at once. She got calls this weekend while he was at that tournament, but none of the numbers were from The Luxury. And if he slashed her tires when she says he did, he got back to his school at about the speed of light. I checked."

For no particular reason, I asked, "She get any calls Saturday afternoon?"

For an instant Ginny's tone hardened.

"You mean while I was at The Luxury?" She may've thought that I meant she'd been derelict to Mai when she'd come to check on me.

"She says not.

"Why?"