"For someone who doesn't work for me, you presume a lot, Axbrewder."

Instead of snapping back, I admitted, "I know. It's because I don't have anywhere else to turn." Also because I couldn't figure him out.

"Bernie's death got a whole lot messier last night, and I need to take it out on someone."

"Is that why you told Ginny to search Mai Sternway's house?" he retorted.

"You're trying to 'take it out on someone'?"

Oh, shit. She'd already talked to him. That shocked me momentarily, although it shouldn't have. I was accustomed to thinking of her as the boss, answerable only to her client.

"It's just a hunch," I sighed.

"I can't explain it. I simply had the feeling that she might learn something useful."

"Mai Sternway is a client," he informed me stiffly.

"She pays good money for loyalty, discretion, and " I cut him off.

"And stupidity? Get off it, Marshal. I didn't tell Ginny to do anything disloyal. Or indiscreet. I just reminded her that any good investigator tries to know as much as possible about the client. If nothing else," I pointed out with more sarcasm than the situation required, "it might help prevent this particular client from setting you up.

"Why don't you stop complaining and tell me what's really bothering you?"

"I don't know you that well," he fired back. But then he paused. For a few seconds my phone didn't pick up anything except occasional static. When he spoke again, he'd put most of his vexation aside.

"OK, I'll say this much. I told Ginny to go ahead, search the house.

Not because I think it's a good idea. I don't. But I think I might be getting complacent. You've only been working here since Friday, and already you know more about Anson Sternway than I do. That pisses me off."

And, I added for him, searching Mai's house hadn't occurred to him.

He'd gotten into the habit of taking his clients at their word. Garner was too rich, making money came too easily. How many years had passed since he'd been reminded that trusting his clients might be fatal?

Ginny and I, on the other hand I couldn't think of anything else to say, so I answered the question he hadn't asked.

"He goes to a fight club, where he and a bunch of other blood lovers pound each other into the canvas. Last night one of them was a goon they called Turf Hardshorn. He attacked me. Probably would've killed me, but Sternway did him first.

"He's the drop Bernie followed into that men's room."

Marshal whistled surprise through his teeth which told me that Ginny had kept her mouth shut about my business.

"Presumably," I explained, "he attacked me because he recognized me from the tournament." Then I went on, "Moy showed up eventually. He stayed to go through the club, find out what he could about Hardshorn, but he didn't encourage me to join him. I'll call him later. Maybe he'll tell me if he learned anything.

"He might," I insisted as if Marshal had objected.

"For some reason, he keeps giving me the benefit of the doubt."

Marshal muttered something I couldn't hear. Then he aimed his voice into the phone again.

"So the goon who did Bernie is out of the picture. How does that make his death 'messier'?"

"Because," I answered, "it still doesn't make sense, and I've lost my only lead." I'd already described my theory that Hard-shorn wasn't Bernie's killer.

Marshal paused to consider the problem. After a moment, he asked, "Who else could it have been? Who else had enough at stake to kill for it?"

"How the hell should I know?" His question cut too close to intuitive convictions I couldn't understand and didn't trust.

"No one has any real connection to those chops except Hong and Na-kahatchi, and they never left the hall."

Neither had Sue Rasmussen and Ned Gage. Or Komatori and T'ang. Or Bernie's guards. Only Master Soon was absent at the right time.

That left me with way too many other possibilities, and no viable way to winnow the list.

"I see the problem," Marshal admitted.

"What do you hope to get from Moy?"

"Anything at all about Hardshorn. Who he is, where he worked, where he lived, who his friends were."

I meant, Anything that might suggest a link to the chops, or to someone at the tournament. Or to Bernie.

Marshal seemed to accept that.

"How can I help?"

"Keep after Moy about those fibers they found in Bernie's neck," I told him.

"If they didn't come from his blazer " "There must have been someone else in the restroom," he finished for me.

"Someone wearing a similar blazer."

Right. Someone wearing a blazer. And a contusion. If Bernie hit him hard enough to leave fibers in the flik, he'd have a bruise on him somewhere.

"Consider it done," Marshal promised.

"Moy has already told me too much to stop talking now."

"Thanks." I was sincere, but I couldn't leave it there. Feeling grateful to him still made me uncomfortable. Only half joking, I added, "You know I hate you, don't you?"

I couldn't imagine why he was willing to do so much for me.

He laughed humorlessly.

"You don't exactly hide it. I just don't know why you bother."

The line clicked dead. I put the phone down to concentrate on my route for a minute or two. I was already floundering in too many directions at once. I did not need to get lost on my way to Martial America.

Originally I'd assumed that Marshal was nice to me for Ginny's sake.

Because he was fucking her. But that quaint notion no longer seemed adequate. It didn't explain why he'd thrown Ginny and me together over the Sternways.