A Killing Gift

Fifty-two

Ten minutes later April and Woody located Professional Prepare's building on Third Avenue and left the car in front of a fire hydrant. The gym was on the fifth floor of a five-story commercial building, and the stairs getting up there were steep. April could hear Woody panting a little as she stepped back to let him go through the door first. Clearly he'd never practiced his chi kung, the breathing so vital to physical power and control in all martial arts. She snorted and stared at the door in front of her when he leaned against the wall to catch his breath.

As Jason had predicted, no Chinese or Japanese or Korean calligraphy was exhibited next to the name. No yin/yang or mystic symbols were displayed either, no front-kicking silhouettes. The gym's door was painted black and had a simple sign with Professional Prepare in block letters. It looked like a no-nonsense kind of place with a greater emphasis on the fight than the philosophy.

Finally Woody stopped wheezing, grasped the door knob, and opened up. Bright light from a skylight shone down on an entry formed by movable screens that blocked any view of the activities beyond. In the small space was a metal desk; on top of it were an open appointment book, a leafy bamboo cutting in a vase full of water, and a telephone. At eleven-thirty on Saturday the place sounded busy.

On the other side of the screens, kumite sparring commands and training grunts came from both directions. No one was seated at the desk, so April paused to examine three walls of photos covering every inch of the rice-paper panels. The photos showed buff white males in various tournament settings, dressed in traditional gi and caught by the camera in appropriately impressive maneuvers with their black belts flying. Vertically along one screen was a row of members who were of the eighth- to tenth-degree black-belt rank that designated them honored masters. Five big guys with blank expressions and black tengui wrapped around their heads indicated this was a serious place. They looked between thirty and fifty years old. Albert Frayme was not among them. In a line next to them were fifth-degree-black-belt-ranked members, then fourth, and the ranking went down to the beginner level. Albert Frayme was not pictured at any degree.

Disappointed, April stepped around a jog in screens into a place that was both intensely familiar and completely unfamiliar. Unfamiliar was the sight of two Caucasian white-haired instructors sitting up front on the traditional Japanese kamiza, divine seat of honor, and a group of slightly younger but like-looking males sitting cross-legged below them on the floor, while on the main mat two practitioners demonstrated Gake, a hooking action used for ankle and sacrifice throws. Nearby was a kumite Scoreboard with the Japanese word card commands that were used in matches. It was a karate center.

Those things were familiar, and the odor of sweat was familiar, too. But the lack of any Asian practicing what April considered the one uniquely Asian sport gave her an uncomfortable feeling. The martial arts had been developed over millennia by Japanese, Koreans, Chinese, Malaysians, Indians, and Filipinos. Each believed their system was the oldest and best. April didn't know why she reacted so strongly to the exclusion of females and Asians here, for certainly Chinese and Korean and Japanese all had their exclusive training gyms, and some still passionately excluded women and girls.

Also unfamiliar at Professional Prepare was the training area that contained a wall hung with protectors and training devices that were far more expensive and modern than any she had ever used. Here, the face shields and fist, body, and leg protectors all were made of expensive white molded plastic and leather. The variety of striking pads, sand bags, iron clogs, kick mitts, focus targets, and coaching mitts was a far cry from the "hand sticking" and "penetration hand" Chinese exercises of her youth. Back then hand sticking meant she had to plunge her soft fingers into bags of powder, then rice, then beans, and finally pebbles to condition her hands for striking. The Chinese exercise tools she'd used consisted mostly of chashi, blocks of cement with handles for one- and two-hand exercises to strengthen the wrists and arms, and black canvas shoes with iron weights in the soles for feet. Tradition. The training area also had five posts designed to toughen up various parts of the body. Each had a striking pad shaped to receive the strike of a specific part of the anatomy; hand, foot, shin, shoulder, head.

A gi-suited practitioner with a black belt tied around his waist and a black tengui wrapped around his forehead quickly separated himself from the others and stepped forward to talk to them. April had both her badge and plastic ID in her hand by the time he reached them.

"Hi, I'm Mel. How can I help you?" Mel was a dark-haired giant with friendly blue eyes, who didn't seem fazed by a visit from the police.

April's head came almost to his shoulder, but maybe closer to his armpit. She had a sixth-degree-black-belt ranking and was used to sparring with normal-sized people-Chinese males with compact musculature and far less bulk. She didn't think she could take him.

The sparring partners bowed, and a new pair moved to the mat. "Randoru Hajime," said the white-haired master. "Begin free sparring."

April stepped back behind the screen. Woody stayed to watch.

"I'm Sergeant Woo, NYPD," she said politely.

He glanced at her picture, then at her. "A pleasure. How can I help?"

"Are all your members posted up here on the rogues' gallery?"

Mel's blue eyes followed her hand indicating the photos. "No, the masters have to be there. Some of the others practice for tournaments, so they're always looking for sparring partners and don't mind being called at home or work. But a number of our members don't participate in the classes. Some train on their own and just come in when they have time, take their chances getting someone they like to spar with." He adjusted his headband.

"Do you know a man called Albert Alberts?" April reached in her purse and pulled out the photo of Al Frayme in a gray suit, looking very somber at Calvary Cemetery in Queens just ten days ago.

"Yeah, I know Al. He used to come a lot, not so much anymore. Is there a problem?"

"What's his ranking?"

Mel twiddled his belt in his fingers. "He's pretty good, not the most graceful practitioner I've ever seen, but he makes up for it with determination. I'm not sure about his rank."

Woody joined them. "He ever hurt anybody?"

Mel laughed. "That's a funny question."

"What's so funny about it?"

He laughed some more. "We live to hurt each other. That's the fun of it. No, no, no." He reacted to April's disapproving expression. "Just kidding. Of course, we don't mean to do harm. But let's face it, we've got serious pros here, and sometimes somebody does get hurt. Mostly pulled muscles, sprains. Occasionally a snapped tendon. Once in a long while a broken bone. We train to fall light, know what I mean?"

April nodded.

"But no trouble. If there's an accident, no one complains." He shrugged. "And people get hurt in every sport, don't they? Was there some report of trouble with him?"

Woody smiled at April and held up a photo of a redheaded guy in street clothes with a black-and-tan dog on a chain lead. "Who is this guy?" he asked.

"Humph," he said musingly. "Where did you get that?"

"It was on the other side of this. Someone stuck it in a corner." Woody tapped the screen.

"Nice picture. That's Rick. Rick Leaky."

"And the dog?"

"That's June, Junie. Nice, isn't she?"

Bingo. April now remembered. The guy was tall, wore a hat. She recognized the dog now. It was a mastiff with powerful jaws. A hunter, a drooler, a fierce protector of its master. "Is Rick here today?" she asked.

"No, he comes in on Sundays. On Saturdays he helps out in a dojo in Queens."

"Is he a friend of Al's?"

"I guess you could say he's Al's trainer. They've been working together for years. Is there a problem?" He looked concerned for them.

"Do you have a name for that dojo in Queens?" April asked.

Mel pressed his lips together as his forehead furrowed with thought. "Of the dojo? Not offhand."

"How about a contact sheet?"

He breathed in through his nose, still thinking. "Yeahhh, we have a contact sheet, mostly phone numbers."

"You want to give me his phone number?" April said, a little annoyed by now.

"Is Rick in trouble?"

She tossed the question back. "Has he been in trouble before? Has he hurt people?"

"I have no idea. We don't talk about our personal lives here," Mel said. He went to the book on the table for the number, then showed the page to April. Rick Leaky's number had been crossed out.

"Oh, yeah, I remember now. He moved," Mel said.

"You want to go in there and ask if anyone has the new one?" April smiled. "I need it right now."

"Sure thing." Mel trotted around the screen to comply.

"Good job, Woody." April was exuberant. She slapped him five. It was the least she could do. She would have missed the photo.

Mel returned a minute later, flipping his huge palms up. "No. We were going to update his info when he comes in tomorrow. Do you want to leave a message?"

April thanked him for his help and gave the task force's number, not her own. Her cell was a private number, but there were times a person couldn't be too careful.