Lost Lake

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CALIFORNIA-1969 AND 1970

“Carl, hold up.” Carl Rice was packing up his books at the end of his calculus class, and Vanessa Wingate’s voice froze him like a direct hit from Captain Kirk’s phaser. “You’re pretty good with calc, aren’t you?”

Carl turned to face the attractive blond, fighting to keep his eyes from drifting to the floor. His attempt at a nonchalant shrug looked more like a spastic twitch.

“I do okay.”

“Well, Mr. Goody lost me again. I was wondering if you could give me some help sometime. I’m pretty sure the stuff he went over today is going to be on the final, and I don’t understand any of it.”

“Uh, okay. I have class now, but I’ll be at the library at three.”

“Great,” Vanessa said, flashing her biggest, warmest smile. They made plans to meet at the reference desk, and Vanessa walked off after a cheery, “See ya.”

St. Martin’s Preparatory School was situated on a sprawling pastoral campus a few miles inland from the Pacific Ocean. The school had been established in 1889, and the ivy on the buildings looked as if it had never been pruned. Though they were in the same class there, Carl Rice and Vanessa Wingate might as well have been on different continents. Vanessa was rich, beautiful, and the lead in Carl’s most intense sexual fantasies. She ran with a clique that drove the newest and fastest cars, wore the coolest clothes, and was into the latest fads before anyone else in America even knew that they existed. Carl was a scholarship boy who ran with no crowd and bought his clothes off the rack at JCPenny. Being able to spend two hours with Vanessa-even if they were only studying calculus-was the answer to his teenage prayers.

Carl had trouble concentrating in class and was at the library fifteen minutes early. His heart raced every time the front doors opened. After a few minutes of tortured waiting, Carl accepted the fact that he was a fool. Vanessa wasn’t going to show up. She had so many friends and so many activities that he couldn’t picture her missing out on any of her fun to spend time being tutored by him. He was just starting to gather up his books when he saw her standing near the reference desk, waving.

The school library, a huge stone building, had been built with a donation from a railroad tycoon in the early 1900s. Carl led Vanessa downstairs to a table in the rear of the basement where he worked on his homework nearly every evening. It was dimly lit, but its appeal for Carl was that few other students made their way down to it.

Carl was surprised that Vanessa wanted help with calculus. He’d never pictured her as a serious student. Then again, he didn’t really know much about her. He was pleasantly surprised to discover that she was bright enough to understand what he was telling her after he had corrected some basic misconceptions. They were progressing nicely when a large shadow fell across the table. Carl looked up and saw Sandy Rhodes and Mike Manchester looming over them. Mike and Sandy were on the football team. Both boys weighed over two hundred pounds and were in good shape. Carl had heard that Sandy and Vanessa were dating.

“Hey, Van, what’s up? I thought we were going out?” Sandy sounded aggrieved that Vanessa was doing schoolwork.

“I tried to tell you I had to study, but I couldn’t find you.”

“Well I’m here now, so let’s go.”

Vanessa smiled apologetically. “I can’t. I really have to learn this.”

Sandy had not acknowledged Carl’s presence and wasn’t going to accept Vanessa’s protestations.

“Come on, Van, it’s Friday night. The gang’s waiting.”

Vanessa’s smile disappeared. “I’m studying, Sandy. I am not going out tonight.”

“Bullshit,” Sandy said. He flipped her book closed and grabbed her arm.

Carl’s father had walked out on Evelyn Rice when Carl was five. Carl still had nightmares about his father’s rages and his mother’s cries of pain. Burned into his memory were images of the vivid purple bruises that darkened his mother’s swollen face.

“Let go of Vanessa,” Carl said. He sounded frightened, which was to be expected under the circumstances. Carl was wiry, muscular, and in excellent shape, but the two football players were several inches taller and each boy outweighed him by fifty pounds.

Sandy did not release Vanessa’s arm. He stared at Carl the way he might regard dog dirt that had attached itself to his shoe.

“Stick your nose back in your book, dork, or I’ll break it.”

As Sandy turned his attention back to Vanessa, Carl buried his fist in the football player’s solar plexus, leaving him breathless. Then he grabbed the tie that all St. Martin’s boys were required to wear and jerked his head down. Sandy’s chin cracked against the edge of the table, stunning him.

Mike Manchester had been too shocked to react, but the sound of his friend’s chin hitting the table snapped him out of his trance. He swung a roundhouse punch, and Carl thrust his thick calculus textbook forward. Manchester’s knuckle broke with a crack that sounded like a gunshot. As he recoiled in pain, Carl swung his book like a baseball bat, catching Mike in the back of the head and driving him to his knees. Carl stepped behind Manchester and applied a choke hold, cutting off Mike’s air.

“I don’t want to fight. Will you call it quits?” Carl asked the struggling boy.

Mike tried to pull Carl’s arm away, and Carl tightened his hold. By now Sandy Rhodes had regained his wits and was struggling to his feet. Carl cut off Mike’s air and dropped the unconscious boy to the floor before drop-kicking Rhodes in the jaw. Sandy collapsed beside his buddy.

“Holy shit!” Vanessa said as she leaped to her feet. “You have to get out of here. They’ll be furious when they come to.”

“I don’t have a car,” Carl admitted, embarrassed to tell Vanessa that his mother picked him up at school.

“I do. Grab your stuff,” she said as she gathered up her books. Carl hesitated. Mike Manchester moaned. Vanessa grabbed Carl’s arm. “Come on.”

“Won’t Sandy be pissed that you’re helping me?”

“Sandy is a pig. We’ve only gone out three times and he thinks he owns me. I’m glad you kicked his ass.”

Minutes later, Carl was seated in the passenger seat of Vanessa Wingate’s Corvette and they were roaring down the coast highway.

“That was awesome,” Vanessa said. “Where did you learn to fight like that?”

Carl didn’t feel good about the beating he’d administered, and he was ashamed of the pleasure he felt from defeating the two boys with Vanessa looking on, but he could not abide any man inflicting pain on a woman, because of the way his father had treated his mother.

“I’ve been practicing karate since I was little. I go to a dojo every day after school.”

Vanessa turned toward him. The top of the car was down and the wind was whipping her long blond hair and bringing color to her cheeks.

“There’s more to you than meets the eye, Carl Rice,” she said before turning back to the road.

Carl blushed. “Where are we going?” he asked to cover his embarrassment.

“My house.”

They drove in silence for a while. Carl sneaked glances at Vanessa while pretending to watch the ocean. She was so beautiful. He couldn’t believe that he was by her side in this amazing car.

“You’re on scholarship, right?” Vanessa asked.

Carl colored again and nodded. Evelyn Rice was highly intelligent, but her husband had never permitted her to work or finish school. As soon as Carl’s father walked out of their lives, his mother had enrolled in a community college. She earned an AA degree in accounting and was hired as a receptionist at the local branch of a national accounting firm. Eventually, she finished her bachelor’s degree and moved up to the position of office manager. One of the firm’s partners was an alumnus of St. Martin’s and had used his contacts to get Carl a scholarship.

“I envy you,” Vanessa said.

“Why would you envy me?” he asked incredulously. Almost every other student at St. Martin’s was wealthy, and his poverty made him feel small. He couldn’t imagine why anyone like Vanessa would be interested in, much less envious of, someone like him.

“No one handed you everything,” she replied. “You’ve earned what you have with your brains and drive.”

“I’ve had to because I’m poor, Vanessa. Believe me, it’s not romantic.”

“Neither is living with my father.”

“At least you’ve got one. Mine walked out on us when I was five.”

“He didn’t murder your mother, did he?”

“What?” Carl wondered if she was joking. “What are you talking about?”

“My mother died in a car crash when I was thirteen. I’m certain it wasn’t an accident.”

“Did you tell the police?”

“They didn’t believe me. Neither did the insurance investigators. I don’t blame them. I don’t have any proof. I just know the way that bastard operates. He thinks he’s above the law. I’ll tell you this, he definitely knows people who can make a death appear to be an accident.”

Carl didn’t know what to say. “Have you told the FBI?”

Vanessa laughed bitterly. “Ten minutes after I walked out of their office someone called my father. The General took me into the library and told me that he would have me committed to a mental hospital if I didn’t stop spreading vicious rumors. He said he’d have me sedated and put in a straitjacket and I would stay locked up for the rest of my life.”

“Your father’s a general?”

Vanessa nodded.

“He couldn’t get away with that, could he, locking you away for no reason?”

“You don’t have any idea of how powerful my father is. So I gave up and he stopped paying any attention to me. He’s not home that much anyway. He spends most of his time in Washington, and he leaves me here to do whatever I want, as long as it doesn’t embarrass or annoy him.”

Vanessa turned off the main road and punched in a code on a keypad that stood in front of a high electrified gate. The road from the gate twisted through a meadow that was bounded by woods until it crested at a viewpoint that revealed the Pacific Ocean and an immense Spanish-style villa with a red tile roof. Carl had never been this close to a house like the one that stood before him. It was white as snow and looked larger than his entire apartment complex. Terraces brightened by fresh cut flowers fronted the windows on the second and third floors. There was a stable off to the right. Carl had daydreamed about being rich, but he’d never imagined anything like this.

“You live here,” he asked, awestruck. “This is yours?”

“Home sweet home,” Vanessa answered as she turned onto a circular drive and parked in front of a huge carved wooden door that was shaded by a portico. As she pulled up, the door opened and a man dressed in a white jacket and black slacks came out to greet them. Vanessa tossed him the keys.

“I’m through for the night, Enrique,” she said, leading Carl inside. The door closed, cutting off the powerful sound the Corvette’s engine made as Enrique drove it to the garage.

“Can I use your phone? My mom is going to worry if I don’t call.”

There was a phone on an inlaid table in the cavernous entryway. Carl called his mother’s office and caught her just before she was about to leave. Vanessa listened as he explained that he was at a friend’s house and would get a ride home. Vanessa tapped him on the arm. He told his mother to hold on for a second and broke out into a sweat when Vanessa whispered in his ear.

“Uh, I’m invited to spend the night. Is that okay?”

After a little discussion over curfews and deadlines for returning home, Carl hung up.

“You’ll stay?”

“Mom’s thrilled that I finally made a friend at St. Martin’s.”

“I wish my father gave a shit about the people I hang out with.”

Carl looked around the entry hall. It was paved with reddish-yellow tiles, and the main attractions were an immense crystal chandelier and a curving marble staircase.

“It’s early for dinner,” Vanessa said. “Want to go for a swim?”

“I don’t have a suit.”

Vanessa eyed him wickedly. “Don’t worry about that.”

Carl blushed and Vanessa laughed. “We keep a selection of swimsuits in the pool house. Leave your school stuff in the entryway and come on.”

Vanessa led the way through a large living room lit by sunlight that streamed through high French doors. She pushed open one set, and Carl found himself on a wide tiled patio bordered by a manicured lawn that separated it from a twenty-five-meter pool. There were two dressing rooms on the far side of the pool. Vanessa pointed out the men’s changing room and went into the women’s. Ten minutes later, Carl came out clad in a black boxer-length swimming suit. Vanessa was stretched out on a lounge in a tiny yellow string bikini. Her lean, tanned body took his breath away. Vanessa’s stomach was flat with a hint of muscle, and her legs were long and smooth. He felt himself growing hard and fought with all his might to contain himself. Vanessa gave no sign that she’d noticed his discomfort. Instead, she rose from the chair holding a T-shirt, a sweatshirt for Carl, two big terry-cloth towels and a large beach towel.

“Let’s get wet,” she said leading him toward the far end of the lawn, where a set of weathered wooden stairs took them down the face of a rugged cliff to a narrow beach three hundred feet below. The tide was coming in and large waves crashed on the shore. Vanessa spread the beach towel on the sand, dropped everything she was holding on top of it, and ran into the water before flattening out and swimming into the surf with a practiced crawl. Carl dove into a wave, then swam hard to warm up. Vanessa was nowhere in sight when he came out of the other side of the wave. He treaded water and turned in place, looking for her, momentarily panicked. Then Vanessa rose from the sea with the grace of a dolphin, put her arms around his neck, and pulled him to her. Her kiss startled Carl, but he overcame his shock when she kissed him again.

Carl had wanted Vanessa from the first moment he saw her. It was too much to believe that she wanted him, too, but how else to explain Vanessa clinging to his body, wrapping her long legs around his waist and pressing her beautiful breasts against his chest?

Vanessa broke the kiss and dove under the waves, leaving Carl dizzy with desire. When she surfaced, she was almost onshore. Carl swam after her. When he struggled out of the surf, she was wearing her T-shirt.

“I’m freezing,” she said, tossing him a towel and the sweatshirt. “Let’s go in.”

Carl followed, afraid to speak, overwhelmed by desire at the sight of Vanessa’s buttocks moving rhythmically up the stairs. His erection made it difficult to think. He tore his eyes away, afraid that he would fall if he did not concentrate on climbing the narrow steps.

When they entered the house, Vanessa led Carl up the winding staircase to the second floor.

“You’re here,” she said, opening the door to a guest room. Carl walked in and Vanessa followed him. The room was furnished with a chest of drawers, two end tables, a floor lamp, and a queen-size bed.

“Dinner won’t be for an hour.” Vanessa shut the door and stripped off her T-shirt. “What should we do until then?”

Carl woke up before dawn. It took him a moment to remember where he was and another moment to assure himself that yesterday was not a dream. The proof was lying beside him, naked, hair tousled, and achingly beautiful. Carl crept out of bed and slipped on the swimsuit and the sweatshirt Vanessa had lent him. While Vanessa slept in the guest room bed, Carl followed the steps down the side of the sheer cliff to the beach. He needed time to sort out what had happened between him and Vanessa, and to do that he had to clear his head.

In a few hours, the Southern California sun would bake the beach, but at this hour the sun was just rising in the east and the cliff cast a cooling shadow across the sand. Carl stretched for twenty minutes before practicing kata, the dancelike formal exercises of karate. Each kata was a ritual battle fought against imaginary opponents. The moves of the kata had to be performed in a specific order. Carl liked practicing katas more than he liked fighting. For Carl, kata was more than exercise. It was a ritual that imposed a framework of certainty on a life riddled from birth with uncertainty.

Carl glided across the sand just out of reach of the incoming waves. Each kata was more complex than the one that preceded it, and he performed them three times at increasing rates of speed. The kata performed in slow motion and at half speed flowed softly, one movement drifting into the next. Carl was a blur at full speed, but he saw each strike, kick, and block clearly in his mind. As he exercised, the sea, beach, and newborn sun faded away until there was only the blow that he was delivering.

Carl was sweating freely by the time he finished his last kata and started to cool down. He was almost done stretching when he saw a figure descending the stairs to the beach. The sun had risen above the rim of the cliff. Carl raised his arm to shield his eyes from the glare and made out a ruggedly handsome, solidly built man in a T-shirt and shorts. His black hair was sprinkled with silver and worn in a military cut.

“I’ve been watching for the last twenty minutes,” the man said. “I hope you don’t mind.”

“I didn’t know you were there,” Carl answered truthfully. The katas had absorbed all his attention.

“You’re very good,” the man said. “How long have you been studying?”

“I started when I was eight.”

“You must be a black belt by now.”

Carl nodded, embarrassed. “The belts don’t mean much,” he said, so that the man wouldn’t think he was bragging. “Anyone can earn a black belt by practicing hard enough.”

“I’m Morris Wingate, Vanessa’s father,” the General said, extending his hand.

Carl forced himself to shake it. The peace achieved by his workout was instantly replaced by shame, because he had just had sex with Wingate’s daughter in Wingate’s house-and fear, because Vanessa had told him that her father was a cold-blooded murderer.

“And you are?” the General asked.

Carl managed to keep his voice steady when he told Wingate his name.

“I assume you’re a friend of Vanessa.”

“We’re classmates. I…I’ve been helping her with calculus.”

“Really? An academic and a dedicated student of karate-not my daughter’s usual type. I assume you stayed over, last night. After the tutoring session.”

“Yes, sir. It was late,” Carl answered lamely as his gut churned. He wondered if Wingate had looked in the guest room and seen his naked daughter and Carl’s clothes.

“I got in very late myself, around two this morning. I find that exercise wakes me up better than a cup of coffee. Care to join me for a run?”

Carl couldn’t think of any way to refuse, so he fell in beside the General. The older man set a steady pace that Carl had no trouble keeping. The beach seemed to stretch forever, and Carl wondered how far Wingate would go. He decided that it didn’t matter. In the distance, high up, a solitary tree with a thick, gnarled trunk had dug its roots into the side of the cliff. It tilted precariously toward the sea, but Carl got the feeling that it had been getting the best of gravity for a very long time. He set his sights on the tree and glided along.

Carl and Wingate ran in silence for a while, then Wingate asked, “How is Vanessa’s calculus?”

Carl wasn’t sure if Wingate was being sarcastic, so he decided to give him a straight answer.

“She picked up on what I was saying pretty fast.”

“Vanessa is smart, but she doesn’t give school her full attention. I wish her grades reflected her IQ.”

The General’s confidences made Carl uncomfortable. He wouldn’t want his mother discussing his shortcomings with his friends.

“Rice isn’t a name I’m familiar with. Do you live around here, Carl?”

“No.”

“Where do you live?”

“San Diego.” Carl decided to cut short the General’s probing into his lineage. “I’m on scholarship.”

“You sound defensive.”

“I’m not,” he said a little too quickly.

“Good. You shouldn’t be. I’m pleased that Vanessa has a friend who hasn’t had everything in life handed to him. St. Martin’s is an excellent school. I wouldn’t have permitted Vanessa to attend if it wasn’t. But many of the students are there because their parents bought their way in. They are spoiled and worthless. You should be proud that your admission was based on merit.”

The General’s speech surprised Carl. He certainly didn’t sound like the ogre Vanessa had made him out to be.

Wingate picked up the pace after a mile, but Carl still had no trouble keeping up. At two miles a stone jetty blocked the beach and the General turned back toward the house. With a half mile to go, Wingate started to sprint. Carl could have outrun the older man easily, but he did not want to race. He sensed that this was some sort of test, but he just matched his pace to the General’s and pretended that they were not competing. They were two hundred meters from the stairs when Carl saw a man in jeans and a plaid shirt walking along the edge of the cliff. The sun shone in Carl’s eyes and he had to look away, but there had been a moment when the man’s body blocked the sun and Carl thought he saw an automatic weapon.

When they reached the stairs the General was gasping but Carl’s breathing was still steady.

Wingate leaned forward and rested his hands on his knees. “You’re in good shape, Carl.”

“I work out several hours every day. Running is part of my training.”

“Do you compete for St. Martin’s?”

“No, sir.”

“Why not?”

Carl shrugged. “My studies and karate keep me pretty busy. I don’t have time.”

“What are you doing next year?”

“College, I hope.”

“I assume your grades are high.”

“I’m doing okay.”

“Where are you applying?”

“Cal, some of the other UC schools. Dartmouth is my first choice. But it all depends on scholarships. If I have to I’ll work for a year or two.”

Wingate stood up straight. His breathing was normal again. “Shall we go up? Vanessa should be awake by now.”

Carl found himself drawn to the General. Would Vanessa turn against him if she thought he liked her father? He hoped that Vanessa was still sleeping and wouldn’t see him with Wingate, but he hoped in vain. She was on the terrace dressed in tennis shorts and a light green short-sleeved shirt eating a croissant and sipping coffee.

“Engaged in male bonding?” she asked when the men drew close.

“I asked Carl to join me on my run,” Wingate responded, ignoring her sarcasm. “He tells me that he’s helping you with your schoolwork.”

Vanessa stared at Carl long enough to make him nervous. He fully expected Vanessa to tell her father what they’d done in the guest room all night long.

“I was having trouble with math. Carl’s a whiz. I think I understand it now.”

“Good. I’m going to shower. I’ll see you two later.”

“So, what did you think of the General?” Vanessa asked when her father was out of earshot.

“He’s in good shape for someone his age,” Carl answered noncommittally.

Vanessa laughed. “Don’t worry. I won’t bite you if you say something nice about him. He makes a great first impression, especially with men. Those steely eyes, the firm set of his jaw, his military posture. He’s all man, and you guys eat that up.”

“Really, Vanessa, I was practicing karate. We talked about that and we ran together. He asked me where I live and about school.”

Vanessa leaned forward and took Carl’s jaw in her hand. The touch was electric and ignited his desire.

“You’re red as a beet and I bet I know what you’re thinking.” Carl’s blush deepened. “Why don’t you go up and shower and I’ll join you?”

“With your father in the house?” Carl asked nervously.

“Especially with my father in the house,” she answered, staring viciously into the dark interior of her home.

As they got up, a man walked around the corner of the mansion. He was not the same man Carl had seen patrolling the edge of the cliff. This time there was no question that the man was armed.

“Don’t worry about them,” Vanessa said when she noticed where Carl was looking. “My father always travels with guards. He’s very important. Even Enrique is ex-military, from some South American country my father had dealings with. Probably from some death squad my father helped train.” Carl couldn’t tell if she was kidding. “He’s always armed.”

Carl frowned. He didn’t like the idea of armed men patrolling the grounds. It meant that there was a reason for them to be there. Then Vanessa took his hand and Carl forgot about the guards.

The General left the house shortly after breakfast. While he was gone, Carl and Vanessa alternated between screwing their brains out and lolling on the beach. Wingate returned in the early evening for dinner. He tried to conduct a normal conversation during the meal, but his daughter answered any direct questions tersely and was morosely silent when Carl and her father were speaking. Carl was intensely uncomfortable and was relieved when dinner ended.

The couple went to a movie because the General was having company. The visitors were gone when they returned after midnight. Vanessa spent the night in Carl’s room, which made him very nervous. He imagined the General wrenching open the guest room door and murdering him in bed, but there were no nocturnal incursions and Morris Wingate was gone when they woke up Sunday morning.

Carl was exhausted when Vanessa dropped him off at his apartment on Sunday evening. He went right to sleep and slept through his alarm, arriving late for class for the first time since he’d started at St. Martin’s. Carl hoped he would not run into Sandy Rhodes or Mike Manchester. He lucked out. They weren’t in any of his classes and he only saw them in the hall at a distance. Vanessa told Carl that the boys were telling everyone who asked about their bruises that they’d received their scars while successfully fighting off a gang of bikers in an alley behind a bar.

The first semester of Carl’s senior year was a blur. He wanted to spend every minute he could with Vanessa but explained that he had to keep his grades up if he was going to have a chance at a college scholarship. She understood and never interfered with his studies. When they went to the beach after class, Vanessa had him home by seven. If he stayed at her house on the weekends, she insisted that he bring his books.

At first, Carl dreaded the weekends at the Wingate estate if the General was in residence because there was so much tension between Morris Wingate and his daughter, but he soon began looking forward to Wingate’s appearances. The General was charming and intelligent. He had a wide range of knowledge and seemed to have been everywhere. Carl felt guilty because he didn’t hate Vanessa’s father the way his daughter did. He was careful not to mention his feelings to Vanessa. She must have noticed that Carl and her father got along, but she never said anything to him about it.

Sometimes Carl and the General worked out together. Usually they ran on the beach, but one day Wingate suggested that they spar. He was not in Carl’s league, but he wasn’t bad. Thinking about it later, Carl realized that he should not have been surprised. Wingate was military, and soldiers fight for a living. For the most part, Carl played defense, content to block Wingate’s punches and kicks while occasionally landing a light blow of his own. Carl was sure that the General knew he was holding back, but he couldn’t bring himself to go all-out.

Two nights after their sparring session, the phone rang in Carl’s apartment. He took the call in his room, hoping that it was Vanessa, but the caller was Morris Wingate. The General had never phoned him before, and he worried that something had happened to Vanessa.

“I’m glad I caught you,” Wingate said. “I’m in D.C., but I’ll be back in California on Thursday night. Do you have any plans?”

Actually, he didn’t. He and Vanessa both had midterms and had agreed to study all week and not see each other.

“Good,” Wingate said. “I have a surprise planned for you on Thursday night. I’ll send a car at seven. Don’t tell Vanessa.”

The General hung up before Carl could ask him any questions. He wished that Wingate had not told him to keep their meeting a secret from Vanessa. What if he obeyed and she found out? If you loved someone-and Carl thought he might be in love with Vanessa-you shouldn’t have secrets. But Carl didn’t know why he wasn’t supposed to tell Vanessa. What if the General was planning a surprise for her and wanted him in on it? He’d be ruining everything if he told. Carl decided to wait and see what the General was planning. He could always tell Vanessa what had happened afterward.

A black town car parked in front of Carl’s apartment complex precisely at seven. Chauffeur-driven cars were a rarity in Carl’s neighborhood, and it drew stares.

“Where are you going?” Evelyn Rice asked her son.

“I don’t know, Mom. I told you, the General said it’s a surprise.”

“Why isn’t your girlfriend going with you?”

“I don’t know that either.” Carl put on his jacket and kissed his mother on the cheek. “I’ve got to go.”

Evelyn wrapped her arms around her body to keep her emotions in as Carl closed the apartment door behind him. Her son had been tight-lipped about this girl he was seeing. All Evelyn knew was that Vanessa was very rich, her mother was dead, and her father lived in Washington, D.C., most of the year and ran an intelligence agency. Evelyn did not approve of leaving a child unsupervised for long periods of time, and she thought it was odd that someone as important as General Wingate would invite her son out for an evening without asking his daughter along; but Carl had been so happy lately that she had kept her forebodings to herself.

Some of the neighborhood kids made remarks when the chauffeur opened the door for Carl, and he felt self-conscious as he slipped into the backseat next to the General. A bodyguard sat in the front seat next to the driver. Both men wore their hair long and were dressed in civilian clothes. Wingate was wearing a black shirt and dark slacks.

“How are your exams going?” the General asked when they were under way.

“Okay, I think. I took two this week and I have three more next week.”

“Vanessa thinks she did well on her calculus test. She credits you with her improvement.”

Carl colored. “She would have done okay without me.”

“She also told me how you protected her from Sandy Rhodes.” Carl looked away. “That took courage. I’ve seen Sandy and his friend. They’re much bigger than you.”

“I surprised Sandy, and they didn’t know how to fight,” Carl mumbled.

The General studied Carl for a moment before speaking. “Modesty is a good trait, Carl, but you shouldn’t overdo it. Using surprise in a fight is admirable. Men only fight fair on TV. Fighting is not a game. In any event, I am indebted to you for protecting Vanessa.”

Carl didn’t know what to say, so he said nothing. The General dropped the subject, and they rode without speaking until the car turned off the highway and headed east into farm country.

“I think you’ll find tonight interesting.”

“Where are we going?”

“To a sporting competition,” Wingate answered with an enigmatic smile. “Your fight with Sandy and his friend wasn’t your first, was it?”

“No,” Carl answered suspiciously, not sure where Wingate was going.

“Did you ever join the Marauders?” Carl’s eyes widened. “I know you’ve participated in some of their gang fights but it’s not clear how far the association goes.”

“How did…?”

Wingate smiled. “I’m the head of an intelligence agency, Carl. How good an agency would it be if it couldn’t even run a background check on my daughter’s boyfriend?”

Carl darkened. “I don’t think that’s right, sir.”

“My daughter hates me. She blames me for her mother’s death and she goes out of her way to hurt me. On occasion she takes up with boys who could hurt her badly. She dates them simply to cause me pain. I love Vanessa very much. Sometimes I have to protect her from herself. That means finding out what I can about her friends and, on occasion, dealing with boys who could be a problem.”

The General read the alarm in Carl’s eyes. He smiled warmly. “You’re not someone who’s bad for her, Carl. I’m greatly relieved that she’s finally found someone like you, someone with character.”

Carl felt the tension drain from his shoulders.

“I still have to know about the Marauders, though,” the General insisted.

“There’s not much to know. I have friends from my old school who are in the gang. I’m not. When I earned my black belt I wanted to see how I would do outside a gym, you know, on the street where there weren’t any rules. I was in one fight and the cops picked me up. They couldn’t prove anything, so they let me go. There weren’t any charges, but being arrested shook me up. I told my friends I wasn’t going in with them. We’re still friends.”

“How did you do without any rules?”

Carl looked the General in the eye. “Very well.”

Wingate smiled and dropped the conversation. In the east, the hills slowly faded in the growing darkness and the sky filled with stars. The town car turned onto a dirt road and drove through an orchard. Carl saw a light in the distance flickering through the trees. Moments later they were in front of a large barn, parking beside a sleek limousine. Several other expensive cars were parked nearby. When the driver opened the door for the General, Carl heard noise coming from the interior of the barn. The General’s bodyguard had gone ahead. He knocked on a door. It opened an inch and a fat man who was smoking a cigar peered out. Wingate’s bodyguard gave the fat man a wad of cash and said something that Carl could not hear. The fat man slipped the money into his pocket and broke into a smile.

“General, it’s a pleasure.”

“It sounds like you’ve got some interesting contests planned.”

“We’ll keep you entertained,” the fat man assured Wingate as he stepped aside to let Carl, the General, and Wingate’s protection into the barn.

A series of spotlights were focused on a cleared sand rectangle in the center of the barn, leaving the majority of the interior in shadow. Thick clouds of cigar and cigarette smoke created a haze, and excited exchanges took place between the people seated on folding chairs that ringed the open space. They were an odd mix of men and women. Some were dressed in formal attire, others in casual clothes. There were men in cowboy boots, plaid flannel shirts, and jeans and a few men who looked as if they’d just left a Vegas casino.

At the far side of the barn several men were exchanging money in front of a portable bar. Wingate led Carl to some chairs in the first row. There were “reserved” signs on the seats. The driver and the bodyguard stood behind the last row of chairs, where they could keep an eye on everyone.

“What’s going on, sir?” Carl asked.

“The man who let us in is Vincent Rodino. He organizes unorthodox sporting events. I learned about this one a few days ago and thought it might interest you.”

Carl was about to ask another question when the lights dimmed and Rodino walked to the center of the sand rectangle that the seats surrounded. Two men were entering the rectangle from opposite sides. The man who entered from the left was stocky and his thick chest was matted with black hair. His legs were short and heavily muscled, as were his arms. There was a layer of scar tissue above the man’s eyebrows, and his nose had been broken more than once. He wore boxing trunks and footgear but no gloves.

Carl recognized the other man from a recent karate tournament. He was tall, slender, and bare-fisted and wore only the black bottoms of his karategi.

“Let’s get started, folks,” Rodino said in a loud voice. He waited to say more until the people who were standing found their seats. The fighters moved around, loosening their muscles and shadow-boxing.

“We have an exciting card tonight,” Rodino said when the crowd quieted down. He raised his arm and pointed at the boxer. “This is Harold McMurray. He’s ranked sixth by the California State Boxing Commission in the light heavyweight division. He’s got a pro record of thirteen wins, two losses, and six knockouts.”

Rodino turned to the other fighter. “Over here we got Mark Torrance, the western states karate champion for the past two years.”

The crowd applauded, and Rodino motioned the fighters to the center of the arena.

“You boys know the rules.” Rodino paused for effect. “There ain’t no rules.” Several people in the crowd laughed. “It’s winner takes all, no holds barred. You fight until one man is out or quits. No rounds. You can bite, gouge, wrestle. No weapons, though. You got it?”

The fighters nodded. Wingate turned to Carl. “Do you think a karate man can take a professional boxer?”

“It depends on the fighters.”

Rodino stepped out of the arena, and the two men circled warily. The boxer was flat-footed, moving straight forward slowly while feinting with his head and shoulders. Torrance danced lightly on the balls of his feet.

The crowd was keyed up, yelling encouragement and waiting for the first blow.

McMurray tried to close, but Torrance used his reach and speed to stay just out of range, teasing the shorter man with jabs that dotted the boxer’s face with red welts. Frustrated, McMurray charged. The black belt sidestepped and swept the boxer’s feet from under him. McMurray instinctively reached out for support as he went down, leaving his head unprotected. Torrance set himself and delivered a roundhouse kick to McMurray’s face. The snapping kick opened a cut on the boxer’s cheek. The crowd roared, excited by the blood. McMurray hit the sand and rolled, frantic to get away. Torrance seemed in no hurry. The boxer scrambled to his feet.

“What do you think?” Wingate asked without moving his eyes from the fighters.

“The kick was well executed,” Carl answered quietly. He was concentrating on the men with an expert eye.

Torrance landed a few more jabs and got cocky. He started to taunt his opponent, but the boxer fought for a living and he did not anger easily. He was also in good shape and showed no sign that the punishment he’d taken had weakened him.

Torrance jabbed again, and the boxer slipped the punch, shuffled forward, and drove a hard right hand to the black belt’s ribs. Torrance flinched, and McMurray followed with a quick left that grazed Torrance’s neck. Torrance clinched, encircling the boxer’s powerful shoulders with his long arms. McMurray brought his knee up toward Torrance’s groin. As soon as the knee rose Torrance shifted his weight. The judo throw was executed perfectly, and McMurray was flat on his back before he knew what happened. Torrance speared a hand into McMurray’s groin, rendering the boxer helpless. Rodino came back into the arena and raised the winner’s hand. Torrance danced around the ring, arms raised in triumph, while McMurray writhed on the ground.

Wingate stood up. “Let’s get some air before the next fight.”

Carl followed the General to the door at the back of the barn. When they passed Wingate’s driver, the General told him to place a bet on the next fight.

A crowd had gathered just outside the door, and the General led Carl to a stand of trees. The night air was refreshing after the smoke-filled barn.

“What was your opinion of the fight?” Wingate asked.

“Torrance is good, but that boxer was made for him. He was too slow, too stationary, and he wasn’t used to fighting someone who wrestles and kicks.”

“How do you think you would do against Torrance?”

There was something about Wingate’s tone that made Carl pause before answering. “What do you mean?”

“If you had to fight him, say tonight. How do you think you’d do?”

“You want me to fight him?” Carl asked.

“I think it would be an interesting match.”

“Tonight?” Carl asked, searching Wingate’s face in an attempt to understand what was behind the General’s questions, but Wingate’s chiseled features were in shadow.

“Not tonight,” he answered with a laugh just as his driver walked up and told them that the next fight was going to start.

“This should be a good bout,” Wingate said. He turned his back on his guest and headed for the barn. Carl was in turmoil. What had Wingate been after? Carl frequently felt that Wingate wanted something from him, but he had no idea what it was.

Carl had trouble concentrating during the rest of the bouts. Did the General really want him to fight Torrance, or was Wingate just curious about Carl’s opinion? During a break in the action, Carl wandered off by himself. He glanced across to the bar where a man was paying off the winners and Wingate was talking to Rodino in a dark corner.

The General was so powerful, so self-confident. What he wouldn’t give to have a father like that-a friend, but more than a friend. The General knew so much about so many things. Carl loved his mother. She worked so hard for him. But he yearned for something more. He missed having a father, a man who could advise him and guide him.

Carl knew that Vanessa believed the worst of her father, but Carl was certain that she was wrong. In the time he’d known him, Morris Wingate had never had a bad word for Vanessa. Carl was certain that he loved her and forgave her for the terrible opinion she had of him. Carl thought that the General was trying very hard to be a good father despite Vanessa’s efforts to alienate him. But he knew he couldn’t talk to her about his feelings; honesty in this matter would destroy his relationship with Vanessa, and the General’s daughter was the most important person in Carl’s world. But he wished that there could be a truce between Vanessa and her father.

Even more, he wished that Morris Wingate would begin to think of him not only as Vanessa’s boyfriend but also as a son.

Two days after his outing with the General, Carl paid for a month of lessons at Mark Torrance’s dojo. Torrance ran the dojo for a national franchise called International Karate, which had headquarters in Chicago. The school was located in a ghetto on the second floor of an old wood frame building. Most of the students were black or Chicano. A few whites traveled to the school because of Torrance’s reputation. Carl registered under a false name and pretended to be a beginner with some prior training. He took every opportunity to study Torrance’s technique. He concluded that Torrance was a good fighter with weaknesses that were apparent only to someone with Carl’s abilities.

Torrance’s last class ended at ten every weekday. Occasionally, the sensei would go out for beers with some of his students; but he never went out on Wednesday night, because that was when he did the books. This Wednesday evening, Carl was dressed in black, which helped him blend into the shadows in the alley across from the dojo. Twenty minutes after the last student descended the wooden steps from the second floor landing Carl pulled on a ski mask and raced across the street and up the stairs. His mouth was dry and his heart was pounding when he reached the landing. He knew how insane he was to come here. He was a boy and Torrance was a seasoned fighter. There was still time to stop. He wasn’t even certain that Morris Wingate wanted him to fight Torrance. The General hadn’t brought up the subject again. But what if this was a test; what if the General wanted to see what Carl was made of? Fear churned in him and he almost turned away, but something stronger-his desire to please General Wingate-forced his hand to grasp the doorknob and push the door inward.

The dojo was a large room with hardwood floors. There were warm-up mats in one corner, and punching bags of various sizes hung from the ceiling along the near wall. Across the dojo, next to the locker room, was a wall of floor-to-ceiling mirrors. The small office where Torrance was working was on the far side of the room across from the front door. The dojo was dark, but there was a light in the office. Carl could see Torrance seated at his desk.

Carl crossed to the other side of the dojo quietly, hugging the wall and staying in the shadows. When he was in position he could see Torrance entering the amounts from a stack of checks into a ledger. Seated at the desk, concentrating on his books, Torrance presented an easy target. Carl remembered what the General had said about surprise being admirable in a fight and fighting fair being something one did only on TV, but he wanted a true test of his abilities.

Carl was no stranger to combat, but his fights had always been with boys like Sandy Rhodes and Mike Manchester, who had no training. Torrance would not quit and he was used to fighting through pain. Carl wondered if he was making a mistake. Was he overmatched? There was only one way to find out.

Carl spotted a rack of dumbbells near the mirrored wall. He decided to draw Torrance into the open space in the dojo. He took a heavy weight from the top of the rack and dropped it. The metal hit the hardwood floor with a loud clanging sound that was amplified by the silence. Torrance leaped to his feet and stared into the darkness.

“Who’s there?”

The black belt walked to his office door and looked around the dojo. Carl backed into the shadows. When Torrance walked into the gym, Carl would confront him. But Torrance did not leave his office. He walked to his desk and bent down. When the black belt turned around he was holding a handgun.

It was suddenly crystal-clear to Carl that he was no modern-day samurai on a mission for his master. He was a fool on a fool’s errand, a teenage boy who was living out a fantasy. General Wingate was not proposing a test when he asked Carl how he thought he would do in a fight with Torrance; he was making conversation. Unfortunately, Carl’s epiphany might have come too late. If Torrance caught him skulking in his dojo dressed like a ninja he would call the police, and Carl would be expelled from St. Martin’s. Carl realized that he had one chance to get out of the ridiculous situation he had made for himself.

As Torrance waited for his eyes to adjust to the dark, Carl slipped into the locker room. Torrance flipped on the lights in the dojo a second after the locker room door had swung shut. Carl nudged the door open and watched Torrance walk over to the rack that held the weights. The sensei knelt down and examined the dumbbell that Carl had dropped. Then he looked at the rack. He picked up the weight and placed it where it had been before. Carl heard the sound of metal on metal as Torrance tested the dumbbell’s stability to see if it could have fallen unaided. As soon as he concluded that it could not, Torrance moved to the center of the dojo and surveyed the gym, pointing his weapon as he turned. His eyes passed over the locker room door, then swung back to it. The black belt hesitated for a second, then headed for the lockers.

The locker room was long and narrow. Lockers lined the four walls and a row of lockers divided the room. At the end farthest from the door were showers in an open tiled area. The room offered few places to hide. Carl could dodge around the lockers, but how long could he keep that up? There was a section of the shower room that provided concealment from anyone standing near the lockers, but if Torrance looked into the shower area, he would be able to see Carl. If there was any distance between them, Carl would not stand a chance against a gun.

Suddenly the locker room lights went on. Carl had only seconds to act. The door to the locker room swung open and Torrance walked in. He paused by the door. From the end of the row of lockers in the middle of the room he could see all of the locker room except the shower area.

“Come out now and no one will get hurt. I’ve got a gun and I’ll use it.”

Torrance sounded unworried. Carl had to fight to keep calm.

“I’ll give you a three count. If you’re not out I’m going to shoot to kill.”

Carl considered surrendering. Maybe he could convince Torrance that he’d come in for extra practice. Then he remembered that he was hiding, dressed in black and wearing a ski mask, and he hadn’t gone to the office to ask Torrance for permission to work out. Torrance would turn him over to the police, or else just shoot him. The police would discover that he’d registered at the dojo under a phony name. He’d be expelled from school. It would kill his mother.

Torrance counted to three. He sighed. “Okay, pal. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

The karate instructor moved down the row of lockers toward the showers. It was the only part of the locker room he could not see completely. He was three-quarters of the way down the row when Carl dropped on him from the narrow space between the ceiling and the top of the lockers that ran down the center of the room. Torrance stumbled forward and dropped the gun. The space between the lockers was too narrow for Torrance to turn. Carl hit the karate instructor from behind, bringing him to his knees, and applied a choke hold. Torrance was groping for the gun when he blacked out.