“I know that, Ben. But people’s needs change. Now she needs more.”
“What are you saying? That I should just give up my life so I can babysit my landlady?”
“You wouldn’t have to do it alone. Joni and Jami would help. Hell, even I would help.”
“I can’t do that. I have an obligation to the band. We’re going on tour in five weeks.”
“Well, I guess that settles it.” She jumped out of her chair with such force that it fell to the floor with a clatter.
Ben also rose. “This is ridiculous, Christina.”
“It is not ridiculous!” Her voice suddenly caught, startling Ben. “And if you weren’t so busy running away from yourself, you’d see that.”
“Christina …”
She turned away. “I wish you believed in angels,” she said quietly. “I wish just once you could close your eyes and ask someone to help you find the way. Because I know you’re a good person, Ben. I know you are. And I can’t stand watching you screw up like this!” She raced out of the kitchen.
“Christina—”
He had just started to follow her when they were both startled by a crash outside Ben’s door.
“That was on the stairs,” Ben whispered. Without another word, he raced out of the kitchen, crossed the living room, and threw open the door.
Lying at the bottom of the stairs was the broken body of Sheshona Marmelstein, socks in sandals, underwear on the outside.
Chapter 38
BEN FELT A NUDGE on his shoulder.
“Ben. The doctor’s coming back.”
He batted his eyes and brought himself back around. As soon as they found Mrs. Marmelstein’s prostrate body at the foot of the stairs, Christina doubled back to dial 911 while Ben ran down to help her. There was not much he could do; she was unconscious, and given the awkward jumble of limbs he found in a heap on the floor, he knew better than to move her. All he could do was check her pulse, make sure she was breathing, and hold her hand till EMSA arrived.
The ambulance did arrive, in record time. Less than ten minutes later, she was wheeled into St. John’s, and the emergency treatment staff went into action.
That had been over six hours ago. He and Christina had been in the waiting room the entire time.
The doctor crossed the emergency room and held out his hand. “Are you the people waiting for Sheshona Marmelstein?”
“Yes,” Ben said, finding his feet and shaking the man’s hand. “How is she?”
“She’s stable,” he said. “In no immediate danger.”
“No immediate danger,” Ben repeated. “What does that mean?”
“It means that for the moment, you can relax. But some time in the next week or so, she’s going to need hip replacement surgery.”
“Is that necessary?” Christina asked.
“I’m afraid so. You have to understand—when a woman her age injures her hip, it’s extremely serious. Frankly, in most cases, it’s either fatal or the beginning of the end. In this case, I think we can bring her back around. But she’ll require surgery if she ever hopes to move on her own again. Even with surgery, it may be awkward and uncomfortable.”
“My God,” Ben said, covering his face with his hand. “Poor Mrs. Marmelstein.”
“What’s the prognosis?” Christina asked. “Assuming she has this surgery.”
“Above average, I’d say,” the doctor replied. “Of course, she’ll need a lot of help. She won’t be able to move at all for probably a month after the surgery, even if it’s successful. Someone else will have to be with her at all times.”
“How is she now?” Christina asked.
“She’s sleeping,” the doctor replied. “And probably will be for another twelve hours or so, thanks to the sedatives. She’ll come around this evening.”
“And then?”
He smiled. “Then I’ll talk to her about the surgery. See what she wants to do.”
“I’d like to be here for that conversation,” Christina said. She glanced at Ben. “We both would.”
“That’s fine,” the doctor said. “She’ll want to be with friends when she hears the news.”
Christina nodded. “We’ll be there. Is there anything else we can do?”
“No. You look like you’ve been up all night. Go home. Get some rest. I’ll see you again this evening.” He shook Christina’s hand, then left the waiting room.
Christina slumped down in a chair. “Did you hear what he said?”
“Yes. Including the part about getting some rest. Which I intend to do.”
She placed her hand on his arm. “Have you forgotten? We have an appointment with Mike this morning. Seven A.M. sharp.”
“Let’s call and cancel.”
“You promised him.”
“But I didn’t know I’d be up all night at the hospital!”
“Like it or not, it’s morning. We have work to do. And besides”—she hoisted him forcibly to his feet—“I want you to keep this appointment. It’s for your own good.”
He went out grumbling. “That’s what my mother said when she made me take tap dancing lessons.”
It took Ben thirty minutes to track down the South Side address Mike had given him. Sleep deprivation had undoubtedly reduced his mental agility. Eventually, he pulled his van into the parking lot outside the Culver Corners strip mall.
“So why did Mike bring us here?” Ben asked. “I don’t need one-hour Martinizing, and the video store doesn’t open for two hours.”
“Keep looking,” Christina advised. “End of the strip.”
Ben strained his eyes and read a sign decked out with Asian pictographs, dragons, and samurai warriors: CHINESE BOXING INSTITUTE.
“Now wait just a minute.” Ben took a step back.
“C’mon,” Christina said, grabbing his arm and dragging him toward the door. “Mike’s expecting us.”
Inside, the school was more like an empty warehouse, with no notable decoration or furniture other than the wall-to-wall padded mats on the floor and mirrors on the walls. Mike was indeed waiting; he was chatting with a small, portly man Ben didn’t recognize.
Mike waved. “Ben! Good to see you.” He turned to make introductions. “Jim, this is Ben Kincaid. Ben, this is Sensai Papadopoulos.”
Sensai Papadopoulos? Ben stepped forward nodding; Sensai Papadopoulos bowed. He had deep-set eyes with heavy shadows, all masked behind a pair of aviator-style glasses. Tight pants, a shirt open to the navel, gold neck jewelry, and lifts. He sported a handlebar mustache and a Fu Manchu beard.
Turned out he even spoke with a clipped, no-r’s faux-Chinese accent. “Very pleased to meet you, Ben-san,” he said.
“Likewise, I’m sure,” Ben replied. He glanced at Mike. “What’s this all about?”
“I told you already. If you’re going to continue throwing yourself in the hands of thugs and serial killers, you need to learn to defend yourself.”
Ben grabbed Mike by the arm and pulled him aside. “You’re telling me you dragged me down here at seven in the morning so I could play Hi Karate?”
“Actually, Jim’s discipline is kung fu.”
“I don’t care what it is. I’m not doing anything with this clown.”
“Jim? What have you got against Jim?”
“Something my mother once told me,” Ben said, grimacing. “Beware of Greeks wearing lifts.”
Mike rolled his eyes and dragged Ben back to Sensai Papadopoulos. “Shall we begin?”
“No, we shall not.” Ben turned away. Christina caught one arm, Mike caught the other. “Both of you: leave me alone!”
“Perhaps the young grasshopper is not prepared to make the journey,” Sensai Papadopoulos suggested.
“He is, he is,” Mike insisted, yanking on Ben’s arm. “He just doesn’t know it yet.”
The Sensai nodded. “Sometimes the young duckling does not realize that the rushing waterfall is actually the stream leading home.”
“Yeah, exactly.” Mike pu
lled Ben close and spoke clipped terse words into his ear. “Ben, I want you to do this!”
“I don’t.”
“It could save your life!”
“My life is not going to be saved by this reject from Kung Fu: The Legend Continues.”
“Will you give him a chance? Jim used to be a cop, okay?”
Ben blinked. “He did?”
“One of the best, till he took early retirement and went into business for himself. Three-time intermural martial arts champ. Believe me, he knows his stuff.”
“Well …”
“See that sash across his waist?” Ben checked it out—a black sash with five white bands. “That’s not just a pajama tie he picked up at Sears. That’s a fifth-degree black belt.”
“Well …”
“See the embroidery on the back of his shirt?”
Ben made out the intertwined letters. AKMF. “American Kung Fu Masters Federation?”
“As it turns out, yes,” Mike answered. “But when he was on the force, we all thought it stood for Ass-Kicking Motherfucker.” His eyes darted toward Christina. “Pardon my language.”
She fluttered her eyelids. “Pretend I’m not here.”
“You get the drift? He’s good.”
“All right, all right,” Ben pushed himself free. “Relax with the strong-arm tactics. Just let me breathe for a minute.”
Mike nodded toward Sensai Papadopoulos. “Okay. I think we’re ready to begin.”
“Is the young grasshopper ready to seek the path to enlightenment and self-discovery?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Mike said. “Just teach him how to deck somebody, okay?”
The Sensai bowed obediently. “Perhaps we should begin with some historical background.”
“I don’t—”
“Kung fu dates back to the fifth century B.C. It is a discipline of defense, not offense. It is a way of harmonizing with the universe, not conquering it. It was Lao-tzu, the great Taoist philosopher, who said, ‘The world is ruled by letting things take their course.’ ”
Mike interrupted. “That’s great, Jim. But let’s get on to the—”
“Lao-tzu also said, ‘When nothing is done, nothing is left undone. In the pursuit of Truth, every day something is dropped.’ ”
“Right, right, right. But our time is limited. Cut to the chase.”
Sensai Papadopoulos sighed. “That is the problem with the world today. No one wants philosophy; they just want to get on with the head-bashing.”
“Too true. But I’m only going to be able to sit on my man here so long.”
“Very well. Perhaps we should begin with the forms.”
The forms were a series of traditional postures and positions adopted by the Buddhist monks who first devised kung fu. Some forms were designed to thwart an attack; some were simply used for meditation purposes. Ben never obtained a clear sense of which was which, but it didn’t much matter, because he couldn’t do any of them.
Sensai Papadapoulos started by trying to show him the panther’s crouch.
“You must bend the knees,” he repeated, kicking Ben’s knees in the most vulnerable spots.
“They’re bent already,” Ben snapped.
“They should be bent like you are about to pounce, not like you are about to pass out. Lean back. Raise your arms.”
“What do the arms have to do with it?”
“It’s part of the form.”
“You don’t pounce with your arms.”
“I’m aware of that. But it’s part of the form.”
“I don’t see any reason—”
“It’s been done that way for twenty-five hundred years.”
“But it’s pointless. Why should I do it if it serves no purpose?”
“What are you, a lawyer or something?” The Sensai whipped his head back in time to see Mike wearily nod his head. “That explains a great deal,” he growled. “Now bend your legs.”
Ben managed to complete the form, but he looked more like a man experiencing gastrointestinal difficulties than a crouching panther. Nonetheless, Sensai Papadopoulos decided to move on.
He tried introducing some kicks, but that was even more fruitless. Ben’s kicks wouldn’t have tickled a butterfly, much less crippled an assailant. Every time Sensai Papadopoulos said “Harder,” Ben made a louder grunting noise, but the kick was no more forceful than the one before.
Two hours later, the Sensai had taken Ben through the first ten forms, and none had come out looking half like they were supposed to. Mike called the Sensai over for a brief moment of meditation.
“He’s going to walk soon,” Mike whispered. “What do you think?”
“What do I think? What do you think? He’s hardly ready for the Circle of Fighting.”
“Look, I know you’re supposed to start with the forms and all that, but he’s probably never going to practice what you’ve taught him, and he’s probably never going to come back. Couldn’t you teach him some little flip or something that might help him get out of a scrape?”
“Sure? Why not? I’m sure this is exactly what the Buddhist monks had in mind when they invented kung fu. Helping lawyers out of scrapes!”
Papadopoulos walked over to Ben, who was panting heavily and dripping with sweat. “When you enter the discipline of kung fu,” the Sensai explained, “you must forget your former judgmental concepts of good and bad. You must seek out a higher Truth. Whatever you do is an expression of your inner nature, the Original Face you wore before you were born.”
“That would be kind of a scrunched-up wrinkled face, right?”
Papadopoulos clenched his teeth. “No. But never mind. When you see danger coming toward you, you must forget good and bad, forget true and false. Act, don’t think. Uncover the Original Face.”
“And kick the hell out of ’em?”
Papadopoulos threw up his hands. “Something like that. Here, let me show you a flip.” He turned around and took Ben’s right wrist.
“A flip? What, like in the movies?”
The Sensai ignored him. “The advantage of a flip is that you can use your opponent’s greater strength to your advantage.”
“How do you know my opponent will have greater strength?”
“Just a hunch. Now look. It’s this simple. Your opponent rushes toward you. At the last sparrow’s breath before he arrives, you whirl around, grab his extended arm and, using his own velocity for momentum, flip him over your shoulder.”
“Sounds easy enough.”
“It is, if you time it properly. Timing is everything. Timed properly, an insect could flip an elephant. Timed wrong, the opponent will fall on top of you and crush you like a bug.”
“Wonderful.”
“Let’s give it a try.” Papadopoulos walked to the opposite end of the studio, then began moving toward Ben in exaggerated slow-motion. “I am approaching you,” he shouted.
“I know that,” Ben replied.
“What will you do about it?” Too late—the Sensai was nose to nose with Ben.
“No, no, no!” he shouted. “You were supposed to whirl!”
“I knew I forgot something.”
“We’ll do it again. And this time, whirl!”
Sensai Papadopoulos came at him again, this time even slower than before. A few moments before he arrived, Ben whirled around. Papadopoulos thrust his arm over Ben’s shoulder and waited. And waited. And waited.
“Take my arm!” he shouted at last.
“Oh. Right.” Ben took the arm.
“And pull!”
Ben pulled, but nothing happened. “Nothings happening.”
“You’re not pulling hard enough.”
Ben pulled harder.
“Aaarghh!” The Sensai leaped away. “Are you trying to kill me?”
“You told me to pull harder!”
“You’re supposed to use the opponent’s velocity for impetus.”
“You were standing still.”
“I know that!” He waved his hands
in the air. “It’s useless. I cannot teach this man!”
Mike stepped forward. “But it’s very important, Jim. He could be killed—”
“Let him be killed then! Survival of the fittest!”
“Now, Jim, calm down.”
“I will not calm down. And I will not continue this waste of my life.”
“I was hoping you could give Ben some serious training.”
“You can’t train cannon fodder!” Papadopoulos marched to the back of the studio and disappeared into a private office, slamming the door behind him.
Ben stood in the center of the studio. “So,” he said, “how do you think I did?”
Neither Mike nor Christina felt moved to respond.
Chapter 39
AS SOON AS BEN escaped from the Chinese Boxing Institute, he headed south toward the Memorial Heights Condos. His eyes widened as he drove his van through the restricted entry gate. Perhaps he shouldn’t be surprised—what was he expecting, after all? He wasn’t sure. But it wasn’t this.
He pulled into the parking lot and slowed, checking the doors until he saw number 22. It was a two-story condo with a wood and white plaster, faux-Tudor exterior. Ivy crept up the walls surrounded by assorted greenery Ben couldn’t begin to identify. They were very attractive condos—well-kept, exclusive and expensive.
Which was what was bothering him, Ben realized, as he climbed out of the van and ambled toward the weathered steps that led to the front door. He hadn’t expected Scat to be living anyplace half so nice. He had expected something, well, grungier. Scat was, after all, a jazz musician—one who had been making the rounds for a long time. Where was the two-bit rooming house with the grumpy alcoholic matron, the buzzing blinking red light, the rummies draped across the stairs? This place looked like it catered more to suit-and-tie types than musicians.
Well, he was probably being ridiculous. The influence of too much bad TV. If Scat had been a professional musician for thirty or forty years, there was no reason he couldn’t have saved enough money to afford a decent place to live.
He rang the doorbell. The response was a nine-note chime.
Ben smiled. He recognized the familiar opening riff from Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. This must be the right place.
Extreme Justice Page 23