Full Contact

by Robert J. Randisi

  I took out Eddie Waters’s phone book, which I still used a lot, and looked up Amos Walker’s number in Detroit. Eddie—who had been my teacher up until the day he was killed—had P.I. contacts in a lot of cities around the country, all of whom were listed in that book. Some of them I knew and some I didn’t; Amos Walker was one of those I knew. We had met during a trip I’d made to Detroit for Eddie.

  When Amos answered his phone we went through the usual amenities and then I asked him if he had some time to do a little legwork for me.

  “In New York or Detroit?”

  “Detroit, pal,” I said. “I haven’t reached the level of success where I can afford to import talent.”

  “Well, I guess I could make some room in my busy schedule. What exactly can I do for you?”

  I ran it down for him, giving him Roger and Melanie Saberhagen’s names, telling him I wanted a check on Roger, and that I wanted him to find Melanie’s martial arts sensei and check him out for me, as well.

  “That’s all?”

  “That’s it,” I said, “and Amos, I’m not calling in any favors here, so make sure you send me a bill.”

  “That’s okay with me, since I don’t remember owing you any favors. Besides, making out my bill is the one part of this business I’ve got down pat.”

  That was a lie. He was a damned good investigator, and we both knew it. His natural talent for it put me to shame.

  “Thanks, Amos.”

  “I’ll be in touch, Jack.”

  We hung up. Getting ready to leave, I looked down at the metal trash can again. On impulse I picked it up and carried it out into the hall for the trash pickup. By the time I returned, any physical reminder of that letter would be gone forever.

  Five

  After a week of working out at the institute without endearing myself to a single soul, I called Saberhagen to give him a report.

  “It’s been a whole week—”

  “I’m afraid I’m still trying to get myself accepted by these people, Mr. Saberhagen,” I said, cutting off his complaint. “I’m afraid they’re not a very trusting bunch. If you’re dissatisfied—”

  “No, no,” he blurted out, “you’ve invested all of this time, you might as well continue.”

  “I’ll call you again, soon,” I promised, and hung up.

  Billy Palmer had gone to his old sensei, his teacher, and arranged for the man to give me a recommendation for the institute. John Olden did it as a favor to Billy and, I think, because Billy told him that he saw something in me. My boxing ability—or what was left of it—had enabled me to adapt to the rigors of karate training very well. I just hoped that I’d adapted enough to pass muster at the institute.

  Later that week, Amos Walker had called back with the rundown on the Saberhagens.

  Saberhagen was a heavyweight in Detroit industry who had little or no time for anything outside of his business. His wife had been killed in an automobile accident the year before, apparently driving while intoxicated.

  “She was driving back from a big party after a nice, public battle with her husband. Apparently the daughter blames him for her death.”

  “That’s a little more than he told me.”

  “Yeah, well there’s more. He couldn’t get away from a business meeting to attend the funeral, so the girl had to go alone.”

  “No other relatives showed?”

  “None.”

  “This kid’s got some family. What did you get on her teacher?”

  “His name’s Kinoshi and he’s very highly respected in martial arts circles—if that’s what you call it.”

  I thanked Amos and reminded him to send me his bill.

  “First order of business when I hang up, Jack.”

  I didn’t make any positive contact at the institute until early the second week, in the locker room when I was dressing to leave.

  “Hey, Jacoby,” someone said, touching me on the shoulder from behind. When I turned I saw that it was one of the students, Greg Foster.

  “Foster, right?”

  “That’s right. Listen, a few of us are going out to get something to eat. We wondered if you’d like to come along?”

  “Sure,” I said, trying not to seem too anxious. “Let me get my shoes on and I’ll meet you out front.”

  “We’ll wait for you.”

  He left and I sat down to put on my shoes. More than a week without so much as a hello nod to the new kid, and now they were inviting me out to eat with them. I wondered if they were suspicious of a new face, or if it was just some sort of snobbery. Greg and his friends were brown belts, while I was still a green belt.

  When I got out in front of the institute I was surprised to find Foster waiting alone.

  “The others go on ahead?”

  “No, one of the girls had to go home and since they all share the same ride, the others went, too.”

  “How many is all?”

  “There would have been six of us, with you,” he said, shrugging. “Now there’s just us. Mind?”

  “Hey, man, I’ve been treated like a leper since I got here. Any attention is welcome.”

  “Come on,” he said, laughing. “There’s a place up the block, what I call a two-handed eating joint. They give you so much food you’ve got to eat it with two hands.”

  Foster was a few years younger than I was, and if he’d been a fighter he would have been a light heavyweight.

  He took me to a place called the Swiss Palace, and we got a table on the lower level. They didn’t spend much on furnishings—Early American patio set—but the food was good, and there was plenty of it, as Greg Foster had said.

  “So tell me,” I said, when we had our food in front of us, “why the sudden invitation?”

  “You’ve got to excuse us, Miles—can I call you Miles?”

  “Be my guest.”

  “We’re all New Yorkers, you know, which I guess makes us naturally standoffish towards new people. The institute is kind of exclusive and although we do get new students now and then, most of them can’t cut it and fade out of the picture pretty quick. But you’re different.”

  “Because I’m still here after a week?”

  “Naw, it’s not just that,” he said. “You’ve got the moves, Miles. I know the instructors are impressed, and the rest of us are, too.”

  “The rest of you? Who exactly is that?”

  “Some of us work out together outside the institute and I hope that after you meet the others you’ll agree to work with us.”

  “As long as the others don’t mind.”

  “Well, that’s what we’ll find out tomorrow night. If you can come then, too, we’ll go out and eat afterward and you can meet them.”

  “I appreciate that, Greg,” I said, my disappointment at having missed the others fading. Foster seemed friendly enough and with his endorsement, I didn’t anticipate any trouble being accepted. All I had to hope for at this point was that one of them had known Melanie.

  I didn’t bring up her name with Foster because I didn’t want to rush things. I was going to have to work my way into their confidence before I broached the subject of Melanie Saberhagen with any of them.

  I asked him why they had decided to work out together and he said, “I think we’re the most devoted students at the institute, and the extra work has to pay off in the long run, don’t you think?”

  “I’d say so, yes. Serious training is the key to success.” I was thinking back to my boxing days, not so long ago.

  “Exactly!” he said with great pleasure. “You’re going to fit right in with us, Miles. I can tell.”

  “I hope so.”

  When we finished eating we split the tab down the middle and left.

  “Where are you headed now?” he asked.

  “Chelsea,” I said. “I’ve got an apartment there.”

  “I’m going through the park,” he said. “I live on West Eighty-first. I’ll see you tomorrow night, huh?”

  “Sure.”

&nb
sp; As Foster walked down the block to a parking garage, I was feeling pretty pleased with myself. At least this was a start. I’d been accepted by one of the students after only a week. Maybe now I’d really start to make some progress on the case.

  I went back to Bogie’s and took a shower, then in the morning took another to wake myself up. That was when Tiger Lee came in and put a crimp in my plans for progress.

  Six

  After leaving Heck at the precinct I went back to Bogie’s to pick up my karate gear and head uptown to the institute. I was in the locker room getting into my gi—that pajama type outfit they wear in martial arts—when Greg Foster came in.

  “Hey, Jacoby!”

  “Hi, Greg.”

  “All set for tonight?”

  “I’ve got nowhere else to go.”

  “Good,” Foster said, whipping off his jacket. As he was unbuttoning the cuffs of his shirt he said, “I should also tell you that there are one or two people we work out with who aren’t from the institute. You won’t mind that, will you?”

  “Hey, they’re in the group, right? It’s up to them to accept me.”

  “Nice attitude, Miles.”

  I started to leave and said, “See you after class.”

  There was very little fraternizing during class. They frowned on that at the institute.

  “You come highly recommended, Mr. Jacoby,” the director had said that first night. He was a black man named Bayard who had callouses like rocks on his hands and feet, a bullet-shaped head and a squat body that wouldn’t ordinarily have seemed suited to the sport. He was, however, a fifth degree black belt, and was considered a top man in his field.

  “Thank you.”

  “Have you studied with Sensei Olden long?”

  “Not very long,” I said. “I’m a relative newcomer.”

  “I understand you were a boxer.”

  “Yes.”

  “I suppose your athletic ability has enabled you to progress more rapidly than others might.”

  “You would know that better than I.”

  Bayard regarded me in stony silence for a few moments, then said, “I will formulate an opinion soon enough. Please, all we ask is that you obey the rules of the institute, one of which is no socializing while in the dojo. Please save that for the locker rooms, or outside.”

  “Understood.”

  “Very well,” he said. He had a slight accent, possibly Jamaican. He closed the folder he had been studying while we were speaking, and I had wondered at the time if it said anywhere in there what I did for a living.

  I had expected him to say something else but when the silence became awkward, I realized I had been dismissed.

  Now as I walked out onto the dojo floor I was aware of Bayard’s eyes on me, watching me warm up. I wondered what was going on inside that bullet head of his.

  Bayard worked us hard for almost two hours, and then we had to clear the floor for what the students called the “killer class.” It was made up solely of black belts and although no one had actually been killed, things had been known to get rough. You were expected to be able to protect yourself, and if you got hurt nobody felt sorry for you. It was your own fault.

  Some of the earlier students stood around and watched the black belts; Greg Foster and others headed for the showers. So did I.

  I met Foster outside the locker room and he said, “The others are waiting outside. I thought before we went out, though, I’d warn you about Brown.”

  “Brown?”

  “Yeah, he showed up tonight.”

  “Is he part of your workout group?”

  “Yeah. He used to be here at the institute, but he washed out.”

  “Not good enough?”

  “Oh, Brown’s good, all right,” Foster said, “real good. He just doesn’t react well to rules, and discipline.”

  “I thought discipline was a must around here.”

  “Brown is trying to prove the exception to the rule,” Foster said. “He’s got all the physical skills, and he’s trying to get by on that.”

  “Why do you want to warn me?”

  “Well, Brown’s not exactly the sociable type.”

  “Then why is he in the group?”

  “I’ve wondered about that myself,” Foster said. “Look, just don’t pay any attention to anything he says, okay?”

  “I’ll try.”

  “Let’s go and meet the others.”

  When we got outside there were five other people waiting for us, two girls and three men.

  “People,” Foster said, “meet Miles Jacoby.”

  Four of them greeted me cordially enough, but one of the men said testily, “Who’s he?”

  “He’s one of us, man,” Greg said, frowning. “Chill out.”

  The man subsided, grumbling to himself, and I correctly assumed that this was Brown.

  On the way to the Swiss Palace Greg Foster and I walked behind the others. He told me that Brown was the oldest of the bunch at thirty-eight. If he was a fighter he’d have been what they were calling these days a super heavyweight. Greg said that Brown was a black belt, but confided that he’d only received it before the others because he was now in a school with lower standards.

  The other men were Dan McCoy and J.C. Smith. Both were tall and slender, in their early twenties. Greg Foster himself was of average height, but solidly packed. I had never seen Brown in action, but Foster was the best of the others I’d seen. He seemed very committed to the sport.

  The girls were Fallon and Ginger, a study in contrasts. Ginger was plain and chunky while Fallon was pretty and slender. Both girls appeared to be about eighteen or nineteen—not much older than Melanie—and each was attractive in her own way. I wondered if Melanie might have made friends with them.

  I noticed that on the way Brown seemed to make a point of walking with the girls, but when we arrived, and after a shuffle of chairs to make a small table accommodate more people, I ended up sitting next to Ginger and across from Fallon. That didn’t endear me to him.

  “You must be something pretty special,” Ginger said, pressing her thigh tightly against mine. She smelled good after her shower, but I didn’t need the extra problem.

  “Why do you say that?”

  She smiled, showing pretty white teeth. It transformed her plain face. She had a mass of curly red hair, and a sprinkling of freckles on her nose and cheeks.

  “Well, I understand you haven’t been at it as long as some of us,” she said, “and Bayard let you in.”

  “I had a good recommendation.”

  “Oh yeah?” Brown asked. “Who from?”

  “John Olden.”

  Brown shrugged and said, “Never heard of him.”

  “I have,” Fallon said.

  “So have I,” Dan McCoy said.

  Brown shrugged again and said, “So what? Let’s get some food.”

  Some of the others looked at each other, then everyone started studying the menus. Ginger still had her thigh planted firmly against mine, and in shifting my feet to avoid her I accidentally kicked Fallon, who was sitting across from me. She looked up, smiled a friendly smile, and then went back to her menu. My luck, Brown caught that, too, and frowned.

  It was over coffee that Foster told the others that he had invited me to join their group.

  “What for?” Brown asked immediately.

  “He’s got good moves, Brownie,” Greg Foster said.

  “So what? You heard what Ginger said, he ain’t been at it as long as we have. What do we need him for?”

  “Brownie—”

  “Look,” I said, interrupting Foster, “if anybody’s got any objections there’s no problem.”

  “Hey, nobody’s got any objections, man,” Foster said. He was seated on my other side and put a hand on my shoulder to reassure me.

  “Yeah,” Ginger said, smiling, “especially not me. You’re cute.” She pressed her solid thigh even more tightly against mine to bring her point home.

  “Thanks,�
�� I said, avoiding Brown’s eyes.

  “What do you people think?” Foster asked them all. “You’ve seen him work out.”

  “I haven’t,” Brown said loudly. “I think I should see him before I make up my mind.”

  “Why can’t you just take our word for it, Brownie,” J.C. Smith said.

  “Why the hell—”

  “Look Greg,” I said, “why don’t you let me up? There’s a little too much tension here.”

  “Hey man, wait—”

  “You and your friends talk it out, Greg,” I said, moving out from behind the table. “Let me know the next time we meet what you’ve decided.”

  “All right, Miles,” Foster said. “This is Sunday. We’ll see you at the institute Tuesday night?”

  “Fine.” I turned to the table and said, “It was nice meeting you all.”

  Brown grumbled to himself, but the others all said good night and Ginger and Fallon both gave me extra wide smiles. Given my looks, I guessed it was just the novelty of having a new male face around.

  When I got back to Bogie’s Billy offered me a light beer in exchange for information on what was happening with Wood. “Let me make some calls in the office. I’ll be right with you,” I told him.

  I called Lee first, because I felt guilty about not having called at all since leaving her at Bogie’s. When she came on the line I filled her in on what Heck and I had found out.

  “I’ll have to get the rest from Heck,” I said, and then, when I checked my watch and saw how late it was, added, “probably in the morning.”

  “What are you doing now?”

  “I just finished working,” I said, knowing that it would sound like I was already at work on Wood’s case. I felt guilty about that, too.

  “Will you call me when you talk to Mr. Delgado?”

  “Sure,” I said, reacting to the anxiety in her voice. “How are you holding up?”