'Can I help you with something?'
The guy in sweats was the oldest of the three men; he had short and
curly gray hair. He smiled and gave her a small bow.
'No, ma'am,' he said.
'We were just admiring your art, guru. Silat Tjimande!
That surprised her. He got the subset wrong, but he knew it was silat
and he had enough appreciation and understanding to call her 'guru,' as
well. Damn.
'It's Serak,' she said, the 'k' silent.
'But it's Western Javanese, like Tjimande. I'm surprised you
recognized it.'
'I used to work out with an old Dutch kuntao teacher in San Diego,' he
said.
'He had done a little training in silat as a boy. My JKD teacher also
had some training in Harimau, tiger-style.'
Toni nodded. JKD--jeet kun do, the way of the intercepting fist--was
the style created by the late Bruce Lee.
It was a hybrid system, and while they weren't big on forms, many of
the moves were based on wing chun, which to some people looked at least
superficially like silat. At least the WE players knew in theory what
the centerline was, even if they didn't cover it adequately according
to Serak standards ... If Curly here knew enough to recognize and
respect what she was doing, he probably wouldn't be interested in
trying to deck her to impress his friends. Silat fighters didn't go in
much for point-sparring, and for that matter, neither did JKD
players.
Well. Too bad. Kicking somebody's butt would feel pretty good about
now.
And she was going to have to do something or she would explode.
But--what could she do?
Woodland Hills, California
It was dark by the time Michaels got to the theater, and there really
wasn't much left to look at by then. Truth was, there really wasn't
any good reason for him to be here, except to see things--such as they
were--for himself.
Anybody involved with this who was still alive was undoubtedly long
gone.
The bodies had been removed, the screenwriters released after giving
their statements, and the local police still puzzled as to what had
happened. The mainline FBI op who showed up to meet Michaels was a
junior man,
not the special-agent-in-charge, but he was willing to say what he
thought. His name was Dixon.
Michaels and Agent Dixon ducked under the yellow crime-scene tape
covering the doors and went into the building.
'Here's what we know,' Dixon said.
'The dead men, all thirteen of them, were shot in the theater proper.
We have identification on six so far'--he looked at his palm
computer--'Wu, Morrison, a screenwriter named C. B. Shane, and three
men with criminal records: two Vietnamese-Americans, Jimmy Nguyen and
