Cold Fire

She sat in a chair he had indicated, which put the StairMaster directly in front of her, giving her a full side view of him. His sun-bronzed glistened with sweat, which also darkened the hair at the nape of his neck. The spandex embraced him as intimately as the white shorts clung to the receptionist. It almost seemed as if he had known Holly was coming and had carefully arranged the StairMaster and her chair to play himself to his best advantage.

Although she was plunging into deception again, Holly did not feel as bad about lying to Eddie as she had felt when lying to Viola Moreno.

For one thing, her cover story this time was somewhat less fanciful: that she was doing a multipart, in-depth piece about James Ironheart (the truth), focusing on the effect that winning a lottery had upon his life (a lie), all with his approval (a lie). A veracity percentage as high as thirty-three percent was enough to salve her guilt, which she supposed didn't say much for the quality of her conscience.

"Just so you spell Dojo right," Eddie said. Looking back and down at his right leg, he added happily, "Look at that calf, hard as rock.”

As if she hadn't been looking at it all along.

"The fat layer between my skin and the muscle underneath, it's hardly there, burned it all away.”

Another reason she didn't mind lying to Eddie was because he was a vain, self involved jerk.

"Three more flights to the top of the monument," he said. The rhythm of his speech was tied to the pattern of his breathing, the words rising and falling with each inhalation and exhalation.

"Just three? Then I'll wait.”

"No, no. Ask your questions. I won't stop at the top. I'm gonna see how much of the Empire State Building I can climb next.”

"Ironheart was a student of yours.”

"Yeah. Taught him myself" "He came to you long before he won the lottery.”

"Yeah. More than a year ago.”

"May of last year, I think.”

"Mighta been.”

"Did he tell you why he wanted to learn Tae Kwon Do?" "Nope. But he had a passion." He almost shouted his next words, as if he'd triumphantly completed a real climb: "Top of the monument!" He increased his pace instead of slacking off "Did you think it was odd?" "Why?" "Him being a schoolteacher, I mean.”

"We get schoolteachers. We get all kinds. Everyone wants to kick ass.”

He sucked in a very deep breath, blew it out, and said, "In the Empire State now, going up.”

"Was Ironheart good?" "Excellent! Coulda been a competitor.”

"Could've been? You mean he dropped out?" Breathing a little harder than before, the words coming in a quicker though similar rhythm, he said: "Hung in there seven or eight months.

Every day. He was a real glutton for punishment. Pumping iron and doing aerobics plus martial arts. Ate his way through the pain. Man was getting tough enough to fuck a rock. Sorry.

But he was. Then he quit. Two weeks after he won the bucks.”

"Ah, I see.”

"Don't get me wrong. Wasn't the money that made him quit.”

"Then what?" "He said I'd given him what he needed, he didn't want any more.”

"What he needed?" she asked.

"Enough Tae Kwon Do for what he wanted to do.”

"Did he say what he wanted to do?" "Nope. Kick someone's ass, I guess.”

Eddie was really pushing himself now, ramming his feet down on the StairMaster, pumping and pumping, so much sweat on his body that it appeared to be coated in oil, droplets spraying off his hair when he shoot his head, the muscles in his arms and across his broad back bulging almost as fiercely as those in his thighs and calves.

Sitting in the chair about eight feet from the man, Holly felt as if she were ringside at some sleazy strip club where the gender roles had reversed. She got up.

Eddie was staring straight ahead at the wall. His face was creased lines of strain, but he had a dreamy, faraway look in his eyes. Maybe instead of the wall, he saw the endless stairwell in the Empire State building.

"Anything else he ever told you that seemed. interesting, unusual?"" she asked.

Eddie didn't answer. He was concentrating on the climb. The arteries in his neck had swelled and were throbbing as if evenly spaced, small, fish were schooling through his bloodstream.

As Holly reached the door, Eddie said, "Three things.", She turned to him again. "Yeah?" Without looking at her, his eyes still out of focus, not for an instant slackening his pace, speaking to her from the stairwell of that skyscraper in distant Manhattan, he said, "Ironheart's the only guy I ever met who can obsess better than I can.”

Frowning, Holly thought about that. "What else?" "The only lessons he missed were two weeks in September. Went north, Marin County somewhere, to take a course in aggressive driving "What's that?" "Mostly they teach chauffeurs for politicians, diplomats, rich businessmen how to handle a car like James Bond, escape terrorist traps, kidnappers, shit like that.”

"He talk about why he needed that kind of training?" "Just said it sounded like fun. " "That's two things.”