Bamboo Bloodbath and Ninja's Revenge

  "Hang on!" I cried. I curled myself into a ball, feet toward the monster, bracing my shoulders against Gloria.

  When the huge jaws were about to close, I let fly with what amounted to a drop kick. Both my feet smashed into the shark's nose just above the terrible teeth. The impact was terrific; Gloria and I shot away, propelled by the rebound.

  We didn't see the shark after that. Apparently surprise had paid off again. After a moment we resumed swimming toward the island. Soon my feet touched sand, and I knew we were there. Gloria was exhausted, and I couldn't blame her. I had shucked everything but my waterproof watch, which I had forgotten to remove when we started the judo practice, and it showed we had been in the water more than an hour. It hardly seemed that long, yet at the same time it seemed much longer. No doubt the psychiatrists can explain that phenomenon; I can't. I was just glad to be out of that water.

  I half-dragged her out of the sea and across the warm beach. She was laughing deliriously, but did not seem to be hurt. Relief, I hoped. The cold, tension, and exertion—she had only a fraction the muscle I did, and had really suffered. I tended to forget how fragile women were. But I wouldn't change them, not for the world. It was the usual tropical atoll, except it wasn't technically an atoll, as there was no coral. Sandy beach, clean blue sea, palm trees. I set her down in the shade, scraping away palm fronds and incidental debris. "You saved me!" she gasped.

  "And lost the skipper," I said sourly. "He was a decent fellow, after all."

  She looked around. "Maybe we'll die too. We're on an island, aren't we?"

  "We must be. Rest a while. I'll look around. Maybe there's a village or something."

  "No," she cried in alarm. "Don't leave me!" She clung to my arm.

  "But, Gloria, we can't just stay here."

  "Yes we can, for a little while. I don't want the headhunters to get me."

  "Headhunters!" I laughed.

  "Please?"

  Again that plea. I became aware we were naked. She was a good-looking girl, and I didn't want to take advantage of her. "I want to thank you," she said, pulling me down beside her. "I never could have made it myself."

  "No thanks necessary," I said gruffly. I have been told that complete nakedness is much less sexy than clothing. Maybe so; it depends on the woman. Gloria had a sort of innocent appeal about her that put inevitable notions in my brain. I knew I should get on with my island exploration before those notions became physically evident, embarrassing us both.

  She moved around and kissed me. "I'm not out of my head, Jason, if that's what you're worried about. I'm cold and tired, but you're a judoka and it's what I want. Really."

  Still, it didn't seem right. "Your boyfriend, the brown belt—what happened to him?"

  "We were going to be married," she said. "He—" She broke off. "I always liked the judo." And she kissed me again. She was too young for me, and it wasn't just a matter of age. I would not have wanted to be seen with her on the streets. But in this situation it was difficult to resist temptation. I kissed her back.

  Then she pulled away a little. "No, no..."

  I had encountered that sort of response before. My lips moved down to her neck. "Don't do that," she said, wriggling but hardly drawing away.

  Then on to her breasts, that had preoccupied me so continuously. "It tickles!" she said. "Stop."

  I looked up. "I thought you said this was what you wanted." She looked down, partly in assumed modesty, partly to see the state of my readiness, which perhaps alarmed her. "But I knew you wouldn't do it!"

  I began to appreciate how things had been with her boyfriend. All come-on and turn-off. He must have gotten disgusted and thrown her over. "Okay, let's go look for civilization." I was frankly a bit put out; I don't like on-off sex play.

  She sighed and got up. We walked along the beach. It didn't take long to ascertain that this was a small uninhabited island. We really were stranded. For the second time this week I found myself in one of the dream situations of the American imagination: first in bed with a nympho, now marooned with a lovely nude girl. Ah, well.

  "What if no one comes here?" she asked worriedly. "Isn't this what they call the Devil's Triangle?"

  The Devil's Triangle—a region of the Caribbean sea notorious for mysterious disappearances of a vast number of ships over the years. I didn't like the notion. "We must be somewhere near Bimini," I said. "Not that far from Miami. Bound to be ships passing. We'll hail one." I hoped. "Meanwhile, we can set up a signal—big SOS drawn in the sand. Maybe we can form it with coconuts, so it can be seen from the air."

  "Maybe we can drink coconut milk," she said.

  I had had wilderness-survival courses when training with the Green Berets in Panama, and I had already noted edible plants on the island. "We can do that, yes. We can also dig out clams and catch crabs. There may be sour orange trees, and papayas. We won't starve. We can last for several days, and probably much longer, if there's fresh water, and I think there is. We may have to dig for it, though, or catch rainwater."

  "That's good." She did not seem unduly alarmed. Her mind was concerned with immediacies; next week was too far away to worry about. Which is part of what I mean by saying she was too young for me.

  So we gathered debris and made our SOS on the sand. When we were finished, she settled down under another palm tree. I settled beside her. "We should try to make some clothing. Palm-frond skirts or something."

  She giggled. "You'd look cute in a skirt."

  "Some very prominent martial artists wear skirts," I said, thinking of Hiroshi—which in turn reminded me how far I was from solving the mystery of Luis' disappearance or obtaining the weapons for Fu Antos. I had muffed this chore about as thoroughly as Fu Antos' worst enemy could have.

  And that brought an unpleasantly stunning notion to my consciousness. I had blundered the Fu Antos mission throughout. Was it because I distrusted Fu Antos' purpose, and wanted to fail? "That sounds like a painter!" Gloria said.

  "What?" I had completely lost track of what we had been talking about.

  "Martial artist. A man painting a picture of a battlefield."

  I grimaced. "There's more than one kind of artist."

  "You're kind of stuffy, when you put your mind to it," she remarked, smiling.

  I smiled too, relaxing. "That's not true. Stuffiness comes naturally to me. I never have to work at it."

  "Were you really looking for a boat?"

  I was getting accustomed to her jumps of subject. "I really was." Or was I? I had surely taken the least effective way to locate that boat. Damn it, I would have to decide: either I was with Fu Antos and really trying, or I should go home and quit pretending. I told her about the telegram. There didn't seem to be any harm in the information now.

  She laughed musically. "You nut—that monk's treasure doesn't have to be a boat. It could be a monastery!"

  "Are there many monasteries in Miami?" I inquired dryly. "Sure. One, anyway. Someone's been building one. Rebuilding, I should say; they shipped it over from Europe, stone by stone, and put it together here, just the same way it was. Actually, that was done years ago by some rich eccentric; then it was abandoned. Went up for taxes, I guess. Now they're fixing it up again. Anybody can be a monk now, if he has the money."

  "Monks don't have money," I said. "They take a vow of poverty."

  "All the same, you have to pay to get in. Something like a thousand dollars a month. Talk about treasure—the proprietor must really be raking it in."

  Monk's treasure... Maybe she had a point. If Luis were hiding in a place like that—perfect concealment. "You're a doll," I said, kissing her again. Suddenly my decision was made: I would follow up Fu Antos' mission with all my power—once I got off this island.

  She turned right toward me. "Are we going to start that again?"

  "No, of course not!" I said, nettled, for I had indeed been about to warm up to her, partly, in gratitude for the decision she had unwittingly helped me make, and partly because—well, she
was a pretty girl, nude, and what the hell else was there to do on this damned island? Count mosquitoes?

  "Why the hell do you listen to me?" she flared.

  So it was that way! I caught her by both shoulders and kissed her again. This time she responded warmly. We rolled on the sand, working into the conclusive embrace, and I discovered she was a virgin.

  "For God's sake!" she yelled as I paused. "I kept my mouth shut, didn't I?"

  So I went ahead, interpreting her signals as well as I could. Body language was everything; her words were just for the record, in case anyone should ever accuse her of being too eager.

  She squirmed, whether in eagerness or pain I could not tell. Though she was virginal, the barrier was not formidable; a technicality, as it were. Still, I went carefully, trying not to hurt her.

  "Is it all in?" she cried. "Is it all in?"

  What a question! "Half-in," I muttered. "Three-quarters." As though I were announcing a depth gauge. Did she think a bell would ring when penetration was complete? I suffered a momentary mental picture of a slot machine, ready for the, payoff when the symbols fell into place.

  "Huge!" she exclaimed. "I can't believe I have the whole thing!" There are limits. I would have chastised her for her pun—if pun it was—but the urge overmastered me. I stopped calling signals and thrust the remaining distance, heedless of the discomfort this might cause her. She had the whole thing now.

  And in the midst of my climax, she started crying. But at the same time, she clung to me, not letting me withdraw.

  "Bobby—I keep remembering Bobby!" she cried. "We always got up to the point, but he wouldn't finish it. And then he died of Hodgkin's disease."

  Now she told me! In the heat and sweat of my ebbing climax, I felt disgusted. Yesterday, or whenever it was—half a lifetime ago!—I had cuckolded a living man; today a dead one. "I wanted it from a judoka," she said. "To remember Bobby by."

  That was one way of looking at it. I finally disengaged, not awfully proud of myself.

  "You lost yours too," she said. "She was young, like me?" How do women always know these things? Are there secret signals embedded in the technique of my lovemaking, there for all females to interpret? Chiyako, dead at the hands of Kan-Sen. It had been a year, but the wound had not healed. It would never heal. I felt tears in my own eyes.

  "That's all right," Gloria said, cradling my head on her small breast. She certainly knew how to make the most of that bosom! "We're even."

  I submitted to her comforting. Was there no end to her little foibles?

  Then I saw the ship. A fast military cutter, coast-guard-type. Not American, I judged, but this was no time to be choosy. We both jumped up and waved frantically, yelling. It was anticlimactic, in more ways than one. They saw us and came right in. It turned out to be a small police launch on a routine trip from Bimini to the other islands of the region. Some airplane had spotted our SOS and notified the authorities, so the launch had swung by to investigate.

  They gave us clothing, made out a report, and dropped us off at Bimini. "I guess I won't see you again," Gloria said sadly as we waited for American transport back to Miami. "But thanks, Jason. I can let Bobby go, now, maybe."

  "Thanks to you!" I said warmly. "You may have given me the hint about the monk's treasure!" A hell of a long way around, but worth it all—especially if this new interpretation were correct.

  Chapter 8:

  Demon

  I entered the dojo, looking for the sensei, the instructor. I wasn't really familiar with the Miami scene, but I knew several of the judo masters of the area. I felt that a dojo would be the best place to obtain good advice and help—such as information about the nature of this monastery, and whether a refugee Cuban would be likely to go there. And of course I was at home in a dojo anywhere in the world.

  No one paid attention to me, so I approached the nearest black belt I saw. He was a shodan, or first degree black belt—the minimum master grade—I judged. He looked about forty, of medium height, a solid 190 pounds or so. He seemed to be of Italian descent, with a big Italian nose and wavy black hair. "Excuse me, I'd like to talk to—"

  "Move on, move on—we have a class coming up!" he said roughly. "Why haven't you changed yet?"

  This was not exactly dojo courtesy as I understood it. "I lost my gis in the ocean," I said. "I only wanted to ask—"

  "All right!" he snapped. "Use the spare set in the locker room. Now, don't bother me again!"

  I was having trouble getting through to him. Of course, I had come in at a bad time, just before a class, but that was also when the black belts showed up. One reason I wanted to talk with a black belt was that I had lost my money and identification in the hijacking episode, and needed to get to someone who would recognize me and lend me enough money to continue my quest.

  I could have phoned Ilunga, collect, and she would have bailed me out, but I would never have lived down the I-told-you-so sneer on her face. I am a long way from achieving that exalted state where personal pride is secondary to common sense.

  Irritated, I went to the locker room in the back and found the spare gis. But the belt was white.

  I came out with the belt draped over my shoulder. In judo, black is beautiful; it signifies the master grades, or Dan. White is rank amateur.

  The class was just completing its warm-up exercises. "I need a black belt," I told the instructor. It was not that I wanted to work out with the class; it was my way of getting his attention so that I could get on with my business.

  He rolled his eyes expressively ceilingward. "First night, and he wants a black belt! You've got a lot to learn!"

  Not half as much to learn as he had! My temper was taking a beating, and the smarting of the bullet graze I had suffered aboard the Connie did not help. "Listen, sensei," I said with sarcastic emphasis, "I am a black belt. I only came to—"

  He whirled on me. "You listen, mac! I don't care what you think you have from some crackpot splinter group that calls itself judo. Maybe you paid two grand and they gave you a black belt. But this is Kodokan, real judo. You claim you have a black belt, you prove it!"

  Now I knew what he was thinking of. Theoretically, there are many schools of judo, as there are of karate or any martial art. But to the serious player there is only one—Kodokan, the school founded by Jigoro Kano, originator of judo, in the 1880's. Some supposed schools give out black belts for money instead of prowess; never the Kodokan. There is also the problem of players claiming high rank they haven't actually earned. So he was right, but also wrong, for he had not bothered to ascertain that I wasn't Kodokan. He had just assumed it.

  "All right!" I snapped back. "Want me to run the line?" The ultimate check of a person's proficiency was always on the mat.

  He smiled grimly. "Sure—you do that. Let's see what you're really made of." He called the class to attention. "This visitor wants to run the line. Don't keep him waiting."

  A score of Latin faces grinned back. This was an advanced class; no white belts, only a couple of yellow belts, and half a dozen brown belts. There were even three black belts at the end of the line.

  Running the line can be tough. You start with the easiest, and go on to the next as soon as you defeat each one. No break, no rest—and you come to the toughest when you're worn out. It is a real test of the runner's skill and stamina. It takes clear superiority to get all the way through, because every single student is out to nail you, and any mistake can wipe you out.

  The idea of a white belt seriously running the line was preposterous. He would not last more than one or two matches. They were really setting me up for a comedown—they thought.

  But the fact is, I am a superior judoka. I have run the line with all black belts, for my fifth degree is as far beyond the first degree as First Dan is above an orange belt. And this arrogant dojo needed a lesson in manners.

  I started in with the first yellow. I simply hauled him out of the line and put him back with an o soto gari leg throw, the same one I had sh
own the skipper. It's a good technique at any level. The second yellow skittered to the side to avoid a similar indignity, perhaps thinking it was the only throw I knew, and I caught him with the okuri ashi barai foot sweep. The next was orange: o uchi gari, straight back, sweeping his foot from the inside so that he almost fell on his butt. He was surprised. Another orange: tai otoshi, the body drop, that had been unsuccessful against the wrestler hijacking the Connie. Less than a minute had passed, and four were down with four leg techniques, and I was just warming up.

  So it went, on up the line. I never repeated a technique. Very soon they knew they were dealing with a master, for I set down the green and blue belts almost as readily as before. On the brown belts, too canny for the elementary throws, I used sutemi, or sacrifices. That's a misnomer, for the judoka never voluntarily sacrifices his balance; it simply means that I took them to the mat in controlled fashion by throwing myself down.

  One I caught with the kami basani, or crab pincers. I jumped high in the air, one leg across his waist and the other behind his legs, my body sideways to him. He looked amazed as he went down; he had probably never encountered this throw before, as it is seldom performed. Another I took with one of my favorites, the ukiwaza, or floating throw, so-called because your opponent seems to float over you without touching.

  Then the black belts. The first tried a sutemi on me. It was the tomoe nage, or circle throw, in which you try to haul your opponent over you as you roll back. It's a good technique, but I was ready for it. I merely squatted down, resisting the leg he put in my gut with all the hara power of my stomach. I flipped his arms aside and was on him in the kesa gatame, or scarf hold-down. My right arm was around his neck, while my left held his right arm captive. He could not break it within thirty seconds, so he was finished.

  The second tried another sutemi, the soto makikomi, or wraparound throw. It is an excellent technique in which you wrap your opponent around you, then throw yourself to the mat, carrying him along. But if you do not get the point, the drawback is that he is behind you, ready to apply a new technique. And so it was in this case: I retained my footing as he went down, and I slid my arms around his neck, one going deep and grabbing his collar, the other snaking up behind his head. I applied the kata hajime one-wing strangle, and he capitulated. He would have been unconscious very shortly if he had not yielded.