Page 17 of His Cruelest Moves

“Isard! Isard Muntaner! Wanted on set!”

“Go!” Alex urged, but Isard was already halfway to the door, scrambling to settle his over-sized Stetson back on his head.

ten

Isard checked the address on his phone. This was it: Volta d’en Dusai Street. A stone archway off the Passeig del Born, dark as a cave in the gathering dusk. It made him feel like he was stepping back into the Middle Ages. He walked along the narrow street, counting the numbers until he found number nine, the last building before the corner of the next street. He pushed the buzzer and waited. For a while nothing happened, and he wondered if he had the right place. But then there was a shout from above:

“Stand clear!”

And something hit the ground beside him. It looked like a rolled-up sock. He picked it up, and carefully wrapped inside it, padded against the fall, was a rusty iron key the length of his palm.

“Right-hand staircase! Top floor!”

He approached the door and tried the key in the lock of the heavy oak, two-leaved street door. With some effort, it turned, lifting the stiff iron latch, and he was able to heave the door open. Inside, it was almost completely dark. The cobblestones from the street outside extended in a wide passageway before him, what would once have been the entranceway for a carriage and horses. To the left, a wide marble staircase ascended to the Principal or piano noble floor, where the building’s wealthy owners would have lived. On the right, he couldn’t see any staircase at first, and wondered whether he’d misheard. Then he spied a dark alcove, almost invisible in the gloom. Sure enough, inside, a steep narrow staircase climbed into the blackness. Access to the old servants’ quarters, no doubt.

Before beginning to climb, he explored with the light from his phone, and sure enough found a grubby button that when pressed, switched on a dim bulb set high in the wall. Climbing the first flight of stairs, he came to a landing paved in red brick, then another narrow set of stairs. He kept climbing, counting five floors in all, before he saw above him what looked like the door to the roof. Beside it was another door, and standing in the doorway was Alex.

“My legs are absolutely killing me! Is that part of your warm-up routine?”

“All part of the plan,” Alex said, smiling down at him. He was wearing loose-fitting black cotton trousers and a red Chinese-style robe tied with a black sash.

“So you’re a black belt?” Isard asked. “I had no idea.”

“No,” Alex laughed. “We don’t use the belt ranking system. The color just goes well with this jacket.”

He stepped aside, inviting Isard into the space. It was one large room, mainly covered with a vast expanse of rubber and tatami matting. Beside the door was an area paved just in the original terracotta tiles, with a reception desk. Benches and hooks all along one wall allowed space to leave bags and clothing.

“OK, now I see why you chose this place, though just getting up here may turn a lot of students off.”

“I use this space mainly to practice, while I try and meet clients at their own homes. But if I need to, I can bring a group here. They mostly see the climb up the stairs as an adventure. I haven’t had any complaints yet.”

“Probably too out of breath. Though I can’t see anyone complaining about such a hot instructor.”

Alex laughed and his eyes twinkled. “Keep it professional, Muntaner.” He gestured toward the matting. “Shall we?”

Isard dropped his bag on a bench and kicked off his shoes. He was also wearing loose cotton trousers, along with a baggy tee-shirt. They walked out into the exercise area. Facing each other, they assumed the starting pose and then in unison moved through the complete siu nim tau form before continuing through the other forms that Alex had taught him, including falls, rolls, feints, and attacks. After forty minutes, they were both hot and sweaty, ready for a break. Alex walked over to a fridge in the corner of the room and grabbed a couple of cans of iced tea.

“Let’s go on the terrace. The view’s amazing.”

Grabbing a key from its hook beside the door, they left the studio and opened the door to the roof. It was a wide terrace paved in terracotta tiles. Though the view wasn’t quite three-sixty, it still took in from the high hill of Mount Tibidabo in the north-west, through the Sagrada Família almost due north, Born Market and Park de la Ciutadella in the north-east, and then the wide sweep of the port and the Mediterranean out to the east and south. The sea after the sun had gone down was a deep indigo hue, almost purple, with silvery ripples across its surface. Only the hill of Montjuïc in the south-west was blocked from their view by the stairwell behind them and a taller building beyond.

“Wow, you weren’t lying about the view,” breathed Isard.

Alex waved him over to a table and chairs set up under an awning decorated with fairy lights, and they sat to drink their tea.

“So, you’ve finished the filming?”

Isard nodded. “Yeah, it goes to production now, editing and stuff. Unless they realize they’re missing a scene or sequence. Then they might call us again, but they’ll try not to do that because it’s expensive to set up everything again.”

“And did it go well?”

“Valentí seemed pleased with me. At least that’s what he said. And you know he was thrilled when we finished the fight sequences because you were there.”

Alex smiled. “I had no idea I’d be called on to choreograph that, but it made sense after all the work we’d put in.”

“Yeah, I don’t know what happened to the original fight choreographer, but that was a lucky break for you. Did I make a convincing Wing Chun fighter?”

“You made a cute one. Not so sure I’d be very scared of you if I met you in a dark alleyway though.”