"He who?" Santa's mugger asked anxiously. His eyes darted to the mouth of the alley. It seemed very far away.

"The pain in the ass who taught me," Remo said. "And don't think I haven't spent the last I-don't-know-how-many years of my life trying to figure out if he's an okay guy who's also a pain the ass or if he's a pain in the ass who just happens to sometimes be okay. On days like this, I just think he's a plain old everyday run-of-the-mill pain in the ass, and that's that. End of story."

"Yeah. Wow. That's too bad," the mugger commiserated. He would have begun inching to the street, but this wacko with the flashing hands and the fingers that could stick steel through brick was standing right in his path.

"It is, isn't it?" Remo agreed. "So I'm supposed to be Reigning Master, right? Wrong. Now I've got this whole Master Nik tradition to deal with."

The mugger's face brightened hopefully. "Nick?" he asked. "That's my name." He smiled, hoping to establish some kind of a connection with this crazy man.

"And if I was your parole officer or the guy who used the free needles after you, I just might give a fat flying Kringle," Remo assured him. "This Nik lived about twenty-seven hundred years ago. Didn't do anything to distinguish himself as Master, except establish one tradition." His voice grew mocking as he repeated the words passed down from Master Nik. "'No disciple of Sinanju shall attain the title of Reigning Master without he first deliver the proper act of kindness.'"

The mugger blinked, sensing opportunity. "Kindness?" he asked.