was no sense trying to explain who they were, Mary Jane was fifteen years younger than me. She grew up during the Disco years, depriving her and an entire generation of any musical tastes.
“Mary Jane, I’m not going into the office this morning, Pam set up an appointment for me with one of her eccentric clients over in Monmouth Hills, so don’t expect me till around 3:30 p.m.”
“Do you have any appointments scheduled?”
“No, it should be a quiet day, but I’m still counting on you to at least be there. Can you, manage that?”
“No problem, beloved brother, I’ll be there all day. Oh by the way can you spare a twenty, I’m broke.”
CHAPTER FOUR
I strolled over to the sports car and threw my gym bag into the passenger side of the Triumph.
Then I walked around and slid into the driver’s seat of the sports car. This was quite a chore for a man who was 6'4" and weighed close to 250 pounds. Most of my friends marveled that I could, or would even want to get into a small car like this. But actually, the car was quite comfortable. It was sort of like lying down on a couch with four wheels. Plus, I looked so damn good in it.
I turned the ignition key and the car purred. As I backed the car out of the driveway and pointed it towards Red Bank, I took note on what a beautiful spring morning it was.
On the ride down to Red Bank, my mind drifted back to the conversation with Pamela. I couldn’t help but reflect on her curious comment about my questionable talents. I must admit there was, a certain irony to her comment’s timing, since I was going to Dr. Chen Lue’s Kick Boxing Academy. Dr. Lue, was an expert on my questionable talents. I first met Lue about two years ago, when I took him on as a client and I can honestly say he was without a doubt “the client from hell.” To start with, he hadn’t paid any payroll taxes for sixteen months; he had never filed his state and federal tax returns; he was an illegal alien; and to top it off, Lue was on the hook for a serious amount of money that he borrowed from an unsavory Asian loan shark. Lue of course, solicited my services at the last possible moment. In fact, both the state and the IRS were one step away from padlocking his place and putting him out of business.
Once I took Lue on as an account, I really was forced to call on a host of questionable talents. In rapid fire succession I was able to address all of Lue’s financial problems. The first order of business was the payroll tax issue. Lue had just enough money to make the full payment for the payroll taxes plus the interest and penalties. That out of the way, I turned my attention to the illegal alien status. I called on a State Senator, who I had previously consulted for, and asked him for a favor. Even though the Senator was in my debt, accomplishing my goal wasn’t as easy as I had originally envisioned. After an inordinate amount of arm twisting, I was able to sell the Senator on the idea that Lue could make a great contribution to the community, by setting up several programs for troubled youths. The Senator finally bought into it, and was actually rewarded with some favorable press. After the favorable press, the Senator assisted me in working out an offer and compromise settlement with the state and the IRS for the back taxes that Lue owed. The last item on the list proved to be the most troublesome. I had to get Lue, out from under the clutches of the Asian loan shark. The first part of the chore was relatively easy. I got a loan from a local businessman for the entire amount that Lue owed. Although the interest on the loan of thirteen percent was a little high, it was still a hell of a lot better than paying forty percent. The other favorable factor, not to be dismissed, was that the new lender didn’t send a group of ninjas out in the dead of night, to make collections.
After the new financing was arranged, a meeting was set up in Chinatown to pay off the Asian money lender. I was very disappointed in Lue when he refused to accompany me to the meeting. Lue was a seventh degree black belt, a master of Aikido, scared to death of facing these guys. I had to take the train into the city and manage the transaction, on my own. Now, I had no idea whether these men were part of the Tong crime family or the Yacuza, but someone had to face these guys and payoff the debt.
Unfortunately, that someone turned out to be me. After getting off the train I grabbed a taxi and met with them in a nondescript Chinese restaurant down in Chinatown. The transaction was handled over a lunch of pork lo mien and egg rolls. Much to my amazement the Asians treated me very cordially and with a measure of respect. When we were done with the meal they picked up the tab and escorted me back to the train station. The whole meeting took less than half an hour and to the best of my knowledge Lue has never heard from them again. Of course, he did hear from me on a regular basis.
I was just pulling into Lue’s parking lot, and it was about 8:45 a.m. Lue scheduled his classes in the morning at six, seven, and eight o’clock. The eight o’clock class was wrapping up as I walked through the door. Lue walked over to me and asked why I didn’t come earlier. As always, I reminded him of the Chinatown Affair. Lue being a man of honor and eternally in my debt told the instructor to hang around, there would be a nine o’clock class today.
That settled, I went into the locker room and changed into my sweat suit and white sneakers. I can assure you this mode of dress was not for cosmetic reasons, I was ready for a hard physical workout.
By the time I came out of the locker room, the place was abandoned, except for the instructor and Lue. Lue was up front, in his office pretending to do paper work. Kylene, the instructor gave me a sly smile and asked in her seductive voice, “Why don’t you ever come during the normal class hours?”
“Well Kylene, first I’m not normal, and second I wanted to make sure that you get in a little extra overtime. Now, if you’re ready lets get going.”
She gave me one last smile and then bounced over to the CD player and switched on the music.
We routinely started the class by working the major muscle groups, which consisted of side, front, and back kicks. After about fifteen minutes, we switched to the upper body part of the workout. The upper bodywork consisted of jabs, crosses, uppercuts, and hooks thrown in various combinations. This was really one tough aerobic workout and I was starting to feel the pain that comes with fatigue and exhaustion. We were into the workout for close to thirty minutes, when Kylene turned off the music. I was hoping we were done, but Kylene would have none of that. She threw me a set of wraps for my hands. “I’ve got about fifteen minutes left before I have to go, lets workout on the heavy bag till then.” Although I was exhausted I grudgingly nodded and continued.
After the fifteen minutes on the heavy bag Kylene announced she had to leave, and I went over to the water cooler to catch my breath. As soon as Kylene had slipped through the door, Lue resurfaced from his office, with a demented smile on his face.
“Fred, come up front on the red mats, and we’ll finish the class up here. I need to stay by the phone.”
“No problem, Louie Louie,” I replied. Over the years I had developed the annoying habit of giving nicknames to many of my friends. Dan La Croix was the Frenchman, Stuart Daniels was the Rabbi and although he didn’t care for it, Chen Lue had become Louie Louie. Lue in fact hated it, when I referred to him in this manner. He thought I was being disrespectful. Of course he was absolutely right, but when anyone was around I always took great pains to call him Dr. Lue.
Although he knew full well that I was exhausted, Louie Louie asked me to attack him with everything I had. Louie Louie said he needed to work on his Aikido techniques. Aikido is a simple but highly effective form of martial arts that provides the practitioners with a fresh non violent approach to self defense. Aikido teaches you to protect yourself by using the attacker’s own force, size, and strength against them. I really didn’t
