that Louie Louie just wanted to torture me while I was in this weakened condition. My body was pleading with me to call it a day, but my mind was bound and determined not to give in.
I tried front kicks, side kicks, jabs everything I had, all to no avail. Louie Louie masterfully avoided my assaults, I rarely ever touched him.
After about ten minutes, my body continued to scream out in pain, I was just about ready to quit.
Then the phone rang and Louie Louie’s attention was diverted. It was payback time for the Chinatown Affair, I seized the moment, and threw a vicious side kick into Louie Louie’s left kidney. The little yellow man went reeling to his right and finally crumbled onto the red mats. The scene reminded me of Tuxedo with the raccoon earlier in the day. Louie Louie bounced up and bowed, and then muttered, “That would be all for today.” I returned the bow and headed for the locker room. Before I entered the locker room, I stole a quick glance over my left shoulder, and caught sight of Louie Louie hobbling back into his office.
He was bent over in obvious pain. I know it sounds perverse but to be honest, I rather enjoyed the sight.
CHAPTER FIVE
I showered and changed in about twenty minutes, as I put my wristwatch back on, I noticed that it was only 10:10 a.m. I still had plenty of time on my hands before my meeting with Pam. I exited the locker room and said good bye to Louie Louie. I couldn’t resist telling him, how much I enjoyed the session. He was still a little unsteady on his feet but had the presence of mind to conceal his true feelings.
He gave me a public relations smile and a nod as I made my way through the door.
With well over an hour before my meeting, I debated on how to spend the time. I could look for a gin mill and get a quick bourbon or two or I could take a ride around Red Bank. It was a little early for a drink so I decided to do a little sightseeing. The old town of Red Bank and I were close friends. We’d known each other for close to fifty years, but old friends can undergo dramatic changes over that length of time.
After I pulled out of Louie Louie’s parking lot I drove over to Monmouth Street and then past the Carlton Theater. The Carlton Theater was the local movie house when I was growing up and it stored a lot of precious memories from my youth. As I recall, back in those days the price of admission was twenty five cents, if you were twelve years old or younger. My mind wandered back to when I was a seven year old kid. These were my earliest and most fond memories of the Carlton. I had a vivid recollection of the thrill of the big screen while attending the matinees with my mother. Later as a teenager, I went with my friends, sitting up in the balcony, occasionally throwing over a piece of Good and Plenty candy on some poor unsuspecting moviegoer. The ushers, with their flash lights in hand were rarely a match for us, in those days. The old movie house didn’t show pictures anymore, hell they didn’t even call it the Carlton Theater anymore. The name was changed well over twenty years ago to the Count Basie Theater, to honor the local bandleader from days long since passed. Concerts and plays had replaced the movies, but somehow that didn’t really matter. I was confident in my own mind that I’d always think of the old movie house as the Carlton Theater.
I was pulling up to the intersection of Monmouth Street and Broad and it was difficult to recognize from the days of my youth. Over on the eastside of Broad, there used to be a Newberry’s Five and Dime Store, but not anymore. The Five and Dime store had long since, been replaced by a MacDonalds. The other two Five and Dime stores, one to the left and one to the right had also become extinct, written into the history pages of time. On the southwest corner of the intersection, where Ligget’s Pharmacy proudly stood, there was now the site of an inside mall. Just down the road to the right was where I had my first elevator ride at Steinbach’s department store. Sadly Steinbach’s, had also become a casualty of progress in the 1990’s. As a youngster growing up in this area, I thought of this part of town as the Mecca of my universe and now I could barely recognize it. I wondered if the children of today, thought of the MacDonalds and the mall, in the same way as I did of their predecessors. Somehow, I rather doubted it.
The Red Bank that I had first known had long since been lost to the pages of history. The whole make up and feel of the town was completely different from back in the days of my youth. The town served a different purpose back then. Years ago Red Bank, was essential to the residents of Monmouth County. It was the area’s main shopping spot, a place where you went to buy your school clothes, your Christmas gifts, any number of essential sundry items. But that all changed in the late 1950’s, when a Newark realtor named Irving Feist built a 600,000 square foot outdoor mall in a town not six miles from Red Bank. Now, instead of going to Red Bank, everyone went to the new mall. The town suffered horribly for many years. Local businessmen were forced to close down under the weight of the stiff competition from the Eatontown Mall. In the 1970’s and 1980’s Red Bank continued to suffer, it was actually quite painful to watch. During those years Red Bank had ceased to be a happy place for me and a lot of other people who had grown up with her.
But I guess what they say, about everything old becoming new again is true. Red Bank, in recent years had risen from the ashes like the Phoenix. The amazing revival of the old town, was engineered by the mayor, Ed McKenna, and his head of Community Affairs, Lynda Rose. Both Lynda and Ed were casual acquaintances of mine, who had also been raised in the local area, just like I was. The only difference between them and me, was that they had done something to save the old town. They were smart enough to realize that the town of our youth was gone and there was no way she was coming back. The new bustling town that they built, replaced the local clothing stores with cafes, restaurants, antique and specialty shops. At last count there was over a hundred restaurants in town and Red Bank could now boast that over one million tourists came to town each year. The old Red Bank that I knew had successfully reinvented itself and I was glad for her.
As I continued my drive around the old town, I went past the old high school, down side streets that I hadn’t been on in years and eventually to Marine Park. It was a bittersweet ride, but then remembering the past is always a little of each.
I now had the eerie sensation that the ghosts of the old town were trying to talk to me, since it was about 11:15 a.m., I thought it wise to make my appointment with Pamela, before I started answering them.
CHAPTER SIX
I exited Marine Park and made a left hand turn on East Front Street. The drive over to Pamela’s office was less than two miles from the Park and the traffic was unusually light. I pulled into her parking lot with five minutes to spare. I was anxious to find out about the mysterious eccentric client and why Pamela was so flustered and secretive earlier on the phone. Pamela, for her part, had always been confident and straightforward in the past about clients we shared. I was sure that Pamela would explain everything, in due time, but I can’t say I ever enjoyed these little intrigues.
As I got out of the car and walked up the back steps, I thought back to my first meeting with her, two years earlier. At the time I was involved with a company that was being sold to a rather large multi-national conglomerate. My client needed an attorney to protect his interests, and he knew of Pamela from a previous real estate transaction. He asked me to interview her and review her qualifications. I was reluctant at first, since I didn’t know much about her, but after my first meeting, I came away thoroughly impressed. I liked her style. She was in her late thirties when we first met, and had only been a practicing attorney for two years. I asked her why she started her practice so late and she was very candid about her previous career. Pamela didn’t start law school until her early thirties, which explained her late entry into the legal profession. Pamela’s careers and background before entering Law School were actually quite interesting. She was a liberal arts major when she graduated from Julliard, with an emphasis in modern dance. Upon graduation Pamela was a Broadway dancer in several long running shows. In her late
