Ch.7
We called the cops. We pretty much had to. The guy had tried to shoot me, twice, and both ex-Pretty Boy and Locker Puncher were definitely going to need a trip to the emergency room.
Luckily, Saturday morning in Hillsboro, Oregon wasn’t exactly a busy time for the local sheriff’s department. Also, at least half a dozen of the local sheriff’s deputies trained at NW Kajukenbo, so we got even quicker service.
Luckily, there were cameras covering the front door and back door so verifying that the four mooks had essentially ambushed Jojo as he unlocked that morning was easy, as well as the fact that I had shown up almost 10 minutes later.
I was also confident I hadn’t touched the pistol, so I was pretty certain I was in the clear there, too.
Once the cops had left and dragged off the four thugs in cuffs, Kai pulled Jojo and I into his office. “Who wants to tell me what in the name of Sam Hill happened out there?” Kai asked us both.
Sensei Kai’s a big man. Like his whole family, he’s a native Hawaiian Islander, swarthy skinned, dark curly hair, and brilliant green eyes. I’m about an inch taller than him at 6’3”, but he’s got a hundred pounds on me... and even pushing 70, it’s nearly all muscle. He’s got a gut, sure, but it's one like a powerlifter has, or an old school pro wrestler. There’s nothing soft about Kai Hale. His regularly buzzcut hair is still mostly black, somehow, too – with just enough silver in it that it seems impossible that he dyes it.
He’s got lots of tattoos and scars; some of them from his time in the service, and a lot of them not. The one across his nose and down his left cheek is the most prominent one, but he has 2 from bullets that he survived in Vietnam and he’s got the medals to prove it.
Jojo looked reticent. I think we all knew he’d gotten himself into deep shit somehow.
Kai stared at his grandson, and Jojo stared at the top of his desk, refusing to meet his eyes. Kai looked at me. “You wanna go first, then, Ray?”
I shrugged, then nodded. “Uh, sure sensei. So, I came in to hit the heavy bag a bit early this morning. Work this week was Hell, I had to put in a 30-hours shift, with no breaks, really, either, to get a customer back up and running earlier this week. Made me a ton of money, but it also made me really want to hit something!” Kai chuckled at that; he'd known me since I was a brash, snarky kid, angry at the whole world that my parents had been killed in a car accident and at how much the foster care system sucked.
Back then, punching people didn’t exactly make me feel better, but it kind of did? It at least made me feel alive and in control, to some degree, and it let me make someone else feel almost as miserable as I did.
I’m not very proud of that time in my life, but I am thankful to Sensei Kai for dragging me, kicking and screaming, away from being that little asshole anymore.
He’d been the one that taught me to focus my anger, to control it, and deal with it instead of taking it out on someone or something that didn’t deserve it. I’d spent a lot of time as a teenager in his dojo punching and kicking a heavy bag, taking out some very real rage and frustration over the crap sandwich life had served me.
The dojo and training there had pretty much kept me sane during my teen years. I was confident that without it, I’d likely be in prison or dead, now.
Saying that I was really angry and didn’t much care who I hurt back then was a major understatement.
Kai had been an authority figure and mentor to me in a time when I’d desperately needed one. To say he’d saved my life was probably not a stretch, with all of the bad decisions I’d been making.
Me going to bat for his grandkid? There was never a question I was gonna do it. I’d do it again, too, I suddenly realized. In a heartbeat.
It felt damned good to be paying back a little of what I felt I owed Kai. No. It was more like what I KNEW I owed him. Hell. I’d never be able to really pay him back, but I would sure as Hell keep trying!
“Anyway, as I was walking back to the locker room to get changed, I heard a loud noise and someone screaming about their boss being pissed at Jojo for not delivering something he said he could deliver. Jojo answered something about figuring you’d take a decent offer and run with it, but you hadn’t and there wasn’t anything he could do about it. A moment later there was another really loud bang, and I ran in to see what the Hell was going on.”
Jojo looked even more bitter after I was finished telling my side of the story. “Yeah, fucking Ray Ramirez, superhero! Kicked three guy’s asses, took out a guy shooting at him with a 9mm with fucking karate! What a great guy!” Sarcasm was practically dripping off of each word that came from his mouth.
Kai just raised an eyebrow. “Really?” he asked, looking at me, then grinning when I nodded. “Hah! Nice, kid!” He then looked at Jojo. “You, on the other hand, Joseph Johnson Hale...” he trailed off, just looking disappointed.
I sighed internally at him calling me a kid. I was 26 years old, dammit!
“Give me the play by play.” Kai continued.
I went through it all for him, and the entire time Jojo just glowered more and more. When I was done, Kai nodded. “Good job! Ray, sounds like you truly embodied the spirit of Hale family Kajukenbo as you confronted those men!” He switched to look at his grandson. “Whereas you did not. You’ve known Ray since you were barely out of diapers – he used to babysit for you and your cousins! Not only did he put himself in life threatening danger to help you, but you stood by and watched! Explain yourself!”
The old man was PISSED at his grandson. Failure was forgivable to him. Not even trying, though?
Jojo was in for a rough couple of weeks; and that was if he was lucky!
Jojo’s face was flushed red with embarrassment. I’d known him for most of his life, and had never known him to be a coward, but there’s a big difference between dealing with someone trying to punch you and dealing with someone who pulls a gun on you.
It had only seemed so easy for me because I never had a chance to even think about it, I just reacted. Sure, it looks awesome in retrospect, but I’m pretty sure if I’d had a a few seconds to think about it, I might have frozen just like Jojo did!
“Neither of you even have a CLUE who those guys are! Ray, you’re sitting here looking all self-satisfied right now, but those guys are gonna be back! They’re Russian mafia, you moron!” Jojo screamed it out, shame and embarrassment and anger all obvious on his face.
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
It was obvious to me that he knew that he’d fucked up when he got involved with those guys.
Kai whistled even while I sat back in shock. “Do you know that for a fact, or did they just tell you that?” Kai asked.
“That’s... well, that’s what everyone says! They’re supposed to own a chunk of most of the businesses and property for a few blocks in all directions already and are planning on building a fucking mall or housing development or some such bullshit! They wanted me to convince you to sell! They said they’d pay me five grand if I could! You’ve always talked about how the dojo was a giant money pit, I figured you’d jump at an offer for twice what it's worth!” Jojo sounded like he was close to tears.
“Then you wouldn’t fucking sell. They’ve been hounding me about it for weeks! I’d been putting them off for a while, now, but last night I got a drunk text from the leader, Dimitri. They all call him Dimi; he was the guy with the gun. These guys don’t mess around, Ray!” Jojo’s face was flushed bright red, and he was breathing hard.
The kid was pretty obviously freaking out, and it was hard to blame him, really.
Because I might have been freaking out a little bit, too, now! I’d been a little scrapper growing up, I was always getting in fights back then. That doubled after my mom and dad died. Getting into fights as a kid and a teenager does NOT mean that dealing with the Mafia was not something I was prepared to handle, however!
I had to take a second for a few deep breaths. Thinking about what happened to my parents still made me see red, even 14 years later. They’d been hit by a delivery driver, working mandatory double overtime, who fell asleep at the wheel.
He’d walked away, almost completely uninjured... and my parents had both died on impact!
I never even got an apology from the company he worked for. I looked into suing, but no one would touch the case. So, I’d been forced to just accept it, and then to deal with getting tossed into the foster care system. Neither of my parents had siblings, and my grandparents on both sides had passed away by the time they died. My nearest relatives were distant cousins, related to me by my great grandparents, none of which were willing or able to take me in.
It had been a tough pill to swallow for a thirteen-year-old. I’d dealt with my anger by punching anyone who even looked at me funny in the nose. I didn’t even care if I won – half the point was me getting beaten up, too!
Because then, I at least knew WHERE the pain was coming from.
That was how I’d met Sensei Kai. I’d gotten into a fight with one of his students, and he’d been there to see it. He’d broken us up, talked to me, and dragged me down to the dojo to start teaching me what being a decent person was all about.
Gave me the full Mr. Miyagi treatment, too. I’m not the only angry kid he’d done it for over the years, either. Not even close.
No church would ever make Kai Hale a saint, but as far as I was concerned, he deserved it more than a lot of people who DID get the title.
I can just see it now. St. Kai, the Patron Saint of Angry Teens, Redeemed Bullies, Retired Marines, and Hawaiian Barbecues!
NW Kajukenbo had been a part of this neighborhood since the 1980s, when Kai had moved here with his family after retiring from active duty in the Marines. Back then, Hillsboro was a tiny, rural area – surrounded on all sides by farmland.
Since then, Portland had expanded to the point that Hillsboro was basically just a suburb, now. Then all the Big Tech companies had moved in about 12 years ago; since then, Hillsboro had exploded in size!
The dojo was on the northwest side of Hillsboro, just barely still inside of the city limits at the time. But since the Tech boom in the area, people have been buying property, building houses and businesses, and the area is expanding. It's not going to stop expanding any time soon, either.
Which makes it obvious was those thugs wanted – NW Kajukenbo takes up nearly half a city block, and Kai’s family owns all of the property for nearly two blocks in every direction... they’d bought it for a song in the early 80’s, when most of this was farmland or scrub forest just starting to be developed.
Anyway, with the new influx of people to the area, NW Kajukenbo had gotten a fresh paint job, and a bunch of new students. Kajukenbo is a version of karate that borrows heavily from Judo, Kenpo, and a Chinese style called Bo, a type of kung fu and the name borrows the first syllable from all of them. Yeah, the guy who named Kajukenbo wasn’t terribly original, but still, it makes sense, right?
Kai has always been as much about turning kids into responsible, decent human beings as he was about teaching them to defend themselves.
He’d mostly succeeded at that with me, I thought.
Still, a street brawl where someone pulls a gun was a pretty crazy scenario, but pissing off the local Russian mob?
That shit was next level.
I still didn’t regret what I’d done. I’d decided years ago that I refused to live my life like a coward and that I’d always try to do what I thought was right!
I looked at Kai. If anyone knew what to do here, it would be him. “Sensei, I’ll admit, I’ve got no clue what to do here – this is way outta my ballpark. You know anyone that works for the government? Someone who can help or that might know more about what’s going on?” I asked him, more than halfway joking.
We needed to know more about all of this. If these guys were just bozos with an unscrupulous land development scheme, that was one thing and was definitely gonna be a pain but probably not all that bad in the bigger picture.
But if they really were Russian mobsters, or any kind of organized crime, really, that was a whole other story.
Kai Hale sat back in his chair and sighed, massaging his temples with his right hand.
“Let me call an old buddy.” Kai told us.
------------------
I took a shower while Kai was making his phone call, mostly to get the blood from Blond Pretty Boy’s face off of me. It had made more of a mess than I’d realized.
There was a washer and dryer, and I’d worn street clothes in, so I threw the stuff in. Hopefully I could get the blood stains out before they set.
I then put on my Gi and did what I’d come there to do in the first place and spent about 30 minutes before class beating the crap out of one of the heavy bags.
It not only felt good, but it felt different. Really different. Maybe a couple weeks off had done my technique some good? I felt like I was in a crazy groove, my punches and kicks felt like they were just harder. Faster. My combos were smoother. Something had changed, in a good way.
I didn’t know exactly what it was, but I was happy about it, whatever it was.
Class started at 9 am, and I participated happily. I’m a third-degree black belt in Kajukenbo. That’s certified Instructor level, able to start my own school if I really wanted to. Kai let me lead the class through warmups and drills before taking back over. It was something I’d done dozens, maybe hundreds of times, at least. He’d been pushing me to go for my next rank for a couple of years, but I’d just never had the time between college and then starting my own business.
Class breezed by and Kai pulled me back into his office afterwards.
“You looked good out there, Ray. Really good – the best I’ve ever seen you.” my Sensei told me, pride in his voice.
“Thanks Sensei. Coming from you, that means a lot! But, yeah, I noticed a difference, too. Not sure what changed, though?” I shrugged it off.
Kai chuckled. “Maybe beating those guys let you level up, eh?” he told me with a wink. The old man had gotten into video games way back when they’d first gotten popular in the late 80s and early 90s... mostly because of his kids.
He’d even played Realms of Battlecraft, the big MMO from IceStorm Computer Games, for over a decade. Since his kids had started giving him grandkids, he’d gotten into it even more; only partially as a way to spend more time with them online.
He’d was an officer in a guild that had been around for almost a decade and a half!
Of course, he knew I was an avid gamer – Hell, we’d been on the same Raid team the first time both of us had killed the Wraith King in Realms of Battlecraft, the final boss of the Fury of the Wraith King expansion!
Kai had loved playing Warriors, both tank and dps spec back in Vanilla RoB, but when the Monk class had come out a few years ago, he’d started playing that a bunch, too.
I felt that both classes fit his temperament pretty well. Solving problems by hitting them was definitely felt right up his alley!
I mean, mine, too, but he was my teacher, duh!
“Hah! Maybe I did level up.” I said, snorting and shaking my head, chuckling at the idea. “Were you able to get in touch with your old friend?” It had been 3 and a half hours, after all.
He nodded at me. “Yeah. I’ll be honest, Ray, the news isn’t great. The guy with the gun IS Dimitri Federov, just like Jojo said, which is both good and bad news. The bad news is that the Fedorov's are an organized crime family from Russia. The good news is that Dimi is sort of the ‘idiot cousin’ who has no real standing, but they put up with his shit because he’s related. My old Marine buddy is hopping on the first plane out here – he's tagging along with an organized crime task force, and he has a former partner in charge of a Marshal’s Service field office here in Portland. They’re hoping this can actually give them some insight into what the Fedorov's are up to, so the FBI are coming to try to see if they can take advantage of Dimi’s attempted murder charge.”
Dimi had been trying to extort Jojo and by extension, Kai, which was a felony. Trying to kill someone in the commission of a felony took it from attempted man slaughter to attempted murder. They were probably hoping they could get Dimi to rat out someone else in the family in exchange for them dropping the charges and giving him a new identity on a beach somewhere in a foreign country.
Kai sighed. “That’s the good news. The bad news is that my buddy can’t really do much to help us, other than tell me to call him if something else happens. It's unlikely Dimi was even here under direct orders, so unless he decides to roll on his family, there isn’t much my friend can do.”
I didn’t like the sound of that. “So, what now? We just sit around and wait for these jerks to try something? That might be great for the police and the Feds, but that sucks for me and for your family! It seems like a recipe for something terrible to happen while they get their shit straightened out!”
Kai grinned at me. “How long have you known me for, kid?” he asked. Without waiting for me to answer, he continued. “When have you known me to sit around and wait for the other guy to do something? What do I always say you should do when a fight’s inevitable?”
Ray grinned. “Hit ‘em first, hit ‘em hard! Don’t stop hitting until they drop!”
Kai grinned back at me.
Now we just needed to figure out how to do that without ending up in jail ourselves...