Читать книгу Klick's Shorts - Milam Smith - Страница 19

Over by the weights were four lacquered chests. In Chinese script, gold inlay of course, were the names Chan, Shinn, Klick, and Guests from right to left on the four boxes, Chan’s being the first on the right. Chan had claimed the right-to-left order was a compromise. A show of respect to his roots - although the Chan’s had been in America four-or-five generations already - that allowed him to get out of showing favoritism to his friends, Shinn and me. Although Shinn was listed in second from the right, I was second from the left, in a conventional English order.

I didn’t believe that crap either. Chan had said it to soothe my hurt feelings. Like I cared. To Chan we were all like brothers, and like blood family there was no order in the ones you helped out. Chan would back me up as much and as quick as he would Shinn.

At least, that’s what I told myself.

I opened the chest with my name on it and stripped down to my underwear, tried to ignore the catty whistles of the ladies in the hot tub. I glanced over at the stranger and decided to put on kickboxing shorts, too. Black, of course, with my name spelled out in Thai in golden thread. I slipped on a black tank-top. Then black feet-and-shin pads. Last was a pair of black kickboxing gloves, with fingers instead of the hand padding of a boxing glove. Sort of like the ones Bruce Lee wore in the opening sequence of ENTER THE DRAGON.

I went over to the bag and lightly punched and kicked it. Going a little faster and a little harder as my body warmed up. A sheen of sweat built on my brow. I finished with a few simple round kicks, then trotted over to the windows and stretched.

The stranger watched me with what can only be described as anticipation. The kind of glint you see in the eyes of a cat watching a mouse scurrying across the floor for a stray bit of cheese.

As I approached him the man held out his hand. We shook.

“I am ‘Cha Yu’,” he said. His voice was thick with accent, and he spoke slowly, his mouth moving in exaggeration with each word.

“‘Free Way’?” I asked.

“Nay nay,” he said, Korean for ‘Yes yes’. Then he went off on a spiel of Korean, excited that he could speak in his native tongue.

I waited politely. When he was through, I said, “Sorry, I only know a few words of Korean.”

“No, I am sorry for assuming wrongly. Presumptuous of me.”

Damn. Pretty good vocabulary, even though he spoke as slowly as a first grader in spelling class.

“I am Clyde,” I said.

“So I’ve heard,” he said smiling.

He went into a fighting stance and then I heard one of the girls shout, “Si Jak.”

Cha Yu feinted a left, then spun and caught me flush with a spinning back round-kick. There was a crack and I fell like a sweaty dumbbell.

‘Si Jak’ means, in Korean of course, ‘begin.’