He had forgotten my phone number.

The poor guy was five hours away from his home when his 993 decided to flash its Christmas lights on the dash and slowly cough and choke to a stop. It seems the alternator had decided to pack its bags and leave.

To compound the problem, Chas was driving back from a business trip in Boston and was just about to exit the Lincoln Tunnel into New Jersey when she decided to quit; just like that. Bad spot to be in during NYC rush hour.

Now, it was my birthday that day, the one day a year I ignore daily routines. Emails, work of any kind, sitting in traffic — the things that eat away at a man’s time. Besides, it feels good to play dead to the world, even if for a day.

Diane had taken me out to this casual Greek joint for lunch. We lazily breezed through the afternoon; it was a beautiful day in June without clouds or humidity — quiet, slow-paced and lovely. If you were a condemned man, this was the kind of day you'd wish for as your last.

When we got home, I was letting out our three pit bulls in the yard when I felt intuition tugging at me. I sensed something amiss like a father would if his son was in trouble and decided to check my email on this, of all days. Only one in a sea of text caught my attention. It read, "Chas needs help."

Today was his lucky day.

Chas Roscow, a member of PCA's Founder's Region, Potomac, reached out to me in January of this year paying a compliment on an article I wrote for PCA's E-Brake News about Porsche passion. We exchanged a few emails and then we lost touch.

Don't ask me how, but five months later in mid-May, we reconnected. We wrote back and forth, mostly about Porsche-related gaff like helping his friend Antonio with an '88 911 Targa he was ready to buy near me. Like old pals, we kinda picked up where we left off. We're kindred spirits, Chas and I — he wasn't an energy vampire by any stretch of one's imagination.

I could sense his distress through his email:

Pablo! Need hp/advice

I drove my 993 from Washington DC to New York and I am just driving back home now back to Washington DC — I am just outside of Manhattan and I'm having car problems.

Then he sent out another one with more detail:

Yesterday while driving about 30 mph the car bucked and all the emergency lights came on I pulled over and over the lights came back on problem solved drove car another day and problem started again today — when I shut the car off the car would not turn over I had to get a jump I am just south of Manhattan at a Sunoco station I can drive but I just filled up the gas tank without shutting the car off. Four hours home I can get there without stopping but I don't know if it'll do any damage to the car I could try to make it to your house or a Porsche shop that you recommend I'm willing to stay at a hotel but maybe the Sunoco station can fix it. Need advice. Maybe I should drive to the closest Porsche dealer.

"Why didn’t he just call me?" I thought. Since I saved his phone number on my phone, I called him to cut through the email calamity.

We spoke a bit about the symptoms and asked him where he was.

"I'm at this hotel on the Jersey side and the car's in the parking lot, dead," Chas said. "What are my options at this point?"

"My friend James isn’t too far from you," I told him without a second thought. "He was a master tech for Porsche since the early '80s before venturing out on his own. The guy's an ace, knows Porsches better than Zuffenhausen does. He could haul your car to his garage and get ya goin' quick, I'll give him a shout and out you in contact with him."

It was late Friday afternoon, the nearest Porsche dealer was closing and the chances of them having an alternator or voltage regulator was slim — I knew this because I checked. You see, I called Mike at the parts department of the Porsche dealer I use right after I got off the phone with Chas to see if they had them in stock. They didn't, but it was available and they could get it by Tuesday.

Chas couldn't wait that long; he had to get back home by Monday. James was his only hope.

James showed up at the hotel early Saturday morning, and after a brief chat with Chas, rolled the 993 onto his flatbed and headed back to his shop. James called Chas an hour later and said that not only was the voltage regulator shot, like I suspected, but the alternator armature was badly scored too. Not surprisingly, he had two of them in his shop.

Now before I go on, I suppose I have to let you in on this secret I've been keeping.

James Bielen is an old-school craftsman when it comes to Porsches. He has restored and race-prepped loads of 356s, 911s and 944s; has rebuilt a few of Professor Fuhrmann's legendary Vier-Kammer 356 Carrera engines; has won an award from Porsche after their engineers personally tested a problematic 928 manual gearbox warranty rebuild no one could get right; and was currently working on backdating a client's 911 to a '73 M491 RSR build.

James is a dying breed. You can see why he's coveted by his clientele.

I've known him for close to 10 years. He's like an artist, preferring to work alone. He's too much of a perfectionist with incredible attention to detail to trust anyone else with his exclusive work. Volume isn't his game, and that's why he's word of mouth.

Chas was in good hands, but I gave him a word of warning: James' shop is very unassuming. If you expect a cup of espresso with a lemon twist while enjoying the comforts of a chic lounge, don't. You'll be utterly disappointed.

His industrial "atelier" was a former speakeasy during the prohibition era. No sign outside, no street number — hell, it's not even visible from the street. It's a large block of a building with crumbling concrete exposing the original brick underneath accessed only through a long driveway with a dog leg behind another building.

MapQuest doesn't even know about this location.

A look at the unassuming entrance of the speakeasy.

The only entrance to the place is through tall, brown corrugated metal garage door where you're greeted with interspersed whiffs of the vintage Porsches he's got inside. Maybe if your nose is keen enough, you can catch a hint of the hooch that was once made here.

Any old-school, rough-and-tumble Porsche junkie worth his or her salt would be in heaven here.

Chas' '95 993 was in the company of an '85 race-prepped Carrera awaiting the backdate I mentioned before, a '54 oval-window VW Bug in Strato Silver sitting on the alignment rack in the midst of a ground up restoration, and our '94 968 Cabriolet up on the lift — a full house.

A union of legends: a '54 oval window VW, an '85 Carrera and the author's 968 Cabriolet.

By Sunday afternoon, his shop was missing one car. Chas' 993 was ready to go.

Not only did it have a new alternator, belts and a much-needed pulley upgrade, but James also discovered and fixed a few other issues Chas has been living with — a bonus since he never expected them to be repaired.

He was happy as hell to see his old girl and ready to hightail it home that Monday morning, but not without us meeting each other for the first time at a diner a few steps from the shop for some breakfast.

Over my grapefruit and his cheat-day grand slam smorgasbord and coffee, talk was less Porsche and more personal. He was thankful for saving him, and I was all too happy to share my secret with him that helped get him home to his lovely wife and two young boys. The pleasure was mine.

As we parted ways I told him, "Listen, you know the secret knock, the handshake and the password — be careful to who ya give it to."

Chas laughed as he climbed into his 911, gave me a nod and wink, and off he went.

Ya, mule, ya!