The Long Dark Night of Ron Krabaklowski Part One

‘Hey, wise guy. You gonna buy that?’

The voice of the newspaper vendor jerked my head up from my newspaper. I had been standing reading a newspaper for what must have been fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes or a lifetime, it didn’t matter to this newspaper vendor, who was an Indian guy. I don’t think he got into selling newspapers on purpose. From the desperate look in his eyes, I surmised he was a descendent of a family that had got out of that God-forsaken country before the bombs started falling. Or was I getting it mixed up with Cambodia? I don’t know, my history fails me these days, always failing me. Ask me who won the Battle of Hastings, I’d give you a blank stare. I wasn’t always like this, I used to know stuff. I could answer most of the questions on that show where they challenge universities, I forget the name of that too. Remnants, always remnants. The newspaper was pulp in my hands now, because you see I’d been reading in the pouring rain for the last fifteen minutes. It was pulp, I was pulp, my Cambodian-Indian friend pulp, all of us pulp now.

I gave the remains of the newspaper back to the Cambodian-Indian vendor with the curiously placed Brooklyn accent and made my way down the rainy street. The rain had gotten into my pointed brown leather shoes and my feet were wet. As I took the left shoe off to empty some water, I noticed the clerk in the shoe shop had left the label on the bottom. Damnit, I thought to myself. Isn’t there an honest shoe clerk left in this city? A middle-aged woman with several heavy shopping bags was watching me with some concern, because in this rain it was easy to think tears were streaming down my face. I caught her eye and showed her the underside of my shoe. She gave me a knowing smile and moved on. That smallest of gestures made me feel better, there was someone in this world who shared my pain, or at the very least my bad experience with brown pointed leather shoes. I wrestled the shoe back on to my foot and continued walking down the street.

I had lived in this city for a week and I was already tiring of the rain. Underneath the towering skyscrapers and down the back alleys, the rain was apocalyptic, like the Flood itself. I wondered then if Noah’s shoes had ever gotten wet. Time to gather up two of every animal, I smiled grimly to myself. When I had first moved into my apartment a week ago, I swore I’d kill the mook who told me it was a good idea to move to this city, if I could only remember. Later that afternoon, I remembered that mook was my estate agent, Frank. He had called me into his estate agency and told me moving to Empire City was going to be the opportunity of a lifetime.

‘It’s gonna be the opportunity of a lifetime, Ron,’ he said confidently as he smoked on a cigar which he had a strangely abundant supply of. It struck me how I’d never seen him light one or put one out, nor did the no-smoking ban in his own office seem to bother him. ‘Property in Empire City is hot property right now. I got you this nice little place on 144^th Street. Wisdom has it that 144^th Street is THE street to live on.’

‘How’s that?’ I asked.

‘Well isn’t it obvious?’ said Frank with a knowing smile. ‘The square root of 144 is twelve and Jesus had twelve disciples. That street’s blessed, for God’s sake.’

I nodded and looked at Frank with wonderment – his ability to fuse maths and religion was one of the things I loved about him. That, and his skills as an estate agent. There was so much I wanted to ask him about the city, but he had one o’clock a meeting with a young couple about moving them into a converted football stadium, so he had to usher me out.

Evie

Before I go on, maybe I should tell you a little about myself. I come from a long line of Krabaklowskis. My dad was in the chocolate business, by that I mean he managed a chocolate factory. Not in that gentle, Willy Wonka kinda way. No, chocolateering for him was a grim business. Took it out of him. And when the stock market crashed well, I guess you could say his dream literally melted before his eyes. My mom couldn't handle it when dad started coming home from work drunk. See, she used to make him these delicious fudge brownies, reeal nice ones. But after the business went down the toilet, he could never look at them again. And she couldn't look at him again. She packed up and left and took her brownie recipe and my dad's heart with her. She's got a cooking website now, the brownie recipe's in there somewhere. I dunno about my dad's heart, mind you. After that my dad never ate chocolate again. If I wanted a KitKat, I had to go eat it in the backyard. It's a habit I've never quite broken, and my first night in this god-forsaken city, there I was, delicately removing the crisp foil from the smooth chocolate bar, undressing the confectionary. I can still hear my dad's voice in my head, "what are you doin' Ron?" "Chocolate'll be the death of you son". It was the death of him alright. Just before my eighteenth birthday, he was hit by a Herschey's truck. They never caught the truck driver, never got his licence and registration, you understand.

All the apartments in my block of apartments had balconies, and they were perfect for when you wanted to gaze out over the city. There I was, finishing my Kitkat, when I saw a girl on the balcony for the apartment next to my apartment. She had curly blonde hair, like a lion's mane. A real sexy lion, if you catch me. She was wearing this blue fleece to protect her from the cold, she was drinking Horlick's from a Fireman Sam mug, and her lonely eyes were gazing down at a Nintendo DS. Brain training, I thought to myself, go figure. Well she'd trained my brain, like seriously. Her eyes looked up from her puzzle, and caught mine. I had Kitkat crumbs round my mouth. Damn, I thought to myself.
"Those things will kill you," she said to me.
I was frozen. She was talking to me. Why, why was she talking to me.
"The foil pack makes the chocolate fresher," I replied. I took out a cigarette, lit it and, while I exhaled, wiped the crumbs from the side of my mouth.
"Those things-"
"Will kill me?" I cut her off. "Too late for that Miss-"
"Bradshaw, Evie Bradshaw."
So I had her name. Good place to start. Now I knew what to call her.
"I'm Ron Krabaklowski"
"Have you just moved in, Ron?"
She was observant, as a private detective, I've always liked observant.
"Yeah, how'd you guess?" I exhaled suspiciously.
"I met your removal man in the elevator," she replied, coolly.
Damn she was good. I put out my cigarette. I'd only had two drags. Two was always enough.
"Yeah, you got me," I said. "Moved in yesterday."
"How do you like the city?" she said.
"It rains a lot," I replied. I lit another cigarette. "I see you like games," I ventured.
"Do you have a Nintendo?" she asked, her blue eyes brightening.
"Had one. It broke."
She her expression softened. Had I made a connection?
"What do you do?" she asked
"Now? I've gotten into solitaire, sometimes backgammon."
"No," she laughed. "What's your job?"
"I'm a private detective. I detect anything, everything, nothing."
She tiltedher head to one side. "And what do you detect about me?" she smiled.
"You like your games." I said, exhaling again. I put out the cigarette.
She laughed. Somehow it cut through me, like when a really sharp knife cuts through you.
"Well, I'm off out. I'm meeting a gentleman friend, at the club in town? Mancock's, do you know it?
I said I'd heard of it. I was bluffing, I hadn't.
"If you'd like to get to know the city more, I'll happily show you around. My friend owns the club."
"And who might he be?"
"James Mancock"
She was connected. I didn't know much, but what I did know was that Mancock owned half this god-forsaken city. And he owned her. And probably her apartment, hell, he'd probably bought her the DS.
She swallowed her last mouthful of Horlicks and got up. "Well, it was nice to meet you," she said, breezily. She went inside. I was left with my cigarettes in one hand and my dignity in the other.
The girl was sweet, real sweet, like the best kind of chocolate. But right then, even my dad couldn't have guessed that she was about to get stuck in my teeth real bad.