Brighton Beach Mysteries

It’s 3 a.m., and Bronson and I have just dropped off a patient at Kings County Hospital, otherwise known as “The House of Horrors.” I’m washing my hands in an old, filthy sink when a super-handsome young cop in uniform comes in and asks the Emergency Room doctor to fish a wad of balled-up napkin from deep inside his ear.I know what it is: a makeshift earplug used for departmentally unauthorized ad hoc early morning target practice along the Belt Parkway. I smile at the cop as the clueless doctor holds out his forceps and says, “Now, how did this happen?”The cop laughs. “Doc, you don’t wanna know.”Back in the ambulance, I take out my police procedural novel and turn on the overhead light. I tell Bronson that my husband, a retired police captain with an obviously Jewish last name, wants to write a history of Jewish members of the NYPD. The title, I say, is “Jews in Blues.”Bronson says no one would ever publish a book with that title.I sigh. “People have no sense of humor any more.”We drive along Avenue U near Sheepshead Bay, a run-down and ugly stretch of stores that are a mix of American and ethnic businesses, mostly Russian and Chinese. All the shops are closed and gated — carpet stores, pharmacies, men’s clothing stores — but I know they wouldn’t look much better by day.“This is what Williamsburg and the East Village looked like before they became cleaned-up advertisements for themselves,” I say. “Postmodern,” Bronson says. “When you advertise what you once were because you’re no longer that.” He glares at me. “You should read Don DeLillo instead of that police junk.”“I know what postmodern is,” I say and gaze out the window, trying to see what it is about this kind of neighborhood that could ever become an advertisement for itself.In an opposite twist from the shops along Seventh Avenue in Park Slope, Avenue U has everything you need, and nothing you want. We pass a storefront sign from the 1950s written in faux kung-fu lettering: Richard Yee’s Cocktail Lounge and Chinese Restaurant, complete with giant, tilted martini glass with an olive jumping out. Unfortunately out of business, the boarded-up windows have the look of a club, slightly risqué, with dancing girls and exotic food.Other neighborhoods cash in on looking retro; Avenue U actually still is. It’s depressing. “In case anybody forgets why neighborhoods get gentrified,” I say, “here’s the evidence.”We pass another unit we know amid the deserted streets. They drive slowly under the streetlamps, unroll the window, and give us the finger. That’s when the radio squawks for us to back up medics on an “unconscious.”We fly, using only lights, no sirens, as the roads are desolate. We get to a one-family house in Brighton Beach and are let in by a Russian family who tell us, in broken English, that there’s a man upstairs they can’t wake up.“Family member?” we ask. It’s unclear from their hodgepodge English exactly who exactly the guy is.“You guys are a few ballots short of a unanimous vote,” Bronson says. They don’t understand.We go upstairs to see what we’ve got. The man is lying in a bed, not moving.“Sir?” I say, and tap his forehead. Pinch his eyebrow. I check for breathing. None. And no carotid pulse. I move his arm. It’s stiff. I call off the medics.“He’s been dead for hours,” I tell the Russians.They blink, confused.“Don’t get too upset, now,” Bronson says.Upon physical examination, we find a small bullet hole to his head, hidden in his hair, with scant bleeding.“Did you hear any noise?” I ask. No answer from the Russians. They say the man came in at midnight, went upstairs, and closed the door.“They killed him,” Bronson whispers. “It’s easier to call 911 and have the body removed than to dump him along the Belt themselves.”We call the Police Department. They search for a gun, for signs of forced entry from the window. Nothing.“It’s like an Agatha Christie novel,” I say.The cops dismiss us. “You can go now” they say.“It’s a mystery,” I tell Bronson, as we drive to an all-night deli and I get us cold drinks and a bag of pretzels to share. As I walk back to the bus, I see Bronson’s secretly reading my police procedural.He sees me approach and hastily places the novel back exactly where it was. But the evidence is clear, and when I get inside, I accuse him outright: “You stole fizzy lifting drinks!” quoting “Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory,” one of his favorite movies.Another night of fun with my partner, my friend for life, my annoying surrogate brother, is about to continue.This is Ms. Klopsis’s last column in these pages. Interested readers can find more of her writing online, as well as her novel “Predicaments,” at Amazon.com.

Brighton Beach Mysteries

Brighton Beach Mysteries

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