Prologue

The big case begins. Say hello to K.R Manns.

The rain fell heavy that night. I remember it like it was yesterday. Even if it was fifteen years ago. I smoked my lone cigarette in a back alley of O´Flannery´s bar, an unkind joint with all kinds of nasty characters. My brother and I, both cops by family tradition had worked a case involving some smuggled diamonds from Africa, and we´d been deuped by the dealers for weeks now. My brother and I had a discussion, one of those that gets the wrong people´s attention for all the wrong reasons. We threw some insults here and there, and in between angry gestures and too much whiskey, we ended up throwing down, shouting all sorts of nonsense. That´s the night my stupid, idiotic and selfish self did it. In a drunken frenzy, I picked up a bottle lying on the bar and smashed my brother in the head with it. He fell back like a ragdoll, thrown by a bored kid. 

Part of me, even in my intoxicated state noticed the horrendous thing I had done. His head hit the hard steel of a stool, and he lay there, unconscious by the hard hit he had taken. By his own brother. I had become Cain. My brother turned vegetable after that instant. But I didn´t know it then. In that drunken moment. Most cops would be thrilled by having their own flesh and blood watching their backs on those filthy streets, and I had just nailed my brethren in the head with a bottle, leaving him for dead. I called a couple of the boys on duty that night, ones I knew I could trust to help me. Help me until I had an aliby.

 Me and my brother had placed some of the most dangerous thugs out there behind bars, and in a city so corrupt, nobody would offer me safe haven if I were to end up going to the pen. The Tomasimmos, my old enemies and one of the most powerful crime family´s in the city, would have me whacked in a matter of hours. I couldn´t go to the joint. And it did'nt help that every two bit street criminal around the block seemed to be having a convention at that bar, that night, and they had been witnesses to the little incident. Back then I was stupid. My head was nowhere. Taken by the booze. Thats when I headed to the back alley of that bar. That´s when I started getting soaked by the pouring rain. 

The moment I knew I had changed my life forever, and for the worse. One moment I was on the top of the world, and now, I was the cop who killed his brother, another cop. ´Course the media were gonna spin this, pin me down as the homicidal envious brother, and the law enforcement of this town would head towards the same storm drain the rest of the corrupt institutions were. It wasn´t just me I had royally screwed over. It was my friends. And what would my mother say. And then there was that feeling. The guilt you get once you realize you can´t trick yourself into blaming someone or something else, for what you did. And that feeling burned worse than the cigarette´s vulnerable tip in the soaking rain.

 I put on my hat. Adjusted my tie. A dark silk tie, yeah I remember like it was yesterday. I smoked my cigarette in that putrid alley, just a poor lost soul, just like the rest of the vermin out and about that night. Only I was worse. And that´s when I had heard them. Coming for me. I heard the roar of thunder and my heart seemed to skip a beat. The police sirens. Only this time they weren´t police sirens. They were ambulances, and they had come to take the body of my brother. To me, from what I had seen, he  died. I remember I looked into his blue eyes, which had an uncanny resemblance to my own, and I remembered seeing him dead. Not vegetable, not with a shimmer of life, but just dead. I couldn´t bear to walk back in. I just soaked. Maybe I thought I would´ve died of pneumonia outside before I faced the music, who knows. 

All I know is that nothing was the same after that little incident. What happened wasn´t pretty and I ain´t happy about it. But everytime I think of you I can´t bear the thought of you loving me. You can´t love a loser like me, no way no how lady. I´m damaged goods, fixing the problems of other broken b******s now. My little brother is still in that hospital, still rotting away on a plastic tube. Nobody loves me anymore and you shouldn´t either. But nothin´ will stop me from thinking of you these cold, solitary nights. Cause it does get lonely. Especially with all this pent up guilt. The booze and the w****s only keep me from falling apart. But like anything frail and destroyed at its core, it won´t be long before I burst into a million pieces, and I don´t want your sweet little face to worry about cleaning them up.

 This letter´s the last you´ll hear of me Abby. Take care of the kid. Even though he ain´t mine, I feel like he is. That´s how much I know you. That´s how much I love you. I´m sure that by the end of this case, I´ll be dead. Pretty sure. But if I´m not, I wanna see ya one last time. You know where to find me. The place where people like me spend their days, watching the great city of New Harmony drown in its own filth. Yours in heart and in spirit,

Kenneth Ray Manns

The blue eyed man exhaled cigarette smoke as he finished typing his letter. He owned a classic typewriter, which used to belong to his father. He looked through the window of his small workplace, seeing hard rain fall on the concrete below. The concrete jungle. This is where he dedicated himself to cleaning the dirt the dirtiest city in America had to offer. For a price. And this was the letter he wrote to the woman he loved, before embarking on what would be the most dangerous case of his career. The rain was familiar. He remembered his brother. God Matty, I´m sorry. He heard thunder outside, as the rain intensified. It was now two in the morning. Time for scotch, he thought.

Author's Note

Tell me what you think!does it make you want to read more?

Reviews

[Kelsy]

Great way to get readers long to read more.Interesting and nice prologue.Get on!