Sudetenland Tales by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview

Sudetenland Tales

Page 365

The Hiensch - Buschell Detective Agency

The Detectives in the Rye

In the heart of the Bronx, Sudetenland, where the streets hum with restless lethargy, a branch of the Hiensch – Buschell Detective Agency A/K/A for undisclosed reasons too obvious to bother mentioning as the Rye Detective Agency of Rye, Westchester, NY operated out of a cramped office above a shuttered bakery for their latest job. The agency, run by former NYPD chief investigator Big John Hiensch and his sharp eyed junior partner, Steve Buschell had built a reputation for taking on cases that others wouldn’t touch. Their latest assignment? Uncovering a web of welfare fraud that was siphoning resources from the people who need them most.

Their client, Max Weintraub, a city official seemingly desperate to clean up the system, handed them a list of suspicious claims. But as Big John and Steve dug deeper, they realized the fraud wasn’t just a matter of false paperwork. It was tied to a network of underground brokers, corrupt officials including their employer Weintraub, and desperate families caught in a cycle of survival.

The Bronx in this tale of corruption was a place of contrasts; where old tenements lean against sleek, new, federally funded