Chapter 1

​I put the book down and said to myself, “Well, that’s interesting… if true. I wonder what Frank would say about this?”

​Frank was Father Frank; a Catholic Priest I’d known for over a decade. He ran the church down on the borders of San Francisco’s Tenderloin, a district not even the cops spent time in. I knew Frank was a real believer and approved by God because I was there when the big man told him so, and I don’t mean the twerp in Rome who wears white. No, I’m talking about the real big man.

​I’m Tony Mandolin, and I’ve been in the city nearly all my life. For me, traveling means the odd trip across the bay. I don’t own a passport, hell, I don’t even own a car. The bus system gets me around town just fine, thank you.

​I run a Private Investigation office, mostly from my house, but I do have an office. It’s in old downtown, another place where the cops tend not to gather. It’s on the ground floor of an old pre-earthquake office building that is probably being held up by cobwebs. Go to the back of the hallway past the loan shark and the dominatrix’s office and I’m right there. The lettering on the glass in the door is a dead give-away.

​That’s Private Investigator in chipped black paint, see? I am not a Private Eye, that I in PI stands for Investigator.

​There are a few cases I tend to pass along to a compatriot or two. Those include the problems where one spouse is suspicious or upset with the other. There’s no winner in those things, regardless of the money. Another type is wet work. I’m an investigator, not an assassin, even though I do admit there are more than a couple of folks who would better the city by no longer being around.

​I started my office because I had a knack for finding things. Maybe it’s a gift or a talent, but I think it’s just stubbornness. You see, I hate losing. So far, my record is one hundred percent, even when what I found did not please the client. I still found it. I also fight dirty. There’s no percentage in fighting fair when your life’s the ticket.

​Around twelve years ago now, I bought a house from the proceeds of a case that sent my entire life… and my career over into the world of the weird. It turned out the bad guy was a vampire and that all of those things folks get into costume for on Halloween? They are freaking real; we humans just don’t pay close enough attention. Those Disney animated movies? They’re more documentary than fiction. Don’t blame me, that’s reality.

​My house faces south and there is a small park where the neighbors can exercise their dogs. I’m one of them. Several years ago, my business partner, Frankie, a reformed cross-dresser with a diva complex who could stand in for the entire Niner’s front four brought home this six-inch high puppy. A German Shepherd he claimed was from a championship line. I don’t know where that line came from, but the only things larger than Greystoke are black bears and Fluffy, a neighbor’s Tibetan Mastiff. They say Fluffy’s food bills aren’t too much as he gets to dine on the occasional burglar.

​My business partner is also my housemate. Besides being really handy in a fight, he can cook better than any TV chef. I have to say, it’s getting more and more difficult to appreciate what was once my favorite cuisine, the crab shacks along the Embarcadero by the bay. It used to be my version of the perfect meal was a freshly boiled Dungeness crab, a loaf of Sourdough, and a beer. Now… not so much.

​The house? Like my downtown office, it predates the 1906 earthquake, but in this case, it was built far enough away from the epicenter so only the crockery got rattled. The bones of the place are solid clear-heart redwood from the basement to the attic, four floors up. It’s an authentic Victorian. Not a mansion, but more than big enough for me and mine, that’s Frankie plus my dog, by the way.

​Since that case with the vampire, I’ve dealt with trolls, ogres, pixies, faeries, demigods, and not-so-demi. Out of the whole thing I’ve come to one main conclusion, bad guys are still bad guys regardless of what they look like.

​Oh, yes, and there’s a wizard involved. Forget what you’ve seen in the movies and the books, this one is not what the writers of storybooks were thinking when they thought of the word. No, this wizard is an on-and-off-again alcoholic with a temper that scares bad tempers. His name is Landau Bain. Nightmares use it when they want to keep their kids in line.

​The book I was reading was a biography, of sorts. It was the account of a Spanish kid who became a Jesuit Priest. I’d picked it up because that particular order had decided to put me on the to-be-killed-for-the-good-of-the-church list. I thought it would give me an edge to gain a bit of background on the folks intent on whacking me. If what I’d read was even halfway true, these fellas made the Yakuza look like pikers. Yeah, I was going to have to see about paying Father Frank a visit.

​The last big case hadn’t brought in much money. In fact, I wound up paying a bit more than the police commission made, but it was worth it. A group of real lowlifes, complete wastes of oxygen had been selling little girls into slavery. I had a part in stopping them. The shockwaves of that case went all the way into the upper offices in Washington DC and I think that’s where the boys in Rome got upset. As I said, if even half of what I read was accurate…

​Pat Monahan finally got his promotion. My best friend in the cop world was now a Chief. Not the Chief, but one of them. I suppose having your boss and most of those involved in deciding on the promotion list become part of a grand jury indictment that led to multiple life sentences tends to push certain things along.

​He got a new office on a floor a couple of stories above his old one. He didn’t get a new attitude, but he wouldn’t be Pat Monahan if he had. Of course, there were a few floors still above his, but I tended to not visit those heights, the air and the personalities were much too thin.

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