Chapter 1

​Sometimes the past is a faint distant glimmer of something you just might remember if you really, really try. Other times it’s a foghorn blasting into your ear while bleaching out your retinas with high-intensity spotlights. This evening, the past chose the more in-your-face method of the two.

​I was sitting on the corner stool in the Pork Store Café when memory decided to tromp all over my frontal lobe in hobnail boots. She looked to be about 93 going on 393 but moved as if she still had a good century or two in her. I recognized her right away because she’d been the very first case I ever closed. I’d just paid the first month’s rent on my office, the one I still have for pretty much sentimental reasons. I had no idea at the time that the old lady sitting in the chair across my desk was a full-blown, wand-waving, and broomstick riding, witch.

That had been nearly twenty years ago. The last time I’d seen her she’d given me a collection of vials, each one filled with a potion that had a pretty impressive effect when broken. That was in her shop down in an alley off Folsom near 7th. Don’t bother looking for it, it isn’t there, and I'm talking the alley, not just the shop. I know, I spent a few weeks going back just to check. Twenty years later, and the old witch looked like it hadn’t been longer than yesterday. She even had on the same clothes.

"Good evening, Mister Mandolin," she said, her voice as unchanged as her look.

"Evening?" I asked. It was only a bit after one in the afternoon. The café only does breakfast and lunch.

"Looks more like afternoon to me," I added.

She looked around at my reply and shook her head, "Yes…" she murmured, "It is, isn't it? I need to reset my clock one of these days… Can't tell if it's day or night lately."

I patted the stool next to me, and asked, "Would you like to sit? I mean, it looks like you want to have a chat with me, and well, you may as well be comfy doing it."

She grunted, "Nice to see success hasn't ruined you, boy." And then she climbed onto the stool.

I raised a finger and ordered her a beer. That's the one thing I clearly remembered; she liked her suds.

I got a muttered, "Thanks, boy," And then one of those long, measuring stares Landau Bain, the city's alcoholic wizard, well… on and off again alcoholic, occasionally gives me.

I had just finished my lunch when she walked up to me. I'd been wracking my brain, but the name was not surfacing.

She straightened slightly from her habitual slouch and said, her voice raspy, "You remember much of that first case, boy?"

I answered as honestly as I could.

The one thing I did remember was this old witch, a description, not an insult, had zero tolerance for even half-truths, "I'm not sure, really. I do remember that alley hasn't been where it was for years and that it's being where I knew an alley wasn't the day before was why I walked down it."

"Good… boy," She murmured, "Good… Being honest is always the best way."

Her eyes narrowed, "What else, child? What else do you remember?"

I thought. So many cases after that one and all of them seemed to be jockeying for position in my head. What did I do when I walked down that alley? Come on, Mandolin, get the gears turning… Maybe it was the irritation at being called boy that was blocking the old synapses. But I also knew that asking her to stop that was slightly more doomed to failure than trying to empty Frisco Bay with a tea strainer.

A memory bubbled up to the surface. That first case, it was the one that put me on the outs with most of the guys and gals in blue. It had introduced me to Detective Rorche and his less than friendly friends. Rorche had been the one who had warned me to stay away, to not put my nose where it didn't belong. Of course, that meant I was then committed to seeing it through, whatever the cost.

The witch cackled softly, nodding, "Ah, the boy sees. Good… good…"

I'd decided to let her comments on me being about a century or more younger than she was slide. I'm Tony Mandolin, a PI in San Francisco, or, as the natives call it, Fog City. I am not a child. I'm right about at that age where the mind still thinks it can do what the body knows it can't. I'm not a child or a boy. But this old woman was not going to hear that.

I said, "I remember you telling me something about a protection racket, and how it was hurting some friends of yours."

Her head nodded like one of those cheap gift shop toys. "Aye, and old Nana remembers you doing what you had to do, at a cost you still bear. I see you used my gifts well, boy."

Nana, so that was the witch's name. I should have remembered that. My grandmother, dad's mom was nicknamed Nanna. The lack of an additional N meant nothing in the hearing.

This Nana, her gifts were those vials, and they had come in handy, especially when dealing with Rorche's buddies in the Shultz mob. A couple of the remaining collection had literally saved my hide just a case or two ago.

I grunted, "I'm alive, where I probably wouldn't have been, a couple of times, at least."

To her knowing grin, I added, "I did try to find your shop afterward, you know."

The girl running the counter walked past, letting me know she was going to be closing up in a minute or two.

Nana replied, "Aye, boy. I know. But old Nana needs to be here and there. She can't be putting down roots like some. You come by tomorrow to where Mister Andrews built his hotel. You'll find my little shop down the alley."

She hopped off the stool and scurried away down Haight toward the park.

I put a twenty onto the counter and headed south. It was an easy walk from the Haight Ashbury intersection to the bus stop that would get me back to my place.

As I walked, I thought. Mister Andrews' hotel? Where was that? Unless, of course, old Nana was talking about the Andrews Hotel at Post and Taylor, a block or so west of Union Square. That place used to be one of the cheap room and board units back in the seventies and eighties. Before that, it was apartments, but never high-end. I knew a guy who stayed there for a while when he was learning how to be a computer technician. He didn't have a lot of praise for the accommodations outside of its being affordable. Trader Vic's' freight entrance is right behind it. Could that be the alley Nana was talking about?

As for me walking instead of driving? Well, besides being a professional snoop, or Private Investigator, Mama Mandolin's baby boy has a few quirks. I don't own a car or a cell phone. I'm a Fog City native and I've never seen the need to put myself under the thrall of the nanny state any more than necessary. If you want to reach me, call the number on my card or buy a stamp. Yeah, I also don't own a computer, have cable TV, or any of the other leashes most folks seem are life's necessities. That sort of thing is what my housemate and business partner likes.

Me, I'm a fairly average white guy of Italian descent and slightly above average height. My partner, Franklin Amadeus Jackson, or, Frankie, as he prefers, is sized to where he makes some NFL lineman seem puny and is about three times stronger.

He's also a black man and a former drag queen who has no difficulty bringing that side of his personality back out if the mood hits him. Fortunately for me, he's also a whiz in the kitchen and very handy to have around if the case gets rough.

The bus dropped me off at the intersection where I could hoof the rest of the way to my house. It's an old three-story Victorian with a basement, a nice front, and back yard, with a separate garage out back for the car I don't own, and right across the street from my front porch, a park where my extra-large German shepherd, Greystoke can get in some of the running and bottom-sniffing dogs seem to need.

The best thing about my house? It's mine. I bought it for cash with the proceeds of a case about ten years back where it seemed every power player in the city on both sides of the law were throwing bundles of money my way.

The case involved a type of vampire that fed on the salt and assorted minerals in our blood rather than the red stuff. It also involved making an enemy out of the police commissioner at that time, but that's another story. I have a tendency to upset those folks holding power regardless of the case. I don't go out of my way to do that… much, but it happens.

About one block away from my front door is a place called, The Snug. It's a bar and grill I sometimes consider my third office. The first is the one in my house, and the second is in one of the lesser desirable buildings downtown. That's old downtown, not the glass and steel monstrosity the city fathers like to point to on their marketing endeavors.

The Snug is a place where you can get a good sampling of nature's most perfect food, draft beer. It's also where you can run into one of the Norse gods.

No. Not kidding. The owner of the place, when he isn't Tiny, a guy who's even bigger than the big guy, Frankie, my partner, he's Odin. Kind of a big name around Norway, which, I guess is why he hangs around the city instead. Who knows, Asgaard groupies? But right now, I wanted a beer in my own place, the best spot to sit, sip, and think there is.

My next-door neighbor, Mrs. Podowski was out in her front yard doing nasty things to dandelions. I got a welcoming scowl from her as I walked to my front porch.

I waved and called out, "Hey, Mrs. Podowski, yeah, they're hanging just fine, thanks."

I figured that would keep her at a nice rolling boiling until the next time. The odd thing was her miniature bark machine thought Greystoke was the epitome of canine wonderment. Who can tell these days?

My dreams of pouring a cold one and putting my feet up vanished in a cloud of outraged high diva.

I was about to tell the big guy, for about the thousandth time that I had no interest in what President Twitterfingers had posted lately, when it became clear to me that this current outrage had nothing to do with politics.

"Oh… Tony!" He cried, wringing his ham-sized hands, "You won't believe what happened, you just won't believe it!"

I got about a full half-minute of estrogen-laced anguish without once being given a hint of what was actually wrong.

I saw Greystoke sitting in the doorway to the kitchen. The big guy more than likely forgot to feed because of whatever the disaster was. If I had to guess, I would have said it was something he heard on The View.

Finally, I saw an opening and jumped in, "Frankie!" I blurted, "What happened?"

His mouth closed and he looked at me, "What? You mean you don't know?"

I replied, "No, big guy. You haven't told me yet."

That got me a pause as the gears began to build up speed.

"I… I didn't?" He asked.

I shook my head, "No," I answered.

There was another pause and then he blushed, "Oh."

"So…" I did the hand twirl indicating we need to get this thing rolling.

"Okay," He muttered, "But Tony, after everything we did… this is just, well frankly," He lisped, putting his hands on his hips, "It's alarming."

"Frankie," I said, in as patient a voice as I could muster, "Read my lips… what is alarming?"

Greystoke wuffed, as if to underline the question.

He chewed at his lower lip and then murmured, "Um… you remember the case where a witch was poisoning the patrons of PEGS?"

I didn't have to try to remember. That case was welded into my brain. The Purveyors of Epicurean Gastronomical Specialties or P.E.G.S. was an association of Michelin Starred restaurants, each with a particular specialty as their hook to bring in the diners. It was also the case where I very nearly became the sacrifice du jour of a witch and her loony apprentice.

I asked the big guy, "Are you telling me that that crap is happening all over again?"

He nodded, mutely.

"And…" I continued in my own version of the rant, "I thought they discontinued the use of any orchids, pansies or other flowers to make sure this crap didn't happen again!? Didn't they?"

That got me another mute nod.

"Then," I said, my boil getting up to speed, "What in the hell is going on!?"

"You don't have to shout," Frankie pouted.

I hadn't realized I was.

I said, "Sorry, but there's a lot about that case I'd rather not remember."

He grinned, "You mean like how you were spread eagle on the floor, buck naked and had to pee yourself out of the spell?"

"Yeah," I muttered, "Like that."

I said, in a desperate and transparent attempt to change the subject, "Do we have any beer in the fridge?"

"Of course," Was the reply, "I always keep the larder stocked," Frankie finished with his nose in the air.

However, Frankie had learned my tricks, "So…" He asked, "What are we going to do about it?"

I rallied, "I am going to sip and think while you explain what all of that hysteria was about," I answered, "And then we'll see if it's anything we can deal with."

The big guy grinned big and said, "I told them you wouldn't let them down."

I was getting a strong feeling that the Mandolin weather report was going to be periods of weirdness followed by more of the same.

"Yeah," I said, heading toward my office, "How about you give Greystoke his supper while I grab a notepad?"

"Oh!" He exclaimed, "I forgot. Oh, poor Stokie… did Frankie forget his duty?"

My dog's wuff was in the affirmative.

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