San Diego Noir

Leedom is a legend, been around for decades, completely hairless with less of a tan than Casper the Ghost. When out of earshot, and making sure he’s not even in the same neighborhood, his underlings call him the Greasy Old Bastard because he always gets his money no matter what and his skin has a peculiar sheen to it. His voice sounds like Darth Vader, if the Sith Lord smoked three packs a day. He sees Moses as his successor and always sends him on the tough jobs, except east of the 5, because Moses’s skin is a few shades too dark in places like Santee (Klantee) and Lakeside (Whiteside).

Teddy was your average kid at USD in the late ’90s pursuing a career in computers and getting his hands on all the porn he could, really kinky and filthy shit. It wasn’t long before he put his passions together and he was a multimillionaire by twentyfour. File-sharing by the early twenty-first century was a godsend for him. He created a powerful search engine to find streaming videos of filth and it wasn’t long before advertisers were lining up and he became the King of Filth on the Internet. Then he sold the software for millions and went back to his passion of making and distributing porn to stream on the Internet. Now it’s come to light that he has been cheating the guys who run the city for quite some time. It’s not like he couldn’t afford to pay what he owes and still be richer than God, he’s just greedy.

“We don’t know who’s protecting him, and every time we think we have him, he slips away. I need you to get him,” Leedom rasped.

So Moses has been following him around San Diego and every time he thinks he has him, the guy suddenly gets in a car or lost in a crowd. It’s gotten perversely funny for Moses, every other time he gets close, a sleek black car stops to let Teddy in. These cars are so featureless that Moses has started calling them Moving Black Objects, slang from his days in the military. The dude even changes where he lives frequently. Moses figures he has something serious going on in San Diego, because most cheats would be out of the country by now if they knew they were in trouble. He tracks him to Mission Beach, where he’s been seeing him for the past few days, always slightly out of reach. A buddy of his once said that the only mission to be found there was getting laid, pounding beers, catching a wave, and maybe riding the roller coaster.

It’s Moses’s first break. He’s lived in San Diego all his life, and was born and grew up in Mission Beach. He still lives there now in a two-bedroom condo by the bay that would cost a fortune, your soul, and your first-born child today, but was a steal back in the late ’60s. His eight-year-old daughter Summer lives with him there every June and every other weekend. He knows the best place to get a burger, the best place for Mexican, the best coffee of all blends. Hell, he even knows a great little Greek café called Kojak’s that plays Creedence Clearwater Revival on the juke box. He knows that the best place to get fish-and-chips is at this little joint by the harbor where he keeps the small tuna fishing boat he inherited from his dad who was in that line of work for over thirty years. He knows every single lifeguard by name and has dated most of the daughters of the aging owners of the small convenience stores and restaurants that have been around forever. He knows the ecosystem of the neighborhood, that the best dirt comes from the storekeepers, the bartenders, the guys in the restaurant kitchens, the security at the Sound Wave, a popular club that has live bands at night. He knows that the carnies at the fair games at Belmont Park see and hear everything. They all make the wheels turn in Mission Beach, not the landlords and rich people who rarely even come down here. This is where he eats. Where he sleeps. His comfort. His solace. His home. It’s easy as pie to use that ecosystem to find Teddy’s latest featureless white condo and safehouse, and that’s where he is now, looking for clues.

He’s been doing this a long time and knows how to search. He’s not inside the condo because breaking in could get him arrested, but it’s fair play if Teddy’s trash is on the sidewalk ready to get picked up. Of course, Teddy has slipped the noose again and isn’t there, but after some disgusting digging that only makes Moses angrier at Teddy, he finds a scrap of paper that says, Go see Legacy.

SECOND PROTOCOL: TRACK WHAT THEY DO