SAN FRANCISCO, 1981 The Summer of Love packed up and left a decade ago, and the City is ina deep recession. Punk music is the soundtrack of life here. My girlfriend is a promoter for a chick band working out of a Victorian on the edge of the Mission District. I work down in the Tenderloin with a lot of troubled individuals. Homeless vets have been booted from Golden Gate Park. Boat people are arriving by the planeload. The asylum across the bay has been shuttered, and hundreds of Crazies have been dumped onto the streets of the Tenderloin with no place to go. My job is to get them indoors, then keep them there.

It's a fluid post in a strange world, where chaos is just below the surface. Street basketball and an exotic dancer named Mimi keep me grounded. It's complicated. Large events are sweeping me up, taking all my time. My girlfriend has had enough. Something has to give. According to the cops, a friend has just flown off a rooftop. I don't buy it.

Bob the Mummy doesn't either, and he would know. They spent a lot of nights together on that roof howling at the moon. It was their safe place. The secret behind his death could unravel a criminal conspiracy at the highest political levels. Millions of dollars are moving around. Nobody seems to see what is going on in plain sight, or maybe doesn't want to know. With the walls closing in and a brazen killer watching my every move, I will chase down the truth at any cost. I have few friends left these days.

I will not let his death pass. Someone has to pay. You'll have to read my story to find out about The Second Elephant.