People of Interest (Dead and Alive)

Lt. Jules Townsend

According to "Cis" he may have been involved in a murder of a good friend of his, although this is just speculation. But one thing is for certain he is as mean as a viper in its nest. Not a cop you want to get on the bad side of.

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Gary Perkins

Owner of the Wolf's Kitchen located in Marigny-Bywater. This diner is popular with many German and Nordic immigrants. Its 10-cent, poor boy sandwiches are a hit with the lower income residents of the area.

Gary, a Norwegian expatriate, has a soft spot for those less fortunate than he. You find this out first hand when he asked the gumshoes to investigate a boarding house for the destitute. Many of his patrons have told him stories of ghostly happenings there. Gary, who doesn't believe in ghosts, thinks it may be criminal activity taking advantage of the poor occupants. You manage to get proof and find out a Bokkor, an evil voodoo priest, was conjuring up dark spirits and brought  him "mob" justice. Your reward was a months worth of dinners at his diner.

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"Fat" Dan Waller

Owner of the best known bars in the French Quarter, and New Orleans as a whole for that matter, is the Old Absinthe House. The reason is that it's been around for quite some time. Although this isn't its original location, the marble-topped bar and paintings were brought here from its old home about a block and half up Bourbon. Dan Waller isn't a talker but a listener. He has one of the best singers playing at his bar on the weekends...you can say she is going to be a "Starr" one day.

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Sgt. Andrew Dauterive 

Texas Ranger that dresses in a black suit usually wearing a cowboy hat. Has a distinct Texan drawl. Stationed in "the Big Easy" and was investigating LaCroix's fluid that he was assigned to find. He easily found the 6 of you snooping in his investigation and approached you and wondered why you stirring up a hornets nest with the Red Sect, Black Hand, and Hellstrome industries.

You eventually find the liquid in the Bayou and was explicitly told by Dauterive to tell him about it right away. You "conveniently" forget what he said and decided to destroy the liquid. He wasn't too happy that you told him you couldn't find the barrels and couldn't tell if he knew you were lying about it. He just tipped his cowboy hat and said, "Be careful whose toes you step on in the future because sometimes those toes may be connected to the foot that kicks your asses tomorrow." With that he gets in his car and drives off.

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Kurt Schneider

Schneider is a Cajun guide that you hired to take you to find LaCroix's reanimation fluid. He knows the bayous as well as any Cajun, but is a bit more gregarious. For 5 dollars and the right to bag any game you came across was his asking price. He was the person that regales the group with hunting stories and mentioned of Old Saul, an enormous gator said to h aunt the eastern swamps. Which you soon found out it was no mere ghost.

He helped you fight off the undead gator and bloated dead bodies that reanimated because of the liquid. However he quickly hid when the 3 factions came looking for the liquid and started a huge war in the middle of the bayou.

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Andrew Leonhart

Manager of the new Orleans office of Hellstromme Industries. He contacted you when the office siffered an apparent break-in overnight and Leonhart wanted Cis and his crew to investigate it. He did not bring the incident to the attention of the authorities for he wanted it to handle it the affair privately if possible to reduce any negative publicity for his employer, as he put it--"Bad for the stock prices, old man."

You find out it was an inside job by an employee named Thomas Glauser who conviently had a key to the office that was broken into. He insisted that he go with you to his apartment. So he goes with Cis to his appartment. Once there, Cis, finds a skinned person with a skinned husk stuffed under the bed. Andrew insists now he must call the police and he makes his leave.

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Emma Ross

Lives with her brother, Grant Ross, downtown. Was kidnapped by the Black Hand in an attempt to extort money from her boyfriend, Will Gretz (Deceased). She works in the Records Department of City Hall."

Emma was beside herself when you broke the news that her boyfriend was dead. You consoled her and told her you would bring the murder to justice.

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Delilah Starr

Some patrons regard her a jewel of the south and would travel miles just to hear her sing at the Old Absinthe House on Burbon Street. Yes, Delilah Starr was an ebon goddess on a dirty stage, belting out tunes to the locals every Friday and Saturday night. She sang to drunks and the sailors and rostabouts and they sang back. They sang in quiet murmurs and lewd catcalls and the clink of the ice in their glasses. She loved the chatter--even while she sang. She loves everything about Bourbon Street, and she tweets at them like a canary out of its cage.

Unfortunately, Fat Dan Waller, contacted the group saying shes gone missin'. From the sounds of his voice a little piece of himself has gone missing too hearing this news.

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Bubba Franks

Cecil and Bubba were navy buddies back in the day. He is a very good friend of Cecils. Has an aunt that lives in Treme that he visits on occasion. He works down at the docks now since being out of the navy. He has a tendency to get bullied by the Irish, which are most of his co-workers.

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Powerful Organizations in the Crescent City

Mafia Capo

The Black Hand

The Black Hand is the branch of the Mob that runs New Orleans and is said to be the Confederacy’s largest criminal empire.

The Black Hand controls the flow of nearly all vice into, out of, and all through New Orleans. Every house in Storyville kicks a percentage into the family’s coffers, as do the not-so-secret gambling halls in the Quarter and Tremé. And woe be unto any bootlegger foolish enough to try to operate without the Black Hand’s approval.

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Bokkor

Red Sect

Word on the street has it that an old voodoo cult gives the Italian boys (AKA: The Black Hand) a run for their money in some of the less highbrow sections of town, like Tremé and Marigny- Bywater. Calling itself the Red Sect, it runs extortion and protection rackets much like it did last century, using the threats of voodoo curses and supernatural bogeymen to influence the gullible residents.

Government Officials

Huey "Kingfish" Long (former Governor now Senator)

Although Baton Rouge is the capital of Louisiana, New Orleans far and away is responsible for most of the state’s income. It used to be if you controlled New Orleans, you controlled Louisiana. Then Huey Long, the “Kingfish,” gained control of the governor’s mansion and made it his crusade to wrench the power away from the city’s leaders.

Long wasn’t any cleaner than the politicians in the Crescent City. His own appointees paid kickbacks for their jobs—or “donations” as Long called them. He forced companies looking for state contracts to buy advertisements in his own newspaper and sought legislation to restrict “slanderous speech”—that is, anything that depicted him unfavorably—in other newspapers.

Long had his own handpicked candidate for the 1932 New Orleans Mayoral elections, and had pushed and sponsored the delivery of newfangled electric voting machines to the city. He was shocked and cried foul when Mayor McKendrew won instead.

Not long after the ’32 election, the Kingfish stepped down as governor to become Senator Long, giving the new mayor a bit of a reprieve.

James McKendrew (current Mayor of New Orleans)

During the 1932 mayoral elections, Governor Long sponsored the delivery of newfangled electric voting machines to the city. When a virtual unknown and former Long appointee, James McKendrew, won the election in a surprise upset, both sides cried foul. The governor was just as displeased as his opponents, because he had openly backed another candidate.

Mayor McKendrew has proved a competent leader for the city and perhaps even a touch less shady than his predecessors. He made significant improvements to the city’s streets and public transportation system, and has expanded the electrical grid and telephone network. Still, in a political environment as cutthroat as New Orleans, it’s without doubt he’s made more than his share of deals to secure his own power base.

Riverfront

(Algiers)

The Port of New Orleans consists of nearly eight miles of wharves and docks, more than five of which run contiguously from Marigny-Bywater well into Uptown. hundreds of thousands of feet of warehouse space are available along the waterfront as well as in the inland Warehouse District adjacent to the Central Business District. New Orleans is by far the largest port in the Confederacy and sees dozens of ships dock daily.

The volume of business done by the port is so great that there are actually eight separate dockworkers' unions required to service the vessels docked there. The Harbor Police are responsible for patrolling the waterfront and have full policing power. Given the vast quantities of materials that pass through the port, there's little doubt the Harbor Police draw a fair amount of interest--and money--from the Black Hand.

Algiers
On the South side of the river sits the isolated neighborhood of Algiers. Originally this area served primarily as an industrial and rail base, but over the years it has become home to thousands of families. Currently, it can only be reached by one of the several ferries departing the waterfront. Most of these run 24 hours a day. The new administration has plans in place to construct the James McKendrew Memorial Bridge to provide direct access in the ver near future. The Algiers Navy Air Station stands empty to this day, testament to the combined stubbornness of the city alderman and the CSA War Department in their clash over Storyville.

Northside District

(Bayou St. John, Gentilly, Lakeview, and The Upper Ninth Ward)

The northern neighborhoods of the city are among some of the newest, with the exception of the Upper Ninth Ward. Most of them have seen serious settlement only in the last few decades, as technology made it possible to raise the ground level high enough that it wasn't constantly a mud pit.

Bayou St. John
This neighborhood derives its name from a finger of Lake Pontchartrain that runs deep into the northern part of the city. A portion of the original bayou has been filled in recently to make room for a middle-income housing development through much of the bayou remains flooded. Houseboats which once clogged the waterway are becoming less common. This is thanks in no small part to the stench, as the waters are popular dumping grounds for trash--and occasionally bodies. The city sometimes dredges the bayou to keep it at least marginally navigable,but nobody breaks their backs doing it.

Gentilly
Gentilly originally grew along Gentilly Ridge, a stretch of high ground that bordered a bayou in this area. Early this century, the Orleans Levee Board filled in much of the swampy ground. Pumps run by Hellstromme Industries did the rest. Now, Gentilly is home to a growing suburban population. Unlike some neighborhoods in the city, Gentilly is fairly integrated racially. It also houses Dillard University and the Pontchartrain Beach Resort, both of which are segregated, so go figure.

Lakeview
A new seawall on the lakefront made another suburban area possible. As with Gentilly, it owes its existence largely to the efforts of the Orleans Levee Board, but Lakeview is considered a little more upscale than Gentilly. Several golf courses and City Park give the area more of a gentrified feel, attracting residents with a little more disposable income. It's nowhere near the high-society types in the Garden District, but still not the kind of people who make note of where the soup kitchens are either.

The Upper Ninth Ward
Prior to the digging of the Industrial Canal in the early 1920s, there was just the Ninth Ward. Now residents refer to the part west of the Canal as the Upper Ninth and the area east as the Lower Ninth. The Upper Ninth, being adjacent to Downtown and Mid-City, is the more developed of the two.

The fact that the Ninth was also on a stretch of ground higher than the areas closer to the lake gave it an edge as it was more suitable for building. That means the buildings here are older than in the other northern neighborhoods--which also means they're more rundown than the newer homes and apartments nearby. Of course that usually results in lower rents as long as you don't mind sharing your room with water stain shaped like Texas or a cockroach or two...thousand.

The French Quarter

Technically a part of the Downtown area, the Quarter is its own entity and what most people think of as "New Orleans". It's the oldest part of the city; in fact, the Creole name  for it is Vieux Carre, which means "old quarter." The architecture is decidedly European and at first may feel odd nestled into the southern swamps of the Confederacy.

Because nothing is as easy as it seems in New Orleans, the Quarter is the center of the Italian community in the city. (Black Hand is dominant in this area...go figure.)  Ironically, or maybe not, given this is Louisiana, the state Supreme Court sits near the middle of the French Quarter.

Unlike the more modern parts of the city, various businesses are scattered throughout the Quarter, with no more order than if they'd been fired out of a shotgun. You might find an elegant dress shop next door to a dusty pawn shop. Eclectic antique dealers sit beside corner grocers. There's most anything you could want to buy available in the Quarter, but the trick is knowing how to find it.

The French Market, famous for its all-hours coffee shops, has stood in the southeast corner for over a century. Recently, the city has made strides toward modernizing the combined food market and bazaar, roofing large sections of previously open-air stalls. Fresh fish, meat, and produce are all available, often side-by-side with merchants selling all sorts of oddities from all corners of the globe.

Superstition is very storng in the French Quarter. There's more than one alleged voodoo shop as well, but those are mostly tourist traps. For actual voodoo trinkets, a curious Joe is better of looking elsewhere. Still, the Quarter is shrouded in mysteries, many stretching back centuries. Nearly every block has its "haunted house" or at least a ghost story or two.

As far as residences, it's far from the nicest place to live in New Orleans, but it's also not the worst. For that you have to walk a few blocks north to Treme.

Downtown Districts

(Tremé, Marigny-Bywater, The Lower Ninth, and Storyville)

In New Orleans, the terms Uptown and Downtown refer to the positions in relation to the Mississippi's flow, with Canal Street as the divider. Originally, Downtown was where the Creole residents settled, and Uptown was where you'd find the English-speaking Johnny-come-latelies. Now, Downtown is home to some of the worst slums in New Orleans.

Its hard to get an exact read on how many people reside in these neighborhoods due to a high number of transient residents combined with an ingrained distrust of authority figures. In addition to being home to the poverty-stricken population of the city, the lack of order attracts large numbers of homeless and migrant workers who flock to the abandoned tenements that pepper the neighborhoods.

Tremé

By far, this is the worst of the neighborhoods, with a higher concentration of run-down buildings than either of the others. President Davis freed the slaves back in the 1860s, but that was about it for giving the scores of largely uneducated former slaves and further help. Many ended up settling north of the French Quarter in poorly built and even more poorly maintained structures. The population has been ravaged repeatedly by yellow fever and suffered heavily during the flu pandemic.

Many buildings today are in a state of downfall or ruin. Congo Square and two of the three St. Louis cemeteries are also housed in this neighborhood, all focal points for voodoo practitioners in the city. Congo Square is home to many street vendors hawking supposedly potent talismans and charms, if that's your bag.

Marigny-Bywater
Near the French Quarter Marigny-Bywater retains a European influence in architecture and culture. The area was heavily settled by German and other northern European immigrants toward the end of the last century. As one moves farther downriver, the buildings begin to show signs of urban decay. At the Industrial Canal itself there are the beginnings of a revival of industry, with an occasional factory or warehouse rising among the bones of the dying neighborhoods. The Confederacy maintains a holding facility in the area where the most dangerous prisoners are held until they can be transferred to a national prison.

The Lower Ninth
Virtually exiled from the rest of the city by the Industrial Canal, this neighborhood houses a large number of poor residents in homes that are often little more than shanties. Before the construction of the Canal, this area was largely rural and occupied by former sharecroppers and the descendants of freed slaves. Now some of the residents find employment in the nearby industrial developments along the canal while others continue to live as they did for half a century, with small farming plots and by fishing.

Close to the Industrial Canal, the Confederate Army operates a supply depot and the Louisiana National Guard maintains the Jackson Barracks for use when operating in the city. Farther south along the riverfront, a few of the antebellum plantation houses still stand, and the money belonging to the owners of those mansions keeps something of a police presence.

Storyville(vice district)
The city of New Orleans legalized prostitution within a 10-block area just north of the quarter. In 1917, the Confederate Secretary of War, Josephus Daniels, tried to exercise federal authority to force the closure of the area. He quickly learned how impressed New Orleans was by stiff-shirted politicians in Richmond when they ignored his demands. Daniels promptly closed a Confederate military base in Algiers, but the city's leadership figured the taxes (and kickbacks) from Storyville more than made up for the lost revenue from the base.

Named in "honor" of the alderman responsible for its creation, Sidney Story, the area is infamous throughout the Confederacy as a bed of carnal iniquity. The presence of a rail station inside Storyville proves there's no shortage of out-of-towners looking to spend a little money in the quest for release. The madams even publish so-called "blue books" advertising their wares and prices to new arrivals.

City Center Districts

(CBD, Mid-city, Warehouse District)

Canal Street used to serve as an informal divider between the newcomer Americans Uptown and the old-blood Creoles of Downtown. The median in the center of the broad avenue was known as neutral ground where residents of opposite neighborhoods could meet and trade. It's the MAIN ARTERY for the financial heart of the city, running from the Mississippi to a somewhat foreboding end at a cluster of cemeteries. Canal Street is the best lit street in town.

Central Business District (CBD)
This is the financial and economic center of the city. It's one of the first expansions of New Orleans beyond the French Quarter and rose to prominence as its trade district early on. Sites of importance:

• Hellstromme Industries Tower
• First Bank of the Confederacy
• Finest Hotels
• Glitziest Nightclubs in town

Mid-City

Mid-City grew up along the main route from New Orleans to Baton Rouge. It used to be known as "the back of town" because the low-lying ground was swampy and largely unsettled. Only after Hellstromme Industries' expansion of the city's pumping operations at the turn of the century did the neighborhood begin to see major development and expansion. This section of town is a mixture of residential and professional businesses, marking the transition from the CBD to the suburbs to the north.

Warehouse District

South of Poydras Street, the business district gives over to several blocks of older warehouses, a few manufacturing sites, and a cotton mill or two. This aging industrial area continues right up to the docks, and thanks to its convenient location, many of the warehouses do a fairly steady business providing temporary storage for shipments passing through the city.

Guide to the Big Easy (Part I)

New Orleans Tid-bits

• 500,000 residents was the last census count
• Largest city in the Confederacy
• Country's largest sea port
• Major centers of the new oil industry
• Aliases: The Big Easy & The Crescent City

New Orleans History

• Settled by the French in 1718
• Sold to the Spanish in 1762
• Spanish then turned around and gave it back to the French in 1800
• Napoleon, 3 years later, sold it to the USA in 1803 along with a big stretch of land called the Louisiana Purchase.
• As a result of its past, New Orleans has French and Spanish cultures

Geography

• The Crescent City sits on the banks of the Mississippi, about 100 miles upriver from Gulf of Mexico
• North of the city lies Lake Pontchartrain, oval-shaped body of water about 40 miles across and 60 miles long
• Half the city lies below sea level
• Extensive levies and powerful elaborate pumps that is powered by Hellstromme Industries keep the place from flooding during heavy rains.

Government

• CSA President in 1935 is John Nance Garner
• Anti-union, favors laws and regulations that favor corporations and industry.
• He is expanding the Southern industrial base and oil industry but at the cost of the lowly workers.
• USA President in 1935 is Franklin Delano Roosevelt
• Baton Rouge is capital of Louisiana, but New Orleans is responsible for most of the states income.
• Mayor of the City is James McKendrew. Elected in 1932. Governor at the time Huey "Kingfish" Long introduced newfangled electronic voting machines to the city. 
• The new mayor has made a name for himself in the past 3 years. He made significant improvements to the city.
• Newly paved streets
• Public Transportation
• expanded the electrical grid
• expanded the telephone network

New Character Campaign Rules (Part II)

NEW HINDRANCES

If you are interested in knowing more about these Hindrances/Edges let me know and I will give you a more in depth picture or just ask to see the book for a description.

1. Ailin' (minor or Major)
2. Corrupt (minor)
3. Dark Secret (Major)
4. Destitute (minor
5. Grim Servant of Death (Major)
6. Impulsive(Minor)
7. Lech(Minor)
8. Lyin' Eyes(Minor)
9. Night Terrors(Major)
10. Obligation(Minor or Major)
11. Rebllious(Minor)
12. Schmuck(minor)
13. Short Temper(Minor)
14. Smart Mouth(Minor)

NEW EDGES (didn't show any edges that require above Novice)

Background Edges

1. Arcane Backgrounds
1. Grifters
2. Patent Scientists
3. Voodooists
2. Comfortable
3. Liquid Courage
4. Veteran of the Concrete Jungle

Combat Edges

1. Hard

Professional Edges

1. Sleuth
2. Talented
3. Vituoso

Social Edges

1. Moxie

Weird Edges

1. Harrowed(if you want this you must let me know ASAP)

New Character Campaign Rules (Part I)

Ok Gumshoes heres the deal. You can't just go picking anything you want using the Savage World Deluxe Core rulebook or any of the other worlds out there. So here are the following rules and regulations for the Deadlands Noir setting:

RACE
Humans are the only race allowed in Deadlands, Noir, but you get a free starting Edge.

TRAITS
As usual everyone starts out at D4 but you have 5 points to raise to another die level.

SKILLS
15 points to spend on skills up to your LINKED trait die level. But after that it cost two points to go ABOVE that LINKED trait die level. The following are the ONLY skills you can choose from in Deadlands Noir.

1. Boating
2. Climbing 
3. Driving 
4. Fighting 
5. Gambling 
6. Healing 
7. Intimidation 
8. Investigation 
9. Knowledge 
10. Lockpicking 
11. Notice 
12. Perform (catch-all skill pick something you are good at)
13. Persuasion 
14. Piloting
15. Repair
16. Riding
17. Shooting
18. Spellcasting
19. Stealth
20. Streetwise
21. Survival
22. Swimming
23. Taunt
24. Throwing
25. Tracking
26. Voodoo
27. Weird Science

LANGAUGE

Most people in America, regardless of where they come from speak English.

HINDRANCES

Thanks to the Depression, ALL characters start with Poverty as a mandatory Hindrance--and you don't get any Hindrance points for it.

Rest of the rules are as usual. You gain points from them to purchase edges, raise an attribute a die type, more skill points, additional money. You can ONLY get points for 1 MAJOR and 2 Minor hindrances...you are free to have more but you don't get additional points. (4 Max points)

GEAR

Depression times are NOT fun.  Everyone starts with $75 bucks because of the poverty hindrance. You can take the comfortable Edge and gain 150 to start with or you can spend hindrance points to get more money (the money is equal to your adjusted starting funds (75 bucks)

BACKGROUND

Fill out a nice juicy background for your gumshoe. Odds are your character is a resident of New Orleans. Think about where he grew up, what part of the city he lives in, and how he got where he is now. Consider his hopes and plans, his friends and foes, what he does for a living, and any unique traits he may have.

Your investigator's background is liable to come into play in many ways during the course of the campaign. It might make a difference to what neighborhoods he moves in most comfortably, who he knows, and who knows him. It's also likely to play a role in bringing in old enemies or allies, sometimes when they're most needed and other times when their arrival couldn't be worse timed.

The long and short of it is that your characters is a part of the city and, for good and bad, it's also a part of his life.

WORST NIGHTMARE

This is something that may come in play during your life of your character AND afterlife...so...please come up with a short writeup on what scares ya and why.

Dark Times

The year is 1935, but the history is not our own.

The Confederate States of America have been independent for over 50 years – depending on who you ask. Their economy has struggled like a one armed man in white water ever since —periodically coming up for air but mostly getting nowhere. Only the North's ill-advised attempt at Prohibition gave the South any respite, by letting them sell cheap hooch over the border to every Tom, Dick, and Nancy who wanted to wet their whistle.

A worldwide Depression has made things even worse, and one of the most desperate areas lies right at the crossroads of the Confederacy—New Orleans. The Big Easy is at the storm-tossed center of nefarious events set in motion years ago by strange and malevolent entities bent on ruining and ruling our world.

So why is this world different than our own? For starters, something happened back in 1863. The worst of the yellow rags at the time claimed the dead walked and magic returned to the world, but most people told those nuts to peddle their papers elsewhere. A few years later, an earthquake of biblical proportions shattered the coast of California into a labyrinth of towering mesas and seawater-filled canyons that came to be known as the "Great Maze".

One man's disaster is another man's opportunity, they say, and in that earthquake, miners discovered a new superfuel called "ghost rock" after strange howling noise it made when burned. Inventors found all sorts of uses for the mineral, spurring amazing advances in technology and funding more than one fortune. Those same advances also spawned terrible new weapons, because if there's one thing men are good at, it's finding new and creative ways to kill each other.

Its wheels gummed up the bodies of the dead, the Civil War ground slowly to a halt sometime around the 1880s. That left the Confederacy an independent nation, making it technically a win for the Rebs, but for once it had the sense not to rub anyone's face in it. Not wanting to miss a prime opportunity, the Mormons and the Sioux Indians also seceded, forming the Republic of Deseret and the Sioux Nations, respectively.

For over 30 years, the United States and the Confederacy kept their guns pointed across the Mason-Dixon Line, daring the other to flinch. Then, in 1917, both put aside their differences and briefly joined forces with the Allied Powers in the Great War. After another three years of fighting, Germany and the other Central Powers surrendered. The victory celebrations were cut short as the returning soldiers brought home with them a superflu that spread across the world. In the end, it claimed nearly 200 million lives.

A brief period of prosperity followed, but ultimately, that turned out to just be the set-up for one of the biggest sucker plays in history—the Great Depression. Banks failed, stocks crashed, and companies shut their doors. Dust storms and grasshopper swarms swept the country like the plagues of Egypt, obliterating farms and dreams.

The politicians say the worst is over, but most people are still making do with hope and pocket lint, and most are running low on pocket lint. Money talks these days, and when it does, most everyone listens. A good job is hard to find, but a trustworthy soul might be even harder.

It's almost enough to make a fella overlook the shadow at the end of the alley or ignore those strange bumps in the night. Almost, but not quite.