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Have you ever felt uncomfortable in your own skin?

Maybe there's a reason...

Jeremiah Pym is a private detective - not the flashy gun-toting gumshoe of old, but a quiet, respectable shamus of modern day who earns a modest living on domestic intrigues and background checks. After being hired for what should be a routine surveillance job, Jeremiah witnesses a kidnapping, barely escaping with his life. The next day, however, not a trace remains of any kidnapping... or anything else that he saw.

Trying to put the puzzle pieces together leads the detective on a convoluted chase that brings into question everything that he's ever known about himself. With the help of his Native American mentor, Edgard Moon Bear, Jeremiah discovers that the key to the mystery may be found in another world - a world where therianthropes (human/animal hybrids) are the sentient beings, and where hundreds of years of slow change has allowed some of these beings to wield magical powers.

As Jeremiah learns the secrets of his own past, he comes to learn who and what he is... and why his existence is central to the continued survival of two worlds.

There are days when being a private investigator can feel a little awkward. When a woman comes to you, convinced that her husband is throwing away money on some other woman, you expect her to refer to the other woman as a "bitch." What would make this interview particularly interesting is that the bitch in question happened to be a greyhound.

Mrs. Lavona Lindenbaum sat in one of two client chairs on the other side of my desk. I had once wanted to emulate Nero Wolfe, having one red leather chair for the client and two (or more) yellow chairs for whoever else was in the room. Not having nearly as much space (not to mention money) as Wolfe, I kept it simple. Mrs. Lindenbaum didn't mind that my furniture came from OfficeMax, or she wouldn't when she discovered that my billing rates didn't lend themselves to visits to Ethan Allen. At the moment, she probably wasn't even aware that she was sitting on anything; the woman was so tense that she might have been able to squat on nothing but air.

She was a plain woman, and there's nothing wrong with that; there's a stability in the sort of hard-working, middle-class, plain woman that can be comforting in times of stress. Conversely, they can also be the source of that stress. I'd had the idea that Lavona Lindenbaum was the sort of woman who ran the household well, and that probably included the husband. My investigations had borne that out, although there was no reason to mention that part of it.

"Your telephone call was a bit cryptic, Mr. Pym," she said, clipping her words as if they were shaggy hairs on the scalps of truculent schoolboys desperately needing a trim. It was the sort of voice that I heard first in elementary school, and my opinion of it hasn't improved over the years. "What exactly have you discovered about my husband?"

The Bogart wannabe in me would have taken out a cigarette about that point. I don't smoke. Neither is there a bottle of rye in the desk drawer. Some shamus. "Mrs. Lindenbaum, you asked me to find out what your husband Frederick was up to, why it seemed that there was less money in the bank accounts these days. You were certain that it was another woman. In a way, the answer is yes."

"I knew it," she spat. Anger, what there was of it, was subdued and kept close to the chest, of which there was plenty. "He's been straying with some... some common little..." She gathered herself up and looked at me directly. "Have you proof?"

"Yes, ma'am. I followed your husband for several days, whenever he was away from your home. He's pretty punctual about getting home, and he stays in at night. It's his job that allows him time off from his regular schedule. According to the receptionist there, Mr. Lindenbaum has had a great many client meetings over the past several months. His sales records didn't seem to be suffering, so there was no reason to question what he was doing."

"He was meeting that floozy..." (There was a word I hadn't heard in a while.) "...that, that_bitch..."_ (Ah, there it was.) "...when he was supposed to be working?"

"After talking to his co-workers, I followed Mr. Lindenbaum to his destination and, as you requested, I took photographs of him there."

A prolonged, slow-boiling period ensued, after which my client straightened even further (which I had not thought possible), and insisted in a low, furious voice, "Show me."

I opened a folder and placed the first of several pictures before her.

She looked at the picture, then at me. "Mr. Pym. I am not in the mood for jokes. Show me the picture of the woman that my husband is seeing."

"That's her."

"That is a dog."

"Yes, ma'am. A greyhound. About two years old. Answers to the name of 'Streak O'Grey,' according to her papers."

I shouldn't have done it, although I have to tell you, it was worth it just to see the look on her face. She couldn't quite grasp what I was trying to say, which was fine - her expectation took her mind up one road, when the other road was actually much cleaner and more easily traveled. Ultimately, I spared her the rather bestial false clue. "It would seem that your husband is quite fond of this particular dog; bets on her every time she runs. Of course, he bets on a lot of other bitches as well."

More photos from the folder. The good missus looked through them all: Lindenbaum with his binoculars, at the betting window, at the kennels looking over the dogs... quite a good set of photos, considering that they had to be taken so inconspicuously with as close to a "hidden camera" as I could get. After having convinced herself that her husband had been fooling around, it wasn't easy for her to admit that he was merely becoming more of a gambler than might be strictly healthy.

"Mrs. Lindenbaum, how long have you been married?"

The knotting of her eyebrows looked painful. "Twenty-four years," she said, as if from a distance. She was still pawing through the photos, not quite sure what was happening.

"Your twenty-fifth anniversary is coming up in several months, isn't it?"

"Yes."

I shifted forward, leaning my elbows on the desk. "That's a special anniversary," I said mildly. "If it were me, I'd be trying to get something very special for my wife. Maybe something that I wasn't sure I could really afford. Something that might need... alternative funding, so to speak."

Mrs. Lindenbaum looked up at me, flinching slightly as if she hadn't expected to see me. "Whatever do you mean?"

I wasn't sure myself. I unfolded my hands, snapped my fingers, and came up with an answer. "Have you ever talked about wanting to take a very special trip somewhere? Like a cruise or something? To Alaska?"

She put a hand to her mouth with such sharpness and melodrama that I thought I was making it up. "An August trip," she said. "We were going to start in San Francisco and eat our way up the coast, as Frederick put it." She managed a weak smile. "We've been told that there's always food aboard ship, all paid for. And the sights are supposed to be incredible..."

"Is it possible that he's been wanting to give you an anniversary gift, and he thought he could make the money by gambling? Some people actually have that sort of winning streak sometimes."

"Oh, Frederick..." She probably couldn't hear me at all, by this time. She was completely sold on the idea, if for no other reason than that at least there wasn't another woman involved. After several moments, she managed to regain her composure. "If you'll forgive me, Mr. Pym, I think that I need to see my husband."

"I have reason to think that he'll be at his office this afternoon." She looked at me quizzically. "The dogs aren't running today."

Damned if she didn't blush. She stood, hesitated. "About your fees..."

"I'll tally them up this afternoon," I said, rising. "My bills come in envelopes without the name of the business on them, or you can come by here anytime. I can also attach it to an email, if that's easier. Whatever level of privacy you wish."

"I collect the mail on weekdays," she said. "Please send the bill."

I thanked her, escorted her to the door, where she thanked me with a sincerity that bordered upon the downright corny, and let her go on her married if not merry way. Another happy client.

The light always catches the gold lettering on the frosted glass of my office door... or at least it would, if I had either a frosted door or gold lettering. The door was ridiculously plain, with the number 147 on it. To the side, a very plain sign holder had no doubt seen any number of 12x4" mass-produced signs slipped into it at various times over the years. Right now, it read simply_JEREMIAH PYM, Private Investigations,_ white letters in a black background, very plain, very inconspicuous. Which is as good a way as any of describing my career.

Raymond Chandler's detective character Philip Marlowe is famed for having observed that "you don't make a lot of money in this business, if you're honest." He wasn't kidding, then or now. Back in the days of "fifty a day plus expenses," it wouldn't have been worthwhile to most private dicks; getting beaten up every thirty or forty pages, getting lost in the intricacies of plots and sub-plots, having to fight both the bad guys and city hall, being your own man no matter what... yeah, those might have been the days after all. In the old days, you "requested information" by beating it out of some schmuck who was trying to hose you down for a few bucks. These days, you write a letter, put a stamp on it, sometimes enclose a fee for the service, and wait with your cooling coffee in the office that you may or may not be able to afford to keep going for another few months.

I shrugged, closed the office door. I had no cause to complain. Simple skip-traces, the occasional bit of domestic mystery, sometimes a little security or surveillance work, it can make for a reasonably good living for someone who doesn't like to "work" in the ordinary sense of the word. A chunk of what I do, anyone can do, if they know how to ask for the information; that whole Freedom of Information Act thing was a case of "can open, worms everywhere." What most people don't know is that_real_ information - the stuff that you really want to find out - was never in the can in the first place. And that's where guys like me come in. (And gals too, just in case anyone's worried about the gender gap.)

Back at my desk, I gathered up the photos and other papers that Mrs. Lindenbaum had left behind. I'd have to ask if she wanted me to keep them, give them to her, or destroy them. They weren't particularly damning, but privacy is privacy (void where arbitrary federal or state agencies deem it inconvenient). Into the file folder they went, thence to the basket on the table near the window, and thence out of my memory until it came time to prepare the invoice. I figured I'd done enough for one morning.

The telephone informed me, with its irritating little electronic trill, that I was mistaken.

"Pym Investigations."

"Good morning, Mr. Pym." Male voice, clear BRP pronunciation, slightly accented, possibly Slavic, middle-aged. Very little smile in that voice. "My name is Nikolai Sobieslaw." Jotting notes, I tried a phonetic spelling of_so-be-slahv,_before he obligingly spelled it out for me. I kept the phonetic spelling so that I could remember how to pronounce it. "You come to me highly recommended."

"I'm honored, sir." I was going to use_flattered,_ and something told me to be more formal. I shifted mental gears from Archie Goodwin to something more like Philo Vance. "How may I help you?"

"I am the owner of a large warehouse building off of Water Street, if you know the area."

"Generally, sir."

"I'm more an estate agent than an entrepreneur; my interest is in acquiring properties and setting them to let." British linguistic phrasing, I noted. "I am concerned that a tenant may be engaging in activities that are... less than legal."

"I believe I understand. You'd like to discuss surveillance activity?"

"Yes - in person, however, if I may. I don't feel comfortable with telephones these days."

"Completely understandable, in these perilous times." Okay, that was probably a little much. "Would you like to come to my office?"

"Are you available this afternoon?"

I thought for a moment; not always good to look too eager. "I'm otherwise engaged this afternoon, Mr. Sobieslaw; may I suggest tomorrow morning at ten o'clock? If the matter is truly urgent, I could have operatives available to begin that evening."

The would-be client hesitated, a span of time barely measurable to most watches, much less most people. I'm supposed to be sensitive to such things; makes me a reasonably good gumshoe. "That should be fine," he said with care. "After all, I could be mistaken about this entire affair. It seems foolish to assign it urgency."

"Very good, sir. I'll see you in the morning." I made sure that he had my correct address, good directions to the office, information regarding parking, and then he rang off, as the British would say. That impression still stuck with me, although I couldn't quite fathom why. His was the sort of voice that makes you feel that you should clean the office before his visit, in case he whipped out a white glove to test for dust under the edges of your desk.

Good thing I had the afternoon to get the place tidied up.