My name is Dick. I'm a retail enforcement officer. I work the beat known as The Mall. It's a big joint with lots of fancy stores--stores with crepe paper displays, and bold neon signs. People come here to spend the greenbacks that burn holes in their pockets--much like an imitation Zippo. It's a living, or at least that's what the dame says who signs my cheques.

Every day is a chapter, and every chapter has folded dog-eared corners, like an old Louis L'Amour novel...only this ain't no Western, and the hero doesn't ride off into the sunset. No, the tales I write are fact, or as close to fact as you're likely to get if fact hasn't bathed in a week, and has been wearing the same old unwashed sweatshirt.