Fior Firsen
by
Book Cover & Preview Text
"It’s bad.
Golden Gate Park.
Just down from the Cliff House.
By the windmill."
That’s all he told me. I’d known Flanney for thirty years. I knew his voice and how he acted. If a cop who had been in the trenches for thirty years told you it was bad and his voice was cracking--
Get ready.
I drove up Highway One past the Moonraker lounge and out of Pacifica where I rented a studio apartment. It was still dark. I thought the dark might help with whatever I was going to see. It always helped if the sun wasn’t shining right on it.
You could smell the salt air and the eucalyptus. It was refreshing. I rolled the window down and tried to sing a little bit –"Sweet Baby James" or something like that – but I couldn’t get it going.
I realized that I was nervous. It wasn’t good for a homicide detective to be nervous. It showed. You didn’t want that. The Cliff House came into view too quickly. I wished I were stopping there to have a drink or a cup of coffee. For a brief second, I remembered thirty years ago when I used to stop at the Cliff House on the way home from work and study. Thirty years ago and all of a sudden, the Cliff House was gone and I was by the windmill in Golden Gate Park where my friend Flanney and the crime team would be. There weren’t many lights set up. Good. I checked my watch. Three-thirty in the morning. Good. No light for at least three hours. That would be plenty of time to get things wrapped up before we really had to look at it. Good. Flanney was standing on the dirt driveway that led up to the small park around the old wooden windmill. He flagged me down. "How are you doing," I asked. The old cop blew a puff of air out of his pursed lips. "Bad," answered Flanney. "What is it?" Flanney took a look toward where the crime team was working. The backhoe labored against the compacted dirt. The thirty year veteran took another look and then turned toward me. He let the tears go. He’d been a good soldier for two hours now and just couldn’t hold it in anymore. "Get in," I told him. I felt a hot twinge in my own nose seeing him bawl like that. That’d be fine if they caught the two of us crying in the salty night air. Flanney welcomed the invitation to get in the car, out of the cold and away from the hubbub. He trotted around to the passenger side, opened the door, and piled in. The cop was in his fifties but it didn’t show...much. He’d played football – running back in high school...not college. Flanney was short but had the widest shoulders of anyone I’ve ever seen anywhere. He looked like a spin top. I reached over, searched in the glove compartment, and found a Kleenex. "Here," I said, handing one to him. I eyed the pack casually. There would be enough for me if I started. I didn’t plan on starting. "Why’s that dirt so hard?" I asked, thinking that if I could get him talking about the specifics of the case he’d calm down. It worked. "The guy compacted the dirt over top of them," said the cop. I could smell the diesel smoke rolling out of the old backhoe. Compacted dirt. Them, I thought. Just what in the hell were we talking about here?
"She looked like Colleen," Flanney told me. Colleen was his daughter. "He buried her," said the cop. Her? Them? If the killer buried her, how did Flanney already know what she looked like? A burst of strong Pacific air flooded through the open window of the car. Suddenly, there were too many unanswered questions. I didn’t want to stay put anymore. I didn’t want to watch him fiddle with the Kleenex anymore. "Do you mind if we get out and take a look?" I asked my friend. He realized that we weren’t solving anything as long as we sat in the car. "No, I don’t," said Flanney. "Let’s go." He jumped out of the car as quickly as he’d jumped in. "She looked like Colleen," he said again, as we walked over the moist ground toward the excavation. "The motherf-----r took pictures as he set the whole thing up. From the look on her face, it looked like she was already in labor. The baby wasn’t born yet when he put her down in there." I felt a little electric shock go through my upper lip. "You saying that he buried her alive and ready to give birth down there in the coffin?" "Yeah. That’s how it was. He left the pictures up top...on top of the stone. It was a pink stone." Andy Rodriguez, a.k.a. Gizzard, the guy running the backhoe, cut the engine. He had orders to stop when he got to the box. "That’s it," he said. There was a thin layer of sand still on top of the casket. Andy was the best there’d ever been. He ran the backhoe like he was digging with his hands. He had been working fast. "Is there a chance?" he called out as he jumped off the big machine. Andy fumbled for a cigarette. He smoked more than four
Formats
Book Details
About the Book
"I had to think long and hard about writing any of this down . . ."
So begins Detective Jimmy Feterello’s account of three unspeakably horrible cases. Knowing that alone he is no match for the perpetrators, Jimmy turns to a wartime friend, Fior Firsen for help. Firsen’s tactics and easy way with the switchblade were excessive even in Viet Nam. It’s thirty years later and Firsen’s fury is back in modern day San Francisco . . . only this time . . . it may not be enough.
The perpetrators?
The Angels of the Earth. A coven of twenty-five members who capture Linda Lauman as she is about to give birth. They bury her alive while she’s in labor so that her death and the death of her child will atone for the loss of trees. The story begins in the wee hours of the morning at the gravesite in Golden Gate Park as Feterello struggles to open the coffin lid. He’s too late this time.
The Macoute Twins. A savage pair of Haitian brothers whose MO is to invade a home and force the family into a cannibalistic mass. They simultaneously invade homes on opposite sides of town and leave behind a baffling trail of DNA evidence. Feterello figures it out, but is frankly afraid to face the monsters alone.
The third case proves more perplexing. Initial evidence points to a group of carnival face painters using their art to dispense a devastating virus. Deeper analysis shows that a rogue mercenary, Roqual Fauxfransez, is unleashing the cruel poison. But why?
The Mercenary is a tough talking and brutal novel on the surface. Closer inspection isn’t necessary but, when performed, reveals an unsettling commentary about who we are and how good addresses evil.
Or, as Detective Feterello confesses,
read now about how in the middle of life we found strength in friendship and managed to do something about what was wrong.
About the Author
Jim Kulis has traveled extensively abroad. He was educated early on by the Jesuits. He speaks four languages fluently and obtained a Master’s degree in German literature from San Francisco State University in 1979. After serving time with the State Department, he retired to the serenity of the Southern California oilfields. He presently lives in Houston, Texas with his wife Merrillyn and their house cats. For more info, see jameskulis.com