NICK CHAMBERS
Private Detective
Updated 7/26/06

Statistics
 
Full Name: Nicholai Somerset Chambers
Caucasian Male
Date of Birth: December 4th, 1920
Height: 5' 10"
Eyes: Brown
Hair: Brown
Build: Slightly overweight, doesn't exercise enough.
Health: Not great. Eats poorly, drinks too much.
Poor dexterity, leading to poor marksmanship. Not likely to juggle or pick locks well. Education: High school graduate with unexceptional marks.
 
 
Biography
 
Born to a British father and a Russian mother, both of whom moved to America before Nick was born. He is extremely sensitive about his mother's Russian heritage, and never uses his full first name. As the 1940s wind to a close and McCarthyism rears it's ugly head, Nick avoids the anti-communist issue as much as possible, but when pressed, becomes a vocal "red hater". He even goes so far as adamantly refusing to drink vodka, even in a martini. Instead, he prefers to drink gin, and lots of it.
 
Nick served in the Army Air Corps in WWII, as a tail gunner aboard a B-17 bomber (named Heavenly Body) operating in the European theater. On a bombing run, his plane was shot down over Germany. Only two of the crew survived, Nick and the pilot, Brock "Rat" Ratchet. They were seperated shortly after hitting the ground. Nick spent a long time trapped behind enemy lines. He was taken in and hidden by a sympathetic German family until he could be smuggled back into allied territory. Whatever he experienced during that time was very painful, and he seldom discusses it. (See "A Ghost of a Chance")
 
Because of his traumatic experiences, the army transferred Nick to a "quieter" assignment in 1944. He was stationed as a guard at the Japanese internment camp at Manzanar. (See "Twenty Views of Tanforan"). Nick was released from the military shortly after the camp closed on March 20th, 1946.
 
Now a civilian, Nick moved to San Francisco at the invitation of his old pal Brock Ratchet, who had become a detective with the San Francisco Police Department, working as a detective in the Homicide division. Much to Rat's dissapointment, rather than join the force, he got his private detective license and a job with the P.J. Roynton Detective Agency. Roynton taught Nick the basics of the business, but when Nick started getting involved with his daughter, Roynton hit the roof. Nick dumped the daughter and the boss simultaneously.
 
In need of a new gig, Nick finally took Ratchet up on his suggestion to come and work for him. Unfortunately, Nick didn't take well to life on the force. His lack of respect for authority and failure to follow proper procedures put him at odds with the brass from day one. He lasted nearly a year before he was given time off and "encouraged to find other avenues".
 
Nick returned to private detective work in 1948, this time as a freelancer. He quickly developed a reputation as a P.I. who, while competent, wasn't classy enough to handle high profile jobs. Instead, his specialty has become taking the jobs no one else will, the man you go to "when Sam Spade says no". He was also thought to be desperate enough to do nearly anything for work, and would do so very cheaply.
 
Nick crossed paths with Brock Ratchet one last time during the Nash case (see "Death of a Nameless Blonde"). Rat lived up to his name by turning corrupt, and was killed in a struggle with Nick. Lt. Ratchet was replaced by Tony Manicelli.
 
In 1949, Nick called his parents in Maine. They had been mostly estranged since the war, and hadn't even spoken in a very long time. Nick learned that his father had passed away. Feeling a sense of familial duty, Nick convinced his mother to move to San Francisco. He set her up in his Greenwich St. apartment. Before long, it was apparent that the rift between them hadn't healed, and Nick moved out. There was little communication between them after that. (See "The Smiling Man")  

 
Psychological Profile
 
Burned out and morally ambiguous, he is often depressed and chronically fatigued. Nick feels strongly alienated from mainstream society. He has an addictive personality, with strong tendencies towards alcohol abuse as self anesthesia. Experience has made him calloused and distant, bordering on misanthropic. He has developed serious personal space issues, and doesn't like people to touch him or stand too close without an invitation. Nick believes in God, but doesn't understand why everyone believes that God is loving and altruistic. He's seen too much evidence to the contrary.
 
Despite all of this, a tiny ember of hope still burns in his heart. Though he denies it, even to himself, Nick wants desperately to be proven wrong in his indictment of humanity, and clings to the remote chance that he might one day find himself looking into that last honest face. Unfortunately, that hope is more often used as the hook by which he is reeled in one more time, and shown once again to be the sucker that he is.  

 
Nick's M.O.
 
Nick is a man of few words, his economy of speech and poker faced demeanor covering for a surprisingly sharp -- if uneducated -- mind. He is just as restrained with his fists, but is not afraid to use them if it seems the path of least resistance.
 
While lacking in anything that could be labeled "charm", Nick still has a certain disquieting presence, mostly stemming from the stillness of his surface contrasted against the fierce darkness that resonates from inside him.
 
Not surprisingly, Nick isn't a ladies man. He is seldom seen with a discriminating woman of character, and even more seldom twice. Still, deep inside, he'd really like to find a nice girl to love, his own personal Betty Crocker stashed away behind a white picket fence. He doesn't really believe he'll ever find her, nor that he'd deserve her if he did.
 
Nick smokes two packs of Lucky Strikes a day, and when he remembers to, carries a beautifully chromed, pearl handled Smith and Wesson .38 police special in a shoulder holster. It's possibly the most beautiful and valuable possession he owns. Due to his lack of shooting skill, it's mostly a prop used for intimidation and bluffing, and as a last resort if he gets into a tight spot.
 

 

Nick's Office
 
Nick's San Francisco office is a dank, dark place over a bar on the corner of Burritt St. and Bush, (where Bush forms the roof of the Stockton Tunnel) in the gray area between Chinatown and the tenderloin. When times are bad -- and they usually are -- he sleeps on the couch in his office and does business in the bar. The windows were painted over from the inside by a previous tenant, most likely in lieu of blackout curtains during the later years of the war, when San Francisco lived in fear of Japanese attack. Nick scratches at this paint when he's on the phone, and over the years has created an intricate pattern of gaps in the paint that let light through in ribbons. At night, light from the neon sign outside his window leaks through the scratches and throws eerie red patterns on the wall.
 
Nick rents the office from Mrs. Lazarino, the widow who owns the building. On those occasions when Nick is unable to pay the rent on the office, she makes it clear in no uncertain terms that cash isn't the only currency she is willing to accept. Once, when threatened with eviction, Nick had paid that price. Much to her continual disappointment, he found a way to pay her from then on, no matter what it took.
 
Nick has a battered old Royal typewriter, which he uses poorly with two fingers, correcting the flying Q with a pen.
   

Gino's
 
The bar downstairs is called Gino's, run by an elderly Chinese man who goes by Gino, an American butchering of his real name, Qin Huo (pronounced Sheen Hwo), though only a highly privilaged few know that. Gino was born in China and moved to SF as a young man, but he still has substantial ties to his homeland. Any formal education he received would have been before he came to America. He's very well read in Chinese, somewhat less so in English. Despite the lack of schooling, Gino is amazingly smart and observant. He always seems to know everything that's going on in the city, and has a knack for sizing up a person and sussing their hidden motivations in a glance.
 
Gino has two twenty-something sons, Wai and Yu, that occasionally work the bar and run errands for him. They are both improbably large and muscular given Gino's build, so it's speculated that the boys aren't actually his sons, but rather hired muscle that Gino just calls his sons out of respect or fondness. If they are his sons, nothing at all is known of their mother. She may be dead, divorced, ran away or is simply hidden away to keep her safe from some of the people Gino has business dealings with. Whatever the case, Gino refuses to discuss it. As a result of the boy's presence -- and the double barreled shotgun under the bar -- there are never any fights in Gino's.
 
Known to very few, Gino is also a remarkable pool player. He almost never accepts challenges to play, because the lack of challenge would be a waste of time. When he does come out from behind the bar, it's a major event. Everyone stops what they are doing as Gino produces a very old pool cue with dragons carved into its ivory handle. Nick is not one of the people that Gino will play. Nick is, in fact, a terrible pool player and refuses to play against anyone. He will, however, knock the balls around the table by himself, mostly as a meditative semi-hypnotic activity to keep his hands busy while he works on a puzzle in his mind. Sometimes Gino lets him use the table after hours, when everyone has left. Occasionally, when his internal concentration is intense, he begins making every shot but is completely unaware of the fact. Bringing it to his attention spoils his concentration. His game -- and whatever he was thinking about -- goes out the window.
 
Pool isn't the only game played at Gino's. Newcomers are often challenged to a game of Liar's Dice (sometimes also known as Chinese Dice) with Gino, the rules and variations to which are convoluted and change often. Gino keeps his winnings in crowded jar behind the bar. Most regulars know better than to throw their money away.

John Law and Other Locals
 
William Kelley
San Francisco's politically ambitious District Attorney, with a reputation for being "tough on crime", at least when such moniker suits him. If putting someone innocent behind bars helped bolster that image, he doesn't lose too much sleep over doing so.

Detective Tony Manicelli
Tony is about the only cop on the SFPD that Nick trusts -- and more importantly, that trusts him. Tony can usually be counted on to leak inside info to Nick, or to refer a client who is in enough trouble to need a detective but can't afford one of the big names. Every now and then he asks Nick to do something in return, usually simple surveillance, or checking in with sources on the street that wouldn't take kindly to a cop asking questions.

Karl Gotlieb
San Francisco's Coroner. Almost as wide as he was tall, and as casual with a scalpel as only a coroner can be. He's seen it all, and nothing can break his German smirk anymore.
 
Sergeant Daugherty
Ascerbic Desk Sgt. at Police headquarters. Can't stand private detectives, least of all, Nick.

Cliff
Soft spoken guard at the jail.

Manny Dunning
Loud, good humored regular at Gino's