In the grim days following WWII, San Francisco is a rough place to try and make a living as a private investigator. Nick Chambers is barely scraping by, only one step from sleeping in the gutter. When a peculiar man named Derek Halcyon offers to hire him to find someone Nick can hardly refuse, even when the only lead his client can provide is a single photo of his grinning quarry. Without even a name to go on, Nick begins a city-wide hunt for this mysterious missing person, and finds himself facing more questions than answers.