City by the Bay (Dixon Hill's San Francisco)

Fog and slate skies compress the city into a single hard-edged mood: a grey day in the city by the bay. Rain-slicked sidewalks, neon halos pooled in gutters, and the metallic echo of distant streetcars shape a tangible noir metropolis. The urban fabric presses close—cracked storefronts, narrow alleys, cigarette smoke curling against glass—and the city acts as both refuge and threat for the broke gumshoe. Its textures and sounds frame ritual entrances and voiceover confession, supplying motive, atmosphere, and the ever-present risk that refuge inside fiction can fracture into danger.