BALLARD motor court

By Mike Kiley

Ballard, a part-time mail-order private detective, confronts the mystery behind an attempt on his life and in the process plumbs the very nature of reality.

Also starring:

Pamela—a bartending tarot card reader

RC—a tortured graphic novelist

Joe—a street rabbi and his golem

Pascal—a no-nonsense police inspector prone to hallucinatory insights.

Mix in a pack of wild dogs, a blues-picking Cambodian baker, and a tower that is approximately two miles tall and you have the supernatural novella that is BALLARD motor court.

The living creatures ran & returned.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mike Kiley
• Release date: Jun 19, 2012
• ISBN: 9780985505929

Mike Kiley

Mike Kiley has labored in various book and digital vineyards, most notably at The UCI Bookstore and TOKYOPOP. He has been published in small literary and specialty magazines and has collected many rejection slips from more mainstream publications. His life was changed by seeing David Bowie at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium in 1972. He lives in Mar Vista, California with a woman of substance, his lovely wife Nicole.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

3+ WEEKS AGO, 6:45 P.M.

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-1-

A police cavalry unit: 20 black-visored riders sit atop 20 huge black horses. They hide behind a concrete wall. The horses snort white into the cold night air. The unit captain checks his watch; holds up two fingers to his riders.

Around the corner, two old homeless women: Gracie—gaunt, with pink skin and cotton-candy white hair—struggles with a burlap sack thrown over her shoulder; the other, Betty—black, tubby, with a more-salt-than-pepper afro—lugs a set of golf clubs.

You OK, hon? You gon’ make it? asks Betty.

Gracie: I can make it. You got the hard part. Them clubs.

Alright, alright. Just askin, is all. You a trip, little Gracie!

They’re walking toward a six-storey brick building. The building sits beneath a network of vaulted on- and off-ramps. Traffic on the ramps is stalled: rush-hour. Honking, fumes, angry faces through car windows. Trying to get to The Tower that rises over a mile into the sky above all these access ramps. Below, on the street, Gracie and Betty approach a set of massive double-doors marked HIGH VOLTAGE: the entrance to The Rabbi’s factory. One of the doors creaks open, from the inside …

… revealing an abandoned power station: oil spots on the concrete floor; a dozen huge iron transformers behind chainmetal fencing. A rickety metal staircase crawls up a side wall to a balcony on the sixth floor; otherwise the building is open.

Herman, a massive tatted-up Latino in his 40s, clangs the door shut behind the two old ladies. Luisa, a Oaxacan in her 60s, takes the burlap sack from Gracie.

Betty: Gracias, senora! Can you say gracias, Gracie?

"I been bustin my ass all day long on the street. I don’t have to gracias anybody."

Betty winks at Herman and Luisa, then puts her arm around Gracie in a mock headlock.

You one trippy white lady, little Gracie!

Those for The Rabbi? From the detective? asks Luisa, indicating the golf clubs on Betty’s shoulder.

Yes, ma’am. Here you go!

Outside, the captain gives his signal and the riders, instantly arrayed, move forward: terrible, swift, inexorable. Two men ahead of them on foot rip open the steel HIGH VOLTAGE doors and the horses race through the opening in a flash of shiny black hair and leather.

-2-

Joe The Rabbi hears the commotion below from his sixth floor lair. He races to the catwalk and peers below to see:

Two dozen black-visored riders stampeding through tents, makeshift cooking stations, card tables. clotheslines. They maneuver and weave between the fenced-off transformers. Screams of outrage; fright. The riders swing meter-long batons to dismantle anything in their paths. The horses wheel and snort; charge and rear-up.

The Rabbi yells but is not heard: No! Not again! Please! Stop! Not Again!

He is ancient but makes his way as quickly as he can down the rusty metal stairwell bolted on to the inner wall on the north side of the building. By the time he is halfway down his factory has been demolished, his people’s meager possessions have been trampled, and the riders have vanished as quickly as they came. All that is left are the cries and whimpers of the men, women, and children who count on him for safety.

The Rabbi stops on the stairs. He looks up. Closes his eyes. His voice. His spirit. His word. I will learn. I will make this right.

Betty bleeds from a wound on her forehead; she’s been shielding Gracie. Gracie now dabs at her friend’s head with a rag. Looks up at The Rabbi on the stairwell and scowls.

I am small in an infinite space. My head feels light and it buzzes. I am very very small but growing. I am alone but warm from the buzzing. Space swims around me and I am comforted in the warm buzz.

I detect a signal. Scritch-scratch scritch-scratch on the page. The scritch-scratch cuts through the buzz and ... am I to be summoned?

CHAPTER 2

3 WEEKS AGO, 7:00 A.M.

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-1-

Lulu mostly keeps her head down as she nudges her tray along the cafeteria line. Occasionally glances up to keep tabs on the two homeless women who are several people ahead of her in line.

She nods at oatmeal—receives a plop in a bowl from the hairnetted woman behind the steam tray; and then points at sourdough toast and gets that shuffled to her, too. Pays the cashier sitting behind the old manual-keyed NCR. And then makes her way through the crowd. Takes a seat at a communal table opposite the two women she’s been tailing. Keeps her head down; munches on toast. She listens:

So, what do we do now? asks Gracie.

The Rabbi will fix it. That’s what The Rabbi said, replies Betty. There’s a bandage on her forehead.

I know what The Rabbi said, Betty. I’m asking you: how?

Betty shrugs. "Am I The Rabbi? Betty examines her inquisitor. What do you think we should do, Gracie?"

Gracie considers this; chomps on some bacon. Not sure. Just askin. Just scared is all.

Betty: We’re all scared, honey. But The Rabbi will come up with something. I believe him.

Gracie nods. Then a mischievous light in her eyes: You see Herman last night?

That tattooed fool? Thinkin he’s bout to lay a hurt down on them cops on horses? Sheeeit!

The two old ladies giggle at each other.

I’m just sayin he likes you. You could cut a brother a break.

Then at the same time they notice Lulu looking at them over her oatmeal.

What, girl? Betty raises her eyebrows at Lulu.

Take a picture—it lasts longer, adds Gracie.

I’m sorry, flusters Lulu. I was just. I’m sorry. Just lonely, I guess. None of my business. She gets up and pulls her tray toward her to leave.

Sit down, honey. We didn’t mean nothin. You all by yourself?

Yeah.

Sleepin on the street?

No, my car. I’ve got a car. It doesn’t run much. But I can sleep in it.

Betty looks at Gracie; Gracie sighs. Turns to Lulu.

We have a place. A whole group. Kind of like a family, you could say, says Gracie.

Exactly like a family. Big and noisy and we all fight and love each other, laughs Betty.

That sounds … nice. Real nice, whispers Lulu.

Then tag along with us today, girl—we’ll show you how we roll!

OK—thanks!

-2-

At dawn, just off the boardwalk, a scraggly barefoot dude in torn jeans and a paint-smattered t-shirt is setting up an easel at the end of an alley, underneath the concrete overhang of a derelict parking structure.

RC, drunk, comes around a corner; looks around: just the alley, three brick walls, and the concrete overhang. You can see a bit of lightening sky, and there are some puddles of rainwater in the alley’s potholes.

RC stops behind the barefoot guy; again, takes in the surroundings.

Really? Here? he asks.

The painter turns. What? A canvas sits on