Harry Wall's Man

By John Leahy

The story revolves around an exclusive apartment tower called The Man, so called because it has been constructed in the shape of a man (legs, torso, neck, head). In the prologue we are introduced to its designer, the eccentric architect Harry Wall. He has become obsessed with his latest creation and dies of a drug overdose while hallucinating. At the time of his death he is gazing at The Man, thinking that he can see the building walking.

In the main body of the story we meet Ridley Case, another architect who hears of Wall’s death on the radio. He goes to Wall’s funeral and notices Wall’s wife, the beautiful Ramona Lansky mourning at his graveside. Ramona calls Ridley at his office and asks to meet with him. When they meet, Ramona gives him the key of Wall’s house on Pacific Palisades. She wants to know what Wall was at in this house before he died. Ridley goes to the house and finds documentation and strange drawings relating to the design of The Man.

He learns that the iron used in the steel frame of The Man has come from a mine called Gavour in Eastern Quebec. Iron mined from this deposit has been known to inexplicably “move”, always in the direction of its native Gavour. Ridley gets in touch with Ray Deslak, the owner of a website that collects tales of such rogue iron. It turns out that iron from Gavour, in order to move, must draw energy from people. Deslak shows up at Ridley’s office and the two of them move into an empty apartment in The Man in the knowledge that Wall’s fantasy was to use the building’s residents as an energy source for the iron in The Man’s steel frame, thus giving the structure the power to walk.

They discover that it is only a matter of time before the tower begins to move, and Ridley finds out that there is more to Deslak than meets the eye. And so begins Ridley’s frantic quest to save the residents of the complex and prevent Armageddon from being unleashed in the City Of Angels...

John Leahy, the author of Harry Wall’s Man, is a past prize winner at Listowel Writers’ Week. His first novel, CROGIAN is available under Necro Publications. His second novel, The Faith, will be released in autumn 2014 by Open Books. His third novel, The Boy Who Came Back To Earth, will be released by Permuted Press in 2015.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Permuted
• Release date: Aug 13, 2014
• ISBN: 9781618683328

John Leahy

Capt. John Leahy is co-founder of Flight Coach - a resource dedicated to help passengers overcome their fear of flying. Alan Keane is Flight Coach CEO, founder and publisher. He is also a director of Alan Keane & Associates Ltd., an incentive marketing company established in 1982 and based in Dublin, Ireland.

Book preview

A PERMUTED PRESS book

Published at Smashwords

ISBN (Trade Paperback): 978-1-61868-333-5

ISBN (eBook): 978-1-61868-332-8

Harry Wall’s Man copyright © 2014

by John Leahy

All Rights Reserved.

Cover art by Matt Mosley

This book is a work of fiction. People, places, events, and situations are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or historical events, is purely coincidental.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author and publisher.

Table of Contents

Dedication

Acknowledgment

Prologue

Part 1 – Outside

Part 2 – Inside

About the Author

Dedication

To Mike and Helena - wishing you many years of happiness together.

Acknowledgment

To the City of Angels - thank you for all the inspiration your streets have given me.

John

PROLOGUE

From his darkened room Wall stared across a quiet Sunset Boulevard at the enormous, lit-up colossus. As he raised a glass of brandy to his lips he recalled the words of his mentor: The children of the mind, Harry the mediocre drunk had pontificated always give more satisfaction than the children of the loin. Indeed. As he gulped down the remainder of his beverage he gazed out over the top of the glass at the perfection of his latest creation. The three bickering, indolent wolves that his wife had inflicted upon him had never caused him to feel such pride.

It was always a special night, the night before one of his babies opened itself to the world and took its place. His heart would pound with mixed emotions. He would marvel at the beauty of his offspring, its splendor, its power and yet its innocence. The innocence of a virgin being led to the altar by a proud and yet slightly broken-hearted father, sad at having to concede his daughter to corruption. He would often cry on these nights, tears of happiness and sadness coursing down his cheeks. Tonight was different however. Tonight he wasn’t even remotely forlorn at the prospect of his child receiving its allotment of human filth.

Because this child was special. It needed people. For the journey.

He tore a leaf from a notepad on the cluttered desk in front of him and began rolling it. He bent over the line of cocaine before him and put his hastily constructed paper funnel to his nose. Wall studied the line that stretched away to his right. It was a very long line. It would blow his head off. But this was a special occasion necessitating a special hit. He went for it.

He flung himself back in his chair blinking rapidly as the most intense rush of his life flooded his system. His heart galloping he gazed out at his baby, unaware of the blood flowing from his nose and pooling in the line between his lips before continuing its descent toward his chin. His breathing grew rapid as he watched his baby turn its head, momentarily facing him as it went to look east. Its raised right foot crashed to the ground, the deep reverberating BOOM it made all the more exquisite to Wall’s drug-heightened hearing. His bladder drenched his sweat-streaked underwear in delight and his bloody mouth widened in a demented smile. Completely ensnared by this glorious illusion he was oblivious to the still rising speed of his heartbeat. There were only his child’s first steps, everything else was immaterial.

BOOOMMMM

The left foot thudded to the earth beside the right. Wall jumped to his bare feet, blood dripping from his chin mixing on the floor with urine from his soaked boxers. He extended his arms outward, a soiled, half-naked drug-maddened preacher.

WALK! he shrieked at the concrete giant, bloodied spit flying from his quivering mouth. WALK!

The right leg of the twenty-nine story tower lifted slowly but Wall didn’t get to see it descend. His speeding heart suddenly gave out and the hallucinating brain it was feeding pulled the curtain on the mirage before his eyes. Wall crumpled bonelessly to the floor, his dead eyes open, a morbid trace of his crazy grin still clinging to his features, happy to have seen the great sight. For all those eyes knew it had been the real thing.

PART I

OUTSIDE

Fucking ties Ridley Case thought as he went to rip the pulled-too-tight knot which having excessive play was childishly mobile under his collar. One of his ex-wives had often joked on his lack of tact with the closing stages of the procedure, remarking on how a man could design skyscrapers and make a hash of something like putting on a tie. As he studied the current state of play in the mirror he was glad that particularly