This is the first in a series featuring Daniel Kearney Associates -- they repossess cars of delinquent payment ownership in San Francisco -- which is how Joe Gores started out before he wrote the MWA-winning Predators. Anyway one of Kearney's investigators is almost killed on the skip trace of ? and Ballard takes over checking out one name after another to reach the one which has been dubbed in. . . . Sunday punched to the groin, if that's the way you like it, and most active.