Ghost Of A Ghost

by Martin Hill Ortiz

About the Author: Martin Hill Ortiz, a native of Santa Fe, New Mexico, is a professor of Pharmacology at the Ponce Health Sciences University in Puerto Rico where he lives with his wife and son. A score of his short stories have appeared in print, anthologies and online journals. His sixty-page poem, Two Mistakes, won the Tom Howard/Margaret Reid poetry award. He has authored four mystery thrillers, most recently A Predator's Game (Rook's Page Publishing).

Excerpt

The shoulder end of his arm sported a cobra tattoo. The fist end connected to my face. Sherm was playing a game of fist versus gun. He lost, I shot.

He folded in half as though the bullet in his gut had given him a tummy ache. His knees buckled as he tilted over backwards touching down on his tailbone.

“I think I broke my hand,” he said. His punch hadn’t even bloodied my nose.

Some careers don’t jibe well with mediocrity. Being a thug-for-hire doesn’t come with a health plan, which is what Sherm needed now.

“Who you working for?” he demanded as though he had won the fight.

“Nobody,” I said. Not anymore. “The real question is: who are you working for?”

He spat my answer back at me, then said, “Don’t tell no one you shot me with my own gun.”

Oh, yeah. He’d die of embarrassment.

Two minutes before all this, I was sitting on the corner of my bed, flipping through my notes, trying to make sense of the mess I was in. Then I heard a grunt from outside. The window rose up. One hand appeared from below and grabbed the sill. A second hand arrived, this one holding a gun. It let go of the gun in exchange for a second handhold. I took the weapon and stepped behind the bookcase as Sherm chinned himself up to the window ledge. Sherman Goff was tiny, wiry, twenty-something, punked out like a teen. He was a local dumb thug, proof of our failing educational system and that only bulls look good wearing nose rings.

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