The ghost of Eddie Sartori, late of Chicago’s criminal
underworld, floated around a squalid apartment illuminated by fluorescent
advertisements from the street below. On a coffee table lay a release order
from the Illinois State Penitentiary granting liberty to Leonard Aaron Levy who
lay asleep on a sweat soaked mattress. It was the hottest summer for fifteen
years; even the birds were tanned.
Closely examining
Lenny’s pallor, the ghost came to a decision. “He’ll do, his prison tan says it
all; fresh out of poky and down on his luck; the perfect fall guy.” The ghost
de-materialised before dawn ushered in another glittering day in the Windy
City.
The spook returned the following night just as Lenny was
preparing for bed. He snatched a Glock hand-gun from beneath his pillow,
screaming, “Back off or I’ll ventilate you; you schmuck.”
“At least the sap
ain’t yellow,” observed the visitor disregarding the firearm. It coasted toward
the ex-con attempting to insert its forefingers into his ears. Lenny shrieked
and emptied his gat into the ghost’s head.
Unperturbed, it
drifted over to write an ectoplasm message on a grimy wall mirror with a
finger. It read, “I’m a ghost and can only communicate with you by plugging my
fingers into your listeners. It’s to do with the living and the dead having
different atomic oscillation levels; or sumpun
like that.”
Inquisitively Lenny
limped to the mirror laboriously tracing each glowing word with a finger. He
turned to the hovering wraith and said slowly, “Okay, Smokey Joe, but warm up
your fingers foist with that
ectoplasm stuff you guys are made of.”
The ghost wrote in
reply, “They don’t do warm fingers where I come from, pal, cos we ain’t flesh
an’ blood no-more, and anyhow, ectoplasm’s no warmer than a hooker’s price
list.”
“Okay, plug-in, but
tell me who you are and what you want or I’ll blow you away with my electric
fan,” sniggered Lenny becoming more confident.
“Electric fan,
huh?” said Sartori after plugging in to Lennie’s ears, “Listen wise guy, you
ain’t so smart or you wouldn’t have tried to whack a ghost with a hand-gun. But
grinding you down ain’t why I’m here. My name’s Sartori, Eddie Sartori. Now lemme ask you sumpun; what’s with the limp?”
“Aw I got mixed up
in a streetcar accident as a kid, and my right leg ended up shorter than the
other; what’s it to you anyhow?”
“I wanna know if you can drive an automobile.”
About the author:
James Sainsbury, a former central heating quality
control inspector, began writing in 1990 after completing a correspondence
course had two articles and three short stories published. Upon retirement he
noticed his two little fingers were curling into the palms and was told he had
Dupuytren’s Contracture; a disease brought over by the Vikings, hence his
chosen pseudonym – The Viking – all five feet six inches of him; not your average
berserker.
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