Free Ghosted by Shaughnessy Bishop-Stall Page B

suitable operatic bridge. Mason was feeling good. He was about to win—big time, as long as Chaz went in. Sure he’d still be down, but his losing streak was over, and he could work from that blessed, fragile point.
    “Another tragic mistake! The hotdog hack has done it again, done it again, done it again …”
    Chaz was trying to get a read on Mason who stared steadily back at him until finally Chaz ended on a lame, ill-thought note—“
He’s blown his load
!”—and pushed his chips all-in.
    Mason turned his cards, for three eights. Chaz flipped a jack and ace, for nothing. “Flippin’ deal ’em out,” he said.
    There wasn’t a straight or a flush to be had. “What happened to all the singing?” said Mason, then turned up a jack.
    Chaz pointed his finger at Mason.
“One more jack and you’re my bitch (my bitch my bitch my biiiiitch). How lucky, it iiiis, that I alreeeeady-like-you.”
    Mason laughed, because the final crescendo was better than he’d expected—and also there was no way they’d hit another jack. The odds were astronomical: like finding God in a bowl of Shanghai noodles.
    “Eat it up,” said Mason, and flipped a jack.
    Neither of them moved or breathed a word.
    Chaz had left with all the money. The Warrior Monk was dead.
    Mason couldn’t trick himself into not caring. Just two weeks and he’d lost every dollar of Warren’s five grand. All that blood money. He could have paid off Chaz, worked less on hotdogs, more on his novel. It made him furious. The only way to ever win was having enough to lose.
    That’s how Chaz did it. It bugged him how much money Chaz made. And the fact that Chaz didn’t snort the stuff himself made it even lousier. Mason had vowed he’d never become a dealer but he’d broken a lot of other vows—that’s what happened if you went around vowing haphazardly like a carefree, careless monk. So what had he become instead?
    A vagrant. A cokehead. A drunk
.
    A guy who sells hotdogs
.
    A lousy gambler. A hack
.
    Yeah, that’s
way
better
.
    As he had another drink, as he did another line, as he shuffled the cards, Mason’s anger grew. It had been expanding slowly since his night in that empty room. But now it grew in spades, and as it did its focus shifted from Mason, to his predicament, to the lateWarren Shanter. It rose up and set upon the dead man like a dog who’d been kicked in the head.
    He screwed you over
.
    He lied to you
.
He took advantage of your kindness—your desire to help people. And he turned you into a chump
.
    A love letter, for Christ’s sake! You
are
a chump
.
    And Warren knew it
.
    He used you. He bought and sold you. The money’s all gone and so is he, and now you’re going to hell
.
    What else is new?
    So what are you going to do about it?
    The anger snarled around him. The wind was blowing outside, banging against the windows. Across the street the MHAD billboard turned. A drink, a line, a shuffle. The wind, the snarling, the pieces turning …
    Then—
click
—the image snapped into place.
    And suddenly he could see it: his very own billboard.
    He put down the cards and walked to the desk. The sun was rising. A car alarm went off. Mason looked out the window. The man with the invisible kite was there, his arm tugging at nothing. Mason sat down and began to type.

Are you at the end of your rope, or plan to be?
Contact www.ghostwriter.com
    So life ain’t worth living?
And your writing skills suck?
Try www.thelastword.com
    Given up hope?
Don’t give up your legacy.
Go to www.eternalspin.com
    Ready to throw in the chips?
Shock and awe them all.
Check out www.prosetodieby.com
    So you’re going out in a blaze of glory,
Let ’em know why.
Go to www.weneverknewye.com
    The grey skies may never be clear,
But at least your letter should be.
Contact www.GhostMason.com
    Hell, what do you have to lose?

Who wants to tell old Aunt Sarah?
Joe’s run off to Fire Lake
.

THE THIRD

    INTRODUCING:
    Sissy, the Doc again,
    the Cave and the QT