Runner-up 2

Carmen Madonna Louise Ventura breathed a ragged sigh of relief when the CHP officer gunned his black and white BMW motorcycle past her Chevy Malibu without a second look. Had he been more observant and not in such a hurry to catch a speeding Porsche Cayman, he might have noticed that her carpooling passenger was dead.

How could she have been so careless, so gosh-darned stupid? Clearly someone had been in the shabby walk-up she called home. The two couch pillows were not exactly as she had left them, and a banana was missing from the brown-speckled bunch left on the kitchen table. In her rush to get the envelope where she’d hidden it in the clothes hamper, she had ignored the signs.

The raspy-voiced blond man with the bloody neck wound was hiding in her closet all along, waiting for her to come home. Carmen knew that had it not been for the grace of God, it would be her, not him, dead and riding shotgun in the carpool lane. Correction, she thought. Credit the chrome-plated Beretta she carried in the alligator-hide bag bought on impulse at Nordstrom’s; the red-dyed, gold-buckled bag she couldn’t live another day without.

Carmen wanted to change into something more feminine than stone-washed jeans and a blue UC Davis sweat shirt before meeting with the dangerously unpredictable Vincent Palmieri; something that might keep him from cutting her throat if things went badly wrong. She had gone to the bedroom and opened the louvered closet door, smelling the fruity banana smell on the man’s breath before seeing him.

Carmen shuddered at the still-fresh memory, of the surprised look on his ruddy face when he saw the Beretta pointed at a spot directly between his bloodshot eyes. He had lunged toward her, but unfortunately for him, his feet became tangled in her sparkly rhinestone-covered pole-dancing shoes. His expression upon being shot through the head was one of annoyance, like finding a parking ticket tucked under the windshield wiper.

Getting his body out of the apartment, dragging it down the stairs and buckling it into the Chevy’s front passenger seat unseen was pure luck fueled by adrenaline. Wanting to put a name to her would-be assailant, Carmen paused to fumble for the wallet in his back pocket. She was surprised to see he carried an Argentine driver’s license, and wondered what Hans Alfredo-Villalobos was doing in her apartment. Then she realized he must have been after the very envelope she was now risking her life for. It was becoming increasingly clear that Mr. Alfredo-Villalobos and Mr. Palmieri had shared interests. The question of what to do with Alfredo-Villalobos’ body before getting to Dodger Stadium took on a whole different perspective.

She stole a quick glance at her watch, a Rolex bought with tips earned at Jumbo’s Clown Room. It was nearly 6:30, the appointed time to meet Palmieri and Steve Lopez at the Stadium Club. Maybe Mr. Lopez could help figure out what to do with the body, assuming Mr. Palmieri let them live to figure out anything.

Carmen stepped on the gas until the speedometer needle nudged 90 mph. She looked over at Hans, strapped into his lap belt and shoulder harness like a trussed pig. Were it not for the bullet hole between his eyes, anybody looking in would think her passenger was sleeping.

Carmen froze when she saw red and blue take-down lights flashing in the rearview mirror, followed by the sudden whoop of the black and white’s siren. “No!” she hissed through clenched teeth. “No . . . no . . . no!”

Gordon Davis is the author of four unpublished novels and is in search of an agent.