Runner-up 1

Charlie Bonner wondered if all the strips of sports tape holding the wires to his chest were going to come off without a loss of even more hairs if he survived the meeting at Dodger Stadium. Not like he could ask Ernesto. The shift in power was still rubbing him raw. Squeezed in the back seat with the DEA agent and his ego, he knew life wasn’t fair.

Genie tried to edge out of the meet with the mobster but another cop car trailing behind them held her hostage. Charlie was happy knowing she hadn’t gotten out of the Palmieri meeting either. So she wasn’t wired for sound and facing a certain prison sentence; it wasn’t too much of a gain but enough to make him content. Not like he had many options.

“Okay, let’s get to the ballpark before Palmieri kills Carmen with his bare hands.� Ernesto wasn’t kidding. With Palmieri, death was a close companion. Nothing anybody could do but wait out the carnage and hope for the best.

Bonner gulped and tried to think happy thoughts. Back to the days when he was king and busy plundering what the world had to offer. When any bimbo who showed up for an audition was ripe for the plucking and he’d never met that jerk Palmieri, much less heard of Congressman Falco or married his fading rose of a wife. Genie had pulled him down; he knew it now. Not that it would do much good but it was what he was thinking. Why hadn’t one of the gun-toting toadies shot Genie? Or at least winged her? His life was cascading for a major crash and he didn’t see anything on the horizon to save him.

“Okay, we’re nearly at the stadium. Last reports I got said that we need to be at the Stadium Club by 6:30 when Carmen is supposed to hook up with Palmieri and from what we heard Steve Lopez will be there also.� Ernesto still looked like a hood but wasn’t sounding like Charlie’s old gangster pal in the least.

One of the other agents grunted and bantered about baseball. Charlie tuned out the sports talk and tried to figure a way out of the trap. He felt sweat running down his forehead and dripping down to his chest. He wondered how much electricity was bouncing around the wiring and if he could be electrocuted by contact.

It was then they crashed. Not one of those dramatic Hollywood slam-ups with cars launching illogically over each other and flipping upside down then igniting for no good reason, but the day-to-day freeway bumper car smash-up that littered the rush-hour traffic. The agent driving wasn’t able to avoid the car in front of him any more than the car behind him avoided their bumper. By the time the world stopped spinning there were a half-dozen cars mixed up in a tow truck driver’s wet dream. They weren’t going to make the Stadium Club by 6:30 at this rate.

The driver looked at his watch and while profusely bleeding from the forehead cut while knocking into the steering wheel said, “Don’t stay here. Go. You can make it.�

A noble gesture but Charlie just wanted to stay inside the damaged car. Ernesto ignored Charlie’s gaze and dragged him out saying, “Pick it up. We need to run.�

They hit the ground and headed to the stadium.

Laura Nagy says she was born at Daniel Freeman Memorial Hospital, which overlooked a cemetery, “not that it colored my writing much.�