Runner-up 5

Hansel Hauser did not appreciate being played with like a yo-yo. He’d made a career out of the determination and resourcefulness that were his family legacy and he was not about to be cast aside like yesterday’s favorite toy now left out in the rain.

Carmen’s death was his raison d’etre. Yes, she’d mangled his neck into steak tartare, but that wasn’t the point. He was a man who got the job done and she was the job. But as he pondered the current state of affairs, he realized she was just a cog in the big vicious wheel of human existence, no different from him. There was something bigger at play.

“Palmieri,” grumbled the Teutonic hit man.

Hans had performed inhuman feats of strength to deliver on his promise to Palmieri, even employing his blue eyes and white smile to convince the girl’s landlord to talk despite the gaping wound at this throat. All of this brilliant commitment was now being discarded with Palmieri’s casual statement: “Never mind. We want her alive now.”

Hans marched through the Dodger Stadium parking lot collecting gear from cars sporting NRA bumper stickers. He climbed the scaffolding behind left field, found a spot to nest in across from the Stadium Club and pulled out the binoculars.

In a curtained exam room at Cedars Sinai Emergency Room, Hermann Hauser finished his phone call and looked at Evelyn solemnly. His worst fears about his brother had proven true. Not that it was a great surprise. Hansel had always demonstrated a pathological malevolence that bordered on the cliché.

Hermann’s shoulder wound was clean and would heal eventually. The doctor had gone to get a prescription for Vicodin. But the pain Hermann felt didn’t come from his arm; it came from his broken heart.

“Let’s go,” Hermann told her. He used his good arm to motion her to walk forward, a gesture she misunderstood. Evelyn took his hand tenderly in hers and led him toward her car outside.

“Where are we going?”

“To Dodger Stadium,” he replied with resignation. “I’ll explain everything in the car.”

Inside the Stadium Club, Carmen felt like a little girl on her first day of kindergarten. She had no idea what to say or do. Her companion, whom she’d introduced only as Señor Lopez, wasn’t sure where this was going either, only that no one was going to be killed out here in the open in front of 50,000 Dodger fans. Or so he thought.

“So what’s your role here?” Palmieri asked Lopez suspiciously.

“He’s with me” offered Carmen.

“Where’s Falco?”

“Antonio’s dead,” replied Bonner, seeming ambivalent.

The bartender checked Palmieri’s face for a response to this information, then walked back behind the wine cabinet, whispering into the microphone in his collar. “You getting that, Ernesto?”

“Pretty good reception,” the DEA man replied.

Palmieri shot another distrustful look at Lopez. Carmen was scared and tried to think fast. She got up off her bar stool and walked toward Lopez.

“I told you he is none of your concern,” Carmen said with forced emphasis as she climbed up onto Lopez’s lap and nestled her head on his shoulder. Deciding that she would go all the way with this ploy, she planted a long slow kiss on the reporter’s mouth.

Hans scanned the eager crowd until he had the Stadium Club in his sights. He caught a glimpse of Carmen’s jet black hair and took a second look. That was Carmen all right. She was sitting at the bar with Palmieri. He looked closer. Who was the guy making out with the pole dancer?

Gia Paladino says, “I am exhausted.”