Runner-up

Carmen looked down at her bloodied hands and calculated her next move. It was midmorning. At that time of day, most normal Angelenos were sipping their second cup of joe, arguing about who was voted off “Idol” last night.

Here she was, anything but normal, standing in a foul-smelling alley, covered in some thug’s blood, with nothing more than a pair of ratty sweats and a Hustler T-shirt covering her bruised body.

She had to get the blood off, she had to get clean clothes and she had to get to a phone.

She peered around the corner just as the B-movie Crown Victoria pulled from the curb.

“Hmmm,” she thought to herself, scrunching her brows curiously. “Didn’t come after me. Weird.”

The sound of the choppers and sirens, distant at first, grew louder. Carmen had no way of knowing if they were coming her way. But a blood-curdling scream, a busted down door and a thug lying in a pool of blood? Too much even for this neighborhood. The cops would show up sooner than later .

She glanced both ways and broke into a sprint.

She felt the throbbing in her head and the ache radiating down her back. Sweat mixed with blood as she picked up the pace. Hart Street hadn’t seemed so far from Vanowen when she drove it. She wiped her brow and kept running.

Apartment buildings turned into single-family homes as she ran the alley behind Tampa. Dogs yelped and scurried toward chain-link fences. A lone homeless man pushed his squeaky cart to the next garbage can.

She rounded the corner onto Hart, Maggie’s house within view. Another minute and she’d be safe inside.

She pounded on Maggie’s door. Her chest heaved as she bent over to catch her breath.

The door opened.

Maggie stepped back, shook her head, and motioned Carmen in. “Won’t even ask,” she said, clicking the double deadbolt tight. Miss El Paso 1995 Marguerita Suarez was accustomed to the bumps and bruises that came from the rough and tumble life they’d ended up in. But until they hit the Lotto, it seemed part of the game.

“Listen, Maggie,” Carmen panted. “I don’t want you too involved; the least you know, the better. But remember that creepy guy I’ve been telling you about? The one with the Jimmy Johnson-helmet-hair? Comes into the club winking and snapping his fingers like he’s Mr. Cool?”

“Sure do,” Maggie snorted.

“Well, let’s just say, he’s told me way too much,” Carmen said as she grabbed the Times off Maggie’s table. “Check this out.” Carmen waved the front page at her friend. Falco’s face was right above the fold.

“Thought I knew his real name!” Carmen laughed as she uttered Falco’s name. And a U.S. congressman to boot, she said under her breath.

“Even worse,” she continued, “this other guy’s been hanging around, asking me questions about our little friend here. I didn’t say anything, but he asked me to call if I changed my mind.”

Maggie handed her friend a blue chenille robe as Carmen eased out of her clothes.

“I need your phone, Maggie,” Carmen said as she wiggled her fingers inside the little waist-band pocket of her sweats. She pulled out the crumpled piece of paper.

Maggie handed her the cell.

Here we go, Carmen said to herself as she drew a deep breath.

She glanced at the paper in her hand, flipped open the phone and punched in the number.

The phone rang in her ear.

“U.S. attorney’s office, Central District.”

Elizabeth Atwell Hart writes: “I’ve been dabbling in writing my whole life, but mostly for the engineering profession. I’m hoping my friends in the biz don’t discover I’m writing pulp fiction during the night!” Sorry about that Elizabeth.