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Runnerup 3

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“Shut up back there!”

Falco shouted loudly to the figure writhing wildly on the rear floorboard of his sleek green Mercedes as he roared down Pacific Coast Highway through Malibu.

“If it wasn’t for you, my hands would be clean in this damn thing!”

Carmen Reynosa, in response, managed a muffled curse through the red bandanna stretched firmly across her mouth and tied so tightly in the back that the knot had begun to dig into the skin on her neck.

Her wrists were already badly chafed from the nylon rope she had been attempting to wriggle free from ever since Falco had bound her up in the back bedroom of her apartment.

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Carmen was a fighter. She had been from the days of her youth when she and her four sisters had grown up together on the mean streets of East L.A. She was raised by her grandmother, her “abuela.”

Her father had been in prison since she was a little girl and her only vague memories of her mother was as a strung-out, waif-thin teenager, stroking her hair on the floor of their meager, one-bedroom apartment that sat on top of the hill in El Sereno, overlooking the 10 Freeway. Lalo Reynosa died of a heroin overdose on Carmen’s sixth birthday.

Although her chosen profession came with its own set of risks and unseemly characters, Carmen had always worked hard for her living. The strip club near the airport, though, was far more upscale than the joints she had worked at in the past. It was a popular hangout for businessmen, attorneys and, yes, politicians.

Falco was a nervous wreck as he continued to angle the expensive sedan down the narrow, winding turns of PCH. Despite the blasting air conditioner, the underarms of his blue, Oxford dress shirt were soaking wet and the perspiration relentlessly streamed down his temples onto his stiffly starched collar. He regularly glanced into the back of the car where Carmen’s body was wrapped tightly like a mummy in a green vinyl tarp. Her thrashing about reminded him of a butterfly trying to break out of a cocoon. It was almost funny.

He reached for his dark blue suit jacket slumped across the front passenger seat, retrieving a small bottle of OxyContin from the front pocket. He shook four of the pink tablets onto the center console and proceeded to pop them, one by one, into his mouth. Thank God for all his lobbyist friends in the pharmaceutical industry.

As looming Mugu Rock came into view on the left side of the highway, he backed off the accelerator and slowed the Mercedes down to about 30 miles per hour. He cut a sharp left across the highway and spun the vehicle safely into the dirt lot next to the pathway leading up to the ocean overlook.

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He climbed out of the car and scanned the lot. His car was the only one parked there. Locking the car with his key remote, he made his way up the path to check for anyone on the rock, a popular hiking and fishing location. Not a soul! He quickly walked back down to the parking lot.

He unlocked the door and slid back into the driver’s seat. He could still hear Carmen kicking about and moaning on the back floor. It was incredibly hot inside the car, so he rolled down the driver’s window. No sooner had he done this than he felt the sensation of cold steel pressing against his temple. He then heard a familiar voice, “So, how’s my old pal, Falco?”

Mike Gibson is a fiction buff and amateur creative writer.

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