Carmen plunges into a river of trouble

Where we left off: We have a Hollywood producer wearing a wire for the feds, a Times columnist heading out to meet a stripper and a drug trafficker, a former FBI man down with a bullet in his shoulder, and a would-be hit man roaming the city. Isn’t it about time for a car chase?

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Carmen stood looking up at her car dangling on the edge of the Los Feliz overpass above the Los Angeles River.

A few minutes earlier, she had been easing from the 134 onto the 5, when her blond visitor from that morning pulled alongside, waving a gun to force her from the freeway.

She bought precious seconds by cutting in front of two 18-wheelers that were clogging the slow lanes, then pulled off the freeway near the zoo.

Carmen drove past the empty Autry museum parking lot. She passed the turnoff to the carousel, recalling the colorful horses and a time long before pole dancing. She screamed along the golf course, past scorched hillsides that had now turned green. She remembered the night the Jumbo’s crowd had stepped outside and watched the hills burn.

The hit man gained on her. At Los Feliz, she took a panicked left turn, smashing into the pedestal of Col. Griffith J. Griffith’s statue. With a blown tire, Carmen careened so badly that she finally crashed through the Los Feliz bridge guardrail. The force of the crash sent her cellphone flying from her hand, out of the car and down into the river.

She grabbed the backpack that contained the Lopez envelope and raced toward the entrance to the riverine bike path.

As the blond man pulled up to the wreckage, she broke into a desperate gallop, glancing back to see if any cyclists were going in her direction.

As luck would have it, a pimply-faced adolescent was speeding toward her on a mountain bike. Carmen lifted her top. He nearly lost control.

“Can I have a ride?” she said with a smile. “It’s something you’ll never forget. Just lean back in your seat, and I’ll work the handlebars.”

She was an expert cyclist -- riding up and down the river path was how she kept her dancer’s figure. She could hear her assailant yelling on the bridge. As she pedaled madly southward, she slipped into a battlefield Zen state.

She knew he’d been looking for her, because while she was driving, she’d received a frantic, apologetic call from her building superintendent. A bloodied man had paid a visit and had tricked him into saying what kind of car Carmen was driving. Later, the super had found a pool of blood outside the apartment -- presumably the gunman’s.

Suddenly, her Zen state was shattered by the sound of silencer-muffled gunfire. Her pursuer was riding a newly acquired beach cruiser.

The pubescent boy and his bike went tumbling to the right. Carmen went tumbling left, down the riverbank. The blond man crashed into the hapless teen, abandoned his mangled bicycle and started looking around for her.

Carmen raced along the slime-laden concrete, past trees and through water. He fired another shot, and this one missed her by inches.

For the next 10 minutes, adrenaline pushed her onward, but she kept slipping, and he kept gaining. Finally, he was close enough that she could hear his cellphone ring.

And then suddenly, he turned around and headed back toward the riverbank, cursing.

She went stumbling to the next bridge and flagged down a car flying a Dodger blue banner. She looked at her watch. She could still make her rendezvous.

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Thair Peterson is a UCLA graduate who says he is “eager to return to my alma mater, soak up the lessons from festival panels, then read a chapter near Kerckhoff Hall this Sunday.”