Runner-up 2

Palmieri’s instructions to his henchmen had been clear: Pick up Ernesto and Genie before they made it in the door of Falco’s mansion and, making sure they weren’t followed, get over to the Renaissance Montura Hotel near LAX as fast as possible. Palmieri would join them there as soon as his plane landed. According to plan, Genie would have the flash drive on her and, even if Ernesto had been armed, Palmieri’s men would have taken care of that even before they were belted into the BMW.

The thought of the shocked faces of Falco and Bonner when they realized that the “Birds,” worth millions, had been snatched right out from under their noses along with Genie and Ernesto was priceless. He rubbed his hands together, admiring his smoothly manicured nails. This would be interesting -- and profitable. He was eager to see what the Hon. Francis Reilly had been capable of in the Nevada desert “paradise,” and then quietly confront him with it before the hearing date. He could then relax and return to business as usual. The revenues had been excellent so far, and being the sole possessor of the electronic bombshell would mean there would be no deal, anywhere, he wouldn’t be called on to broker.

The plan that Palmieri had originally devised to lure Bonner to Cabo had been a good one, and he would have liked to have had it conclude with Charlie’s disappearance in Colombia, but no matter. Everything was falling into place. Now he just had to make sure that Carmen was no longer in any position -- he had to smile at his choice of words -- to blab about the kinds of exotic pleasures she had heard that the leggy Las Vegas “Birds” offered their esteemed visitors. He marveled at Falco’s stupidity in specifying names and places to a stripper, tales that even Carmen had probably discounted as exaggerations. He didn’t know that once Carmen had taken up reading more of the L.A. Times than just the comics she began to recognize some familiar names, and found herself in awe but increasingly uneasy.

As she waited for the phone to ring, Carmen decided what she would say. Before she had begun her career as what they used to call an “exotic dancer,” she had been just another low-paid Mexican nanny. She’d let this out to several of her best clients, and the disparity in her previous job and the skills she had developed around the pole seemed to turn them on even more. Maybe there was something to those Mommy fantasies after all, she thought.

So that would be it. Just yesterday she’d seen a picture in the paper of L.A. County’s district attorney and his teenage kids at a water park. He was pretty important, wasn’t he? She would tell Palmieri that she had worked for their family years ago and they had always liked her. She would then say that just yesterday she had sent the D.A. a letter, instructing that it wasn’t to be opened unless something happened to her. In it she had detailed Palmieri’s scheme to blackmail Judge Reilly to get him to uphold the appeal on the racketeering conviction. Her voice when she told him this would be soft and persuasive and she could only pray that Palmieri, if he was like most men, would believe her. Then, with an adoring Tony funding her escape, she could safely disappear, far away from Los Angeles.

After an interminable four rings, Palmieri finally picked up. “Hola, Carmen,” he said. “I’m so happy to hear from you.”

Jozelle Smith was born and raised in Culver City and is a former city commissioner, councilwoman and mayor.