Runner-up 3

The flash drive dangled from Genie’s necklace as she boarded the Green Line train at Aviation Boulevard. Nobody would steal it from her with a distraction as simple as a kiss. Most people didn’t notice Genie’s neck, anyway -- their eyes were naturally drawn to the topography a bit south.

The problem with Charlie, and with all men -- but particularly those in the self-important grip of Hollywood -- was that they chronically underestimated the pretty young things they collected for wives. Case in point: By now good ol’ Chuck Bonner, her one and only, would have noticed the missing drive. He was probably already on the horn to Falco, who would use his political connections to make an exit from LAX a living nightmare.

But what kind of escape vehicles would they be looking for? Limousines, town cars, possibly standard taxi cabs. “I know my Genie,” Chuck would say, “it’s got to have air conditioning and a plush back seat.”

Obtuse, that’s what you called a guy like Chuck.

She was on public transportation, cruising south, and it shouldn’t have been a surprise. After all, she hadn’t always been Genie Bonner, breakout star of uber-producer Charlie Bonner’s reality hit “Oil Princesses: A Sheik’s Search for Love.” Before the glass house in Malibu, before the loveless marriage, before the nationally televised flirtations with a royal bachelor from Dubai, she had been born Sarah Kranton to a no-luck family in No Luck, Missouri. And she had ridden buses and trains with the best of them.

Now she studied the masking tape, the impromptu label, on the flash drive. BIRDS OF PARADISE. She had an idea of the drive’s contents but not until she had the laptop could she confirm her suspicions. The bottom line is that it was valuable. Mysterious men in Cabo, a beady-eyed California congressman, half of the television industry, they all seemed to be making a play for this little chunk of data.

As was her own posse, for whom she eagerly searched as the train hit the El Segundo stop, their designated meeting spot. The doors opened and Genie took a half-step onto the platform. She whistled once and signaled Ernesto and Carmen, who hovered near a bench several yards away.

The newcomers scrambled onto Genie’s train.

“You got it?” asked Ernesto, kissing her deeply on the lips and yes, ignoring her neckline like he always did.

“Like candy from a baby,” she grinned, lifting her new pendant. She moved past Ernesto to give Carmen a hug.

“To my sister,” said Carmen, “the world’s sneakiest trophy wife.”

“And to my sister, the world’s sneakiest pole dancer.” They giggled.

Genie noticed Ernesto patting his hip, checking compulsively for the reassurance of some hidden object. Just like Charlie, patting his pocket for the flash drive. But she knew Ernesto felt for a gun.

Getting down to business, Carmen plunked into a seat, pulled a laptop from her backpack and booted up.

“Now?” she asked.

“Why not?” said Genie.

“No use waiting,” said Ernesto.

Genie slid the cap off and pressed the drive firmly into the computer’s USB port. The processor whirred, a complementary humming to that of the rail beneath. The cursor switched to hourglass mode, counting the interminable seconds until the window popped up and revealed its secrets.

Suddenly, just as the hourglass disappeared, the lights in the train went out and the ground around them rumbled and groaned. Genie swallowed a scream but other riders did not. In a train car lighted only by the eerie glow of the laptop, she saw Ernesto take firm hold of his pistol.

Andrew De Silva works in real estate and likes tennis and rock ‘n’ roll.