Runner-up 2

While Carmen was making tracks in Reseda, Charlie Bonner had slowly pulled himself together enough to be on the move himself.

He finally found his Porsche in short-term parking (he hadn’t really paid much attention when he thought he was going to abandon it earlier). He noted numbly that it hadn’t even been there long enough to get a ticket. Tossing the satchel onto the floor of the passenger seat, he was soon out of LAX and back on the freeway.

Instead of going back to his hilltop Malibu house, where he figured he’d be a sitting duck, Charlie headed for the one place he still felt safe and master of the universe -- his office.

How in the hell could this unravel so fast, he thought as he headed for Beverly Hills. Maybe he should have realized the bags were too light when he threw them on the trolley, but he was thinking about the satchel and, to be honest, he hadn’t touched a bag in years, or driven to the airport, for that matter. He had people for that.

He looked down at the satchel with the passports and $20,000 in cash. That’s just enough to get lost, he thought, but not nearly enough to stay lost. I’m going to have to tough it out here.

I’ll get to the office, I’ll call in a few chits, I’ll be OK, Charlie thought. I’ve still got plenty of clout. Wasn’t it only five years ago that Buzz had called him “brilliant, but ruthless” in “The New Hollywood Headhunters” article? He’d call Ernesto -- he and his boys would fix things. And why hadn’t Ernesto called?

He drove slowly down Santa Monica to his offices on Sunset. Warr-Bonner Productions took up an entire floor in one of those glass-curtain buildings across from the CAA building. There was a guard in the garage, a guard in the lobby and a guy in a lumpy blue blazer stationed by the elevator in the main office. This was Charlie’s suede-and-stainless-steel fortress.

“Good morning, Mr. Bonner. We thought you were on your way out of town,” chirped Vonda, the receptionist. Vonda was known around the office as “her mezzanine majesty,” and had made Charlie’s short list of people to do post-Genie.

“Change of plans,” Charlie said. “Any messages?”

“About a zillion. And Mr. Bonner, the brother of that poor woman who got killed in ‘Birds of Paradise’ last month -- Tommy Harjo? I told him you weren’t coming in, but he wanted to wait. He’s in the conference room.”

“Birds of Paradise” was the all-girl survival show he had sold to Fox last year. Bobbie Jo Harjo, one of this year’s contestants on “Birds of Paradise: The Galapagos” had fallen into the ocean and been carried away by sea turtles. Tragic, of course, but gonzo publicity -- eight minutes on “Entertainment Tonight,” the cover of Us. Maybe he’d just pop in and pay his respects.

“Hi, Tommy,” Charlie said, entering the conference room. “Words can’t express our grief.”

“I’m sure they can’t,” said Tommy, who drew a pistol and shot Charlie in the chest.

Charlie found himself sitting on the floor in a pool of blood, staring into the face of a smiling stranger. “Who the hell are you?” Charlie demanded. “Don’t just stand there. Call the police. Call a doctor.”

“It might be a bit late for that, Charlie,” the man said pleasantly. “Here. Touch my hand. You’re about to find out why we call it the City of Angels.”