Charlie’s all wired up for a word with Palmieri

If the cartel bosses were the heart of the beast and Palmieri was the finger, then Charlie was a single hair that no one would mind losing if it drifted off with the wind.

At least that’s how Charlie felt watching the DEA agent threading wires and a microphone under his shirt as he sat in the back of their car.

“How’s that feel?” the agent muttered, loudly chewing his gum.

“Like I’m being wrapped in barbed wire,” Charlie answered.

He was still reeling from the way his whole universe had shattered and rearranged itself in a matter of minutes. One second he was involved in a spaghetti western showdown, guns pointed in every direction. The next second, Ernesto came clean about who he was, and the whole ticking time bomb was defused.

A day that had started with the hope of a big payoff from Palmieri might now well end with his arrest. Or, quite possibly, Charlie’s own death.

Charlie glanced at the agent sitting next to him. Even though Charlie now knew Ernesto was DEA, it was still hard not to see him as the greedy little hit man he had thought he was hiring.

“So why am I meeting Palmieri at Dodger Stadium?” he asked.

“We’ve been tapping the stripper’s phone from the time Falco started seeing her,” Ernesto said. “Thugs like Palmieri are predictable in these situations. We knew he would try to contact her again. The Stadium Club is where the meeting is set.”

“Don’t you think it’s safer to let Carmen know about what you’re doing?”

“Absolutely not,” Ernesto said quickly. “He’s expecting her to be there and to be terrified. The moment we try to interfere, we risk Palmieri knowing and the game is over before it even gets to the playing field -- so to speak.”

Ernesto and the other agent shared a laugh while Charlie felt a cold shiver creep up his spine and start to constrict his throat.

“You don’t need to worry,” Ernesto continued when he saw anxiety blanket Charlie’s face, “we’re gonna have the whole place covered. If Palmieri tries anything, then we’re gonna take him down in seconds.”

“I hope he’s not a fast draw then,” Charlie muttered.

“Just remember what we told you to say,” Ernesto said. “You explain to Palmieri that Carmen told you about the meeting and you want to finish your business deal. Make sure he knows that you don’t care about what he does with her. All you want is your cash. You must get him to implicate the Marenco cartel bosses and then offer you money for the flash drive. If we don’t get that on tape, we got nothin’.”

“Then what?” Charlie asked.

“Then we take him down and this is all over.”

The man who was wiring Charlie finally finished and patted him on the shoulder.

“There you go,” he said, chuckling. “I just hope this Palmieri guy doesn’t strip-search ya.”

Charlie began to really despise this man. He was about to say something obscene when an agent in the passenger seat who had been on his cellphone spoke.

“There’s a problem,” he said. “Carmen’s missing. We tried calling but her phone is dead. The agent we sent to her place says it looks like someone was just there searching through her room, but she’s nowhere in sight. All he found was a pool of blood outside her apartment.”

Tom Yufik is a UC Berkeley graduate and three-time “Birds of Paradise” runner-up.