Bonner’s deal goes south, but he doesn’t

It was as if someone had hit the “mute” button in the cavernous LAX terminal.

Bonner stared at the note for what seemed like an eternity, aware only of the single word written on the paper clutched in his shaking hand. It took a hard bump from an overloaded luggage cart to bring him back to reality.

“Watch it,” he hissed at a wide-eyed tourist and turned sharply on his heel toward the doors.

He was sure of only one thing: Genie had played him perfectly. Bonner chuckled. He had to hand it to her -- as an actress, it turned out she wasn’t half bad. If she’d stuck around, maybe. . . .

He shook his head abruptly, knocking that thought aside. Genie was now just a business deal gone south, nothing more.

Bonner was breathing hard when he hit the sidewalk. The familiar sour taste was rising in his throat as he yanked his cellphone from his satchel and dialed Ernesto’s number, cursing as his chubby fingers hit the wrong buttons. After this was over, he thought, diet for sure. And hair plugs.

He hit “Send.”

Of course, it went right to voice mail. Of course, it did. “Useless!” he screamed at the phone, at Ernesto, at the entire situation. Ernesto knew that the details of his retainer specifically stated he was to be available at all times. He was probably asleep, Bonner thought bitterly, or shoving dollar bills at a stringy-haired stripper in a dive somewhere in the East Valley.

Bonner stopped short.

Carmen.

He wasn’t sure how much Falco had told her. The congressman had a tendency to blow things wildly out of proportion, and his paranoia about the deal had him spinning delusions about being followed. Falco was slipping from Bonner’s grasp, and he knew that he’d never get a straight answer from the congressman himself.

Forget what he’d thought before about God’s nonexistence; Bonner offered up a fervent silent prayer that Ernesto really was passed out in a bar and that he hadn’t yet paid a visit to the girl.

There was no time to go back for his car -- and besides, he realized with a groan -- he’d handed the entrance ticket to Genie when they pulled into the garage. He hailed the first cab he saw and spat Carmen’s address at the driver.

“Reseda, man?” the cabbie said disconsolately. “Now?”

Bonner flung two $100 bills onto the passenger seat. “Go fast,” he demanded. “And stay off the 405.”

The cab screeched away from the curb. A few seconds later, a sleek, black BMW pulled out from one of the parking structures and slid neatly into traffic behind the cab.

Bonner sat back on the sticky vinyl seat, trying to slow his breathing like that chump maharishi had taught him during his short-lived yoga phase. He stared blankly out the window, pulling at the strands of lies he would have to weave for Palmieri. His trance was broken by the incessant vibrating of his cell.

“I thought I made this clear, Falco,” he barked. “Not now.”

The congressman’s voice was strained and high-pitched.

“Chuck,” he said, “I’d really like to meet now, if we could. You can come here. To my house.”

Bonner paused. Falco was famously wary of keeping his personal and professional lives separate; their meetings had always taken place at neutral locations. He could hear a low murmuring in the background, and Falco’s ragged breathing, and then -- then the line went dead.

Bonner sighed heavily, weighing his options and his loyalties. “Change of plans,” he said. “We’re going to Beverly Hills.”

Arianna Haut, a former high school English teacher, is an SAT tutor. An obsessive reader, she owes the Los Angeles Public Library just $2.75, which, she says, “isn’t too bad.”