Runner-up 4

L.A. Times columnist Steve Lopez carefully lowered the phone to its cradle and smiled. He was on a roll and knew it. His popular and widely read column “Points West” exposed the raw underbelly of a city that ran on adrenaline, innuendo and Starbucks. He also had a movie in the works and more shady politicians to expose. Now he had the biggest one yet, dropped into his lap like an overripe codfish wrapped in yesterday’s paper: Congressman Antonio Falco himself.

Lopez rubbed his hands together. This was headline material, and the byline would be his. The idea of a Pulitzer played tantalizingly in his mind. He glanced at his watch. No time to waste if he were to catch his mysterious benefactor, Carmen Madonna Louise Ventura, before Vincent Palmieri did. His was a familiar enough name. Allegations of big-time drug dealing followed him like remoras follow sharks, and grand jury witnesses had a bad habit of taking night swimming lessons in Santa Monica Bay.

He checked out an anonymous Ford Crown Vic from The Times pool and made his way through heavy traffic until turning onto the 110. All the while, Carmen’s bizarre story played over and over in his mind like a bad tune you couldn’t forget. Then the thought occurred to him. What if was a setup? What if Carmen and Palmieri were in cahoots? He had to risk it. If true, the story was too big to ignore. Maybe he should call his editor, just in case, but rejected the idea out of hand. Only a rookie journalist would do that. On the other hand, there was someone he could safely confide in, someone who could and would back him up if needed.

They had met at last year’s Festival of Books. Turned out they had a lot in common. A fellow author and former cop, they exchanged business cards with the promise of staying in touch. Lopez needed to reach out and touch someone now. He flipped open his cell, thumbed in the remembered number and listened to it ring six times before being answered.

“Yeah?”

“Hermann?”

“I gave at the office. Goodbye.”

“Don’t hang up! It’s Steve Lopez, from the L.A. Times!”

Hauser coughed and mumbled, “My subscription run out already, Lopez?”

“Very funny. Am I catching you at a bad time?”

“You could say that.”

“No time to explain, Hauser. Can you meet me at Dodger Stadium; say in the next 20 minutes?”

“Are you kidding? They’re at the bottom of their division.”

“This is no game, my friend. I’m on my way to meet someone with a story that’s going to blow L.A. wide open. I need you behind me.”

“Sounds fun, Lopez, but I’m kind of indisposed right now.”

“Does the name Antonio Falco ring a bell?”

“What a coincidence. I’m flat on my keester under his parlor window right now.”

“Come again?”

“Gotta make it quick, Lopez. There’s been a regular shootout here at the OK Corral in sleepy Reseda. Falco is involved, along with a cast of thousands, as the saying goes. If you want the real story, you’ll come here ASAP. Also, I have it on good authority that Vince Palmieri himself will be making a cameo appearance at any minute.”

Lopez grunted and said, “I think Palmieri has a scheduling conflict.”

Gordon Davis is a retired headhunter and author of four novels who is in search of an agent.