Geek Mafia: Mile Zero

by Dakan

  "He's doing a good job," said Bee.

  "Yeah, he really is," agreed Chloe. The two of them stared at the board, helpless as more cameras went dark.

  She couldn't stop him, so she had to change the nature of the game. The cameras didn't matter anymore. Time to forget them and move on. "I'm going to call Paul and we're going to go see Winston."

  "You are?" asked Bee. "What're you going to say?"

  "I'm not sure yet. But I can't let this go unanswered. I need to do something to throw him off his game."

  "Like what?"

  "I'm not sure," said Chloe. "That's why I'm going to get Paul. I can always count on him to think of something crazy."

  CHLOE and Paul met at Anna's, a small sandwich place on Simonton that wasn't quite in the middle of tourist central but still had big enough crowds that they could sit in the corner and go unnoticed. Paul had his usual roast beef and she decided to switch things up and had a BLT instead of the tuna.

  "I swear he was trying to bait Eddie," Paul said to her in hushed tones. "He was provoking those guys, just begging them to do something stupid."

  "And Eddie's probably the kind of guy that would do something stupid if he got angry enough," Chloe said.

  "I don't doubt it. Marco as much as told me so. We need to see Winston and try somehow to get him to ratchet down the aggro."

  "My thoughts exactly."

  "I mean, he's gotten what he wants already. Unless we rat him out, I don't think Isaiah and Eddie are ever going to be able to be certain about who exactly it is that's behind Raquel's murder. And until they're both satisfied, this whole shadow corporation deal is dead in the water."

  "And you're ok with that?" asked Chloe.

  "If it ends this whole rain of bullshit we've been subjected to, then yeah, I'm ok with that."

  "I'm not sure I am," she said. Part of her agreed with Paul - anything that ended the current clusterfuck was good, but she didn't want to lose the opportunity that Isaiah was presenting them.

  "You're not?" Paul asked, a confused look on his face.

  "If they all leave, what happens then do you think? Isaiah's not the kind of guy to give up. He'll go forward with his plan in some form, right?"

  "I'd assume so, yeah. He doesn't seem like the kinda guy who'd give up on his dream."

  "Neither am I. Neither are you," said Chloe. "But when he goes to version 2.0, do you think he's going to ask Chapter 31

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  us to join again?"

  "Maybe?" said Paul. "I don't know..."

  "It's pretty unlikely. I mean, the only reason we got invited in at all is because Winston vouched for us. But there's no way that's going to count for much with Isaiah after he leaves Key West. He's going to go back to New York, and he's gonna think things over, and maybe he's going to figure out that Winston's just as good a suspect as Eddie. Or that maybe we are. Either way, there's no way he's trusting either of us again."

  "No, you're right. He'll cut us out," agreed Paul. "But then again, four days ago we didn't even know there was something to be cut into."

  "But now we do know. And knowing it's out there, I want it. I really want it." Chloe hadn't even fully realized this was true until she spoke the words out loud. "It's a path out of this dead end we've driven ourselves into.

  It's a way to expand our Crew and our influence and get off of this damn island."

  "And that's worth risking everything for?" Paul asked. "It's worth it to you to stir things up and bring on some confrontation with your old friend - your mentor really - who is obviously willing to kill to sink this deal?

  You want to go up against Winston and blow this whole thing open?"

  Chloe thought about that. She was mad at Winston. Really super fucking pissed off. Hell, maybe the only reason she wanted to hook up with Isaiah's plan was because Winston didn't want her too. Wouldn't be the first time she'd done something just to piss off a father figure. "Yeah," she said. "I really do. He's fucked with us, Paul. And part of me still loves the old bastard and if he has the world's best excuse I might even forgive him. But yeah, I'm willing to go against him if he's standing between us and what we need to do."

  "What we need to do," Paul said, mulling the words over. He was silent for a long moment, staring off into space.

  "Yeah, it's what we need to do," she repeated. And it was true. Although she didn't want to face the reality of it, she knew deep down in her heart that unless something changed in their Crew's life, then her relationship with Paul was doomed as well. But she couldn't come out and say it couldn't find the words that would express her certainty without sounding like an ultimatum to Paul. And they'd been together long enough for her to know that he didn't take ultimatums well at all - no better than she did.

  Paul nodded to her and smiled. It was a wan, tired smile. A smile of recognition, and maybe resignation. "It's what we need to do," he said. A statement, not a question. She breathed a silent sigh of relief. He did get her message.

  "The question is," said Chloe. "How do we do it?"

  "We talk with Winston," said Paul. "He's expecting us to come to him. Now that he's knocking down our camera network, he's got to think we're in a total state of fear. So we have to do what he expects if we're going to catch him off guard."

  "I agree," said Chloe. "I figure we go, meet with him, and try and feel him out. See what he wants. Then we'll know how to react."

  "I think that's backwards," said Paul. "He's too good at this shit. He won't give away anything he doesn't want to. We can't worry about what he wants, we've got to make him want what we want him to want. Does that make sense?"

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  "It does," said Chloe, seeing a path forward now. "He is better at this than we are, and he knows it. We should play into that. Make him think he's getting the better of us."

  Paul nodded and got that look he got when the ideas were flowing through his brain faster than he could talk.

  He kept nodding and said, "Ok, ok. I've got an idea. But we need to go home. We also need a blond wig, two old phones and an extra car."

  "We do?" asked Chloe. "Ok, that's all doable. What's the play?"

  Paul stood up, leaving his sandwich half eaten. "I'll tell you on the way home. This is going to take a bit of setup, so we need to get on it."

  She smiled and stood up with him. This is when she loved him the most. Not lost in some online world in front of his computer or drunk off his ass at the party. Now, when he was alive and excited by some new idea, some new plan he'd concocted in that fevered, brilliant brain of his. She grabbed him by the arm and pulled him to her, kissing him hard and long.

  "Ok," she said, releasing him. "Let's go."

  BY the time they arrived home, he'd outlined his plan. It was good. Nice and simple and not too insanely dangerous. Just a little dangerous. She parked the Vespa beside the front porch and got off after Paul. He was already up the steps and unlocking the front door when she heard the car slowing to a stop on the road behind her. She turned to see a tan Ford Taurus on the road by the cemetery, its window rolling down.

  It was Eddie. They hadn't covered their tracks as well as they might have, heading pretty much straight home from the restaurant. With all their attention focused on Winston - who already knew exactly where they lived -

  there seemed little point. She'd forgotten about Eddie, and now he or his Crew had followed them home.

  He was looking right past her as he called out the window. "Hey, Paul!" he shouted. Paul turned from the door and looked back at Eddie. To his credit, his face didn't show any surprise that he might have felt.

  "Hey, Eddie," Paul shouted back. "What's up?"

  "I just wanted you to know that you're not the only one who..." his voice trailed off and he made no effort to hide his surprise as he recognized Chloe. Shit, she thought. "You!" he shouted, pointing at her.

  "Moi?" said Chloe, looking at him like he was a complete stranger.

  "From that fucked up party!"
he shouted. The car door opened and he stepped out, angry. She could see that Marco was in the passenger seat and that he didn't look happy. "You're with him?"

  Paul was at her side now, hands balled into fists. She slipped her own hand behind her back to where her spare stun gun (not the one that'd gotten wet) was tucked into the small of her back. "Get on out of here, Eddie,"

  Paul said.

  "You were with him from the beginning?" Eddie said, now just a couple yards away, his finger pointing at her. "You two have been fucking with me from moment one!"

  "Get out of here, Eddie!" Paul shouted. "I'm warning you..."

  "Fuck you and your warnings," said Eddie. "You and your little bitch here can fucking blow me. You set me up at that bar, coming onto me like a whore when you knew full well we were doing business together. And Chapter 31

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  then snooping around my hotel, passing out wanted pictures of my friends and generally sticking your cock in my goddamned business. What right do you think you have to fuck with me like that?"

  Chloe wanted to punch him then and there, but for all she knew, Marco had a gun in that car with him.

  "Yeah, yeah," said Paul, his voice mocking and dismissive. "We've been fucking with you since the beginning. And why not? It's our town. You're on our island, and if we want to check you out or spy on you or just fuck with you, well then, that's our goddamned business isn't it?"

  "Is that what you think?" Eddie said, taking another step forward. Behind him Marco was getting out of the car and rushing forward, although Chloe couldn't tell if he was coming to back his friend up or calm him down. At the same moment she heard the front door of the house open up behind her. Both Eddie and Marco stopped in their tracks at whatever they were seeing.

  Chloe looked back over her shoulder to see Bee and Sandee standing on the front porch with really big fucking guns in their hands. Bee held what looked like a freaking bazooka that was as long as she was tall.

  She had on some sort of high-tech looking helmet that covered her left eye with some sort of digital heads up display. Beside her stood Sandee in boy form, an AK-47 slung at his hip, legs wide apart. He wore a skintight camo T-shirt and thong underwear.

  Chloe had to stop herself from laughing as Sandee shouted, "Get off my property!" in a thick redneck accent.

  Eddie started to say something, but Marco grabbed his arm and pulled him back toward the car. Eddie cursed under his breath as he climbed back into the driver's seat. Just before Marco got back into the car, his eyes met Paul's and he gave the slightest nod. Respect? Fear? Some sign that he approved? Chloe couldn't tell.

  After they'd driven out of sight, Sandee was the first one to start laughing, although Bee's giggles came right behind.

  "Jesus," said Chloe. "You two look ridiculous."

  "It worked didn't it?" Bee said.

  "Good thing Eddie's scared of water balloons," Paul said, taking the "bazooka" from Bee and admiring it.

  "What's the point of having fake guns if you can't fake people out once in a while?" Bee asked.

  "And you!" said Chloe to Sandee. "You're the sexiest damn guerilla I've ever seen."

  "You better believe it," Sandee said, tossing Chloe the plastic gun. "Now come inside and tell us what that was all about."

  "I don't exactly know what it was all about for sure," said Paul as he led them inside. "But we don't have time to worry about that just this moment. We've got a plan to execute."

  "A new plan?" asked Bee excited, still riding the adrenaline high from her showdown with Eddie. "Is it brilliant? Those are my favorite kind."

  "It's not brilliant," said Paul. "It's abso-fucking-lutely brilliant."

  Chloe smiled as the Crew piled back into the house. This was it. This was how life was supposed to be.

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  Chapter 32

  PAUL seethed on the inside, but he did his best to hide it from Chloe as they drove on her scooter over to the house they'd gotten for Winston. He was still angry from his lunch with Chloe, of course. Angry that he had to commit himself to this insane plan of confronting Winston and blowing the whole thing open just to get on Isaiah's good side. He'd been relieved when he realized that the end was in sight. Yes, it had been a kind of defeated, broken, and abused sense of relief, but it had been relief all the same. Winston had used them and killed someone and that hurt like swallowing barbed wire, but at least it was over. They could get back to life as normal.

  But then Chloe had made it clear that life as normal was not an option for her and that therefore it was not an option for him either. He'd known she wasn't happy. It was impossible not to know that. He should be happy actually - for months he'd been trying to find some way to improve her mood and had failed at every turn. No party was quite wild enough, no scam entirely satisfying. Now at least he knew what he had to do, even if it was going to be a royal pain in the fucking ass. He'd do what had to be done to keep them together, but that didn't mean he had to be happy about it.

  They arrived at ten minutes after 3:00 p.m. Winston greeted them at the door with a smile, ushered them into the living room and offered them drinks from the pitcher of margaritas that he had ready and waiting. Paul and Chloe both accepted and they listened for a while as Winston chattered about what a wonderful, fun place Key West was and how much he liked the people here. There was not a hint of urgency in his voice, not even when the conversation finally did roll back around to more serious matters.

  "So," he said, "Any luck on the search for the killer?"

  "No," Chloe replied, "There's no sign of him anywhere. Not after last night."

  "What happened last night?" Winston asked.

  "Paul and Sandee had a little run-in with him over by the library," Chloe explained. "I thought he told you this morning."

  "I forgot," Paul said. "With everything that happened at the meeting, I just somehow assumed you already knew."

  "That's all right, Paul," said Winston. "It's a trying time for us all. Can you tell me what happened?"

  "After you left last night, we found the woman Jeanie again. The one Raff says you know from way back."

  "But of course I don't know her," Winston reminded him.

  "Of course," said Paul. "Anyway, we found her on the cameras again and tracked her to this little garden by the library. Sandee and I went to catch up with her, and while we were watching her, the killer showed up."

  Paul paused to see if Winston was going to react, but the old man just sat there, waiting for him to continue.

  "Well of course we thought we had our proof right then and there, but no, as it turned out they weren't in it together." He paused again, hoping Winston would jump in and say something stupid, but he didn't. "Turned out, we were wrong. Instead the guy tried to kill her. Stabbed her with a screwdriver. Sandee and I stepped in and sort of saved the day. But the bad guy got away."

  "Which is how you got the nasty cut on your head?" Winston asked.

  "Yeah."

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  "Looks like it must have hurt quite a bit."

  "Oh yeah," Paul said, gently touching the tender spot. Winston sat there, waiting for Paul to continue. "And that's pretty much it. He got away and we've been looking for him, but haven't had any luck."

  "He's not showed up on any of your cameras?" asked Winston. "And what about your contact, Chloe? What did she have to say?"

  "Oh, she led me right to the guy. He was out on an island chilling with some homeless people. But he gave me the slip and I wasn't able to ever catch up with him after that."

  Winston sat and nodded, sipping his drink. "So what do we do now?" he asked them. "Do you have a plan?"

  "We're still trying to make some sense of the situation," Paul answered. "In light of all we now know, things are kind of complicated."

  "How so?"

  "For starters, there's the fact that the killer attacked Jeanie. I take that as pretty strong evidence that they're not work
ing together and that Raff and his Crew aren't behind Raquel's murder."

  "Perhaps they had some sort of falling out," Winston suggested. "Certainly you two know better than most what kind of betrayal Raff is capable of."

  "Possible, I guess," said Paul, "But it seems unlikely."

  "Unlikely to be sure, but not out of the question. And that is the problem that faces us here, is it not? We just don't have enough information about what is really going on. In particular, we don't know anything about the various players and their motivations for doing what they do. Raff may have had a very good reason for betraying his partner. Or maybe she had a very good reason for betraying him. It's impossible for us to say.

  "With others - that is to say, with average people - it's often a straightforward piece of analysis to determine their motives because their lives are so simple. They work for some monstrous, faceless corporation. They do their time in office or retail purgatory each day and collect their check at the end of the week and go home and watch TV. They have their families and their friends and their hobbies and their problems, all of which box their lives in. It's easy to figure out why they do the things they do.

  "But for us - those of us who truly live free in the world - it becomes infinitely more complicated. We need money and food, certainly. We have friends and families and hobbies, no doubt. But our priorities are our own, as are our methods for achieving them. Working in the lacunae of society, taking what we need when we need it. It is a life as rewarding and fulfilling as it is complex and dangerous. And the more rewarding it becomes, the more difficult it is for outsiders to read your motivation with anything approaching accuracy.

  "And that is the problem we face now, trying to solve this murder of poor Raquel. There are too many factors to consider. Too many suspects. We still don't even know for absolute certain that the killer has anything to do with us. It seems likely, I agree. Very likely. But we do not know. Nor does it seem likely that we can know.