Geek Mafia: Mile Zero

by Dakan

  "What?" Sandee snapped. "I can catch..."

  "We need to help her!" Paul gestured to Jeanie, who was still lying with her eyes closed, although now she was moaning some words he couldn't make out. Together Sandee and Paul managed to revive her, Sandee checking the wound and applying pressure to staunch the bleeding in her back.

  "I need to just take a nap..." Jeanie said in a weak voice.

  "Come on, sweetie," Sandee said. "You've got to stay with us here. We've got to get going."

  The idea of moving seemed to snap the woman back to full awareness. "Are you crazy?" she asked, "I need a doctor. And ambulances..."

  "We have to go," Paul said, his voice ringing in his head. "The cops are coming..."

  "Good!" Jeanie said, her voice much stronger now. "I want the cops. And an ambulance."

  "What?" asked Paul, confused. If he'd learned anything in this biz, it was that you never wanted the cops.

  "I want cops. I want a doctor to sew me up."

  "We can..." Paul started to say, but realized that he didn't have a better option.

  "There's a hole in me. I'm bleeding. What can you do?" Jeanie asked.

  "I don't..."

  "The cops are fine. I did nothing wrong. I'm a tourist. I've got a room at the Days Inn. I was out for a walk and some homeless man attacked me and took my purse. And you two ran him off."

  Paul nodded, and then said, "Are you sure he didn't just run off on his own?"

  "If you prefer," she said, looking up at the cut on his forehead. "But you might want to see that doctor yourself."

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  "I'll take my chances," Paul said.

  "Then go," Jeanie said. "Like you said, the cops will be here any second."

  Sandee took Paul's hand and started to drag him toward the end of the street. "Come on, sweetie, let's go get you fixed up," he said.

  Paul looked at Jeanie, confused about what was happening now and about who was on whose side. Or even what the sides were now. "But what about her?" he asked no one in particular.

  "I've got the cops coming," Jeanie said, still pressing against the wound on her side. "You two and the old man can resume following me around again tomorrow, ok? Right now I just want a doctor."

  Paul had no response to that, and so he just gave her a kind of awkward wave as Sandee led him by the hand into the shadows and, hopefully, back home.

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  Chapter 28

  CHLOE had lost the killer almost as soon as they hit the streets of Old Town. Either he knew he was being followed or he was just super cautious. Either way, she'd spotted him on Front Street and managed to stay a block behind him for about fifteen minutes as he moved into the residential streets of old town. But when she rounded a corner onto Petronia, he was gone. She assumed he'd dodged between some houses, but she had no way of knowing which ones. Alternately, he could be waiting in ambush for her, and there was no way she was going to fall for that.

  Instead she reversed course and headed back the way she'd come, until she was out of sight. Then she sprinted the length of the block, guessing that the killer might be headed back in the general direction of Raff 's house.

  But she didn't see him on the next street over or the one after that. After ten more minutes of searching, she had to admit she'd lost him. Time to call in.

  She was in a residential neighborhood. No payphones in sight. It would be almost as fast to run home at this point as it would be to go back to Duval and find a phone. She ended up ducking into the lobby of a guest house across the street and paying the night clerk $20 to use the phone. Given that she was soaked with salt water and sweat, she was lucky the guy let her off that cheap.

  "Bee," she said as soon as her friend picked up. "What's up?"

  "Chloe! What number is this you're calling from?"

  "Never mind. I found our guy but I lost him. I need you to..."

  "Sandee just called," Bee interrupted. "He and Paul just spotted that Jeanie person talking to the killer. I mean the guy. And then I think something happened, because their phones cut..."

  "Where?" asked Chloe, fear and excitement flooding into her. Catching the killer and Jeanie together was great news. Losing contact with Paul and Sandee was not.

  "At the library. By the library," said Bee. "The garden by the library."

  "Got it," she said. "I'm pretty close to there now." She was in fact only four blocks from there. Less if she cut through a few backyards. "If you get a hold of Paul, tell him I'm coming."

  "Will do," said Bee. "Where's your..."

  "Gotta go," Chloe said and hung up, handing the clerk his phone before running out the door.

  She sprinted across the street, ducked between two houses, slipped through an open gate and vaulted a low fence in the front yard of another house, shaving a block off her route. Chloe was headed across the street, about to take another shortcut when she heard rapid footsteps from off to her right. She looked down the block and saw a dark figure running with a weird, awkward gait across the street, like he was hurt. Not a big believer in coincidences, she figured he just might be her man, so she headed off after him.

  Chloe jogged behind him, trying to keep her footsteps as silent as possible as she closed the distance. When she got within half a block of him he passed under a streetlight and she was sure it was him. Same clothes, same hair. Same guy. He paused for a moment at the intersection of White and Angela, looking in both directions as if trying to figure out which way to go. Then he turned right on White Street and started off again with that injured half-run, half-walk.

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  She followed and had a moment's excited panic when she realized that his course would take them within just a couple blocks of her own house. Chloe wondered if he'd tracked them down somehow. But no, he turned left instead of right at Olivia Street, crossing the road and heading northeast. She was relieved but also slightly disappointed. If he had tried to attack them at home, Bee's defenses would have put him down before he knew what hit him, plus Chloe would have had backup. As it was, she was still on her own. She crossed after him, keeping to the shadows as best she could.

  The killer was either lost or making a halfhearted effort to shake any tails he might have picked up. He zigzagged up through the next three blocks but always headed northeast, until they reached Eisenhower. There he stopped in front of a large marina on the edge of Garrison Bight. The place was fenced off from the street and locked up tight. A huge, hangar-like building dominated the lot, and Chloe knew that it contained four levels of speedboats in dry dock. More boats sat on trailers in the parking lot, waiting to be rented or sold.

  What the hell was he doing here?

  She squatted behind a parked car and watched as the killer crossed the street and went right up to the gate. His limp had only gotten worse as she'd followed him, and she doubted he could make it over the high fence. But no, that wasn't his plan. He pulled something from his pocket. A lock pick maybe? If so, he had to be the fastest pick in the world, because the gate popped right open. He had a key. He slid inside and locked it behind him. Shit! She thought. There was no way she could climb up and over the chain link fence without alerting him. Still, she wasn't about to lose him now.

  Chloe was about to sprint clear of her hiding place behind the car as soon as he disappeared out of sight.

  Except he didn't disappear. He wasn't going into the main building but was instead walking along the perimeter, past the boats on trailers. Chloe moved along her side of the street, crouched low and paralleling his course. He made his way past the last of the boats to the row of two dozen wet slips where they kept the large boats. If he got on a fucking boat, he was gone and she couldn't stop him.

  Unlike the boats in the main marina she'd just come from, no one stayed overnight here. They were all locked up and dark. But he probably had a key for one of those as well. Chloe watched from across the street and contemplated her optio
ns. He was obviously hurt. His right hand hung useless at his side and he walked with a painful looking limp. She could probably take him. The fence had a little barbed wire at the top, but nothing she couldn't handle. She was about to tear her shirt into two pieces she could wrap around her hands for protection when she heard a voice from across the way.

  "Hello?" the killer said, his voice cracking a bit on the second syllable. She looked over and saw him standing beside a big old stained and cracked fishing boat, the least impressive of the vessels in the wet slips, although one of the largest. "I need a hand here," the man said.

  Chloe saw that there was a gap of about two feet between the deck of the boat and the dock, and the man didn't think he could make it across in his wounded condition. She heard a muffled voice reply from inside the boat and gave up any thoughts she might have had of vaulting the fence. Not without knowing who she was facing. "I'm all messed up," the killer shouted to the boat. "Come give me a goddamned hand, will you?"

  A man appeared from below, and light streamed out onto the deck of the boat from inside. Chloe realized that the portholes were blacked out from inside so perfectly, that no light escaped through any cracks within.

  Perfect for smuggling she thought. The man from inside the boat came over to the gunwale across from the killer and held out his hand. He said something, but it was too quiet for Chloe to make out from her vantage fifty feet away. The killer took the hand and, with a grunt, made the step across the gap and onto the boat.

  But as he stepped down onto the deck he stumbled. The other man was there to catch him however, preventing him from falling. In the process, the boat's owner turned his body so that Chloe could get a good look at his face.

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  "Oh, fuck..." she whispered. It was Winston. The man on the boat was Winston.

  She was about to shout a warning, fearing that the killer was there to assassinate her mentor. But no, now she saw how they interacted. Her friend was looking at the killer's injured hand, examining it like a doctor might.

  And then the two men smiled and laughed like old friends. Offering his shoulder for support, Winston propped the wounded man up and led him back below decks into the warmth of the cabin light. Like friends.

  Like old, fucking friends.

  "Fucking, fuck, fuck," Chloe said, as she thought through all the implications of what she'd just seen.

  "Fuck."

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  Chapter 29

  PAUL collapsed onto the couch in the living room, while Sandee went into the kitchen to get some ice. Bee came running down the stairs almost at once, a cell phone in each hand. She took one look at Paul and froze in her tracks.

  "Oh my God, Paul!" she said, and ran over to him. "What happened?"

  He had a huge knot forming in the middle of his forehead and a cut that was bleeding over his left eye. And although Bee couldn't see it, he also had the worst headache of his life. "I got beat up a little," he said. "Just a little though. You should see the other guy."

  "The killer?" Bee asked.

  "He's a mean one," said Sandee, coming out of the kitchen with a towel and a tray of ice cubes. "Mean and vicious and now, I think, a little crippled."

  "That's good," said Bee. "Then he probably can't hurt Chloe, right?"

  "Hurt Chloe what?" Paul asked, trying to focus. "Where's Chloe?"

  "She went after you. You and him. She went to find you guys. I told her where you were..."

  "Can I have a phone?" Paul said as he reached out to take the one in her left hand.

  "Sure," said Bee. She put the other phone in her pocket and helped Sandee wrap up some ice cubes in the towel.

  Paul dialed Chloe's number then stopped, remembering that they'd stopped using their normal phones. "What's the number for Chloe's phone?" he asked Bee.

  "Her phone's dead," Bee explained. "I think maybe something happened with that crazy girl she went to see."

  Paul sat up and, trying to ignore the rush of dizziness, he started to stand up. But Sandee eased him back down onto the couch and placed the ice pack against his forehead. He winced. "We need to go find her," he insisted.

  "Where is she?" asked Sandee.

  Paul took the ice pack from his hand but continued to press it against his head. The cold was starting to seep through, and soon the numbness would come, which would be a nice change from the throbbing pain. He turned to Bee. "I don't know. Bee, where is she?"

  "I sent her over to the library, because that's where you were."

  "Well, there's no one there but cops now, probably," said Paul, relieved.

  "And an ambulance," Sandee added. "Neither of which are likely to entice her to stick around very long. I'm sure she'll be back any minute."

  "Yeah, you're right," he said. "Can one of you get me something for this headache?"

  "Sure," said Bee. "How strong do you want?"

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  Paul considered his options. Their household pharmacy was stocked with everything from Tylenol to Darvocet. "Nothing that'll knock me out. We're not done tonight."

  "Tylenol 3?" asked Bee. "It's only got a little codeine in it."

  "A little codeine sounds about right," Paul agreed.

  Bee went upstairs to get the drugs, while Sandee took the rest of the ice back into the kitchen and returned with two glasses of water. He gave one to Paul and then sat back in the easy chair, closing his eyes.

  "You really kicked that guy's ass," Paul said.

  "I really did, didn't I?" said Sandee, a slight smile on his face as he reclined. "I haven't been in a fight in, God, almost three months."

  "Does it count as a fight if he doesn't hit you back?" asked Paul.

  "Oh, he wanted to hit back, I just wouldn't let him. That makes it a fight. Plus, he did hit you."

  "And stabbed that woman," Paul pointed out. "Whom I saved by the way."

  "Did you? That was sweet. Why do you think he was trying to kill her in the first place?"

  "That's the big question," said Paul. "And I have no freaking clue. Although it does make it seem unlikely that they were working together, doesn't it?"

  "Pretty unlikely," Sandee agreed.

  Bee came back with the pills, giving two to Paul and then, when he asked for it, one for Sandee. He wanted to calm down a bit, he said. Bee reported that there was no movement on the big board. No sign of Chloe or Raff or anyone. Then a small black box clipped to the waist of Bee's jeans emitted a low beep. She looked down at the PDA-style display and touched a button. Then she said, "Chloe's here."

  Paul had enough time to sit up before the front door opened and Chloe walked in. She looked like hell - damp clothes, scratched knees, dirt everywhere like she'd been crawling on her hands and knees through a jungle.

  Her face looked like she was carrying the worries of the world in her brain. "Hey, babe," he said, "Looks like your night's been as good as mine."

  She looked at him and her eyes widened. "Jesus Christ, Paul. What happened?" she said, rushing to his side.

  He had to admit that, now that the drugs had deadened the pain a bit, he was kind of enjoying all the sympathy and attention.

  "Sandee and I got into a little scuffle with our killer," he said.

  Chloe poked and prodded gently at his wounds. "Fuck, what did he hit you with, a crowbar?"

  "It felt like it," he said.

  "He's a vicious bastard," Sandee chimed in. "Good with his hands."

  "Not as good as Sandee though," Paul pointed out.

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  Chloe nodded as if this statement explained a lot. "Few people are," she said. "That explains why he was limping and couldn't use his right hand when I followed him."

  "You did follow him?" Paul asked. "Are you ok?"

  "Yes," she said with a gentle smile that sank into a frown. "Actually no, I'm not. He didn't hurt me but I followed him. I..." she trailed off.

  "W
hat is it, hon?" Paul asked after a few seconds of silence. "Where is he?"

  "He's on a boat over at the bight," Chloe said. "He got onto a boat."

  "So he's gone to sea?" asked Sandee. "If only my heel hadn't broken..."

  "No, I don't think so. The boat didn't go anywhere that I saw. But I did get a good look at whose boat it was,"

  she paused, like she was looking for the words. "It was Winston."

  Paul was stunned. His first thought was that the killer had gotten Winston too. But as soon as the thought flashed through his head, he knew that was wrong. All of a sudden the pieces started falling into place in his mind. Jeanie hadn't been in the garden to meet the killer. She'd been there to meet someone she knew, maybe someone Raff had described as an old friend. Winston. He'd set her up and then told the killer where to find her. And he'd known she would be off balance and under-protected, because they'd briefed him on the entire situation right here in this house. And if Winston was working with the killer, then he must have been involved in Raquel's murder as well. That left a bunch of questions, the biggest one of which was:

  "Why?" he asked. He looked around the room and saw that Bee and Sandee were both as shocked as he was.

  Chloe took a seat on the couch next to him and he put his arm around her, drawing her close.

  "I don't know," she whispered. "It doesn't make any sense does it?"

  "No," agreed Paul. "It really doesn't."

  "So what're you guys saying?" asked Sandee. "That the killer works for Winston? That old guy who was just in our house a couple hours ago?"

  Bee jumped at those words, shouting, "Oh shit! I've got to check everything!" She ran upstairs, taking the steps two at a time.

  Sandee started to say something else, but Paul and Chloe both put their fingers to their lips at the same moment, silencing him. They sat in silent, unmoving contemplation on the couch while Bee came down and swept the living room with her bug detection equipment. If Winston had planted something, it couldn't have been too well hidden - he hadn't been alone in the house long enough.

  On the second sweep, Bee found it. A small bug attached to the underside of a table lamp. She carefully pried it loose and then dropped it inside a ten year old lead-lined bag used to protect film from x-rays. She swept the rest of the rooms downstairs and then said, "It's ok to talk in here now. I'm going to take this little monster upstairs and seal the room and check it out. And the rest of the network."