Geek Mafia: Mile Zero

by Dakan

  Chloe opened the door and said, "Hey."

  "What have you found?" asked Winston. He had started to move toward the door that led into the rest of the house, but Chloe had gone back over to sit next to Paul. She gestured for Winston to take the seat opposite her.

  "It's been a tough few hours," Chloe said, her voice weary.

  "These are the times that try men's souls," her former mentor replied. "But we must stay focused."

  "I know," said Chloe. "It's just hard, you know?"

  "I do know."

  "I mean, sometimes we make decisions in the heat of things that turn out to be big mistakes."

  "We all do," Winston agreed. "The real test though is how long it takes for us to realize we've made a mistake and how quickly we can turn around and do the right thing."

  "That's what Paul was saying," Chloe said, patting him on the knee.

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  "We've kind of screwed things up," Paul said, taking his cue. "We didn't know it at the time, but now we might've really messed things up."

  Winston gave him a reassuring smile and leaned back in his chair. He seemed to be enjoying the role of wise teacher. "I'm sure it's not as bad as it seems. It's often impossible to get perspective when you're caught in the eye of the storm."

  "You have to understand," said Chloe, "We were just reacting to circumstances. So much was happening we had to do something. How were we to know it would fuck things up?"

  "We were just going off the information we had," Paul added. "Which is all you can ever do, right?"

  "Of course," said Winston. "It is the way of the world."

  Paul continued. "And now we've got Eddie breathing down our necks and Isaiah has all these expectations.

  And someone's screwing with our cameras and we're understaffed and..."

  "And we're really sorry," said Chloe. There were tears in her eyes. "We didn't mean to."

  "Didn't mean to do what?" asked Winston.

  "Catch your friend," Chloe responded, looking Winston right in the eye.

  "What friend?" Winston asked. Although it didn't surprise him, Paul was disappointed that Winston hadn't shown the slightest bit of surprise or fear. His face was a mask of curiosity.

  "Your friend you sent to the salt marshes," said Chloe. "Your friend you met on the boat last night. You know, your friend who killed Raquel."

  Winston smiled in apparent confusion. "What are you talking about?"

  "You're not really going to make me get the pictures, are you?" asked Chloe. "The pictures of the two of you together on that boat. The pictures of him trying to jump that park ranger in the marshes. The pictures of Sandee disguised as that park ranger kicking his ass. The pictures of him tied up with a gun to his head."

  "Or we could play you the tape of him telling us to call you," said Paul. "Telling us that you would explain everything. So go ahead. If you could just explain everything, that would be nice."

  "Really fucking nice," said Chloe.

  Winston sat in his seat, the smile frozen on his face. And although nothing had changed in his expression, what had at first seemed a confused grin to Paul now somehow looked like a smug sneer. "I should make you play the tape and show the pictures. Just to teach you a lesson about bluffing. But I suppose it's not strictly necessary." He looked around the porch. "But I'd prefer to talk inside, out of the line of sight of directional microphones."

  "That's fine," said Chloe, standing up. "We've already cleared all the bugs you planted inside, so no one who shouldn't be can listen in." She opened the back door into the rest of the house.

  Paul and Winston stood at the same time, but before Winston could walk through the door, Paul stopped him.

  "We just need to make sure you're not carrying anything," he said, grabbing Winston's arm.

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  Winston gently removed Paul's hand from him, saying, "Careful, son. That arm's tender. I got shot in that shoulder helping a friend out of a jam." Not the most subtle reminder that Paul and Chloe had indeed once gotten Winston shot. Winston pulled his cell phone, wallet, and key ring from his pocket and handed them to Paul, who placed them on the table next to his gaming laptop. Chloe patted him down but didn't find anything else. "Satisfied?" he asked.

  "No," said Chloe. "Wait here." She went inside and came back out a few seconds later with a white robe from the Hilton draped over her arm. "Here," she said.

  Winston looked ruefully at the robe and sighed in resignation. He kicked off his shoes, dropped his shorts and unbuttoned his shirt. He stood naked on the porch for a moment, arms stretched out to each side as he turned slowly in place. He cocked his head to one side and looked at Chloe. She nodded that she was satisfied.

  Winston took the robe and put it on. "This is a nice robe."

  "You can keep it," said Chloe as she stepped inside. "Assuming we get an explanation and don't have to lock you in the shed with your friend."

  Paul glanced around, wondering how many of Winston's Crewmembers were waiting just out of sight and just how long they had before they came storming to his rescue. He wondered if Bee's defenses would hold up.

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  Chapter 35

  THEY were in the living room now, and Chloe had never felt more uncomfortable in her life. She'd hoped against all odds that Winston would break down, even a little, when they revealed that they knew he was a friend of the killer's and that they'd caught him. She'd dreamed of a tearful confession. But no. Instead he'd done what she'd actually expected him to do - put on a stone face and stared them down. He just sat there, waiting for her to ask him questions. Waiting for her to confront the man who'd been the closest thing she'd had to a father in twenty years.

  "You going to tell us what's going on or not?" she finally asked.

  "Why don't you tell me what you think is going on, and I'll tell you if you're right," he said.

  She started to argue but bit the words back. Things would go faster if she just played along. He was either going to tell her or not, and she didn't have time to make him tell the tale on anything other than his own terms.

  "Fine," she said. But then she wasn't sure where to begin. She was mad as hell at him, but she still couldn't quite bring herself to openly accuse him of murder. Not right to his face. Paul didn't seem to have the same reservations.

  "Ok, I'll play along," Paul said. "Here's how it went down, at least the way we see things. Correct me if I get any of this wrong." Winston nodded in understanding and Paul continued. "You and your friend got here a few days before we actually saw you get here. You knew Raquel was coming and you instructed your friend to follow her."

  Winston nodded.

  "And follow her he did. We have him on camera doing just that. He waited until she was alone, which wasn't hard, because she was a bit of a loner right? But anyway, he tipped her off that he was following her, hoping that she'd try something stupid. You knew Raquel was too confrontational to let someone following her go uncontested."

  Winston shook his head. "You give me too much credit. My friend' as you call him just got spotted because he was sloppy. He wasn't supposed to be."

  "Even so, he saw his opportunity when it came. He followed Raquel to the Ft. Taylor Park. He hopped the fence and chased after her. But she was waiting for him on the nature trail. She jumped him and they fought.

  He killed her."

  "And he wasn't supposed to," Winston said. "She attacked him. He defended himself. In the fight her head got hit..."

  "He hit her on the head," Chloe corrected.

  "And she died," Winston finished.

  "And then he called you. And you or some people from your Crew met him on the beach in a boat. They carried her to the boat from the woods and at some point she got wet. They took her to a car or van - probably parked at the bight where we saw your other boat - and loaded her in the back. Then your friend and at least one other person broke into her room and lifted her u
p through the back window and put her back in her bed.

  All this while Chloe and I were meeting you and Lily at your other boat."

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  Winston nodded once more.

  "And you came to the meeting with Isaiah and acted like you didn't know where Raquel was. And when she didn't show up you encouraged us to go and look for her. You suggested that she might be hurt or in trouble.

  So we stopped the meeting and everyone went out to try and see what happened to Raquel.

  "And then we found her. We probably found her faster than you thought we would. My guess is you were going to find' her yourself, but you needed to take some time to make it look good. Then we beat you to it."

  The old man said nothing, which Paul must have taken to mean he was right, so he pressed on. "As it turned out, this wasn't a big deal, or so you thought at the time. You were pretty sure your friend had covered his tracks well, and the end result was the same - one of the Crews found the body, not the cops, and we all got your message loud and clear."

  "You thought Isaiah's plan was dangerous and a really bad idea," said Chloe added. "So bad that it had gotten Raquel killed. You wanted to scuttle the negotiations from the beginning."

  "I did," agreed Winston.

  "Then why come at all?" asked Chloe. "Why participate? Why suggest Isaiah have his meeting here, in our town? Why not just tell him to fuck off ?"

  Winston didn't answer so Paul answered for him. "Because he didn't want Isaiah's plan to succeed no matter what. With the meeting here, he'd have us to help control the situation. He could use us as an extra weapon in his arsenal against Isaiah. Or as patsies if everything went to hell."

  "Not as patsies," Winston said. "I wouldn't have done that. But I did use you, I admit that. You were an unknown quantity in the equation, something Isaiah and the others couldn't totally prepare for."

  "But why?" asked Chloe again. "Why do you care what Isaiah fucking does?"

  "Because it's wrong," Winston insisted, a hint of passion creeping into his voice for the first time. "It's buying into the enemy's world view. And when you do that, you become the enemy. He wanted to create a corporation. A corporation. The most diseased, parasitic social institution ever invented. And he wanted to turn us into something just like them."

  "That's a reason for you not to join," said Chloe. "Not a reason to stop him. Not a reason to kill a woman..."

  "It's foolish," Winston interrupted. "Corporations have names. Names have power. You give something a name and you give the enemy something to hang onto. Something to look for. Something the FBI could get subpoenas for and form task forces to hunt down. Something to infiltrate. It's the oldest rule of magic, and the powers that be know it. To know a thing's name is to have power over it."

  And there it was. The crack in Winston's armor. Just for a second - a split second - he'd dropped his guard and Chloe had seen through to what was really going on. Three little letters. FBI. Winston had been part of the Weather Underground in the '70s, which the FBI had hunted down for years. He was a former '60s radical who'd lived for a decade as a wanted man. And then the world had moved on and stopped caring about old hippie radicals, and Winston had lived a happy life off the grid and under the radar. But it was a new era now

  - the war on terror had brought the FBI and law enforcement in general a slew of new powers, new funding and new needs to justify their expenses. Winston's Crew wasn't the Mafia. They certainly weren't al Qaeda.

  And as it stood, they weren't worth looking into. But if there was suddenly some new quasilegal corporate entity taking down major corporations and financing crimes and cons across the globe, well, that would indeed be something the FBI might be interested in. And Winston didn't want that. For all his talk of Chapter 35

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  revolution and overthrowing The Man, the truth was that he was complacent in his comfortable little world he'd built for himself.

  "You're scared," said Chloe, looking right into his eyes. "You did all this because you're scared."

  Winston just looked away. For the first time in her memory, he couldn't meet her gaze. He said nothing, and she knew that she was right. He was a frightened old man, and in his terror he'd lashed out at what scared him.

  And in lashing out, he'd killed Raquel.

  "How's Jacob?" Winston asked, changing the subject. Chloe let him.

  "Is that his name?" she asked.

  "It's what I call him."

  "He's in the shed with Sandee."

  "Who doesn't really have a gun to his head I assume."

  "He doesn't really need one," Paul pointed out. Chloe could tell from his voice that Paul was angry. Probably as angry as she was that all their recent troubles were the direct result of Winston's paranoia.

  "I'm sure that's true," Winston said. "I'd like to see him."

  "Nuh uh," said Chloe, shaking her head. "Not until we sort this all out."

  "What is there to sort out?" asked Winston.

  "What isn't there to sort out?" retorted Paul. "We haven't decided what to do with him or what to do with you for that matter. Or what to tell Isaiah."

  "Why tell Isaiah anything?" Winston asked. "This is between just us, correct?"

  "We told Isaiah we'd found the killer," Chloe said, wishing now that they hadn't, if only because it would give them more options.

  "Tell him he escaped. Tell him you had the wrong man. Leave Isaiah and his Crew out of this. If you get him involved, everything becomes much more complicated."

  "And then there's Eddie..." Paul started to say. "He..."

  Chloe tugged on her right ear as if it was itching, a sign she and Paul had developed when they first arrived in Key West. It meant shut up. She didn't want Winston to know that Eddie knew about Jacob. Not until she'd gotten him to suggest a plan of his own for dealing with the situation. Once she knew what Winston wanted to have happen, it would be much easier for her to decide what she was going to actually let happen.

  Paul got the signal, like he always did. "He's going to want someone to hang this murder on. And he knows it wasn't him or his crew that did it, no matter how much you try and shift the blame to him."

  "So we shift the blame to your old friend Raff," Winston said. "He's as likely a candidate as any."

  "And Raff will just go along with that I'm sure," said Paul. "Eddie's not going to believe anything we say Chapter 35

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  about him if they're friends."

  "Raff left town. My people saw him get on a plane to Ft. Myers. And with him on the lam, he looks very guilty indeed. Besides, isn't he the one you warned Isaiah about? Isaiah will accept that Raff and his Crew are the culprits. Even if he does not have full faith in your explanation, it will placate him for the moment and, as I'm sure you desire more than anything, get him out of your town and your lives."

  "So you think we should just let your friend go and forget everything we know about what really happened,"

  said Paul.

  "I never advise anyone to forget anything," said Winston, smiling for the first time since Chloe had called him out for being scared. "I just recommend that you keep your own counsel and not tell Isaiah or Eddie anything they don't need to know."

  "So you get what you want," Paul said. "Isaiah's plan goes down the drain, at least for the time being."

  "And you get what you want, Paul. You get your life back, with all these pesky outsiders gone," replied Winston. "Isn't that what you two want?"

  "What if we want more?" asked Chloe. "What about getting compensated for all the time and money we lost by getting dragged into this nonsense?"

  "Name a figure that's fair and it's yours," said Winston too fast, showing just another hint of what looked like desperation to Chloe's trained eye. Winston never bought people off, certainly not friends. He seemed to realize his mistake and backpedaled at once, saying, "As long as it is actually fair, of course." But the damage was done. If he was willing to buy them off then she kne
w he was more than a little worried that she and Paul might not play along.

  "What about your promise earlier?" asked Chloe. "About you and us forming a group like Isaiah's. About our Crews working together."

  "To be honest, I didn't think you'd trust me enough after all this to want to work with me that close," said Winston. He was testing her, calling her bluff. He was right of course - she didn't trust him at all, and if she pretended otherwise he'd know she was lying.

  "I don't trust you," said Chloe. "But I might be able to work something out with some of the other Crews that you're in contact with. Isaiah wanted you because of your contacts, right? Well now that's what I want. I want a rundown on all the Crews you know about. Nothing too specific - just general areas of expertise, what city or cities they run in and how many members they have. And their general character. You give me the whole catalog and I'll pick three. You give me the contact info for those three and promise to leave us all alone from now on."

  "And this brings you what benefit?" asked Winston.

  "The benefit is our business. You can figure it out yourself." The benefit would be that she and Paul could start to put together their own alliance, modeled along what Isaiah had laid out. It wouldn't be as big or powerful, but it would be a start. And it would extend their reach and their lives beyond this damn island.

  Assuming Paul would go for it of course, but that was an argument for another time.

  "I think we could work something out along those lines," Winston agreed. "Now if you'll let me talk to Jacob..."

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  "No way," said Paul. Chloe could tell that he was still angry, although she wasn't sure if it was at Winston or at her or at both of them. But he'd never contradict her in front of a mark and so he kept whatever was bothering him to himself and pushed for a better deal. "You give us the rundown on your contacts now. Right here and right now. We go over them, we pick our three and then we make sure they're legit."

  "That will take hours," Winston pointed out. "And I need to consult my notes..."