Geek Mafia by Rick Dakan (read book .txt) 📕

be myself, they show me around and stuff. I just think there’s less of a chance of me rousing suspicions or whatever.”

“You’ve never done anything like this, have you Paul?” asked Raff. “It’s great that you’re helping us and all, but what if you get nervous? What if you suddenly realize that you’re about to commit fraud and you chicken out? We’re not going to have a second shot at this – not without REALLY arousing some suspicions.”

“I hear what you’re saying, but I’m telling you guys, I can do this.” Paul turned his attention to Chloe. “I can do this. I’m the best man for this job.”

Chloe laughed and reached over and tousled his hair. “Ok, champ, you got it. We’ll let you go in. That means we gotta get your ass checked out on some of this equipment here. Raff, this is cool with you right?”

“As long as he doesn’t fuck up it’s cool with me, yeah,” said Raff, smiling as well. “If it means I don’t have to spend an hour babbling with some comics geek, that’s great.”

“Ok then,” said Chloe. “Let’s start again from the top, this time we’ve got Paul as the face.”

“You mean like on the A-Team?” said Paul, remembering the character of “Face” from the old 80’s action/adventure show. “I loved that show.”

“Yep,” said Chloe. “Except we’re not blowing anything up. At least not this time.”

Chapter 12

The Comics Rating Group’s offices sat in the front corner of the Redfield Industrial Park, just one of many identical buildings in the area. The door had an electronic lock that employees put their pass cards up against to gain access. Since he didn’t have such a card (yet), Paul had to tap lightly on the glass in order to catch the receptionist’s attention. She politely buzzed him in from her desk. He had an appointment to meet with the head grader, who would be out in just a minute.

The man’s name was Kevin Carrey, a well fed fellow in a blue polo shirt with the company logo on it and khaki pants. He shook Paul’s hand warmly while Paul glanced briefly at the security card hanging from his belt.

“Welcome to CRG, Mr. Feldman. I’m Kevin Carrey, Vice-President of Customer Relations.” 

“Pete Feldman. It’s nice to meet you,” said Paul. “I appreciate you letting me stop by in person. I know that’s a little unusual.”

“We try to be as accommodating as we can, especially for new clients. Would you like the grand tour?”

“That’d be great.”

The main grading rooms were divided into three different sections. The largest contained five graders who worked on comics published since the 1980’s, the lion’s share of the company’s business. The two smaller sections dealt with silver age (60’s and 70’s) and golden age (30’s to 50’s) comics respectively. Carrey also pointed out a restoration room where damaged comics could be brought back to their former glory. The office had an informal feel, with music blaring from stereos and walls covered with comics related posters. Probably a fun place to work if you like comics, thought Paul.

But the tour’s highlight – indeed one of his main goals in coming inside in the first place – was the sealing room. Here they took the graded comics and sealed them in two layers of plastic. First a flexible plastic sleeve that fit snuggly around the comic. Then a hard plastic outer case that included a hologram and the comic’s title with the grade printed directly onto the plastic. They used heat to melt the plastic and make the seals, so there was no way to open the final product without breaking the seal and thus eliminating the veracity of the grade. 

Paul took a long, good look all around this room, including up at the security cameras mounted high on the wall. The digital video camera hidden inside the thick, black glasses he wore transmitted everything he saw to the rest of the Crew, who were in a van around the corner. Paul insisted on watching the entire sealing process from beginning to end twice, which his guide found a little boring, but he accommodated Paul’s request.

“Very cool,” said Paul. “You’ve got a pretty neat set-up here. How many of these do you do a day?”

“We average around a thousand a day. We’re actually still a little understaffed – we get more books in per day than we grade out, but we can push favored customers to the front of the line, especially if they do a lot of business with us.”

“Speaking of which, shall we talk about my little collection?” 

“Certainly. Come on back to my office and we can talk there.”

Paul suddenly put his hand on his pants pocket where there was the unmistakable bulge of a cell phone. “Oh shoot, I’ve got a call. Do you mind?” 

“No, please, go ahead.”

Paul pulled the phone out and turned it on, pretending to talk to someone about a real estate deal as he turned his back on Carrey. In fact, the phone wasn’t a phone at all. It was a little device that Bee had cooked up and then put inside a cell phone shell. Paul made a good show of wandering about the room, talking angrily with his realtor. Mr. Carrey stood by silently, pretending not to eavesdrop. 

“Listen. I’m in a meeting,” said Paul. “I have to go. I’ll call you back. Just get it done ok? Just. Get. It. Done.”

Paul hit the button to end the call, in fact activating Bee’s device. He strode over to Carrey, the phone in his hand still.

“I’m sorry about that. Let’s get going.” As Paul stepped close to Carrey he let his arm carrying the cell phone swing forward until it almost touched the security card hanging from the vice-president’s belt. 

The fake cell phone worked very much like the electronic security card scanner on the company’s front door. Like the door scanners, all it needed was to be within an inch or two of a security card to read the signal of the card’s microchip. Bee’s invention recorded this signal automatically, and would allow them to make a duplicate card later. Paul looked down at the phone’s digital display as he followed Carrey back towards his office. It said “Call Complete,” signifying that the card capture had worked. Two jobs down, one to go.

They sat down in Carrey’s spacious office. It lacked the color and character of the rest of the facility, but had five very valuable, sealed and graded comics hanging tastefully on the wall. Paul wasn’t acting when a whistle appreciatively at the copy of Amazing Fantasy 15, which was the first appearance of Spider-man and worth several hundred thousand dollars. 

“Wow. How cool is that?” said Paul, pointing to the image of the web-slinger on the wall.

“Yeah, isn’t that great? That’s the first thing I bought once the company was up and moving. It’s only graded a 5.4, but it’s still awesome to have, you know?”

“Definitely. I don’t have that in my collection, but I’ve got some keepers, that’s for sure.” Paul contorted himself awkwardly in his chair in order to remove a CD in a paper sleeve from his other pocket. He pointed at the computer on Carrey’s desk. “Does that thing have Excel on it?”

“Of course,” said Carrey, taking the disk and putting it in his computer. “You have your whole collection on this?”

“Yep, I actually don’t know much about computers, but I hired some college kids to inventory my whole collection and record it all in a big database thingy. It took them all summer. They also weighed my comics – turns out I have a literal ton of comics. Over 2000 pounds.”

“That’s pretty impressive. I’ve culled my own collection down in the past few years, just a couple thousand that I really want to hang on to.”

“I’m planning on doing the same thing, but first I wanted to get four or five hundred of them graded and sealed by you guys, just the most valuable ones you understand.” At $30 a pop for grading and sealing comics, Paul had just offered the man $15,000 worth of business. It wouldn’t make him their largest customer, but it was enough to command some respect. “That disk is just a list of the books I think would be the most likely candidates for grading. If you could look it over and get back to me with your suggestions, I’d really appreciate it.”

In fact, the list was just a fiction Paul had whipped up over the course of a few hours. He’d been careful to make sure that only a handful of the books actually overlapped with the ones they’d counterfeited. No sense leaving a list of their forgeries around, even if no one would ever be the wiser assuming the scam went off as planned. The disk had no doubt already accomplished its true purpose. When Carrey had opened the database, he’d also released a Trojan Horse into the company’s network. The small program was now hidden away in the system, and would leave it wide open to the hacker team. Goal three accomplished. Time to get a move on.

“I’d love to go over that list with you myself,” said Paul. “But I really have to get going. My real estate agent seems bound and determined to screw this deal up, and I need to make sure it goes as planned.” He pulled out his wallet and handed Mr. Carrey a fake business card. “Just give me a call or drop me an e-mail when you’ve had a chance to go over that.”

“Sure thing Mr. Feldman. We’re happy to help you out with your collection. Just glancing at it, it sure looks like you’ve got some impressive books here.”

“Thanks,” said Paul, turning to leave. “Oh, just one more thing actually. Can you just save that file to your computer and give me the disk back? I don’t have a copy on my laptop back at the hotel and I’d like to look it over myself a little more.”

“Of course. Just hold on a second.” Carrey saved off the file and popped the CD back out, handing it to Paul. “There you go, you’re all set.”

“Cool,” said Paul. “All right, I gotta run. Thanks again.”

“Let me show you out,” said Carrey.

Two minutes later Paul was climbing back into the van. As soon as he closed the door behind him he whooped with glee. “Whoo hooooo!” he shouted. “That was awesome.” 

He’d been calm during his whole visit, but as soon as he’d walked out the door his heart had started racing. It was an exhilarating feeling, tricking someone so thoroughly like that. Pretending to do one thing but secretly doing something much sneakier.

Chloe gave him a big hug and a quick kiss on the lips, which was all he thought about for the next few moments as he slapped hands and exchanged congratulations with the other Crew members.

“Great job, Paul,” said Chloe. “You played him like a pro.”

“I almost forgot to get the disk back,” he said, handing both it and the cell phone/card scanner over to Bee.

Raff was already driving the van back towards the motel. “You covered well though.”

“Thanks,” said Paul.

“Hell, I didn’t even realize you’d forgotten it,” said Chloe. “I thought you were playing it real cool in there. Pulling a Columbo on him. ‘Just one more thing, sir.’” 

“I don’t think he suspected a thing,” said Paul, almost panting with excitement and pride.

“Why would he? Who the fuck would do something this silly but