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

at that, including Raff. He still hadn’t heard anything about why Raff had called him in. Apparently even Chloe thought Raff was supposed to make the pickup. 

“Actually,” said Raff, “I was afraid the guy would make me. I wanted a fresh face for the pickup. So I brought in a stringer.”

“What the fuck?” said Chloe, “Why in fuck’s name wasn’t I told about this?”

“I’m sorry Chloe, but I didn’t have time. I got a little spooked and…”

“Whatever, Raff,” she interrupted, pissed off. “So who’d you get? It wasn’t Leo again was it, because that fucker…”

“It was Paul.”

“Paul who?”

“You know, Paul, Paul. Your Paul.”

There was a long of silence, which Paul took as his cue. He wondered if Raff had planned it this way – or was it just happy circumstance that he’d waited out of sight in the kitchen for the whole debriefing? It didn’t really matter now – he knew a dramatic moment to enter when he heard it. He walked into the living room and saw Chloe standing on the far side of the room, the much taller Raff right beside her. Like everyone else she was staring right at him. He enjoyed being the center of attention again. It was a nice change from the past couple weeks, when everyone had ignored him so studiously. He especially liked the fact that he was so obviously catching Chloe totally by surprise. That was a rare treat.

“I thought I heard someone call my name,” said Paul. “What’s going on?” Several of the Crew chuckled at that. 

Chloe tore her gaze from Paul and fixed Raff in his chair where he sat a few feet to her left. “What the fuck, Raff? What. The. Fuck?”

“I don’t have…” Raff started to reply.

“You know what, Raff, just forget it for now. We’ll have this conversation later. You can bet for sure that you and I will have fucking words.” She glared at Raff for a long moment, her whole body tense with anger, but she was trying to act normal and keep it under control. She then turned to Paul and smiled as best she could, beckoning him over to her side. “Paul, come up here. Why don’t you finish the story? Let’s see here, you don’t look too worse for wear.” He made his way through the crowd to the front of the room. She pulled up his shirt to reveal the black and blue bruise creeping up his lower back. “Shit, that old guy hit you pretty good. What happened?”

Paul told his own tale as it had happened, starting with the phone call and ending with piling into the van with Raff and the others. He added a few little embellishments and jokes in there to lighten the mood, which the rest of the Crew seemed to appreciate. Raff himself laughed the hardest at most of these. Chloe just stood next to him with her arm comfortably slung around his waist. Her touch fueled his storytelling and he dragged his brief tale out as long as he could.

When he’d finished, Chloe led the others in giving him a brief round of applause in appreciation for his good work. Then she spoke to Raff again.

“So, who the hell was this other clown who tackled Paul here? How come we didn’t know about this guy?” she asked, anger creeping back into her voice. 

“I don’t know,” said Raff, still calm and genial. “He looked familiar but I couldn’t place him.”

“I think I know,” said Bee, raising her hand like an overachiever in school. “Is this him?” She held up her laptop with the screen pointed out so Chloe, Paul, and Raff could see it. There was a pic of the man who’d tackled Paul a few hours earlier.  It had been taken at night, apparently in a parking lot.

“That’s him,” Paul said. “Who is he?”

“He’s someone the CFO had dinner with several nights ago. It’s one of the few conversations he’s had that we couldn’t overhear. My guess is that he took the opportunity to bring him in the loop on what was going on. If I had to bet, I’d say he’s some sort of Private Investigator or security consultant.”

“Fuck,” said Raff. “I’m sorry, Paul. If I’d known, I never would’ve called you in.”

“Which is exactly why we don’t fucking call people in for no Goddamned reason,” said Chloe, almost shouting.

“It’s ok, Chloe,” interjected Paul. “I’m glad I helped. It was good to finally get in on what the rest of you were doing. You know, get in on the fun.”

Chloe fixed Paul with an intense look and started to say something that Paul suspected would’ve been quite vicious. Instead, she closed her eyes and took a deep breath, aware that the entire room was watching them. “We’ll talk about this shit later. Right now let’s finish things up.” 

Paul sat down on the floor near Chloe’s feet (about the only free space left in the crowded living room) while she presided over the ritual that the Crew performed every time they completed a job. Everyone handed over disks and files to Chloe and Raff and gave their word that there was no record of anything they’d done left on any computer anywhere. Bee collected any surveillance gear and other technical gewgaws that had been used during the extensive surveillance. They officially cut all ties with the CFO and everyone swore to never have any contact with him again.

With the ritual complete, the celebration began. Raff had already been in contact with Fruch and he’d agreed to make the payment tomorrow afternoon. Hopefully they’d double or triple their profits if Fruch agreed to pay an extra finder’s fee in exchange for the very high quality data they’d managed to secure. But no one seemed too worried about that right now.  They were too busy digging through the coolers for beer, breaking out bongs, and popping pills.

Chloe helped Paul to his feet, saying, “Thanks, Paul. I’m really sorry Raff did that to you. It shouldn’t have ever happened like that.”

“Chloe, listen, it’s ok…” he started to say.

“No. No it’s not. We’ve got rules and Raff broke them.” Her eyes darted across the room to where Raff stood with Kurt and Filo, laughing. “I can’t have this kind of shit going on. This is the way people end up in jail.”

“I wanted to help, Chloe. Don’t you get that? I wanted to…”

Again she cut him off. “Not right now, ok?” she said, her voice pleading with him to just let it be for the moment. “Could you do me a favor and get us something to drink?”

Paul looked into her eyes. She was not in the mood for him right now. Maybe a drink would do her some good. Even with three beers in him already, he knew it would help him. “Sure, absolutely.” He gave her a quick kiss on the lips. “I’ll be right back.”

He wove through the crowd back into the kitchen to get beer. As he leaned over the cooler, someone came up behind him and gave him a bear hug from behind, “Hey there killer!” said Bee in a tone hyper even for her. “Nice work.”

“Nothing to it,” said Paul, as he turned around to face her. She drew back from him and revealed a small white pill in her hand. “This is for you. Take it while Chloe has a word or four with Raff. It should kick in after about half an hour”

Paul paused for a beat before taking the pill from her and popping it his mouth. He assumed it was ecstasy, which he’d only tried a couple of other times. But he trusted Bee, and if he’d found out anything, it was that Crew always had access to high quality narcotics. Bee watched him swallow the pill and then produced one for herself. She flashed him a goofy grin and downed it. Then she skipped off into the crowd, handing out pills to everyone she came in contact with.

By the time he came back into the living room, Chloe and Raff were nowhere to be seen. He talked with Popper for a while and drank both his and Chloe’s beers. Then he finished Popper’s as well. As the X started to kick in and euphoria washed over him, he searched the house in vain for Chloe. He heard shouting coming from inside the garage, but the door was locked. Were she and Raff having it out in there? Better let them be, he thought. No reason to get involved in some heavy shit like that.

Grabbing another beer from the cooler and another pill from Bee, Paul decided to wait for Chloe in her bedroom. As he lay down he thought he could still hear them shouting. But it might’ve been the music. It was hard to tell. And then he was asleep.

CHAPTER 19

When he woke up the next morning, Paul’s mouth tasted like he’d swallowed a pound of raw cotton. He was in a bed. Chloe’s bed. He tried to recall how he’d gotten there and couldn’t quite put all the pieces together. It took another moment to realize that he was still wearing all his clothes, sans shoes. That meant it was unlikely anything had happened between him and Chloe last night, which was probably for the best since if something had happened he would want to remember it. He heard the unmistakable sound of someone peeing from behind the bathroom door, followed by a flush and then the shower being turned on. He assumed that was Chloe. 

Paul wondered once again just what the hell he was doing here. Things with Chloe weren’t proceeding the way he wanted. At least not at the speed he wanted. Although, as he remembered the pills he’d taken last night, Paul realized that there was a good chance that this most recent romantic setback might have had more to do with his inability to handle his drugs rather than any lack of interest on her part. Still, he needed to take some initiative here – push things forward or get out of Dodge. 

A few minutes later the shower stopped and Chloe stepped out into the bedroom. An oversized green towel was wrapped around her torso and she rubbed her short hair vigorously with a smaller white towel that had once belonged to a Holiday Inn. She noticed Paul looking at her.

“Hey there, sport. Finally awake huh?”

“Yeah,” Paul croaked, his mouth still dry. “I was really out of it, huh?”

“Fucking right you were. Anyone ever tell you that you snore like a mother fucker?”

“I do have that reputation.”

“Fortunately you respond well to a sharp elbow and the occasional shove, so I didn’t lose too much sleep.” She sat down on the bed next to her, tossing the small hotel towel to the floor. 

“What’d Bee give me that knocked me out like that?” Paul asked as he levered himself up into a sitting position, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, and blinking to moisten his contacts. 

“It was just some X. The same thing everyone else took. I dunno why it knocked you on your ass like that, although I’m guessing it was all the beer, not the drugs.” She felt his forehead briefly. “You feeling ok?” 

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. Just thirsty.” He swallowed a few times, trying to work up a coating of saliva in his dry throat. 

“Lemme get you a glass of water,” said Chloe. She hopped up and went back into the bathroom to fill a glass from the sink. “Listen, Paul, again, I’m sorry