Geek Mafia: Mile Zero (34 page)

Paul heard voices coming from the garden, a male and a female. It had to be the killer and Jeanie talking. Paul climbed over the library steps and, crouching low, moved to the side of the garden, a plant-covered fence blocking their view of him from inside. The voices grew just a bit louder, but he still couldn't make out what they were saying.

He stuck his camera through the bars of the fence and looked through the viewfinder. It revealed the two of them, in shades of green, standing about ten feet away from Paul. They stood with a yard or so of space between them as they talked in low, serious tones. As Paul watched, the woman threw up her arms in annoyance and said, "Fine, let's go." In a voice loud enough to hear. The man motioned toward the gate.

It was indeed Jeanie who walked toward the garden's exit, her face serious, even angry. And the man behind her, although he'd shaved his beard, was the killer. Paul snapped pictures of them together in rapid succession.

He had them! He had her with the killer, Raff with her, and Eddie with Raff. The transitive property of being murderous bastards. Isaiah would have to move now.

Paul was about to consider just where he was going to hide when they exited the garden when he noticed the killer pulling something from behind his back. The object was dark on the green low-light display, a dark six-inch long screwdriver or maybe an awl. And ice pick possibly. Whatever it was, the killer's intentions were obvious to Paul. He was about to stab Jeanie in the back with it.

"Look out!" Paul screamed, without thinking. Jeanie looked his way and recoiled in surprise, but the killer never lost his focus, and drove the shiv up into Jeanie. He might have originally been going for a kidney, but Chapter 27

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Paul's warning had caused her to shift her stance just enough that it instead seemed to glance off her ribs. She spun away from him, her face wincing in pain.

Paul stopped looking at the camera and turn and ran, sprinting around the fence to the garden entrance just in time to see Jeanie come tumbling out backward onto the pavement in front him. The killer was right on top of her, coming through the entrance. It was a screwdriver he held, black with a black handle, only its tip shining silver in the streetlight. He fell upon Jeanie, his knees pinning her to the ground. She punched up at him, the blows glancing off his chest as he brought the screwdriver up and down toward her face. She manage to twist her head away just in time and the weapon slammed into the sidewalk.

As the killer brought it up again, Paul launched himself at the man in a head-first tackle, knocking him off Jeanie and sending them both to the ground in a heap of arms and legs. Paul was thankful to hear the screwdriver skitter off into the road. But the man was big and strong and skilled. With one arm he pushed Paul's chest, forcing enough room between them so that he could bring his other elbow smashing into the side of Paul's head. He blacked out for an instant, his eyes rolling up and then snapped back to reality as a second blow smashed into his forehead, knocking him to the ground.

The man tossed Paul aside and got his feet under him long enough to shoot across the distance between himself and Jeanie, who was trying to stand up. The killer hit her with a strong uppercut to the body, probably powerful enough to shock her liver. Jeanie collapsed from the knockout body blow. Paul, gasping for breath, wondered which of them he'd kill first.

A loud, two-note whistle screeched through the air, low then high, as if someone were calling their dog. Paul and the killer both turned to see Sandee there, a vision of loveliness in high-heeled boots. He stood in a defensive, classic wing-chun pose, left leg and right arm forward.

Sandee had his boy form and his girl form, and aside from the clothes and the voice, there wasn't much difference between them, personality-wise. But then there was the other Sandee. The black belt martial artist and yoga instructor Sandee who meditated daily and could punch a hole in a brick wall if he wanted to. Kung Fu Sandee didn't have time for double entendres or snappy comebacks. Kung Fu Sandee was here to kick your ass.

The killer stood up and turned to face the newcomer, his face still as stone. The two of them stood there for a moment, almost the same height, thanks to Sandee's boots. Paul crawled over toward Jeanie, although he wasn't sure what good he could do in his current state. Maybe he'd drag her out of the way or something. The killer heard him and turned and shot a quick glare Paul's way, which froze him in his tracks. Sandee chose that moment to strike.

Three quick steps forward and then his rear leg swung forward at the hip in a roundhouse arc, shin smacking into the inside of the killer's right knee. His right elbow followed through a split second later, smashing into the killer's jaw as it moved right to left and then catching him on the other side of the face as it swept back from left to right. Sandee's kicking leg recoiled back and his hip followed, twisting his body. As he settled back onto his right leg, he launched a straight thrust kick with his left, catching the killer in the stomach and pushing him away from him. He fell back on his ass with an "Ooof."

Whatever the man had expected from the "woman" in heels, it couldn't have been that. Paul heard a cry from behind him and looked back to see two people, an older man and woman, who'd just rounded the corner. They must've seen Sandee attack the man. They retreated back the way they came, but Paul could see the woman reaching into her purse - the cops would be here soon.

The killer started to get to his feet, hand on the ground for support when Sandee slashed forward again, his knee connecting with the man's forehead. Just for good measure, he brought the stiletto tip of his boot heel Chapter 27

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down on the man's left hand in a vicious stomp. Even Paul winced in pain at the sight of it, and when he heard the loud snap, he closed his eyes and looked away.

"Shit," he heard Sandee say, and he opened them. He was limping now, pulling back away from the man. The snapping sound hadn't been the man's hand breaking (although surely it had). It was Sandee's stiletto heel breaking off at the base.

The killer managed to regain his feet as Sandee was trying to maintain balance on one foot. He was woozy, no doubt dazed by the knee to the head which had opened a nasty looking cut above his left eye. But the killer had the wherewithal to lunge forward at Sandee, shoving him with both hands. Although Sandee managed to deflect the attack, he couldn't do so and keep his balance. He went down, although in typical Sandee fashion he managed to turn it into a relatively graceful backwards roll and ended up crouched low on his toes.

But the killer was on the run now, racing down the middle of the road toward White Street with a loping, limping gait. Paul was still gasping for air and on the ground, in no position to give chase. Sandee started after him but immediately stumbled. It was impossible to run in just one heel. He sat down where he was and started to undo the boots, but Paul called to him. "Sandee, stop!"

"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.