Geek Mafia: Mile Zero (49 page)

"Shortly thereafter left Kansas for points unknown, although he's wanted for questioning by local police in connection with a gang-related murder that took place days after his release." Isaiah looked up from his file again, this time focusing on Paul and Chloe. "Apparently the victim - a woman - was the girlfriend of the leader of a rival gang. She was stabbed to death in her home."

"Jake had nothing to do with that," Winston protested. "I picked him up from prison. I took him straight out to the West Coast."

"So you say," Isaiah retorted. "But you're hardly the most trustworthy source when it comes to info on Jake.

Just the other day you claimed not to know him at all."

"You know full well why I did that. I've already explained..."

"And I don't believe your explanations!" Isaiah shouted. Paul glanced around the room and saw that Isaiah's Crewmembers had moved closer, ready to back up their leader at a moment's notice. "This friend of yours has been out of prison for three months. He has no experience with surveillance. He has no experience blending in. He has no knowledge of the terrain here in Key West. If you really just wanted to keep an eye on Raquel then you would've used someone with experience."

"I didn't have anyone else here," Winston protested. "No one I trusted..."

"You trusted a murderer you hadn't seen in twenty-five years more than you trusted your own protégé?" Isaiah asked, motioning to Chloe.

"What do you mean?" asked Winston.

"I mean here you have someone you've worked with in the past. Someone with a good heart who loves you.

And she also happens to have control over one of the most extensive private spy camera networks I've ever seen. When you suggested Key West as a meeting place, my people checked the island out and found the cameras. We assumed that's why you wanted to do things here. Hell, we tapped into the network ourselves to help keep an eye on all of you." This little revelation gave Paul a momentary shock, but deep down he wasn't Chapter 41

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all that surprised. He should have expected it. "With your close relationship with Chloe and Paul, you could easily have asked them to keep an eye on Raquel. I'm sure they would have done without even demanding to know why, just as a favor for you."

Isaiah was right of course. If Winston had asked them to surveil Raquel, they would have done so without a second thought. Watching people in Key West was as easy for them as switching channels on the cable box.

So why hadn't Winston asked them to watch her? And then of course there was the fact that even though Winston was telling Isaiah otherwise, Paul knew that he really did want the shadow corporation to fail and that he really had tried to sabotage it. Isaiah's questions left Paul wanting some real answers from Winston, but the old man didn't seem ready to give any.

"I don't burden my friends with my problems, and I like to handle things internally," Winston said. "How my people work is none of your business, and I don't have to explain my decisions to any of you."

"But I think you do," said Isaiah. "For Raquel's sake at the very least. Because I don't believe you when you say the murder was an accident. You knew Raquel. You knew she was too good not to notice a lummox like your man Jake. And you knew she was too damn headstrong to simply run and hide. She'd confront him. You were counting on it. You set her up. Putting that killer of yours in conflict with her was like leading a lamb to a lion. Only one way that situation was going to play out. This wasn't an accident. It was plain old murder."

Paul and Chloe looked at each other in real shock. Isaiah was making too much sense. Much more sense than anything Winston and Jake had told them. All of a sudden Paul was worried for Sandee, who was standing guard over Jake back at the safe house. He reached into his pocket and turned on his phone, planning to send him a text message.

Chloe on the other hand was taking a more direct approach to the problem. She turned on Winston. "Is this true, Win? Did you set her up? Did you set all of us up?" She paused, her lips tight. "Did you kill that woman?" she asked through clenched teeth.

"No, of course not!" said Winston. "This is all ridiculous. It was an accident. Things got out of hand, as I said." Deny, deny, deny, thought Paul. Deny and buy time. That's what he's doing.

Jeanie apparently had her own doubts as well. "It's not ridiculous," she asserted. "He stabbed me in the back.

And yes, I was willing to buy your story at first. But now that I've heard this new information from Isaiah, I'm having second thoughts. And third thoughts. Did you order him to kill me too?"

"What kind of person do you people think I am?" Winston asked. "I'm no killer. And I don't work with killers.

I did not order anyone to kill anyone, it's as simple as that."

"And if we don't believe you?" asked Isaiah. "If, for some reason, we don't take your word over what all the evidence and all logic suggest, then what?"

Winston looked around the room, taking in Isaiah's Crewmembers. None of them had obvious weapons in their hands, but with their numbers, they didn't really need them. It's not like Marco or Jeanie would have Winston's back in a fight, and Paul wasn't so sure which side he'd be on if the shit went down right now.

"What indeed?" asked Winston. "Are you going to string me up here and now? No trial? No evidence. I've told you what happened. You choose to believe something else. Fine. What do you propose to do about it?"

"The stringing up isn't the worst idea I've heard all day," Jeanie said. She'd made her decision, and she must've thought Winston guilty. Either that or she saw a golden opportunity to take a larger piece of the shadow corp pie for herself. Whichever, she was taking a position against Winston. "It's no worse than what you tried to do Chapter 41

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to me."

"I think I'm going to bow out of this," Marco said. "I didn't know Raquel well. He didn't try to stab me. This is between you guys, ok?" With that, he took a few steps back toward the window.

Winston turned to Chloe and Paul. "What about you two? You can see what's really going on here, can't you?"

In fact, Paul wasn't sure at all what was going on here. Did Isaiah truly believe Winston ordered the murder, or was this all some political maneuver? For that matter, did Winston do the things he'd been accused of ? It was certainly possible. He looked at Chloe and her eyes made the slightest back and forth motion. She was saying no. No, don't support Winston. Don't get involved. She was cutting him loose. He spread the fingers of his left hand apart as it hung at his side, a motion that said "wait." He wanted a little more time, because he was pretty sure that if he didn't find the right way out of this situation, there was a good chance Winston and perhaps he and Chloe would end up dead. He finished sending his secret text message to Sandee before he answered Winston's question and then began with the first thing that came to mind.

"To be honest with you all," Paul said. "It's impossible to know what to believe at this point. We're all goddamned dirty liars. It's what we do. So I suggest we just drop the accusations and protestations and get down to the real facts we can all agree on."

"And what facts are those?" Isaiah asked.

"Fact number one: We're in this house and you have a bunch of tough looking guys and gals ready and willing to jump into action. Now..."

"Fact number two," said Winston, cutting Paul off. "I've got my own people outside on the street and on the roof next door, and if I don't walk out of here in one piece, you're going to have a brutal gang war on your hands." Isaiah glanced at Amelia as he heard this and she nodded and withdrew from the room.

"Ok, ok," said Paul, "So that's two nasty facts right there that we have to deal with. And together they lead me to fact number three. Nothing nasty is going to happen to one person without something nasty happening to everyone else."

"Fact number four!" Jeanie interjected. "Winston's not the only one with people out there. My people are also waiting for the word from me and, quite frankly, I think Winston is full of shit. He doesn't have an army out there. He's got three or four people max. So he'd better think twice about threatening..."

"Fact number five!" said Winston. "I..."

"Oh come on!" Paul interrupted, frustrated and fearing they'd start a gang war before he even finished making his case for a peaceful resolution. "Can I just finish here? I'm doing the fact thing here. You know what?

Forget the facts. Let me just make my point, ok?"

"I'm sorry, Paul, you're right," Winston said. "May I add just one piece of information to the conversation before you continue?"

"Sure, of course," Paul replied, hoping Winston's piece of information wasn't too incendiary.

"I have Raff," Winston stated, his voice flat but his words a very real threat.

"What?" asked Paul. The three words didn't even make sense together. What did he mean he had Raff ? He'd been holding him prisoner all this time he was missing? This wasn't good.

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"Where?" asked Jeanie. "Where is he?" She was pulling out her phone, no doubt intent on calling in her troops or something like that.

"Now everyone hold on here," Paul said, trying to calm the situation.

"I have him. He's safe. We've been holding him since the night he got flushed out of your safe house. And he'll remain fine as long as I remain fine. It's as simple as that."

Jeanie started to say something but stopped herself. She had a deep, angry scowl on her face, and her brow was furrowed as she stared daggers at Winston. Paul jumped into the moment of silence in an attempt to steer the momentum away from violence.

"Ok, well, I'm as surprised as anyone about that, but it only serves to reinforce my point. We've got your basic mutually assured destruction scenario here right? Or if not destruction, then mutually assured big fat pain in the ass. Everyone agrees on that, right?" No one said anything, which Paul took as a sign of assent, so he kept on going. "It seems to me that we need to work out a scenario that we can all live with."

"And you think you can come up with such a scenario that will please all of us?" asked Isaiah.

"No," admitted Paul. "Not please. But I think it's something we can all live with. Emphasis on the all live'

part."

"Go ahead," said Jeanie. "Let's hear it."

"First of all, I want to reiterate that all live' thing I just mentioned. We don't have any proof that Winston ordered anyone killed and, quite frankly, there's no way we have the right to kill someone based on our suspicions. We're all liars. We're all tricksters. If the police can frame someone for murder, then certainly any of us could. There's just too much uncertainty in our world to do something as irreversible as kill someone.

Plus it's, you know, wrong."

He looked around the room, and no one objected, so he pressed on. "So here's my proposal. Winston lets Raff go. We let Winston and Jake go. Winston steps down from the project and leaves the rest of us alone. We decide whether to continue forward or not, but that's a discussion for after Winston's gone."

"That's not a deal," said Jeanie. "That's letting him get away with murder."

"Ok," said Paul. "But I'm not done." He pulled a piece of paper from his back pocket. "This is a list of contacts Winston gave us yesterday. Contacts for other Crews that might be interested in joining this thing of ours. I'm willing to turn this list over to the group for all of us to use."

"That's hardly..." Jeanie started, but Paul cut her off.

"Hold on, lemme finish," he said, turning to Isaiah. "The whole reason that you wanted Winston in on this plan of yours was because of his contacts, right?"

Isaiah nodded.

"Now obviously you can't trust him, and he can't trust you for any kind of long term relationship. We all agree on that. But if we can trust him to make one concession - and I think we can - then perhaps we can still get what we need from him." Paul now turned to Winston and said, "I assume you see where I'm going here."

"I do," said Winston.

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"Well, what do you think? Give up your contacts - or a sizable chunk of your contacts. And in return, Jeanie and Isaiah forgo any claims to revenge or whatever. Plus let Raff go. How's that sound?"

Winston sighed and looked up at the ceiling, pulling on his beard as he thought the offer over. Paul could guess at what he might be thinking about and tried to mollify his concerns. "I know you think this is a bad idea," said Paul. "And I'm sure you're loathe to introduce us to Crews that trust you with their contact information. But these are all smart people, right? Otherwise they couldn't continue to exist as viable Crews.

And if they're serious, smart, kick-ass Crews, then they deserve to make the decision themselves. They deserve that freedom. You can preface every introduction with your own warning. You can tell them whatever you want about how dangerous you think this scheme of Isaiah's is. Just give us an opportunity to state our case to them. That's all."

"Hell," said Paul. "We're going to find some of these groups anyway. Why not make sure you warn them all off first if that's what you think you want to do?"

Winston mulled all this over for another long minute. Everyone else in the room was experienced enough at negotiating to know that they needed to let him make the final decision on his own without any more kibitzing. Finally he looked right at Paul. "Let me summarize this. I give you contact information for all thirty-seven of the Crews I'm in contact with and release Raff. In return you let me and my people go and promise not to attempt any reprisals against us."

"That's what I'm proposing," said Paul.

"And you're fine with this, Jeanie?" asked Winston.

"It works," said Jeanie. "But if you lie about anything or if Raff 's been hurt..."

"Then the deal is null and you'll all come after me," finished Winston. "I know."

"Then yes, I guess I agree, if only to get this whole ordeal over with," Jeanie replied.

Winston turned to Isaiah. "And what about you?" he asked. "Does this work for you?"