Geek Mafia by Rick Dakan (beach read txt) 📖

the two open bars and munch on sushi and crab cakes snatched from trays carried by roving crew members, he realized this was a much, much better choice. For one thing they didn’t have to worry about a tent or any expensive equipment when it came time to make their getaway. For another, it was raining outside.

The Concerned Citizens for a Moral America’s inaugural fundraiser showed every sign of being a successful event. There were already almost a hundred and twenty people here, with more coming through the doors all the time. They’d rented out the entire restaurant for the night and paid for the food and the bar. The Woodbine was your typical oversized, upscale California fusion cuisine eatery. In the days of the tech boom it had been full of venture capitalists and nouveau riche engineers every night. Now they were more than happy to rent themselves out on what would’ve been an otherwise slow Tuesday night. Still, they’d charged $20,000, and it’d taken a sizable chunk out of the “reward” money they’d raised online.

Chloe and Paul stood in the kitchen, watching through a crack in the door as the marks listened attentively to none other than local talk show host Sam Evers as he harangued them with horror stories about the Los Gatos park prank. The crowd was eating up every word of it, which was no surprise since he’d been instrumental in getting many of them here tonight. The crowd was rich and credulous, just as they’d planned.

Raff stood a few feet behind them, his phone pressed to one ear, a finger jammed in the other to block out the noisy kitchen. Like Chloe, he was dressed in the black pants and vest of a caterer. Paul, wearing a brand new suit, was the face of the operation, and so far he was the only one with any public connection to organizing the fundraiser. 

With his hair dyed blonde, a fake moustache glued to his upper lip, and glasses, he hoped his face wouldn’t be easily recognizable. Under his suit he wore padding that added another four waist sizes and made him look forty pounds heavier than he actually was. Bee had sewn the costume herself, and he was surprised at how comfortable it was to wear. He was having a little more trouble with the shoes, which lifted his height but made his walk a little wobbly if he didn’t concentrate.

Raff got off the phone and came over to them. “That was the Congressman’s chief of staff. He’s on his way. Should be here in twenty minutes. Maybe thirty with the rain.” Getting the Congressman to appear had been their greatest coup. A notoriously rightwing representative from the central valley, Representative Andy Felson was a darling of the talk radio circuit and a famously successful fundraiser. His agreeing to speak lent an air of credibility they really needed to pull this scam off, although it had cost them a $10,000 campaign donation.

Evers was finishing up on stage, ranting about liberal terrorists and the threat they posed to everything decent and good in America. He finished with his famous tag line – “Not, here! Not in my America!” and the crowd went wild for him. 

“Ok, time to give my spiel,” said Paul, straightening his tie for the umpteenth time.

“Just keep it short and sweet and you’ll do fine,” said Chloe. 

“Yeah, just remind them the drinks are free and they’ll love you forever,” Raff added.

“Right. Ok. I’m on.”

Paul strode confidently out of the kitchen and towards the small stage they’d set up at the far end of the dining room where Evers was shaking hands with his fans. As he wove his way through the crowd, he passed by the silent auction tables that lined one wall. The tables had bright, glossy pictures of cruise ships, spas, and the dining rooms of some of the best restaurants in San Francisco and Napa Valley. There were also photos of jewelry, watches, and even a display promising personalized helicopter tours of Muir Woods. Attached to each display was a small digital screen and a credit card reader that showed the current high bid on each of the items.

As Paul scanned the current bids, he saw that every package had at least one bid on it. And it was little wonder. Compared to the extravagant trips and gifts on display, the minimum bids were all quite reasonable. $500 for a dinner for 6 at the French Laundry? A steal at thrice the price! A weekend with Robert Mondavi touring his wineries? If you could put a price on such an experience, it would surely be much more than the $3000 minimum bid. Of course the only things real about any of these packages were the signs describing them – and the credit card machines the marks were using to make their bids.

Paul had also insisted that they set up a number of tables where people could donate directly to specially chosen charities. These were all relatively obscure, small international aid groups and labor rights advocates that none of the guests had ever heard of. Paul correctly assumed that the party-goers would blindly give to the charities since they had the seal of approval from the right-wing group that was hosting the event. They’d never know that their cash was going to buy condoms and birth control in Africa or to support trade unions in South America. Paul himself planned to donate his share of the con to these groups – after all, he didn’t need the money. This charity angle was the one area where he’d met the most resistance from some crewmembers, but Chloe and Raff had both backed him on it and so he’d gotten his way. She’d seemed impressed with his generosity. 

Behind the tables stood Kurt and Popper, two of the more respectable looking Crew members. They were carefully and patiently explaining to the attendees how to use the credit card donation system. Chloe and Raff had both worried that people wouldn’t accept this new innovation in silent auctioneering. Would people blithely swipe their cards into a strange machine? Paul was gratified to see that the answer was apparently yes. After all, this was Silicon Valley. Everyone here loves a new gadget.

Paul slowed down to listen to Popper as she gave her spiel to a would-be bidder.

“Good evening, ma’am,” Popper said to a middle aged woman wearing incredibly large pearls and enough perfume for any five women in the room.

“Now I’ve never seen anything like this before,” said the woman, as she looked the table over with a curious eye. “How does it work?”

“It’s very simple, ma’am,” Popper replied with a smile. “These are credit card machines just like you see in any department or grocery store. As you can see, each one is labeled with the name of a different auction item. You just swipe your credit or debit card and then type in the amount of your bid. You then get a printed receipt showing your bid. Only the highest bid gets charged of course. All proceeds go directly to finding the liberal terrorists responsible for drawing America down into a cesspool of communism.” Paul thought this last bit was kind of over the top, but the bidder seemed to like it.

“Well, how clever is that?” chimed the woman. “Isn’t technology just amazing?”

“It is indeed, ma’am.”

“And how much did you say these machines take?”

“You can bid whatever you want,” Popper repeated, admirably hiding her frustration at having to deal with the same question for what was probably the hundredth time that night. “Just check the screen to see what the current bid is.”

“Well, let’s see here,” the woman said, pulling her wallet from her purse and thumbing through the dozen or so credit cards inside. “Do you take AmEx?”

“Of course,” Popper said. Paul moved on, happy to see that the targets were buying into this new innovation. 

Paul moved on to the front of the room, where he took the stage for the third time that evening. Standing next to Evers onstage, he shook the radio personality’s hand and thanked him for all his help. The talk show host had fallen harder for their con than anyone, and was more than happy to have the extra exposure appearing at the event gave him. His speech finished, he thanked Paul and made his way back to his table where his wife was waiting for him with a fresh drink.

Paul wiped the sweat from Evers’ hands on his pants and then tapped on the microphone. “Um, hello again, everyone,” said Paul. He tried to pitch his voice higher than normal, with the nasal tone Chloe had described as bureaucratic officiousness. The idea was to sound like someone no one wants to talk to. That way, they’ll pay less attention to details about you because they’ll be looking away in embarrassment or distaste. It seemed to be working, as only about a third of the guests bothered to turn towards him. “I just wanted to remind everyone that there’s only an hour left before the silent auctions close. We’ve got some really coo…really wonderful packages for you to bid on, and I encourage everyone to check again on items they’ve already bid on because it’s getting fierce out there.” He let out a nervous laugh. A few people chuckled out of pure politeness.

“Also, Congressman Felson is on his way and should be taking the stage. So let’s be sure to give him a warm, patriotic welcome when he arrives, ok?” Paul started clapping and the crowd showed some cursory enthusiasm by clapping along with him before returning to their drinks and bids. Paul was no Sam Evers, for which he was grateful.

As Paul turned off the microphone he looked out and saw what must’ve now been over two hundred people. The place was packed to capacity. If every fake item they’d put out there got just the minimum bid, they’d make $296,000, but from the looks of things, it was going to be much higher than that. Maybe two or three times that much.

He stepped off the stage and picked his way through the crowd, headed back towards the kitchen and its relative safety. The brief anxiety of being on stage had passed now and exhilaration came flooding in to replace it. He looked around the room and thought about the simple fact that everyone in the room was there because he had engineered it. He’d spun the greatest tale of his career as a storyteller, and these people were paying thousands of dollars to participate in it. It was like seeing his first comic book in print, only a hundred times more gratifying. They were all playing the rolls he’d written, and playing them perfectly. 

Someone grabbed him by the back of his arm and said, “Paul, is that you?”

Startled at the sound of own name, he yanked his arm away and spun around to see a very familiar and very unwelcome face. It was Frank – lead programmer for his former company and one of the four people in the world who probably hated Paul more than everyone else he’d ever pissed off combined. 

“Fuck,” said Paul.

“Whatcha doing Paul?” Frank asked. 

Paul didn’t have an answer. 

CHAPTER 27

Paul and Frank had had a complicated working relationship. In any other setting the two would not have been friendly. Actually, Paul had trouble imagining any other setting where their paths might have crossed. Frank lived for three things – writing great code, listening to really loud music, and racing sailboats. Paul didn’t like any of those things. 

Frank was, without a doubt, a very, very smart man and an excellent programmer. He had both the eye for detail and