Geek Mafia by Rick Dakan (beach read txt) 📖

“Raff is the one who set up that whole Gondry con,” Chloe said. “He put that whole thing together while we were away and he was definitely the lead on that.”

“Do you mean the whole con was a setup?”

“No it was genuine. The payoff was certainly genuine and the whole Crew worked that sting. Not even Raff could’ve fooled us all on something that big. Not even I could’ve done that. But the Private Eye was a late addition to the mix – he must’ve used some cover story to get close to the mark so he could be there at the exchange. That’s why we were all so surprised when he showed up at the park.”

Paul thought back over the debriefing. “Which finally makes sense of why Raff called me in at the last minute. He didn’t need a fresh face and he wasn’t trying to help me get into the crew. He was setting me up. Setting the whole thing up so that he could put pressure on me. He told the Private Eye where to find my car and put him on my trail.”

“I don’t even think he’s a real Private Eye at all. He’s just Raff’s accomplice. His ‘Winston’ maybe. He knew I had someone in the life outside the Crew. I always suspected that he did, too, but I could never find any hint of who it might be. This homicidal old fuck must be the guy. Raff’s mentor in the biz.”

“That can’t be good for us,” Paul said.

“Not good at all.”

“So they’ve been after the money since the beginning. Just to split it between the two of them?” he asked.

“Looks like.”

“Fuckers.”

“Yep.”

“It’s really pretty brilliant,” Chloe mused. “I have to say that if I wasn’t so pissed I’d be impressed. The really clever thing is that he’s managed to poison the whole Crew against us. My own goddamned crew.”

“Maybe he didn’t get all of them,” he said hopefully.

“It doesn’t matter. Now that I know he got some of them, there’s no way I can trust any of them. That’s the brilliant part. He knows I won’t risk it now and all the while he’ll win more of them over to his side.” She frowned. “By the time it’s safe to show my face – if that ever actually happens – I’ll have no chance of winning them back.”

“Unless we can prove he’s the one who really betrayed them.”

“Not fucking likely.”

“But worth a shot huh?” 

“Maybe,” she said. “But that’s tomorrow’s problem. Right now we’ve got to get the money before they break in and take it.”

“The storage place my cousin used is actually pretty high tech. It’s not the rat hole we just came from. All indoors. 24-hour security. Cameras. The whole thing’s only a few years old.”

“They’ll need to con their way in then,” said Chloe. “At least that’ll take them a little longer to put together.” She thought for a while, running over scenarios in her mind. “What we need is for someone we can trust to go in there and get the cash out for us. Someone they won’t recognize. But someone we can trust.”

“Why not try disguises?” Paul suggested. 

“Too risky. That’s what they’ll be looking for, especially now that they know we’re on to them.”

They both thought silently for a long while. The car started to become uncomfortably stuffy. 

“This is the problem when all your friends turn against you,” said Chloe. “You’ve got no one to pick up your stolen money for you in the middle of the night. Especially not in this neighborhood.”

Paul looked out the rapidly fogging windows at the parking lot and street beyond. He in fact did know this neighborhood pretty well – which was unusual for him in San Jose.

“Actually I have a friend in this neighborhood,” he said softly. “Or at least I used to.”

“Really?” said Chloe. “Will he be happy to help us out?”

“Probably not. But maybe it’s worth a try.”

“Who’re you thinking of?”

“You’re not going to like it,” he said.

“I haven’t liked anything for three days. Who’re you thinking of?”

“Greg.”

CHAPTER 37

Paul had met Greg in high school, when they’d both played in the same weekly Dungeons and Dragons game on Saturday afternoons. They’d hit it off almost immediately, which surprised many onlookers since outwardly they had almost nothing in common. Back then – the late eighties – Paul’s image and fashion sense hovered somewhere between punk and goth, with lots of black leather and band t-shirts (although in retrospect he was the textbook example of a poseur). Greg was chubby and socially awkward but brilliant. Pretty much your stereotypical nerd, except for his love of water skiing and jet skis. 

Below the surface, though, they had almost everything in common. They had both been fanatical Dr. Who fans as kids. They shared a passion for the same sci-fi and fantasy authors, from the comedy of Douglas Adams and Piers Anthony, to the hard sci-fi of Poul Anderson and Isaac Asimov, to the morbid and depressing fantasies of Stephen Donaldson and Michael Moorcock. They obsessed over the X-Men and read The Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen with mouths agape in awe. And of course they rejoiced in Star Wars and watched Start Trek the Next Generation religiously. They were, in short, geeks of a feather. 

But more than anything, they had in common a love of games. Their Dungeons and Dragons group became the center of their social lives, with every Saturday game stretching through the night and into the following Sunday evening. During the week they talked constantly about their adventures and their characters and various ways they could tweak or improve the rules to make their games better. In their most speculative midnight reveries, they plotted and planned the game company they would create if they had a chance, describing in every detail how they’d do things better.

After high school they always stayed in touch, even as they went off to different colleges hundreds of miles apart. Greg studied computer systems engineering at Georgia Tech, where he knew more than most of the teachers and found he had a special talent for computer chip design and engineering. Paul went to Oberlin College in Ohio, where he got a degree in fine arts and illustration. Every Christmas break and summer vacation the old D&D group would get together again, and the core group of five players stayed thick as thieves.

Seven years after graduating from college, Greg had started a chip design company and sold it to another, much larger company, netting over twenty-million dollars for himself in the process. Paul had worked as an artist for various comic companies before self-publishing his own series, Metropolis 2.0, which became one of the better selling indie-comics of the late nineties. He didn’t have anything resembling the kind of money Greg had made, but they were both successful and happy in their chosen careers.

The next step was obvious; a plan hatched over a series of excited phone calls that resulted in the foundation of Fear and Loading Games. Greg brought the money and some technical know how, and Paul brought the intellectual property and inspiration for their first game, based on his comic book. Greg’s network of contacts in Silicon Valley made finding the other founding partners pretty easy. Evan, Jerry, and, of course, Frank soon joined their team. They incorporated, rented an office, and got to work making the next smash hit game.

That was three years ago now, and things hadn’t quite worked out as Paul had expected. Two and a half years of working together had strained Paul’s friendship with Greg. Paul found Greg to be strangely distant and yet oppressively controlling. Greg no doubt thought Paul was moody and lazy and hard to work with. They spent less and less time together socially, and by the end Paul would’ve been hard pressed to remember the last time the two old friends had seen a movie or had a meal together. 

“And you’re sure this is a good idea?” Chloe asked Paul for the fifth time. They were standing on the front porch of Greg’s modest house in San Jose. For all his money, Greg was not the kind of guy to buy big expensive houses and cars just because he could. This was the same house he’d bought when he first moved out to San Jose. It had more room than he needed as it was, and since he spent most of his time at the office anyway, he saw no reason to upgrade. 

“No,” said Paul, “For the fifth time, I’m not sure this is a good idea at all. But it’s definitely an idea.”

“A bad idea,” Chloe insisted.

“Do you have a better one?” he asked, tired of this conversation.

“I haven’t had time to come up with one. I’ve been too busy trying to convince you that this plan is bullshit.”

“Too late,” Paul said and pressed the doorbell.

“This is fucking insane,” Chloe said under her breath. She reached her hand into her shoulder bag. Paul knew that it was the stun gun, not the laptop that she was getting ready.

They heard footsteps from inside and then the door swung open. There was Greg, in shorts and a Fear and Loading t-shirt, a twenty-dollar bill in his hand. “You’re not pizza,” he said, confused at first glance.

“Nope,” Paul agreed.

Recognition hit Greg like a ton of bricks. He reeled back from the door, saying “Jesus…Paul…”

“Hi, Greg. Can we come in?” 

“What…?” Greg stammered. “What are you doing here?” There was no fear, just utter surprise in his voice.

“I need to talk to you, Greg. About everything that’s happened. I need to talk to you.”

Greg stepped back from the doorway and held out an awkward arm, motioning them into the living room. “Oooookaaaaay,” he drawled warily. The living room remained sparsely decorated, as always. Two fluffy Rooms-to-Go couches facing Greg’s one big splurge – a 66″ plasma screen TV and a top end sound system. Chloe and Paul stood uncomfortably in the middle of the living room, while Greg shut the door and then looked back at them with equal discomfort.

“So,” Greg finally said, “Frank said he ran into you the other night.” Paul recognized this as typical understatement for Greg.

“Yeah,” said Paul. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. It’s not what everyone’s saying it is.”

“You didn’t knock him out and tie him up in a closet?”

“I don’t know anything about that, Greg, I swear. I was at that fund raiser thing, but I had nothing to do with Frank and whatever happened to him.”

“Uh-huh,” Greg replied. “That’s not what Frank says.”

“I’m going to go talk to him next,” said Paul. “Try and get this straightened out. My face is all over the news and shit and it’s scaring the hell out of me.”

Greg gestured towards Chloe. “Can’t your lawyer here help you?”

Paul looked at Chloe for help, but her face was a stone mask. “I should explain that, too. She’s my girlfriend, Greg. She’s not really a lawyer. I just got her to help me out with that boardroom thing because…” he started to falter. “Because I didn’t know who else to turn to and I was kind of in shock and well…” 

He looked up at Greg, hoping for some sign of empathy from his old friend, but he just stood there, looking as grave and inscrutable as Chloe did. “Listen, I’m really sorry about how all