Geek Mafia: Mile Zero by Rick Dakan (reading tree txt) 📖

PAUL thought about what a motley group they made, stuffed into the Honda Civic as it pulled into the apartment complex in New Town. They stank of tear gas, and their party included a scruffy looking man with his hand in a sling, a short Asian girl in her pajamas and an old guy wearing nothing but a bathrobe. The “safe house” was an apartment out on 11th Street, well beyond the quaint old houses and crowded streets of Old Town. It could’ve been an apartment building in any city in Florida or the whole country for that matter. Not close to the beach or tourist attractions, it was the kind of place locals lived (those who could still afford to live on the island).

The apartment, one of the Keys Condos’ properties, was a one-bedroom on the first floor. It was stuffy and hot, but had a phone, Internet connection and a stash of emergency supplies hidden behind a false panel in the bedroom closet. It did not have any furniture. The group collapsed into separate heaps in the living room, with Winston choosing to sit right next to his murderous friend, Jacob. Paul and Chloe sat with their backs against the opposite wall, facing the two older men. Bee dumped a box of laptops and cell phones beside the pass-through counter that separated the small kitchen from the slightly less-small living/dining room area. She plugged in a laptop and started to fire it up.

“Does anyone need anything?” Paul asked. “A glass of water or something.”

“I could still use that water,” Jacob said.

Paul stared at him and then pointed toward the kitchen with his thumb.

“The kitchen’s right there.” The man looked over and seemed to consider whether it was worth the pain of getting back up and decided against it. He frowned and just looked down into his chest.

“May I use a phone?” Winston asked. “I’m going to check in with my people and let them know…”

“No one’s calling anyone until we decide what the fuck we’re going to do,” Chloe said.

Winston started to say something, stopped himself, then started again. “I thought we’d settled on a plan. I gave you contacts. We all go our separate ways.”

“That won’t work anymore,” said Paul. He’d been thinking of nothing but the complications that Eddie’s attack raised, and he was convinced that they couldn’t just ignore Isaiah and the others or spin them some wild tale. Not after Eddie told them what he knew. “Isaiah’s going to know that we have your friend Jacob and that we’ve been hiding him from the others. And he’s not going to just let that go.”

“I don’t see that as a problem,” said Winston. “We can be on a boat and out of…”

“And what about us?” Paul asked. “We’re supposed to get on a boat with you as well? Give up everything we’ve built here?”

“Yes,” said Winston. “If you can find a way to forgive me, then…”

“We can’t,” said Chloe, cutting him off. “We’re not getting on any boat with the two of you.” Paul knew how hard it must be for Chloe to say that about her old friend. Hell, it was hard for him to hear such anger in her voice directed at someone she loved. Or maybe used to love. But she was right, there was no way they were getting on a boat with these two.

“We need a new plan,” Paul said. “One that includes making Isaiah a happy man. Or at least a satisfied one.”

“The only thing that’s going to make him happy at this point is if we turn Jacob over to him,” Winston said. “And I’m not prepared to do that.”

“Why not?” asked Paul.

“What kind of question is that? He’s my comrade. One of my people. We don’t betray our own. I know you’ve learned at least that much in this life of yours.”

“But he killed a woman. An innocent woman…”

“In self-defense,” Winston protested.

“And he tried to kill that other woman, Jeanie. He stabbed her with a damned screwdriver, for God’s sake. And tried to get me as well.”

“You were attacking him…”

“He stabbed her in the back!” Paul shouted. “Came up behind her like an assassin and stabbed her in the freaking back. That’s not self-defense.” 284 Geek Mafia: Mile Zero

Winston looked over at Jacob, who was still staring down into his chest. “I’m sure there’s more to the story than that. This Jeanie person might not have been attacking him at that moment, but she and Raff obviously had more planned. Jacob was just doing…”

“What?” asked Paul. “What was Jacob doing? Why did he meet her in that garden?”

Winston turned away from them all and looked out the window. “They were just supposed to talk,” he said. “Just to see if there was any way of buying them off. That’s all.”

“I’m real sorry about that, Win,” Jacob said, speaking up for the first time. Everyone stared at him in surprise. “I didn’t mean for it to happen that way, you know. It’s just, she was being so pig-headed and then she started calling me names and…”

“It doesn’t matter,” said Winston, putting an assuring hand on his friend’s shoulder. “I’m not giving up on you.”

“Maybe you should,” Jacob replied. “You shoulda just let me be in my cabin. I’m not fit for anything but jail or the wilderness. Just like any other animal.”

“That’s them talking, Jake,” Winston said. “The establishment. Twentyfive years of their brainwashing and it’s no wonder you’re a little shaken up. But I’ll help you through this. We all will…”

“I don’t know,” said Jacob. “I think I’m just broke. All I wanna do is stab or hit anything that gets in my way. That’s just how I am now.”

“That’s how they made you,” Winston insisted.

“Don’t matter. It’s still how I am.”

Paul understood the two men and their relationship now, and understanding made him all the more worried about Jacob. “You were in prison for twenty-five years,” he said. “What for?”

Jacob focused his tired gaze on Paul. “Armed robbery. Murder. We was robbing a bank in Louisville. Stealing some money for the cause, you know? And this security guard decided to be the hero. And one of my friends shot him. Shot him down. But we all five went up for the murder.”

“You were in the Weather Underground with Winston?” Chloe asked.

“Yeah, but this was after. It was another group. The People’s Front for Social Justice. More radical.”

“More radical than blowing things up?” asked Paul.

“There’s a lot of ways of blowing things up. Who knows how we would’ve been? But we weren’t around long enough. We got pinched.”

Paul did some quick math in his head. The Weathermen were all gone by 1980. If this other group came after… “Jesus, you can’t have been out of prison very long.”

“Three months,” Jacob said.

“Three months! Fuck,” said Paul.

Chloe directed her anger at Winston once more. “You brought a convicted murderer with only three months straight time into a situation like this? What the hell is wrong with you?”

“He needed a family,” Winston snapped back. “And I’m all he’s got left. He wanted to play a role in the group, so I let him. He’s one of us, and we have a lot of history together. I trust him, and that’s all you should need to know.”

“Yeah, that worked out real well,” Chloe said, her voice dripping with acid. “He went in a radical bank robber and came out a woman killer. That’s real great.”

“I didn’t mean to kill that first lady,” Jacob protested. “Things just got out of hand. She jumped out at me, and I just went on autopilot, you know?”

“Not really,” Chloe said. “I’ve never killed anyone on autopilot. Or at all.” Out of the corner of his eye Paul saw Bee flinch and look down as Chloe spoke. Bee had killed someone and still carried around a lot of guilt. Paul hoped she didn’t think she was anything like this Jacob bastard.

“You’ve never been in prison for twenty-five years,” said Winston.

“Which is kind of exactly my point.”

Jacob kept talking as if he hadn’t heard them bicker. “And the other woman. She was just talking circles around me and I got confused, and then when she turned her back on me, she gave me this look. This look of contempt. Like the guards might give. Or the younger cons. Like I was nothing. And…” his voice trailed off.

“And you stabbed her,” said Paul. “With a screwdriver.”

“I did,” he admitted with an angry whisper.

“None of this matters,” Winston insisted. “I’m not turning him over.”

“You’ve got to,” said Chloe. “Don’t you see? He killed that lady. Killed her for no good reason. And almost killed another. It’s not safe for him to be out doing this kind of thing. It’s not the way…”

Paul jumped in as well.