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

“Actually,” said Paul, “the bed doesn’t matter so much.” He seemed embarrassed. Paul leaned over and looked down at the register himself. “We might be better off with a room that was sorta private. I mean away from…”

“Of course,” the woman said with a knowing nod. Together she and Paul looked down at the list. “Why don’t we put you in room 11?”

“Sounds perfect!” said Chloe, running a hand through Paul’s hair. “The sooner the better.”

“Will that be cash or charge?” the receptionist asked with a wink.

THE second floor room was small - a single bed and a small dresser. But they weren’t staying long. Chloe peered through the door she’d opened just a crack, watching as the French woman headed back down the stairs to her crossword puzzle.

“There weren’t any Raquel’s on the register,” said Paul. “But there were only two single occupancy rooms, so we should probably start with those. Room 9 two doors down is one, and then room 5, which is somewhere downstairs.”

“We’ll start with 9,” said Chloe, opening their own room door and examining the lock mechanism. Not hotel grade at all - just the kind of lock you’d have on a bedroom door inside a house. She could pop it with a credit card. “The lock’s no problem,” she told Paul. “Let’s go.”

They listened close at room 9’s door and heard nothing. Chloe popped the lock as quietly as possible, but the hinges squeaked as she pushed it open a few inches. She winced, but a quick glance inside told her that the room - a mirror image to their own tiny room - was empty. They both ducked inside. A quick look at the XXL Tshirts in the dresser and the men’s shoes by the bed and Chloe knew this was the wrong room. They slipped back out into the hall.

The only danger was that the receptionist would notice them coming down the stairs. Fortunately there was a door between the stairwell and the front desk, and the steps didn’t creak too loudly as they crept down. Room 5 lay at the back of the guest house. The lock opened just as easily as the first one, and at least this one didn’t squeak as she pushed it open a few inches to peer inside.

Oh shit! There was someone lying in the bed.

The room was much bigger than theirs, with a queen sized bed, a large armoire, and a table and chairs. Someone lay prone on the bed, face down. A woman, Chloe thought, judging from the smooth, shapely legs. But this was Key West. Plenty of men had smooth shapely legs as well. Could that be Raquel? Could she have just overslept?

Chloe withdrew, but left the door open for Paul to take a look. “I think that’s her,” he whispered to Chloe. “Don’t you?”

Chloe just nodded. Should they wake her up? She might not appreciate two strangers breaking into her hotel room to rouse her from a deep sleep just because Isaiah wanted to see her. Chloe knew that she wouldn’t want to be woken under those circumstances.

Paul closed the door again and they both stepped back a few feet. “What do you think?” she asked him in a low voice.

“I think we should wake her up,” he said.

“Me too.”

Chloe walked back to the door and knocked lightly. She waited and knocked again, louder this time. Still nothing. She looked at Paul, and he shrugged and motioned for her to open the door.

She knocked again as she swung the door open, calling into the room. “Hello?” she said, “Raquel, is that you?”

It was Raquel, but she was in no condition to answer. She was dead.

IT only took Paul a few minutes to get back to the La Concha on

Chloe’s scooter. Paul had noticed the odd look the receptionist had shot them as he and Chloe left again so quickly after checking in. She must think I’m pretty quick on the draw, he thought. “We’ll be back,” he’d assured her, and he didn’t think she even tried to hide her smirk this time. Chloe had called Bee while he mounted her scooter to head back to Winston and Isaiah.

On the drive over to the hotel, Paul had called Sandee. “We found her,” he’d said. “You can call off your hunt.”

“Thank God,” Sandee had said. “I’m not cut out for this gumshoe gig. I’m much too delicate for this kind of work.” Paul had laughed, knowing that San was anything but delicate, not when it mattered.

“Don’t go thanking me so quick; I might need you to go watch another place for us.”

“I was thanking God, not you,” Sandee joked. “You’ve never answered any of my prayers.”

“Who brought you those two sailor boys for your birthday?” Paul asked.

“Mmm, sailor boys. Ok, that one…”

“Please San, this is getting pretty serious,” Paul said. “Chloe’s on her way back to the house. I just want to make sure you stay by your phone and are ready when we need you.”

“Serious, huh? Ok, honey,” Sandee said. “I’m all over it like brown on rice.”

“Thanks, I’ll make it up to you, I promise.”

“No worries, sweetie. Anything for you.”

Paul hung up, and a minute later he parked the Vespa beside the side entrance to La Concha and paid a bellboy to ignore the fact that it was illegally parked. He headed for the elevators and the mysterious conspirators waiting for him on the top floor, nervous as hell about having to face them alone with the news he was bringing. But he and Chloe had decided that one of them needed to take care of the Raquel situation right away, before the others got involved, and Paul had volunteered to be the bearer of bad news while Chloe went to get Bee to help her.

Little had changed in the rooftop bar over the past two hours. Isaiah’s guard still sat at his seat by the door to the ballroom. Some of the other customers were still there as well, along with several new faces. Paul noticed more people outside on the observation deck as well. He headed straight for the guard, who just nodded at him and motioned toward the door with his eyes.

Inside he found Winston and Isaiah, still sitting and engaged in deep conversation. They’d been joined by a woman in her mid-40s, with light brown skin and striking features that Paul had a hard time ascribing to any particular ethnicity. She sat next to Isaiah and had a small laptop open in front of her, its screen hidden from Winston’s line of sight. All three of them looked up expectantly at Paul.

“You have news,” Isaiah intoned.

“Not good news,” said Paul. He looked directly at the new woman, stepping forward to offer his hand. “Hi. I’m Paul.”

The woman stood up to shake hands, introducing herself, “Amelia.” Her voice had a slight accent to it. Possibly Caribbean, maybe African.

Apparently tired of common courtesy, Isaiah interrupted. “What do you know?”

“Raquel’s dead,” said Paul.

None of them looked surprised at the news, but Paul chalked this up to years of living the dissembling life. Isaiah and Winston certainly weren’t the kind of people to show any emotion they didn’t want the world to see, and apparently neither was Amelia.

“Go on,” said Isaiah.

Paul glanced to Winston for some guidance and he gave a slight nod. “We found where she was staying, got into her room and found her lying dead in bed.”

“Do you know how she died? Are you even sure she’s dead?” asked Winston.

“She’s definitely dead,” he said. Paul shuddered inside as he remembered the staring dead eyes and the cold skin. “As for how, I have no idea. There wasn’t any blood, but her face was covered in bruises. We didn’t stay around to figure out more than that.”

“How did you find her?” asked Isaiah.

“It doesn’t matter,” said Paul. “What’s important is that she’s dead, right?”

“Exactly,” agreed Winston. “We have to assume she suffered a violent death, and furthermore, we need to assume that whoever killed her did so because of something to do with this meeting of ours.”

“That’s a lot to assume,” said Amelia. “Raquel had many enemies in this world. And she liked to take a lot of risks. We have no idea what happened to her. And until we do, we can’t make an informed decision on what to do next, so finding out what happened to her must be our top priority.”

“I agree,” said Isaiah, surprising Paul by showing a bit of tenderness for the first time as he gave Amelia a supportive pat on the knee. Paul had assumed Amelia was the other missing attendee besides Raquel. But now, looking at their body language and the way she sat with her computer screen exposed to Isaiah, he suspected they were partners, if not more.

“Which hotel was she at?” Isaiah asked.

Paul paused before answering. Her location was their one ace, and he didn’t want to reveal it yet. “Excuse me,” said Paul, looking at Winston. “But I’m still a little in the dark over here. Why would you suspect that someone would kill Raquel because of this meeting? What the hell are we meeting about that would get a woman murdered?”

Amelia and Isaiah exchanged a look. Although Paul couldn’t read its meaning, he was now sure they part of the same Crew. He’d had equally communicative glances with Chloe often enough to recognize them in others. But it was Winston who spoke next.

“Do you want to explain, Isaiah. If you don’t tell him, I will,” the old veteran said. “They’re in it now.”

“I suppose so,” said Isaiah. “I can at least give you a broad overview of what we’ve got planned, and knowing the background could prove vital in discovering what happened to Raquel.”

“Great,” said Paul, taking a seat at their table and resting his hand on his pocket. Under the table, out of sight, he snuck his cell phone out and thumbed a switch on the side, activating a special digital audio recorder Bee had installed. If they were going to reveal big secrets, Paul wanted to catch every word.

“First of all, a little history on Raquel,” Isaiah began. “No reason you shouldn’t have all the background data the rest of us have.”

Amelia, who’d been looking at her laptop screen, interrupted him before he could continue. “Could you turn off any phones or electronic devices you have operating right now?” she asked.

Isaiah looked expectantly at Paul and he tried to hide his surprise as he took out his phone and plopped it down on the table. Amelia looked up from her screen. The laptop probably had some sort of RF detection built into, and the whole room might’ve been wired to detect electronics for all Paul knew. These people definitely came prepared. “Thank you,” she said in her lilting voice.

Isaiah didn’t seem mad, continuing as if the interruption hadn’t happened. “Unlike the rest of us here, Raquel is not part of any Crew. She is - sorry, was - a strictly solo operator. She’d been in this game for fifteen years and she was very good at it. In this particular case, I’d approached her about consulting for us on some law enforcement issues…”

Winston interjected at this point, “What you have to know about Raquel is that she was a bon vivant. She loved to party, have a good time and to scam her way through life. And she was amazingly good at it. She didn’t work for Crews. Crews worked for her, but only when she allowed it or when the score was too big for her to handle alone. She was like