Geek Mafia: Mile Zero (30 page)

"It's not totally crazy," Sandee countered. "We just lay it all out - that we know who killed Raquel and that they're working with Eddie and that if they're harboring the killer, then they're in a whole lot of trouble. And if they don't let us search that house, we assume they're hiding him. Plus I'd like to see them try and stop me."

Chloe shook her head. "No, too dangerous," she said. No one respected Sandee's ability to kick some ass more than she did, but his kung fu didn't make him bulletproof and they had no idea how many of them there were inside.

"Then we need to get some way in there," said Paul, speaking up for the first time in quite a while. He'd been deep in one of his private brainstorm modes, and Chloe knew better than to try and drag him out of it before he was ready. "Someone not tied to us and someone they won't hurt."

"You mean like the cops?" Chloe said, joking. The last thing they wanted was cops involved.

"I was thinking more like the pirates," Paul said, staring out the window at nothing in particular.

"I thought we were the pirates." said Chloe, not understanding what the hell Paul was talking about. "Or did you mean Isaiah? I thought he told you..."

"No, no," said Paul, coming out of his reverie. He turned to face Chloe and Sandee. "The other pirates. The Booty Hunt."

Sandee laughed, but Chloe was not amused. "The bar crawl people?" she asked. "What good would they do us?"

"It's what, 7:00?" said Paul, looking at the clock in the bottom right corner of the computer in his lap. "They start at 8:00, I think."

"Yeah, that sounds right," Sandee said.

"So we've got an hour. Plenty of time to call Bernie and get hooked up with the organizer. What's his name?

Hugh something?"

"Hubert Vandenburg," Sandee said.

"Right. Hubert. He buys from Bernie and he's been to the party at least once."

"Twice," said Sandee.

"Twice. So we got some pull. We can ask him to change the map."

"And what does that get us?" Chloe asked, still not quite sure how a bar-hopping bunch of tourists could help them.

"We make this house," said Paul, jamming his finger at the screen. "The fucking X that marks the spot on the map. The end of the line."

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"Right on!" shouted Sandee from the back. "And so they storm the place! Swords in hand!"

"You're kidding," said Chloe. "Is that what...?"

"At the end of the Booty Hunt, that's what they do," said Paul, excited now. "They go from bar to bar, drinking and work their way around town with their paper swords and hats. And they get a stamp at each place to put on their maps, and then, when they've got all the stamps they meet together at the final place. The treasure trove or whatever they call it, and they make a big show of shouting arrrgh!' and shit like that and then charge in. Usually it's a bar or sometimes a strip club. Places pay Hubert extra to be the last on the list, because everyone's usually drunk and spending money like crazy. But sometimes it ends up at a private party or something like that."

"We were thinking of driving them all to the party one night," Sandee interjected. "You know, bring in some one-timers and see what kind of fun we could have with them."

"Well," said Chloe, thinking. "It is a crazy idea..."

"But..." Paul replied, urging her on.

"But it might work. A bunch of drunken tourists showing up in their yard. Raff 's not going to shoot them, but he won't want the attention either. And it's not like he's going to call the cops. Not if he's hiding a killer in there. We might flush them out or at least get a view of who's in there."

"Great," said Paul. "I'll call Bernie..."

"Another but," Chloe interrupted. "And this is a big one. We can't wait four or five hours for them to get their drunk on and make their way to the end of the map. It's too long. Who knows what will happen between now and then."

"Yeah..." said Paul. "That is a problem. But we could... maybe we could..." his voice drifted off.

"Could what?" Chloe prompted.

"I'm thinking that maybe... I mean why not. If we pay off this Hubert guy enough, then why not? We could reverse the map. Have them start at the end, with the attack.' We just need to make it worth his while. I mean, what does he care?"

"That could do it," agreed Chloe. "How much are we talking here?"

"I'm not sure..."

"I know I could convince Hubert to go for five grand," Sandee said. "Especially if Bernie's there to help me out."

"Ok, I love it, and it's damn certain that Raff won't be expecting it," Chloe said. "I'll call Bee and have her make up a map. Sandee, you call Bernie and then track down Hubert. Then swing by the house, pick up the money and the maps and maybe change into girl form for the occasion. You should stick with the Booty Hunt crowd and make sure they're riled up for the occasion."

"Will do," said Sandee, opening the car door. "And you two are going to stay and watch the house?"

"That's the plan," said Chloe.

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"Ok," said Sandee with a devilish grin, "But try and keep your eyes on the screens, ok? I haven't taught you two my patented Shiva and Shakti in the Backseat of a Civic, Reversed position yet."

"We'll be good," Chloe assured him.

"I don't want you to be good!" Sandee insisted. "I just want you to keep your eyes on the screens while you fuck." He exited the car, closing the door behind him before Chloe or Paul could respond.

She looked over at Paul, who was laughing to himself. They both smiled at one another, but then all of a sudden Chloe felt embarrassed and looked away. She certainly wanted to fuck Paul - but not right now. Not with all this other crap going on. They'd find the time later. Out of the corner of her eye she saw that Paul had turned his attention back to his laptop. He must feel the same way, she thought, focusing on the job at hand.

Time enough for love later.

CHLOE had needed a breath of fresh air. Two hours of sitting in the Civic not talking to Paul had finally become too oppressive. There was this tension between them, and she couldn't quite put her finger on what it was. It was like he blamed her somehow for Raff being here, as if it were all her fault. Not that he said that, of course. Or anything like that, really. But somehow every time he mentioned Winston or Isaiah or Raff, it was with this deep-seated venom, and she couldn't help but think that he might be feeling the same way about her.

The sad part was that he probably didn't even know he was doing it. He was just scared. And so was she, so at least they had that in common.

On the plus side, she'd finally gotten a hold of Winston. He'd told her that he'd taken care of the body (although not in so many words over a cell phone), and that he was heading back into Key West. Chloe guessed that he'd taken the body up the road to dispose of it, maybe as far as the Everglades, over three hours away. He'd certainly been gone long enough to make it there and back. He'd promised to call again as soon as he and Lily got settled back in town.

It was 10:00 now. Bee and Sandee had both checked in and everything was going according to plan. Hubert had cost $6,500, not $5k, but he'd agreed to use their revised map. Sandee had called from Busted Bill's, the bar where the Booty Hunt always began, to say that the "pirates" were heading out. Thanks to Key West's liberal open container laws, she expected to see the crowd of pirate-hat wearing bar hoppers meandering down the street with plastic cups of rum punch and paper cutlasses in their hands any minute now.

She heard them before she saw them, an out of synch, boisterous chorus singing, "Fifteen men on a dead man's chest! Yo, ho, ho and a bottle of rum!" over and over again. Their vanguard rounded the corner, led by what looked like a woman with long, curly black hair tucked under a flamboyant pirate hat. The leader's trim figure was packed into skin-tight black pants, knee high, spike-heeled boots and a tight fitting red corset modeled after an old-fashioned captain's coat, with gold buttons and fringe. It was Sandee of course, who had apparently decided to personally take charge of the assault in his Captain Morgana costume. Chloe wished he hadn't done that; it was too conspicuous by far, but Sandee was never good at being demure.

Chloe backed into the shadows of a nearby tree, out of sight from the advancing mob of booty seekers. She counted them as they walked by her position, headed for Raff 's house. There had to be fifty of them! Fuck, this could either go really right or really fucking wrong. The crowd was mostly middle aged and probably all tourists, an even mix of men and women. Several passing cars honked their appreciation, and the gang cheered "ARRRR!" in return, as they'd been taught.

Once they'd passed, she jogged back to the car to watch on the video and let Paul knew what was up.

"They're coming," she told him as she got inside.

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"I heard," said Paul, not looking up from his screen.

"There's like, fifty of them," Chloe said.

"Christ, really?"

"Yeah. It's gonna be something."

"We're recording on all these and Bee's using her facial recognition software back in her room. We've got the house covered, so if the killer so much as sticks his head out a window to see what all the fuss is about, we'll get a match. Then we can go to Isaiah and bring the hammer down on Raff."

Chloe just nodded. She knew all that already, but she knew Paul liked to go over things up until the last second, just to make sure everyone knew exactly what the play was - a habit she'd taught him.

"Here we go," he said to the screen in front of him.

And there they were - four dozen would-be pirates, looking for the treasure of booze and gift certificates from local merchants that usually waited for them at the end of these Booty Hunts. Under Sandee's direction they lined up in the street before Raff 's house and on the count of three shouted "ARRRRRRR!" with such volume that Chloe could hear it through the open car window three blocks away.

"That'll wake 'em up," said Paul.

"Yeah," agreed Chloe. Had this really been such a good idea? Too late to wonder now.

She watched on the screen as Sandee raised her paper sword in the air, shouted something to the assembled

"pirates" and then brought the weapon down in an arcing chop. Everyone in the crowd tipped their cups back, finishing off whatever liquor they had left with them. Then Sandee raised the sword again, pointed it toward the house, swung the blade and set them loose. The gang charged the front door with another cry of

"ARRRRR!"

A middle-aged woman Chloe didn't recognize opened the door just as the first of the pirates reached the front porch. She might have intended to yell at them about all the noise or maybe just see what the fuck was going on. But her timing couldn't have been worse. Not expecting the strangers who were obviously tourists to come in without asking, she opened the door wide and thus had just enough time to step back out of sight as the crowd came swarming in past her.

"Fuck," said Paul, under his breath.

Chloe nodded as she leaned close to his screen (hers showed the back view, which was still quiet). She saw Sandee pulling something out from inside his jacket, but couldn't make out what it was. The crowd of pirates had now bunched up at the door, pushing against those who'd made it through the bottleneck. Sandee, mystery item in hand, wormed his way up through the crowd, out of sight and into the house.

They watched for a couple of long minutes as the crowd outside just sort of milled around. Apparently the house was as full as it was going to get. It wasn't a big place to begin with, and having seen the inside of more old Key West houses than she wanted to admit, Chloe knew the downstairs living space couldn't be more than six or seven hundred square feet. They had to be shoulder to shoulder in there. She couldn't even imagine what Raff and his Crew were thinking.

"I wonder if they'll break down and call the cops," Paul said.

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"Maybe," said Chloe. "At least they've got to be threatening to at this point. What else can they do?"

"Violence," Paul suggested. "Although with that many drunks in their house, that's more likely to backfire than not. Maybe they'll... oh shit. What's that?" Paul said, pointing to the screen.

Between the low-light vision and the crappy resolution, it was hard to tell what Paul was pointing at.

Something near the front window. And then there was more of it. Smoke. "Oh shit," said Chloe. "There's a fire."

"Or someone set off a smoke bomb," Paul suggested. "Or maybe teargas? That would clear everyone out."

Chloe thought about Sandee and hoped that her friend hadn't been that crazy. The flow of pirates into the house, having stalled, now reversed itself in a flash, and they came pouring out the front door again. Chloe saw movement on her screen as well and looked down to see Sandee come sprinting through the side yard of the house behind Raff 's, a maniacal grin on his face. Sandee being Sandee, he leaped up into the branches of a tree, clambering up onto the roof of the house whose yard he'd just run through. A moment later, Chloe saw why. Raff burst from the shadows and ran into the street before skidding to a halt and looking both ways for some sign of the female pirate he'd been pursuing a second earlier. Chloe had to laugh as she saw Sandee peeking over the edge of the roof, looking down at the flustered Raff, who finally chose a direction and ran out of the camera's field of vision.

On Paul's screen, the chaos continued. The pirates had seemed to clear out, although they were laughing rather than screaming in panic. Chloe suspected that Sandee might well have warned them in advance about his plan to light off the smoke bomb, so they wouldn't freak out. At least she hoped he'd been smart enough to do that.

Smoke was coming out the door, both front windows and even from one of the upstairs ones. Everyone inside had no choice but to bug out. And while Raff had spotted Sandee and chased her out the back, at least two of the mystery Crew's members had used the front door.

The woman who'd let the pirates in came out first, her face covered with a dishtowel as she emerged from the door, but as soon as she was clear, she revealed her face directly to the hidden camera. She looked to be in her mid-40s, with shoulder length dark hair. She was lean with harsh features, but still very striking. There wasn't a hint of panic in her movements as she swept her gaze back and forth over the crowd of laughing pirates.