Geek Mafia: Mile Zero (32 page)

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For the next fifteen minutes they went over the map, taking into account updates about Jeanie's position that Bee was e-mailing them from upstairs. They'd replaced the batteries on the two cameras covering Raff 's house and had placed another one on Sandee's rooftop perch. If Raff or Jeanie or anyone else came back to the house in the next four hours, they'd see them. After that, they'd have to change the batteries again. Sandee was out looking after The Party, which always required attention from either him or Paul each night. Winston said that Lily was back at the house they'd gotten him, but that she was ready and willing to help as needed.

Then Chloe's phone rang, and she looked surprised when she saw the caller ID. "Hello, Cassie?" she said as she answered the call. A second later she looked really surprised. "You're sure... huh-huh... yeah, I've got your... right now? Can you...? Right, where are you? Sure, but why don't I just pay you all the money and you can pay the others, ok? Great. Now where...? Yeah, I know it. I'll be right there... no... yes... I'll be right there."

"That was Cassie?" said Paul.

"She's found the killer," said Chloe, jumping up from her seat.

"Where? What?" asked Paul. He couldn't believe it. All their high-tech gadgetry and it was the crazy homeless girl who'd found him. "Are you sure?"

"No, I'm not sure," said Chloe. "It's Cassie we're talking about, and she is crazy after all. But she says she found him. I'm going to run over and meet her now, and she's going to show me."

"Do you want us to come along?" asked Paul, standing up as well.

"No, no. I'll call you if it pans out. I'd like you and Winston to stay here if you could, keep working on the Raff end of things. See if you can track his ass down."

"I should go get Lily..." Winston started to say.

"Call her and have her come here," Chloe said. "We should all be together and ready to go if Cassie turns out to be right or if Bee finds something."

"Are you sure...?" Winston tried again, but Chloe was on a roll and talked right over him.

"And gear up with some weapons. Check the batteries in the tasers and get some cuffs and maybe, I don't know, see if Bee still has any chloroform. If we really have found the bastard, I want to be able to take him down without anyone getting hurt." She'd scooped up her keys and her stun gun from the table by the door.

"We'll have one hell of an offering to give pastor Isaiah at the church tomorrow," Chloe said, and then she was out the door.

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Chapter 26

"HEY, Cassie," Chloe said in a loud voice, struggling to be heard over the band that was blaring Credence Clearwater Revival covers from the stage at Schooner's Wharf Bar and Grille behind her. Cassie, wearing nothing but a pair of stained khaki shorts and a faded blue sports bra, was grooving to the band from her place on the docks (out of the glaring bouncer's jurisdiction). She wheeled around with a dramatic flourish and took Chloe's hand in hers, trying to draw Chloe into her dance.

"Hi!" she said, "Isn't this band great?"

"No, not really," Chloe said with a smile, swaying a bit in the hips in spite of herself. "Are you ready to take me to my guy?"

"Am I!" Cassie shouted, spinning away from Chloe and waving her arms in the air. "Ready when you are!"

"I'm actually ready right now," said Chloe.

"Really?" said Cassie, pausing midspin. "Are you sure?" Then she was spinning again.

Then Chloe understood. Cassie may be crazy. But then again, maybe she wasn't. Maybe it was just her shtick.

But even if she was nuts, she was also homeless and wise in the ways of scrounging. Chloe pulled out the wad of bills she'd brought and held it out to Cassie, who plucked it from her hand as she spun. The money disappeared into Cassie's sports bra.

"Let's go!" she said, taking Chloe's hand once more and pulling her at a run along the dock.

"You said he's out on Christmas Tree Island?" asked Chloe as they ran.

"Yep!"

"So we need a boat. I've got a friend who could..."

"Here!" said Cassie, stopping all of a sudden and bracing herself against Chloe, who collided into her. They were standing in front of a beat-up and patched gray Zodiac with an equally junky looking outboard engine attached to it.

"Whose boat is that?" Chloe asked. They were in a section of the docks where people could rent small boat slips for $30 a month. Most were used by folks who lived out on their sailboats full time and wanted a reliable parking space when they came ashore. But Chloe knew that at least some of them belonged to homeless people who lived out on one of the nearby islands and maybe made a few extra bucks fishing.

"It belongs to a friend of mine," said Cassie as she clambered down onto the boat. Chloe noticed about an inch of stagnant water sitting in the bottom of the craft and wondered if it was rain water or from a leak. She couldn't quite remember when it had last rained. Four days ago? Six? "Come on, we've got to go!"

"Ok, ok," Chloe said. Cassie gave her a hand down into the boat, and her shoes were instantly soaked. So too was the rest of her as Cassie untied the boat from the dock, started up the engine and hit full reverse, jolting Chloe off her seat and down into the briny puddle. It was definitely salt water. She clung to the side as Cassie ignored the posted "No Wake" signs and roared out of the marina and into the channel, headed for Christmas Tree Island.

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Key West is surrounded by several smaller keys, two of which form a kind of natural harbor for the island city. Low lying, and covered with windswept pine trees, the festively named Christmas Tree Island is one of these. The other nearby island was once known as Tank Island because the Navy used to have a fuel depot there. It had since been bought by developers and converted from diesel depot to ultra-expensive condos and renamed Sunset Key. The contrast between the two couldn't have been greater. With its multimillion-dollar residence, state-of-the-art amenities and private ferry service, Sunset Key was the most exclusive address around. With its lack of fresh water, let alone real shelter, the homeless enclave that was Christmas Tree Island was at the exact opposite end of the spectrum. But in a small town already overflowing with the indigent, the local authorities were perfectly content to let the homeless have the place, knowing that at least it kept them out of sight.

Since the island was only about a quarter-mile away, the trip took only a few minutes, especially at the speed Cassie was going. Chloe was afraid that she was going to run them straight up onto the shore, but at the last second Cassie swerved the boat hard to port, sending a wave of spray into the pine trees and stalling out the engine. This may or may not have been her plan, but the crazy girl went with it, jumping over the side into waist deep water and starting to pull the craft up onto the small spit of beach. Already soaked, Chloe decided to get out and help her. They got the boat halfway onto the island before Cassie gave up and then tied the rope from the bow around the trunk of a nearby tree.

Chloe took a moment to look at the island around her, but there wasn't much to see. It was dark and quiet.

Over the surf and wind she heard what might have been voices but what could have just been crowd noise carrying over from some loud bar across the water. She turned to Cassie and whispered, "Which way?"

Cassie put a finger to her lips and, louder than Chloe had just whispered, said "SHHHHHH!" Then she started forward into the trees, and Chloe followed close behind. They crept through the dark, their footfalls muffled by the carpet of pine needles that covered the sandy ground. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, Chloe realized that they were far from alone on the island. She picked out huddled forms sleeping under moldy blankets and pine needles. At least she hoped they were sleeping. To her right she saw two figures leaning against a tree, one bent over, the other behind, his hips moving back and forth in an unmistakable motion.

A sudden splash and hiss from off to her left forced Chloe to bite back a startled cry. They'd just come upon a fat, stinking man who was pissing like a racehorse against a tree. He hadn't noticed them, or if he had he didn't seem to care. Cassie held her nose between two fingers and led them away from the urinating man. The man belched as they moved by.

Up ahead, Chloe saw a faint glow through the trees and heard soft voices over the wind. Cassie stopped behind a tree and motioned for Chloe to come up along side her. She pointed through the trees to what might charitably be called a clearing, although really it was more of an area where the trees were a little thinner, mostly because two of them had been cut down at some point in the past. She saw about a dozen figures huddled around a fire pit that was dug deep into the sand. A length of chain link fence supported on rusted iron rebars covered the pit, providing a surface for those around to fire to cook cans of soup and hotdogs on.

From her hidden spot in the shadows, Chloe scanned the homeless men and women, looking for the killer's face among them. At first she just saw a crowd of dirty, disheveled bums, but then she looked past the surface and started taking in details. See with your eyes, not your prejudices, Chloe told herself. Most of the men had beards, but none of them looked like her killer. But of course if this guy was as good as she feared he was, shaving the beard would've been the first thing he did once Eddie or Raff or whoever warned him that there was a hunt on for him. Assuming, of course, that it had been a real beard in the first place.

There were only three beardless men by the fire, one of whom had his back to Chloe. She decided to circle around the perimeter to get a better view. Cassie tried to stop her, but she shrugged the crazy woman's hand off her shoulder and moved into the shadows. As she moved, she noticed that the fireside conversation had Chapter 26

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stopped, and all she could hear was the crackling flames and the occasional scrape of metal on metal as someone spooned soup out of a can.

She froze in her tracks as some unspoken signal passed between the group and they all stood up. One of them took a stick out of the fire, its end a red hot coal. They were all looking in her general direction, although she didn't think they'd spotted her precise location yet. She pulled her stun gun from its holster at the base of her spine and wondered if it would still work after being soaked in seawater. She wondered what they would do to her if they caught her here. She still had some money in her pocket - about fifty bucks. Maybe she could buy them off.

Assessing the threat in front of her, it took her a second to move her focus beyond the fire-tipped club and the empty wine bottles that others had gripped in their hands like clubs. But when she did, she realized that the one person still sitting by the fire was the killer. He was eating a can of corn, his face covered in uneven stubble and his hair a dirty, greasy mess. But he still wore that same blue shirt, and his hands were cleaner than they should have been if he actually spent much time on this island. He wasn't homeless - he was just dressing the part.

She needed to get the others out here. Indeed, she should've had Winston get his boat ready for the occasion, assuming it was still nearby. But she hadn't really believed that Cassie had found the guy and, well, now it might be too late. She started to retreat away from the fire, hoping that she could find her way back to the boat.

"Hey guys!" shouted Cassie, bursting out of the dark and into the circle of firelight. "What's shakin' bacon?"

Chloe saw a visible wave of relief sweep through the crowd. "Jesus, Cass," said the man with the firebrand.

"What're you doing sneakin' around like that?"

Cassie dropped into a low crouch, holding her hands out like they were pistols. "I'm a two-gun commando!"

she said. "Blam! Blam!" The men and women laughed and moved back to their seats.

"We thought ya might be that sick creeper guy come back," said a woman.

"Me? Sick? Creeper? Guy?" replied Cassie. "No way! I'm hot creeper chick!"

"You wanna drink?" someone else asked.

"Do fish fuck in water?" Cassie said, plopping down in the dirt next to the man and taking a swig off his wine bottle.

Chloe ignored the conversation for a moment as she pulled out her phone and got set to send Paul a text message. Problem. While the stun gun may or may not have survived the salt water, her cell phone certainly had not. It was dead, the battery probably fried. She should've thought to bring along a plastic baggie for the damn thing. Stupid. She wondered if the phone she'd given Cassie still worked.

Then a new voice cut through the night, low and commanding and not slurred by drink or mental defect.

Chloe looked up and wasn't surprised at all to see it was the killer talking. "You got a boat?" he asked Cassie.

"I walk on water," she replied. "Skate over the waves like a mongoose."

The man ignored her ravings. "Think you can give me a ride back to the island?"

"Do I look like a taxi to you?" Cassie said. "Besides, I just got here. My feet are tired."

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"I've got money," he said, pulling out a bill from his pocket.

"Oooh!" said Cassie, pulling out a bill of her own. "Me too!"

"I got a boat, fella," said one of the others. "Gotta good engine too. I'll take your money."

"Lemme finish my corn and we'll go," the killer said, digging into the can with his spoon.

Chloe wondered just who the hell this guy was. How had he gotten to the island if he didn't have a boat? Why was he leaving now? She needed to follow him once he got back to the island, but there was no way she and Cassie could tail him on the open water without being noticed.

Cassie, who had to be less crazy than she seemed, must have been thinking the same thing. "Oooh!" she shouted. "We can race!"

"Don't want no race," said the killer. "Just need a lift."

"A race! A race!" Cassie said, leaping to her feat, bottle in hand. "I finish my drink. You finish your corn!