Geek Mafia: Mile Zero (47 page)

The room where Paul had turned on the light was the largest and most impressive display in the museum. It featured a re-creation of the final battle of Blackbeard aboard his flagship, Queen Anne's Revenge. Designed to recreate the deck of that famous ship, the room was the only place in the museum that didn't have any actual artifacts. Instead it featured an animatronic Blackbeard at one end, astride his poop deck with a pistol in one hand and a great, nasty cutlass in the other. His thick, course beard had the famous lit tapers in it, which glowed and smoked when the 'bot was activated. At the other end of the room was the brave English captain Robert Maynard, who would eventually behead the dread pirate. Each had a few companions, pirates and pirate hunters who were also animatronic, although not as animated as their leaders. When the room was active, it ran through a five minute cycle of movement, smoke, and sound that simulated the final battle.

Although the two robots never moved from their positions, they exchanged pistol fire and curses. Then the far wall, which usually showed a projected image of the sea and the North Carolina coast, would display a short series of video images that told the tale of this most famous of pirates.

Right now though, the room was quiet, lit by the various fake lanterns, torches and a dim glow from the projected coastal image on the wall. Chloe knew most of this from memory of the room rather than from what she could actually see. Just one black and white camera covered the room, and they could only watch it on one quarter of one TV screen. Bee was right; the security system here was cheap. She just hoped that the few additions they'd made would push them over the edge and pull them through.

On the screen she saw Eddie's group move with care into the Blackbeard Room. From their body language she could tell that they were a little freaked out or at the very least confused by their surroundings. She turned and grabbed a golf bag from the corner. It held the tools she'd need to finish her part of the job, if indeed it came to that.

"I'm going to get in position," she said.

"Be careful," said Paul, although all his attention was focused where it should be - on the screens in front of him. She watched as he clipped a microphone to the collar of his shirt.

"Scare the fuck out of them, ok?" Chloe said.

Paul tore his eyes away from the screen, smiled at her and nodded. Then she ducked out of the room and into Chapter 39

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the darkness of the museum.

PAUL knew that they could've used any number of other locations to confront Eddie, including many that didn't contain millions of dollars worth of antiques. He'd justified his choice of the Pirate Experience to the others by pointing out that the museum already had security cameras and a whole video display system they could use. In fact, he was just showing off. He wanted the most impressive, disorienting location he could find. This was his island, and he'd be damned if he'd let a punk like Eddie get the better of him on his turf.

And Eddie was about to learn just how much of a home field advantage Paul and Chloe had.

Watching them on the screen, Paul had the customary wave of doubt that he always experienced at moments like this. But he'd learned to take the second thoughts in stride and even to think of them as a good omen for future success. He tapped a key on Bee's laptop and the action began.

"Hello, Eddie," he said into the microphone, which was in turn plugged into the PA system for the entire museum. His voice boomed through the halls, and he grinned as he saw all three men jump in astonishment.

The wall projection changed as he spoke, transforming from a picture of the Carolina coast to a blurry vidcap of Eddie taken from the hidden cameras they'd used to spy on him at the party. The pic showed him laughing and drunk on the couch.

They'd hidden a couple microphones in the room, including one in Blackbeard's beard, so Paul could hear Eddie's reply through his earpiece. "What the fuck?" he asked.

Paul tapped a key on the laptop again, and the screen started to display a digital slideshow of images taken of Eddie through hidden cameras. Many were from the party, but others were from the bar where Chloe had first picked him up or shots taken in the street. The three men stared at the display, obviously not sure what was going on.

"Eddie, Eddie, Eddie," Paul continued. "Did you really think you could do anything in this town without me knowing about it?"

"Fuck you, Paul," Eddie shouted at the screen. "Like I didn't know you were watching me? I knew! I just didn't give a shit. Because it doesn't fucking matter what you..."

Eddie's voice was drowned out by a wave of sound played over the speakers in the Blackbeard room that normally broadcast the sounds of a pirate battle. Eddie found himself drowned out by a recording of his own voice, played back at rock concert levels.

"The guy in charge is a real dick!" Eddie's recorded voice boomed through the room. He'd been talking to Sandee at the party about Isaiah when he said it. Bee and Paul had pulled out a bunch of choice sound bites for this little light show.

"He sure is," Paul said into the microphone. "You sure are."

Eddie pointed at the screen and shouted back, "What the fuck is this horse shit?"

"I'm just letting you know what everyone else around you knows, Eddie. You are a real dick." Paul hit another sound bite from the list.

"I'm so fucking smart you see..." Recorded Eddie said this time.

"Well," said Paul. "Not so fucking smart. Not smart enough to keep your mouth shut when you should." He clicked a third clip.

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"Not like these other fucks like that black fuck and that old guy and the other fuck. All their crazy pie-in-the-sky bullshit," The drunken voice of Recorded Eddie slurred through the speakers.

"I guess I'm the other fuck," Paul said. "Which would make Isaiah the Black Fuck' who's a dick,' right?"

Paul watched on the screen as Eddie spun around in fury, looking for someone to hit. "This is bullshit!" he shouted. "You can't just take shit out of..."

But Paul wasn't about to let Eddie argue his case. This wasn't a trial, it was a sentencing. He clicked again and started another clip. "Always trouble. Always telling people what to do and shit," Eddie's voice said. Then Paul replayed the first clip, "The guy in charge is a real dick!"

"Sounds like you don't get along with your new partners very well at all," said Paul. "I'll tell you, when we played this for Isaiah, he wasn't too pleased."

"Then fuck Isaiah!" Eddie shouted. "Fuck him for being that stupid. Fuck his liberal nigger ass! This is all bullshit! You obviously just cut some shitty out-of-context tape together. If you really ever did play this for him, he'd see right through it! He's not that stupid."

Paul glanced over at Bee, who was working off her own laptop. She nodded and he nodded back. Bee unplugged a FireWire connection from his machine and plugged into hers and then hit her play button.

Eddie's voice rang out through the speaker system once again, replaying part of what he'd just said, "Fuck Isaiah! Fuck him for being that stupid. Fuck his liberal nigger ass!"

"He's just gonna love hearing that," Paul said into the microphone.

"Oh come on!" said Eddie. "This is such bullshit." He started to walk back toward the way he'd come, but Paul wasn't done yet.

"Wait," said Paul, as Bee plugged his laptop back into the control system. "There's more. Watch." Eddie stopped and looked at the projection of himself on the wall. As soon as he did, Paul clicked to change the image. It was a shot of the interior of the empty store they'd just been in a few minutes earlier. Amelia and Jeanie stood there looking up at the camera (which was hidden in a smoke detector). Standing next to them was Marco. All three waved. In fact, neither Amelia nor Jeanie had known anything about the camera or Paul and Chloe's set up in the Pirate Museum. Only Marco had any idea, but Eddie couldn't possibly know that.

Paul thought he heard Eddie express some sort of horror or anger under his breath, but the microphones weren't close enough for him to hear the actual words. Paul could imagine his surprise though. "We played our little tapes for Isaiah and your buddy Marco too. Everyone agreed that you're a dick." In truth Isaiah hadn't seen anything at all, nor had Amelia. But her presence at the store actually worked in Paul's favor. "So we're cutting you out."

Paul clicked and the image changed again. It was a shot of the interior of the hotel room where Eddie was staying. It showed Sandee, dressed much like he'd been the night he met Eddie at the party, sitting seductively on Eddie's bed with a laptop Eddie would surely recognize as his own. "Your friends sold you out, Eddie,"

Paul said. "Or rather, cut you loose." This was actually a simple piece of Photoshop work - Sandee had never been in Eddie's room.

Another image came on the screen. It was the Big Guy, whose name they now knew was actually Wally, even though he'd introduced himself to Chloe in the bar as Quentin. His friends called him The Whale. The picture, taken less than an hour earlier according to the time stamp, showed Wally and Marco talking. Wally's face Chapter 39

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was all red and swollen from the tear gas and pepper-spray. It then morphed into a second picture of the two of them flipping the camera off.

"Even The Whale isn't behind you anymore," said Paul over the loudspeaker. "He too thinks you're a dick. We talked for a while. He's actually pretty cool." They hadn't talked at all, but Eddie didn't know that. In fact, it was Marco who'd sent him the pics, taken while he was giving The Whale orders that would keep him busy tonight.

Eddie blew up into a rage, grabbing one of the baseball bats from his mook's hands. He swung it wildly, breaking off a fake lantern from the side of the fake ship. "Come out here you fuck! Come out here and fight like a man! This is such BULLSHIT!" He swung again, slamming the bat down into the ship's railing, but not causing any real damage. Paul was very glad that Eddie had dropped his gun on their living room floor when the gas grenade went off.

"No," said Paul into the microphone. "It's not bullshit. It's us taking you down. It's me cutting you out. It's not what I wanted to have happen, but it is what you forced to happen. It's plan B."

He clicked another audio clip and Eddie's recorded voice filled the room one more. "Don't you know anything? You've gotta have a plan B in this business."

Eddie took a wild swing at the air, barely missing one of his own guys then. He'd obviously totally lost it at this point. He was screaming in utter, wordless rage. The two flunkies tried to restrain him, shouting for him to calm down, but he shrugged them off. With someone physical to focus his anger on he swung again, this time connecting with his Crewmate's shoulder and knocking him to the ground. The other one backed away, hands in the air.

"Come on, Eddie," he said. "Calm..."

"FUCK ALL OF YOU!" Eddie shouted, and hurled his bat at the other man. He dodged the flying hunk of wood and scampered off back toward the exit. Eddie turned back toward the screen and shouted again,

"FUCK YOU, YOU FUCKING FUCKS! I'll fucking kill all of you!"

That's when Chloe came in and blasted him with the shotgun.

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Chapter 40

IT was the longest they'd slept in days - a full eight hours. The house still stank of tear gas, so they'd checked into a room at Eden House for what remained of the night and all the next morning. Fueled by adrenaline and the excitement that came with victory, Paul and Chloe had fucked liked crazy as soon as they got to their room. And then, of course, sleep. Blessed, blessed, sleep.

Now, in the afterglow of hot sex and restful sleep, he took some time to replay the pervious night's events in his mind. He was, with good reason, damn fucking proud of what they'd managed to pull off.

He and Chloe had met with Marco six hours before they walked into the empty storefront to meet Jeanie. He'd been wary of talking with Paul, fearing a set-up, and it'd taken some fast talking and some big promises to get him to come to meet in a very public restaurant. In order to get free from Eddie's watchful and paranoid eye, Marco told him that Amelia wanted to talk technical details with him, knowing full well that Eddie hated technical details and would send Marco to the meeting alone. Paul hadn't been sure how Eddie would react to his proposal, but the fact that he came at all was a good sign. Marco was embarrassed by the fiasco at Paul's house and was obviously very pissed at Eddie for going crazy like that.

Paul laid out his case: that Raquel's death had been an accident and that Eddie was a loose cannon. If he agreed to help them take down Eddie, then they would do everything in their power to put Eddie in charge and together they could convince Isaiah to make sure Jeanie's crew assumed Raquel's seat on the board. Marco, skeptical and wary, asked a lot of questions, especially about Jacob and Winston and what exactly Paul wanted to do to Eddie. Marco didn't think much of his partner, but he didn't want to hurt the guy and certainly didn't want anyone to end up in jail. He agreed to withdraw his support from Eddie and to talk to other Crewmembers, but he said that they needed to find a way to draw Eddie out and make him do something stupid again. Most of them had grown tired of the man's temper and shenanigans, but The Whale remained loyal - he'd only give up on Eddie if everyone else did too.

Paul had assured Marco that he had just the thing in mind. Marco met with The Whale and Chloe took their pics from hiding which they'd then used in the pirate museum. Marco gave the Whale a line about the police being after him and sent him off to Miami until the heat died down, taking his cell phone and credit cards from him so the cops couldn't trace them and giving him some cash to tide him over until the Crew came to get him in a few days. Still aching and sick from his rough treatment at the Crew house, he'd apparently been glad for the chance to rest. Meanwhile, Paul and Bee set up things at the pirate museum. Then it was time to call Jeanie.

The risky part was involving Jeanie. Eddie had brought her in, so she might have some loyalty to the man. On the other hand, Paul and Sandee had saved her life, and he hoped that might count for something in her eyes.