Geek Mafia, Rick Dakan [books that read to you .TXT] 📗

still missed the turn off as it screeched to a halt in the emergency lane a few dozen yards past where Paul had turned.

“Fuck yeah!” Paul yelled. Chloe was laughing, patting him heartily on the shoulder. 

“Just keep going,” she said, watching through the rear windshield. “We need to keep them busy for a few hours so Greg can get in there without any trouble.”

Paul took the first turn he could and then the next, winding his way through a maze of small office parks and warehouses. There wasn’t any sign of pursuit, but he kept driving evasively for the next fifteen minutes, looking for someplace out of view from the road where they could park and regroup.  

Eventually they settled on a half-full parking lot behind a complex of three office buildings. They must’ve run some sort of late-shift customer service or something there, so there was enough cover for them to get lost in but not so much in and out traffic as to worry about an employee noticing them. Most importantly, there was no sign of on site security personnel. 

Chloe moved up to the front seat and they sat and relaxed for a moment, catching their breath.

“Do you think they bought it?” Paul asked after a long while.

“Yeah,” she said. “I really do. Which means they’re shitting themselves right now. They think we’re in the wind with the money. If that’s true, they know there’s no way they’ll find us.”

“But we’re not free and clear yet.”

“We might as well be,” Chloe said with a chuckle. “Fuck, I can’t believe we actually made this work.”

“Yeah,” Paul sighed. His voice was not nearly as full of joy and relief as hers was. 

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“There’s still the whole wanted by the police thing…” he said.

“Oh, fuck that. What’s the big deal there? No real money got stolen in the end. No one’s going to care in a couple weeks. Trust me, they’ll stop looking for you.”

“But that won’t clear my name. I’ll still be wanted…”

“So?” she asked.

“So? So?” He said, exasperation creeping into his voice. “So, I’ll have to live my life as a fugitive.”

“It’s not that bad.”

“The warrants won’t just disappear…”

“No,” she interrupted. “I mean living as a fugitive. It’s not that bad.” 

Paul looked at her incredulously. “Of course it is! How would you…” and then she pulled his head to hers and kissed him.

She broke the kiss just long enough to say “Trust me, I know” before kissing him once more. Their hands roamed over each other and Chloe started to nibble at his neck. “I’ve lived this way for ten years…” she whispered. He moaned as she started caressing him through his pants. “It can be fun if you’ve got the right friends.”

Paul didn’t argue as she undid his pants and she didn’t argue when he pulled her shirt up over her head. He certainly didn’t argue when she slipped the condom onto him and then climbed onto his lap. Right at that moment, as he slid into her, Paul felt like he had everything he’d ever wanted from life. Maybe she was right. Maybe this was the life for him…

CHAPTER 40

As is so often the case with men, after he’d orgasmed, Paul began to have second thoughts. 

The car windows were completely fogged over, and they both sweated as they fumbled with trying to find and put their clothes back on. Chloe was talking about where they could go next and how they needed to get new ID’s. Paul scarcely listened as all his problems washed back over him. He didn’t want a new ID. He didn’t want to live on a boat with Winston’s crew (assuming the old hippie was even alive). On the other hand, he didn’t have any better ideas. If only there was some other path they could figure out for themselves.

And that thought surprised him. He was thinking in terms of “us” not “I.” Whatever happened next, he knew he wanted it to be with Chloe. Despite all the post-coital doubts about his immediate future, he had no doubt about how he felt about her. No doubt that whatever the next step was, it involved the two of them together. 

He looked over to her in the passenger seat as she pulled her pants back on. She was expounding upon the merits of San Diego as a good hide-away option during the winter. He reached over and put his finger to her lips. She looked at him curiously.

“I love you, Chloe,” he said, his heart in his throat.

“I love you too, Paul,” she replied without a second’s pause, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. As if he was a moron to have ever thought otherwise.

“You do?” he asked.

She laughed and kissed him. Then kissed him again, harder. “Of course I do, didn’t you know that? Why else would I do all this?”

He didn’t know if he’d known it or not. But now…Now her phone was ringing.

They both looked at the phone, which had fallen on the floor of the back seat, in surprise. Chloe twisted around and picked it up, looking at the display screen. All it said was Private Name, Private Number, which meant it was probably either a telemarketer or a crewmember. She watched it ring for a moment before finally deciding to answer.

“Hello?” she asked. Paul couldn’t make out the voice on the other end. “Bee?” she said in astonishment. “Where are you? Are you ok?”

Paul watched as Chloe’s face turned from surprise and worry to intense resolve and concentration. “I don’t know about that,” she said. A long pause. “Ok, Ok, I trust you. You know I do.” Another long pause. “Yes, yeah, fine. Yeah, I know the place. See you then.”

“Is Bee ok?” Paul asked.

“I think so,” she said. “But she says she needs help. She wants us to meet her.”

“Oh Christ,” said Paul. “That doesn’t sound like a good fucking idea.”

“No,” Chloe agreed, “It doesn’t. But we have to go.”

“What if she’s with Raff?”

“She’s not,” Chloe insisted. “She’s not.”

“Are you sure?”

“No,” she said, her voice barely a whisper.

“Do you have a plan?”

“No.”

They both stared at each other, although really they were staring past one another, thinking out all the possible dangers ahead of them. Paul realized that he couldn’t even fathom what the dangers might actually turn out to be and so it was best to get on with it and find out first hand.

“Fine,” said Paul. “But I’m driving.”

They pulled into the parking lot of a ten room motel in south San Jose, a largely Hispanic neighborhood that Paul, given his isolated techie existence, had never even driven through, much less stopped in. He consoled himself with the thought that it had been less than an hour since they lost their pursuers on the freeway and therefore whatever trap they might have set couldn’t be too terribly complex.

Paul recognized one of the cars in the lot as Bee’s small hatchback. The Crew usually changed cars as easily as clothes, and it was a surprise to see that Bee was so openly advertising her presence to anyone who knew her. He wasn’t sure what to make of that.

“What do you make of that?” he asked Chloe.

“I dunno. Other than the fact that Bee’s probably actually in there.” She pointed to Room 8, which was the only one with a light on inside. “Just like she said she would be.” 

They’d spent the last ten minutes cruising the neighboring streets, scanning for other hidden cameras with Chloe’s laptop and looking for any familiar cars or faces. Everything had come up clean. With no more precautions to take, they’d run out of excuses to not go in. Except, Paul thought, for the obvious excuse that it was a bad idea.

“Why’re we doing this again?” he asked for the tenth time since they’d gotten Bee’s call. She decided to ignore him this time. She pulled her stun gun from her bag and then leaned forward and tucked it into the back of her pants before pulling her shirt down over it. Paul backed the car into the space right in front of room 8, so they could make a quick escape if they needed to.

“I’ll keep the motor running,” he said as she opened the door.

“And your eyes open,” she said, giving him a quick kiss on the cheek. “If I run into trouble, I’ll call in the cavalry.”

Paul held up his cell phone. “That’s me, a cavalry of one. I’ll have my horse saddled and ready to go,” he said with a wan smile. She winked at him and went to the motel room door.

He sat in the car and tried his best to look everywhere at once, but it wasn’t working for him, so he concentrated on watching Chloe in the rearview mirror. She knocked lightly on the door and waited. After a few seconds she put her hand on the doorknob and turned it herself. Paul got a glimpse of yellow light from inside but nothing else. She slipped into the room without opening the door all the way and then closed it behind her. 

Paul sighed and scanned the quiet night around him. Across the street was a gas station and a small strip mall with a several shops and a restaurant. All the signs were in Spanish and all the businesses were closed. He tensed as a pickup truck passed by on the street, but it didn’t even slow down and the driver never took his eyes off the road. He supposed Raff or the PI could be in any of the empty storefronts or in any of the adjacent motel rooms. For that matter, they could’ve been waiting inside with Bee and had Chloe in their clutches right now.

As the seconds ticked by without any sign from Chloe, another possibility crept unwanted into his head. What if Chloe was setting him up? Was it possible, even after everything that had happened? Was all this the most complicated con imaginable, a massive plot to steal his money? Given the fact that Winston had gotten shot earlier that seemed impossible. Raff and Chloe were definitely at odds at this point, no doubt about that, but what about Bee and Chloe? Could they be planning something? Why else would Chloe risk coming here if not for the sake of some pre-arranged agreement with Bee?

His phone buzzed in his lap, starting him out of his reverie. He looked down at the face and saw Chloe’s name. Huh?

“Hello?” he said.

“Act cool. Nonchalant,” said Chloe, “But calmly get out of the car and come in here right now.”

“Wh…”

“Right now,” she insisted.

He turned the engine off and got out of the car, the phone still in his hand. He wondered if talking on the phone made him look more or less calm and decided he’d find out what was going on soon enough and so he kept his hand and the phone at his side. The motel room door opened easily and he stepped inside.

In the middle of the dingy room stood Bee and Chloe. The single queen sized bed was covered with electronics, including a laptop with its display open and facing the doorway. It took Paul a moment to understand what he was seeing on the screen.

“Shut the door,” hissed Bee.

Paul reached behind him to knock the door shut, all the while keeping his eyes locked on the screen. There he saw an