Geek Mafia (3 page)

"Sounds good," Paul agreed. "But how can you help me?"

"What kind of help do you need?" she replied. "I've got a lot of hidden talents, but I can't come up with the solution for you. You have to know what to ask for."

"I think I need a lawyer more than anything."

"Ok, say I'm a lawyer. What then?"

"You're a lawyer?"

"We'll pretend I'm a lawyer. What would a lawyer do for you?"

Paul thought about this. What would a lawyer do for him? In his experience, not much. Real life lawyers tended to hem and haw and beat around the bush. They seldom gave straight answers and they were never the go-for-the-throat sharks you see in the movies. "Actually, what I really need is someone like a TV lawyer," he said. "Someone to go in there and threaten the whole lot of them into giving me what I want. Make them afraid of being in court for the next decade. But that sounds like it would cost a lot of money and probably wouldn't actually work."

"And what is it you want, Paul?" asked Chloe. "Do you want your job back?"

"No, not anymore. I'm pissed at being fired, but I could never work with them again. No, I want what I'm due.

I've got my stock, but that won't be worth anything for years, if ever. I'd really prefer to just have that money CHAPTER 2

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now and leave those fuckers behind forever."

"Hmmmm," mused Chloe.

"Hmmmm?" asked Paul.

"I'm beginning to see a plan. A brilliant plan." She smiled wide. "Abso-fucking-lutely brilliant. A way to make them pay you every last cent you're owed and make them do it tomorrow. Truth is, it's really your plan.

And believe me, it's a very, very good one. At least it will be once we finish coming up with it. But first I have to ask you some questions."

Paul had a skeptical look on his face. "Okaaay," he said. "What do you need to know?"

"Do you still have a key to the office and the security codes and all that?"

"Yes," said Paul.

"Great," she said as she pulled her cell phone from her pocket and started dialing. "What time does everyone go home?"

"It's hard to say," said Paul. "Most of the people leave around seven or eight, but a couple of the programmers stay until midnight or later." He watched as she held the phone to her ear, "Who're you calling?"

"I'm getting the gang together. We can't do this on our own. Gotta have the whole crew."

Then she was talking into the phone, leaving a message for someone named Raff. After that she made four or five other calls while Paul just sat there. He wondered who these people were and if one of them was Chloe's boyfriend (or girlfriend for that matter). If she had a boy/girlfriend at all. She never told any of the people what was going on - just that they needed to get over to the house by six and that they had a job to do tonight.

"One more thing Paul," said Chloe when she hung up on the last member of this mysterious gang. "I need you to tell me everything you can about your company's lawyers and your partners' legal experience."

CHAPTER 3

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CHAPTER 3

Paul knew that the plan was insane and probably illegal. Certainly the stuff he'd been helping Chloe and her gang of followers do for the last few hours was technically illegal. He'd asked them why they were helping him, what did they hope to gain? They'd told him that this is what they did for fun. Chloe assured him that they "lived for this kinda shit." Ok, fine. He could sort of see that. Once he was there, helping them come up with the plan and then actually carrying it out, it sure as hell was exciting - probably the most exciting thing he'd ever done.

Now that he was home and alone with his misgivings and paranoia, it all seemed like a really stupid idea. If it weren't for Chloe and her mesmerizing enthusiasm, there's no doubt that he wouldn't be doing this at all. But it was too late now. Or was it?

It was five in the morning when Paul got back to his apartment. He'd told Chloe that he wanted to get a few hours sleep before the big meeting, but he now realized that there was no way he was going to be able to relax. When he'd stepped out the door twenty-two hours earlier he'd still had his job and was looking forward to a showing the rest of the art team his new designs for some of the higher-level monsters he wanted to add to the game. Screw that, he thought, they're my monsters now. I'll use them somewhere else.

It could never work. How could it? Right then and there Paul decided that he was going to call the whole thing off. It wasn't too late. They hadn't done anything yet that wasn't reversible. No one had been hurt. No money had changed hands. No one had been lied to. If he called it off right now he could just move on and try and put the whole, sorry state of affairs behind him.

He sat down on the couch, the sole piece of furniture in his living room aside from the TV, and started to dial Chloe's number. Then he stopped. No, he thought. Not yet. Think about this for a minute. It might work. And if it does work you're set. Everything you want out of this shitty situation.

Paul decided to make himself a pot of coffee and take a nice long, hot shower. He was supposed to meet Chloe at the office at 9:00 AM sharp. If he called her at home in a few hours he could talk things through with her again and, if he wanted to call them off, he could.

As he stood in the shower he wondered again why they were helping him. They were thrill seekers sure. But this wasn't skydiving or even graffiti. It was, in a way, theft or extortion, or possibly fraud There might be serious jail time on the line. But Chloe, with her uncanny confidence, had assured him they'd be fine. That it wasn't nearly as bad as it sounded. Not nearly as against the law as Paul thought it probably should be. She'd called some lawyer friend (did she say former-lawyer or former friend?) and run some of the stuff by him. Be cool she'd said. Everything would work itself out. He almost believed her.

He decided to dress professionally for this final confrontation and would've put on a suit, but he didn't own one. He didn't even have a tie. In fact, he wasn't entirely sure he'd still remember how to tie one if he did. It'd been ten years since he worked at Barnes and Noble and had to wear ties. They didn't even make the clerks do that anymore he'd noticed. He had a white button down shirt that had been hanging in his closet since before his friend Matt's wedding. He'd had it cleaned for the occasion and then forgotten to pack it. He found a relatively clean pair of khakis to go with it - his dress blacks were balled up in the corner and covered in carpet lint.

By 6:30 in the morning he was dressed and ready, his squeaky leather dress shoes pinching his toes. Looking in the mirror, he decided that he had been right about dressing for the occasion. He wanted to face his accusers with dignity and professionalism, even if he did decide to call the plan off. Which was something he was now having second thoughts about. He'd go over it again with Chloe, let her convince him or not. Then he'd decide.

But when he called her he only got voice mail. He left a message asking her to call him back, but somehow he CHAPTER 3

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didn't expect to hear from her. Maybe she was the one who'd gotten cold feet.

Not wanting to sit still and not wanting to eat, Paul just got in his car and drove the freeways for an hour, listening to Air America, but not really paying any attention. The liberal radio network usually got him good and fired up with leftist indignation, brought on by the right wing's latest outrages, but today it flowed right over him. It had a calming effect nonetheless, keeping his thoughts from obsessing on what he was apparently about to do.

He arrived on the street where his office sat at 8:30, but pulled into a parking lot halfway up the block. From there he could see the office parking lot, and he could tell that Chloe wasn't there yet. But Greg, his friend and CEO (Former friend? Former CEO?) was there, and so was Jerry, the game's Producer. Frank, the lead programmer wasn't there yet, but Paul would've been surprised if he was. Frank seldom came in before 11:00

on a normal day (and Paul knew he hadn't left last night until close to midnight), so making a 9:00 AM

meeting was always tough for him. Also M.I.A. was Evan, the Art Director. There was one other car in the lot, which Paul recognized as belonging to the company's lawyer.

He sat and watched and listened, waiting for the rest of them to arrive. Evan sped into the parking lot about five minutes later and Paul watched him go inside. Paul had ducked down when he saw Evan pull onto the street, though if Evan had bothered to glance over he might have recognized Paul's car. Oh well, he thought, it won't really make much difference. By 8:55 there was still no sign of Frank. More alarming, there was no sign of Chloe. He checked his voicemail, but no one had called.

Shit! He thought. What the hell is this about? He couldn't believe she was late. For a fraction of a moment he wondered if maybe he'd imagined the whole thing. Maybe there was no Chloe. Maybe he was having a breakdown and had dreamed up the woman, the gang, the plan - everything. But no, that didn't seem too plausible. Odds were she'd probably just chickened out. Or maybe she'd been playing him all along. Either of those would make more sense than her actually going through with the plan they'd come up with together.

Paul started his car and drove the two hundred feet to his soon to be former office. Just as he was getting out, he heard screeching tires from the street behind him. Chloe? No, it was Frank's red Miata. Oh well. Paul and the lead programmer saw each other, but both decided it would be more comfortable to pretend they hadn't.

He went on inside and avoided any awkward parking lot confrontations.

The conference room was back and to the right, in a corner of the office hardly ever visited. Paul's stomach fluttered and bile crept up into his throat. He felt sweat trickle down the small of his back even though the office was refrigerator cold. This was going to suck, he realized. At least Chloe had given him one thing - he'd spent the last twenty hours planning his revenge and flirting with a pretty girl instead of obsessing about his fate. He was somehow grateful that he'd only have a few minutes of feeling this shitty anticipation before the axe fell.

Everyone but Frank and Paul already had seats at the makeshift conference table (really four smaller tables pushed together to form one big surface). The company's mousy lawyer, Marie Woods, sat in the seat Paul usually took for himself at these meetings. That's a sign if ever there was one, he thought.

"Hey Paul," said Greg. He'd also dressed up for the occasion, wearing a yellow tie and too-large blue blazer over his plump frame.

"Hey," said Paul. He realized he'd forgotten his notebook and wanted to go back into the car and get it. But it was too late; no turning back now. "Hey Evan, Jerry." The two other men nodded to him. Evan said something inaudible into his thick beard that might have been hello. Paul thought that Frank should have been inside by now. The meeting should be getting started, but Paul guessed that the fucker had stopped to check his e-mail first, as always.

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Jerry, dressed in khakis and a polo shirt with the company logo on it, tried to lighten the mood. "Your Buccaneers are shaping up pretty well, huh?" Paul's hometown team had traded for a star running back over the weekend. "This could be their year."

"Yep," said Paul. What the hell was he talking about? The two of them had always talked sports - it was their only real common bond but really, was this the time? Just trying to kill the silence Paul supposed. Fuck that.

He took a seat and stared down at his hands, wishing again for his notebook so he could at least pretend to be busy.

Finally, Frank came in, thin, short, and wiry with a shaven head and an unkempt goatee. He brushed past where Paul sat without saying a word and took his place at the table. "Hey," he said to Greg, who just nodded at him.

"Are you ready Paul?" asked Greg. "Yesterday you said something about getting a lawyer?"

"Um," said Paul. "I guess I'm ready. Whatever." He didn't even look up from his hands as he talked. "Let's just get on with it."

"Ok," said Greg, his voice sad, although Paul wasn't sure why. If he was sad, he shouldn't have fired him. "We all know why we're here, but we have to do this the right way to make it official. I'm going to ask Marie to run the meeting so we can make sure we cover all the legal bases."

He stopped and looked up from his notes. There was a knocking sound coming from somewhere. It had to be the front door, which locked automatically.

"All right, first, for the record we need to make a note of who's here..." said the lawyer, but the knocking had become pounding and Paul interrupted her.

"I think there's someone at the door," said Paul.

"Whoever it is can wait," Chimed in Evan, speaking for the first time. Paul knew Evan hated confrontation -

all four of them did. They preferred to whisper and complain in private rather than actually telling someone they had a problem with them. Evan no doubt wanted this to be over as quickly as possible.

Marie was about to continue but Paul stopped her. "I should check. It might be...um...it might be my representative." Part of the plan was that he wasn't supposed to actually call her his lawyer. Was it Chloe? No FedEx guy would pound that long and hard.

"I thought you said you didn't have representation," said Greg, looking both confused and a little worried.

"Well, I wasn't sure she'd..." the pounding grew even louder. They could hear the glass door shaking in its frame.

"I'll let him in," said Frank, springing up from his seat and heading out the conference room door. A few seconds later they heard muffled voices and then Frank came scurrying back into the room, a startled look on his face.

Chloe came in a moment later, although Paul hardly recognized her.

"Sorry I'm late," she said, slamming her leather briefcase down on the table next to Paul. "You haven't fired him yet have you?"

CHAPTER 4

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CHAPTER 4

For a moment, Paul wasn't even sure who had walked into the room. Chloe had totally transformed herself since he'd last seen her. She wore a wig for starters, and a very good one. It was light brown and shoulder length. It looked so natural that if he didn't know she had much shorter hair, he would have guessed that she had dyed it. But it was the outfit that made the change. She wore a well-tailored, very professional, gray woman's skirt/blazer combo with a yellow silk blouse. Her wrist sported what looked to Paul's uneducated eye like an expensive and fashionable gold lady's watch from which he thought he detected a glint of diamond. In short, she looked just like the high priced lawyer she was supposed to be. She was certainly the best-dressed person in the room.