Geek Mafia (8 page)

Chloe now turned to Bee, who squirmed in Paul's lap. "What say you Ms. Bee? Are your tapes erased and your cameras clean?"

"They are!" Bee shouted. "I never even got to use the cameras. Next time..." The others jeered, pelting her and Paul with popcorn as she giggled uncontrollably. They'd all heard enough about not using the cameras.

Chloe let the impromptu food fight die down before she continued. "Then I, as El Capitan Du Jour, officially certify this latest sortie a success!" Everyone really cheered at this announcement, throwing more popcorn every which way, but mostly at Chloe. She then held the three CD's aloft once more. "And I do further certify that these represent the only remaining record of our adventures."

With that, she snapped the disks in two, one at a time. Paul had never seen anyone do this - it seemed dangerous to him, but no one else seemed scared of the sharp shards of plastic that went flying through the room with each break. Snap! The room cheered. Snap! More drunken revelry. Snap! The biggest cheer of all.

Chloe let the silver pieces fall to her feet.

"What do we always say?" she shouted. "If they're ain't no record..."

CHAPTER 7

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"NO ONE KNOWS WHAT HAPPENED!" the room roared in reply.

Paul realized that something bound these people together besides technical ability and miscreant natures. They had done this before, as they freely admitted, and as best as Paul could gather, they had done it a lot. This ritual was old hat to them, as precise and maybe even as meaningful as a Catholic mass. Paul was the outsider here and, although there was a pretty girl in his lap and a beer in his hand, he suddenly felt more like a fish among sharks than a guest at a party. These were criminals. They weren't would-be Robin Hoods or merry pranksters. Maybe it wasn't always about the money, but whatever they did, it was probably very seldom within the confines of the law.

Ok, he thought, time to make my getaway. He was glad - so very, very glad that he'd decided at the last moment to hide his money from Chloe and the rest. He wasn't sure he'd have gotten out of the house with it if he'd brought it back with him. As the ritual wound down around him, he started thinking of excuses to get up and leave. But then Chloe singled him out.

"Now," she said, coming over to stand in front of Paul and Bee. "Let's hear from the man of the hour himself.

Come on Paul! Stand up and give us a toast!" Bee somehow managed to find enough room on the couch to squirm off Paul's lap and into the seat beside him so that now she pushed him from behind as Chloe pulled at his arms from the front. "Come on, big boy! It's your turn," chided Chloe.

Paul was a little embarrassed and nervous. He still wanted to get out of there, but the pot had mellowed him out enough that he wasn't too worried about it. There was plenty of time. After all, the money was safe and he'd always enjoyed public speaking. The crowd clapped as he stepped into the center of the room. Chloe took his place on the couch, this time sitting on Bee's lap.

"Ok, ok," he said. "First of all, I have to say thanks. Thanks to all of you for helping me out today." He paused to let them clap and cheer for a moment - although it was certainly nothing like the applause Chloe had gotten.

"Yesterday was just about the worst day of my life. I saw everything I'd worked for taken from me.

Everything was turning to shit. And then this girl," he pointed to Chloe. "This girl right here came out of nowhere and, well, said the craziest shit I'd ever heard. I mean, just the absolute craziest shit I ever head."

Everyone laughed and Chloe buried her face in Bee's shoulder, laughing with embarrassment that might or might not have been real.

"But anyway, I just have to say, that you guys have done more for me here than I can ever thank you for. It's really amazing. I mean, the risks you guys took for a complete stranger. It boggles the mind. Maybe it's just the really good drugs you guys have here, but wow. You guys...you guys really fucking rock! If there's anything I can ever do for you - anything at all, just ask."

"Give us shares of the money!" shouted someone from the back of the room. Everyone laughed at this. Paul tried to smile. Was this the moment? Was it time to pay the price for what he'd done? What they'd done for him.

"Well, I...uh," Paul was thinking fast. "I mean sure. You know." He was grateful to them. Well, part of him was anyway. He wouldn't have the money now if Chloe hadn't seduced him into this crazy scam. But at the same time, looking back on it, he was starting to think that maybe it had been a big mistake. Yeah, he'd cashed out. But if he'd held onto that stock it probably would be worth something someday, maybe even a lot more than what he'd extorted out of Greg. But he'd been rash - and that was their fault. In a way, they might have cost him money in the long run. Not that he was about to tell them that.

Fortunately, Chloe saved him. "He's just fucking with you Paul. We all know this was a freebie." Everyone laughed, apparently agreeing with her. They'd enjoyed his moment of discomfort, but that was all. "You can, though, if you want, pay for the beer!" Chloe yelled.

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"You got yourself a deal!" said Paul, genuinely smiling now that he'd found this out. "Beer for everyone!"

They definitely cheered at that - the biggest response he'd gotten so far. He thought that would be it and so he took a step towards the kitchen, inching gingerly through the crowd. But he wasn't quite safe yet. Someone was yelling from the back of the room. Apparently they wanted one more thing from him before he could go.

CHAPTER 8

37

CHAPTER 8

"Plots and Plans!" shouted Raff from his perch at the back of the room. Paul looked back at him. What had he said? Pots and pans? "Let's let Paul do Plots and Plans!" People started clapping and whistling. They seemed to like the idea of Paul doing the dishes. What were they talking about?

"What?" said Paul.

Chloe stood up now, thankfully coming to Paul's aid. "C'mon Raff, you know he's not a Crewmember. He doesn't have to do Plots and Plans."

"I'm not saying he has to," replied Raff. "I'm saying let him. It'll be fun."

"What's he talking about?" asked Paul.

"It's just a little ritual we have," she said. "Every time we take down a big score - like we did for you today -

we have a little session called Plots and Plans. Basically, whoever we judge benefited the most but did the least on the last score has to come up with the next one. Now, obviously this rule doesn't apply to you, since you're not a part of our Crew. But if you wanna play, that'd be cool. It is a lot of fun."

"How does it work?" Everyone was watching them now, waiting to see if Paul would play along or chicken out.

"There's not much to it, really. No rules or anything like that. You just come up with an idea of what to do next. Don't worry if none of the ideas are any good. It's really just a fun game. We hardly do half the things we come up with."

"C'mon Paul," said Popper, from the floor near Paul's feet. "It's fun! Just think of a scam. Some way to make money or have fun without, you know, really working for it."

"Ok, ok, I'll play," said Paul. It did sound sort of intriguing. "Can I have a minute to think of something?"

"Sure, if you want," said Chloe. "But part of the fun of the game is just thinking off the top of your head.

We're not looking for a carefully thought out scheme planned down to every last detail. It's all about coming up with ideas. You know, brainstorming."

"Um...ok. How do I start?"

"We'll help you out - that's the fun part for the rest of us." She gave him a quick peck on the cheek and then sat back down on the couch next to Bee. "Just throw out the first idea that comes to you." The first idea that came to him was grabbing Chloe and kissing her, but he didn't suppose that would go over very well.

"We could..." Paul was thinking fast. How to steal money? He searched his brain's rather comprehensive movie catalog - Heat, The Sting, Ocean's 11, Hudson Hawk... "We could rob a bank." This suggestion produced a chorus of good-natured boos.

"We're looking for something a little more original than that," said Raff.

"And a lot less dangerous," added Chloe. "Try and be more creative."

"How about counterfeiting?" Paul ventured. More boos. What the hell did they want from him? They were the criminals, not him.

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"C'mon Paul," This time it was Popper chiming in. "We like 'em quick and dirty like today. Nothing too fancy or that'll take a bunch of time and equipment."

"Let me think here," said Paul. To his surprise, this was turning out to be a kind of exciting challenge, even though he wasn't very good at it. "So, something more in the line of a con right?"

"Exactly!" said Bee.

"And the best cons are the ones where the person never even knows they were conned, like in The Sting, right?" said Paul. "We need to come up with something that the victims never even know about."

"Well, it's not a necessity," said Chloe. "They just need to not know about it long enough for us to get away with it!" The Crew laughed in appreciation.

"So not counterfeiting money," said Paul. He was on a roll now. An idea was coming to him. "But counterfeiting something that's, you know, easier to fake."

"Like what?" asked Raff, still leaning against the back wall.

"Ok, I have this friend who collects wine. He buys these real expensive bottles of Bordeaux and whatever and then he just holds onto them for years and years. It's supposed to take like ten or twenty years before some of these wines are ready to drink." Paul didn't actually have a friend like that; he'd just read about this kind of thing in an in-flight magazine once. But he thought that would've sounded lame. "So we could make fake bottles of wine. You know, buy cheap wine and use Photoshop to make expensive labels for them."

"Not bad," said Chloe. "That's a good start."

"Who would we sell them to?" said Raff. "Who's going to buy $500 bottles of wine from people they don't know?"

"I don't know," said Paul. "Don't they sell wine on eBay?"

"I didn't think you were allowed to do that," said Bee. "We'd have to check."

But Paul was still rolling. The answer was in eBay. "Not wine!" he said. "Comic books. We could sell counterfeit comics online!" They laughed. This was a crazy, silly idea, but the Crew seemed to like it. "Hear me out now, hear me out. I know comics. I published my own for seven years." It was all coming together in Paul's head - a ridiculous plan to be sure, but he was certain it met all of the criteria for success in this game of theirs.

"You all know that comic book collectors can be pretty rabid about the quality of their books and what-not, right? You know, mint, near-mint, and whatever. Well, there's this company now called the Comics Rating Group. They've basically totally taken over the comics grading business. How it works is this, you send them a comic book that you think is maybe worth some money now or might be worth more money down the line.

They have these professional graders who look at the comic and then give it a score on a scale of one to ten."

Paul had their attention now, although some of them looked unsure as to where he was going with all this.

"Of course, that score wouldn't do you any good unless you could assure a potential buyer that it was still in the same condition that it was when the graders looked at it. So here's the cool thing. The CRG guys then seal the comic book in a clear, stiff, plastic envelope thingy with the score sealed in there with it. Now, as long as that seal's not broken, then anyone who buys the comic is guaranteed to know that the comic inside is in the condition that they say it is. People pay like thirty bucks for this."

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"You're making this up," called one of the Crew, a guy named Chris, if Paul remembered correctly. "If it's sealed in plastic, then you can't even read it!"

"Exactly!" said Paul. "That's the beauty of it! As long as it's in the plastic, collectors know exactly how much it's worth. If they take it out to read it, then they've wasted their money on getting it graded and sealed in the first place. Plus, since most comic books get reprinted in book collections these days, they can read it that way. This sealing in plastic thing is only for the hard core collectors."

"So let me get this straight," said Chloe, leaning forward in her seat. "People buy these graded comics that're sealed in fucking plastic and never open them?"

"Exactly."

"Which means that, they have no idea what's actually inside of those plastic cases," she continued.

"Exactly. Except the front and back cover, which of course they can see."

"Which means, if we can figure out a way to fake our own plastic sealing thingamajigs, we can sell 'graded'

comics to folks and they'd never know the difference," said Chloe, making air quotes around graded.

"Exactly!" said Paul. "How would they ever know? They wouldn't want to check, and if we only did comics that'd been collected in another form, they wouldn't even be tempted to read them since they could read them without breaking the seal some other way."

"I have to say," said Chloe, smiling broadly. "That's not a bad little plot for a swabbie like you, Paul." Paul swelled with pride. He was having a blast, especially now that he'd earned Chloe's approval. But there was only one problem with his plan, and fool that he was, he couldn't stop himself from mentioning it.

"There's only one problem," Paul said. "I don't have any idea how they seal these things up. And they're pretty tight-lipped about the process." He hoped that this omission wouldn't sour their good impression of him.

Chloe stood up and came and stood beside Paul, slipping her arm around his waist. "Don't sweat the details right now. Plots and Plans is all about coming up with crazy ideas. You can always worry about the how-to shit later. I, for one, think you've come up with a swell idea - certainly swell enough for a first try." She kissed him on the cheek once more and then turned to the rest of the Crew. "What say you?" she shouted. "Is this a Worthy Plan?"