Geek Mafia (15 page)

It was a Sunday morning and the usually jam-packed 880 was relatively car-free, allowing them to make good time through Oakland and Berkley before veering off into wine country. Paul, wanting to catch up on the news he'd missed in his five day forgery fugue, tried to convince Chloe to turn on Air America, but she refused to put up with something as boring as politics on such a beautiful day. She set her iPod to shuffle and they listened in comfortable quiet to a succession of punk and Ska bands Paul had never heard of. They made their way past wineries big and small, headed towards a small beach community near where they'd filmed Alfred Hitchcock's movie
The Birds
.

"You know, I've never been up here," said Paul.

"Really? I thought you liked wine."

"I do, but I never made it up here. Never had anyone who wanted to go with me. It was so easy to get wrapped up in work, I hardly ever made it out of San Jose."

"Which is a shame," said Chloe, "Because San Jose is a hole."

"It's kind of like one big strip mall, gone bad," agreed Paul. "But if you hate it too, why're you here? Couldn't you guys do your stuff, whatever it is, pretty much anywhere?"

"Yeah, we could. But this is where the action is. We're a tech-heavy group of geeks for the most part. I'm more the exception than the rule. I know the face-to-face cons, but most of my Crew are tech-heads to the Chapter 13

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core. And there's no better place for that than here."

"I would've thought most of your hacking and what have you could be done from anywhere. Isn't that the point?"

"Sure, that's one way of doing things. It's even one of the ways we do things, but it's not the only way. You can sometimes hack a system from the outside and get access and maybe even make some money using that access, but not always. Like the play we just made with the comic book stuff. We couldn't have done all that digitally - or at least it wouldn't have been so cheap and quick."

"Being in Silicon Valley lets me use my skills and those of people like Filo and Bee much more effectively. It gives us a lot more options. If we left it to just Raff and Kurt and the other hacker kids, we'd have a limited number of moves in any situation. And variety isn't just the spice of life; it also keeps you out of jail. Since we can play things so many different directions, we don't have any easily discernible patterns. And no pattern means it's hard for the police to home in on us. Plus, it's a hell of a lot more fun to play dress up and con people than it is to just sit in front of computer and rob them with ones and zeroes."

"There are hackers out there who break into systems and fuck with them just for the fun of it. Just to be a pain in the ass or to prove to themselves that they can. That's not what we're about."

"You're about the money," said Paul, uncomfortable with the fact that he was getting used to the idea of falling for a thief.

"Yes. Fuck yes, we're about the money, but not because we want to get rich. Selling fake comics isn't going to make us rich, but it is going to pay the bills and put food on the table and no one ever has to be the wiser about where that money came from. And by no one, I mean the IRS, the government, and anyone else who wants to stick their noses in my business. We're living totally off the information grid, which is what we're REALLY all about."

"So you don't pay taxes or anything?" asked Paul. "I mean, I figured that you didn't report stolen income, but how do you stay completely 'off the grid' as you say? How do you rent a house or get a driver's license or credit cards?" Paul found the concept incredibly compelling. He'd long dreamed of disappearing from public and government scrutiny. In fact, that dream had been one of the driving themes in his comic book
Metropolis
2.0
.

Chloe, keeping one hand on the wheel, dug her wallet out of her pocket and pulled out her driver's license, handing it to Paul. "Take a look at that," she said. The license showed a picture of a smiling Chloe, with her name but a different address on it. It looked perfectly legitimate to Paul.

"What, is it fake or something? Why the wrong address?"

"It's not fake. But it's not real either. The address is obviously wrong, but I never carry around anything that has my real address on it. That's easy - it's not like they check up on you at the DMV when you move. And that is a real, official California driver's license. But it's not my real name. And it's not the only one I have.

Same for the social security card in there. They're not fake, but they're not me."

"Identity theft?"

"Sort of. Sometimes. Typically it's dead people - use an old birth certificate right and no one's the wiser. So yeah, that license there is for Chloe Carmichael. And I file a tax return every year for Chloe too. She makes minimum wage as a freelance house cleaner and just barely gets by, which means she ain't paying much in the way of taxes. But it's a clean cover if I ever need it."

Chapter 13

68

"That's all pretty much what I figured," bluffed Paul, handing the license back to her. In fact the thought hadn't even crossed his mind. Who was she, anyway? "But now something new's bugging me. What the hell's your real name?"

"Chloe."

"Just not Chloe Carmichael, right?"

"For the world, for my friends, for you, I'm Chloe. That's my real name. What does it matter what name I was born with? Who the fuck cares? Whatever it was, I didn't choose it. My parents did. I chose Chloe, and that's all you need to know." She said this matter of factly, although Paul detected a hint of annoyance beneath her words and decided to drop the subject.

"Cool," he said, although he wasn't at all sure if it really was.

They rode along in silence for a few minutes, before Chloe spoke again. "Speaking of parents, have you talked to yours?"

"Yeah, a couple of times. They want me to come home to Florida and see them. They feel really sorry for me.

All they know is that I got fired - they don't know about the money or, you know, anything else I've been up to."

"You should. You should go see them." She paused to fish an Altoid from the tin below the ashtray. "I've never been to Florida." She let this hang there. Was it a request to come along, or just a stray comment?

"I will. At some point, I will. There's a Pirate festival in Key West in November. I thought I might go back for that. Stop by Sarasota and see them at the same time."

"A pirate festival? Now you're talking my language! I could bring the whole Crew - we'd go wild on that shit.

Have you ever been?"

"Nope, but it's supposed to be a lot of fun. I've been to Fantasy Fest - which is kind of Key West's version of Mardi Gras, except it's around Halloween - and that's awesome. If you're into drunken debauchery and public nudity."

"Which I most definitely am," said Chloe.

"I imagine the pirate festival's the same, except, you know, with pirates."

"Sounds like a party. We'll definitely have to pull that one. I'll look into it, see if there are any angles we can play to make a few bucks while we're there."

"You're always looking for the angles aren't you?"

"I never seem to find any angels, so angles are all that's left."

Although it was late afternoon and early summer, when they crested the hill and came into the "town" of Killian Beach, there was already a fog rolling in off the Pacific Ocean. Nevertheless, Paul had to admit that it was a beautiful sight. The town was little more than a single convenience store/gas station/restaurant and about fifty expensive beach houses spread out along the cliffs overlooking the beach below. For Paul, a native of Florida's west coast, these northern California beaches always seemed surreal to him. Instead of the flat expanses of white sand and warm water that he'd grown up with, these beaches were often just bits of sand at Chapter 13

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the foot of towering walls of rock and the water was inevitably too cold for him to swim in. Nevertheless, it sure did look pretty.

Chloe drove them to one of the fancy beach houses that sat further up the cliff side, a good three hundred or so yards from the actual beach. It still had a great view, looking down on the other houses and the water below.

Inside, the two-story vacation home was fully furnished and tastefully decorated. It felt like something between a lived in hotel and a model home. There was a spacious, bright living room/dining room area with floor to ceiling windows looking out on the water. Three bedrooms, two baths, a rec room with a pool table and big screen TV, and a well-appointed kitchen finished off the interior. But the best part was the large wooden deck that wrapped around two sides of the structure and supported that most classic and important of California accoutrements: the hot tub.

"Very nice," said Paul.

"Yes indeed. The only drawback is that they only have dial-up for Internet access, but, other than that, we're set." She dropped her backpack in the center of the living room and started to unpack her laptop. "Take any of the bedrooms you want and make yourself at home."

Separate bedrooms of course, as he'd assumed but secretly hoped wouldn't be the case. Paul, out of spite, took the master bedroom for himself and unpacked his clothes into the empty chest of drawers. There was a king sized bed and as he flopped down on it he was in heaven, so much more comfortable than the couch. He was already starting to nod off when Chloe knocked on his open door.

"You wanna take a walk with me down to the beach? I need to stretch my legs after being cooped up in that car for hours."

"Sure," he said. "Let's go."

They walked at an ambling pace down the winding road towards the beach access, Chloe passed the time with tales of her wild high school years which had apparently involved a lot of camping out on beaches much like this one. She had her messenger bag with her in case they wanted to do some shopping at the convenience store. They wandered up and down the beach, shivering slightly in the brisk breeze blowing in off the water.

The fog was truly settling in now, and they couldn't even see all the way back up to their house anymore.

The convenience store had a little bit of everything, including some wine and frozen pizzas, which they bought for dinner, and a small general delivery post office where Chloe dropped off a letter.

"Who's that for?" asked Paul.

"Just getting in touch with an old friend. Something I forgot to mail before we left and I found it sitting in my bag."

"Oh, ok. Are you about ready to head back? I'm starving."

"I know how cranky you get when you haven't eaten, Paul, so let's get a move on. That hill we walked down isn't going to be nearly as much fun going the other way."

They huffed and puffed their way back up to the top of the cliff and set about preparing dinner. Paul volunteered for the arduous task of pre-heating the oven, opening the wine and sticking the frozen pizza into the oven. Chloe started the hot tub warming up and then checked her e-mail at the dining room table.

"How're things going with the comics con?" Paul asked as he set a glass of wine down next to Chloe and Chapter 13

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sipped on his own. A little tart for his tastes, but it was certainly drinkable.

"Seems good. They've got about two dozen of them up on e-Bay already, and they're getting some interest.

It'll be a five or six days before we really know how it's going." She drank deeply from her glass. "Well that's a mediocre vintage to be sure. You'd think they'd do better, being so close to Napa and all."

"Cheap wine is cheap wine the world over," said Paul.

"I hate cheapness. Inexpensive is good. It's fucking great sometimes. But that doesn't mean it has to be cheap.

There's great wine to be had in these parts for what we paid for this bottle, but all we got is this cheap stuff."

"Yep, but on the bright side, there are three bottles of it in there, so there's more than enough to get us too drunk to notice how cheap it is."

"Fucking right," said Chloe with a smile, draining her glass. "I'll pour us another round."

They ate and finished off another bottle of wine in the living room, chatting away about wine and beer and food, subjects about which Paul knew quite a bit. One of his many un-pursued hobbies was fine dining and cooking, and Chloe seemed impressed with his expertise.

As they drank the last of the second bottle, Chloe got up to get the third, but when she came out of the kitchen she continued walking right on out to the deck. "Come on," she said.

Paul forced himself up off the comfy couch, his head spinning from the wine, and followed her outside. There was a crisp, cold bite to the air. Chloe had peeled off the cover on the hot tub and was testing the waters. "Still not as near-boiling as I like it, but it's plenty hot. You wanna join me?"

"Sure, why not? Let me go get my bathing suit."

She laughed. "You're kidding, right?"

"I guess I am," he said, although he hadn't been.

"This is California. A hot tub in California. The dress code is strictly
au natural
." And then, as if to make her point, she stripped her t-shirt off over her head with one quick motion, revealing a black bra that could have been a modest bikini top. "Come on, don't be shy."

Paul took off his own shirt self-consciously. He wasn't in the best shape of his life, but he wasn't looking too bad either. He showed the earliest signs of love handles and was a bit soft around the middle. Chloe now stepped out of her shorts, and to Paul's surprise he saw that she wasn't wearing any panties. She revealed a thick, black bush of pubic hair, above which was a tattoo that said something he couldn't quite make out in the dim light. She turned her back to him as she unhooked her bra, and he couldn't help but take a good, lingering look at her full, round ass. He felt a stirring in his pants, which he was already in the process of unbuckling.

She tossed her bra to the deck and climbed up into the hot tub, sinking down fast into the hot water.

Paul stripped off his shorts and underwear and now stood naked in the crisp night air. His slight embarrassment and the chill worked against his growing arousal, which was fine with him. He followed Chloe into the tub, but as soon as his toe touched the water, he pulled it back. "Damn that's hot!" he said.