Geek Mafia (20 page)

"Why're we going home early?" asked Paul, a little astonished that he already sort of thought of Chloe's house as his home.

"Well, we lost our place and I got done what I needed to get done with Winston. Plus, Bee mentioned in my e-mail yesterday morning that Raff's been up to something and I want to be there to make sure he doesn't fuck things up."

"Don't you trust Raff? I thought he was, like, your second in command."

"Oh, I do, as much as I trust anybody. But we don't really have a 'command structure' in the Crew. It's not like I'm actually the captain or anything like that. We're all equal. Raff and I tend to take the lead in things because that's what we're best at. The problem with Raff is that he doesn't always have the best judgment."

"Is that why you've never brought him to meet Winston?"

She was silent for a beat. Not long enough that anyone who didn't know her would notice, but Paul picked up on it. "What do you mean?"

"Winston, when he thought I was part of your crew last night. He said that you'd never brought anyone from Chapter 16

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your Crew to meet him. I was wondering why you brought me."

"I don't really know to be honest." She didn't take her eyes of the winding highway, but she put a hand on his knee. "I guess I must trust you more than...more than I usually trust people. Winston's special to me. He's my little secret and the others don't know about him. I'd like it to stay that way. Can I trust you not to talk to them about this part of the trip? Not any part of the trip."

"Is this some kind of 'what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas' kind of thing?"

"Something like that." She obviously hoped it would end there, but he just kept looking at her, waiting for her to continue. Finally, she did. "There are things about this trip that the others wouldn't really understand. I've let you in on a lot. Let you into my life a lot in general. People will already be wondering about our trip. If they knew about Winston and, you know, everything else, there'd be some jealousy. Maybe a lot of jealousy.

So I need you not to mention any of this to anyone. Does that make sense?"

"None of this makes much sense at all. What do you mean you let me in on a lot? I don't know anything."

"You know more than you think you do. Or at least you've seen more." A note of frustration started to creep into her voice. "Can you just do this for me, please? Can you just keep our private affairs private? Is that so fucking much to ask?"

"No, no, of course not. It's fine. I won't tell anyone. Not that I was going to anyway. I mean, who would I tell?

You're the only one in the whole group I'm close to." He struggled to find the words. "It's just...It's frustrating."

She massaged his thigh and then gave him a comforting squeeze. "I know. I know. But are you having fun?"

"Yeah, for the most part."

"Well, just concentrate on that for now. It's a fun life if you let it be that way. Look at Winston. Have you ever seen anyone who loves life more?"

"He did seem pretty happy."

"He's amazing. He's my inspiration."

"So, what's his deal then? I'm assuming he didn't get started making scenery."

"It's a secret. He doesn't like to talk about it." They drove on in silence for a minute.

"But you know, don't you? He told you."

She let out a surprised snort. "Yeah, sort of. Actually I kind of figured it out by accident. But he copped to it."

More silence, Paul just stared at her. But she wasn't going to fall for it this time. "Well come on then, tell me the story."

"I can't. You think I'd do that?"

"Yep."

She paused for just a moment. "You're right. I'll tell you. But there's only one reason - because Winston said I Chapter 16

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could. I'd never betray a secret from a friend. Never."

"He told you that you could tell me? Why me?"

"Not you specifically. When I found out he said I could tell whomever I wanted. That it didn't matter. His old life's so far behind him now, there's no worry. No one cares about his old secrets anymore. I think that's actually as sad as I've ever seen him, when he said that to me. He said, 'Chloe, when you live this life eventually everything you fought so hard to keep hidden becomes irrelevant. After a while, no one really cares anymore.' I still remember that like it was yesterday."

Paul didn't quite understand why that was a cause for sadness, but he wanted to hear the story. "Ok, so spill.

Who's Winston?"

Chloe reached over and turned the stereo off. If she was going to reveal Winston's story then she wanted undivided attention. "Of course first of all, his name's not really Winston."

"Go figure. Named himself after Churchill or something?"

"Close, Winston Smith from George Orwell's 1984."

"Interesting choice. Do you know his real name?"

"Fuck, I barely remember my real name. And no, I don't know it. But I saw a picture of him once, from when he was young. I recognized him. That nose and those ears maybe, I don't know what it was, but I knew it was him as soon as I saw the pic."

"Where was this?"

"It was in a book I was reading, about radical groups from the sixties and seventies."

"You were looking for inspiration I'll bet."

"Yes, as a matter of fact I was, now are you going to let me tell this story or not?"

"Sorry," he said, "Go on."

"Well, he was in the book. There were a bunch of black and whites in the center, you know how they do that -

put the glossy pages in the center. This section was on the Weather Underground, and there he was, standing on the streets of Chicago in 1969 with a baseball bat in his hand, watching someone throw a brick through a window. The caption said simply, 'Two Unnamed Weathermen During the Days of Rage.' This was right before they went underground, you know."

"Kind of. The Weathermen were, like, sixties peace activists or something right? What was their deal?"

"They were a breakaway group from one of the big protest organizations in the late sixties, the Students for a Democratic Society, or SDS. They had an argument with SDS about how to do things and so they split and started doing their own thing. Around 1970 they decided their own thing included blowing shit up. That's when they went from being the Weathermen to the Weathermen Underground. Or Weather Underground.

Same difference."

This was starting to ring bells for Paul. He's seen something on TV about them once a few years ago. "Ok, I think I've heard of them. Didn't they bomb all kinds of places? They were basically terrorists right?"

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"If you asked Winston, he'd say it depends on your perspective. The Weathermen never killed or even hurt anyone, even though the set off scores of bombs over a whole decade. They attacked government centers, banks, and other conservative institutions. But it was all just property damage. They always gave plenty of warning. The only people ever killed were some of their own when a bomb they were working on accidentally went off in their apartment."

"But still," insisted Paul, "They set off bombs and terrorized people. They were terrorists."

"But it didn't mean the same thing then as it does now. This was way before 9/11. This was Vietnam, when the biggest terrorists in the world were us. We were the ones bombing the fuck out of civilians in Cambodia and Laos. The Weathermen felt the only way to fight back was with violence of their own - just not deadly violence."

"I can tell it worked out real well for them, huh?"

"No, of course not. I think it probably did more bad than good for their cause. But still, you have to admire their devotion and their commitment and their bravery. Many of them lived underground for years - over a decade in many cases."

"Or four decades in Winston's case," said Paul. "He was one of these guys you said?"

"He was, although he says he didn't become really involved with them until the mid-seventies. In that picture from '69 he was only 16. He'd been living in Chicago with an aunt and heard about the student rally that night and so he showed up. He eventually became a Weatherman, but he wasn't actually part of the group when that pic was taken, which is kinda weird if you think about it."

"So anyway, I don't really know anything about what he did while he was with them. I just know that he lived a life on the run, always using false names and moving from place to place. He was probably part of a cell and he probably helped in some bombings, but he would never admit to me for sure, one way or the other. All I know is, that's where he learned how to live the life, and he's never looked back once. Most of the others turned themselves in around 1980. They lucked out actually, because the FBI had broken so many laws trying to catch them that none of the cases against the Weathermen could really hold up in court. Most of those cats are out on the street today, living normal lives."

"But not Winston," said Paul. "Why does he like this crazy-ass life so much?"

"What did I ask you earlier? Are you having fun? For him, the answer to that question is always yes. He's always having fun. And he hasn't given up on his idealism either. Unlike my Crew, he and his group pull scores that have a point, and I admire that. I sometimes wish we were more like them. They hit the capitalists and the polluters and the fascists where they live. Nothing flashy, nothing public, but they get their licks in and live the good life while they do it."

"What do you mean get their licks in? Do they still bomb things? What kinds of things?"

She smiled wryly. "That would be telling. And Winston didn't give me permission to spill those secrets. Not that I really know any details anyway. But no, they don't bomb things, nothing violent anymore. No blowing things up either. But as to specifics, I don't know. Just like Winston doesn't know anything about us helping you settle your score with your old boss or you helping us counterfeit comics. No good can come of telling people shit they don't need to know."

"You mentioned that you wished your crew was more like Winston's. More socially active or whatever. Why aren't you? Why not do cons with a political point instead of just stealing from people?"

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"Like I said, I'd like to. I'd probably love it if I tried it. But that's just not our vibe."

"That's right, you're all about the money."

"Sort of, yeah, of course. We're about the money because the money is what keeps the crew together and happy. And the crew's my family. My peeps. I want them to be happy."

"Huh," said Paul, mulling her words over. There was something to what she was saying, but he couldn't put his finger on it, something about the difference in the vibe between Chloe's crew and Winston's. Chloe's crew felt like a fraternity or a club - people who were very close and supported one another, but who all had their own agendas. Winston's crew on the other hand, felt like a family. Like the most important thing in the world was supporting each other. That was the sense he'd gotten anyway, but he'd only spent one night with them.

"So how did you meet Winston anyway?" he asked. "How did you two become so close?"

"There's a whole network of groups like ours out there, each Crew operating totally independently from one another. But we do keep in touch. Winston, in fact, is the one who originally set up the network, at least here on the West Coast. Not that many people know that anymore. But we all communicate with one another through coded message boards and secret drop sites. It's good to have other contacts in the game in case you need something from an area of expertise you can't cover. We're pretty well rounded, because that's the way I like my Crew to run. But others specialize. There's hacker specialists or surveillance specialists or even breaking and entering specialists, all kinds of different crews out there. More than the government would care to imagine I'm sure. When our Crew was first getting started, Winston somehow found out about me and introduced my little group into the network. He's my mentor in the life."

Paul sat in silence and thought about this idea for a moment. Chloe started to say something else, but he interrupted her. "I never know when to believe you and when not to."

"Why's that?"

"Well, you're an admitted con-woman for one."

"Sure, but why do you doubt me now?"

"Because it's crazy, that's why! You're telling me you're part of some vast underground conspiracy or something. That there's this whole network of you out there living off the books and pulling scams on us normal folk."

"What's crazy is that you consider yourself normal folk," said Chloe. "Beyond that, why's the rest of it so crazy? We're a community, not a conspiracy. Like Dead Heads or the mob or biker gangs or any other specialized group in this country. It's not crazy - in fact it's so commonplace I'm surprised you're surprised."

Paul didn't know what to say to this and so said nothing. After a moment Chloe turned the music back up and concentrated on the drive. Her story seemed to fit everything he'd seen with his own two eyes over the past couple of weeks, but it didn't fit at all into the world-view he'd developed over the past thirty years or so. He still had a lot of questions, but decided it was better not to press the issue now. He rode on in silence for a few more minutes before launching a new conversational gambit aimed at lightening the mood.

"Who is this band we're listening to anyway?" he asked. "The woman singing sounds familiar but I don't know the song."

"It's me, you goofball, of course you recognize it," she said. "Me and my band. The Flying Crutchmen."

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"You were in a band?"

"You've obviously never heard me sing - of course I was in a band." She looked wistfully out the window, as if remembering her glory days on the stage. "Man, I could tell you some stories about those days."

"Go ahead," said Paul, "It's a long drive."

It was over an hour later, when she couldn't stop herself from laughing during her description of the band's tour of Albania, that Paul finally realized she was bullshitting him once again. But her stories made the ride pass in fun, and they both laughed when he called her on it. And Paul definitely preferred her when she laughed.