Geek Mafia | Page 8

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 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