But really these dinners would be no fun because of the pressure involved. A dinner with Beethoven would involve much gaping on my part and precious little coherence. Dinner with Traci on the other hand would be a blast. She wouldn’t even have to say much. Just the way I pictured she would dangle on the chair.
Whatever the grace period was, it had to be pretty damn close to expiring. Unless I had mixed up the dates or something—normally inconceivable but with my brain not unprecedented. I would wait just a smidgen longer. Or was it smidge?
In the meantime I would eat bread and think only pleasant thoughts.
Like how when I was a squirt the only thing I would consent to eat at restaurants was fried chicken with orange juice. If they didn’t have either I would have pout for dinner.
Or how a deaf Beethoven was completely unaware of the crowd’s rousing reaction to the initial performance of his Ninth Symphony until someone made him turn around. On May 7, 1824 in Vienna’s Kärnthernor Theater that happened.
I guess another important thing about the talent would have to be its potential profitability. I would want to make enough money so that I never had to think about $$ again. I wouldn’t have to screen calls from insistent student loan organizations. I could return their calls and maybe pay off all my debt right over the phone. I thought of what I would do then.
“Disappointed?”
“Huh? Oh hi. Sorry, what’d you say?”
“Disappointed?”
“No, I just. Oh I thought you weren’t coming and I guess I just spaced out.”
I hadn’t even gotten to do that thing where you stand when your guest arrives before she sat down across from me. Only now my brain had belatedly processed the information and I suddenly stood up while she remained seated, making it look like I was about to leave and basically making me feel like an idiot.
I sat back down.
“Just stretching the old legs,” I said. Mercifully the waiter came over about then, allowing us to use words whose content we were only marginally responsible for. Then as suddenly as he had appeared he was gone and we were once again on stage. To the extent that silence is somewhat acceptable in the context of the entire exercise it is almost verboten at the outset. The ball had to be set in motion.
On the Restaurant:
“Yeah, it’s pretty cool. What do you think?” I said.
“I’ve been here before,” she said.
“They certainly are attentive. The staff I mean.”
“Yes, they’re great.”
“Except it now seems to me that this sort of compulsive attention must be motivated by fear. I wouldn’t bet against an evil supervisory presence in this place.”
“I know the owner.”
“Well, I could be wrong.”
On the Weather:
“I hate it,” she said.
“Yeah, it’s brutal. I can’t remember it being this cold before. Makes you want to perpetually hang in front of a fire and have life delivered.”
“Hmph.”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Imagine not having a place to stay in this cold?” I said.
“I have a fireplace I never use.”
“You should, it’s one of the few winter benefits. Do you ever have professional occasion to go to the morgue? Is it full of homeless hypothermiacs when it gets like this?”
“What?”
On Her Job:
“Plastic surgery? Really? That’s interesting.”
“Very lucrative.”
“It seems like a mostly New York/L.A. type thing right?”
“What do you mean?”
“Is actual plastic involved?”
“Sometimes. Why?”
“Well otherwise the term would seem to be a slap in the face at the type of person who becomes a patient.”
“I don’t think I have any idea what you’re talking about.”
“You know, like there’s surgery for when something is actually wrong and then there would be plastic surgery for plastic, superficial people who can’t cope with their nose.”
On Misunderstandings:
“No I didn’t mean to imply that at all.”
“Right.”
“I’m serious. What kind of a hostile lunatic would purposely insult their dinner companion? I was just trying to be funny.”
On My Job:
“How can you represent someone you know is guilty? I could never do that.”
On How Late It Had Become:
“Yeah wow I didn’t realize how late it was.”
“I have to get up early tomorrow.”
“Me too.”
On Dessert:
“No thanks,” I said.
“No way,” she added.
She lived close enough for me to walk her home and I was Mr. Gentleman doing just that. I wondered why she didn’t mention she lived about a block from the restaurant. I guess if it turned out I was some kind of nut (there are many kinds) I could have used that information to stalk her. Assuming I fell in love with her. No danger of that.
But despite the lowlights, it had been nice to have dinner with someone and I thought I should do it more often. With a different co-star of course. It beat cold pizza before flickering Television.
She was clacking her wide heels up the four or five steps to her door and I was staying put on the sidewalk. Platitudes were exchanged, breath visible. Then:
“Oh, one thing before you go,” I said meekly.
“Yes?”
“I have this pain in my ear. I know it’s not a cosmetic issue but I figured.”
“What?”
“My ear.”
“What about it?”
“It hurts.”
“When does it hurt?”
“Maybe a third of the time.”
“No when?”
“Oh, I don’t know. I guess it hurts when I hear noise.”
“Don’t hear noise,” she said.
chapter 9
Lord knowed it’s a cruel, cruel world
Done gave me ten boys when most wanted me a girl.
—Wee Willie Wheeler, lyrics reprinted by permission of Severed Tendon Music, Inc.
“So we’ll do Queen for a Day okay?”
“Uh-huh.”
“You’re basically familiar with them?”
“Yup.”
“Good. I’m printing it out as we speak, it’s the standard one. You can review it with your client when he gets here.”
“Which is when?”
“My cops just went over to get him from the twelfth-floor bridge, they should be back with him shortly. You can talk to him in here when they get back.”
“Deal.”
“Yeah and I’m sorry we had to do this so soon after the 180.80 date.”
“The next day.”
“I know but supposedly according to my officers your guy had information they need to act on quickly. So I figured if your guy was looking to help himself it was going to have to be sooner rather than later. I was thinking of your guy.”
“Thanks. How long you been with Special Narcotics?”
“Let’s see, this is my seventh year.”
“How do you like it?”
“I like it, I like it a lot. Are you the original attorney on the case? Because I had a Leaves?”
“He transferred the case to me. I’m with a special unit, I only represent rats.”
“Really?”
“No, just kidding. DeLeon wanted me.”
“Oh right. He mentioned he would ask you to take his case over. Did he tell you I talked to him at the precinct?”
“Yeah, you do that often on these run-of-the-mill B sales?”
“No, not at all. I got this call from the Detective. D’Alessio, he’s a good guy, I’ve had him on a couple of cases. Anyway he calls me saying they’ve got this guy with great information about spots I’ve done some work on. I’ve worked on a couple of long-term investigations, which is what I’m try
ing to get into as opposed to these street sales where only the low-level dealer gets arrested.”
“Well you know he’s got a lot of really good information (I guess?) for you guys so I hope you’re prepared to let him out with a misdemeanor.”
“It’s complicated. You know he’s a predicate and—”
“That’s why we need a misdemeanor, this guy’s taking a huge risk.”
“No I know, believe me. We’re very concerned with his safety and we intend to be very careful. That’s part of what we want to discuss here today. As far as the deal, you know we don’t make any specific promises until we hear in detail what he has to offer, that’s just standard. And also any deal would, of course, have to be approved by my supervisor. But if he has the information we think he has and he’s also straight with us—”
“He has excellent information (I guess redux) but I’ve already discussed this with him (lie) and he’s only going to co-operate if it benefits him a lot. And by a lot I’m talking about getting out with a misdemeanor. I mean these guys he’s talking about mean business (I bet).”
“The problem is he’s out there selling and—”
“Exactly. That’s the kind of guy you want. You don’t want some unreliable crackhead who’s going to disappear never to be heard from again. This guy knows a lot, is willing to talk, and would make an excellent witness. This is a minor case. He has to get a misdemeanor. He has to get out while it’s pending and ultimately get a misdemeanor.”
“Look we’re getting ahead of ourselves here. We don’t even know if he has any useful information. And you know we don’t make any promises until we hear what he has to say. Once we hear what his information is—”
“That’s fine if that’s the tack you want to take. But you’re not exactly inspiring confidence in me that you’re going to give him a walk at the end of this. Given that, I don’t see any reason for him to endanger himself by meeting with you now. This isn’t an A felony, it’s a B sale for Chrissakes.”
“Well he’s a predicate and if we don’t make any offer.”
“He’ll take 4½ to 9. I’ll get that from any judge in two weeks. At least then he doesn’t have to worry about his safety.”
“That’s his right. If that’s how you want to advise him. But I have to tell you he’s already told my cops a lot and we don’t even really need him all that much.”
“That’s silly. Now you’re trying to take advantage of my inexperience I think. First, if you’re going to want a search warrant you’ll need him to go before the judge. Also you can’t tell me with one side of your mouth that you can’t make any promises until you hear what he has to offer then with the other tell me he’s already given you so much quality information that you don’t need him any more. I know he’s given you a lot of information and I know it was good stuff or we wouldn’t be here. It seems to me you can come back to me with, if not a promise, then some idea of what you will offer him in exchange for his co-operation. I’m not trying to be difficult (yes I am) but fair’s fair (whatever that means) and I have a client to worry about.”
“No, I know. I can appreciate that and I haven’t said that we wouldn’t be inclined to let him out or to give him a misdemeanor. But . . . well, I think the proper . . . give me a minute . . . I’m just going to talk to my supervisor for a minute about this.”
“Yeah, tell him fair’s fair man. This guy’s got excellent information.”
“I’ll be right back.”
Right genius, some detective calls you to the precinct based on what my chump client is blurting out and you then drag me in here all urgency the day after his 180.80 and I’m not supposed to get the distinct idea that you would be extremely pleased were he to cooperate? And given the fact that I couldn’t stand doing this kind of confidential informant bullshit, at the very least I was going to walk out of there knowing my client was getting a sweetheart deal that would keep him off my back and make the case a minimal-lifting type deal. And the biggest lie was that the cops would be right back with DeLeon when we both knew that shit always took forever-plus. And this constant checking with the supervisor nonsense prosecutors had to do was annoying too. Though not as annoying as a guy essentially committing himself to cooperating on a case where I could have probably gotten him two to four, maybe even one and a half to three, with that possibility now having flown out the window and me desperately trying to win back some sort of leverage so I didn’t feel like an impotent observer.
“No I talked to my supervisor and he says that a misdemeanor is a definite possibility so that’s that.”
“What about him getting out?”
“Yes, possibly, depending on whether or not the cops feel they could use him out on the street to work on this thing. But basically, like I said, I can’t make any promises yet, but if your guy does his part we’re prepared to basically walk him at the end.”
“Good to know.”
“Good, so that’s out of the way. Here’s the agreement so you can look it over until my officers get back. Um, I’m going to step out for a minute. They should be back any second.”
He lingered silently in the threshold just a second before leaving. I didn’t really know what to make of this Dacter guy. Alone in his office, which had four desks but no other humans, I shivered as the wind whipped through the many cracks between faceless air conditioner and inconsistently-painted window. I lent him some thought. Had he said seven, because why then the nerves? By year seven there ought be decidedly less let’s-say-intimacy between attorney and case than the amount he was evincing. So either he was a true incompetent, meaning he possessed more than just the generally accepted level of this trait, or there was something about the info DeLeon was feeding him that had visions of grandeur dancing in this meathead’s head of meat. I would have to find out, would have to induce him to reveal things he shouldn’t. And I loved getting those guys to talk. Oh yeah, they thought, you seem like you’re cool and not really into the adversarial aspect of this job so I’m going to start divulging all sorts of interesting and useful material now—only when you later use that same material against me please do so in a manner that’s all apologetic. Oh and references to the fact that you’re not trying to be difficult are also appreciated.
But wait because what if I was misjudging the whole thing? After all, chances were nobody could be as smart as I thought I was, and fools are often the last to know their status as such. Maybe this clown’s nerves arose from the fact that he was somehow screwing me and my client and was fearful that at any moment I might awaken from my overconfident slumber to say hey, wait just a second. And I then thought it possible that the answer hid in the freshly-printed Queen for a Day agreement I held in my hand. I read it quickly to see. What I read was this:
DEBRIEFING AGREEMENT
With respect to the meeting of Roger P. Dacter, an assistant District Attorney in the Office of the Special Narcotics Prosecutor for the City of New York (“Office”) and/or Detective Adam D’Alessio of the Manhattan North Narcotics Unit with Ramon DeLeon (“Client”) to be held on the date of this memorandum, the following understandings exist:
(1) Should any prosecutions be brought against Client by this Office, this Office will not offer as evidence in its case-in-chief any statement made by Client at the meeting, except in a prosecution for false statements or perjury.
(2) Notwithstanding paragraph one, (a) this Office may use information derived directly or indirectly from Client’s statements at the meeting for the purpose of obtaining leads to other evidence, and if any such evidence is developed, it may be used in any prosecution of Client; and (b) should any prosecution of Client be undertaken, this Office may use statements made by Client at the meeting and all evidence obtained directly or indirectly therefrom for the purpose of cross-examination should Client testify, or to rebut any evidence offered by or on behalf of Client in connection with the prosecution.
(3) Client agrees to waive his right to have his attorney present on his behalf duri
ng the meeting.
(4) This agreement is limited to the statements made by Client at the meeting held on this date, and does not apply to any oral, written or recorded statements, made by Client at any other time. No understandings, promises, agreements, or conditions have been entered into with respect to the meeting other than those set forth in this agreement, and none will be entered into unless in writing and signed by all parties.
Which was like the height of routine and so served to simultaneously sate and inflame my suspicion. And it was into this quizzicality that round-faced DeLeon, his hands cuffed behind his back, entered escorted by a linebackersized collection of muscles topped with obviously-dyed and jellied yellow hair that forcefully extended its hairy paw at me.
“Defense attorney?” he wondered.
“Yes.”
“Detective D’Alessio. Nice to meet you. Have you seen the DA?” He had just walked out, I said, and it was resolved that Mr. DeLeon and I would be left alone to discuss whatever was routinely discussed between hopeful soon-to-be-rats and their annoyed attorneys.
“So here you are,” I said. “Obviously, they want to talk to you.”
“Are they going to let me out?” he whispered
“Depends.”
“What do you mean?”
“Depends on how useful you prove to be in their eyes.”
“Aw man, forget it then. They have to let me out. This information is that good!”
“Listen I’m not the one who told you to cooperate. I’ll be glad to tell this DA you have nothing to say and we can both walk out of here.”
“And I’ll get out?”
“Yeah Ramon, you’ll get out. Of course not, what are you talking about?”
“What will they give me if we don’t talk to them?”
“Nothing. No offer’s my guess.”
“No offer? Why no offer?”
“Well, the reason’s this. They’re obviously interested in what you have to say or else they wouldn’t have rushed us in here. If you now turn around and say you don’t want to cooperate you can bet they’re going to try and squeeze you by not making any offer.”
A Naked Singularity: A Novel Page 28
