A Naked Singularity: A Novel

by Sergio De La Pava

  “Have you thought about what I said Casi?”

  “You said something?”

  “Man you looked pissed Friday.”

  “Friday?”

  “When you got that verdict.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I was there.”

  “Where?”

  “In the courtroom.”

  “Why didn’t you say anything?”

  “What was there to say?”

  “What were you doing there?”

  “Did you know studies indicate that 94.3 percent of the time an individual changes his or her mind he or she later comes to regret that change. Did you know that figure jumps to 99.9 percent when the mind change involves participation in a heist or caper?”

  “I’d need to see the underlying figures. When is this thing anyway? Ten days you said? Ten days from last Wednesday is this weekend and I’m going to be in Alabama anyway so I guess we can forget all this.”

  “Here’s why what I’m proposing is just.”

  “Will you forget all that, deal with my logistical objection first.”

  “Okay when are you coming back? Who cares anyway, it’s simple, cancel the trip.”

  “Can’t.”

  “Why in the world are you going to Alabama?”

  “To meet with my death penalty client.”

  “Send the other guy.”

  “He can’t, he’s getting married or something.”

  “Easy then, just bail out. I see attorneys do it all the time when they realize the extent of the time commitment. I mean it’s not part of your employment here, you have no responsibility or debt to anyone.”

  “Bail on the project? You nuts? You actually think I would dick Toomberg in that manner? No way, Toom’s the only friend I have hence I’m not dicking him. I’m going, I leave Friday and don’t return until Monday so it’s not happening, sorry.”

  “Fine I’ll go with you and we can keep planning and practicing there. I can always say I’m joining the project.”

  “I see and I guess we’ll just have to contact Escalera and ask him to move the whole drop to Alabama so we can rip him off right?”

  “The exact date of the delivery is three o’clock Wednesday morning. The Wednesday after you get back.”

  “I see. This you know how?”

  “It’s all in this packet. Here.”

  “What the hell is this?”

  “Information. All the information relevant to the heist. The exact date, time, and place, along with a blueprint of the place and other relevant documents. I anticipated questions of the sort you just asked, so every piece of information has a cited source.”

  “This thing’s like . . .”

  “358 pages.”

  “When did you?”

  “What do you think I’ve been doing the last five days? Research, what else?”

  “Where does your research tell you DeLeon is?”

  “Not sure.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well I know he got his $50,000. Where he went with it I don’t know definitively but my guess is Santo Domingo.”

  “How do you know he got his money?”

  “It’s in the packet. Read it later.”

  “So you’ve been busy.”

  “Beaverlike, aside from acquiring the necessary facts—”

  “Facts? What facts? You mean this?”

  “Right. Aside from that, I’ve taken some time to ponder the moral objections you raised earlier.”

  “Forget all that will you. I don’t want to talk about that anymore. So your painstaking analysis leads you to think it would be a good idea to come to Alabama with me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Because we need all the time we can get. Time for us to formulate the plan together and time to practice its execution.”

  “You mean there’s no plan in this packet?”

  “No. I can acquire info of the sort in that packet on my own, but the actual plan has to be a cooperative effort between the two of us in order to be perfect and in order to maximize its chances of success.”

  “Why did you set about acquiring all this info since I had said no? Some of this was acquired before I said yes on Saturday right?”

  “A lot of it but we don’t have unlimited time here so I had to take the chance. Besides I knew you’d come around.”

  “Were you going to do it alone otherwise?”

  “No, it can’t be done alone.”

  “Were you going to go with someone else?”

  “No, it was the two of us or not at all.”

  “Look at me.”

  “What?”

  “Were you going to go with someone else?”

  “No.”

  “So who else have you told?”

  “No one.”

  “I can’t imagine you did all this work on the off chance I would change my mind.”

  “I sleep like three hours a day. What else would I do? Besides I put a lot of stock in my ability to read people. That said, your concern is understandable and only serves to bolster my belief that you are the only person I could do this with.”

  “My belief in you, on the other hand, is taking a hit.”

  “How so?”

  “You propose that you and I, like two members of the Legion of Doom, join forces to engage in a lucrative heist. By way of convincing me to participate you’ve continually pointed to your thoroughness as a primary factor that all but ensures our success. Well I like thoroughness and precision, I really do, but I also recognize that there’s a potential downside to their pursuit. It seems to me that success in a heist involves two major components. One is getting the good, in this case money, the other is not getting caught. Of these two the second is by far the more important. Meaning if we try to do this and for whatever reason are thwarted and never get the money but ultimately nobody is ever the wiser then I can live with that. On the other hand, if we go in there and walk out with tens of millions of dollars, but a year later I’m in jail getting a head start on twenty to life guess what? I won’t consider that a success.

  Here’s why I mention this: The way I see it, any thorough effort expended towards the goal of getting the money has the potential for increasing the chance we get caught. You say you should come to Alabama with me because that will enhance our preparation. I say it will also increase the chances of us getting caught by creating a hard record, a paper trail of airplane tickets, hotel reservations and the like that will tie the two of us together and at the very least increase the chance that if one of us gets caught the other will get caught. You see what I’m getting at? I see this blueprint to the building and I think that’s great and certainly useful. But immediately I also think, how did you get it? And how could you later explain getting a blueprint to the very building where a crime occurred days later? You see every action you take in support of a crime, and that can theoretically be proven later, has to have a compelling innocent explanation.”

  “Are you done?”

  “You want more examples? You say DeLeon got his money. How do you know that? To learn that you probably tied yourself to this group of people in at least some form and moreover in a manner that was likely unique for them and therefore likely to be recalled by them. Just as I’m tied to the whole thing, for better or worse, by virtue of the fact that I am DeLeon’s attorney and attended that meeting. So this pamphlet is not an unqualified good in my view. For example, how was it generated? This thing would be People’s Exhibit 1 in any, God forbid, trial. Is there a record of it anywhere? On a disk? A hard drive? I need to know that all of this has been part of your focus.”

  “May I respond?”

  “Please. But first a warning. Don’t respond by saying that I’m giving law enforcement too much credit and that the things I point out would never conceivably become relevant. If you said something like that I concede you would probably be right, at least under the usual definition of right, but I don’t care for that
kind of right because in this situation I’m not interested in probabilities. I want the thoroughness to cut both ways and be at least as concerned with the contrapuntal aim of avoiding detection. Of course someone honestly claiming to pursue perfection would never resort to such an argument anyway, right?”

  “Is it possible to be proud and chagrined simultaneously? What an astounding lack of faith in me you continually display. If you’ll look closely at the print on the pamphlet that has generated such controversy, you will see that it was generated via a typewriter, with no computer involved in any aspect of the process. Also if you’ll read the last paragraph on the last page you will learn that the typewriter used to create the pamphlet has been destroyed and no longer exists. In fact, when you read the pamphlet closely you will see that every single nugget of information included therein, in addition to identifying its source, is followed by a little section describing the precautions taken during its acquisition. So you’ll see that the thoroughness absolutely does cut both ways and consequently your fears are unfounded.

  As for my suggestion that I accompany you to Alabama, you have a legitimate point; although it is not one that should cause you to lose even the slightest amount of faith in me. It has always been my contention, from the very beginning of our discussions, that in order to achieve the perfect crime the input and insight of both of us would be required. This is different from my previous pursuit of perfection which essentially required only my action. The other interesting difference is the one you’ve now pointed out where there is this byplay and tension between learning as much as we possibly can about this transaction while being careful not to needlessly tie ourselves to this upcoming event that is likely to gain some measure of notoriety at least in its limited community. That’s why you and I are ideally suited to teaming on this. Because you are right to detect a possible slight recklessness on my part as it relates to the possibility of getting caught. Just as I was correct in detecting personality traits in you that would serve to counteract this undesirable element. So rather than shake your confidence in me the preceding should only serve to heighten your confidence in my abilities as evidenced by my choice of you as a partner. In other words, the system I’ve created worked beautifully. I proposed something that was less-than-ideal and you vetoed it. If this is indicative of the skill we will cumulatively bring to this endeavor then you can start reserving those Concorde tickets. I’ll bring the Hydrogen, you bring the Oxygen and we’ll never thirst again.”

  “Or we’ll drown.”

  Next was the fried calamari. I could tell the guy had fried the rings the exactly proper amount of time. What I mean is that, prior to dumping in the squid, he must have heated the oil to the correct temperature of about 350º so that the calamari would fry quickly enough to avoid excessively absorbing oil and fat. The result was beautiful, golden-brown rings of calamari that were neither overcooked nor overly chewy and which were covered with thin breading that clung to the rings even as I dunked them into the moderately spicy cup of marinara sauce provided on the side. Superb.

  “Let’s let today be the last day of inaction,” said Dane. “Take the thing home, read it, and tomorrow we can start to plan in earnest. I think any major objections you might have will be addressed in there.”

  “Tell me what you think is going to happen.”

  “Okay, next Wednesday—”

  “A week from this Wednesday?”

  “Yes, Wednesday morning.”

  “You mean like Tuesday night slash Wednesday morning?”

  “Right. At exactly three in the morning a woman will drive an old Chevy Nova into the garage of 410 East 123rd Street between 1st and 2nd Avenue. In the trunk of the car will be cocaine with a street value of nearly one hundred million dollars.”

  “Where’d you get that address from?”

  “From DeLeon.”

  “When?”

  “Last week, when I spoke to him at the twelfth floor bridge.”

  “How many times total did you speak with him?”

  “Just that once.”

  “For how long?”

  “Slightly over two hours.”

  “What reason did you give him for that level of interest?”

  “He loves to talk and I told him I needed the information because I would be working on his case, which was extraordinary.”

  “Other lawyers and clients were there?”

  “Sure. They came and went. None of them was there for the entire conversation. No one we know either.”

  “It’s not exactly soundproof there. Who’s to say some guy who’s in didn’t hear the whole thing?”

  “No way. C’mon we were careful. Remember he’s a CI, no different than others. We made sure nobody heard.”

  “Did you take notes?”

  “No.”

  “Two hours plus and no notes?”

  “No need. I recorded the entire conversation. A transcript of the complete audio recording is in there and is largely responsible for the packet’s bulk.”

  “How?”

  “Simple. I snuck a little tape recorder in there without anyone knowing. Don’t worry the only tape was destroyed along with the typewriter used to transcribe its contents.”

  “What makes you think he was telling you the truth about the date and location?”

  “I went to the location and I also have the blueprint and 410 is exactly as he described it.”

  “What about the location he gave the cops at our meeting?”

  “Similar but clear across town on the West Side.”

  “Did he tell you if he ever gave the cops a specific date?”

  “Yes. He said he met with them the Tuesday morning before we talked and told them it would be this Saturday at four a.m. A complete lie.”

  “How complete? What kind of place is that?”

  “The place has no connection to anything.”

  “It must have some connection, DeLeon didn’t just create a place similar to the actual location out of thin air.”

  “Fine, you want the whole story. The actual place, 410 East 123rd, belongs to Escalera’s second cousin. The guy’s totally legit, a union electrician and everything, and in no way connected to selling. Anyway Escalera loves the guy’s place and thinks it’s ideal for this kind of thing so about a year ago he starts shopping with help from DeLeon for a similar place to buy. One of the places Escalera looks at is 368 Riverside. It’s a lot like 410 with precisely the kind of garage Escalera likes and everything. Well it never goes much further than that and Escalera ends up buying nothing. So when DeLeon is sitting there and decides to give the cops a fake address he remembers 368 Riverside, which of course has the benefit of being both architecturally plausible yet pretty far from the true location.”

  “And that’s where the cops will be this Saturday at four a.m.?”

  “Exactly.”

  “And when they find nothing they’ll create some excuse to arrest everyone in there then squeeze them for info.”

  “Fine, they’ll get nothing. I checked, the people living there are all squeaky clean. No records, which is rare for that area.”

  “And if the cops say to them do you know someone named Escalera will they say hey isn’t that the guy who almost bought our house?”

  “Very good but no. The house was sold but not to Escalera. It was sold to these clean people who had no contact with Escalera whatsoever.”

  “So what will the cops think on Saturday?”

  “I hope they’ll think that DeLeon pulled a fast one on them and invented the whole scenario to get out.”

  “Doubtful. But what about 410? What’s the deal with that joint?”

  “Clean. I ran the address in all the appropriate databases and as far as I can tell the place has never been the subject of any law enforcement activity at all. The owner is Escalera’s cousin and his wife, both fully clean. Obviously all of that is part of the location’s appeal from Escalera’s standpoint.”

  “Why would this ups
tanding electrician suddenly agree to transform his home into a stash house?”

  “He doesn’t know. You see, as I said, Escalera loves the place and thinks it would be perfect for this but he knows his cousin would never go for it. Well as luck would have it, the couple has a tenth wedding anniversary coming up. So here comes Escalera with their anniversary present, an all-expenses-paid trip to Paradise. Paradise Island in the Bahamas for, you guessed it, the week of the exchange.”

  “Sure about all that? Because DeLeon made it sound like a neutral third party would be there and would be counting the money before giving Escalera the keys to the car with the drugs in it.”

  “All bullshit designed to draw attention away from the real location.”

  “Have you verified any of this?”

  “It depends what you mean by verified.”

  “Ah.”

  “No listen. In addition to verifying that 410 is precisely the kind of place described by DeLeon, I have verified that it is indeed owned by a union electrician and his wife and that the electrician is in fact Escalera’s cousin although he does not share his last name. I have also established that, aside from these two childless individuals, no one else calls that address home. Most importantly, I have verified that these two individuals have booked a flight to sunny Paradise Island for next week. And guess who paid for the tickets? The plastic of one Antonio Escalera. All strong evidence that Mr. DeLeon was telling me the truth don’t you think?”

  “I do. How did you do all that?”

  “Not hard. Deeds, tax returns, Escalera was so proud of the deal he got that he made DeLeon drunk talking about the airline. So I trust you see the unlikelihood that DeLeon invented all of this or even that he referred to this factual backdrop in a fictional way. Correct or should I go into it?”

  “No.”

  “No you don’t see or no don’t go into it because you do see?”

  “Fine, he told you what he thought was the truth.”

  “No he knows the truth. The airplane tickets, for example, are not a product of DeLeon’s mind.”

  “So he told you what was true at the time but that was two weeks before the exchange and we have no source for further information. DeLeon’s gone with the wind. The info he gave you was very specific. Next Wednesday at precisely three in the morning. If that changes, for any one of a million possible reasons, we have no way of knowing.”