Sergio De La Pava - A Naked Singularity

“The area is irrelevant because we have to do this inside the building.”

“Fine, ten people then.”

“Only nine of which will be interested in thwarting us.”

“Nine and we are two. The only way, it seems to me, we can ever hope to overcome that discrepancy is to divide the house into its four zones: the basement, the two floors, and the roof. The best thing we have going for us is that seventy percent of their force is in the bottom half of the house and that the relevant zone, the third floor, has only one person.”

“Ballena.”

“Right.”

“A single person entrusted with providing security for all that money and who not incidentally happens to be referred to solely by the Spanish word for Whale despite the fact that everyone agrees he is not obese.”

“True, he’s no doubt large but he is nevertheless only one person whereas we are two highly motivated individuals carrying swords. Anyway you see where I’m going with this right? The drugs that you want to destroy—”

“Have to.”

“Those drugs are on the second floor surrounded by five people. Understand my concern now? See, you haven’t thought about it in terms of zones.”

I reached into a folder on the table and handed Dane a sheet of paper. It was a copy of the blueprint he had included in his packet. On it, the house had been divided into four zones just as Dane had suggested with illustrations depicting the number of people in each zone and the approximate times of their presence. He looked at it, first smiling then concerned.

“Well I see you have thought about it in those terms,” he said. “Which would only make it all the more baffling should you insist on entering the most heavily-fortified zone in the house to destroy the drugs.”

“I know it’s tight,” I said rubbing my chin, laying back, and just generally trying to affect an air of genuine empathic concern for his plight. “But there must be a way and besides I’m not convinced we could even pull this off without implicating the two lower zones anyway.”

“I think we can if we forget about the drugs.”

“So you’re saying come in and leave from the top so we only have to deal with three guys?

“Exactly.”

“But they’re in communication with each other.”

“That’s okay, we can disrupt that pretty easily.”

“I agree we probably have to go in from above for several reasons.” I thought in silence. “The other major option is the garage.”

“That’s tough.”

“Yeah, they’ll be too vigilant there. What if we get inside before Wednesday and are already there when the money arrives,” I said.

“I thought of that but when? You don’t get back until Monday afternoon and by then Escalera and his guys will already be there.”

“So let’s do it Monday afternoon, which is enough time to ensure that the Wednesday morning exchange will be canceled and the mule will be safe.”

“We’re not sure the money will be there remember?”

“Right, sorry.”

“C’mon stay with me.”

“Tired,” I said. I closed my eyes and lay on the sofa. For minutes there were no words until Dane spoke:

“I think that coming in from the top, either from the roof or the third-floor fire escape is our best option. It gives us the most time in the house and in proximity of the money without the entire crew knowing what’s going on.”

“Assuming the entirety will ever know.”

“Right, our job is to minimize the people who are aware of our presence and in that way attempt to deal with the disparity in numbers.”

“Yes, and as a backup I think we should explore ways in which we might be able to create the illusion of greater numbers on our part.”

“Nice, now you’re awake,” he lit a cigarette and exhaled as if an important segment was behind us. “So correct me if I’m wrong but it seems we’ve agreed we have to go in around three from either the roof or the fire escape.”

“Yes,” I said.

“And we agree we’ll leave the drugs alone.”

I said nothing.

“We agree we’ll leave that heavy, impractical chest, whose contents will be spread all over a room containing five armed protectors on a floor we don’t even have to enter to acquire our money, alone. Alone.”

I looked away and at the window, only I couldn’t see through the window and to the outside for the condensation. Visibility was poor.

“Forget the drugs right?”

“…”

“Right?”

“Let’s go on with the plan, we don’t have to decide everything all at once.”

“Fair enough.”

“And I don’t think the fire escape is going to work either,” I said. “For one thing, it’s on the front of the building where anybody on the street can see. If it was on the back facing that little yard they have, that would be a different story. Also it leads into the main room of the floor where The Whale is likely to be waiting or at the very least where you would expect him to spot us immediately, not good. Again if it led into some minor forgotten part of the floor it would be a far more attractive option.”

“Which takes us to the roof entrance.”

“Exactly.”

“Which gives every indication of leading into precisely the kind of minor, hidden area you’re talking about.”

“Yes,” I said. “At least judging from the video.” (Dane had obtained, from what he assured me was an untraceable computer source, a video of a virtual tour of 410 from when it was briefly on the market six months earlier.)

“So consequently you say roof.”

“Yes, I think we can come down and out that door into that little alcove and gather there before Ballena or Whale or whatever has the slightest idea what’s about to hit him.”

“I agree. It’s a strange kind of roof access for a residence, lucky for us.”

“Yeah if it was the kind of thing where we had to drop one of those crazy attic ladders or something that would make it a lot more difficult that’s for sure.”

“So there you have it. This will actually be easy the more I think about it.”

“Whoa, I wouldn’t go that far. There’s still the problem of getting past the two roof guys before we even get to that alcove right?”

“Right and twice since we’ll likely plan on leaving through the roof as well.”

“So?” I said.

“So, Casi, I think it’s a reasonable assumption to make that of the two guys on the roof one will be watching the front, the other the rear. And we know they will have point to point radios to communicate with the other guys if necessary, should they see police or anything else suspicious. Now as an initial matter it would seem we have to get on that roof from one of the two adjacent roofs.”

“There’s no gap right?”

“No gap on either side but there is one critical difference. 410 faces north right? Well the building on its east side is taller than 410 while the building to the immediate west is shorter. I think we need to come over from the taller building to the east for two reasons. First, we’re going to have to be on one of the adjacent rooftops sometime before three and obviously we don’t want to be seen. Well it’s going to be a lot easier to avoid being seen by people who are below us than by those above us looking down. Second, we’re going to want to have as easy a journey from rooftop to rooftop as possible and from the rooftop to the east we will have the help of our friend gravity. So I think we need to come from the east, from 408 specifically. Now as luck would have it, there’s an abandoned building three doors down from 408 at 402 East 123rd Street.”

“Really?”

“I’m telling you it’s fate. The building is all boarded up and is fairly impenetrable save for a side door to the basement that takes you up to what used to be the kitchen and if you keep going up from there you can get to the roof in a manner similar to 410.”