Sergio De La Pava - A Naked Singularity

“There’s no gap between 408 and 410, what about between 402 and 408?”

“One gap, between 406 and 408. Maybe eight feet, we can deal with it.”

“How?”

“Obviously we still need to create a lot of details but before we do that let me give you, in general, what I propose.”

“Go ahead.”

“I will make a key to that door at 402. Sometime prior to next Wednesday, I will use that key to go into that building and leave everything we need to do the heist. I’ll leave the swords, the radios, the clothing, everything so it’s waiting for us that night. On that night we go to 402. We take the swords. We go up to the roof. We cross, cross, cross until we get to 408.”

“What about the gap?”

“A ladder, pole vault whatever.”

“What-vault?”

“Pole.”

“I don’t even know what that could possibly mean.”

“Like I said, we’ll get to the details later. To continue, when the time is right we jump down to the roof of 410 from 408. We go down the staircase and out to the second floor. We deal with Ballena and take the bag without allowing him to notify the others. We go back up to the roof, all the way across back to 402, back down to the basement, out the side door and home with our money. Any questions?”

“Many. Are all of the buildings from 402 to 408 the same height.”

“Yes.”

“Good.”

“Except for the gap we can practically fly between 410 and 402.”

“I hate the gap.”

“Fuck the gap, no big deal.”

“So how do we get to 402? How do we get out of there when we’re done?

“We have to decide that.”

“How do we get past those two guys on the roof twice?”

“We have to figure that out as well but what do you think about the plan in general?”

“I think it’s good, or at least our best bet, but our success seems really contingent on the accuracy of DeLeon’s information, to a degree I’m not entirely comfortable with.”

“How so?”

“Well for example, how do we know that Ballena will be the only guy on the second floor? That’s a huge issue too. It seems to me you would want more than one person protecting that kind of money.”

“We know because you heard DeLeon. Escalera does it the same way every time and he’s not about to change now. Ballena is always alone in a separate, nearby location or room until they weigh and test the drugs. Then they radio him and he brings the money over.”

“But this is a big deal.”

“But not a risky one from their perspective. The last thing they expect is a move on that money. From who? A guy about to get it anyway?”

“Maybe you’re right.”

“I am right, DeLeon’s right.”

“So how do we get by the roof guys?

“I think we might need to create a distraction.”

“That’s the last thing I think we should do,” I said. “Any distraction we create artificially might have the opposite of the intended effect. If I’m sitting there all complacency and suddenly something out of the ordinary happens, the first thing I’m going to do is safeguard what’s at risk.”

“That’s a risk, no doubt.”

“On the other hand, we might have the perfect built-in distraction.”

“What’s that?”

“Well what’s that house going to look like at exactly three a.m.? Think about it. At exactly that time the Nova will pull up to the garage. The north side roof guy at least will be watching the car from the roof to assure that it arrives alone and with only one occupant. The three guys in the basement will be watching the door open, checking the car, unloading the chest. The three on the second floor will first be looking out the window then waiting in anticipation for their cohorts to come up. In short, that seems as good a time as we’re going to get to go in there undetected.”

“Not bad and what I like is that since we know Escalera is a stickler for time we can time it to a tee.”

“Exactly. If we do it right, the first time Escalera will discover something has gone wrong is when he asks Ballena to bring down the dough. When do you think that will be?”

“Well let’s think it through. Three o’clock she gets there. Couple of minutes to get the trunk out and bring it up the stairs. Now they unlock it, spread out its contents and begin the weighing and testing. Remember this is a lot of shit. It’s going to take a while to test it all. Remember also what DeLeon says about Escalera and testing. Escalera is thorough to the point of paranoia. He tests and weighs extensively from every portion of the shipment. This stems from an incident when he got beat, on a minor deal, because he only tested the top and bottom of the stuff and not the middle.”

“What happened to his fascination with the middle?”

“Maybe that was the genesis of it I don’t know.”

“So lots of testing.”

“Yes and Ballena will not be summoned until it is all complete”

“Bottom line?”

“I’ll say fifteen to twenty-five minutes.”

“Those field tests are pretty quick.”

“Yeah but it all has to be weighed and remember that every single portion is being tested. The unknown factor is how the stuff will be packaged. The more individual packages there are the longer the testing.”

“Is there any way it could be less than fifteen minutes.”

“No I don’t see how.”

“So let’s assume the worst case scenario and say we have fifteen minutes to get in there, get the dough and get the hell out of that area before those guys flood the street looking for us.”

“I think that’s right.”

“So what have we established so far Dane?”

“We’ve established that we’re going to use swords, that we’re going to begin at 402, that we’re going to enter 410 through the roof, that we’re going to exit through that same roof and go back to 402. Most importantly, I think we’ve also established that we are two avaricious, insane fucks who refuse to be marginalized by a society that exalts the acquisition of wealth above all else.”

“Okay, I’ll take your word on that last one. That still leaves a lot left to decide. I’m thinking of these things. I made a list while you were talking:

When do we get to 402?

How do we get there?

How do we leave the scene with the dough?

How exactly do we get past the rooftop watchers?

How do we deal with Ballena?

How do we keep him from notifying the others in the house?

Exactly how big is this guy that he warrants being called Whale yet isn’t fat?

There it is off the top of my head. I’m flying Friday morning so between tonight and tomorrow we need to decide these questions to a high degree of certainty.”

“No, to a perfect degree.”

“So?”

“So did you watch The Beastly Burden Channel at all today? They had this Kodiac bear—”

“I don’t have cable.”

“This fucking bear—”

“As I’ve been saying, I think one of the keys is to minimize greatly the amount of time we’re engaged in clearly culpable conduct. For that reason, I think we should arrive at 402 as close to three a.m. as possible.”

“Fine but given that the three o’clock time is a strict go time we don’t want to cut it too close either.”

“Let’s say 2:30 at 402 meaning that an hour later we should be well on our way home with the dough.”

“I like it Casi.”

“How do we get there?”

“How do you get anywhere in this city? Subway I guess.”

“Subway might be okay for getting there but leaving there is still a getaway right? We’re going to make our getaway on the subway where any flatfoot can decide to ask us what’s in the bag?”

“On what basis?”

“So we’re going to rely on their understanding of and respect for the U.S. Constitution now?”