Sergio De La Pava - A Naked Singularity

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.

“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 trying 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.”