Sergio De La Pava - A Naked Singularity

But at the level that Escalera was at and that I had been at, it’s a different story. That shit don’t play. When one of those guys gets arrested usually his boss will post the bail and pay for a lawyer. It’s known that this is supposed to keep the person who was arrested from snitching on the boss, because of gratitude and also from the influence of the lawyer because that lawyer knows who’s paying his bill. I knew it was a little different in this case. First of all, what I just said usually happens on the federal level where the person arrested is charged with something a lot more serious than a dime street sale and is facing a lot more time than I was. Still it wasn’t like you guys were offering community service on the shit either. I was a predicate from a gun charge I picked up years ago that had nothing to do with the stuff I’m talking about now. Anyway I’m hearing three to six and shit and I’m freaking out cause I’ve never done so much as day one anywhere. Here or there. So I got word to E that I was facing real time and whatnot. I expected him to represent and shit, bail me out and get me a lawyer. But he didn’t. Nothing. Instead he treated me like some punk-ass bitch bringing people to spots for a dollar. The worsest part is that he like stringed me along and shit. He kept saying he was going to do something but he never did. There was always some excuse. That was it man! I swore Escalera was dead to me from that moment on.

The only side that was bright in all this, I’m serious the only silver lining that was cloudy, was that I had this man right here as my lawyer. I was even ready to take the three to six believe it or not until I realized this guy meant business. After Casi beat the case at trial and I was released that same night, I flew home and had my first chuleta in six months. That’s a pork chop and it tasted great, like freedom. The next morning who shows up at my door but fucking Escalera! He was like the guy who never got off the fucking bench and whatnot but was the first to spray champagne in the locker room after the win. All of a sudden all he can say is how he knew all along they had nothing on me and how I was right to take it to trial and all that. I wanted to tell him to go to hell since he had done nothing for me from the time I was arrested. He hadn’t even visited me or anything like that. But then I realized he was basically there to kiss my ass. Suddenly I’m his cousin again and I had shown I had true colors and whatnot because I took my case like a man and didn’t go snitching on anyone. And I should go back to working with him because he was working on something big and there was going to be a lot of money to be made and he needed my help and so on. I was broke man, I had nothing. What the hell else could I do? Do you know what it’s like to not have enough money to buy a token and get on a train? That business was the only thing I knew. So I went back.

But it was weird. Even though Escalera was kissing my ass like never before, it wasn’t like I went back to where I was before our beef. He gave me this long speech and dance about how it would be better if I went back to Red and worked my way back up from the street. I’m like better for who bitch ? But he was like assuring me. You’re my number two man he said but now wasn’t a good time for changes. A lot of crazy shit was going on and he needed someone he could trust to be involved in the Red Bags operation, so he could have tabs on what was going on down there. He was working on something huge he said. Something that would make us so much money we wouldn’t have to worry about small-timers like Red anymore but for now he didn’t want to stir the waves. So now I’m back with Red doing street sales but at the same time I’m also getting a nice cut from Escalera and keeping him informed about what’s going down at those spots. I was like a double agent and shit. It was kind of cool actually.

The reason for all that? Well it took me a little while, but I got to the bottom of it and realized why I was so important to E all of a sudden. Why I was being treated more like a partner than before. What was going on was fucked up for sure. Below us and above us it was basically chaostic for sure.

As far as Red was concerned, his spots were being challenged. He was having Crips trouble. Basically the Crips were trying to extend some of their little, pussy operation into Red’s 127th Street spots. I guess their strategy was just to disrupt as much as they could. They were like slashing people who bought or sold red bags of crack at those spots and like trying to instigate a war and shit. This was not the biggest deal in the world, I’m not trying to say that, but it was still something E wanted to keep a close eye on. This was a big difference I noticed after I got out. Escalera seemed to have gotten a lot smarter during the time I was in Rikers. Red Bags was our best customer so anything that was bad for him, anything that disrupted his business, was bad for us. In the worstest scenario case, if Red Bags let those spots go to the Crips for whatever reason he would be moving a lot less shit and buying a lot less from us. The truth is E didn’t really have the muscle to back Red Bags up and none of the other dealers on E’s level were going to get involved because bottom line is those spots being down for grabs was good for them. This had never been a concern before because of the rep Red Bags had as someone not to be fucked with. That apparently had changed and I guess there was the preconception that Red was weaker. I later found out that this happened because one of Red’s most violent guys had been sent upstate for a body and also there was this time where Red backed down from a fight in a park or something. Whatever the reason, all the mayhem down there coincidenced with some crazy shit happening above from us in the DR. The craziness at 127th had to do with the Bloods and the Crips, in Santo Domingo it was about Fat Felix and Freddy El Flaco.

Fat Felix was Escalera’s guy in the DR. They was pretty tight I guess and I knew Felix was giving him a good deal on his shit. I should mention that Fat Felix is the guy I went to see when I was exploring whether I could break away from E when our beef first started. He was this really fat guy. His hands looked like balloons with fingers drawn on them. Anyway when he said no to me then told Escalera about it I guess they got closer from that and everything was good for them. Freddy El Flaco was Fat Felix’s brother. He was flaco obviously. So skinny you could see the bones in his face as if the skin weren’t even there. Flaco and me were total boys. He was in the business too but not really. Only like a little involvement, not like his brother who was a big time guy. Flaco and I had been to each other’s houses millions of times. I knew his fat brother too but just to like say hi and shit.

The problem started when Fat Felix was killed outside the post office in Puerto Plata. After he died that whole operation was in disarray. Basically Flaco became the new boss and if you know Flaco you know that’s crazy because he don’t know much about what’s necessary in the biz and all that. To complicate things, it turns out that when Flaco took over he had a ton of some really special product on his hands. What do I mean by special? As it was explained to me, this is new stuff that cuts the edge as they say. Basically there was a guy over there, dead now, who was like a chemist with his own lab and whatnot. Well I don’t know if he was really a chemist or not but that’s what they called him and shit. Anyway it seems he genetically engineered some crazy mad scientist shit over there for Fat Felix just before they both died. Word is that it’s like ten times more potent than the most potent shit to the date. So you can cut this engineered shit a shitload more times than other shit and it’s still just as strong if not stronger than that shit, I’m not shitting you. This stuff was going to change everything. Unfortunately, no one knows how the scientist did it because he brung the secret to his grave so this is like the last stuff of its kind on Earth. Now usually a hundred kilos is worth like thirteen million on the street right? Well a hundred keys of this new stuff is worth like fifty million because of how much more street product you can get out of the same amount. Well Flaco has two hundred keys of the stuff meaning like a hundred million dollars worth. Problem is he has no idea how to pull off such a big deal. So he decided he’s just going to get rid of the stuff, get what he can for it, then close the whole operation down and hit the beach. This was no surprise to me because I knew Flaco didn’t have the stomach for this business. The problem is a lot of other people knew he didn’t have the stomach for it. Security became a big problem for him over there. With Fat Felix it was totally different because nobody fucked with or doubted him. I never heard of him doing anything violent actually but still he got the props. I guess it was like grammar school remember? Nobody was strong or anything so you were just afraid of the fat kid? Same thing with Felix. Flaco didn’t have that respect because it looked like the wind could break him in half and shit. The problem this caused is that a lot of guys here, when they heard Flaco was the boss, wouldn’t commit to a shipment from him. Okay, when you commit to a shipment you take some of the risk, usually half, if something goes wrong and the shit is seized or whatever. Flaco was having trouble unloading what was a lot of shit. I mean he could, and did, move some of it, little by little, but what he really wanted is to be rid of the whole shit all at once and get out of the racket before he got did like his brother.