Sergio De La Pava - A Naked Singularity

That’s how E got involved. Flaco remembered I had gone to see his brother about that deal. He knew he could trust me. He decided he would offer me and E all the stuff he had at a ridiculously good price. How good a price? Well usually to buy 200 keys at our level in New York, not that E could ever afford to buy that much at once but still I know, would cost about five million dollars. Now because this stuff is so pure and revolutionary it should go for like thirty mil at least. Flaco decided to offer it to us, through me, at maybe half that which was a gift. Remember man the stuff is worth at least a hundred mil on the street. Of course not that E would be the one converting it into street money but still, even if he only gets a third of that, it’s still the kind of sweetheart deal that could set E up for years. Well Flaco reached out to me here with the offer. The problem is this was during the six months I was in. He was put in touch with Escalera who saw a chance to make a great score that could solve all his problems. It’s a little complicated, I’ll get into it later, but basically the deal was so good that after it was done E would be in the kind of position, fiscally and muscle-wise, that regardless of how the 127th Street situation turned out, he could dictate the terms of dealing in that area so that only his stuff would be sold there. He saw his opportunity, I give him credit for that, and he proceeded to try and deal with Flaco himself. The problem is that Flaco trusted only me and only involved E because he thought we was tight again. When he started to suspect that there was still little beef between us, he wanted assurances that I was going to be involved. This explained the ass-kissing. For Escalera everything was riding on this. If he could make this deal and get all that shit at that price then he was set. He would be richer and more powerful than ever and could move to another level. On the other hand, if it didn’t work out he could be finished. Remember, he had lost Fat Felix and that good price and he was in danger of 127th blowing up soon. That motherfucker was this close to spending the rest of his life selling weed to NYU geeks at Washington Square Park!

He was scared of me and what I might do. He knew I was pissed because he had knocked me down to street level and basically gotten me busted. He was afraid I might tell Flaco to forget him and deal with someone else. So he lied to Flaco and told him I was in jail but that I would be getting out soon and had been advised of everything and was onboard with the whole thing. All bullshit. That’s why he didn’t bail me out because he figured if I didn’t know about the whole Flaco deal I couldn’t fuck it up for him. I guess he thought I would eventually go upstate and by then the deal with Flaco would be so far along that it would go through. He didn’t count on my man here though and when I got out that threw a big monkey bone into the whole deal. He knew he had to kiss my ass and get me to work closely with him on the Flaco deal. I was pissed but money is the cure of all evil as they say and once I was caught up to speed I realized I was in a position to walk away from this in great shape too. I also realized that I couldn’t really do anything about this great offer by myself because I didn’t have the money to pull it off. I had this great connection because Flaco was now the man to know but I needed the money Escalera had. Actually, I shouldn’t say the money Escalera had . The amount and worth of the drugs involved was a lot more than we were used to. So much more that, even at the great price we were paying, E had nowhere near the money needed to make the buy. This is what I mean about Escalera having gotten smarter. He set about getting financing for the deal. It was a UPO I think he called it. An Unidentified Public Offering or something.

You see, the problem was where do you get the bills? You can’t exactly walk into the nearest bank and ask for a loan to buy a huge amount of genetically engineered coke. To cut to the chase, what Escalera eventually did is hook up with this guy Colon who I told you about at the precinct. Colon does the same thing as Escalera but on a bigger level. He moves a lot more shit and has a lot more bread. I don’t know much about Colon’s operation because E made sure I didn’t have too much contact with him, probably out of fear that I would try to squeeze him out of the deal, but basically Colon and Escalera became a partnership. Colon wants the access to this deal that E can give him and E needs the money that Colon can supply. Thank God they both need me because Flaco has said he won’t go through with the deal without me being involved.

Anyway we agreed with Flaco on a price of ten million dollars. Yeah, I know. Serious money but in this case a huge bargain. My guess is that like eighty percent of that money would come from Colon. Even so, at the end of the buy Colon and Flaco would merge the areas they were supplying, get a lot more muscle into their operation, and basically change the way business would be done there. After this deal they would be powerful enough to set it up so that, for example, no crack could be sold at say 128th Street that wasn’t bought from them. This way it wouldn’t matter which way the war between the Bloods and the Crips ended because either way the winner would have to get their shit from E if they wanted to sell in the area they were fighting over.

And that was basically the status of the whole thing when I got popped for this shit here. E kept saying I had to keep doing that street shit so Red Bags wouldn’t get all suspicious and shit and maybe fuck things up. It was a stupid thing to do. I should have just retired out of that shit. I don’t know why I listened to that idiot. Anyway, I must have the worst luck in the world cause I did this hand to hand and here I am. There’s more details of course. I don’t know how much you want to get into the specifics and whatnot.”

“So the deal is still on far as you know?” pleaded D’Alessio who looked like he was about to shine Ramon’s shoes.

“It was all set up when this shit happened. Supposably it was going to go down very soon but like I told you if I don’t get out soon that shit’s going to fall apart because Flaco will not deal if it’s not with me, I’m telling you that right now. Right now it’s been like seven days since I talked to Flaco and that’s not good because this shit was supposed to happen mad soon.”

“What has Escalera said since you were arrested?”

“What else? He freaked! He knows the whole thing is on jeopardy. He was going to bail me out the first day and get me a lawyer and shit but I already knew I was going to take his ass down and I don’t want to have to deal with one of his lawyers and shit. So I told him I was getting the same lawyer who beat my case before and that he said he was getting me out in a couple of days. If I don’t get out soon though I know he’ll get suspicious why I don’t want a lawyer and shit and he’s going to figure it out that I’m cooperating. Also by now I’m sure Flaco is wondering where my ass is and I need to get on that quick to smooth things under and shit. So I’m looking to get out today to make that happen.”

“We’re certainly going to explore that. We talked about this last time. We need to know exactly when and where this buy is going to happen.”

“Am I going to get out?”

“Well you’re certainly not going to get out if you don’t cooperate with us Ramon.”

“You have to tell us where this is going to go down Ramon. Then we can help you out,” Gans was back and in between sips of gold soda he’d decided to do some detecting.

“All right man but I better get out! It’s going down a week from Saturday at 368 Riverside Drive between 112th and 113th. At 4:00 a.m. the stuff will be there and so will the money. There. You happy? You putting my life in danger! I better be decompensated for it.”