Sergio De La Pava - A Naked Singularity

Sometimes I felt like a nut. The kind of nut who could go up to those guys, bang their heads together Stooges style, and walk away before the police arrived; never to be heard from again.

The Post had a Special Exclusive Fold-Out Commemorative Collector’s Edition Section on Tula. Sponsored by the good folks at Sony who not incidentally brought you The Casio Carousel. It contained a Tale of the Tape comparing the two seven-year-old killers. Everything but their names because of their ages: instead they were Killer 1 and Killer 2. Tula’s was compared to previous horrors and it was strongly hinted that Tula was the victor. Psychologists were interviewed and they responded by spitting out, without the slightest hesitation, capsule psychological profiles, color-coded, for One and Two. The defense lawyers were interviewed and their vital information — phone numbers, addresses, websites — was given. The President, of the country, had a statement. The neighbors, in deference to one of the norms mandated by these situations, were heard from. The police told the reader what had happened, what would happen, and how.

The footage is what everybody really wanted, when could they see it?

But the Video Vigilantes were suddenly shy. Mayor Toad seemed to have become at least an honorary vigilante and he explained that negotiations for the release of the video were ongoing. The Post had exclusive rights. Not to the video or to any of its images, but rather to the announcement of when and where the video and images would be released, and through what venue. You were urged to stay tuned. Only tuned couldn’t be right I thought. Once released, Julie Stole reported, the footage could be played on an endless loop thanks to an ingenious new device called The Casio Carousel and the story went off in that direction but without me.

The reason I didn’t want to go into that building was the rotten timing. Except for Soldera’s return I had no cases on. Usually good but then meant that for the majority of the day I’d be sitting target for anyone interested in discovering what happened the Friday before, not the sort of thing I enjoyed.

Like seeing Liszt walking towards me in the hall and thankfully not noticing me, which reminded me of maybe punching a hole in his wall. I quickly ducked into the first office to my left before he could spot me.

“Yes?” It was Debi, her office I had leapt into and what the hell was she doing there so early?

“Oh hi.”

“Hello Casi. What is it?”

“Oh I… just wanted to ask you something.”

“What?”

“What’s what?”

“Your question?”

“Question?”

“You said question.”

“Right.”

“So?”

“So what?”

“So what is it?

“I was wondering if you could… tell me what… the… temperature… is today.”

“The temperature?”

“Yeah, the weather.”

“Believe I heard say it was nine degrees.”

“Wind chill?”

“No, regular.”

“Celsius?”

“No, Fahrenheit.”

“Kelvin?”

“Once again, Fahrenheit.”

“Wow.”

“Yes.”

In situations like that I’m often perfectly willing to let my opponent think me possibly insane rather than expend the social effort necessary to rehabilitate my good name so I split.

I sat in my office and waited but nothing happened. Not at first and not later. Julia and Leon didn’t arrive and I discerned they wouldn’t. Outside, the swirl of activity increased steadily and I picked up bits and pieces of information. It seemed Swathmore would be on vacation all week and that accounted for the looseness in the air. An attorney was in big trouble too. What would they do to him? Assault is what it was. She had heard forgery. Contempt. A new guy. Had he heard about the nine degrees? Because that was without the wind chill factor having been factored in, and said factoring was reportedly required by law; meaning meteorological law. And even though there was surprising agreement that seemingly little by way of wind was present out there, it was also universally agreed that a post-factor negative number could be expected. Yes.

It was then, at that height of auditory receptiveness, that I decided I would not leave my office that day, for any reason, until it was time to feed my mouth around one o’clock. Soldera could wait until the afternoon, he wasn’t going anywhere with Cymbeline in charge anyway.

Everything I would need could be piped in. The room would function as a makeshift womb. Bobbing and awash in amniotic fluid, I would ingest its silent emptiness and reflect upon both my last near-quarter-century and my next move.

Once I made this decision, the outside noise, as if in direct response, seemed to die down then disappear.

I knew so little.

But I knew that the stillness of that moment, the solemn sanctity I had managed to create out of pure silence and inaction, would never ever be disturbed.

“What say you Casi?” said Dane loudly. “I tried you all weekend. What’s going on? Don’t you talk to your answering machine? So you lost. Big deal. That entitles you to turn into a recluse? Did you forget we have work to do? You call Saturday morning to give the green light then fall off the face of the Earth? Notice the interrogatory lilt at the end of these sentences by the way. You need to put this behind you, the sooner the better. Throw yourself into your work. Your work, and mine of course, is extracting those millions from that building.”

“You sure you don’t want to use our P.A. system when you say that? Because I’m not sure the guy who sells papers in the lobby heard it.”

“Now you’re working with me. Get angry. A little anger is good I always say. Of course, a lot of anger is even better but I usually leave that part out. One thing we can all agree on is the clear enemy: complacency. So when do you want to start planning?”

“Look I hadn’t slept in days.”

“The human body, regrettably, needs sleep.”

“Right.”

“The effects of extreme sleep deprivation have been likened, by those who do that kind of likening, to the use of hallucinogenic drugs.”

“Exactly. I know, and when I talked to you that morning I hadn’t slept in some days. Well actually when I spoke to you I had just slept seventeen hours.”

“Straight?”

“Yeah, but before that I hadn’t slept in several days and I think it affected, I mean I know it affected, my brain and what I was thinking.”

“I haven’t read anything talking about the effects of too much sleep.”

“No it’s still sleep deprivation if looked at from the perspective of several days.”

“Maybe, but seventeen hours? Sheesh.”

“What I’m trying to say is that I wasn’t really thinking straight when we talked.”

“Straight?”

“Right. Not straight. Crooked maybe. I was thinking crooked.”

“Like a crook.”

I laughed. “You get where this is going right? I’m not going to be partaking in any desperate heist.”

“Me either don’t worry. I would never participate in a desperate heist. This heist is going to be methodically thought out and planned, as well as expertly executed. But not if we don’t get going soon on our preparations. I’ll come get you for lunch and we’ll start. Bye.”

I sat there trying to cultivate the reborn silence, but this one lasted even less time than the previous one.

“So?”

“Toomie! Where were you yesterday? I called you every hour on the hour.”

“I didn’t get any message.”

“I don’t leave messages.”

“So what happened?”

“When?”

“With the case.”

“Ah the case. What do you think happened? I lost because of that ridiculous defense you made me put forth.”