A Naked Singularity: A Novel (68 page)

“Except that when he left me he was going to do something entirely different. So we know he’s capable of changing his mind on this matter and we can’t foreclose the possibility that he did so again.”

“But we also know that he has in fact disappeared and the police are looking for him, making it unlikely that he’s hanging around risking jail or that he in any way cooperated further after we parted.”

“So we’ve gone from perfect to unlikely?”

“No, remember what I said before. There’s a very simple way to test my theory. We know what the false information DeLeon gave to the cops was. All we have to do, and by
we
I mean
I
since you will be in Alabama, is go to the fake location at the fake time and see if there is any police activity. If there is that pretty much confirms my theory and we can proceed in calm.”

“Obviously extreme care has to be taken Saturday right?”

“Certain things go without saying.”

“Don’t overstate what we can determine on Saturday either.”

“I know, I know. The police could be in possession of two dates, including the correct one, and be checking out the Saturday one out of sheer thoroughness, but even you have to admit how unlikely that is.”

“Yes.”

“Bottom line is we’ll know quasi-definitively on Saturday, so let’s get to the actual plan.”

“Fine,” I said. “Given the scarcity of time remaining I think we need to start by mentally eliminating those potential avenues we’ve been ruminating on but which, for whatever reasons, are not practical. Tonight we need to at least substantially narrow the universe of possible plans.”

“I agree. On that note, as I said before, I think it’s going to be very difficult to locate the nephew for example.”

“Yeah I don’t think we should waste any more time on that because even if we could discover that location and get the trunk before Wednesday there’s still the problem of how to turn it into money while also destroying its contents so that’s a dead end in my view.”

“Well we need to talk about that last part but yes I agree that perfection requires we abandon that avenue. Likewise I feel that any further attempts to identify and possibly intercept the mule are similarly doomed.”

“Yes.”

“Which means we have to do this sometime around three a.m. next Wednesday.”

“Right.”

“You’ve studied up, right Casi?”

“Extensively.”

“So you’ll know everything I’m about to say, but here goes anyway. We know that at three there will be ten people in that building, nine of whom are profiled in the packet.”

“Right.”

“Three in the garage to start, one will stay with the mule, the other two will carry the chest up to the first floor. Waiting there will be Escalera, his financial partner Colon, and Grullon who will weigh and test the drugs. If Grullon gives the go-ahead, they’ll signal Ballena who will come down from the second floor with the duffel bag of money. The two will go back to the garage with the bag and give it to the mule consummating the deal.”

“That’s eight.”

“Right, plus the two lookouts on the roof make ten.”

“That we know of.”

“Well that’s all there is from that end, I’m sure of it. But I think you make a good point when you say it’s likely that people from Flaco’s end will be in the area to at least quickly snag the mule and get the money.”

“You would think. Otherwise that’s a lot of money to entrust to someone getting a hundred and fifty dollars.”

“At any rate, what is obvious is that the purchase money is going to have to arrive at 410, assuming it’s not already there, a strong assumption given that the house is still occupied by civilians, sometime before three. The idea therefore is that—”

“No.”

“What? You don’t even know what I’m going to say.”

“Look I know what you’re going to say. Here’s the problem. Several problems actually. First and foremost, if things get fucked up from their perspective, that is, we steal their money, before the mule arrives, then you can be sure they will hold her, torture her, and probably kill her, on the off chance she was involved. And even putting aside the considerable moral difficulty inherent in causing that to happen to someone who is getting a hundred and fifty dollars, a woman no less, there is the practical problem that the only time we can be sure the money will be there is at precisely three a.m. not two-thirty or some other time sufficiently in advance of the exchange to avoid complication.”

“That’s your better argument.”

“Fine, but this is certain, whatever the plan is it must encompass the mule’s safe exit.”

“Okay I’ll give you that you stubborn fuck. And I gave you the crazy swords that are in this bag.”

“The swords were your idea.”

“Only after you proscribed guns, which any self-respecting malfeasant will tell you is a vital element of almost any successful heist.”

“Almost, but who wants to be part of the murky middle right?”

“I gave you all that, understand, but now is the time to concede that your proposed destruction of the drugs must promptly go out the window.”

“No way.”

“It’s so fucking impractical! It will be the death of this thing too.”

“We just need to think of something.”

“Listen, hear me out will you? There are going to be at least ten people, probably more, in the area of that money.”

“The area is irrelevant because we have to do this inside the building.”

“Fine, ten people then.”

“Only nine of which will be interested in thwarting us.”

“Nine and we are two. The only way, it seems to me, we can ever hope to overcome that discrepancy is to divide the house into its four zones: the basement, the two floors, and the roof. The best thing we have going for us is that seventy percent of their force is in the bottom half of the house and that the relevant zone, the third floor, has only one person.”

“Ballena.”

“Right.”

“A single person entrusted with providing security for all that money and who not incidentally happens to be referred to solely by the Spanish word for Whale despite the fact that everyone agrees he is not obese.”

“True, he’s no doubt large but he is nevertheless only one person whereas we are two highly motivated individuals carrying swords. Anyway you see where I’m going with this right? The drugs that you want to destroy—”

“Have to.”

“Those drugs are on the second floor surrounded by five people. Understand my concern now? See, you haven’t thought about it in terms of zones.”

I reached into a folder on the table and handed Dane a sheet of paper. It was a copy of the blueprint he had included in his packet. On it, the house had been divided into four zones just as Dane had suggested with illustrations depicting the number of people in each zone and the approximate times of their presence. He looked at it, first smiling then concerned.

“Well I see you
have
thought about it in those terms,” he said. “Which would only make it all the more baffling should you insist on entering the most heavily-fortified zone in the house to destroy the drugs.”

“I know it’s tight,” I said rubbing my chin, laying back, and just generally trying to affect an air of genuine empathic concern for his plight. “But there must be a way and besides I’m not convinced we could even pull this off without implicating the two lower zones anyway.”

“I think we can if we forget about the drugs.”

“So you’re saying come in and leave from the top so we only have to deal with three guys?

“Exactly.”

“But they’re in communication with each other.”

“That’s okay, we can disrupt that pretty easily.”

“I agree we probably have to go in from above for several reasons.” I thought in silence. “The other major option is the garage.”

“That’s tough.”

“Yeah, they’ll be too vigilant there. What if we get inside before Wednesday and are already there when the money arrives,” I said.

“I thought of that but when? You don’t get back until Monday afternoon and by then Escalera and his guys will already be there.”

“So let’s do it Monday afternoon, which is enough time to ensure that the Wednesday morning exchange will be canceled and the mule will be safe.”

“We’re not sure the money will be there remember?”

“Right, sorry.”

“C’mon stay with me.”

“Tired,” I said. I closed my eyes and lay on the sofa. For minutes there were no words until Dane spoke:

“I think that coming in from the top, either from the roof or the third-floor fire escape is our best option. It gives us the most time in the house and in proximity of the money without the entire crew knowing what’s going on.”

“Assuming the entirety will ever know.”

“Right, our job is to minimize the people who are aware of our presence and in that way attempt to deal with the disparity in numbers.”

“Yes, and as a backup I think we should explore ways in which we might be able to create the illusion of greater numbers on our part.”

“Nice, now you’re awake,” he lit a cigarette and exhaled as if an important segment was behind us. “So correct me if I’m wrong but it seems we’ve agreed we have to go in around three from either the roof or the fire escape.”

“Yes,” I said.

“And we agree we’ll leave the drugs alone.”

I said nothing.

“We agree we’ll leave that heavy, impractical chest, whose contents will be spread all over a room containing five armed protectors on a floor we don’t even have to enter to acquire our money, alone. Alone.”

I looked away and at the window, only I couldn’t see through the window and to the outside for the condensation. Visibility was poor.

“Forget the drugs right?”

“ . . .”

“Right?”

“Let’s go on with the plan, we don’t have to decide everything all at once.”

“Fair enough.”

“And I don’t think the fire escape is going to work either,” I said. “For one thing, it’s on the front of the building where anybody on the street can see. If it was on the back facing that little yard they have, that would be a different story. Also it leads into the main room of the floor where The Whale is likely to be waiting or at the very least where you would expect him to spot us immediately, not good. Again if it led into some minor forgotten part of the floor it would be a far more attractive option.”

“Which takes us to the roof entrance.”

“Exactly.”

“Which gives every indication of leading into precisely the kind of minor, hidden area you’re talking about.”

“Yes,” I said. “At least judging from the video.” (Dane had obtained, from what he assured me was an untraceable computer source, a video of a virtual tour of 410 from when it was briefly on the market six months earlier.)

“So consequently you say roof.”

“Yes, I think we can come down and out that door into that little alcove and gather there before Ballena or Whale or whatever has the slightest idea what’s about to hit him.”

“I agree. It’s a strange kind of roof access for a residence, lucky for us.”

“Yeah if it was the kind of thing where we had to drop one of those crazy attic ladders or something that would make it a lot more difficult that’s for sure.”

“So there you have it. This will actually be easy the more I think about it.”

“Whoa, I wouldn’t go that far. There’s still the problem of getting past the two roof guys before we even get to that alcove right?”

“Right and twice since we’ll likely plan on leaving through the roof as well.”

“So?” I said.

“So, Casi, I think it’s a reasonable assumption to make that of the two guys on the roof one will be watching the front, the other the rear. And we know they will have point to point radios to communicate with the other guys if necessary, should they see police or anything else suspicious. Now as an initial matter it would seem we have to get on that roof from one of the two adjacent roofs.”

“There’s no gap right?”

“No gap on either side but there is one critical difference. 410 faces north right? Well the building on its east side is taller than 410 while the building to the immediate west is shorter. I think we need to come over from the taller building to the east for two reasons. First, we’re going to have to be on one of the adjacent rooftops sometime before three and obviously we don’t want to be seen. Well it’s going to be a lot easier to avoid being seen by people who are below us than by those above us looking down. Second, we’re going to want to have as easy a journey from rooftop to rooftop as possible and from the rooftop to the east we will have the help of our friend gravity. So I think we need to come from the east, from 408 specifically. Now as luck would have it, there’s an abandoned building three doors down from 408 at 402 East 123rd Street.”

“Really?”

“I’m telling you it’s fate. The building is all boarded up and is fairly impenetrable save for a side door to the basement that takes you up to what used to be the kitchen and if you keep going up from there you can get to the roof in a manner similar to 410.”

“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?”