Original subtitles

[funky music playing]

♪ Well, you can tell by the way I use my walk ♪

♪ I'm a woman's man, no time to talk ♪

♪ Music loud and the women warm ♪

♪ I've been kicked around since I was born ♪

♪ But now it's all right, that's okay ♪

♪ You may look the other way

♪ We can try to understand ♪

♪ The New York Times' effect on man ♪

♪ Whether you're a brother or whether you're a mother ♪

♪ You're stayin' alive, stayin' alive ♪

♪ Feel the city breaking and everybody shaking ♪

♪ And we're stayin' alive, stayin' alive ♪

♪ Ah, ah, ah, ah, stayin' alive, stayin' alive ♪

♪ Ah, ah, ah, ah, stayin' alive... ♪

Louis Tre.

Two-twenty a pop, Essex?

You must be feeling festive.

I think I just closed the biggest deal of my life.

Well, in that case, let's start a tab.

♪ It's okay, I'll live to see another day ♪

♪ We can try to understand

♪ The New York Times' effect on man... ♪

What's she drinking?

Margarita, rocks.

Next one's on me.

♪ Feel the city breaking and everybody shaking ♪

♪ And we're stayin' alive, stayin' alive ♪

♪ Ah, ah, ah, ah, stayin' alive, stayin' alive ♪

♪ Ah, ah, ah, ah, stayin' alive... ♪

♪ Yeah... ♪

MAN: Hey.

Need a light?

Thanks.

[screaming]

[explosion]

[camera shutter clicking]

Who we looking at, Flack?

Essex Palmer. Well, what's left of him.

29-year-old Internet entrepreneur.

According to witnesses,

one minute he lit up, the next minute he blew up.

Exploding cigar?

Apparently, the guy was a regular

with a twisted sense of humor

and a history of pulling practical jokes.

On himself?

He's a young guy, suffering a painful death

in a public place--

I don't think he was in on this joke.

FLACK: No....

Talk about going out with a bang.

♪ Out here in the fields

♪ I fight for my meals

♪ I get my back into my living

♪ Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah!

♪ Captioning sponsored by CBS and CSI NY PRODUCTIONS ♪

Our vic made a fortune buying and selling

high-end comic books online.

Then he stepped up to buying and selling comic stores.

Word is, the kid was loaded, and his wallet seems to agree.

A guy in the line outside picked it up

after somebody else dropped it.

[screaming, shouting]

Pickpocket?

Well, the blast couldn't have blown it

all the way out the front door.

Well, the cash and the cards are still there.

Maybe he dropped it.

Well, if you guys can lift some prints, hopefully, I

can run down the rest of the story.

Did you get anything else from the patrons?

Everybody reports the same loud explosion

and then after that, it was panic at the disco.

And he did come alone? Yes.

Bartender says he was here celebrating

some new business venture.

Evidently he chose to celebrate

by slipping something into a lady's drink.

A roofie?

Well, it sure ain't a Spanish fly.

[knocking]

BOY: You in there?

We're going to be late.

You awake in there?

[door opens]

Ruben, it's 7:30 in the morning.

Today's the day for the Blessing of the Bikes.

We haveto be there.

You promised.

Blessing of the Bikes... Okay, okay. Right, right.

You forgot.

No. No, I did not forget about it.

The line's going to be long, so we have to hurry.

Mom, we're leaving now!

He's been up since 5:30.

Yeah.

[whispers]: I went to bed at 5:30.

[chuckles] Do you want a cup of coffee?

No. We got to go.

Okay. Sorry.

You guys have fun.

All right.

Grab a shirt.

We're leaving. All right.

MAN: And when the living creatures went, the wheels went by them:

and when the living creatures were lifted up from the Earth,

the wheels were lifted up.

Wherever the spirit went, they went

and the wheels were lifted up over against them:

for the spirit of the living creatures was in the wheels.

May the almighty and merciful Lord be our companion

on our many journeys and bring us back to our homes in peace,

health and happiness.

This bicycle is blessed by the sprinkling of this holy water,

in the name of the Father, and of the Son,

and of the Holy Spirit.

This bicycle is blessed by the sprinkling

of this holy water,

in the name of the Father, and of the Son,

and of the Holy Spirit.

This bicycle is blessed by the sprinkling of this holy water...

in the name of the Father and of the Son,

and of the Holy Spirit...

You think my mom will let me ride my bike by myself?

Oh, is that what this is all about?

I'm ten years old.

Okay, time me to the corner.

[phone ringing] Ready, set, go!

All right. Don't hit anybody, okay?

Yeah, it's Messer.

Hey, don't go... don't go past the corner, buddy! Hey!

All right, let me call you back.

[shouting]

[loud bang, woman screams] Rueben?!

[horns honking]

Ruben, go straight home! Right now, Ruben!

WOMAN: Help! Somebody! Help!

[crying]

I need an ambulance at 459 West 75th.

I've got a suspect, Caucasian male

fleeing the scene of a shooting. He's armed, and he went down

the 76th Street subway entrance.

Brown jacket, approximately six feet.

All right... all right, all right...

Are you shot?

Notify the ER, I'll be at the hospital within the hour.

I'll need to swab and photograph the wound before it's stitched.

You're going to be fine, Justin.

Check on my sister, huh? Definitely.

That's our victim, Justin Scott.

He said the shooter came in alone.

Told him to empty the register, at gunpoint.

Open the register!

Took two additional hits to the face.

He said the perp had something heavy...

maybe hard up his sleeve.

Female witness?

Justin's sister, Lucy.

She came out from the back, saw the shooter fleeing,

said he turned back and shot at her,

then ran across the street to the subway entrance.

You see enough to I.D. him in a lineup?

I saw him from the back.

But both Justin and Lucy remember

that the whites of the perp's eyes were blue.

♪

Haven't found a bullet or an impact mark.

It appears that the bullet passed through this orange.

Entered here, exited here.

[gunshot]

[screams]

♪

♪ We can walk in straight lines ♪

♪ We can't see quite right

♪ We've lost the plot and we can't get it back ♪

♪ So let's lose ourselves

♪ Let's lose ourselves

♪ Can you spot the English here? ♪

♪ We can see it for real

♪ But it doesn't make sense ♪

♪ It can climb its way to the top of a cloud ♪

♪ I'm away with the fairies now ♪

♪ I'm away with the fairies now... ♪

FLACK [pounding door]: Mario Galanti. [sportscast plays loudly]

Mario Galanti, NYPD.

Hey!

You hearing me?

Hey! [yelps]

Hey...

Hey... I'm, I'm sorry!

I-I can't hear anything!

I need you to come with...

Turns out Mario Galanti was dumb enough

to nab our vic's wallet,

and he's also been completely deaf since the blast.

Acoustic trauma.

It's caused by a loud noise or explosion near the ears.

Need a light?

Thanks.

BONASERA: That's why he dropped the wallet outside the club.

Right, but Flack said he has no trouble talking,

and he says he swears that all he did was rip Essex off.

Well, if he didn't cause the explosion, who did?

Well, I can't tell you who, but I can tell you what.

The cigar, right?

More specifically, the mouth end of a Gran Cahill cigar.

I found it blown halfway down the vic's trachea.

The C.O.D. was massive internal hemorrhaging

caused by the concussive force of an explosion

at close proximity.

I sent a sample of the tobacco out

for detailed isotopic analysis,

but from my collegiate experience

smoking stogies, I'd say it was, um,

fresh...

likely hand rolled,

with a few unnatural additives, of course.

Like smokeless gunpowder? I found heavy traces of that

on the vic's clothing when I ran them through XRF.

Which is usually used in high explosives.

Right, I did find something else.

On the victim's tie, I found a stain.

It turned out to be mineral water with a twist.

It contained DNA from the saliva of this guy.

Lawrence Gelachter?

Yeah, he was in CODIS with priors for tax evasion.

All right. I wonder what his relationship is to Essex Palmer?

Well, judging from the size and impact

of the stain, it couldn't have been too friendly.

He spit on the guy.

Do we have a current address on Mr. Gelachter?

Yeah. Flack's meeting us there right after this.

Good. All right, then ladies,

unless there's something else...

There is one more thing, Sid.

Mucuna pruriens.

In India, they're also known as, uh,

velvet bean, cowitch.

But here in the United States, we usually

call it itching powder.

HAMMERBACK: Oh! No!

Oh! No!

Looks like he stuck it

in his pocket, and then after the blast,

it wound up dispersed on his clothes.

But why aren't you, uh...?

The long-sleeved lab coat.

Both stylish and functional.

HAMMERBACK: Uh, exploding cigars.

You know, insect ice cubes, itching powder.

What kind of a clown are we after?

No way!

Lawrence Gelachter is Laughing Larry!

[camera shutter clicking]

[computer beeps]

We were able to raise the subdermal bruising

on Justin Scott's face.

You can see he got slammed pretty hard.

Your bodega thief's weapon of choice is a revolver.

[computer chirps]

Open the register!

GSR I collected from Justin Scott's head wound

didn't give us any compatible hits in the database.

I did find traces of fiberglass in the laceration

of the cheekbone, which you can see here,

was crushed.

I found traces of fiberglass on the register.

Well, I might have a theory

for why the whites of the suspect's eyes were blue.

Sclera-- the whites of the eyes--

can have a purple or blue tint

if someone is suffering from osteogenesis imperfecta.

Individuals with O.I.-- their bones do fracture easily.

Exactly, which is why I hypothesize

your thief could be wearing a fiberglass cast.

That would explain the crushing of Justin Scott's cheekbone.

And why he thought the perp

had something up his sleeve.

This osteo,

uh...

thing-- uh,

can, uh, we track it?

Well, if our robber knows he has it,

if he's seen a doctor about it, then we might even be able

to get photos of possible suspects from physicians.

Boom. So we show these photos

to Justin and Lucy,

they I.D. our guy,

and we are...

[echoing]: We are what?

[Hawkes speaking distortedly]

No. No.

Sid, where-where'd you find him?

Hey, Danny, what's going on? An alley off 75th Street.

It says here there was a bicycle found that said Ruben on it. Oh, Ruben!

Danny, man, you know this kid?

No. Get outta here.

No, don't touch the body!

Okay, okay.

Sheldon, get him out of here.

No, no, no, wait, wait... Danny, come on.

Let's go, come on... let's go...

Come on... No, No, I watched him take the shortcut home.

Come on, man, let's go. Wait, wait, wait.

I saw him.

I saw him. He was fine.

I saw him.

He rode the bike right away from me.

[panting]

Oh, I shouldn't have stopped.

I shouldn't have stopped.

Why did I stop?!

I should have made sure the kid got home safe.

Ruben was a block and a half from your apartment building.

There was a man down, bleeding.

Justin Scott needed your help.

You acted on instinct, Danny.

Ah, man, I wish I hadn't.

I wish I hadn't!

[Messer crying]

He just got his bicycle blessed this morning.

Danny?

I just heard.

[sighs]

TAYLOR: This is a tough one.

Oh, I'm not very good at this kind of thing.

What should I say to him?

Just tell him

you're not very good at this kind of thing.

♪

[computer chirps]

[knocking]

[sighs]

It's about time you guys got back.

I was starting to get a little worried, Messer.

How long was the line?

Where's Ruben?

Rikki...

Where's Ruben, Danny?

Rikki, we, um...

I'm sorry. We, uh...

We... We were on our way back.

We were on our way back, and then, um, he, uh...

There was a robbery at a bodega...

No, no, no.

Just tell me where he is.

You tell me where I can find him.

Just-Just say that he's okay.

Oh, just tell me

that he's okay!

[crying]: Tell me he's okay.

I can't tell you that he's okay.

I can't tell you that he's okay.

No! No!

[crying]

No.

[sobbing]

Process what was collected at the bodega.

Whatever Danny started, finish.

I want answers, not guesses. Got it.

Mac, I got your message.

Our bodega robbery is connected

to the shooting of Ruben Sandoval.

I found citric acid

on the bullet Sid extracted from Ruben.

More than likely it's the bullet

that traveled through the orange.

Yeah, and the reason why

you didn't find it at the scene--

it entered Ruben just under his arm here.

Axillary region. It's common that someone could be shot there

and not immediately know it.

I imagine Ruben was traveling on his bike,

he heard the gunshot, was scared, adrenaline pumping,

doesn't feel the initial pain.

Does what Danny tells him to--

heads for home, doesn't make it.

Did the bullet get a match in IBIS?

No. Even stranger,

the caliber of the bullet is inconsistent with a revolver.

Does that mean we have two shooters?

Danny only heard one shot.

FLACK: Laughing Larry?

You got to be kidding me!

You have any idea

how much of my childhood was cruelly destroyed

by this moron?

Trust me. I feel your pain.

You two want to enlighten me here?

I was into comic books as a kid, right? Yup.

And this guy had a full-page ad

in the back of each and every one of 'em

selling things like dribble glasses, onion gum,

hypnocoins, whoopee cushions.

Plastic vomit, rubber dog doo.

Mm. Sounds great.

Oh, yeah, and it all looked great.

And I'd do whatever it took.

I would scrimp,

I would save, I would mow every last lawn

in the neighborhood to get my hands

on Sneezing Salts or 100 piece Battle Fleet, and then,

I go to themailbox.

And right there before my innocent, young eyes

would be disappointment in a cardboard box.

I once spent my entire summer allowance

on this hovercraft that Laughing Larry said

would take me and my friends

riding on a carpet

of thin air. Hovercrap.

FLACK:How about the X-Ray Specs

I bought in middle school

to see through girls' clothes?

Yeah. The only thing

I ever saw through those was a nun

coming at me with a yardstick.

Unbelievable.

Right?

I bought Sea Monkeys.

FLACK & MONROE: Oh.

But that was then, and this is now,

so come on. We have a man to see about a cigar.

[siren whistle blows]

Welcome to Laughing Larry's Laffatorium

where you get more yuks for less bucks!

Well, now, hey, don't you look spiffy?

Do you mind if I take your picture?

[Larry cackling, Flack laughing]

MONROE: On the victim's tie, I found a stain.

It turned out to be mineral water with a twist.

It contained DNA from Laughing Larry's saliva.

[laughing]

Laugh it up, Lar.

You pull another gag like that,

and I'm gonna add assaulting an officer

to your murdercharge.

Wait a minute. You guys are cops?

Who died?

Essex Palmer. That's what we'd like

to talk to you about, Larry.

Whoa, whoa. You mean, somebody killed him?

So you two did know each other.

Yeah, what happened? You decide to fool

your friend with an exploding cigar?

What are you talking about?

That's how he died, Larry.

Just a hot-damn minute now.

You guys think that-that I had something to do with his death,

you're bigger stooges than I thought.

So, how did you two meet?

He walked in here, he said he was a big fan,

he said he loved my stuff,

and he offered to buy the whole thing

and ten years of back stock!

He said he wanted to turn it into some kind of--

I don't know-- E-commerce venture-- Laffatorium.com!

Me--

I don't know the internet from intercourse,

but I can tell you, after 40 years

of raising rubber chickens, he was bailing me out

of a damn deep hole!

You got any paperwork to prove it?

Ah, it was all on a handshake.

Yeah? He get the joybuzzer, too?

Bet he didn't know what kind of guy he was getting

into business with until the whole thing blew up in his face.

I've been selling exploding cigars

and cigarettes for 35 years,

and the only thing they ever hurt was people's pride.

Tell that to Essex Palmer.

I'm telling you, it wasn't mine!

Did you give Essex Palmer a cigar? Yeah, but...

If it wasn't yours, then where did you get it?

I don't know. People give me cigars all the time!

It's part of my shtick. What?!

FLACK:Well, how about I shtickyou

in lockup?

All right, all right, hold on, hold on.

Let me remember

who gave it to me. Uh...

Wait a minute. That's right.

It was this guy. He was a new father.

He gave it to me!

I just had a baby girl.

He just came up to me and gave it to me.

Hey, thanks. Congratulations!

All right.

Okay, he was, uh...

medium build, light hair...

about your age, only a lot better-looking.

All right, all right, so you passed on his cigar

to Essex. It didn't cost me anything.

Well, it cost him plenty.

♪ ♪

The only combustible agent in Laughing Larry's

exploding cigars is lead azide--

no smokeless gunpowder at all--

so, as much as I hate to admit it, he's right.

They're annoying, but they're not going to kill you.

What about the tobacco?

I'm still waiting for isotopic analysis

on Essex Palmer's hand-rolled cigar.

But I did scope a visual comparison between the two,

and our laughing friend's smokes

are strictly low-grade.

Small leaf, paper fillers and enough

preservatives to fill a tox report.

Consistent with Larry's story, as well. Cheap and tasteless.

FLACK: Well, I found a kink in Laughing Larry's tale.

Kim Wey Imports.

According to the New York State Tax Board,

they're a Chinatown novelty distributor

who have filed no fewer than seven liens

against Laughing Larry in the past three years.

Looks like he owes them quite a bit of coin at this point.

A good reason to want Laughing Larry dead.

You ready for this?

"Unpaid receipt of Class C fireworks,

"including party poppers,

snapping caps, and exploding cigars."

So, maybe, when Larry couldn't cough up the cash,

they decided to deliver their message loud and clear.

♪

♪

Wow. We're not just talking party poppers.

This place is more like a powder keg.

Aren't fireworks illegal in the state of New York? Yep.

So is murder.

Hey, folks, NYPD, time to close up shop.

[man yelling in Cantonese]

Whoa, whoa, whoa, hey!

Stop! Freeze!

Hold it right there! Hold it right there!

I'd rather let it go.

[firecrackers whistle and pop]

Stella, Lindsay, get out!

BONASERA: Okay, we're out of here! Let's go!

Move! Move! Let's get out! Lindsay, move!

Out! Go, go, go!

[grunting]

Stop, drop and roll, you son of a bitch.

[sirens blaring]

[indistinct police radio communication]

WEY: He's the reason I had to sell black market fireworks

in the first place. FLACK: Let me guess.

You're gonna blame your illegal immigration status

on Laughing Larry, too.

You think I care about being deported?

He owes me a hundred grand. I got to make a living.

Even if it meant killing him with an explosive cigar?

If I wanted to kill that idiot,

I'd strangle him with my bare hands.

And believe me, I thought about it.

But I held off when it looked like

he was finally about to sell.

I even paid him a little visit,

to make sure he remembered his debts.

Sign it!

See for yourself. The deal's in my pocket.

He offered me a hundred grand, plus another 50K in interest.

Well, it doesn't look like he signed it to me, Mr. Wey.

WEY: It's disappearing ink.

He thinks he's funny. I know where to find him.

Good. So maybe you can send him a postcard from Shanghai.

There it is.

I don't get it-- if Larry had no reason

to want Essex dead, this guy

has no reason to want Larry dead.

All either one of them wanted was money.

Means that our real killer is still invisible.

Hey, Sid.

Mr. Ross, what brings you down here?

Uh... one question.

How often are you wrong?

I-I mean...

your theory that the bodega robbers

suffer from osteogenesis imperfecta

is just that-- a theory, right?

I hope you haven't come down here to question

my many years as a pathologist without some

evidentiary ammunition.

The perp's blue eyes.

I kind of have a theory of my own.

Bring it.

Hawkes found three specialists

in the field of osteogenesis imperfecta

and subpoenaed the records.

Justin and Lucy couldn't make a positive I.D.

to any of the photos.

In the meantime,

the fiberglass that Danny found at the scene,

I found trace levels of caffeine and aspartame.

Description of a diet soda-- which contains carbon dioxide.

Which, if someone suffered from O.I.,

they'd be instructed to avoid because carbon dioxide

can dissolve calcium in bone tissue.

Well, not many patients

actually follow their doctor's instructions, Adam.

Yeah, I thought of that.

But still, it did leave a small window of doubt

in your diagnosis.

So I started thinking.

What if the fiberglass cast was a coincidence?

That our perp simply had a broken arm?

Which led me to discover a possible alternative

to what caused the whites of the perp's eyes to be blue.

I see-- so you really came down here

to run your theory by me, so you could report to Mac

and say that I have your back. I guess so.

Okay, why are the whites of our perp's eyes blue?

Eyeball tattooing.

What? Somewhere in this conversation

you're going to have to start making sense.

I checked with Sid. Our perp doesn't necessarily

have osteogenesis imperfecta.

Danny found a hair--

a clipped dog's hair at the scene.

It had traces of dye,

but not just any dye, all right?

Dye used for tattooing.

On a dog?

Some veterinarians tattoo the lighter areas on a dog's nose.

The ink works as protection against skin cancer.

They also tattoo pets' ears for identification,

and, in most cases, they clip the hair.

Okay, but I'm not seeing a connection

to blue eyes or our bodega suspect.

Veterinarians send the pets to tattoo artists--

places that you and I go.

I mean, well, I would go-- I mean...

Uh, anyways, I located

several establishments, and one place in particular

offered me a special on eyeball tattooing.

We're the only ones who do it.

It's one of the oldest forms of tattooing.

We inject color pigment under the top layer of the eye.

Your brown eyes would really pop with a little bit of green.

I can give you a discount.

Actually, Sadie, no.

I'm looking for someone.

Someone who might have these eye tattoos.

Counting her? Only four people I know who have it.

I'm going to need those names.

I'm telling you, I didn't do anything, all right?

You don't know what you're talking about.

The whites of your eyes are blue, Ollie.

It's kind of hard to miss that.

You were in that bodega.

You slammed your gun into Justin Scott's face.

You crushed his cheekbone with your cast.

[blows landing]

You stole the money from the register

and fled into the subway; we have two eyewitnesses.

What you don't know is that a kid took a bullet and died.

What?

Look, I never fired my gun.

There was a crime scene investigator

around the corner from the bodega.

He heard a gunshot.

That's because the bodega owner fired at me.

You saw Justin Scott fire a gun?

Who else could it be? I didn't do it.

There was no gun in the bodega, Ollie.

Then you got a lot to figure out,

'cause I never fired my gun.

That's what you do, right?

You can prove that, right?

Look, I dumped my gun, okay?

It's in the third canister along the wall

in the subway station.

I am not going down for murder, man.

HAWKES: Did you see him fire his gun?

MESSER: I never said he did.

I heard a gunshot.

By the time I rounded the corner, Ollie Barnes

was running away from me with a gun in his hand.

Lucy Scott said

he fired his gun.

[clunking, rattling]

I thought I told you to take some time off.

You did, I just don't want to go home.

That's why I don't walk down that hallway now.

I'm not going to hear the kid laughing

on the other side of the walls, you know?

Crying when he doesn't want to go to bed.

I'm just afraid I'm gonna miss him.

HAWKES: Ollie's telling the truth.

There were no traces of GSR on his hands,

and the gun retrieved from the garbage

was not recently fired.

And is it a revolver? Yes.

Which doesn't explain why the bullet

Sid removed from Ruben was a nine millimeter.

No match to a revolver.

Did Justin Scott fire a weapon?

We didn't find a weapon on him or in the bodega.

Then again, we weren't looking for one.

This is our crime scene

based on Lucy Scott's account of what happened.

She said the shooter fired back from the street

as she approached her brother.

I found an orange pierced by a bullet here.

Justin Scott's there, Lucy's right behind him.

So the line of fire has to be in this area.

But Ollie Barnes is over six feet tall.

If he fired back at Lucy, how did a bullet pierce an orange

that was at least a foot below his sight of her?

MESSER: Yeah, that doesn't make sense.

I mean, either he's a really bad shot

or somebody else fired at her.

Let's look at Ollie's theory.

Someone shot at him.

All right, if we change the spatial orientation of the orange...

...the path of the bullet changes.

The orange didn't come from the stand closest to the street.

It came from the boxes near the door.

The bullet pierced the orange and entered Ruben Sandoval.

But the kid was shot on the right side,

the side closest to Ollie Barnes.

No, Danny, Ruben heard what you heard.

He turned toward the sound of Lucy and the gunshot.

LUCY: Somebody stop him! [gunshot]

And there's only one person

who could have been in the exact position

to shoot both the orange and Ruben Sandoval.

[gunshot]

♪

I don't understand, Detective.

Is the guy that robbed us dead?

No.

We arrested Ollie Barnes this afternoon

for robbery and assault with a deadly weapon.

That's the young kid you shot and killed.

His name is Ruben Sandoval.

I don't think... Yes, you do.

Your intention was to stop Ollie Barnes

as he fled the bodega.

You were kneeling down next to Justin

when you shot at him.

What did you do with the gun, Lucy?

LUCY: Somebody stop him!

[Lucy shouts]

What are you doing?

LUCY: It can't be true.

It can't be true.

I didn't shoot that kid.

Did I?

Ruben was riding his bike

past the bodega when you pulled the trigger.

It was a split second in time.

LUCY: Help! Somebody stop him!

[gunshot]

Ruben, go straight home, Ruben!

Go straight home!

[Ruben grunts, coughs]

Hey, Lindsay, what do we got?

We finally got the isotopic results back

from the hand-rolled cigar fragment

that Sid found in Essex Palmer's throat.

Ah, "Pre-Embargo Cuban tobacco

in a wrapper leaf from Cameroon."

A hundred bucks a pop-- and when you couple it

with the special little "It's A Girl" label,

there's only one place in the city that sells them:

Haynes House of Fine Tobacco

has a Web-based, in-house surveillance system.

And only one person bought those cigars in the past week.

The trouble is that the video is really grainy

and I've lust about tweaked it into oblivion.

Mm.

I was thinking it's time for Plan B.

Biometrics?

Bingo. [chuckles]

Now, if we can define our guy's unique facial measurements--

length of nose, width between the eyes, width of mouth,

maybe we can get a hit in PIMS.

Got about half a dozen possible perps with priors.

Looks like it's time to bring Laughing Larry in for a lineup.

Can they see me? No.

Poor saps, don't know what they're missing.

Mr. Gelachter, please, just look through the window

and see if you can see the man you picked out

from the photo.

LARRY:Wait...

There, that's him: number three.

You sure that's the guy who gave you the cigar?

Just had a baby girl.

[chuckling]: Hey, congratulations.

Thanks.

Yeah, that's the happy father. MONROE: Benjamin Sutor.

He's new to the system.

He works for an ammo company.

He just got booked three days ago

for violating a restraining order filed by his ex-wife.

Report says she was awarded full custody of their son,

but he's a toddler.

There's no mention of a newborn.

Is it you?

Hmm?

You recognize me, Laughing Larry?

Hey, I thought you said he couldn't see me.

He can't.

Of course not, but I know who you are.

Yeah, you look the same as you did

in all the comic books I read when I was a kid.

You know, my best friend Sam and I,

we never missed one of your ads.

You know what we wanted

more than anything in the entire world?

The Narwhal Nuclear Submarine.

[laughs quietly]

You said it was the most powerful weapon to sail

the seven seas, that it would dive the deepest depths,

and that we could search for sunken treasures

beyond our wildest dreams.

Even though it was only $6.98,

it was more than either of us could afford on our own, so...

I came up with the brilliant idea that, if we saved up,

we could buy it together.

I have to admit I was a little bit skeptical

when it arrived in the mail and it was made out of cardboard.

I was unsure that it would do all the things

that you said that it could, but, uh, but Sam wasn't.

Sam was sure that it would work.

Sam knew that it would work

because Laughing Larry had said it would.

So why wouldn't it?

You know, what you forgot to tell us is that, uh,

is that Sam had to know how to swim.

I lost my best friend

and I swore that I would never read comic books again

or let my own son read comic books or play with toys

or play with other kids,

so I kept him in the house around the clock.

I was just too afraid

that my little boy was going to get hurt.

So... So your wife...

took your son and filed a protective order against you.

It broke my heart when they went away.

But I couldn't blame them, so I blamed him.

Just had a baby girl.

[chuckling]: Hey, congratulations.

I'm sorry that an innocent person died.

Here you go, Essex-- glad we're in business together.

Thanks, Larry.

That was not my intention.

I tried to stop it, but I was too late.

But I swear, for the rest of my life,

I will pray for one thing,

and that is that you...

that you never laugh again.

Okay, come on, let's go.

[children's laughter echoing]

[slow, quiet footsteps]

♪

Captioning sponsored by CBS

and CSI NY PRODUCTIONS

Captioned by Media Access Group at WGBH access.wgbh.org