"(brassy swing intro plays)" "DEAN MARTIN:" "* How lucky can one guy be?" "*" "* I kissed her and she kissed me *" "* Like the fella once said *" "* "Ain't that a kick in the head?" "*" "* The room was completely black *" "* I hugged her and she hugged back *" "* Like the sailor said, quote *" "* "Ain't that a hole in the boat?" *" "* My head keeps spinnin' *" "* I go to sleep and keep grinnin' *" "* If this is just the beginnin' *" "* My life is gonna be *" "* Bee-yoo-ti-ful *" "* I've sunshine enough to spread *" "* It's just like the fella said *" "* Tell me quick, ain't love a kick *" "* In the head?" "*" "(brassy instrumental break)" "(cell phone ringing)" "* Like the sailor said, quote *" "* "Ain't that a hole in the boat?" *" "* My head keeps spinnin' *" "* I go to sleep and keep grinnin' *" "* If this is just the beginnin' *" "* My life is gonna be *" "* Bee-yoo-ti-ful *" "* She's telling me we'll be wed *" "* She's picked out a king-size bed *" "* I couldn't feel any better" "* Or I'd be sick *" "Come again." "* Tell me quick *" "* Oh, ain't love a kick *" "* Tell me quick, ain't love a kick *" "* In the head?" "*" "(groaning)" "BP's 90/70 and dropping." "WOMAN:" "What happened?" "Guy was working a landscape gig." "They were trying to move a giant saguaro without using the right gear." "(groans)" "Fell over on him." "Any chance he's got insurance?" "About the same chance he's a legal immigrant." "(gasping) No!" "(shouting in Spanish)" "Whoa, whoa, whoa, e-easy." "You're not gonna need that right now, my friend." "Está bien." "Está bien." "(speaking quietly)" "Gracias." "Dame, dame, dame, dame, dame... (sobbing)" "Start oxygen, give him two milligrams of morphine and prep him for surgery." "(cell phone ringing)" "Oh, so much for pro bono." "Got to go." "Day job's calling." "(man whimpering)" "WILLOWS:" "Chill out, Conrad." "You'll have it on your desk by the end of shift." "Yes, I've included a 10% cut across the board." "Just make sure there's 10% less crime, and we'll be fine." "(indistinct radio chatter)" "What do we have here?" "Business as usual." "Trucker spotted the body this morning." "PHILLIPS:" "TOD was sometime last night." "A single GSW to the back of the head." "Looks like a good-sized wound," "I'd say medium caliber." "Sooting and stippling make it a close shot." "Execution, body dump?" "That'd be my guess." "Looks like the car skidded to a halt here." "Killer dumped the body and then accelerated back up onto the road." "The body is well forward of the rear tire divots, about where the driver's door would be." "Which means the victim was probably behind the wheel." "(gunshot, tires screech)" "Maybe he picked up the wrong hitchhiker." "Okay, ready to roll." "WILLOWS:" "That's a lot of slogans." "Guess he liked advertising." "Wonder how he felt about epitaphs." "* Who... are you?" "*" "* Who, who, who, who?" "*" "* Who... are you?" "*" "* Who, who, who, who?" "*" "* I really wanna know *" "* Who... are you?" "*" "* Oh-oh-oh * * Who... *" "* Come on, tell me who are you, you, you *" "* Are you!" "*" "Ah, the '70s." "Recession, energy crisis, conflict in the Middle East." "My, how times have changed." "At least we don't have to put up with disco." "(beep)" "Looks like concrete dust under his nails." "Yeah, he seems to be covered with it." "It's even up his nose." "His hands are heavily callused." "I'm guessing construction worker." "(phone beeping)" "Okay, he's not in AFIS." "Let's put him in the system." "So we have two distinct sets of shoe impressions leading away from the vehicle, neither of which belong to the victim." "So that means at least three people in the car." "These look like sneakers." "LANGSTON:" "Mm-hmm." "The others, boots." "Let's see where they went." "* *" "SANDERS:" "The strides are all long, so they both must have been running." "LANGSTON:" "Sneakers was limping, dragging his leg, bleeding, wounded." "(two gunshots)" "I guess that means Boots had the gun." "Sneakers turns around, comes back, gets back in the car, takes off." "Boots heads back toward the road, disappears into the night." "I guess we're looking for a cowboy." "LANGSTON:" "Hey, Nick." "Hey." "I'll see you next week." "Where are you off to?" "Lee Goff's entomology workshop in Honolulu." "Entomology." "Nice." "Wait, I thought Ecklie cut all funding for outside training." "Yeah, he did, but I've been waiting on this workshop for, like, a year, so if I got to go out of pocket, so be it." "We need a new bug man." "Hold down the fort." "Will do." "* *" "* *" "* *" "The bullet fragmented in his skull." "The lead core exited, but the copper jacket shed inside." "WILLOWS:" "Cannelured." "Probably a .38 or .357 revolver." "Ah." "Did you recover that piece of his forehead?" "Might save the mortician some spackle." "What's up with you?" "Ah, things are tough all over." "(knock at door)" "Our vic's name is Huston Dobbs." "How'd you figure that out?" "I didn't." "Brime County Sheriff's Department found a burnt-out car outside of Elba." "R.O. was in the wind, house foreclosed, etcetera, so they ran him through Missing Persons and matched him with our unknown DB." "They develop any leads in the case?" "They told me where he was working." "(door chimes jingle)" "Morning, sir." "Oh, good morning." "Booth or counter?" "No, I need to speak to the manager." "I can do you one better than that." "I own the place." "What can I do for you?" "Oh, uh... (clears throat)" "I'm Detective Jim Brass, Las Vegas Police." "Do you know this man?" "Sure, I do." "Huston Dobbs." "I give him employment here from time to time." "He's a fry cook." "He, uh, get himself in some kind of trouble?" "Well, it's a little more serious than that, ma'am." "He's dead." "Oh, my Lord." "You get all that, Walter?" "Because that's why I'm paying you, to stand there, right?" "What did Huston do?" "He get drunk again and run himself off the road?" "No, he was shot." "Who'd want to shoot Huston?" "Well, that's what I'm trying to find out." "When was the last time you saw him?" "A couple of days ago, I guess." "Bruno's the one you want to talk to." "Oh, yeah?" "Bruno?" "Bruno who?" "Bruno Curtis." "Them two hung out together all the time." "And he didn't show up for work today either." "He's just one of those part-time guys." "He..." "He wasn't so part-time back in high school, Barbie." "You two tore it up pretty good, as I remember." "That was a long time ago, Clem." "You don't think Bruno's tied up in any of this, do you?" "How can I find him?" "I don't know." "He took a couple days off." "Said something about going up north looking for work." "Unskilled labor, no doubt." "(raspy laugh)" "I thought he worked here." "Well, he does, but these days, sir, it just ain't enough to live on." "ADAMS:" "According to the deputy in Elba, the fire would have completely consumed the car... (thunder crashing) ...if it hadn't been for the weather." "So unlike Huston Dobbs, we seem to have caught a break." "Toothbrush." "Razor." "(sloshing)" "Lavatory." "Guy must have been living in his car." "HODGES:" "It is a Chrysler LeBaron." "A babe magnet." "You should make an offer." "Um, I think it's safe to say that the victim did not drive this thing back to town." "Agreed." "Thank you." "Oh, hey..." "This looks like a piece of skull." "We know the last thing that went through his mind was a copper-jacketed .38." "HODGES:" "These keys are pretty charred." "I doubt Mandy's going to get any prints off them." "(chuckles)" "It's an old Hux Club casino chip." "Hampton Huxley, the dead porno mag guy?" "It's not porno, it's a lifestyle." "For one brief, shining moment in the 80's, scantily clad Hux Club Kittens serving cocktails and dealing blackjack was the pinnacle of Las Vegas high society." "How'd you get in?" "Sadly, only through the glossy pages of the magazine." "Hmm." "Which I purchased for the articles." "Okay." "Wendy, I got blood on the backseat." "Okay." "Along with something else." ".22 L-R." "A peashooter round." "So there are actually two guns involved." "Yeah." "And I've got one of them." "Hodges." "Relax." "It's just a belt buckle." "For people who love guns." "I love guns." "ADAMS:" "There's a print here etched into the metal." "Salts and amino acids from fingerprint oil can chemically etch metal over time." "Heat greatly accelerates the process." "You sometimes see it in arson investigations." "The print belongs to Wiley Schindler." "He's in the system off a work card." "This buckle looks so familiar." "Is this a Vanderfield Arms mini .22?" "Why, yes, it is." "WILLOWS:" "It's a concealable revolver." "Perfect for the man who trusts no one." "My dad had one." "Schindler's address is listed as Kansas City." "He's a collectables dealer." "I Googled him." "SCHINDLER:" "I'll be hightailing it to Las Vegas from May 11 to the 18th for the World Collectables Trade Fair at The Green Valley Ranch." "If you want to sit down to talk turkey, give me a call." "What do you know, he's in town." "I'm ready to talk turkey." "(brassy swing tune blasts)" "* Night and day... *" "SCHINDLER:" "Yes, sir, those are the original crystal doorknobs handpicked by Bugsy Siegel himself for the bathroom suite that he personally customized for Lana Turner at the Flamingo, back in 1945." "Now think about it" "Lana had to be naked as a jaybird when she fondled those knobs." "You have exquisite taste." "I'm prepared to let you have the entire set for-- oh, let me see, uh..." "Oh, thank you, darling." "Wiley Schindler?" "That I am." "Just give us a moment, friend." "Doing a little business here." "So are we." "We need to talk." "Nice boots." "Thank you." "I just got 'em." "You looking for a pair?" "Excuse me." "(sighs)" "You know these two guys?" "Can't say I know 'em well." "Just met 'em the other day." "Where and how?" "A little greasy spoon in Elba." "I just pulled in to get some grub." "And much to my surprise, I saw something there I liked." "I told her I admired her earrings and asked her if there was any more where those came from." "She said she'd make a call." "So there's 200 chips in here." "300 bucks, you can have the whole kit and caboodle." "We ain't taking a penny less." "I don't know, fellas." "That's a lot of money." "See, you got to make the other fella think he's getting over on you." "My wife and I got married at the Hux and, now..." "You do not want to go cheap on your wife." "Loretta's gone." "The chips are just for me." "See, I knew we were going to settle on a dollar a chip the minute they opened their mouths." "200." "That's a buck apiece." "You got a deal." "Let 'em see your pain." "Make 'em feel good, and then..." "Okay, deal." "There's few things in life that'll make an old man's nipples hard, and that qualifies." "You tell 'em you're a collectables dealer?" "It never came up." "That's the last time I saw either one of them." "Just out of curiosity, what would you say the chips are worth?" "Whatever the market will bear." "Well, it is pretty much a bear market these days." "So this guy's dead... and this guy's turning out to be pretty hard to find." "Maybe this guy killed that one and then took a powder." "Or maybe you killed this guy and chased this guy away." "You can't be serious." "We did find the belt buckle of your concealed .22" "at the scene." "Well, they admired it-- big, handsome thing that it is." "So I gave it to 'em to seal the deal." "Well, I'm making you a new deal." "You're under arrest." "SANDERS:" "When the Hux Club opened in 1981, it was as if the great men's magazine had come to life." "But like all gardens in paradise, it couldn't last long here on Earth." "Hux had a falling out with his partners and pulled out of the venture, taking all his trademarks with him." "They remodeled the casino, but without Hux and his Kittens to bring the bang, so to speak, the New Babylon, as they renamed it, died a quick and painful death." "Now according to the gaming commission records, all of the chips from the Hux Club were destroyed." "Well, it's the law when you close a casino." "When Sam imploded the Rampart, he buried all the old chips in the foundation of the Eclipse." "Which is precisely why surviving chips become collectables." "You throw in a Hampton Huxley aura and you have got an item that auctions for up to $10,000 in mint condition." "Apparently there's less than a dozen of these in existence." "Until today." "We recovered these from Wiley Schindler's hotel room." "172 chips-- and $50,000 in cash." "So I spoke to some people at the trade show." "Said that you sold more than a few Hux chips to a bunch of different collectors." "I wasn't aware you could put a man in jail for that." "You're in jail 'cause I think you're a killer." "Which I'm not." "Let's agree to disagree, okay?" "You know, for about 30 years, some people who care about these things had to be consoled because there were so few of these casino chips from the famed Hux Club in existence." "And then you show up with a couple hundred of them." "I told you how I got those." "Here's what I think happened." "I think you and Bruno and Huston cooked up a scheme to put some counterfeit chips in circulation." "I never sold anything to anybody that wasn't what I said it was." "So you end up in the car going out to the desert." "Somebody says something, somebody doesn't say something." "Things get weird." "And a guy gets a bullet hole in his head." "That ring a bell?" "Not even a tinkle." "Do you see a lawyer in here with me?" "That's because I'm trying to talk to you man to man." "I didn't kill anybody." "I didn't cheat anybody." "And the sooner you figure that out the sooner you can stop wasting both our time." "HODGES:" "Micro-FTIR confirms that they are compression-molded claywith impressed stainless steel inlays, consistent with the specs from the gaming commission." "They're authentic Hux Club chips..." "Sorry." "They were manufactured with state-of-the-art anti-counterfeiting technology from 1981." "So Bruno and Huston must've found these tucked away in the attic or daddy's old trunk." "You never know what people keep for sentimental reasons." "ADAMS:" "Yeah, but why keep that many?" "Even at face value, they were worth thousands." "WILLOWS:" "In any case, if Schindler got authentic Hux Club chips from those guys for cheap, he'd have no reason to kill either one of them." "So where are we on Bruno?" "The deputies have been sitting on his house and the diner." "He's a no-show." "And no gunshot wound victims matching his description have showed up at any of the hospitals." "WILLOWS:" "Well, this isn't a guy with a whole lot of resources." "Is there any other places he might be?" "LANGSTON:" "According to Brass, both Huston and Bruno were doing odd construction- destruction jobs around town." "I suppose he could be hiding out at a work site." "ADAMS:" "So what do you want to do, drive around Elba?" "Get out every time we see a bulldozer?" "The Bluebird Button Company." "The what?" "The Bluebird Button Company." "It's in Elba." "They made the Hux Club chips." "The company was primarily in the pin-back button business, but it was the only company in the western United States to be able to produce metal-clay inlays." "They went bankrupt way back." "That factory's been abandoned for years." "I'll lead this time?" "Someone's been living here." "Yellow exudate." "Someone's nursing a badly-infected wound." "There!" "(groans)" "Go, go!" "I'll call it in." "Control, Officer Crawford." "Requesting a one-unit backup." "DISPATCH:" "Officer two-one, we have units in the vicinity." "Will notify." "Looks like he disappeared into thin air." "Yeah, it's like we're chasing a ghost." "Drop the gun!" "I said drop the gun!" "Drop the gun or I'll shoot!" "Ray, stop!" "This man needs medical attention." "Call it in." "Control, this is Charlie-zero-seven-Adams." "I have a 421." "Roll paramedics to my location." "DISPATCH:" "Copy that, oh-seven." "Paramedics en route." "There's gold in them there button factory parking lots." "Or at least there was until Schindler started slipping his chips into the market." "The collectible price has dropped 40% over the last 24 hours." "Okay, so you're telling me that this hole in the ground was filled with Hux Club chips?" "That's our theory." "When Hampton Huxley pulled out of the casino, the state had to destroy all the chips." "107,423, according to the gaming commission." "About 50 cubic feet worth." "Hole was plenty big enough for that." "And they were all sent back to the Bluebird Button Company for destruction." "Why?" "Well, apparently, there was a clause in the original manufacturing contract that obligated them to do it." "(machine grinding)" "HODGES:" "Because of the way the chips were made, they would've been extremely hard to destroy." "Brutal on the machines." "SANDERS:" "So somebody probably figured, why bother?" "* Don't you want me, baby?" "*" "They dig a hole, they fill it with the chips, put a layer of shreds on top of it, and then seal it with a layer of concrete." "HODGES:" "Nobody ever would've known." "(jackhammer pounding, rattling)" "WILLOWS:" "If it hadn't been for a couple of down-on-their-luck guys who finally got lucky." "How is he?" "As well as you could expect, under the circumstances." "Brass was in there with him for half an hour." "The guy didn't say a word." "That was a really stupid thing that you did back there." "He could've shot you." "I could have shot you." "He needed help." "He had a gun in his hand." "I didn't stop being a doctor when I became a CSI." "Well, if you keep treating suspects like patients, you're gonna get yourself or someone else killed." "Things aren't looking too good for you, Bruno." "We have your shoe treads in the desert." "And when we run your DNA against the blood we found in the backseat of your friend's car, that's gonna come back to you, too." "Best you can hope for is accessory to murder." "But I guess the detective told you all of this." "Those are phantom pains." "They'll pass, after a while." "How would you know that?" "Because I'm a physician." "And I also work at the Crime Lab." "You're that guy that jumped into the hole with me." "Why did you do that?" "You looked like you needed help." "(scoffs)" "Would you like to tell me what happened that night?" "I'll believe you." "Just between you and me, the day you walk into court with one leg, the jury will want to believe you, too." "But you have to tell me what happened, and it has to be the truth." "(crying, sniffling)" "I wish we'd never pulled those stupid chips out of that hole." "Huston and me got hired to bust up this parking lot at the old factory." "It was a cash deal, off the books." "That's how we found 'em." "We figured they had to be worthless." "Otherwise, why would somebody just dump 'em like that, right?" "We still had to get rid of them, so we gathered 'em all up and..." "But that Hux Club chick was pretty cool, so we kept 'em for souvenirs, gifts." "I knew Barbie would like it for her arts and crafts and stuff." "Anyway, about a week and a half later, Barbie called me and said she had some guy over at the diner that wanted to buy some chips." "So Huston and me loaded up a box and we went down there." "That Schindler dude gave us a buck apiece." "Me and Huston, we pulled thousands of those things out of that..." "out of that hole, so we're thinking," ""Holy Mother... we're rich!" (chuckles)" "But then when we went down there the next morning..." "That son of a bitch Schindler had swiped 'em right out from under our noses." "He left us his phone number in case we had any more chips to sell." "So we called him up and we said we did." "And we met him in Vegas, and we told him we wanted our chips back." "Lying bastard denied everything." "So you took him for a ride." "Those chips are ours." "You gonna show us where you put 'em... (gun cocks) nobody gets hurt." "Little late for that, boy." "(gunshot, Bruno gasps)" "(second gunshot, tires squeal)" "We ran the car off the road and Schindler got away." "I tried to chase after him, but 'cause of my leg and all..." "Schindler killed Huston." "He shot my best friend down." "("These Boots are Made for Walking" intro plays)" "NANCY SINATRA:" "* You keep sayin' you got somethin' for me *" "* Somethin' you call love, but confess *" "* You been a-messin' where you shouldn't-a been a-messin' *" "* And now someone else is gettin' all your best *" "* These boots are made for walkin' *" "* And that's just what they'll do *" "* One of these days these boots *" "Two shots." "* Are gonna walk all over you *" "* You keep playin' where you shouldn't be playin' *" "* And you keep thinkin' that you'll never get burned *" "* Ha!" "*" "* These boots are made for walkin' *" "* And that's just what they'll do *" "* One of these days, these boots are gonna walk all over you *" "* Are you ready, boots?" "*" "* Start walkin'... *" "(jazzy brass riff plays, slowly fading out)" "The .38 revolver in Bruno Curtis' possession fired the bullet that killed Huston Dobbs." "No surprise there." "No, but according to Mandy, the only prints on the weapon belong to Bruno Curtis." "Schindler's prints weren't even on the weapon?" "No." "So, despite Bruno's statement, and even though the belt buckle could place Schindler in the car, the only direct murder evidence we have implicates Bruno." "I guess those boots were made for walkin'." "I'm just happy to be free and, uh, I'm very pleased that justice was served." "Oh, and, uh, I wanna warn any collectors that might be out there." "Don't be taken by anybody trying to sell you any rare collectible Hux Club chips." "There's thousands of those things out there." "To a collector they're not worth a plug nickel." "Thank you." "The collectibles trader was released from custody earlier today." "One man loses his life and another one loses his leg, and all for worthless pieces of clay." "WILLOWS:" "What are you gonna do?" "So, um, Riley thinks that you're a little reckless." "And I think she's a little trigger-happy." "Catherine," "Ray, this is Clayton Ferris from the gaming commission." "FERRIS:" "As you are aware, the Hux Club chips were supposed to have been destroyed 28 years ago." "But it was never officially verified." "In any event, since the disposal was improperly carried out, the existing chips continue to be bearer instruments and the State of Nevada is on the line for their face value." "You mean anyone holding those chips can just walk in and trade them in for cash?" "Yes." "WILLOWS:" "Wait a minute." "The window for all chip redemptions is 120 days from the original recall." "The... attorneys who drafted the original Hux Club contract apparently left that provision out." "The Great State of Nevada, of course, will honor its obligation to redeem the chips." "However, the argument can be made that the chips are, in fact, stolen property and still outstanding evidence in a murder investigation." "So, you want us to find the chips before anyone else does and tries to cash them in." "We feel that that would be in the best interests of all concerned." "(phone ringing)" "Yeah, what's up, professor?" "Have you talked to Wiley Schindler yet?" "No, we're looking for him." "He checked out of the hotel, he wasn't at the trade show." "If he left town with the chips, he's got a big head start." "Did Barbie from the coffee shop say anything?" "No, I, uh... just arrived at her house about 15 minutes ago." "And, unfortunately..." "She's not talking." "Single large-caliber GSW." "There's no lividity; she's been dead less than an hour." "You must've just missed the bad guy." "She's got defensive wounds on her arms." "LANGSTON:" "I found a box of .44-caliber shells, six were missing." "Haven't found the weapon yet." "There were no signs of forced entry, which suggests that she knew her killer." "Yeah, but it looks like a robbery." "To steal what?" "Everybody outside of the gaming commission and the Crime Lab thinks that (phone ringing) these chips are worthless." "Jim?" "Okay." "Thank you." "P.D. just picked up Wiley Schindler at McCarran trying to board a plane back to Kansas City." "His carry-ons were packed with two cases of Hux Club chips." "And we let him out the door." "Well, I'm going back to the lab." "Why don't you finish up here?" "So, tell me something, Wiley." "Where'd you get the chips this time?" "From that gal at the diner-- Miss, um, Aubrey." "I went by her place this morning, made a fair deal for them." "You know, her buds, you know, you remember Stumpy and Hole-in-the-Head." "They were the ones who found them." "So, what made you think Barbie had any?" "Because she was their bud." "I figured she might know where the stash was." "And I have a sentimental attachment to the Hux Club era, so..." "Come on, man, don't lie to me." "You're not a sentimental guy." "Okay, I've got a friend in the gaming commission." "And I heard that the chips might still have cash value with the state." "Right..." "So, you went to Barbie and got all the high denomination ones before she found out what they were worth, right?" "Yeah." "So what?" "So, she's dead." "When I left her, she was smiling and holding $2,000 in cash." "You got a knack for making dead people happy." "I put my damn business card on the bank roll." "If I killed her, why in the hell would I do that?" "Hey, Catherine, I got something you'll want to see." "Remember those online auctions we were tracking?" "Yeah." "Well, a significant number of Hux Club chips were put on the market while Schindler was still in custody." "I know that Barbie Aubrey had some." "It was probably her." "That's what I thought, too." "So, I checked in with a couple people at the collectibles show to confirm." "Nobody recognized Barbie, but several described a man-- not Schindler-- who was peddling Hux Club chips." "This is surveillance video from the venue." "The guy on the left was apparently there for hours." "Eventually made several cash sales." "Any idea who he is?" "No, but... lucky for us, he paid his bar tab with his credit card." "OFFICER:" "No, I got units on it." "Hello?" "ELLIS:" "I don't care who called in sick, you can't just change the schedule on me at the last minute." "I'm in Vegas on business, like I told you." "Stop hounding me!" "SANDERS:" "All right, his name is Walter Ellis." "He's a busboy at the diner." "Well, the address on this statement is the same as Barbie's." "They live together?" "Or they're married." "Maybe Schindler was telling the truth the whole time." "What if Barbie stole the chips from Bruno and Huston and Walter then stole them from her?" "What are you doing?" "These are my chips, moron!" "They're half mine, you bitch!" "No, they're not!" "You're an idiot!" "* *" "(gunshot)" "13 years of living with that bitch!" "I'm getting out!"