"Not what we're here for." "Don't move." "Hands in the air and face the wall." "Hands in the air and face the wall." "Browner Dunn, diplomatic security." "Thank you for responding." "Don Eppes." "Looks like you got it covered." "Rooftop entry, hacked security." "And it sounds like a high-tech BE." "The Brazilian Consulate has two Andrades, a Portinaris," "And a diamond collection that rivals de Beers." "None of it was touched." "Your guy probably scared 'em off." "Where's he at?" "Yuson..." "He was gone when we got here." "He hasn't checked in in 90 minutes." "Any chance he was in on it?" "Not likely." "The guy's a boy scout." "They took out the main cameras." "Whoever it is, they have a blueprint on how to beat a biometric security system." "But not an attention to detail." "I checked with the neighbors." "Their garage camera covers the hall window." "That's Yuson." "There's more." "All right, so where is he?" "According to the footage, this is the only place they could have gone." "They couldn't have made Yuson disappear." "This painting is speaking to me." "Listen." "Hey, does this thing move?" "How'd you...?" "Worked for Batman." "Looks like a voice recognition trigger lock." "The FASR." "Quantico's been testing this thing." "The lock responds to voice passphrases from the owner." "Consul Nespola's been in Brazil, visiting his son." "We haven't been able to reach him." " There's probably not much air, right?" " What about the vault designer?" "No, that wouldn't help;" "you need Nespola's voice." "I'll call LAFD, have them drill it open." "Reinforced steel versus a drill?" "Drill loses." "You think we can pick it?" "You know, we don't need Nespola's vocal chords to get his voice 'cause he's a public figure." "I've got 27,521 views on YouTube." "I..." "Love..." "Rum-Pel-Stilt-Skin." "That's an ocean of clips, charlie." "How do we narrow that down to a passphrase?" "I'm using a wavelet analysis" "To supersmooth the rapid word combinations." "The english language has 44 phonemes, which are sounds inherent in human speech," "And that's what voice recognition is based on." "God-Zill-A... grew... up..." "in the Favelas." "It keys on the sounds within words instead of the words themselves?" "And all we need is the right combination within those 44." "God... honor... country... football." "It's like walking into a junkyard..." "And you're surrounded by dozens of cars that no longer run," "So you start collecting parts..." "Carburetors, radiators, pistons, transmissions." "You clean 'em off, you see which parts still function," "You put 'em together," "Mixing and matching until you find a combination that runs." "Goody..." "Good-Y... two... shoes." "Yeah, you got it." "Oh, my God." "You all right?" "Dunn, I'm gonna take this off..." "Let me get this straight." "You pass up paintings and diamonds for..." "Sneakers?" "All right, I can understand stealing gold, stealing art, but who pulls a heist for shoes?" "Who keeps 'em in a vault?" "This Consul Nespola dude's got to be a hardcore shoe collector." "Look, I know guys who stand in line for days for a pair of kicks." "You're kidding me... for shoes?" "Aren't you the guy with, like, 35,000 comic books?" "He's got dead stock waffles, Micropacers, So-Cal exclusives." "A collection like this has got to be worth millions." "Look, kicks are status symbols." "All right?" "You live in Malibu, you drive a Maserati." "You live on Slauson, you wear Jordans." "How do you know so much about it?" "I got a four-year degree from the streets of Compton and Watts." "Yeah, but they stole one pair." "Judging from what they left behind, they're something special." "All right, well, thieves are not complicated, right?" "I mean somebody hired them or the shoes are headed for the black market." "Yeah, either way, we got about 24 hours before the sneakers get moved." "Consul Nespola's here." "All the guy talks about is shoes." "These right here..." "Vintage Brazilian Adidas." "Paid $300 for 'em, sold 'em for $5,000." "It's the new stock market." "Oil... unreliable, Real estate... in the toilet." "But in shoes you trust?" "Listen, I go after big paydays..." "Made my fortune in junk bonds..." "But before I was Consul," "I was a kid who couldn't afford sneakers," "And now I can, so I do." "You got a picture of the ones that were stolen, by any chance?" "Picture of every pair." "Okay..." "These are the 2-K Primers." "Oh, yeah, I know Primers." "My brother wanted a pair when we were kids." "Parents paid rent instead." "What's so special about these?" "What's so...?" "Give me that." "This is the very first pair of the final edition Primers off the assembly line..." "Serial number 001." "That means I paid $250,000 for these at auction." "Do you have any idea what they're going to be worth in five years?" "No, and I don't really care, but I do notice that you bought most of them in the last year." "Is that true?" "Well, what I lack in experience, I make up for in aggressiveness." "Well, that can't make the other collectors happy." "Oh, the other collectors can kiss my converse because no one was supposed to know I had these Primers." "That auction was allegedly closed." "Who was in charge of the sale?" "La-La Buendia... works for 2-K shoes." "Hey, congratulations on that promotion." "Yeah, supervisor of organized crime." "I head to Denver at the end of the week." "Yeah, it's cold there." "It's a great department." " Yeah?" " Great opportunity." "All right." "So, stealing shoes has young and dumb written all over it," "But your thieves manipulated voice recognition." "So maybe someone shares their MO?" "Yeah, why don't you run it by Charlie?" "Find a heuristic that'll cut down the time?" "I don't know, maybe you have been here too long." "Who knew that shoes could bring the world together?" "Just do not step on anyone's feet." "Whoa, whoa, whoa... what's up?" "Hey, if you're here for the Primer bracelets, y'all need to get in line." "You don't let us inside, you're gonna be the one wearing bracelets." "What do the bracelets get you?" "Final edition Primers drop on the general public in a week." "Everybody and their moms is trying to cop." "Once the first pair auctioned off for crazy money," "I guess the demand for these went through the roof." "These priority bracelets..." "They keep people from mobbing each other on the day of release?" "Yeah." "I mean, it only raises the hype, though, you know." "You want a discount, yo, I can hook it up." "Hey." "Sorry, I'm late." "That's okay." "Amita had a combinatorics symposium in Kansas City." "I had a lecture on synchronized chaos, which is not at all meant for one person." "What's the required reading?" "Well, I checked with our audio guys in Virginia," "And the banks have been using voice recognition technology for the past few years." "It looks like an imposing list of suspects if we're simply considering bank heists." " You know?" " Epic." "Yeah, well, an epic search calls for an epic search algorithm." "It'll, uh, it'll sort suspects into segments." "So, Ms. Buendia, you were running the auction for 2-K shoes, and Nespola said no one was supposed to know the identity of the winning bidder." "Look, this was an auction for the first pair of the final edition Primers." "Word was gonna get out, regardless." "Plus, who cares?" "Nespola's a jerk." "Any idea who stole his shoes?" "Every head in L.A. Wants that heat." "Me?" "I'm on your side..." "I don't get paid until they're found." "What do you mean?" "Well, Nespola froze his auction payment until the shoes are found." "That means no commission for me." "On a quarter million dollar sale, you do the math." "Thing about Nespola winning the auction is that everyone else lost." "Leaves a lot of angry bidders." "Well, bidding did get hot and heavy between Nespola and Bit o' Nutz." "Who?" "DJ Bit o' Nutz." "The only sneakerhead with a collection bigger than Nespola's." "Oh, right there, right there, right there." "Yeah, girl." "Go a little lower..." "That's right." "Daddy got a lot of stress down there, girl." "Come on, man." "This is not what I call a happy ending." "We'd like to talk to you for a few minutes." "What's up, buster brown?" "Buster brown?" "Well, you know, they say kicks say a lot about a man, and, uh, those are screaming, "supercop!"" "So, you're Vic Moritz?" "Is that right?" "I prefer..." "Bit o' Nutz." "* You gotta, gotta be * * a bit o' nutz in this world, world. *" "Hit single." "What's nuts is you bidding six figures on a pair of shoes." "Man, you can't argue with that." "That's love." "Look, I know everything there is to know about Primers." "It all started with Primer Nelson." "Busted ankle ended his playing days in the league, so he made kicks to prevent injuries to others." "You mix tech with fashion," "And..." "Primers became a phenomenon." "Vic, we didn't really come here for a history lesson." "Yeah, but it's who I am, baby." "I mean, I produced my first single to buy a pair of Primers." "So, you must have been ticked off when Nespola got the final editions." "Hey, man, I'm not going to lie." "I mean, those kicks are my grails, but I don't need to steal from a reseller like Nespola." "Mind if we take a look in here?" "Fine... excuse me." "* You gotta, gotta, gotta * * be a bit o' nutz in this world. *" "Hey, go ahead, toss my crib if you want." "I ain't got nothing to hide." "You are not gonna find any final edition Primers here." "So, is that why you sent threatening e-mails To Nespola and La-La Buendia?" "Look, man, I felt cheated, so I sent a message." "Look, as you can see," "I am more intimidating in an e-mail than I am in person." "It's not about the money for me." " Oh, no?" " No." "They say love... is putting on a fresh pair every day." "That's me." "I mean, ask around, man." "I mean, my reputation is nice." "I can't say that for Nespola." "So, looks like we're down to dueling lists of 12 suspects here," "Thanks to the power of efficiency through optimized searching." "I'm sorry, I'm kind of nerding out on you." "Oh, no, I was just, uh..." "I was having one of those reflective moments." "Hey, Denver is lucky to have you." "That's... that's what they say, right?" "It is a great opportunity." "It's a promotion." "Urban nomads are the last great adventurers." "You know, I was just a kid when I got to Princeton." "Charlie, when you graduated from Princeton, you were just a kid." "No, what I'm saying is, is that you really never learn more about yourself than when you'ren your own, when you're away from family." "That's true." "Not everyone has a family like that." "I'm just saying, I don't even wear buster browns, you know?" "Does it matter?" "No, but you know How much I paid for these?" "Betancourt." "Cates?" " How you doing?" " What's up?" "This is David Sinclair." "Nice to meet you." "I saw your name on the alerts for that Consulate heist." "Come on, check this out." "Guy runs through here." "He gets this." "Alright, but how does that connect to us?" "You wear 250 G's on your feet in skid row, you're looking to get jacked." "Yeah, you get jacked for one shoe." "Our cinderfella has no ID but prison tats." "The techs think eastern European." "All right, run his photo, get it to immigration." "Any description of the shooter?" "Witnesses say a white guy in his 20s." "He argued with our dead guy before chasing him down here." "Literally chased him out of his shoe." "I thought breaking a heel was bad." "First thing our killer did was go for the shoe," "But a crowd of looky-loos, they scared him off before he got to it." "Chased away by the bum brigade?" "And he dropped his gun." "Forensics is working on prints." "They can't find the other shoe?" "On this street, shiny new things tend to disappear quickly." "Yeah, Betancourt." "Okay." "Yeah, great." "Yeah, that was Liz and Charlie." "They think they found a possible match on the MO from our Consulate heist." "I can't wait to meet the guy that hacks voice recognition locks for a living." "Interpol says his name is Stephanois." "He's French, too." "Your rap sheet reads like an encyclopedia for thieves." "And..." "I made a fortune." "Alas, all good things come to an end." "Then again, a rendezvous with two charming damsels..." "Always a pleasure." "Yeah, you know what really makes us hot?" "Stories about biometric security." "I pulled diamond heists in Paris, art in Monaco..." "Yeah, but see, that's the thing about heists." "Sooner or later, you get caught." "Which is why I embraced the peace and quiet of retirement." "Interpol says you adjusted your game." "Internet theft, hacking speech recognition locks on bank computers." "Taking the life savings of soccer moms was a tad banal." "Is that why you switched it up again?" "You know, lifting sneakers from Randall Nespola." "Last night, I was having dinner with my parole officer." "Steak was overcooked." "And I would never soil my craft heisting something as trivial... as tennis shoes." "Six figure shoes aren't so trivial." "Low six or high six?" "You buy it?" "Well, let's see." "Extremely rare skill set, lifelong criminal." "Maybe there's a connection to Mr. One Shoe." "I'll check." "You want to see if anyone tried to fence the shoes to other bidders?" "Yeah, sure." "Hey." "I heard you're leaving me to fend for myself in the boys club." "Yeah." "That's good for you." "You know, boss of your own unit." "But you'll be missed around here." "Thanks... and I think you're doing all right in the boys club." "Nah, girl, I'm just trying to be like you." "Did you ever notice how Professor Elliot resembles a cobra?" "Psoriasis, hoodlike neck, bites when angry." "Yeah, okay, I can see it." "You were late to solid state physics lab again?" "By three minutes..." "I mean, he locks the doors." "I'll never get my lab hours at this rate." "You know, Charles, there are other labs that would fulfill your dad's requirement." "Oh, yeah." "Computation and neural systems, for example." " Exactly." " Fine, fine." "As long as the professors aren't any asses." "You're looking at them." "You... you..." "Ah, there he is." "How's the great sneaker caper?" "Well, the good news is we found the right one." "Congrats." "But the left one was lost, apparently somewhere in skid row." "All right, so..." "We're talking about an item that's been misplaced in an area where its value has yet to be determined, so..." "You know what, get us a layout of the crime scene, and we can run an a priori probability distribution search, which won't tell you where the shoe was picked up, but it will give you search zones." "Well, that sounds like a lot of work for sneakers." "Just give me a pair of Bubbas." "I'm not familiar with that brand." "Bubbas?" "They're a reference to a variety of generic brands..." "like, cheap sneakers." "Great for a fifth grader, quantity-wise." "Not so great aesthetically." "Right..." "Hence my having to wear golf shoes Folittle league." "Hey, hey, hey." "You were lucky you didn't go barefoot." "You know, in an area like skid row, where no one knows the difference between Bubbas and Primers," "The preference for shoes balances between need and aesthetic value." "Sounds like "shipwrecks and sneakers."" " What's that?" " It's a true story." "The vessel Hansa was en route from Korea to Portland, when it lost all these crates of sneakers overboard." "Yeah, yeah, I read about that." "Yeah, they wound up on shores from Oregon to Hawaii in a pattern, depending on what the brands were or whether they were rights or lefts." "And scientists used the flow pattern to trace the shoes back to the spill site." "Is this gonna get us anywhere, or are we just digressing?" "When do I ever digress?" "Thanks." "Hey, thanks for making the time." "We need to know if either of these faces look familiar." "Maybe one of them sniffed around, trying to get contact info off of one of the auction bidders." "Never seen either one." "Look, yesterday, maybe I came off wrong." "The thing is, that commission is my seed money." "Future site of my company, once I leave 2-K shoes." "Oh, man, I haven't seen anything in here since TJ's drug store cleared out." "I used to patrol the area." "Well, it'd be nice to bring business back." "You know, give some people jobs." "Make some affordable, hot kicks." "Affordable and hot?" "That's not an easy combination." "Yeah." "But it's more fulfilling than selling shoes that nobody wears." "Yeah, I got you." "So, no one approached you about any of the bidders?" "No." "But I did get a call after the auction about the bid amounts." "The guy didn't leave his name and I didn't give any numbers." "La-La gets a call about the bid amounts, probably gauging a market value for fencing the shoes." "So we did a dump on La-La's phone." "And we traced a call to a guy who matches the description of our skid row shooter." "Lee Diddums." "Popped for a GTA." "Liquor store holdups before that." "And Johnny Knoxville stays busy." "Oh, come on." "He's minor league." "Yeah, that's what I thought, until I looked at his earlier jobs." "Internet theft... using audio files?" "He was juvie at the time." "That's why he wasn't in our records." "And during his time in juvie he had a visitor." "Jean Stephanois." "Diddums is his kid?" "No, his nephew." "Mother's maiden name is Stephanois." "That apple fell far from the tree and rolled down the hill." "All right, put an APB on him." "And let's interview Stephanois again." "ICE ID'd our dead guy." "He's Ekin Zetroc." "He's Albanian, in the country illegally." "I have an address." " I am going inside!" " You have no business being here." " No, they're mine!" " Yeah, say that again!" " Say that again!" " And look who shows up at the dead Albanian's house." "No, no, get out of my life!" "What am I, your woman now?" "If you're taking bets, I got to go with Nespola." "Get back in your little car and go home, my man." "We got the same car!" "I don't know." "Bit o' Nutz could surprise." " You couldn't hide behind your emails?" " Why am I talking to you?" "Yeah." "You know why they call me nutz?" "'Cause I'm about to go loco on you right now." "Hey, hey save it for the octagon..." "Get back!" "Back off!" "Is that right?" "Aren't your bank rolls a little too large to be duking it out on the street?" "I got a call from some guy in there." "He's offering to sell my Primers, back to me." "Yeah, and I got the same call, but no one showed." "It's hard to show when you're dead, all right?" "Looks like our Albanian was trying to set up a bidding war." " What's that?" " Whoa, whoa, whoa." "What's that?" "You find my Primers?" "We're halfway there." "Okay?" "Listen, you spend that much on shoes, they should stay on your feet." " He wore them?" "!" " He wore them?" "!" " That ruins the value!" " That ruins the value!" "Things are looking worse for Diddums." "Forensics came back on the gun." "He killed our skid row stiff, Zetroc." "Yeah." "Anything with the APB?" "No, nothing yet." "We combed Zetroc's place." "Nothing there but Albani junk, so we grabbed his cell phone records." "Traced the calls he made to Nespola and Moritz." "And according to our interface, came from a warehouse on skid row." "All right, get on it." "FBI Don't move!" "I got him!" "Get back here!" "Hey!" "Get back here!" "Hold it!" "Don't!" "Don't!" "Nice jump." "Gotta be the shoes." "Yeah, but which one is?" "Diddums tied them up." "Left 'em in a backroom." "Stylish crew." "I thought the general release day wasn't until next week." "Hey, why wait when you can make your own?" "Counterfeiters." "Use a mold from an authentic pair to make knockoffs." "So, everyone here's Albanian, same as our dead friend, Zetroc." "Any idea what Diddums was searching for?" "No." "No one knows, but they've seen him before." "He met with their bosses." "Bosses?" "Ekin Zetroc," "And that guy..." "Nadroj Ria." "I didn't know Zetroc." "Really?" "You know Albania, right?" "Nice labor camps." "Makes Chino look like "Chuck E. Cheese"." "Immigration'll make sure you meet up with your old friends." "I'd rather do prison here than go back there." "All right, start talking." "Diddums stole a pair of final edition Primers from some rich guy." "We paid 20,000 him to borrow the shoes for a few hours..." "Make molds, take pictures." "We can knock out 100 counterfeits in a day." "But the other part..." "That was Zetroc's idea." "The other part?" "Switch the shoes on Diddums, give him counterfeits." "Because, naturally, one good theft deserves another." "Zetroc said he could auction off the real pair." "But Diddums killed him first." "So, what was Diddums doing at the warehouse when we arrived?" "The Primers Zetroc was wearing were knockoffs, too." "Now he was going back for the real ones." "We might be crooks, but we're not stupid." "So where are the originals?" "Your nephew's a killer." "Lee can barely wipe his backside without screwing up," "Much less commit murder." "You didn't tell us pulling heists was a family business." "My nephew is on the shallow end of the gene pool." "How about laying low, you teach him that?" "Is there anything in my history that suggests this kind of buffoonery?" "I once owned a place in Tahiti." "Had I made that score," "I'd be there right now, surrounded with beauties." "Well, you can think about that." "Call me crazy, but I believe him." "So we find the damn Primers, we'll catch him." "Gotta hand it to him." "Not easy to find a needle in a needle stack." "Yeah, especially when the only guy who knows which is which is dead." "Man, I know everything about these kicks, and I can't tell the difference." "That's funny." "Considering a real one costs ten times as much." "Yeah, tried weighing 'em." "Every sneaker's the same 15 ounces." "All right, hot off the presses." "The results from my skid row distribution search." "Although now I'm thinking that this information is obsolete." "And a new problem, one of theses is the authentic pair." "Really?" "Hmm." "Um, you could compare material bases using a cross-dissection." "Uh, is he suggesting we cut open a pair of final edition Primers?" "Buoyancy, then." "If these counterfeits are made from a mold, than a buoyant force acting on a counterfeit would be different from a buoyant force acting on an authentic pair." "Buoyancy means water, right?" "Not on hand-stitched tumbled leather." "Charlie, is there a way to do it without destroying the pair of shoes?" "There is." "I would need an authentic pair of Primers." "You know what?" "I need more sneakers." "Where's the assistant?" "Sorry." "Thought I might have slipped a disc back there." "You okay?" "Yeah, yeah, I'm fine." "I'm fine." "I can't believe they use the word "air" to describe this thing." "This the way you treat all your lab assistants?" "No." "Actually, they spend a week of horticultural boot camp at the Eppes house." "I see." "That's who cuts our lawn?" "I'll be back." " Hey." " Hey." "Nice shades." "Thank you." "Who puts the coppertone on who first?" "Actually, this machine has no impact on skin pigmentation." "Yeah, hyperspectral imaging just simply collects and processes information from across the electromagnetic spectrum." "How's it do that?" "Seeing all ranges of light, from the visible to the ultraviolet." "In much the same manner as a Mantis shrimp." "Who curiously are neither Mantis nor shrimp." "They just look alike." "These are the guys that are gonna help us?" "Okay." "It's a little bit like this stress ball." "Now, it may resemble the far heavier paperweight," "But they have different core properties." "Ow!" "What are you doing?" "I just thought you were gonna catch it." "The hyperspectral sensors collect information as a set of images." "And then that information is combined to form a 3-D picture which reveals the object's true properties." "And..." "By testing these warehouse shoes along with the authentic Primers, the hyperspectral will tell us which of these pairs is identical to the authentic pair." "Sneakers and shrimp with X-ray vision," "I remember when zippers on kicks were cutting-edge technology." "You talking about Kangaroos?" "I had a pair of 'roos in the second grade." "Wore them everywhere." "I used to keep quarters in the zipper pockets." "For the ice cream man?" "Yep." "Man, the sneaker game." "Some call it a subculture, but I think it's about back in the day memories." "Nothing better than somebody asking, where'd you get those?" "Right?" "In a neighborhood full of afterthoughts," "Dope pair of kicks made a kid feel good about herself." "Well, it's been relayed through the ether that your time with us may be short." "FBI made me an offer that I..." "I just couldn't refuse." "I congratulate and commend you." "Decisions that take us away from family..." "those are, those are..." "Well, they're not easy ones." "It's not that hard." "Older brother's busy with the state department." "Younger brother's in prison, and father died years ago." "If I turned down a promotion like this, I don't get another shot for three years." "Well, new opportunities sometimes require just kind of leaving others behind." "And in my case, I found my new family." "The people I work with, laugh with, think with." "So, I suppose I found my reason to stay." "None of these shoes are authentic." "And yet, they still manage to keep your feet from getting dirty." "Oh, look at that." "Size 12." "You don't start talking soon, you're on your way back to Shkoder." "Diddums has the Primers." "When he came back to the warehouse for the real pair, he put a gun in my face." "So I told him where to find the shoes." "Why didn't you tell us this to begin with?" "Hmph!" "I figured I could make bail, hunt down Diddums myself." "Win, win." "Take the shoes or his money." "Hunt him down where?" "FBI!" "FBI!" "Get down!" "I got Diddums!" "You, down!" "Hands behind your back." "Spread your legs." "Got my running shoes on today." "Nice." "Where are the Primers?" "Primers what?" "Oh." "That's a lot of cash you got there." "Found it under my pillow." "He's erased his call history." "Hey, don't bother checking the SIM chip, either." "I torched that, too." "You uncle teach you how to do that?" " Hey." " Ah." "Oh." "Take a look at this." "Nice!" "Now, why would Vic Moritz give you his number?" "Better question." "Why didn't anybody teach you not to write on your hand?" "Come on, genius." "This way." "Yo, where have you been?" "I've been calling all day." "I've been going crazy." " Get your hands behind your back." " What?" "Crazy to hire thieves to steal from Randall Nespola." "Oh, okay, okay, listen." "I mean, maybe we can work something out." "Uh, you know, you like autographed CD's or something?" "Where are the sneakers?" "I don't know, man." "I wish I could tell you." "You know, I hear in jail, the term "bit o' nutz" has a whole different meaning." "Wait, wait." "You are not hearing me." "Look, I had the Primers, as in past tense." "Unbelievable." "Think you don't believe this?" "Imagine waking up to this." "I usually chase people in sneakers, not the sneakers themselves." "Err, what's it called when deja vu is real?" "It's called "we missed something."" "Diddums is in custody, we searched his place, no shoes." "Moritz could have hidden his collection somewhere else." "Let's go with what we have." "Techs say that a torch was used to open the vault." "Now, they also found a point of entry..." "broken window in the garage." "A straight forward smash-and-grab." "For an entire vault of shoes?" "Well, maybe the thief knows how to fence sneakers." "Or he's trying to throw us off." "The real prize here is the Primers." "Who knew about the Primers and has the ability to pull off big heists?" "Doesn't seem like Stephanois' style." "But he is getting old, and he's in a hurry." "Ticket to Tahiti." "Stephanois is in the wind," "So I figured 24 hours tops to move the shoes." "You know, I can't help but relate this conundrum to "shipwrecks and sneakers"." "Okay, what's that?" "Oh..." "Well, it could work as a method of telegraphing." "We reverse the focus." "We use the elements we know to predict where the shoes will float to." "Right." "For David it works." "Well, what do we know?" "The market value of the shoes, and the sneaker heads who might be interested in them." "Right." "And the telegraph process links these two factors, and measures risk versus reward." "It give us a third factor..." "The most likely buyer." "I mean, we all play pinball." "Think of the Primers as a pinball." "Now, the number of buyers is already limited." "The level of risk involved with purchasing the shoes tells us where the bumpers are." "Now, the Primers are extremely high-priced." "They're high-profiled." "They're high-risk considering they're stolen property." "So, the number of possible avenues, of possible buyers, considering all factors, becomes extremely limited." "In fact, the buyer with the least risk and the greatest ability to purchase is the same person that we might least suspect." "The original owner." "All right, hold it." "Hands behind the back." "You know the drill." "I suppose Tahiti will have to wait, huh?" "But you'll always have Paris, right?" "Must have just sold the shoes." "Got your call, Eppes." "Didn't believe it until Stephanois showed up." "Where's Nespola?" "Inside." "Technically, he's on foreign soil, so he's got diplomatic immunity." "Yeah, he may have immunity, but the shoes don't." "They're my Primers!" "They're stolen, and they're evidence in a murder case." "You know, I'm Foreign Consul." "I don't, uh..." "I don't have to cooperate with the FBI." "Yeah, you're right." "But the Primers are coming with us, which means they'll be in evidence." "You never know how long that can take." "Who knows how the sneakers will be treated once they get there?" "Man, some of the stories I heard about evidence." "Oh, yeah, I've heard some... phew!" "Okay, if I cooperate, you promise you're gonna take care of the Primers?" "You gonna make your auction payment?" "Look, no scuff marks on the shoes, okay?" "Listen, whoever is in evidence, please, you got to make sure that they know what they're doing." "You cannot put them in direct sunlight." "Just give us the damn shoes, huh?" "So, anyway, I just put it in a box inside the..." "Closet?" "Really?" "Yeah, well, my vault's voice recognition won't be reconfigured for another week, okay?" "So, until then..." "Oh, no." "Come on." "I just put them there." "Oh, here we go again." "That sounds like..." "Oh!" "Dad, I saw you hide these, but they're so cool!" "Best birthday ever!" "These are for me, right?" "Let's say, uh, give your dad a second, okay?" "Show him what you got." "Let's D. Little bit of D." "Get up." "Hand-stitched leather, Candy-painted chassis," "Carbon fiber steel shank plates in each sole." "And a smile on your kid's face." "Buy the shoes for him." "Yeah, look at how much fun he's having." "Come on, play some D, baby!" "I got you.." "give it up." "All right, that's you." "Just put it on the table." "Hey, hey." "You got a name for your company?" "Not yet." "I don't think Phil Knight came up with Nike till he got his first shoe." "Nespola made his auction payment." "Here's your commission check." "Yeah, he was in a generous mood." "That's cool." "Good looking out." "Now, you can quit your job." "You know, do this thing for real." "You know I'll bring the heat." "Okay, I just got one request." "What's that?" "Can you make me a pair with zippers on the side?" "Sure." "Liz said she'd call us when she lands in Denver." "Hey." "Well, anything for me?" "Uh, no." "Sorry." "This is... actually, it's all me." "So check it out." "John Maeda..." "He's a professor at MIT..." "He, uh... he designed a pair of kicks based on his own algorithms, so I thought I'd do the same." "Check these out." "What do you think?" "Hidden markov model on the toe." "Uh, some Hermetian random matrixes on the tongue." "And, uh, social network analysis throughout." "Air geeks." "Okay, dinner is almost ready." "Tonight, you all have the honor of having, uh, goulash." "Hungarian for whatever's in the fridge." "What's up?" "You had a bad day at the lab or something?" "Yeah, that's, uh, very funny." "Oh." "Now just keep on laughing." "Think I'm gonna change my will." "Oh." "On my way over, look who I found." "Hey." "Oh." "Aren't you supposed to be on a plane?" "I was." "And then I looked at my boots." "I've, uh..." "I've had these boots for seven years." "I've worn them into the ground." "I've replaced the heels, the zippers." "But I'd never give them up." "So, if I can't let go of a pair of boots, then why the hell would I ever let go of a great situation like this?" "A great job doesn't compare to a great life." "You guys are family." "Well said." "Oh." "Wait a minute." "Did you just compare us to a pair of old boots?" "I did." "How do you know we were even gonna take you back?" "Yeah." "Well... just sit down." "Speaking of old boots, let's eat some goulash." "Definitely changing my will, definitely."