"All right, clear a path." "That's it, please." "Okay." "Good." "Now at the Sklar Graphics booth," "Miles Sklar will be unveiling Ultraworld Number One, the world's rarest and most valuable comic book." "Okay, folks." "Stay back, stay back." "I present long-lost and only copy of Ultraworld Number One." "And that completes the greatest comic-book collection in existence." "Okay." "Everybody on the ground." "Now." "Open it." "Open it." " Do it." " Okay, okay." " Hey, let's go." "Let's move it." " What's going on over there?" "How game theory can be applied to casual relationships." "Between friends, what's the strategic goal?" "After all, there's no commodity being sought, right?" "Let's think about this." "Even the most casual relationship is built around a very important commodity." "Thank you." "Information." "When a friend shares information, they place a value on our intention not to use it against them." "And we in turn are expected to share our information with them." "We can call this symmetrical information." "And it's the foundation of partnerships between countries, corporations, lovers and friends." "You are very popular." "You have 17 new text messages." "Okay, so for next week, chapter 15 of Theory of Games and Economic Behavior, by John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern." "So you're done." "Thank you all." "Professor Eppes?" " Yeah, hi." " Peter Lange." "Yeah, biochemistry, right?" "No, Vanity Fair." "I'm writing a profile on you." "So have you always taught game theory?" "Yeah." "Yeah, it's applied mathematics." "So I don't always have this many students." "That's due to the popularity of the book." "Right." "I'm also gonna have to talk to your friends and your family members." " Really?" " Well, because your book," "The Attraction Equation, is on the bestseller's list, you're seen as, you know, a friends expert, a kind of relationship guru." "So I want to know about your own relationships." "Private security guard, Christopher Jenssen." " Off-duty cop?" " High-school football coach." "Wife says he moonlights to make extra money." "Has four kids, one starts college next year." "Robber shot Jenssen, then he fired into the crowd and hit one." " What, this all for a comic book?" " Worth lots of money." "Sklar has one of the biggest comic collections in the world." "Including the ashcan edition of Ultraworld Number One." " The what's the what?" " Ashcan edition of a comic." "It's when a publisher, he only prints one copy, never intended for sale." "Oftentimes, it was thrown in the ashcan." "This one in particular, the one that was stolen, was drawn in 1962 by Ross Moore." "He's a visionary." "He's a legendary artist." "How do you know all this?" "I started my first collection when I was 9." "I still have a few thousand." "A comic-book geek in the FBI." "Sweet." "Oh, man." "An absolute pleasure to meet you, man." "I'm a big fan of your work." "I have a first edition of Nano Punk, mint." "Oh, yeah?" "Well, I'm a big fan of your work too." "Bank robberies and stuff." "Don, this is Seth Marlowe." "He's an incredible artist." "And he's also an expert in comic history." " Well, you know this guy, Miles Sklar?" " Oh, yeah, yeah." "He's everything that's wrong" " with the comic-book industry." " How's that?" "He started out as a promising young artist." "But he said that there wasn't enough money in comic books." "And so he created a character that he would sell to TV and the toy companies, and he made millions." "What would you say this...?" "What is it?" " Ultraworld Number One." " What's that worth?" "Maybe $2 million." " If it's actually authentic." " He never had it authenticated." "So, what, you're saying it could be fake?" "Yeah." "If it's real, it belongs to the guy who created it, Ross Moore." "He's a legend in this business." "Ross Moore, that hack?" "Yeah, he wrote it, decades ago." "Look, he sold it, he lost it, whatever." "I paid for it, so it's mine." "He can't come around now asking for it because it's valuable." " How did you get it?" " I found it." "It was in an estate sale in Syracuse, New York." "It was in a box with 300 other comics." "And you got it for an investment?" "Yes." "I will sell it when it's at its peak value, which should be right after Moore dies." "He's not doing very well, so that shouldn't be very long." "Nice for you, I guess." "Comics are a business." "I'm rich because I understand that." "And this was the first time it was shown?" "Yes." "I normally keep it in an undisclosed location in a locked safe." "I only brought it to the convention because there were these rumours that it's fake." "In retrospect, a bad idea." "Talk about arrested development." "You can't deny the cultural impacts that comics have had on this country." "You got Lichtenstein, it's Warhol." "Hugh Jackman in a Wolverine outfit, that was hot." "Agent Sinclair, there's a wild rumour that Ultraworld just sold on the black market for 50,000 bucks." " What?" "Who bought it?" " Who says they bought it?" "lmpossible." " How would you know?" " Because I know." "Hey, sir." "FBI." "I need to speak to you for a second." " Hey, I don't know anything." " We didn't ask you anything yet." "Three guys are fighting over there." "They all say they bought Ultraworld." " No way." " You..." " Let me see your hands." " The only copy is mine." "I bought it." "Oh, God." "There's copies everywhere." " Give it to me, give it to me." " Let go." "So much for our rare one-of-a-kind comic." "So people bought a stolen comic even though a man died." " That's just obsessive collecting." " Three hours after the robbery, our buyers got an e-mail from someone claiming to have acquired the actual comic from the robbers." " Hey there." "You with us?" " Yeah, what?" "I mean, how did the buys go down?" "It's cash only, ranging from 5- to $40,000." "The seller met with buyers over a six-hour period, each at a different public place." "General description is a white guy, mid-20s." "Any chance that the real one was sold along with the fakes?" "Tech said all the copies are of similar quality, all done on old paper." "But because Sklar never had his authenticated, there's no way of knowing if it's the real Ultraworld Number One." "Someone thought it was worth killing for." "You know, that shooter reacted to minor resistance with rage." "Maybe there's an aggression disorder." "There'd probably be a violent record." "Yeah, check it out." "I mean, those locations are pretty evenly spaced, huh?" "I mean, we know what that means." "Somebody tried to make them look random, but they're not." " Why don't you run it by Charlie?" " All right." "You doing okay?" "Yeah." "So the fakes were sold at 14 locations within a five-mile radius." "Well, that's excellent, because I can get you a probable base for the seller." "All right, how about the copies themselves?" "Dude, I love forgery problems." "I can compare the copies, see if they're drawn by the same person." "I just wish I knew more about comic books." "Well, you've come to the right place." " Hey, you're the FBI math guy." " Yeah, yeah, that's me." "I've been getting a lot of press." "I'm Charles Eppes." " Seth Marlowe." " All right, Seth." "And I guess you're an expert on comic collecting and history." "And I see that you're an artist yourself." "Yeah, these are my people." " All right." " What do you wanna know?" " What makes a comic valuable?" " Rarity, age and condition." "Which is why a lot of collectors don't read them, they just buy them and seal them up." "The book's condition." "This one's mint, perfect." "Never been read." "Now it never will be." "It's only good for showing off." "And what does this yellow sticker mean?" "That's it's been doctored." "Cuts the value." "People paint faded copies, spray them with cooking oil to make them shiny, use tape on smudges, which takes off some of the original ink." "How about forgery, is that common?" "If you're good enough to fake a comic, you're good enough to draw your own." "A highly rare comic is valuable, then it'd be motivation for forgery." "Rare ones are well known to the collectors." "All right, so all I'll need is copies of Ross Moore's work drawn around the same time that he drew Ultraworld Number One." "You know Ross Moore?" "He's a friend." "I'll talk to him." "If it's the old stuff you want, that's from 1962." "Two weeks after I drew Ultraworld One." "It's exactly what we need." "Thank you so much." "How are you feeling today, Ross?" "Oh, all right, as long as I don't try to do anything too fast." "I got emphysema, kidney problems." "I beat the big C a couple years ago." "Mr. Moore, it's a real honour." "I've always loved your books." "I own a lot of them." "Probably more than I do." "I sold most of my collection years ago." "Hey, you had no way of knowing how crazy the market was gonna get." "They threw old books out, gave them away." "We left behind boxes of stuff when we moved offices." "I didn't mean to lose Ultraworld, but somewhere back then it got misplaced." "I'd sure like to have it back." "Why that one?" "Iris." "Supported me when I was getting started." "Stuck with me all this time." "With my health problems, we're pretty broke." "After I'm gone, she could sell it, live well the rest of her life." "And that'll happen, if there's any justice in this world." "Justice?" "Kid, you read too many comic books." "Charlie's sending over a hot-zone map so we can target the seller's locations." "That's great." "You asked for these files from Karen Silver in the Art Crime Unit?" "Yeah, it's just some stuff on known forgers in the area." "Hey, what do you know about Karen?" "She got a boyfriend, or what's her story?" " She's married." " Oh, really?" "Why?" "Looking to meet someone?" "You know, it's just, back in Idaho, it was pretty easy to meet girls." "Knew just about everybody who lived in the town where I grew up." "I know some pretty interesting women." "I'm sure you do." "Smart, successful, great sense of humour." "But you'll leave out big boned, owns 17 cats." "I will bet you 20 bucks I can set you up with someone, and you'll like it." "Twenty bucks?" "All right, you're on." "You know what I really like?" "I love those Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers." "Or anything by R. Crumb or Harvey Pekar." "Yeah?" "Boy, me, no." "I wanted adventure." "A quest for cosmic answers." "Oh, you were into superheroes?" "Oh, yes." "Well, Daredevil, Fantastic Four." "Of course, my favourite was Galactus." "But that's the guy who ate planets." "Yeah, well, I mean, he was stellar Darwinism." "He was necessary to the survival of the universe." " What?" " Yeah." "He was the third force, along with eternity and death." " Larry, he wanted to eat the Earth." " But he didn't." "Hey, David." "I found a printing house that deals in vintage paper." "They had a request for '50s-era pulp paper." "That's what the forgeries are printed on." "Yeah." "The guy used a fake name and paid cash, but I got a description." "And he was wearing a Doctor Strange T-shirt." "By the hoary hosts of Hoggoth." "What?" "That was Doctor Strange's catch phrase." "You know, when he'd use..." "Yeah." "Charlie's map shows an area that's central to all the forgery sales." "All right, we can run down records of all the male residents in the area." "Might not need to." "I checked out the businesses in the hot zone." "There's a comic-book store right there." "So I called to see if there was unusual activity recently." "I like the way you're thinking." "The day after the robbery, a guy walked in and bought $20,000 worth of collectible comic books." "He was wearing a Doctor Strange T-shirt." "Same as the guy that bought the vintage-era paper." "Yup." "He might be trying to launder the money from the forgery sales." "This guy a regular customer?" "The kind they might know by name?" "He's the kind that puts in an order for more books." "You're kidding me." "So they not only know his name..." "They have his home phone number." "I think I hear water running." "Just a minute, I'm in the shower." "He's going out the back." "Man, who's gonna tackle this guy?" "Whoever gets there last." "Hey, give me the keys to your car." "Now." "Ladies, ladies, FBI, please." "Let him go, okay?" "Please, let him go." "Thank you." "You dropped your cape, Superboy." "So we know you bought vintage paper." "The same paper you used to make the forgeries of Ultraworld One." "It's not a crime to buy paper." "You don't have anything else." "How about indecent exposure?" " What?" " Naked carjacking." "It's the worst kind." "Mark Vaughn, gentlemen." "Classic calm personality." "Goes along with the mail fraud and scams." "Yeah?" "Do you think robbery?" "Yes, but he's not our shooter." "He knows how to control his emotions." "And he's not our forger, he's got no background in art." "I'm kind of thinking he might be on a team." "Maybe two other people." " Right, maybe one's an artist..." " And the other's a killer." "Yeah, so we run down his associates, look for the trigger-happy psycho." "Yeah, that sounds good." "Thanks, guys." "Anybody else think Don's been a little off these days?" " Kind of hard to say, but maybe a little." " Especially since he broke up with Liz." "Maybe one of us should go and, you know," " see if he wants to talk about it?" " You volunteering?" "Hell, no." "I've spent my entire life with comic-book art, especially Ross Moore's, and I can't tell if this is real or not." "That's because what you do is you look at the style," " the form, and drawing techniques." " Silly me." "What do you do?" "Fractal number estimate." "It's based on Mandelbrot's use of fractal dimension to measure the jaggedness of a coastline." "So, what's going on in here?" "Oh, hello." "Other than a very hot woman looking very hot?" "Charlie, I'm sorry, I've been swept off my feet." "I'm going to have to run off with this man because he is so smooth." "Oh, you mock me." "Seriously, what are you doing?" "I am using the fractal dimension analysis to evaluate the wrinkliness of these lines." "The wrinkliness?" "An authentic piece of handwriting or drawing will have a smoother ink edge than one that is forged." "So for instance, when I sign my own name, the pen moves quite rapidly." "The movements of my hand are fast and fluid, thus minimising the contact between paper and pen." "The faster the hand movement, the smoother the edge of the ink." "However, when someone copies my signature, it's an imitation of my movement." "It's not as natural for the forger, so it's slower." "The slower the pen, the longer the contact with the paper, the more time for ink to be absorbed into the paper, which creates an irregular or wrinkly edge." "Fractal dimension allows us to compare the wrinkliness and detect the fake." "These fractal comparisons are telling us the same thing." "That none of the copies we analysed were drawn by Ross Moore." "Yet there are similarities across multiple points of edge comparison." " Which means?" " The same artist drew all the forgeries." "And we can try to match the forger's style to a specific comic book artist if you can get us samples of artists that are capable of copying Ross Moore." "He did inspire an entire generation of artists." "But, yeah, I can help you round up the usual suspects." "Great." "This guy you've got, Mark Vaughn, he's your basic grifter." "Any real bad guys he knows he met courtesy" " of the state of California." " In prison." "During a stint a couple years ago, he bought protection from Gordon Garrity, 44." "A real sweetie." "Armed robbery, home invasion, assault with intent, voluntary manslaughter." "I ran a check for you." "Skipped two parole appointments." "There's a warrant out." "Well, thanks very much." "Thanks for running the check." "Appreciate it." "This man is not gonna be easy to find." "Doesn't sound like it." "But what about her?" "She your type?" "The form flourished all through the '30s and '40s, particularly during World War II." "You know, when people felt so frightened and the future was..." "Comic-book heroes embodied the hope that good would triumph, power was in the hands of the right." "With great power comes great responsibility." "That's right." "And the way of the hero is the path of self-sacrifice." "Hey, Seth, you got anything for us?" "Yes, sir." "These are all done by artists who could draw like Ross Moore if they wanted to." "Surely not Harry Hoodle." "Come on, I've read all of his books." "This is all based on drawing style." "Look, man, I'm giving you stuff from some of my best friends here." "I see you bought my book." "Oh, yeah, yeah." "You wanna sign it for me?" " Might be worth something someday." " Yeah, I'll tell you what," "I'll sign one of mine if you sign one of yours for me." " How about a Nano Punk?" " Cool." "You know, that magazine writer called me." "Do you think I should talk to him?" "Both my publisher and my publicist think you should." "Yeah, but do you?" "Larry, it was never my intent to go down in history as some crackpot expert." "There's something to be said for being an expert." "So have you found your mystery forger?" "No, not yet." "There's still a lot of artists to test." "I think you should consider economics." "What was the result of the robbery and the forgeries?" "Somebody made money on those forgeries, and at this point, Sklar's copy has been totally discredited." "So fake books, a real book." "Now, what does economic theory say about the value of false goods commingled with genuine?" "Genuine goods lose value, right?" "Okay, so putting our thinking caps on here, who would want to devalue Ultraworld and discredit Sklar?" "I think I know whose art I need to analyse next." "Hey." "Hey, I know who the forger is." "Yeah." "It's Seth Marlowe." "Yeah?" "Can you prove that?" "No, but I have a theory, and it's far too elegant not to be true." "It's elegant because it all fits." "It's not just about theft, it's about making people doubt that Sklar's Ultraworld was real." "Well, we know that Seth hates Miles Sklar." "Right." "And if Sklar's was fake, then he can't claim the real one when it shows up, and it will." "Do you think the real one is in Seth's possession?" "He's gonna make his ownership look legitimate?" "No, he didn't steal it for himself, he wants to give it to Ross Moore." "Charlie's telling me his theory on Seth Marlowe." " It's elegant." " Yeah, I know all about it." "He doesn't have any proof." "It's a hunch." " You have hunches, you follow them." " Yeah, well, Charlie, we don't exactly think of you as our hunch guy." "Hey, you know, I had a hunch about the Eppes convergence way before I had the math." "Einstein had a hunch about relativity decades before it could be proven." "Hey, I don't wanna get in the middle of a brother thing here, but do you want my professional opinion?" " Of course." " Seth doesn't fit the profile." "He has no criminal record." "He's a really well-known artist." "He's a historian, a collector." "He stands more to lose than he stands to gain." "Those are both excellent professional opinions to consider." "However, once considered, they don't change my hunch." "But thank you." " Hunch." " See, Gordon Garrity, our robber's prison buddy," " he's not turning up." " Going through known associates, trying to put together a geographical map of his past crimes." "Yeah, so, what's Charlie got?" "Elegance." "No proof." " Excuse me, I'm Peter Lange." " Yes." "I'm writing the piece on Charles Eppes." "I was unaware that Vanity Fair has a mathematics section." "Well, we don't." "Culture, society, media, celebrity, where Professor Eppes now finds himself." "Around here, he was famous before he wrote the book." "I..." "I want to write about you and his other friends." "Okay, well, he's well-liked on campus and wherever he goes." "Yeah, I know." "He's the most popular professor on campus, but he has few close friends." "Former teacher, former student?" "Yeah, well, I think he just chooses to live by" "Benjamin Franklin's old adage:" ""Be civil to all, social with many, known to few."" ""Few" being two?" "Come on, you know..." "I was a total geek in high school." "I know what it's like." "You know, Charlie's passionate about the world, but he thinks about it in terms of numbers and patterns." "How many people can he share that with?" "Other mathematicians." "Yeah, but few of us started college at 13." "Charlie wasn't part of a social peer group till he was an adult." "So the fact that he's as compassionate and engaged as any of us, I mean," "I think that's his greatest accomplishment." "Hey, Seth." " This is Charlie." " Charlie." "Yeah, we..." "We know each other." "He's helping the FBI find Ultraworld." " Trying to." " Yeah, you've been great." "So, what brings you here?" "I could use a couple more samples of Ross's work." "I wanted to meet the man that everybody's talking about." "These kids today, they make too much about us old guys." "We were just trying to make a little money, have some fun." " You created a new art form." " What?" "Comic books?" "What's all this?" "This guy, always bringing stuff." "Seth, I don't know what Iris and I would do without you." "You give us so much of your time." "I know you got more important things to do." "No, not more important than this." "Guys, we found something on Garrity." "Let me guess, he's a fan of comic books?" "Yeah, how'd you know?" "Because I was telling Don some of Marlowe's fans live in state prisons." "And they write their favourite comic-book artist letters." "Yeah, we found the same link." "Garrity wrote a letter a year ago, sent it from the High Desert State Prison to Seth Marlowe." "Right, well, I mean, I'm sure the guy gets a thousand of these a year." "But how many are from inmates?" "And how many are from guys who have a direct connection to Mark Vaughn?" "What do I think of Miles Sklar?" "I think he got a mega-dose of vitamin K." "K for "karma."" "Parades around claiming that he owns Ultraworld Number One." "But he never got it authenticated." "I wonder if that's because he knew that it was fake?" "It's not a fake." "I'm an artist, not a forger." "Come on." "If you were a real artist, you would have given the comic back to Moore." "But you were just waiting for him to die, you fricking vulture." "An artist?" "What, like you?" "The creator of that lame Nano Punk?" "Oh, yeah, and your Mister Bobble Head is a superhero for the ages." "Hey, I was robbed." "I was robbed and a man died." " And it's all a big joke to you." " I don't think it's a joke." "In fact, I have an idea about how some good can come of this." "The final event of this convention is the comic auction." "Let's add some items to that list, shall we?" "Everybody who bought a fake Ultraworld can put it up for sale." "Yeah, now, I know, I know, they're forgeries." "But, hey, come on, they're famous." "And the money that we raise can be split between the buyers that got ripped off and Ross Moore." " I'll buy one myself." " Yeah." "What do I get out of something like that?" " What a jerk." " Hey, I'm not a bad guy." "I'm a victim." "Interesting proposal, an auction." "Wasn't too we-are-the-world-ish?" "No, not at all." "It's great." "So what brings you back to the land of the uber nerds?" "I just came down to let you know that my analysis is close to identifying the forger in this case." "How exactly does a mathematical analysis turn into a criminal conviction?" "I mean, you're working with probabilities, right?" "It's not, like, hard, physical evidence." "Given the right circumstances, it can lead to that." "Yeah, but in that case, even if the math does implicate someone, if there's no evidence, if there's no link to the crime, you can't prove anything." "Yeah." "I guess you're right." "Although, if you're not privy to the FBI's case files and you're not part of the actual crime, you can't know that there's no evidence." "Yeah, I guess I wouldn't know that." "The ballistics report on the 9 mm used at the robbery, stolen from a retired cop's apartment in an assisted-living residence." "How does that help us?" "Well, it wouldn't if it weren't for this other piece of information here." "Garrity's mom." "Look where she lives." "Rancho Vista Assisted Living." "Same address?" "This guy stole a gun while visiting his mother?" " Maybe he's doing more than visiting." " Oh, yeah." "A violent ex-con who wants to get back into his old ways of doing business." "Can't hang out with his former associates, doesn't want a residence with his name on the lease." "Right." "Say he lives with his mom." "Mrs. Garrity, ma'am, we need you to come with us, okay?" " What the hell?" " It's okay, we're FBI." " You can just come with us over..." " Gordy." " Gordy, it's the damn feds." " A little help, please." " Ma'am." "Stop with the cane." " Ma'am, ma'am, please, please." "Let's do it." "You guys go that way." "Garrity, freeze." "Tell them I'm on the other side of the building." " That's not gonna happen." " Do it." " No way." " I said do it." " He shot himself." " Yeah, he's dead." " You okay?" " Yeah, yeah." "David." "I found this at the mother's apartment." " Oh, great." "Let's get it to Charlie." " Right." "Hey, how are you doing?" "I'm okay, man." "Thanks for asking." "You know, for a minute there, I almost believed a man could fly." "So I analysed the copy that you guys found with Garrity." "What did you come up with?" "It's not authentic." "It's another forgery." "Okay." "Was it done by whoever made the other forgeries?" "Yeah, same artist." "Okay, well, assuming it was a copy stolen from Sklar," " then that means Sklar owned a fake." " No." "I just think that's what Seth wants everyone to believe." "So are you doing a slam job on my son?" "No, but I am profiling the man behind a self-help book, supposedly based on real science, that offers a simplistic fix to difficult issues." "Let me say this right off." "It's not a supposed science." "Yeah, but we're talking about emotional lives." "We're talking about making money on their desire for easy answers." "There's nothing simplistic about Charlie's thinking, I can tell you that." "He didn't write the book to make money." " Then why did he write it?" " You mean now or when he was 9?" "Both." "Okay, Charlie was an awkward kid." "But he trusted math." "I mean, he felt safe with math." "So I guess it was natural to try to use math to help him get along with other kids." " Did it work?" " No, not at all." "Well, then, why write the book now?" "It's not like it's gonna add to his professional standing, and it could even diminish it." "You know, to be honest, I don't think" " he really thought that one through." " Really?" "He just thought it was an interesting application of game theory." "And that everyday people would read it." "So he wanted to write it for a wider audience." "Charlie thinks math is beautiful." "And he wants everyone to love it the way he does." " You found something?" " Yeah." "You know, most forgers want their forgeries to fool everybody forever." " Right?" "Not Seth." " Yeah, because at some point, he wants the real copy to be acknowledged." "Right." "He has to prove that the fakes are fake." "So you know what he did?" "He marked them." "You found this mark?" "Only because I went looking for it." "See these lines of varying length?" "Yeah." "They are identifiable as a simple representational code." "Each length represents a different letter or number." "And look what it spells out." ""Miles Sklar, 2007."" "Why would he put Sklar's name on it?" "Because Seth's got a wicked sense of humour." "Charlie, this is really wild stuff, but you understand it really doesn't give us evidence against Seth Marlowe." "That evidence will come at the auction." "You think that's how he plans to launder the real copy, throw it in with fakes." "Genuine good commingled with false goods." "In auction theory, we talk about equilibria or symmetry." "All the bidders have the exact same information." "Except Seth knows something the other bidders don't know, which is that the original copy of Ultraworld Number One will be an item up for bid." "So asymmetrical information creates asymmetrical bidding." "Charlie, this guy, he really knows that we suspect him, right?" "So he's gonna have to use a straw man or a proxy to do the bidding for him." "That straw man will be bidding off of Seth's information." "Now, this asymmetry will almost certainly create a situation called jump bidding, which is when a person enters a far larger bid than necessary to be the current winning bidder." "I don't understand." "What's the advantage of that?" "It's like a bike race." "Typically, there's no advantage to jumping ahead of the pack, so racers tend to stay clustered together and switch off the leads." "But there is a strategy of taking the lead early to exhaust the competition." "Jump bidding is like quickening the speed of the race." "It encourages the early exit of some bidders and discourages the late entry of others." "So when someone makes a big bid during the auction..." "That's Seth's straw man." "And you're gonna be able to tell the real one?" "It's the one without Seth's code drawn into it." "Okay." "Hi, Seth." "Professor Eppes." "You come here to catch the evil mastermind?" "I'm here to bid on one of the famous forgeries." "Who knows, the real one could be here." "I think they're all fakes, if you ask me." "What exactly are you looking for, Charlie?" "Just looking." "Okay, let's get started on this special auction of 14 versions of the famous Ultraworld Number One." "Proceeds to benefit the sellers and the renowned artist, Ross Moore." "Item one, Ultraworld Number One." "Not authenticated, believed to be a forgery." "We'll start the bidding at $500." " Do I have 550?" " Five-fifty." " I have 550." " Six-hundred." " Six-hundred." "Do I hear 650?" " Six-fifty." "I have 650." "Six-fifty going once, twice and sold." "Moving to item number two." "Six-fifty." "Going once, twice and sold." "This is item number five." "Moving to item number five." "Again, we'll start the bidding at 550." "I have 550." "I have 700." "Do I have 750?" "Sold." "Moving now to item number nine." "Sold." "Going once, twice and sold." "This is item 11." "Ultraworld Number One." "Again, unauthenticated, possible forgery." " What do I hear?" " Seven-hundred." "I have 700." "Do I have 750?" " Seven-fifty." " I have 750." " Do I have 800?" " Two-thousand." " Here we go." " Two-thousand fifty." "I have 2,050." " Three-thousand." " Three-thousand one hundred." " I have 3,100 over here." " Four-thousand." " I have four-." " Five-thousand." "Fifty-five hundred." " Eight-thousand." " Ten-thousand." "I have 10,000." "Do I hear 10,500?" " Fifteen-thousand." " Twenty-thousand." "Twenty-thousand." "Going once, twice, three times and sold." "You figured it out." "Your math stuff worked." "Sklar had the real one, huh?" "The authentic copy of Ultraworld Number One, and then you stole it?" "Ultraworld Number One belongs to Ross Moore, not to me." "And certainly not to Miles Sklar." "A man was killed." "Unfortunately, nothing can change that." "But giving the comic back to Ross is gonna change a lot." "Your fan from prison almost shot my brother." "Charlie, plea..." "Please, man, I know you understand what this is all about." "Why I did this." "Let me give the comic back to Ross." "It doesn't work like that, Seth." "Charlie..." "Okay, Seth, get your hands behind your back, please." "We're taking you in for some questioning." "Vaughn and Garrity." "Both fans." "Read my stuff in prison." "How'd you sneak the real copy into the auction?" "I'm the Ross Moore expert, right?" "Everybody let me examine their Ultraworld Number One, and I swapped the real one for a fake, owned by a guy who promised to sell it in the auction." "What were you gonna do with it, genius?" "Give it to Ross." "And then in six months or so," "I'd pretend to have found the hidden message with Sklar's name in the forgeries." "If it isn't the crime-fighting professor." "Come to help me engineer my escape?" " No." " Yeah, it was kind of a long shot." "You heard that Miles Sklar got the real copy of Ultraworld Number One back?" "Figured that would happen." "He gave it to Ross Moore." " What?" "Why?" " Partly the intense public pressure." " I mean, the guy was being vilified." " Well, that never bothered him before." "And of course he made a big publicity splash over giving it to Moore, just in time to promote his new comic." "Okay, that's the Sklar I know." "Still..." "He gave it back." " Hey, boys, good job." " Thanks." "What are you guys doing this weekend?" "Wanna grab a bite or something?" " Yeah, sure." " Sounds cool." "We haven't done anything outside of work for a while." " There's life outside of work?" " That'd be news to me." "Hold it, Granger." "There's someone at my desk for you to meet." "Her name's Simone Voray." "She's in my Krav Maga class." "She's French, she has a little accent." "And a degree in literature." "She was a star gymnast in college." "Now she's an acrobat." "You said she's a professional acrobat?" "Yeah." "Cirque du Soleil." "Ready?" "I guess it might just be me and you this weekend, huh?" "Yeah." "Yeah." "It's funny, I remember reading all those comics when I was a kid, but I never saw anyone drawing one." "Well, this one should be fun." "It reminds me a little of the comics I wrote in the '60s." "I wrote under the name Paisley McNasty." " Really?" " Yeah." "I have a little trouble picturing you as a hippie." "Right." "You know, Charles, you have a rather distinguished chin there." "Yeah, he's gonna be a superhero, along with his brother." "Hold on, wait a minute." "You think someone actually might publish this?" "An FBI agent who solves crimes with the help of his mathematician brother?" "It's great." " Nobody would believe it." " Oh, and that reminds me, Charlie." "Look what came in the mail from that magazine." "That's the proof of the article." "I don't even know why I'm looking at this." "This guy was out to get me." "No, no, no, it's not a hit piece." "Sure, he makes some jokes at your expense, but actually, they're quite funny." ""His brother, Don, a special agent in the Los Angeles office of the FBI, believes Charles Eppes has recently conquered the greatest challenge of friendship." "'Charlie and I had our issues growing up.'"" "Yeah, to say the least." ""'lf there's anything stronger than the bond between brothers, it's the bond between brothers who have become friends." " Charlie's my friend.'"" " Don." "I didn't know the writer wanted to talk with you." "I had to get my name in the magazine somehow, right?" " Yeah, yeah, right." " You can keep your disposable media." "A magazine's old in a week," " a comic book, oh, that's forever." " That's right." "Well, let's get back in our Charlie's Angels pose here." "This is more like Tango and Cash."