'It's a break. It's a big fucking break. That is, if we're not too late because Santa Monica's been sitting on the goddamn camera. If Gladden's income, his traveling money, comes from selling photos to other pedophiles, shipping them through the Internet or some private bulletin board, then he lost his main tool last week when the cops took this away.'
He tapped the top of the cardboard box on the seat between us.
'He's got to replace it,' I said.
'You got it.'
'You're going to go to the digiTime dealers.'
'You're a smart guy, sport. How come you became a reporter?'
This time I didn't protest the use of his name for me. There wasn't the same malice as when he had called me by it before.
'I called the digiTime 800 number and I got eight dealers who sell the digiShot 200 in L.A. I figure he's got to go for the same model. He'd already have all the other equipment. I've got to make that call to split these up. You got a quarter, Jack? I'm out.'
I gave him the quarter and he jumped out of the car and went back to the phone. I imagined he was calling Backus, gleefully telling him about the break and splitting up the list. I sat there thinking that Rachel should have been the one standing there on the phone. In a few minutes, Thorson was back.
'We're checking out three of them. All over here on the west side. Bob's giving the other five to Carter and some guys from the FO.'
'Do you have to order these cameras or do they keep them in stock?'
Thorson pulled back into the traffic and headed east on Pico. He referred to one of the addresses he had written down in his notebook as he talked and drove.
'Some places keep them in stock,' he said. 'If they don't they can get 'em pretty quick. That's what the digiTime operator said.'
'Then what are we doing? It's been a week. He would've got one by now.'
'Maybe, maybe not. We're playing a hunch. This is not a cheap piece of equipment. You buy it in a kit with the downloading and editing software and the serial cable to connect it to your computer, the leather case and flash and all the extras, you're getting up well over a grand. Probably fifteen hundred. But…'
He raised his finger to make the point.
'What if you already have all the extras and all you want is the camera? No cable. No software. None of that stuff. What if you just shelled out six grand for bail and a lawyer and you're hurting for cash and not only don't need all those extras but can't afford them?'
'You special order just a camera and save a lot of money.'
'That's right. That's my hunch. I think that if making bail came close to busting our friend Gladden just like that shyster lawyer said it did, then he'd be looking to save a dollar here and there. If he replaced the camera, I'm betting he made the special order.'
He was juiced and it was contagious. I had caught his excitement and was beginning to look at Thorson in perhaps a truer light. I knew these were the moments he lived for. Moments of understanding and clarity. Of knowing he was close.
'McEvoy, we are on a roll,' he suddenly said. 'I think you might be good luck after all. Just make it good enough that we're not too late.'
I nodded my agreement.
We drove for a few minutes in silence before I questioned him again.
'How do you know so much about digital cameras?'
'It's come up before and it's becoming more prevalent. At Quantico we have a unit now that does nothing but computer crime. Internet crime. A lot of what they do bleeds over into pornography, child crimes. They put out bureau-wide briefings to keep people current. I try to keep current.'
I nodded.
'There was this old lady-a schoolteacher, no less-up near Cornell in New York checks the download file in her home computer one day and sees a new entry she doesn't recognize. She prints it out and what she gets is a murky black-and-white but clearly identifiable picture of a boy of about ten copping some old guy's joint. She calls the locals and they figure out it got into her computer by mistake. Her Internet address is just a number and they figure the sender transposed a couple digits or something. Anyway, the routing history of the file is right there and they trace it back to some gimp, a pedophile with a nice long record. Out here in fact, he was from L.A. Anyway, they do the search-and-bust and take him down pretty neat. The first digital bust. The guy had something like five hundred different photos in his computer. Christ, he needed a double hard drive. I'm talking about kids of every age, persuasion, doing things normal grownups don't even do… Anyway, good case. He got life, no parole. He had a digiShot, though that might've been a 100 model. They put the story out last year in the FBI Bulletin.'
'How come the picture the teacher got was so murky?'
'She didn't have the printer for it. You know, you need a nice color-graphics printer and high-gloss paper. She had neither.'
The first two stops were dead ends. One store hadn't sold a digiShot in two weeks and the other had sold two in the last week. However, those two cameras had gone to a well-known Los Angeles artist whose collage portraits made of Polaroid photos were celebrated and displayed in museums around the world. He now wanted to dabble in a newer photographic medium and was going digital. Thorson didn't even bother writing down notes for further follow-up.
The last stop on our list was a street-front shop called Data Imaging Answers on Pico, two blocks from the Westwood Pavilion shopping center. After pulling to the curb in a no-parking zone out front, Thorson smiled and said, 'This is it. This is the one.'
'How do you know?' I asked.
'Walk-in store on a busy street. The other two were more like mail-order offices, not storefronts. Gladden would have wanted the storefront. More visual stimulation. People passing outside, people coming in and out, more distractions. It would be better for him. He doesn't want to be remembered.'
It was a small store with two desks in the showroom and several unopened boxes stacked about. There were two circular counters with computer terminals and video equipment on display along with stacks of computer equipment catalogs. A balding man wearing thick glasses with black frames was sitting at one of the desks and looked up as we entered. There was no one at the other desk and it looked unused.
'Are you the manager?' Thorson inquired.
'Not only that, I'm the owner.' The man stood up with proprietary pride and smiled as we approached his desk. 'Not only that, I am the number one employee.'
When we didn't join in his guffaw he asked what he could do for us.
Thorson showed him the inside of his badge wallet.
'FBI?'
It seemed incomprehensible to him.
'Yes. You sell the digiShot 200, correct?'
'Yes, we do. Top-of-the-line digital camera. But I'm out of stock at the moment. Sold my last one last week.'
I felt my guts seize. We were too late.
'I can have one in three or four days. In fact, seein' that it's the FBI I might get them to ship two-day. No charge extra, of course.'
He smiled and nodded but his eyes had a quizzical look behind the thick glasses. He was nervous dealing with the FBI, especially not knowing what it was all about.
'And your name is?'
'Olin Coombs. I'm the owner.'
'Yes, you said that. Okay, Mr. Coombs, I'm not interested in buying anything. Do you have the name of the person who bought your last digiShot?'
'Uh…' He creased his brow, probably wondering if he should ask if it was legal for the FBI to ask for such information. 'Of course I keep records. I can get that for you.'
Coombs sat down and opened a drawer in his desk. He looked through a hanging file until he found what he
