The attendant waved his arms excitedly for a few moments, but then got into the Mercedes.
The lieutenant signaled, like a traffic officer, for Matt to back the Porsche up far enough to give the Mercedes room to pass. The Mercedes went around him, onto the street, and the lieutenant signaled for Matt to pull in.
Then he stood on the sidewalk waiting for Matt to get out of the car.
They walked back up Broadway to West Forty-second Street and into Times Square Photo.
Three people-two of them bearded and in turbans, the third a stout young woman whose flowing, ankle- length dress and gaudily painted wooden bead jewelry made Matt think of gypsies-descended, smiling broadly on them.
What they lacked in language skills they made up for with enthusiasm, offering Matt and the lieutenant cameras, tape recorders, and other items for sale, cheap.
“Get Whatshisname,” the lieutenant ordered.
The three looked at him without comprehension.
“Get Whatshisname!” the lieutenant ordered, considerably louder.
Still no comprehension showed on the faces of the trio.
The lieutenant put his fingers in his mouth and whistled shrilly.
Almost immediately, another man in a neat turban and immaculately trimmed beard appeared. His suit and shirt were well-fitting, and he also wore a red vest with embroidered ducks in flight pattern.
He hurried up to them.
“Lieutenant Lacey,” he said in British-accented English, “what a pleasant surprise! How may I be of service to you or this gentleman?”
“Tell him,” Lieutenant Lacey said to Matt.
“Five months ago, you received a shipment of a dozen cameras from Kodak,” Matt began.
“We receive shipments from Kodak virtually weekly,” the man said. “They make a splendid product, and because we sell so many of them, we are in a position to offer them at the lowest possible prices. And in your case, of course, as a friend of Lieutenant Lacey, there will be a substantial additional discount. Permit me to show you-”
“I don’t want to buy a camera, I want to know who you sold it to,” Matt said, aware that Lieutenant Lacey was smiling at him.
“I will make you an offer you cannot refuse!”
“I have the serial number,” Matt said.
“I gather this is an official visit, Lieutenant Lacey?” the man asked.
Lacey nodded.
“Sergeant Payne needs to know to whom you sold a particular camera.”
“We are, of course, willing-I’ll say eager-to cooperate with the police in every way.”
“Is there a problem?” Lieutenant Lacey asked.
The man looked at Matt.
“You say the camera was shipped to us five months ago?”
Matt nodded.
“You know the model?”
Goddamn it, I don’t.
“It’s a rather expensive digital,” Matt said.
“That only narrows the field down a smidgen, I fear,” the man said.
“If I saw one, I’d know it.”
“That sort of item is updated as often as the sun rises,” the man said. “I rather doubt if it would still be in our inventory. You did say you have the serial number?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Then it will be a simple matter to go through our sales records and find it. We assiduously record the serial numbers of all our better merchandise.”
“Then we have no problem here?” Lieutenant Lacey asked.
“None whatever. I am delighted to be of service. I will return momentarily.”
He headed for the back of the store.
“Good luck, Sergeant,” Lacey said.
“Thanks very much, Lieutenant,” Matt said.
“No thanks are required. I wasn’t in here with you. I never ever saw you. I would never act in a case like this without the full authority-in writing-of the New York Police Department’s Office of Inter-Agency Cooperation to do so.”
He turned and walked out the door.
The turbaned man who spoke the Queen’s English returned to where Matt stood a few minutes later, trailed by two turbaned men, each of whom held two large cardboard boxes in his arms.
He gestured rather imperiously for the men to place the boxes on a glass display case.
“The sales records are filed, Sergeant, to comply with IRS requirements, sequentially, or perhaps I should say chronologically. I have brought you the records for the last six months. If there is anything else I can do for you, please do not hesitate to ask.”
Not quite an hour and a half later, Sergeant Payne found the sales slip he was looking for, near the top of the left stack of sales slips in Box Three.
The sales slips had been stored in the manner in which they had come out of the sales registry machines-that is to say, fan-folded. Each stack contained 250 sales slips. They had been placed in the storage boxes eight stacks high, six stacks to a box.
By the time Matt found what he was looking for, his feet hurt from standing, his stomach was in audible protest for being unfed, and his eyes watered.
And what he found wasn’t much.
A Kodak Digital Science DC 410, Serial Number EKK84240087, had been sold for cash three and a half months previously to Mr. H. Ford, 400 Lincoln Lane, Detroit, Michigan. Mr. Ford’s signature, at the bottom, acknowledging receipt of the camera in good working condition, was barely legible.
He then had a very hard time making the previously charming English-speaking proprietor understand that he would like, at the very least, a photocopy of the sales slip and would really like to have the sales slip itself.
Then he had an inspiration.
“What I really would like to have are several digital images of you. First in the act of separating that sales slip from the fanfold,” Matt said. “And then another of you initialing the sales slip.”
“And you have a camera?”
“No. But I thought if I bought one…”
“How interesting! I just happen to have a splendid, latest-model, state-of-the-art Kodak-a DC910 with fast- charge lithium batteries-that I could let you have at a substantial discount.”
“The pictures, you understand, would be useless to me unless I had the actual sales slip itself?”
“You do have a credit card?”
“Of course.”
“Of course you do. And nothing would give me greater pleasure than to cooperate with the police in this investigation. ”
A total of $967.50 and fifteen minutes later, Matt put a Ziploc bag in his briefcase. It held the original sales slip and a flash memory card holding images of the proprietor tearing the sales slip free from the others in the fanfold stack; initialing the sales slip; of himself initialing the sales slip; of himself and the proprietor each holding a corner of the sales slip; and a final shot of himself putting the sales slip in the Ziploc bag.
Counsel for the defense, he thought, would, considering the pictures, have a hard time raising doubt in the minds of a jury that he had acquired the real sales slip.
And he could give the Kodak DC910, with fast-charge lithium batteries, to his mother. She had expressed admiration for the camera he had given Amy, and it seemed only just that his mother get one that cost twice as much as Amy’s.
Now all he had to do was find Mr. H. Ford, of 400 Lincoln Lane, Detroit, Michigan.
He walked back down through Times Square to the parking lot, and got into the Porsche. On his cellular
