Numb3rs (2005–2010): Season 5, Episode 13 - Trouble in Chinatown - full transcript

♪ ♪

♪ Oh, help me Jesus ♪

♪ Come through the storm ♪

♪ I had to lose her ♪

♪ To do her harm ♪

♪ I heard her holler ♪
(firecrackers popping)

♪ I heard her moan ♪
(excited chatter)

♪ My lovely daughter ♪
♪ My lovely daughter ♪

♪ I took her home ♪
♪ I took her home ♪

(whispering): ♪ Little fish, big
fish, swimming in the water ♪

♪ Come back here, man,
gimme my daughter ♪



♪ Little fish, big fish,
swimming in the water ♪

♪ Come back here, man,
gimme my daughter... ♪

(speaking Mandarin)

♪ Little fish, big fish,
swimming in the water... ♪

(speaking Mandarin)

(screaming)

Alice, you've got
to get over here!

This thing's going bad.

I'm in trouble here.

(car alarm blares,
firecrackers whistle and pop)

(indistinct chatter,
car alarm blaring)

License plate...

Huh?

Looks all right.



Looks open is what it
looks, man, and I'm starving.

(distant firecrackers, chatter)

Year of the Ox.

Chinese New Years
make ours look boring.

How you doing?

We're just gonna do takeout.

Same menu.

What do you think?

It's a toss-up between

the Cha Shui Bao,

the Kung Pao San Yan,

and Ma Poo curd with Leejee.

What kind of menu is this?
I'm looking for an egg roll.

Well, at least
they got pictures.

That way, you can just
point at whatever you want.

Yeah, flaming pig intestines.

Like I need a picture of that.

(speaking Mandarin)

(gunshots)

(rapid gunfire)

(glass breaking)

COLBY: So what exactly

were the shooters saying?

I don't really speak
much Chinese,

but it seemed like the
leader guy was yelling,

"Where's my girls?

I want my girls back."

DAVID: We got six
wounded and four dead.

One of the guys was carrying

a FN P-90 machine pistol.

All right, they were
ready for a massacre.

It's funny, you know,
my dad used to take

me and Charlie here
when we were kids.

This place is famous.
And now it's going to be

a stop on the Death
and Scandal Tour.

Guys, this is Walter Yoon.

It's his brother's restaurant.

That's my brother...

Harvey. Harvey Yoon.

I'm sorry, Walter.
Can you tell me,

you have any idea how
this might have happened?

It's already all over Chinatown
that the Jade Boys did this.

Maybe he didn't pay
his protection money.

Well, he's not gonna pay it now.

Alice Chen, Immigration Control.

I've got an emergency
on my hands.

I think one of my agents
was grabbed on this street.

She was undercover when
she and two other women

disappeared tonight.

And, uh...

that's my chief suspect.

It's too quiet with my dad away.

Drop a spoon or something.

So which reunion
is this? Fiftieth.

But you didn't
hear that from me.

Imagine Alan in high school.

You know, hanging
out by the bike racks,

snapping towels in the shower.

Thanks for the shower image.

That's good.

(knocking)

Hello, Professor Eppes.

Remember me?

Yeah, I do.

What do you want?

I need to talk to your brother.

It's professional reasons.

My brother doesn't live here.

I'm not going to give
you his phone number...

Professional reasons.

When you do see him,
please tell him to call me.

You bet.

And, uh...

Your mail.

Night, now.

Who was it?

Simon Kraft.

The police psychic guy?

Wannabe psychic.

What the hell is this nutcase
doing on my front porch?

Maybe he's not such a wannabe.

How'd he know where you live?

I don't know. He's
a former CIA spook,

so maybe he got my address

from one of his old contacts.

I'm not sure.

Think I should call Don,
or am I overreacting?

You took too long.

(phone rings) Oh, excuse me.

This is Eppes.

Oh, hey, Charlie, I've
got to get back to you.

I'm at a crime scene at, uh...

You remember that restaurant

that Dad used to take
us to in Chinatown?

Yeah, I know.
I'll make this fast.

Wait a second, what restaurant?

The Silk Dragon.

CHEN: The agent we're
looking for is named Kim Hsiao.

She transferred to us from DOJ,

because she's
Chinese-fluent and...

because I requested her.

Last night's shooters:

that's Jimmy Lim on the left.

He ran the Jade Boys gang

with muscle from his cousin.

Kim was working undercover

in Jimmy's sweatshop
on Bernard Street.

That is, until last
night, anyway.

The waiter said
that Jimmy Lim was

demanding his girls
back from Harvey Yoon.

You think he could've been

talking about your
missing agent?

Yeah, that's possible.

The Department of
Transportation cameras

caught Kim all the
way to Central Plaza.

That's the
restaurant's location,

and that's where D.O.T. stops.

NIKKI: And the security
cameras should've kicked in,

but on that corner of the plaza,

the cameras are all disabled.

What about backup?

She didn't have any.

We, uh, clocked her off at 9:15.

Next thing, I got this call.

HSIAO (on tape): Alice,
you gotta get over here.

(firecrackers popping)
This thing's going bad.

(firecrackers
whistling and popping)

(car alarm blaring)

I'm in trouble...

(firecrackers and
alarm continue)

(Hsiao screams, tape stops)

Maybe you can do
something with it.

Covert ops like this...

Wouldn't your agents
be wearing a beacon?

Well, she had a beacon;
she didn't turn it in,

so we're hopeful that she
still has it... the problem is

that it only works for
about a mile or so. A mile?

What kind of beacon
is that? Look, we bust

sweatshops every day
and never had to fire a shot.

Then again, in retrospect,

we should've been more careful.

We had a warning flag.

What do you mean?

Well, LAPD says they have

five open cases involving
Chinatown women

who have disappeared,

and whose families
have come forward.

Add to that missing
illegals, (phone vibrating)

sweatshop labor,
and it's anyone's guess

how many more there've been.

Our surveillance truck
says that the Jade Boys'

sweatshop has gone quiet.

All the guards have
disappeared. DON: Why don't you

grab David and go
check it out, okay?

Thank you.

So why'd Jimmy Lim hit
the restaurant himself?

Asian gangs don't have
foot soldiers or what?

Yeah, they call them sailo.

Maybe Jimmy didn't
trust his own troops.

That's a good question.

DON: Oh, hey, guys. Thanks.

So listen... Simon Kraft.

Oh, Charlie, I can't
deal with Simon

or think about him right now.

All right, then
think about this,

'cause this is what
he drew on our mail.

It's amazing.

You said it was right
after the shooting, right?

I mean, I-I... don't get it.

CHARLIE: He's got his
background, you know?

So he's probably
got a police scanner

and he overheard the
words "Silk Dragon."

Maybe.

All right, so we're looking
for a missing ICE agent

who was grabbed
somewhere near the shooting.

Coincidence or connection?

We don't know.

But she did try
calling in for help.

Tommy, just boost
this up for me.

(car alarm blares,
firecrackers popping on tape)

(Hsiao screams, tape stops)

She's in there somewhere.

We could apply, uh,
frequency-domain processors.

And Larry can help,

'cause he worked with
the NSA on noise analysis.

Yeah, I'll give it a whirl.

All right, great. Have at it.

Why don't you come with me?

So this is the hard
drive from the restaurant.

AMITA: Multi-layer encryption.

What am I looking for?

I wish I could tell
you, but if you find

anything interesting, let
me know, all right? Yeah.

COLBY: Two floors

of sewing machines
and nobody's here?

If this is a sweatshop,
where's all the labor?

COLBY: FN P-90 casings.

Same as the restaurant.

That one's Cheekay.

Low-level Jade Boy.

Looks like we found
our missing foot soldiers.

Why would Jimmy Lim
exterminate his own men?

(rumbling)

(flames crackling)

What? Wha...?

What the hell are
trying to do, huh?

Easy! Easy!

I got it! I got it!

(muffled voices)

Colby?

(speaking Mandarin)

Kim?

You see her? No.

DON: You know anything

about a girl named Kim Hsiao?

You get right to
it, Don, don't you?

Why don't you have a
seat for me, please? Okay.

You gave this to my brother

the night of a
shooting at a restaurant

called The Silk Dragon.

Okay.

I can be businesslike, too.

The last time I helped the FBI,

you and I scratched
each other's backs, right?

So to speak.

Well, I've got another itch.

Let's just stick to this, okay?

Let's settle on the terms first,

all right?

Here's the deal, Don.

I've been pitching, uh,
an Internet reality show

all about a forensic psychic.

Simon Says...
you like that? Yeah.

That's very catchy. I've
been pitching it around,

and... knock on wood...
I got some interest.

KRAFT: So...

Did you come to
see the freak show?

You've all got more
patience than me.

Let me tag along
for this one case,

shoot some footage
for my show, and, uh...

I'll help you solve your crime,
maybe even solve it for you.

All right, that's it.
Forget it... let's go.

You want to think
about it, Don? No.

Huh, huh? I'll
take this, actually.

DON: Let's go.

I'm gonna want that back.

It'll be waiting for you at
reception without the tape.

So, Charlie has been
giving you a rough time

these days, right?

Science versus,
uh, the synagogue.

What, are you
following me, Simon?

That's not a good idea.

Oh, Don, people are
watching. Hey, I catch you

within a block of my
family or my house,

you're gonna be in for it.

(sighs)

I didn't know about
the restaurant shooting

till I heard it on the news.

KRAFT: At first,

I thought that these
were Kewpie dolls.

Then, I saw

that they were
little dead girls.

I don't know what to tell you.

I mean, it's not evidence.

You've got a lot of
bodies out there, Don.

And a lot more to come.

(fireworks whistling,
car horns honking)

(firecrackers exploding)

(scream)

All right, there are some
usable fragments in there.

Four hours of work for that?

LARRY: Hey, it took multiple

noise filters to get even that.

We are stretching forensic
audiology to the limit here.

Yeah, we can't use
simple notch filters

because of the overlap.

Now, have you ever seen a
computer graphics program?

Yeah, yeah, uh, weekends I take

this computer painting
course, "Click by Numbers".

Yeah, right now,
I am coloring in

Van Gogh's Wheat
Field with Crows.

LARRY: You know,
they say the sound

of the crows caused
his final madness.

CHARLIE: Thank
you for that, Lawrence.

Anyway, you're sitting
at your computer,

and you've already
colored in the field,

but now you've
moved on to painting

your birds and your clouds.

What happens if you
make those birds and clouds

larger and more densely packed?

Well, I can't see
my wheat field.

But you know the
field's still there.

It's just covered up by a
bunch of birds and clouds,

so in a sense, your scene
has become visually noisy.

How would you go about

pushing those foreground
images into the background?

I would select the
crows that were bigger,

make them smaller and blurrier,

so, to the eye, they
seem farther away.

Then, select the clouds
and do the same thing.

The result being that you
can better see the field.

So it's the same in audiology...
We just shrink the sounds

we don't want to hear, so
that the sounds we do want

to hear become foreground.

LARRY: We use filters

to diminish or blur noise,

identifying each unwanted sound

by its frequency

and then
discriminating against it.

Yeah, so you find the fireworks.

I got car horn.

What?

Fireworks and car alarms...
They emit different sound waves

depending on their manufacturer,

so, in order to filter them,

we need their
single frequencies.

I will get my coat.

Right.

Is that the dead restaurant
owner's computer program?

I haven't gotten past
the screen saver.

There's something odd here.

With the screen saver?

(mouse clicking)

(typing)

Yeah, he chose a mah-jongg
board, but it's passive.

And for a game
you can't even play,

it's eating up a huge
amount of memory.

I can't even open it.

It's like a house without
any doors or windows.

How do you enter?

And who's inside?

DAVID: We have
a missing ICE agent

who was working at
the sweatshop, Colin.

What do you know about that?

Nothing, man.

Nothing.

What about the
sailo, the foot soldiers?

Why is that you're walking
around and they're not?

I didn't kill those guys.

They were my friends.

Jimmy did that.

Why would the boss
kill his own gang, huh?

He was mad because
his girls kept disappearing.

CHEN: "His" girls?

Jimmy's a snake head.

He smuggles the girls
from China for 30 grand,

then they pay him
back at 50 cents a shirt.

It's good business.

DAVID: Know something, Colin?

You're the last
of the Jade Boys.

Everybody else is dead.

Except for you.

The night Jimmy went crazy,

three more girls had escaped.

Jimmy said that
was the last three,

and then he tortured us.

Some of the gang broke down

and admitted what they'd done.

They were selling Jimmy's
girls to Harvey Yoon.

What's a restaurant owner
doing buying up girls?

Harvey Yoon was
selling call girls.

Jimmy's girls would catch
a van at the Silk Dragon,

head to Vegas, wherever.

So why were you trying to
burn down the sweatshop

with the girls inside?

Hey, wise guy, listen...

We already have you
for attempted murder

and trying to torch evidence.

Now, how much you want to bet

that your gun links up

with the bullets that
are in your buddies?

Jimmy made me shoot the boys

to prove that I wasn't
stealing his girls

or working with Yoon.

But you were working with
Harvey Yoon, weren't you?

That's why you had
to kill the women.

Because they knew it all.

Double-dipping with
Harvey Yoon and Jimmy Lim.

That's some dangerous
business, man.

Anybody in this town
you're not working with?

Just you, man.

But I'm available.

Black.

Red.

Black.

DON: All right, come on.

What are the chances
he gets 25 wrong?

Less than one in a
million, but I told you,

he was reading the reflections.

He knows I was going to temple.

I was in the observation room.

I heard him. Yeah, he knew

you were in there.
Yeah, he guessed.

He knew I was in
the room when he

did this card trick.

He's a fraud, and he sorted

through our mail, man...
He could be following us.

The CIA thought
he had something.

And his drawings
definitely helped last time.

I will not be convinced
that he wasn't complicit

in every single crime
he helped solve.

I don't know, man.

You know, it's funny.

The other day, the
rabbi was saying

something interesting
about doubt.

That it's part of life.

You know, the
darkness is for a reason.

A reason to invent
the light bulb?

(phone ringing)

Yeah. Eppes.

Yeah, all right,
I'm sending Colby.

(siren whoops)

Seems like LAPD was
trying to pull him over

for running a red.

Turned into a
high-speed pursuit.

The driver lost
control in the turn?

Snapped his neck.

Come see what the dragon ate.

The other two sweatshop girls.

Any sign of your agent?

No Hsiao.

A dragon float,
two little dead girls.

It's just like Kraft's drawing.

(speaking Mandarin)
NIKKI: What did I miss?

They didn't want to
talk until I told them that

two of the women were murdered

and one was still missing.

(speaking Mandarin)

CHEN: The night
that Kim was taken,

it was Colin that brought
them Harvey's deal.

She didn't go because
it was too dangerous.

(speaking Mandarin)

CHEN: If a woman accepted
Harvey's offer, she went

to his restaurant,
got in a red van

and joined the sex trade.

The restaurant
delivery van is red.

One night I go for van,

see my picture on a wall.

I have no family
here look for me,

so who put there?

DON: We start here, and
we just got to spiral out.

Do you think that Kim's
beacon is still working? I hope so.

Hey, I'll meet up
with you guys later.

I'm gonna talk to Walter
Yoon about his brother.

All right, I'll let you know
if I hear anything. Thanks.

Hey, um, Don, I, um...

I want to say that I'm sensitive

to your job position,

but it's my agent
who's out there missing,

and I want all
the help I can get,

no matter how, uh, unorthodox.

You got to be kidding.

Your boss already okayed it.

I call shotgun.

Good guys to the rescue.

Where's my camera
when I need it?

Simon, look, you can't
just be chattering away

the whole time, all right?

Oh... hey.

Uh, sorry about that.

What are you guys doing?

We're creating a
filter for firecrackers.

Probably should have
said, "Fire in the hole," huh?

CHARLIE: We're sorry.

Did you get that?

Got it.

(chuckling)

In Chinese tradition,

we burn symbolic objects

to accompany the
soul into the spirit world.

They drive in the
spirit world, huh?

CHEN: This is Mr. Yoon,

the spiritual director here.

My brother and I...

we were not close.

Hard to honor someone
so... complicated.

Actually, Mr. Yoon, that's, uh,

what we want to
talk to you about.

Were you aware

of his involvement
in criminal activities,

specifically the sex trade?

I certainly suspected.

But good or ill,
he was my brother.

Harvey...

is just one face of Chinatown.

Please, let me show you another.

While the modern world
wages its culture wars,

we elders try to pass
ours along... what's left of it.

Our cultural center
offers language class.

Ah, mah-jongg.

Some say the game goes
all the way back to Confucius.

Tai chi... most
ancient of disciplines.

(Walter speaking Mandarin)

They found her. Why don't these

parents go to the police?

And be arrested?

Most are undocumented.

As a practical matter,
there are two million illegal

Chinese immigrants living
in the state of California.

It's hard to track
the missing ones

when the police don't
even know they exist.

WALTER: And as a moral
matter, many of these girls

paid $30,000 to a
smuggler just to get here.

They would rather be chained

to a pimp or a sewing
machine than be deported.

My own mother was a
slave to a sweatshop.

Welcome to Chinatown.

KRAFT: Outward spiral search?

Why are we wasting our time?

That's the standard FBI
search procedure, Simon.

Uh-huh. You think a
psychic would know that.

Well, I'd think the FBI

would've moved on
since J. Edgar Hoover.

(chuckles)

All right, so, uh,

I mean, if we get
within a mile, we should

be getting a ping.

Yeah, unless we get a
ping from our psychic first.

DON: Yeah.

In fact, Simon, when
do you actually clock in?

I'm in. Like I told Chen,

the first body I find
you guys is a freebie.

After that, I want
a signed contract.

(chuckles): Okay.

HSIAO (on tape):
I'm in trouble here!

Suspect is driving a
silver Toyota Sienna van.

(electronic whooshing)

Licen... (whooshing).

(Hsiao screams)

Okay, we're getting there.

What is the sound
after "license"?

It's, like, two distinct
sounds. (thud)

(Hsiao screams)

Metallic followed by
some kind of rustling noise.

Okay, metal... you know
what it is? It's the van door.

So now we know
we need another filter.

Right, not to mention
the rustling noise.

Her blouse, maybe? Why not?

You know, she was grabbed.

Maybe she was trying
to hide her phone.

Okay, so that's two
more filters. Okay, wait.

I help you, you help me.

I discovered Harvey Yoon

was passing his
accounting to somebody.

CHARLIE: Some kind of

an ad hoc network?
Yeah, the problem is

whatever he was
sending was going out

through a ghost IP.
And you can't run it down.

So far it's bounced me

from here to China with
stop-offs along the way.

I mean, it'll take
forever to trace.

It's "The Mystery of
the Secret Pen Pal."

It's supposed to be the
golden days, right? High school?

A cafeteria

manager raped a student worker

in that building last
night, poor thing.

The police know about this?

I just saw it a second ago.

The CIA tells me
you were discharged

from the service
for sexual assault.

What can I tell you,
Don? I'm a hugger.

(gasping)

Left turn! Now!

What's that?

I said make the
left! All right, all right.

Why don't you call Chen.

All right, Chen, Simon seems
to think he's onto something.

So hold on for a
location. Right turn.

Right turn again.

Left turn.

(beacon pings)

Wait a minute... We're
in range of the beacon.

(beacon pinging)

All right, Chen, we're
in Monterey Park.

Hill of Peace Cemetery.

♪ ♪

(pinging)

(pinging faster)

Whoa.

Here we go.

We got to get some shovels.

All right, I'll find someone
from the cemetery.

Be careful, we got
something down here.

She's alive.

All right, let's get her out
of there. Must've caught

an air pocket or something.
Nice and easy. Let's go.

Let's get her to
a hospital, guys.

Move!

You see the way she was dressed?

Like the others, right?

Yeah, exactly.

Here's a fully intact
coffin in here; I don't know

if they just laid her
out on top of it or what?

What the hell's
going on around here?

I don't know how this happened.

Who's grave is this?

This man was buried Tuesday.

We're in the Chinese
section, so obviously

he's Chinese... or was.

You didn't notice anything
out of the ordinary here?

Somebody hanging
around or anything?

Not at this grave, but, uh...
maybe the police told you.

Told us what?

My security guy chased
some people away

from another grave a few
weeks ago. Which grave?

It was dark; he couldn't
see who they were.

She's been dead awhile.

All dressed up, nowhere to go.

COLBY: That's one smart psycho.

Bury your victims in a cemetery.

How many women
were found like this?

Four so far.

What are you thinking?

Those two were
injected with some form

of paralyzing agent.

I'm good with poisons, but I had

to send this one out to the lab.

Resembles a shellfish toxin.

Death by shellfish?

It's a good guess. Look at this.

Mascara was
applied thick and fast.

See where some got in her eye?

Normally, that
would cause tearing.

The mascara would run.

There's no smudge here.
CHEN: What does that tell you?

The victims were paralyzed

or dead when they were made up.

That's pretty sick, doll
them all up like call girls

and dump them in graves. Right.

Four victims.

Four identical dresses...

It's a weaver's label

from the bottom of a cloth bolt.

Yeah, made locally.

I'll check it out.

You know, I think I have
a picture of my mother

in a dress like this.

She's no call girl.

Hey.

So we ran another
filter on Hsiao's tape.

She said the suspects were

in a silver Toyota Sienna van.

Oh, it's not like there's
a lot of those, right?

One more pass, I may be able
to get a plate number, so I'm

going to go record a van
door shutting. Okay, good.

Hey, guys. Hey.

So we're finding more of
the double-occupancy graves.

The victims are female,
Asian, all dressed up for a party.

The coffins belong

to Chinese males between
the ages of 14 and 78.

What about Hsiao?

They traced the toxin
to a type of sea snail.

The syringe struck bone

and broke off before all
the poison could get into her.

She just might wake up.

Well, that's good, but I doubt

it's going to be in time to
help us. More about the data?

I mean, there's just nothing
like this in the FBI database.

No similar deaths,

no matching MO's, nothing.

Well, try Interpol and
the Chinese, right?

Yeah, the Ministry
of Public Security.

I can help out with that.

KRAFT: Hey! Finally!

I got my camera back.

Why so glum, Professor?

The failure of higher math

to find Agent Hsiao?

Did it fail?

My brother filled me in
on your search pattern.

Huh? How... well, now, how...?

How do you mean, Professor?

Left turn, two right turns,

another left?

Maybe you went into the
Dead Zone for your directions.

More likely followed a
classic Levy flight path.

Lucky for Agent Hsiao that

I thought to follow
a Levy flight path,

whatever the hell that is.

This is yours. Thanks.

AMITA: You're looking
at the restaurant's

accounting program.

You see what I see?

Not being a CPA,

I have to let my
eyes adjust here.

Take a closer look at the
column for take-out food.

All right, okay...
let's see... 134, 440,

521... Hey, wait.

Each of these
sets sums to eight.

And that's too many eights

for coincidence.

Now take a closer
look at the column

for "wedding
catering." All right.

1,314, 3,231, 1,800...

Each set now sums to nine.

Harvey Yoon, what
were you up to?

You think it's
some sort of hidden

accounting system
or pricing system?

"The Mystery of the
Motionless Mah-Jongg Board."

There is something
to this graphic,

but I don't know what.

Maybe a hidden
pattern in the squares?

Yeah, or under the squares.

You know, Harvey
Yoon had a thing

for the numbers eight and nine.

Have you tried
just hitting those?

Larry, I've tried every number

and every combination of number.

Even control-eight?

Command-eight. Option-eight.

Okay.

Okay, call me low-tech,
just hit the eight

eight times.

Harvey Yoon's sex stable.

Complete with what looks like
a price list. Larry, what do you

say we take a closer look
at the wedding catering?

By all means, I am guessing
we enter by the nine key.

Okay. Time to talk to Don.

You know something?
I want to phone a friend.

Who? The librarian
at the monastery.

Not only is he Chinese,
he knows numbers.

Better than Charlie?

Oh, I don't think this
involves math, but magic.

Have you seen Don?

Thanks a lot.

What do you got? So
Nikki was right about

the tag inside the red dress.

It's from a local loom,

and that particular weave
has been discontinued.

Now, all the remainders
were purchased

by one single dress shop.

Can you guess
where that shop was?

Gotta go with Chinatown.

Ministry of Public
Security sent us

this output from their database.

It's Chinese. I'll
let Chen know.

Yeah, mug shots in any language.

I sell a lot of red dresses.

Sold any to a man like him?

Yeah, I remember him.

Kind of stands out.

Young guy buying 12 red dresses.

All cash.

Cash.

Thank you.

Thanks.

What does he know that we don't?

And how does he know it?

Ladies.

What are you doing
down here, Kraft?

Looking for these places

that are in my sketches, huh?

The Sun Yat-sen
memorial... Chinatown plaza.

On every tourist map.

Well, you won't find this...

on any map, huh?

All right, and don't
try to follow me, ladies.

I'm really rather shy.

Is that what you call it?

LARRY: In his accounting,
Harvey Yoon kept

his escort service
under "take-out."

Just a little gallows
humor, I suppose.

So what are these numbers?
AMITA: Uh, prices maybe.

Higher values for younger,
more attractive ones?

DAVID: Well, question.

Why do the numbers
add up to eight?

LARRY: This is
not about numerics.

This is about numerology.

Consider when the
Beijing Olympics began.

Yeah, August.

More precisely, eight
seconds past 8:08

on August 8, 2008.

See, the Chinese
organizers wanted

to bring good
fortune to their games,

and eight is their luckiest,
most auspicious number.

Larry discovered

that Chinese couples
routinely marry on August 8.

One airline paid a fortune to
get an all eight phone number.

DAVID: So Yoon wasn't just

pricing his girls, he
was wishing them luck?

LARRY: And he was
protecting his investment.

See, by the power of the eight,

he was attempting to bring

good karma to a
very bad business.

That's not all the
restaurant was hiding.

Under the line item "wedding
expenses," we found these.

LARRY: If eight is
their luckiest number,

nine is their most magical.

It stretches beyond this life.

It reaches up to
the very heavens.

So I don't believe that
Harvey Yoon was simply

renting these women out,

I think they
represent final sales.

And except for Hsiao,
all were homicides?

They're called ghost brides.

I remembered a
picture of my mother

wearing a long red
dress like the victims.

And when I called her,
she knew right away...

It was her wedding picture.

NIKKI: We traced

one victims' gowns to
a shop in Chinatown.

Now, the storeowner

sold 12 red dresses
just like it to Colin Pang.

NIKKI: Wedding dresses.

I translated these.

It's an arrest sheet.

Two years ago, in
Sha'anxi Province,

a gang of criminals was arrested

for killing girls

and selling their corpses
to grieving parents.

Parents whose
sons died bachelors.

And just like
here, all the graves

contain unmarried Chinese males

with unmarried Chinese
females placed next to them.

So Harvey Yoon just picked
up the California franchise.

Providing ghost
brides to ghost grooms.

Not to mention,

he was sharing his
accounts with a ghost IP.

That's right... The wedding
planner may be dead

but his partner's
still out there.

(phone rings) All right,
now, Jimmy Lim is dead,

and Colin Pang is
in jail, so who's left?

It's Charlie.

The tape's clean.

We have our license plate.

(woman shrieking in distance)

(woman shrieking)

(tires squealing, sharp thud)

HSIAO'S VOICE:
I'm in trouble here!

Suspect is driving a
silver Toyota Sienna van.

(muffled traffic noise on tape)

License plate, B-A-8...

You got it?

Getting it. B-A.

Somebody's initials.

Ba is the Chinese
word for number eight.

Lucky eight. DAVID:
It's a company car.

Five Emperors Cultural
Center. Bernard Street.

That's Walter Yoon.

Good. Why don't you
guys get over there.

We'll check the back.

Hey, where's Walter Yoon?

All right.

Call it in.

Looks like Walter's been
fishing where there ain't no fish.

Yeah, but a whole
lot of sea snails.

What you want to
bet that's our toxin?

Yeah, now where the hell is he?

I'll get a warrant
for this computer.

Any sign of Walter?

Simon Kraft is
dead in the alleyway.

What?!

How?

I think he was run over.

Take a look at this.

DAVID: That's the silver van.

Wait a second... I know her.

An older couple
took her picture down

off the Missing Persons
board and handed it to Walter.

What if they were shopping
for a daughter-in-law?

You know, like at the
restaurant with the pictures.

You just point at
the one you want.

It's a menu.

They're gonna bury this girl.

NIKKI: We've got
exigent circumstances...

I think we can search this
computer without a warrant.

Try hitting the nine
key nine times in a row.

NIKKI: There she is.

(speaking Mandarin)

DON: FBI! FBI! Freeze!

NIKKI: Put your hands
behind your back.

No! Stay away from here!

Stay away!

Let's go! WALTER: You stay away!

You stay away from
here! Take it easy.

Just take it easy, it's over.

No, this is a question of honor!

Whose honor? Tell me.

This couple lost their only son.

Give them the comfort of knowing

he will not spend
eternity alone.

I can't take the shot as long
as that needle's on her neck.

DON: What about her?

What about her family?
They don't matter?

WALTER: Ghost brides are
a tradition as old as China,

as old as time itself.

We all have our
place in this tradition.

This is hers.

Here with him.

We got a tradition, too,
and it's saving lives, okay?

I'm going to let you hurt her.

You misunderstand...

This is not a funeral,
it is a wedding.

(speaking Mandarin)

Come on, come on.
I got ya, I got ya...

You all right, Colb?

Yeah.

What'd you say to him?

Shame on you.

I wonder how many other women
the Yoon brothers have buried.

Never found or even missed.

This is for them.

"Lead with your brain,
but follow your heart."

It's fitting.

"Your dreams can't come
true unless you wake up."

That's rather profound.

An amazing creation,
the fortune cookie.

It says in my book,

it predates the Han dynasty.

Fortune cookies?

No, minghun, the
marriage of the dead.

Well, the Yoons
perverted the custom,

where the bride and groom
are naturally deceased.

Astrologically suitable corpses

keep each other
company through eternity.

There's a certain
poetry in that.

Sounds a little macabre.

No, I see what he means,
in an Eastern sort of way.

Two total strangers
locked in eternal embrace,

joined only by their
connection to the stars.

That's it, like my
department at CalSci.

All right, so, how do we all
ultimately come down on Kraft?

That's a life that ends
in a question mark.

Yeah, the question being:

Why does the world
require a Simon Kraft?

You know, you
look at the news...

You've got Bigfoot or
the Loch Ness monster.

Nothing on the great
apes or the blue whales,

which are real marvels.

Now, remote viewing,
psychic warfare...

These weren't some
tabloid invention,

but the brainchildren

of respected
physicists at Stanford.

CHARLIE: I will
fall on my slide rule

if anyone can prove to me

that Simon Kraft had
extrasensory abilities.

All right: What inner
power led Simon

to the killer's van precisely
at the moment of kidnap?

Oh, you mean the same
power that failed to warn him

that he was going to be run over

by that van?

Help me out here.

You know, I have to say
I'm in the undecided column.

I am going to read
my book in peace.

And I to my bed.

But I will leave you with this.

When Magellan landed
on Tierra del Fuego,

this remote island at
the bottom of the world,

the villagers all
gathered to greet him,

but mostly they kept staring
at the horizon behind him.

Having no concept of a
boat larger than a canoe,

they somehow didn't
even see these five galleons

anchored in plain sight.

A flotilla of ships was

invisible to their
disbelieving eyes.

Yeah, well, you're
illustrating my point.

That the ignorant
can't see the plain truth

right in front of them.

Or maybe an ocean fog
concealed those ships.

Yeah, well, I can see the
fog has rolled in all right.

Good night, Charles.

Don.

Good night, Lawrence.

I gotta go pick up dad at the airport;
you want to come? Yeah. Sure.

You know, Larry looks up
at the stars and asks why.

You've been going to temple...

I don't know.

Maybe it's okay living
without all the answers.

If I ever get any,
I'll let you know.