- [talking with fiancé of a missing socialite]
- Christopher Mayes: She went to the... store to get cigarettes. It's something she's done 100 times. Look, I... I already told the other, uh, agent all of this.
- Jack Malone: Yeah, well, sorry to inconvenience you.
- [once again, with the fiancé of a missing socialite]
- Christopher Mayes: There wasn't anything that I really remember.
- Jack Malone: Was it because you were drinking or are you having problems with your short-term memory?
- [yet again, with the fiancé of a missing socialite]
- Jack Malone: What's your business?
- Christopher Mayes: I'm between careers.
- Jack Malone: Which ones?
- Christopher Mayes: The one I spend pleasantly living off my inheritance, and the one where I actually find something meaningful to do.
- [Taylor thinks Christopher killed his fiancee and framed her partner]
- Christopher Mayes: You can't prove any of this.
- Danny Taylor: I will.
- Martin Fitzgerald: Fiancé. I can't get much out of him.
- Jack Malone: Smells like a brewery in here.
- Martin Fitzgerald: Yeah, you noticed?
- Danny Taylor: What, is he still drunk?
- Martin Fitzgerald: Nah, he's just fairly hung over.
- Jack Malone: Mr. Mayes, if you want to help us find your fiancée, I suggest that you sober up and focus right now.
- Christopher Mayes: Marry me.
- Whitney Ridder: Excuse me?
- Christopher Mayes: I'm serious.
- Whitney Ridder: Chris, we barely know each other.
- Christopher Mayes: I know how I feel. You... amaze me.
- Whitney Ridder: Why, because I know what a vizsla is?
- Christopher Mayes: It didn't hurt. Look, I don't want to spend another minute without you, it's that simple. I want you to marry me.
- Samantha Spade: Okay, so it turns out Christopher Mayes has a record. License revoked after a couple DUIs and a drunk and disorderly charge when he was 19. He got off with community service and counseling.
- Vivian Johnson: Rich parents buy good lawyers.
- Samantha Spade: Yeah, well, his alibi's tight. Doorman says he never left the party. But the building manager saw a suspicious vehicle casing the place a few weeks ago. He said he approached the car, but the driver took off.
- Vivian Johnson: Upscale building, rich tenants. Could be trying to pick out victims.
- Samantha Spade: Mm. He gave us a make and a partial plate. We're running it now.
- Vivian Johnson: Which is more than I've got on Whitney Ridder. Phone bills, credit cards, everything dead-ends the day she arrived in the city. The boyfriend says that she grew up in Philly, but I keep coming up blank.
- Samantha Spade: Name change?
- Vivian Johnson: Nothing on file. It's like she didn't exist until she got here.
- Samantha Spade: Okay, so she comes to New York, reinvents herself. New name, new identity, clean start.
- Vivian Johnson: She won't be the first. Question is, what was she running from?
- Manager: I'm sorry, we don't have any Whitney Ridder registered as a guest at this establishment.
- Jack Malone: You know, she may have used a different name.
- [showing him Whitney's picture]
- Jack Malone: Do you, um... do you recognize this girl?
- Manager: She was a-a regular client in our lounge. It appeared, uh, at least to me that she may have been in the... companion business.
- Jack Malone: What, she was a hooker?
- Manager: If you will. She always came by herself, always made quite an impression, but she only had one customer.
- Jack Malone: [showing him Chris' picture] This the guy?
- Manager: Yes. Yes, that's him.
- Martin Fitzgerald: Doesn't seem like you kill somebody for ripping you off on a painting.
- Samantha Spade: Certainly not those people. They'd probably just re-fill your iced tea. You know, it sounds more to me like Whitney knew she was gonna get caught, and she ran. I'm driving.
- Martin Fitzgerald: No, I've seen you drive.
- Samantha Spade: I'm driving.
- Martin Fitzgerald: [groaning as he movies to the passenger seat] Ah, where's the air bag?
- Vivian Johnson: Let me be frank with you, Mr. Sellars. You don't look like the type who hires an ex-con, and now you've lied to a federal officer. If I can help you stop this downward spiral in your personal life, please let me know.
- Danny Taylor: You recognize that? That's the Qwik-Lok Mini-Storage.
- Jack Malone: You said you didn't see her after she left. You're a liar, Chris. You sat there and you flat-out lied to me.
- Christopher Mayes: I swear I don't know where she is.
- Danny Taylor: Well, you did the other day.
- Christopher Mayes: When she took off from the party, I didn't know where she went, honestly.
- Jack Malone: Define "honestly".
- Christopher Mayes: I mean it. She came back and she told me she ran because this guy Vohland threatened her on the phone. She told me about the fraud. She told me about the investment company. She told me that Whitney Ridder isn't her real name. She told me all of it.
- Jack Malone: So, in that moment of crystal-clear thinking, you decided to aid a fugitive. Now, that... that makes you an acessory to a crime, Chris.
- Christopher Mayes: She...
- Jack Malone: Do you understand that?
- Danny Taylor: What do you got?
- Vivian Johnson: I found out where Whitney grew up. Small town in Ohio named Nassau.
- [showing him an old yearbook]
- Vivian Johnson: Check out our Whitney; real name Sheryl McGee. Activities include travel club, French club, president of the drama club for four years. Good training, huh?
- Christopher Mayes: This is so creative, but you don't have any proof.
- Danny Taylor: Not yet, but I tracked down that call to the bellman, and it turns out that it was placed from a pay phone at a bar across the street from the hotel. So I asked myself, who calls a bellman from a payphone? Pretty smart. You needed a witness to see the two of them together. Now, Christopher, I may find your prints on that phone, I may not. But either way, I'm gonna canvass every inch of that area, and you know what the good thing about small towns is?
- Christopher Mayes: What?
- Danny Taylor: The people there, they never forget strangers. I have a feeling that somebody there is gonna remember you.
- Lucas Vohland: So you're getting married, huh?
- Whitney Ridder: Yes.
- Lucas Vohland: I didn't think you were the type.
- Whitney Ridder: Well, you don't know this guy. He's really sweet.
- Lucas Vohland: Really sweet and really rich, I'll bet.
- Whitney Ridder: It's not about that.
- Lucas Vohland: It's always about that.
- Whitney Ridder: No. Not this time. I don't know. It's different with him. I don't have to pretend anymore.
- Lucas Vohland: I almost believe you.
- Whitney Ridder: Well, you should. Because it's over, and I'm out.
- Whitney Ridder: [covering Chris' eyes] Guess who.
- Christopher Mayes: Hmm, I'm drawing a blank.
- Whitney Ridder: How about the fiancée you haven't seen since this party started?
- Sarah Sellars: [interrupting Chris and Whitney kissing] Okay, enough, you two. Let me see this rock that Chris keeps going on and on about. It's like he chipped it out of the mine himself. Wow. Oh, that's very subtle, Chris.
- Whitney Ridder: It was a total surprise. I had no idea he...
- Sarah Sellars: Oh, honey, don't. Don't. I've seen a lot of women who couldn't get Chris to take the leap. You deserve it.
- Danny Taylor: Whitney Ridder, 29 year old socialite. Walked out of her fiancée's loft for a pack of smokes. Never made it to the bodega across the street. She left her keys, purse, and coat up at the party.
- Jack Malone: She have her wallet with her?
- Danny Taylor: Yeah, and a big, fat rock on her finger.
- Jack Malone: That makes her an attractive target.
- Vivian Johnson: Jack, I've got the Social Security records. Turns out Whitney Ridder was born in LaFontaine, Louisiana in 1971, and died in a car crash in 1974.
- Jack Malone: Any progress on her real identity?
- Vivian Johnson: We're still looking.
- Vivian Johnson: Fake identity, now fake residence. Danny and Martin are checking out the business.
- Samantha Spade: Yeah, she was fooling everybody.
- Vivian Johnson: Including her fiancé.
- Samantha Spade: Check it out. Whitney Ridder's cell phone records. Okay, you know that call she got just before she disappeared?
- Vivian Johnson: Mm-hmm.
- Samantha Spade: She got another call twenty minutes later from the same number, a guy in Palm Springs named Lucas Vohland. I checked him on NCIC. He did ten years for manslaughter at Joliet.
- [showing Viv his rap sheet]
- Samantha Spade: That's him.
- Vivian Johnson: Whoever she is, she's keeping some bad company.
- Martin Fitzgerald: You see all this beautiful oceanfront property? It's all fake. We called Cozumel, Midtown Trust, we checked out their business records. There's no connection to a hotel chain. There's not even a planned resort.
- Danny Taylor: Yeah, it looks like Whitney trolled the city for potential targets; mostly sons and daughters of rich families anxious to make some money on their own.
- Martin Fitzgerald: Yeah, she promised them a quick return on their initial investment, plus VIP treatment at this luxury resort.
- Danny Taylor: Early investors made a killing. Word spread, the money poured in. The second round of investors didn't see zip.
- Vivian Johnson: A Ponzi scheme.
- Martin Fitzgerald: Exactly. And by the time they figured out what was going on, the money was gone and Whitney had reinvented herself somewhere else.
- Danny Taylor: Except this time. She never finished the con, and she still has $400,000 in her corporate bank account.
- Vivian Johnson: Maybe one of her marks found out they were being swindled and got to her.
- Danny Taylor: I'm on it. Here's a list of investors from her bank records.
- Jack Malone: Okay, Danny and Viv, I want you to run down this list of unhappy investors. Martin, want you to go to Palm Springs, talk to your friend Vohland. Samantha, go with Martin.
- Samantha Spade: I might be reading too much into this, but there's, um... no hidden message in you sending me on vacation to Palm Springs, is there?
- Jack Malone: What kind of message?
- Samantha Spade: Like, maybe I'm just getting back to work and you're trying to get me out of your hair.
- Jack Malone: You are. Reading too much into this. You should just take it for what it is: in-flight movie, a little bit of sun, and a chance to interview a convicted felon and a potential murderer. Enjoy.
- Martin Fitzgerald: Nice to see you're enjoying the fruits of your labor, Vohland.
- Lucas Vohland: Excuse me?
- Martin Fitzgerald: You remember me? Seattle, '99, counterfeit PC chips?
- Lucas Vohland: Sorry, I'm terrible with faces.
- Martin Fitzgerald: Are you any better with names? Like Dennis Ricci or Timothy DeLeia? You were both.
- Lucas Vohland: Is this your girlfriend?
- Samantha Spade: I'm his partner.
- Lucas Vohland: Well, you're a lot better-looking than his last one.
- Jack Malone: $600,000 in your bag. Exactly the amount Whitney Ridder's boyfriend gave her to pay you off.
- Lucas Vohland: I don't know what you're talking about.
- Jack Malone: Right. Let's start with, um, felony possession of a firearm, failure to notify your parole officer that you were leaving the country, and that's just in the last twelve hours.
- Lucas Vohland: What do you want from me?
- Jack Malone: I want you to cut the crap and start answering some questions.
- Lucas Vohland: The money is mine.
- Jack Malone: What was the trip out of the country about? Were you gonna work on your tan?
- Lucas Vohland: I was making a quick trip to the Caymans to make an investment. I was coming right back.
- Jack Malone: You are aware that it is illegal to transport that amount of money out of the country?
- Lucas Vohland: Charge me.
- Jack Malone: Look, I don't care about the money. I don't care about the parole violations. All I care about are the whereabouts of Whitney Ridder. And the only reason I can think of that you're not telling me is because you killed her.
- Lucas Vohland: I'd like to see my lawyer now.