Dearly beloved! We are gathered here today to get through this thing called my last L & O: SVU recap. "Permanent Hiatus" means forever, and that's a mighty long time. Anyway, electric word to Sars, Pooh, and the few, the proud, the SVU forum folks. Let's look for the purple banana 'til they put us in the truck.
In the emergency entrance of a hospital, EMTs are lifting an old woman in a gurney out of the ambulance. The old woman says she's "got the AIDS again," and also claims to have just had a heart attack and the Ebola virus. I guess she's a hypochondriac: one of those people who are convinced they're afflicted with all sorts of clichés from other shows. Oh, did I say "clichés from other shows"? I meant "diseases." Whatever. It doesn't matter, because soon everyone notices a car beeping its horn repeatedly in the hospital driveway. The doctor tells a medic to "go see what the problem is." The car is an oversized SUV with tinted windows. It seems to be honking as if to say, "am I annoying enough? Or do I need one of those 'Pissing Calvin' stickers, too?" Anyway, the medic calls out, "Hey, we're a HOSPITAL here!" as if perhaps the SUV driver thought the place was actually just a hospital-themed casino/hotel with valet parking. But the SUV screeches off and exceeds even the most jaded expectations of SUV Asshole Behavior, because it's left behind a young woman lying on the pavement, beaten to a pulp. Dude, you're supposed to do that to Plymouth Neons, not people.
A while later, the girl's unconscious in a hospital bed while Benson sits nearby. Enter Stabler. "She was dumped on the street outside the hospital," Benson tells him. A cop comes in and explains that the victim's school ID identifies her as Teresa Burgess. He holds up something in a plastic evidence bag. "This little backpack is hers," he says, and I confess I like how he knows to specify it's a -- little backpack, as if he learned Fashion Forensics at the academy or something. Stabler and Benson glance at the contents, which includes a professional black-and-white photo of Teresa. "Pretty girl," notes Benson. "Until someone did this to her," says Stabler, and we get a brief close-up of the victim's mangled face. The doctor enters and fills them in on the details: "A vicious attack…double puncture wounds, a neat little set of two." For a moment I hope that this will be the episode when it's revealed, as I've always suspected, that SVU also stands for "Special Vampire Unit." But no. The doctor has no sense of camp whatsoever and says that the double puncture wounds were probably caused by a claw hammer. Oh fine, then -- be gritty and bleak. Anyway, the doctor goes on to say that the girl has over thirty wounds; what's more, she apparently overdosed on amphetamines and can't breathe without a respirator. "There's something else," says the doctor. "She was raped with a wooden object." She holds up a vial with something floating inside. "What's that?" asks Stabler, even though women everywhere are cringing and have guessed already. "Splinters," says the doctor. Thanks for telling us, doc. Say, I bet I can cross my legs so tightly that I go numb from the waist down. Let me try that right now, okay?
Opening credit montage. Behold the perps, the hookers, the child abductors: they who continually vex the Lawful and Orderly Universe. Look upon them! Alas.
Yo, Lexus, maybe this is NOT the best time to run a commercial for your SUV.
At the station, Cap'n Cragen tells the squad that Teresa Burgess is sixteen years old and a model. Munch flips through Teresa's portfolio while Stabler tells everyone about the case: now the victim's in a coma, and she had prescription amphetamines in her little backpack. Jeffries thinks the attacker is someone who knew the victim. "Sure it is," Munch snaps at her, "and now if you can give us his name and address we can all go home early." Jeffries gives him an annoyed look that says, "Dude, I don't get the addresses of perps, I just pick them up in bars and take them home with me." Well, at this point in the season we don't actually know that her look says that, but, well, you know. Benson speculates it could be "one-way familiarity…some loser fantasizes he had a relationship with her." Cassidy points out that Teresa's picture is everywhere. "Tell me about it," says Munch. "I spent my lunch hour the other day gazing across the street at her, three stories high, on a billboard for conditioning rinse. Felt like I had a relationship with her." And then on his coffee break he had an imaginary divorce from her. Aw, Munch.
According to Teresa's datebook, her last appointment that day was for a photo shoot. "Where's the family on this?" asks Cragen. Stabler says the mother lives upstate; the father was home in bed at the time. "While his sixteen-year-old daughter was out roaming the streets at three in the morning?" says Cragen. He tells Stabler and Benson to interview the father and orders everyone else to "take statements from the models" (i.e. "I am soooo full after eating that spring roll," "I am totally into animal rights," and "Simon LeBon's dick is really not as big as everyone says"). As everyone goes off on their assignments, Jeffries mentions that she's appearing in court. It's just a little sub-plot. Don't worry about it.
Chung-chung! Teresa's dad is at the hospital, clearly distraught. Stabler asks him why Teresa was out so late. "Jazmin was always old for her age," says the dad, who goes on to explain that they changed Teresa's name to "Jazmin." "It's a trademark," he says. "A trademark -- kind of like 'Jewel,' or 'Cher'?" sneers Stabler. Though unlike "Jazmin," at least those names don't sound like they came off a can of Fragrance Impostor spray. The dad explains that he knows it sounds silly, but they had "big plans." Dad tells them that he dropped off -- okay, we'll call her "Tazmin" -- at the photo shoot around six. "They really don't like parents hanging around," he says. "I should have called. I was worried sick. But I really didn't want to seem like a troublemaker." Stabler gives the Parental Guilt Knife in Dad's back a little twist: "Your daughter's out at six in the morning and you're worried about looking like a troublemaker?" Dad explains that Tazmin's agent said not to worry, and he trusted her. "Who is this agent?" asks Benson. "Nina Laszlo," he says, in a tone of voice usually reserved for saying things like "colostomy bag."
Chung-chung over to the Laszlo Agency. Bebe Neuwirth plays Nina, which means: Lillith from Frazier - comedy + lipstick = Nina = "Nillith." We'll call her Nillith. "Everyone loved Jazmin," says Nillith. Benson points out that the past tense is a little premature. When they ask Nillith about the photo shoot, she balks at the assumption that she was Tazmin's chaperone. Benson mentions that Tazmin was using amphetamines. Nillith: "Oh?" Stabler: "Yeah, oh. Know anything about that?" Nillith: "No!" Everyone starts shooting little poison darts out of their eyes at each other. Benson asks who was in charge of all the underage models at the photo shoot. Nillith acts like it's a dumb question. She tosses her hair. "I suppose the photographer -- Carlo Parisi." Stabler and Benson exchange one of their trademark can-you-believe-these-people? looks. "Are we boring you, Ms. Laszlo?" asks Stabler sarcastically. Nillith looks chagrined: "A little, yes! This is a huge, huge business, Detective. My job is to represent these girls, who will do whatever it takes to get where they want to be." "Does that include the emergency room of Roosevelt Hospital?" asks Stabler. Nillith gets pissed: "Please." Nillith is supposed to have this acid tongue, I guess, but it's more like a Safeway Brand Distilled White Vinegar Tongue. Benson asks her one last question: "What kind of car do you drive?" "An Acura. White," mutters Nillith. In case you were wondering what kind of wheels a bitch on wheels might drive.
Somewhere on the waterfront, Carlo Parisi is photographing a bunch of bare-chested guys in sailor hats and mopey girls wearing long white shirts. Darling, it's all Tom of Finland and slumber parties this year. Carlo has some kind of AustraloCockney accent going: "Comb ahn!" he says to the models. "Look aloive!" Stabler and Benson call him until finally he has to break the intense, serious concentration required to press a camera shutter button a bunch of times. The detectives flash their badges and tell Carlo they need to account for Tazmin's comings and goings on Monday night. "Good lowck!" he snorts. Eventually Carlo says he thinks Tazmin showed up at around six, the shoot started around midnight and they got finished at around three or four AM. But Carlo doesn't remember when Tazmin left -- he says he finished with her early but he loses track of time when he's shooting: "I go oll, ya know, right-brain." Actually, Carlo, I think you need the left side of your brain to control your right finger on the shutter button. And then need your right brain to help you scratch your head with your other hand while you try to comprehend all this. Anyway. Carlo can't give the detectives any more details about Monday night. "On the set, there's so much energy, you're woired. It's all a bluh after awhile," he says. But Carlo insists he runs a clean set and is drug-free. "What about the girls?" asks Stabler. Carlo rolls his eyes. "This is Giuliani New York. I thought you guys won the drug war, eh?" Finally Benson asks him what kind of car he drives. "Porsche Boxter," he says, a choice obviously inspired by his accent, because he pronounces it "Poursh Bawxtah." The detectives let him get back to the extremely high-energy atmosphere, models slouching against each other, et cetera.
Benson turns to a woman in sunglasses, who appears to be Carlo's assistant. "Pardon me -- you look familiar to me," she says, which seems like a pretty long shot since the woman is, remember, wearing dark sunglasses, and has her hair pulled tightly back and is wearing a nondescript little black dress and heavy lipstick -- and, uh, she's wearing sunglasses, and unless she was one of those dancing models pretending to play the guitar in Robert Palmer's "Addicted to Love" video, there's no way in the universe that anyone would recognize her from anything. And she's wearing sunglasses. Ms. Sunglasses nods and tells Benson that she used to model when she was younger, but Benson apparently has some kind of New York Department of Justice database chip in her brain: "The Ricky Blaine case," she says to Sunglasses. "You testified against Ricky Blaine, didn't you?" Sunglasses is impressed and not at all freaked out by Benson's memory. "A lot of girls testified against the Measuring Man." "Who's that?" asks Stabler. "Used to pose as a modeling scout and told little girls he needed to take their measurements," says Sunglasses. The story is that Measuring Man was assaulting girls for years, but everyone was too scared to speak up. Sunglasses explains that Measuring Man wasn't much different than the creeps they deal with every day. "Finally they made a case against him," Benson tells Stabler. "He's doing time at Creedmore." "Not anymore," says Sunglasses, who says she got a postcard notifying her that he was just released. "Twenty cents for victims' rights," she says bitterly. At least, I think she's bitter. I can't tell with the sunglasses.
Chung-chung! An auto shop. Benson and Stabler visit Ricky Blaine, the Perp Formerly Known As The Measuring Man, who's working as a mechanic now. They hurl their usual nastiness at him: "We hear you have a bad habit of roughing up pretty women," says Benson. The Measuring Mechanic insists that he isn't up to that anymore, but he guesses why they are questioning him, because he read about Tazmin's attack in Women's Wear Daily. "Her Kmart underwear ads were primo monkey-spank fuel," he says. Ew. His alibi is that he was watching football at the halfway house, but he can't remember who was playing. He looks at Benson: "You know, you have great bone structure. 34-25-36? What are you, A-cup?" Benson glares while Measuring Man tells her he "still knows people in the business" and "could make a couple of phone calls." He reaches out to stroke Benson's faaaabulous chin. She and Stabler respond by getting all tag team on Measuring Man's ass. They trip him and pin him to the floor and search his pockets for measuring tape, which they don't find, and then they storm out, because nobody calls the daughter of Jayne Mansfield an A-cup.
Back at the cop shop, Munch and Cassidy have returned from their assignment Wise in the Way of Models. Apparently that Tazmin was booted from the Monday night photo shoot at around midnight for failing a weigh-in. "A weigh-in?" gasps Benson. Apparently Tazmin, who was 5' 7", weighed in at 110 pounds. Benson is still shocked: "110 pounds is too heavy?" The story is that Tazmin hung around awhile, argued with Carlo in his office, got upset, and then left with a girlfriend, another model named Vanessa Wong. "We're still looking for her," says Cassidy. "Girlfriend? How?" asks Stabler. "Well, they're not k.d. lang fans, if that's what you mean," says Munch. Okay, how much do I admire the fastidiousness of the closed captions typist? Because, even though the rest of the captions always appear in CAPITAL LETTERS, the typist actually took the trouble to write "k.d. lang" in the proper lowercase. Like, this is what appeared on my screen: "WELL, THEY'RE NOT k.d lang FANS, IF THAT'S WHAT YOU MEAN." Hee hee. I love it. Oh, hell, I forgot what else happens in this scene.
Chung-chung! Apartment of Vanessa Wong. Oh yeah -- I guess they decided to try and find this Vanessa Wong chick. Benson and Stabler strut down the hallway, all hopeful about finding out the dirty details about Tazmin. "Girlfriends have no secrets," says Benson. They knock on the door. It opens, and apparently one of the secrets is to never drop in unexpectedly on a teen model on her day off, because she'll come to the door looking like Briscoe. Wait -- it is Briscoe. Whew. Stabler and Benson say hello to him. Yay, Briscoe!!! And Detective Green. Hi, Dr. Greg. Everyone gets all tingly in the L & O Crossover Moment. I know I do. The SVUnitarians explain to Briscoe and Green that they were hoping to talk to Vanessa about the Tazmin Burgess case. "You missed her," says Dr. Green, and Briscoe explains that she was pulled out of a dumpster that morning. "Claw hammer? Early AM?" asks Stabler. "Yeah -- what, you've been reading my notes?" asks Briscoe. No, but someone's been reading your scripts, and they've been tearing out the courtroom scenes, and they've tacked on gratuitous opening scenes involving dead bodies in S & M gear, and -- oops, I guess that's called a "spin-off." Never mind. Anyway, they agree to compare leads. Stabler mentions that Vanessa was going to be their star witness. They all hang their heads and have a moment of collective L & O disappointment.
morning, the Stabler Than Thou household gathers for a nutritious breakfast. Light of His Life, Li'l Dickie and All of Them Have Hair of Gold Like Their Mother chatter away. The diligent folks at Closed Captioning grab at random quotes such as "All right guys, here you go!" "Hey, hey, what's that?" and "Bacon, bacon, bacon," before they give up and just type "[everyone talking at once]." The spread here includes bacon, sausage links, and patties. Okay, I'm thinking Stabler needs to come home more, because obviously someone is sleeping with Bob Evans. There's also eggs, pancakes, and a tall plastic tub which I guess must just be lard. Oh, wait, it's plain yogurt, and Teen Scene Maureen is listlessly sucking teeny spoonfuls of it. My old Baby Alive doll could eat at twice the rate she's going, for Christ's sake. Stabler notices her. "Is that all you're going to eat? Plain yogurt?" Teen Scene Maureen rolls her eyes and is all like, "Yeah-uh!" Stabler insists that she needs to eat more because it's a school day. He takes his fork and stacks a couple of sausage patties on her plate while she protests and rolls her eyes and looks down at the sausage like it's fried poo. "Dad…that's all saturated fat, and I'm not going to eat it," she says. Stabler tells her to humor him and razzes her until Light of His Life stands up and calls him aside. "Guys, you don't have to talk about me, I'm right here," mutters Teen Scene Maureen. "How long has she been doing this?" Stabler asks his wife. "The little anorexic-in-training routine? Weeks," says Light of His Life, who hints that he'd notice more if he came home a little. "I do the best I can," bitches Stabler. "I can't do it all alone," complains Light of His Life. Stabler agrees to come home more and sits back down at the table. "Maureen," he says to Teen Scene, "what do you say we talk about food. You know, nutrition." Teen Scene Maureen looks at him disdainfully: "No!" She rolls her eyes. Again. Maureen does more eye-rolling than an entire Chuck E. Cheese full of animatronic figures.
At the station, Briscoe and Dr. Greg walk down the hall when Little Briscoe runs up. "Hey! Uncle Lennie!" Briscoe pulls him aside and tells him to "cool it with the 'Uncle Lennie' stuff around the station house." The exchange is so cute I just have to just transcribe it:
Little Briscoe: "Yeah? So what do you want me to call you?"
Briscoe: "Call me 'Briscoe.'"
Little Briscoe: "Uh, what are you going to call me?"
Briscoe: "'Briscoe!'"
Aww. Briscoe Major and Dr. Greg walk into the SVU offices. "Hey, Lennie!" calls Munch. He and Briscoe slap hands and say hello. Cragen comes out and says hello. Now there's more ex-wives and recovering alcoholics than you can shake a stick at. Stabler briefs everyone on Vanessa Wong's attack: "Same time, same weapon as our rape vic. They were best of friends." He mentions that there were huge amounts of Benzedrine in Vanessa Wong's system. "Bennie abusers are always paranoid, and they got a lot of time on their hands because they never sleep," says Cragen. I have no idea how that's even relevant, unless Vanessa Wong was found among piles and piles of jigsaw puzzles and half-completed latch-hook rugs and macramé hangers and beaded Christmas ornament kits. Munch tells a story about a DOA case he had where a guy on bennies booby-trapped his apartment and accidentally blew himself up. "We had to make three piles -- bomb squad pile, coroner's pile, and a 'whatever' pile." Now this REALLY has nothing to do with anything. Benson and Stabler shoot him a dirty look if to say, "We've got your 'whatever' pile right here, pal."
They turn to the blackboard, which has a time line chart; Benson points out that Tazmin and Vanessa left the photo shoot between 12 and 1 AM, and then two to three hours later Tazmin wound up at the emergency room and Vanessa was dumped in the dumpster two blocks away. It turns out that Measuring Man's alibi is solid -- "He really was watching football. It turns out he just prefers the halftime show." The fanatic stalker theory doesn't seem likely either because -- well, because they just say so, okay? Anyway, Tazmin's cell phone call records show that she called her mother, who lives upstate, after midnight; then she called an upper East Side apartment four times -- the home of a "Hampton Trill." Munch perks up at the name: "He would be in the middle of all this." "What, you know him?" asks Stabler. "From his novels," says Munch. "Brat-packy little poseur, was published when he was nineteen. He thinks he's the Emile Zola of pre-millennial Manhattan." Cragen tells Munch to talk to old Bret Hampton Trellis or whoever, while Stabler and Benson go to talk to Tazmin's mom, and then he jovially pats Briscoe on the back. "Let's talk," he says. About how much they miss that liquor.
Chung-chung! Hospital. Tazmin's mom: divorced, bitter. Stabler, Benson ask mom about Tazmin. Mom sobs "Teresa is her Christian name!" Useless details. Everything is the dad's fault. Tazmin's still in a coma. The life-support monitors go "beep, beep," and all that.
In the courtroom, Jeffries sits on the witness stand. As usual, it's time for her to say something truly kick-ass and memorable. She turns to the judge. "You can do it," she says. "Nicorette can help." All right, so she didn't say that. She actually testified against some creepy guy with a creepy collection of rape-themed comic books and it was really depressing. But, see, the same actress who plays Jeffries is also the voice of the Nicorette gum commercials. ["I thought it was Elizabeth Olivet's voice. But I still smoke, so what do I know?" -- Sars] And, after smoking my ass off with Sars and the gang in Vegas, I'm chewing Nicorette right now. So I think that counts for something, right?
Chung-chung to the penthouse apartment of Hampton Trill. "Excuse the mess," says Bret Hampton Trillis as he leads Munch and Cassidy out on a fancy-ass terrace littered with bottles and wine glasses. He's wearing a blue kimono. Be a pretentious assface. Or, just look like one. Hampton says he and Tazmin "had lunch a few times" but he didn't answer the phone the night she called because "there were like, two hundred people at this party." Cassidy asks him about what kind of a party it was. "Well, you know," says Hampton, all blasé. "One of those things where the literati and the glitterati size each other up over cosmopolitans and sashimi." Munch and Cassidy glare and wish they could hit him in the face with a big wad of spitterati. Hampton says the party was for his new novel. "Yeah, I read the review in the Times," says Munch. Bret Hampton says Tazmin showed up at the party pretty late, but quickly changes the subject. "Look, I never read reviews, but you should know that Kakatuni's had it in for me ever since that she decided that one of my characters was based on her." "Who, the book reviewer in Manhattan Siesta? There's no resemblance," says Munch. "Actually, it's Manhattan SONATA," says Hampton coldly. "'Siesta' as in 'Snoozefest,'" says Munch. "The real question is how so many reviewers failed to notice your blatant theft of Joan Didion." Hampton rolls his eyes: "Joan Didion is a close friend." "The poor woman," says Munch. Cassidy just stands there with a sweet expression that says, "I read book once. It fun."
Anyway, Hampton says it's possible that Tazmin could have come to the party to score drugs, since apparently her doctor or shrink or someone had offices in the same building, and the doctors all just show up at Hampton's fabulous parties. Munch gives Hampton his card. "Let me know if you think of anything else," he says. Hampton asks him what he means about his book reviewer character. "No resemblance because I failed to capture her, or no resemblance because it was a different character?" Uh, Hampton? I think Munch meant "let me know if you think of anything else -- besides yourself."
At the studio of Carlo Parisi, Carlo shoots three models in white lingerie who loll around on a bed looking about as thrilled as three fifteen-year-olds working at KFC on a Friday night. "Yew naughty, naughty gulls!" croons Carlo. Stabler and Benson stroll in and approach his assistant, Ms. Sunglasses, who you'll notice, if you're a clever, clever clue-finder, is now wearing her sunglasses indoors. Benson and Stabler tell Sunglasses that Vanessa's been killed, too. She looks shocked -- which is to say that her forehead twitches discernibly behind her sunglasses -- and gets Carlo. His reaction to Vanessa's death: "Aw, buggers -- not 'er as well!" He repeats his story -- that he wasn't paying much attention when the girls left that night -- but then Addicted to Sunglasses jumps in and says that the girls had left to score. "Why else would they be going to Hampton Trill's party?" she says. Benson glares at Carlo: "That's a little detail you failed to mention to us before." Carlo insists that he didn't want to hurt Tazmin's family: "I mean you'll keep them from knowing that, surely?" "We'll be very discreet," says Stabler, while he and Benson shoot the Death Ray of Disapproval from their eyes.
Back at the station, Munch and Cassidy show Stabler and Benson the security camera shots of Tazmin and Vanessa entering the lobby of Hampton's building. Benson and Stabler decide to try and find the doctor who's been giving Tazmin prescription bennies…
…so they chung-chung it to the Medical License Bureau (where they always sign the organ-donor form on the back of their licenses), where they find that Tazmin and Vanessa's doctor is a Dr. Deke O'Connor, who's been prescribing thousands of diet drugs and giving out speed like it's Halloween candy. They go to bust his ass…
…at NYU Hospital. A nurse directs them to a rooftop lounge and points out Dr. O'Connor. They walk up to a doctor: "Dr. O'Connor?" "No, I'm Dr. Sullivan," says the doctor. "This is Dr. O'Connor." He turns a wheelchair towards the detectives to show a veggie-looking guy in a neck brace. He explains that Dr. O'Connor was thrown from his motorcycle in 1997 and is now one of the patients at the hospital. D'oh!
Psych! It's Olivet! Olivet and Stabler stroll down the hallway of the station house and discuss the way that Young Models Are Ruining Their Lives. Stabler asks hesitantly about "the line between dieting and anorexia…if the girl's not a model." Olivet tells him that anorexia is sometimes a way to assert control. "The more someone tries to get them to eat, the more satisfaction they get by refusing to," she says. "All you can do is just wait and watch. and you can't always be your daughter's best friend." Why, how did Olivet guess that Stabler was Taking It Personally?
Back at the Stabler Than Thou household, Stabler comes home and refuses to start a scene with Maureen the Teen. He's taking Olivet's advice. I think I should, too. Young lady, you are not going to get the satisfaction of having your bratty petulant whine-a-rama poopy snotfests recapped. If you don't like it, little missy, you can always audition for The Real World.
Chung-chung to a place called Postal Medic, some kind of online prescription mail-order service, where Benson and Stabler are trying to get Dr. O'Connor's patient list. "We're all computerized now!" brags Smarmy Mr. Business Guy. Benson tells him that Dr. O'Connor, who brings a lot of business to Postal Medic, "takes his meals intravenously and dumps in a diaper, which is something the corner pharmacy would have questioned." Smarmy Business Guy hands them the patient list. "And did we really need the attitude?" he asks. Yes, we do. We need the attitude from Benson and Stabler every week. We hate our own insignificant lives and need the attitude for our own personal satisfaction. Stabler and Benson need to snort with disgust when they find out that all of Dr. O'Connor's prescriptions were sent to the same address. And they need to nastily point out that of course nobody in Smarmy Business Guy's company even noticed. Because we all hate technology, don't we? Yes, we do! And we all hate corporate fuckheads, don't we? Yes, we do!
Then Benson and Stabler briefly stop by Cap'n Cragen's office, where Cragen tells them that Narcotics is pissed: apparently they've just crash-landed in the middle of an ongoing investigation. Benson and Stabler bitch and moan and Cragen agrees to try and hold them off. Because we all hate other units in the NYPD, don't we? Yes, we do!
Chung-chung to "Privacy First Mail Services," where Munch and Cassidy ask the guy behind the counter to look up the owner of Box 732: a "Bertrand Small" at 620 West 14th. Munch points out that the address is in the middle of the Hudson River. ["Munch, half the addresses on L & O are in the middle of one river or another." -- Sars] The mail guy shrugs and says that it's hard to keep track and the bill was always paid on time. Munch and Cassidy get all nasty. Because we all hate indifferent service people, don't we? Yes, we do! They tell the guy they're going to station an officer to wait until Mr. 732 shows up…
…and when he does, he gets his ass thrown in the interrogation room with Stabler and Benson. Oops, but the guy is just a courier. He says he was instructed to repackage the pills with a phony return address and send them to Nina "Nillith" Laszlo's agency…
…so Stabler and Benson stop by Cap'n Cragen's office to get the thugs in Narcotics in on the case. "We're now thinking a little intimidation's in order," says Stabler…
…so they send in a guy who looks like Governor Ventura, who marches into the Laszlo Agency screaming "THIS IS A BUST!" and pointing a gun and freaking out all the beautiful people. Well, some of them, anyway; others just think it's a Benetton ad and go about their business. The Governor puts cuffs on Nillith Laszlo. Stabler and Benson make a deal with Nillith: either she goes out the front door, where the press is waiting to get a photo of the "drug dealer to the stars," or else they can take her out the back door, if she's ready to talk about Tazmin. "Fine," says Nillith.
Stabler and Benson interview Nillith about the drug business. "It's not for profit, obviously," she says. "Speed keeps the girls in fighting trim. It's like…vitamins," she rationalizes. She insists that she needed to do it to keep the models at the agency. Finally, she discusses Tazmin: "Carlo Parisi had a private Polaroid collection of himself with models," she says. "Doing what?" asks Benson. "Do I have to spell it out?" smirks Nillith. "Yes, you do," says Benson. Nillith sighs. "Jazmin said he made her…'Lewinsky' him," she says. Let's pretend we don't get that reference, okay? Let's go back to when the world was young and pretend that it means he made her give him neckties and stupid knickknacks. Anyway, the story is that Carlo then he refused to use her on the shoot and Tazmin got pretty pissed off, so she stole the Polaroid collection and told Nillith about it. thing Nillith knew, Tazmin was in the emergency room. Presumably this was bad news for benniesforbimbos.org.
Clunk! At the station house, Briscoe and Green toss an evidence bag containing a claw hammer on Stabler's desk. Briscoe points at the bag. "You are looking at the fruits of four hours of dumpster diving along 59th Street. Nine dumpsters in all," he says. Stabler grins. "You tryin' to tell me the two of youse went dumpster diving?" "Hell no, we supervised a couple of uniforms! I don't do disposable diapers!" says Green. Yeah, Green, like we needed to know that. Cap'n Cragen comes up and joins the L & O lovefest. He jokes that Briscoe owes him a lunch. "I don't owe him anything, I'm just gonna supervise his donut withdrawal," says Briscoe. Aw, hee hee, everyone used to be a drunk, but now it's just donuts and jolliness and spin-off shows.
Chung-chung! Parisi Studios. The SVU4 come by and slap Carlo with a warrant. Carlo's all like, "Wot's going on?!!" Stabler tells Cassidy and Munch, "Why don't you start the kiddy porn search -- we're going to ask Mr. Parisi a few questions." "Why don't you ask who dresses him?" snickers Cassidy. It's true that Carlo is dressed in minimalist pajamas and looks as if he should be sleeping in a pod. He gets angry when Cassidy and Munch start going through his photos and Cassidy taunts him. Because we all hate snotty photographers with accents, don't we? Yes we do! Stabler and Benson tell Carlo they know about the Polaroids but he continues to deny everything. "Oi didn't murduh anyone," he says. "Well how about statutory rape, then?" says Benson. "You made Jazmin sit for her oral exams." Carlo denies that, too, but the detectives play the old DNA-evidence card. "There was a semen stain on Jazmin's dress. That wasn't yours?" asks Benson. Carlo glowers: "That was a consensual act." Stabler points out for Carlo (and for jerks everywhere) that he used his power to get sexual favors from a minor, which makes it so not consensual. They cuff Carlo, and Munch and Cassidy take him away. "Let's go, handsome," says Cassidy. Heh.
Benson and Stabler stick around the studio and go through Carlo's papers. They discover that Carlo's assistant, Deborah Latrell, a.k.a. Sunglasses, is actually his business partner. "So where does he hide his dirty pictures?" asks Benson. "You've got three choices: under the bed, in back of the closet, or…amongst boring and unappealing papers," says Stabler, as he searches through a file cabinet and finds a stack of photo albums. Benson opens one of them, which appears to be not porn, but a personal snapshot album. "Hey, look at this. Deborah Lattrell was a knockout," says Benson, pointing to a photo of Carlo cuddling with Sunglasses sans sunglasses. They flip the pages and see that Sunglasses has an engagement ring and there are photos of an engagement party. "Why would you hide something like that?" Stabler wonders. Benson lays her hands on the album and psychically channels a whole bunch of backstory. "Because he stood her up," she says. Stabler understands all-too-quickly, too: "But she co-owns the business." Benson deduces that Tazmin would have gone to Sunglasses with the photos, so, one chung-chung later, Sunglasses is in the interview room wearing her best black chiffon cocktail/interrogation dress. And her sunglasses.
Stabler and Benson ask her how she knew Tazmin and Vanessa were at the book party. "I guess they mentioned it," she says. "Or you were there," says Stabler. "You went there looking for them, trying to get Carlo's Polaroid collection back." Sunglasses smiles and says she doesn't know what they're talking about. "Why not talk to us while we can still help you," says Stabler. "I've enjoyed about as much of your help as I can take," Sunglasses replies sweetly, from behind her sunglasses. Did anyone notice she's wearing Sunglasses? Hmm, wonder why.
Benson and Stabler go back into the office area, where Munch tells them that all he and Cassidy have gotten out of Carlo are "a bunch of lies, half-truths, and a cute story about Cindy Crawford in labor." Benson has an idea. She pushes a chair over to Munch's desk. "Get Parisi to sit in this chair and then suggest to him that Deborah rolled on him." Munch gets it: "The prisoner's dilemma...we get each to think the other one confessed." Cassidy figures out how that works and nearly pees his pants with excitement. Stabler and Benson go back in the interrogation room and tell Sunglasses that they have another witness, and they haul her out past the desk where she sees Carlo. "Bastard!" she screams, and spits on him. Carlo: "Yew couldn't keep yer big mouth shut!" Sunglasses: "You couldn't keep your pants zipped up!" Someone in the studio audience stands up and yells, "Damn, Carlo! You a ho!" Everyone cheers. up: cheating transvestite strippers!