Page 164 - Labelle Gramercy, Detective

Slow Burn

“It’s called the traveling salesman problem. Given a number of
stops to make, and the distance from each to all of the others, how
do you arrive at the shortest total mileage required to visit them all in
one trip?”
“I would call the Auto Club and throw myself on their mercy.”
She regarded me coldly. “Mathematics has its place in police work,
Duncan. Great minds have attempted to solve this problem
algorithmically; that is, by coming up with a formula into which the
locations and distances could simply be plugged, leading to a quick
calculation via spherical trigonometry of the minimal route. But it
cannot be done. The most direct path linking a group of points can
only be determined by brute force, by adding up all of the possible
paths and comparing them to find the shortest.”
“I’m glad to hear that. Brute force is my specialty.”
“Not when it involves factorials. As the number of points goes up,
the number of possible paths increases factorially. That means a
powerful computer can be tied up for hours trying to solve the
travelling salesman problem for as few as twelve or fifteen points.”
I was not paying a lot of attention. She often felt impelled to
lecture me on obscure topics which I could not find relevant to
investigating crimes and arresting crooks. At any rate, we only had
five points to hit, and I was sure Labelle could arrive at the best route
way ahead of any computer.
“What about this guy, Quantrill Carbone? What have we got on
him?” She could let her mind wander from the task at hand, but I
knew my duty.
She did not need to consult her notes. “He had gotten involved
with drugs as a youngster, either through his show business associates
or at school. It’s an expensive habit, and when the flow of
Galactomalt money dried up, he was hard pressed to support it.
When the family broke up after his parents died, Quantrill drifted
down to Central America, trying, I presume, to find cheaper sources
of cocaine. He was nineteen at the time.”
“He’s lucky to be alive.”
“Perhaps. He fell in with some people in San Caridad who were
looking for ways to smuggle dope into the States. Our boy came up
with a bright idea. It worked once, but the second time he was
caught. Six months and probation, owing to his youth and celebrity.”

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