Don Bruns - Stuff to spy for

“And that’s exactly what it is.” James jerked the wheel, avoiding a Porsche that cut us off, and kept his eyes straight ahead.

“Look, we’re going to be at Jody’s store in about ten minutes. We have a mission, and I’m-we’re being paid well for it.” This had started out being my project. Obviously I wasn’t comfortable in my own ability. I’d asked these two people to participate. A bad decision.

No one else spoke for the next seven or eight minutes. We listened to the tinny radio. There was an electrical short somewhere in the system and it cut in and out. The sound quality was second only to the crappy rap music selection James had chosen. Finally, we pulled up next to Jody’s spy store.

“You know,” James said, “we don’t really need three people to buy a simple bugging devise.”

“No.” I agreed. “I volunteered to do this myself. But you two decided it couldn’t be done without your expertise.”

The three of us walked into the store, and Jody greeted us from behind the counter.

“Hey, Skip, James.”

“You remember Emily. My-” I remembered how he’d almost made a play for her the last time.

“Girlfriend.” Emily finished the sentence. “He has a hard time with that.”

“No.” I corrected her. “It’s just that I still can’t believe I’m dating someone as hot as she is, and I stumble every once in a while.” I wasn’t going to let this sleazy guy move in again on Em.

James rolled his eyes. Em grabbed my arm and squeezed it.

“As we said on the phone, we need a listening device.” James was scanning the walls, checking out the inventory.

“Well, there are several things I would suggest. First of all, there’s the power strip.” He pulled a three-outlet power strip from behind his counter and handed it to me. “I showed you this the last time.” Jody beamed a smile at Em. “You turn on the red switch, just like you always do. Then, you plug it in. No one has a clue, and you hear every voice in the room.”

“That’s what we need, pard.” James was nodding his head up and down.

“Hold on, friend. Then there’s the light switch, the body microphone, and the motion detector.”

James nodded as if he understood. Trust me. He didn’t.

“If you need to move it around to different locations, the power strip is good. I’ve also got a ball.”

“Ball?” I looked around. Didn’t see a ball.

“Right here.” He opened the palm of his hand. “Barely the size of a Ping-Pong ball. Now this is a camera and a microphone.”

Jody set the ball on the counter as we hovered over it. He pointed to a flat-screen moniter on the wall, and we could all see ourselves.

“You guys are setting up a security system, right?”

“We are.”

“Then these two items here would be perfect. Remember these?” He pointed to the wall behind him. “You thought it was a motion detector. Pretty good imitation, huh?” The small, curved plastic apparatus was mounted on the wall, facing us.

The thing was dead on. To the eye there was no way to tell it was a camera. I dealt with motion detectors on every installation. “It looks exactly like a motion detector. If it was a real detector, anytime something moved in front of it, it would trigger an alarm. The alarm is usually programmed to call the security company and they send out the cops.” But it wasn’t real.

Jody walked back to the monitor, flipped a switch, and we were all treated to another live shot of ourselves. “It’s a really good camera and a microphone. So you’d be getting quality video as well.”

“Wow.” James stared at me. “If it can fool an expert, it should fool a layman. Pretty good.”

Em watched the monitor and brushed her hair back from her face. “So Skip could have that installed and it would appear perfectly normal for the security system?”

“Exactly.”

“Wow.”

“But I’m thinking the item up there might be the best of all.” He pointed above our heads. A smoke detector was mounted to the ceiling, and again we all appeared on the flat-screen monitor. “That baby covers the room, and the sound is great.”

James looked at me, a big grin on his face. “I told you that Jody would come through. These are pretty cool, eh, amigo?”

I had to admit. There were companies making a living inventing these spy things, so there must be a lot of sneaky people in the world. “You must sell a lot of these to industries for espionage. Or maybe checking up on employees?”

“Some. Most of them, they’re used by spouses.”

“Woman checking up on cheating husbands?” James smirked.

Jody shook his head. “No. Men checking up on cheating wives. Mostly.”

It was Em’s turn to ask a question. “What?”

“I know, you think of straying husbands, not wandering wives. If I was in business, let’s say north of Atlanta, I’d be dealing with philandering husbands. But south of Atlanta, it’s where the rich sugar daddies retire. The old men bring their money and end up marrying girls half their age or younger.”

“Ah,” James seemed to get it. “And the old geezers need to keep an eye on the little fillies because they know that most of them married for the money.”

“Something like that.” Jody pointed at the monitor with all the locations clearly marked. “Twelve out of fifteen clients are men tracking wives.”

“A clear case against marriage.” James laughed.

“So, my choice would be the smoke detector.”

I let out a deep breath. “How much?”

“This one I can sell you for about a hundred seventy-five dollars. All you need is a computer, and when you remove the secure digital card, what the industry calls an SC card, you can plug it into your computer and see and listen to everything that happened in the room.”

“That’s a steal, Skip.”

I gave James a sharp look. He hadn’t put up one cent yet. Oh yeah, the truck. That was always his investment. As long as it continued to run.

“The card inside?” I was thinking about taking it out, putting it back in, taking it out “Well, if you want to do this fast and easy, you just mount the detector. The card inside is motion and sound sensitive and should last about six hours. As I said, you just take off the cover, take out the card, and play it on your computer.”

“Just?”

“Well, you could hardwire the thing, but there’s cable and drilling and running it into ceilings and walls and-”

“No, no.” That’s what we were doing for the legitimate part of our business. This had to be quick and easy. “Never mind.” I looked up, studying the white piece of plastic. What had I gotten us into? So someone, probably me, has to go into the office, climb up on a chair or ladder, remove the card, replace the cover, and get out of the office alive.

James was looking up too, and I noticed Jody was looking at Em. “And, amigo, someone has to go back in and replace the card.”

“There’s that too.”

“You can buy an extra card.” Jody looked anxious.

“I’m not sure I can afford the one I’m buying now. Any chance we can lease this smoke detector? Rent it?”

“Can’t do it. You have to do a permanent mount. But I can let you have it for half down and half once you get it up and running.”

I had one hundred dollars on me. Not much more until the bonuses and commission came in. I reached in my pocket and pulled out three twenties. “Can this be the down payment?” I was netting a minimum of $10,000 from Carol Conroy. Another $5,000 if this camera picked up any evidence that she was interested in. James was right. I had to make this investment.

“Sure. I can take that. And I can expect the rest in what? A week?”

“Maybe two?”