“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?”
“Because we go back, Skip.” He winked at Em. I never did like the guy too much, but he had good taste in women.
Jody dropped the detector in a plastic bag, wrote a receipt longhand, and we concluded the transaction.
“There’s one other thing you should be aware of.”
“What’s that?”
“There’s a camera detector that’s pretty hot right now.”
James leaned in. “A camera detector? To detect the camera that is used to detect something else?”
Jody gave him a funny look. “Let me show you.” He walked to one of the shelves and pulled off a small chrome mechanism with an eyepiece. “Here. Look through this at any of the cameras I’ve mentioned.”
James aimed at the smoke detector. “There’s a red light.”
“Yep. Try the motion detector.”
“Wow. There’s a red light.”
“And on it goes. If you ever want to see if someone has infiltrated your place with a camera, all you have to do is-”
“The Teddy Bear has a red light.”
“All you have to do is-”
“And the calendar. Wow. This is so cool.”
Jody cleared his throat. “All you have to do is aim this at everything in your home or office and you’ll know immediately if there’s a camera, secretly recording what goes on. If you want, I can add that to the sale.”
Em was faintly smiling. “Ah, the tangled webs we weave.”
“No.” I was emphatic.
“Skip, it may come in handy, pard, I mean-”
“James. No.” I turned to Jody. “So, we’re all set.” I was anxious to leave.
“Um, Skip. We’d talked about another GPS to switch out while the other was charging.”
Jody smiled. “Can’t let you try two of them out, but I can make you a great deal. Why don’t I wrap up the second one and-”
