Life's a Beach Then You Die Read online

  Chapter Nine

  I was startled to hear a beeping noise at 7:30 am even though I knew I had set my alarm for that time. I wouldn’t say I woke up, but I did manage to open my eyes. I had to so I could find my watch and press the button that would stop the damn beeping. I couldn’t believe that before I retired I had been getting up earlier than this for over 30 years. I don’t know now how I had managed to do it.

  I pulled down the covers, figuring I could build some inertia now my eyes were open. I thought I could do this if I did it one step at a time. Rather than being the next step towards momentum after opening my eyes, pulling down the covers slowed me down again as it revealed another reminder Mariel wasn’t there. I stopped a moment to think about that. Then, when I realized getting out of bed was the first step to getting her back into bed, I sat up and swung my legs over the side. Did I mention I wasn’t a morning person?

  I took my glasses from the nightstand and staggered into the bathroom. Some days, it takes a blast of steamy, hot water in the face to get me going so I took off my glasses and walked into the shower.

  After a few minutes of scrubbing, I felt revived and clean enough for public contact. I put on my boxer-briefs, cargo shorts, sandals and an emblem marked golf shirt I got free at a forensic tools training class. If I was going out to buy P. I. gear, I should look the part and it was too hot for a trench coat and fedora. I dragged myself into the kitchen. I had to get on the road quickly so I settled for a glass of orange juice, a bowl of Kashi cereal with skim milk and cup of café con leche.

  I got my camera bag from my office, my car keys from the kitchen drawer and went out the foyer door into the attached garage. Mariel’s car was gone and my Monte Carlo looked lonely in the two-car garage all by itself.

  I left the house, crossed the southern bridge to the mainland and after 15 minutes, turned onto Interstate 95. I still couldn’t believe that this was the same road which stretched north far enough to be the Cross-Bronx Expressway in New York. I traveled about 30 miles south to exit 50. Then west another 15 until I came to the Spy Shack of Orlando. The name was so cheesy I was embarrassed to go in. The Spy Shack wasn’t so much of a shack as it was a former gas station. It looked like the building owner wanted to save money while keeping his future rental options open. Removable wood fill-ins covered the repair bay doors.

  I slinked from my car to the shop and opened the door. A small bell jingled. An Italian opera played softly in the background. A golden retriever on the floor to my right lifted his head up from resting on his front paws. He looked at me and then put his head back down.

  To my left, a man sat on a stool behind what looked to be the counter for the old gas station. It ran along the entire left wall. In front of the man, small tools and a soldering iron covered the countertop.

  He held something in both his hands close to his face and squinted at it through thick glasses. He wore a short sleeve shirt with a pair of thin blue stripes running both vertically and horizontally across a white background so the lines formed a pattern of blue double-lined boxes. Over that, he wore a pair of thin grey suspenders stretched over his potbelly to snap onto his baggy blue jeans. He looked like he might be in his fifties with a full head of unruly black and white hair and a thick, wide, moustache to match. He ignored me as he attempted to focus on what he held.

  Welcoming his lack of solicitation, I turned to my right and passed the still disinterested dog. I wandered through the shop looking at the devices used to both pierce and protect privacy. I thought it was odd to see a Christmas wreath for sale until I realized it contained a hidden camera. Despite myself, I become fascinated with all of the ways people pried into each other’s lives and with all of the ways to prevent and to catch them.

  I made a full circuit of the shop and came to rest in front of the man on the stool. Without moving his hands or his head, he raised his eyes over his glasses and looked at me. He said nothing but that which he said with his raised eyebrows.

  “Hi,” I said. “I’m looking for something I can use to detect a hidden transmitter.”

  He looked at me a moment as if deciding whether my need was worth him pausing his efforts to help me. When he sat up straight, I guessed he decided to help me. “Sure, fella. Lemme put this down gently first so this wire don’t come loose.”

  As much as I didn’t want to succumb, I couldn’t help myself. I leaned forward. “What do you have there?”

  “Oh, it’s a new design I’m working on. I make some custom devices. From time to time. For special customers. Sometimes, a fella needs something that isn’t a standard product.” He gently placed his work on the counter and looked up at me. You trying to find a bug?”

  “Yes. My client and I discussed something in his office and it appears a third party also heard it.”

  “And you’re sure your client didn’t tell anyone else?”

  “So far. That’s why I want to look for a bug.”

  “OK, so this wasn’t discussed on the phone. It was said in person?”

  “Yes.”

  “OK, so you’re probably not dealing with a tapped telephone line here. If you were, the conversation would have had to take place while talking on the phone. Was it said near a telephone?”

  “The closest phone was a few feet away.”

  “If you were near a phone but not on the phone, someone could be using an Infinity Device.”

  I must have been giving him a blank stare because he paused a moment and then said, “It lets someone dial a phone without ringing it so the caller can listen in on whatever is in range of the telephone microphone.”

  “I guess that could be. The phone was close enough on the desk, but a huge pile of papers covered it. Would it still work when buried like that?”

  “Possibly, but if there’s no Infinity Device, then, if anything, you probably have a separate listening device hidden somewhere. Now, if that listening device is a microphone connected to a recorder, you won’t detect anything when you sweep for radio signals. On the other hand, if there’s a microphone there connected to a transmitter, you stand a chance of finding the transmitter when you sweep for bugs. Luckily for you, stashing a mic and a recorder means the stasher has to return and retrieve the recorder before they can hear anything.”

  “Why is that lucky for me?”

  “Well, since you gotta go back for the recorder without knowing if what you want is on it, most folks wouldn’t choose that approach. Plus if you don’t know where it is and it looks like you don’t know, finding the thing can be tough. If you got a transmitter hidden there, then it’s transmitting on a radio frequency. If something’s transmitting on a radio frequency, I gotta couple devices here that can hear ‘em.”

  He got down off the stool and walked behind the counter to a wall mounted cabinet where he took a key from his pocket and opened the glass sliding door. “This here’s what I’d recommend. If there’s something transmitting, you should be able to find it with this frequency finder. You put on these headphones, plug them into the finder and then turn on this switch.”

  He held the device so I could see where he was pointing. “Then you move the finder around until you’ve covered the entire room. It’s got a range of about 25 feet so you don’t have to move too much. If the finder finds something, one of these lights here on the top start flashing. This’ll scan as high as 8 GHz so you’ll be able to find the latest breed of bugs. It’s $279.95. It’s no spectrum analyzer but then this gadget’s about eight thousand dollars cheaper. Oh, and it will also detect an Infinity Device.”

  I looked at the device. I looked at the man. I looked at the device.

  “You’re skeptical,” he said.

  “How does it distinguish from equipment that’s supposed to be there?”

  “Depends. Some household appliances like microwaves and telephones will transmit frequencies this finder can detect. That’s where you come in. You’ve got to use common sense, move things around, turn things off and on. In-vest-igate. You
know, sometimes folks will intentionally use a bug that transmits on a common frequency to try to hide the signal. Of course, they run a risk of the signal being drowned out by someone making popcorn, but life is full of choices.”

  I looked at the man. I looked at the device. I looked at the man. I nodded.

  “You’ll take it?”

  “Yes.” I handed over my VISA debit card. He put the device back in its box and put the box in a yellow plastic bag. The bag bore a smiley face and the advice to “Have a nice day!”

  He rang up the sale and gave me a receipt to sign. I signed it and we swapped my signed receipt for my customer copy. I put my card away and he handed me the bag with his left hand while he reached up with his right to shake my hand.

  “Mr. Steed, it’s been a pleasure doing business with you. My name is Sid Speichek. Please come by again.”

  I started to correct him about my name when I realized why he called his business the Spy Shack. Mentally shaking my head, I smiled and left. Maybe he’ll debit Mr. Steeds’ account instead.