Free Seven Grams of Lead by Keith Thomson

high?”
    Nathan chewed it over while O’Clair parked in front of Schechter’s.
    “Got it,” the boy exclaimed. “You need fifty blocks total, right?”
    “Not quite. Again, how many to complete the wall?”
    Nathan erupted into laughter. “Only one block to
complete
the wall.”
    Pride overrode O’Clair’s disappointment in the longevity of the time killer. He reached around his headrest to his son’s waiting palm for a resounding five.
    “Okay, here’s a tougher one: A Ping-Pong ball falls down a hole in a cement basement floor. The hole is one foot deep and only a tiny bit wider than the ball. How do you get the ball back out without damaging it if you can use only these three things: your Ping-Pong paddle, your shoelaces, and a plastic bottle of water?”
    With Nathan lost in contemplation, O’Clair got out of the minivan and headed up a walkway of circular paving stones fragmented by wear and weeds. Ducking beneath the anniversary banner, he pushed open the door. An unseen bell tinkled as he entered an underheated showroom where off-brand toasters, blenders, irons, and vacuum cleaners packed worn shelves and glass display cases. Behind the counter, a doughy man of about seventy-five adjusted his bow tie. Thick eyeglasses magnified the hope in his watery eyes. “How may I help you, sir?” he asked.
    “I’m here for the new iPod operating system.”
    The old man scowled. “Down the stairs.” He shot a wrinkled hand at what appeared to be the door to a utility closet.
    It led to a flight of warped stairs that groaned with each of O’Clair’s steps. On a raised platform at the center of the basement room, Lenny Schechter sat puffing a clove cigarette in an ergonomic chair that faced a semicircle of six giant computer monitors. All four walls were lined with stacks of brown cardboard cartons stamped with Chinese characters, Lenny’s inventory presumably—within days of an eavesdroppinggadget hitting the market in the United States, manufacturers in Guangzhou started selling decent knockoffs at a fraction of the price.
    Lenny resembled the man upstairs, minus forty years. He wore a pristine Mets hoody, vintage Adidas track pants, and a pair of fancy loafers. “How can I help, yo?” he asked, setting his cigarette in a chrome ashtray.
    “I’m in the market for a nannycam,” O’Clair said.
    “This your ‘client’?” Lenny tossed a glance at the upper left monitor.
    Rounding the bank of monitors, O’Clair saw Nathan holding an imaginary Ping-Pong ball.
    “My client, right,” said O’Clair. “He’s been learning French curse words from our
au pair.
Lord only knows what she’s been doing to the poor kid while she’s cursing.”
    Lenny shook his head in commiseration. “I hear this kinda thing way too much. The good news is that it translates into demand, then supply.”
    Like everyone at the NSA’s New York office, O’Clair knew all about Lenny Schechter. Six years ago, his business consisted only of a URL and a conviction that search engines would bring him hordes of suspicious spouses and parents who didn’t trust their nannies. Indeed, civilian eavesdropping exploded into a three-billion-dollar industry, but because the use of such products routinely violated electronic eavesdropping laws, placing the customer at risk ofbecoming another Linda Tripp and the seller being charged as an accessory, vendors preferred to operate in the shadows. Lenny was known at intelligence and law enforcement agencies not for any transgression but because agents did so much business with him. He provided the tools they needed at a fraction of the usual cost and without the government red tape. He even offered free overnight shipping.
    This morning, O’Clair didn’t have the luxury of time. The trap had been set. Thornton was due to meet someone “from the agency” at a Connecticut diner this afternoon. O’Clair had three hours to get the covert cameras in place.
    “What do you have that’s small and