Mind + Body, Aaron Dunlap [smart books to read TXT] 📗

some juice and sodas to drink as well as some chips. I even decided I could be civilized and cook an honest meal, so I picked out some chicken breast and backtracked to find some rice. They’d just come out with these plastic bags of rice that you could cook in the microwave. I reflected on how awesome that was for a while, and grabbed a few bags of white and wild rice. I doubted there was such a thing as wild rice. Rice farming was a pretty deliberate activity. I didn’t think they would bother if you could stroll through a meadow and find wild rice.

I turned a corner to head toward the checkout when I found myself in the dairy section. I stopped in front of the milk case and tried to get myself to look at it. Rows and rows of clear bottles filled to the brim with watery-white liquid. My mind made it curdle and seep out, crawl across the floor and chase me. I frowned, looking again at the innocent jugs. I used to love milk; it would be a shame to be sickened by it forever. Two days ago I ran my car through a person, and it’s the milk I couldn’t take now. I didn’t need a trauma counselor after having my dad die and nearly getting killed myself, I need help getting over my phobia of milk. I amended my mental long-term agenda to include getting back on the milk train, then headed to the checkout and paid for my food.

I rolled my cart outside to the parking lot and toward my car when I glanced at a security camera perched on one of the light poles aimed at the store’s front door. It was an innocent concept, but it gave me the seed of an idea.

+ + + +

The next day Amy didn’t call or write; I hoped she’d remember to start watching Mr. Comstock’s behavior. I left the house after ten and drove to his house. It was indeed a nice neighborhood, but nothing amazing. His house wasn’t very big but had a clean look to it. The house was on a small round cul-de-sac with three other houses at the end of a road. The middle of the cul-de-sac, rather than being just an empty circle of pavement, had a small round grassy median that had a wooden park bench, two street lamps, and three small pine trees. It was probably just decoration. I can’t imagine someone getting out of his or her house to go sit on a bench on an island in the middle of the road, but it looked nice either way.

Comstock’s house was clearly visible from the street, which was good for what I had planned. From the “island” in the middle of the road, there are five houses within 500 feet of me; also good for the plan.

I got back in my car and drove around until I found a store that sold computers. The first thing I found was an Office Depot, and right in front by the registers they had an open box laptop computer with a decent spec sheet for $800. It was probably a returned Christmas present, and these stores’ liberal return policies mean they have to take back a computer like this for full price and sell it for whatever they can. I made sure it had wireless networking, and then stood around waiting for someone to help me.

While I waited, I tried to give the cost some attention in my head. Since Saturday I’d bought a gun, a knife, and a car. If I kept this up, I’d be broke by June. I had to keep my spending in check, though I had to give myself points for being this frugal. The gun I’d sort of haggled down, the car I bought used and definitely haggled. I could have gotten a platinum-finished gun with my name engraved in diamonds, and I could have bought a Lamborghini with upholstery made from bald eagle scalps. I could buy a five-ounce Sony laptop that could render the surface area of the entire planet in real time and burn a DVD at the same time, but I wasn’t. I had to guess that was something. I wasn’t being foolhardy. Besides, it’s not like I’m going to need another car or computer for a while.

I started to think that maybe my dad got that insane life insurance policy as some kind of apology. He didn’t spend enough time with me when he was alive, so when he died he’d leave me a small fortune. It seemed morbid, and a store associate had come over before I could give it any more thought. I bought the used computer and a power inverter so I could power the computer from inside my car, then drove back to the cul-de-sac.

If my plan didn’t work, I wouldn’t really need the computer. But unlike a gun, I actually could use a new computer. My desktop at home is on its downward slope. Plus, it’s not a laptop. I pulled over on the side of the street and powered up the computer and spent a few minutes getting a feel for it. It had a fifteen-inch screen and felt light. The store hadn’t bothered to re-install Windows, so it was already set up for “Wendy,” the previous owner. Wendy seemed to like puppies, as the only change she made to the computer was installing a puppy desktop image.

The idea was to find an open wireless network in the area and have the laptop connect to it and broadcast a webcam feed of Comstock’s house. I would have to plug the computer in somehow, and then hide it so I could then view the camera feed from home or any other computer without having to sit in my car. The key to surveillance is to watch someone long enough so you can learn their routines: know when they leave the house and when they come back, who comes to visit and when, whether they use the front door or the side, etc. Wireless networks were all the rage, but network security wasn’t; many were left wide open for anybody to use without a password. I hoped that one of the five houses within range would be broadcasting an open network signal.

I had to walk around with the laptop awkwardly balanced on my arm and clicking the “refresh” button with the other, but I found a network called “default” that was unsecured. I could connect to it and get on the internet without a problem, and could get a decent signal from the island where the bench was. That was a load off my mind; I hadn’t just wasted my money on a final sale computer.

The light poles in the median had outdoor power outlets at the base, perhaps for Christmas lighting. I figured I could wrap the computer in plastic or something to protect it, hide it under one of the pine trees and keep a webcam running and pointed at the house. I packed the computer up and got back in my car and returned to the store to get a webcam, then I needed to find a hardware store to find plastic sheeting.

Back at the Office Depot, I looked at the webcams and found something that would work even better. There was a camera that would connect to a wireless network by itself, and you could then log into remotely to view or record the video. It even had mounts on the back so you could attach it to a wall with screws. This would mean I could set the camera up and have the laptop for myself. Three cheers for technological innovation.

I bought the camera, found a nearby hardware store, and got a hammer and an assortment of nails, then returned to the cul-de-sac. In my car, I set up the camera with my new computer, telling it what network to connect to and at what quality to capture video. There was even an option in the settings for the camera to e-mail me every time its IP address changed so I’d always know how to connect to it. Then I went back to the median, sat on the bench and plugged the camera’s power cable into the outlet at the base of the nearest lamppost and waited for the status lights to cycle.

The green light eventually came on to indicate that the camera had connected to the open wireless network; I started looking for where to mount it. If I mounted the camera on the back of the bench, it’d have a clear view of Comstock’s house, but it would be obvious. I decided instead to affix it to the trunk a pine tree and move the branches so there’d be a decent view. The tree served to hide the camera from casual observation, and if anybody did spot it they hopefully wouldn’t be too concerned because it was a consumer-model camera and didn’t look threatening. I thought about putting a sign on it saying it was for bird watching it, but decided that would be silly.

Back in my car, I connected to the camera’s interface and looked at its video feed. Some pine needles and branches invaded the frame, but there was nonetheless a fine view of the street, the garage, and the front door.

Content with my improvised digital surveillance, I got started on some analogue surveillance. I walked around Comstock’s house, casually looking through the windows to see if I could spot anything. Most of the blinds were closed, couldn’t see anything interesting through the windows. There were no mountains of heroin or bomb-making equipment as far as I could tell. No child slaves handcuffed to radiators or stockpiles of smuggled Russian assault weapons. Whatever he was doing, it was probably white-collar and somehow peripherally involved hitmen. If that guy was a hitman. Still, he could have just been trying to kidnap me to extort money from me.

The doors were locked. I didn’t doubt that I could get in anyway, but saw no need to get myself in that deep yet. There was no mail in his mailbox, so, out of ideas, I returned home.

My cell phone beeped in my jacket pocket as I traveled on the freeway. I tried not to kill myself digging it out, and looked at the screen. New text message. It wasn’t time for Amy to be out of school yet, unless she was skipping more classes than usual now. I pressed the button to read the message. It said “big thing. im comingover.” I dropped the phone on the passenger seat and got to, at last, find out what this car could do.