A Lonely Resurrection

though to take it back. “Well, if you’re not going to appreciate it. . .”
    “No, no, I do appreciate it. I just don’t know what the hell it is.” Actually I had a good idea, but I prefer to be underestimated. Besides, I didn’t want to deny Harry the pleasure of educating me.
    “It’s a bug and video detector,” he said, pronouncing the words slowly as though I might otherwise fail to comprehend them. “If you come within shooting distance of radio frequency or infrared, it’ll let you know.”
    “In a sexy female voice, I hope?”
    He laughed. “If someone’s trying to record you, you might not want them to know you know. So no sexy voice. Just a vibration mode. Intermittent for video, continuous for audio. Alternating for both. And only in ten second bursts, to conserve battery power.”
    “How does it work?”
    He beamed. “Wide range circuitry that detects transmitters operating on frequencies from fifty megahertz to three gigahertz. Plus it’s got an internal antenna that picks up the horizontal oscillator frequency radiated by video cameras. I’ve optimized it for the PAL standard, which is what you’re most likely to encounter, but I can change it to NTSC or SECAM if you want. Reception isn’t great because it’s so small, so you won’t be able to tell where the bug or camera is, only that one is there. And the big security closed-circuit TV units you sometimes see in train stations and parks will usually be out of the unit’s range.”
    Too bad about the CCTV units. If I had a reliable, portable way to detect those, I’d have a shot at getting my privacy back from Tatsu and whomever else.
    “Any chance you can make the reception a little better?” I asked.
    He looked a little hurt, and I realized I should have praised him before asking that. “Not for something this small,” he said. “You’d need something with a much bigger antenna.”
    Oh well. Even with its limitations, the unit would be useful. I hefted it in my hand. I was familiar with functionally similar commercial models, of course, but I hadn’t seen one this small. It was an impressive piece of work.
    “Rechargeable battery?” I asked.
    “Of course. Lithium ion. Just like a mobile phone.” He reached into a jacket pocket and pulled out what looked like an ordinary mobile phone charger. “I ran it down testing it, so you’ll need to charge it when you get home. And don’t forget to juice it up every day. There’s no low battery indicator or anything else like that. I built this thing for speed, not looks.”
    I took the charger and put it on the table next to me. Then I pulled out my wallet and slid the unit into it. It was a nice, snug fit. I would examine it back at the hotel, of course, to confirm that it was a bug detector and not some sort of bug. Not that I don’t trust Harry. I just like to satisfy myself about these things.
    I put my wallet back in my pants and nodded appreciatively. “Nice work,” I said. “Thank you.”
    He smiled. “I know you’re a professional paranoid, so I figured it was either this or a lifetime supply of Valium.”
    I laughed. “Now tell me, what’s with the vampire hours?”
    “Oh, you know,” he said looking away, “just lifestyle stuff.”
    Lifestyle stuff? As far as I knew, Harry had no lifestyle. In my imagination he was always huddled in his apartment, worming his way into remote networks, creating backdoors to exploit later, mediating the world through the safety of a computer screen.
    He was blushing. Christ, the kid was so transparent. “Harry, are you going to tell me you’ve got a girlfriend?” I asked.
    The blush deepened, and I laughed. “I’ll be damned,” I said. “Good for you.”
    He looked at me, checking to see whether I was going to tease him. “She’s not exactly my girlfriend.”
    “Well, never mind the taxonomy. How did you meet her?”
    “Work.”
    I picked up my glass. “You going to give me details, or do I have to force feed you two or three of these to loosen your tongue?”
    He made a face of exaggerated disgust. “One of the firm’s clients, one of the big trading houses, was happy with some security work I did for them.”
    “Guess they didn’t know about the backdoors you left for yourself in the process.”
    He smiled. “They never do.”
    “So the client is happy. . .”
    “And my boss took me out to celebrate, to a hostess club.”
    Most westerners have a hard time grasping the concept of the Japanese