A tall man with black hair and olive skin entered Milford Radio and Repair. Milo, the shop owner, had just opened for the day and had not had the time to tidy up after last night’s inventory that his father had sprung on him.

“Can I help you, sir?” Milo said.

The man was dressed in a trench coat and wore a fedora. The man’s glasses were as thick as the bottom of a soda bottle.

This guy must be legally blind.

“Yes, you can,” the man said.

Something about this guy gives me the creeps.

The man didn’t say anything else. He wandered about the shop a bit. He picked up one of the radios Milo had on display and fiddled with the knobs and switches for a while. Then he turned to Milo. Butterflies entered Milo’s stomach; he didn’t know why this man made him anxious, but his presence unnerved him.

“Hello, son. I have a special need for a radio that I wouldn’t mind having connected to my brain, if you know what I mean,” the man said.

What the hell is he talking about?

“What kind of radio do you need?”

“Something that can scan the airwaves for wireless convos. I also need something that will tell me which airwave has a particular convo. Can you help me, son?”

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“Sounds like you need a frequency counter and a scanner radio to get started. What conversations do you need picked up? I mean, are you interested in picking up chatter from cordless phones? Or cell phones?”

“Yes—that’s what I need the convos from.”

Does he want to spy on people’s cell phone calls?

“To be clear, I just want to confirm which conversations you need to pick up. Do you mean conversations from cell phones?” Milo asked.

“Yes . . . yes . . . yes . . . please!”

The man started dry-washing his hands in anticipation. The image reminded Milo of a mad scientist.

“Then you need two pieces of equipment: a frequency counter, which scans for the proper frequency of the cell phone, and once you have it you can use a scanner to listen to the conversation.”

“Yes, give these to me, son,” the man said as he clapped his hands together.

This guy is whacked.

Milo found the two most expensive radios that he could find and calculated the cost.

“That will be $623.32. Will that be cash or charge?”

The man took out a wad of bills several inches thick and counted out seven one-hundred-dollar bills.

“I don’t have enough change,” Milo said.

“Keep it and put it toward a radio lesson for me. How much do you charge for that?”

Milo did not know how much to charge for a radio lesson. Most of his customers already knew how to use the equipment.

“Throw in another hundred, and that will buy you an hour of time,” Milo said.

The man tossed the money at Milo like it was nothing. A tattoo of an angel caught Milo’s eye.

There’s something about this guy. Even his tattoo seems suspicious.

“Now teach me, boy!” the man said with an impatient tone.

About forty-five minutes later, the lesson was over. Something about the man creeped Milo out, but he couldn’t put a finger on it. The man was insistent about using cellular signals to trigger something else—for what Milo didn’t know. The experience troubled him.