Rudy Baylor discovers his office phone is tapped when Deck Shifflet and private investigator Butch uncover listening devices inside all three office phones. The discovery turns ordinary calls into a possible channel for stolen case information: a later call with opposing counsel is captured on a recorder, giving Rudy and Deck reason to suspect that the surveillance benefits the other side. Yet they cannot establish who installed the devices. Their response is therefore not an immediate accusation but a calculated effort to hide what they know and retain the recording as leverage.

Discovery at the Office

The first warning comes after Rudy returns from Donny Ray Black’s funeral. Deck is unnerved, and Butch, whom Deck introduces as a client, uses the opportunity to inspect a phone receiver. Inside its cover he finds a small, round, black device. Rudy initially does not understand what he is being shown; Deck’s conspicuously ordinary questions and nudges are meant to keep him talking while Butch examines the phone.

Deck and Butch explain the discovery over coffee, away from the office. Deck has been worried about federal investigators since Bruiser Stone and Prince Thomas disappeared, but Rudy learns that Deck has discussed those fears with Butch without telling him. Butch says he was asked to check the phones and has found identical devices in all three. He is not an expert in surveillance equipment, so he cannot say who installed them or what else might be hidden in the office. He proposes searching the premises, where microphones could be concealed in ordinary objects, but cautions that removing a device could alert whoever is listening. For now, the safest course is to behave as usual and speak carefully.

Uncertain Source and a Second Inspection

Deck secretly takes one phone to an acquaintance who has reportedly worked for a branch of the military. The acquaintance identifies the device as unlike the bugs typically used by the Federal Bureau of Investigation or other law-enforcement agencies. It is described as a medium-quality model manufactured in Czechoslovakia, connected to a transmitter somewhere nearby. The report narrows one possibility without identifying the listener: the phones may not have been tapped by the authorities Rudy and Deck feared, but the person responsible remains unknown.

The uncertainty strains the partnership. Rudy asks Deck whether he has spoken to Bruiser Stone on the tapped phones. Deck denies doing so; Rudy recognizes the answer as a warning to stop asking sensitive questions in front of Butch. Butch then checks the devices again, and they remain in place. The three men have evidence that someone can listen, but no reliable way to learn who is listening, how much has been heard, or whether the office itself contains additional microphones. Even their attempt to investigate must be conducted as if it might be overheard.

The Recorder and the Suspicion of Opposing Counsel

Rather than remove the bugs, Rudy devises a way to test whether information from his office is reaching the other side. He and Deck arrange a deliberately fictitious account of a settlement position by Dot Black, then have Deck repeat it in a phone conversation from the courthouse. The false account gives them a specific detail to watch for in later dealings. Their little firm buys a forty-dollar recorder from Radio Shack and wires it to Rudy’s phone, hoping that recording a call will not interfere with the listening device.

Leo F. Drummond calls to discuss a deposition date, then raises settlement. He says Great Benefit Life Insurance Company will offer $175,000, describing the figure as the cost of the transplant and urging Rudy to speak to Dot Black. Rudy refuses to give an immediate answer. After the call, he and Deck replay the tape. Deck concludes that their phones have been bugged by the other side. The recording gives them reason to suspect that Drummond or his client knows what is being said in the office, but it does not reveal who planted the device or establish Drummond’s precise involvement. The distinction matters: the call is incriminating to Rudy and Deck, but they know that suspicion is not proof.

The recording also implicates Rudy in an ethical problem of his own. He has secretly recorded another lawyer without first disclosing the recorder, conduct he knows could expose him to professional discipline if he produced the tape. He weighs that risk against what he sees as the more serious possibility that his opponents are using intercepted communications. Neither man expects a complaint to Judge Kipler to help without proof, and they recognize that the jury cannot simply be told that the defense played dirty. Instead, they decide to keep the tape and wait for a moment when it might serve a tactical purpose.

Consequences for the Case

Rudy later tells Drummond that Dot does not want to accept the settlement. He presents her supposed change of mind as an ordinary client decision, while privately recognizing the value of what the recorded offer suggests about the case’s stakes. The offer does not change the Black family’s aim: Dot wants a judgment establishing what happened to her son, not simply a payment. Rudy and Deck therefore preserve their course toward trial rather than treating the intercepted calls as a reason to abandon the case.

The discovery changes the meaning of the office itself. Its phones, which should carry confidential conversations, become potential routes for information to escape; even a routine settlement call must be treated as both negotiation and evidence. At the same time, the incident repeats the larger case’s conflict over concealed information. Rudy is trying to expose Great Benefit Life Insurance Company’s handling of claims while suspecting that someone is listening to his own conversations, and he must decide how far he can go in responding without compromising his professional obligations. The episode ends without identifying the listener or removing the bugs. What Rudy and Deck gain is not certainty, but a recording, a reason for suspicion, and a plan to turn their vulnerability into possible leverage.