"Sure," Butters said. "You exude a Murphyonic field. Anything that can go wrong does."

"Don't let Murph hear you say that."

"Heh," Butters said. "Bring the light." I lifted it higher and stepped up behind him. "Yeah, yeah," he said. "They're right here under the glass." He peered around behind the counter. "There must be a key here somewhere."

I lifted up my staff and drove it bodily down through the glass, shattering it.

Butters looked a little wild around the eyes, but he said, "Oh, right, I forgot. Burglary." One hand darted in and plucked up an orange box. Then he looked around and picked up a couple of packs of batteries from a rack on the wall. He hadn't touched a thing but what he had taken with him, and neither had I. Without security systems, the only way we would get caught would be by fingerprints or direct apprehension, and I was glad we didn't have to take the time to wipe anything for prints before commencing the getaway.

I led Butters back to the car, and away we got.

"I can't see anything," Butters said. "Can you make the light again?"

"Not this close to the gadget," I told him. "A minute or two wouldn't be a problem, but the longer I work forces near it, the more likely it is to give out."

"I need some light," he said.

"All right, hang on." I found a spot near an alley and parked with the Beetle's headlights pointing at the overhanging awning of a restaurant. I left the car running and got out with Butters. He opened the box and took out the batteries and did gadgety things with them while I kept an eye out for bad guys, or possibly the cops.

"Tell me why you think this is it again?" Butters said. He had drawn a little plastic device the size of a small walkie-talkie from the box and fumbled with it until he found the battery cover.

"The numbers in Bony Tony's code are just longitude and latitude," I said. "He hides the book, see. He records the coordinates with one of those global satellite thingies all those soldiers raved about during Desert Storm."

"Global positioning system," Butters corrected me.

"Whatever. The point is that you need a GPS to find those specific coordinates. They're accurate to what? Ten or twelve yards?"

"More like ten feet," Butters said.

"Wow. So Bony Tony figures that most wizards wouldn't have a clue about what a GPS device is—and the ones who do can't use one because they're high-tech, and running one even close to a wizard will short it out. It's his insurance, to make sure that Grevane can't screw him."

"But Grevane did," Butters said.