“Sure. Now, tell me. Is it your locket or is it the pattern in your locket? Have you tested it? If it’s the design, what if you’ve had it tattooed on the back of your arm in the meantime?” Paulette asked.

“That’s—” Miriam shook her head. “Tell me there’s a flaw in the logic.”

“I’m not going to do that.” Paulette picked up the bottle and waved it over Miriam’s glass in alcoholic benediction. “I think you’re going to have to test it tomorrow to find out. And I’m going to have to test it, to see if it works for me—if that’s okay by you,” she added hastily. “If it’s the design, you just got your very own ‘Get Out of Jail Free’ card. Doesn’t matter if you can’t use it to rob bank vaults, there’s any number of other scams you can run if you can get out of the fix instantaneously. Say, uh, you walk into a bank and pull a holdup. No need for a gun, just pass over a note saying you’ve got a bomb and they should give you all the money. Then, instead of running away, you head for the staff rest room and just vanish into thin air.”

“You have got a larcenous mind, Paulie.” Miriam shook her head in awe. “You’re wasted in publishing.”

“No, I’m not.” Paulette frowned seriously. “Y’see, you haven’t thought this through. S’pose you’ve got this super power. Suppose nobody else can use it—we can try me out tomorrow, huh? Do the experiment with the photocopy of the locket on you, then try me. See if I can do it. I figure it’s going to be you, and not me, because if just anybody could do it it would be common knowledge, huh? Or your mother would have done it. For some reason somebody stabbed your mother and she didn’t do it. So there must be some kind of gotcha. But anyway. What do you think the cops would make of it if instead of robbing banks or photographing peasant villagers you, uh, donated your powers to the forces of law and order?”

“Law and order consists of bureaucracies,” Miriam said with a brisk shake of her head. “You’ve seen all those tedious FBI press conferences I sat in on when they were lobbying for carnivore and crypto export controls, huh?” A vision unfolded behind her eyes, the poisonous fire blossom of an airliner striking an undefended skyscraper. “Jesus, Paulie, imagine if Al Qaida could do this!”