He looked at the mind impressor in his hands. He had been toying with it incessantly, hoping it would repeat its performance, or perhaps give additional information. "This?" He covered quickly. "It's a—a puzzle. One of those plastic puzzles." Maybe it doesn't work on the same person twice. If I can get George to fool around with it, he might hit the right combination again. "Hmmm. How does it work?" George seemed interested. Karnes handed it to him. "It has a couple of little sliding weights inside it. You have to turn the thing just right to unlock it, then it comes apart when you slide out a section of the surface. Try it." Lansberg took it, turned it this way and that, moving his hands over the surface. Karnes watched him for several minutes, but there didn't seem to be any results. Lansberg looked up from his labors. "I give up. I can't even see where it's supposed to come apart, and I can't feel any weights sliding inside it. Show me how it works." Karnes thought fast. "Why do you think I was fiddling with it? I don't know how it works. A friend of mine bet me a ten spot that I couldn't figure out the combination." Lansberg looked back at the impressor in his hands. "Could he do it?" "A snap. I watched him twice, and I still didn't get it." "Mmm. Interesting." George went back to work on the "puzzle." Just before they landed on the roof of the UN annex, Lansberg handed the impressor back to Karnes. It had obviously failed to do what either of them had hoped it would. "It's your baby," Lansberg said, shaking his head. "All I have to say is it's a hell of a way to earn ten bucks." Karnes grinned and dropped the thing back in his coat pocket. By the time that evening had rolled around, Karnes was beginning to get just a little bored. He and Lansberg had been in and out of the New York office in record time. Then they had spent a few hours with New York's Finest and the District Attorney, lining up a net to pick up all the little rats involved. After that, there was nothing to do but wait.
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