"But nothing's happened to complain about," said Brink, quite reasonably. "One broken window's not worth a fuss."
"But somethin's goin' to happen!" insisted the detective. "That guy Big Jake is poison! He's takin' over the whole town, bit by bit! You've been lucky so far, but your luck could run out—"
Brink shook his head.
"No-o-o," he said matter-of-factly. "I'm grateful to you, Mr. Fitzgerald, but I have a special kind of luck. I won't tell you about it because you wouldn't believe but—but I can give you some of it. If you don't mind, I will."
He went to the slightly dusty, partly-plastic machine. On its shelf were some parts of metal, and some of transparent plastic, and some grayish, granular substance it was hard to identify. There was an elaborate diagram of something like an electronic circuit inside, but it might have been a molecular diagram from organic chemistry. Brink made an adjustment and pressed firmly on a special part of the machine, which did not yield at all. Then he took a slip of plastic out of a slot in the bottom.
"You can call this a good-luck charm," he said pleasantly, "or a talisman. Actually it's a psionic unit. One like it works very well, for me. Anyhow there's no harm in it. Just one thing. If your eyelids start to twitch, you'll be headed for danger or trouble or something unpleasant. So if they do twitch, stop and be very, very careful. Please!"
He handed the bit of plastic to Fitzgerald, who took it without conscious volition.
Then Brink said briskly: "If there isn't anything else—"
"You won't swear out a warrant against Big Jake?" demanded Fitzgerald bitterly.
"I haven't any reason to," said Brink amiably. "I'm doing all right. He hasn't harmed me. I don't think he will."