ominion has its own ideas on what's dangerous. The laws are all fouled
up. But what most of them boil down to is this--a man has to have a
continuous reading of over ninety before he can be arrested. Not
arrested really, detained. Just a reading on the board doesn't prove a
thing. Some people walk around boiling at ninety all their lives--like
editors. But the sweet old lady down the block, who's never sworn in her
life, she may hit sixty-five and reach for a knife. And that doesn't
prove a thing. Ninety sometimes means murder, but usually not; up to a
hundred and ten usually means murder, but sometimes not; and anything
over one-twenty always means murder. And it still doesn't prove a thing.
And then again, a psychotic or a professional gunsel may not register at
all. They kill for fun, or for business--they're not angry at anybody."

"It's all up to the deAngelis operators. They're the kingpins, they make
the system work. Not Simon deAngelis who invented it, or the technicians
who install it, or the Police Commissioner who takes the results to City
Hall. The operators make it or break it. Sure, they have rules to
follow--if they want. But a good operator ignores the rules, and a bad
operator goes by the book, and he's still no damn good. It's just like
radar was sixty, seventy years ago. Some got the knack, some don't."

"Then the deAngelis doesn't do the job," said the cub.

"Certainly it does," the older man said. "Nothing's perfect. It gives
the police the jump on a lot of crime. Premeditated murder for one. The
average citizen can't kill anyone unless he's mad enough, and if he's
mad enough, he registers on the deAngelis. And ordinary robbers get
caught; their plans don't go just right, or they fight among themselves.
Or, if they just don't like society--a good deAngelis operator can tell
quite a bit if he gets a reading at the wrong time of day or night, or
in the wrong part of town."

"But what about the sweet old lady who registers sixty-five and then
goes berserk?"

"That's where your operator really comes in. Usually that kind of a
reading comes too late. Grandma's swinging the knife at the same time
the light goes on in the station house. But if she waits to swing, or
builds herself up to it, then she may be stopped.

"You know those poor operators are supposed to log any reading over
sixty, and report downtown with anything over eighty. Sure they are! If
they logged everything over sixty they'd have wr