Let’s say this: if your horse wins, I’ll do you a little favor.

Your choice. If mine wins, you have to do me a favor.”

“And if another one wins, all bets are off?”

“Right. Are you ready?”

“Ayup,” Keeton said tightly, and leaned close to the tin racecourse. His hands were clamped together between his large thighs.

There was a small metal lever sticking out of a slot by the starting line. “And they’re off,” Gaunt said softly, and pushed it.

The cogs and gears below the race-course began to grind. The horses moved away from the starting line, sliding along their appointed courses. They went slowly at first, wavering back and forth in the slots and progressing in little jerks as some mainspring-or a whole series of them-expanded inside the board, but as they approached the first turn they began to pick up speed.

The two-horse took the lead, followed by the seven; the others were back in the pack.

“Come on, five!” Keeton cried softly. “Come on five, pull, you bitch!”

As if hearing him, the small tin steed began to draw away from the pack. At the half, it had caught up with the seven. The sixhorse Gaunt’s pick-had also begun to show some speed.

Winning Ticket rattled and vibrated on the small table. Keeton’s face hung over it like a large, flawed moon. A drop of sweat fell on the tiny tin jockey piloting the three-horse; if he had been a real man, both he and his mount would have been drenched.

At the third turn the seven-horse put on a burst of speed and caught the two, but Keeton’s five-horse was hanging on for dear life, and Gaunt’s six was at its heels. These four rounded the turn in a bunch well ahead of the others, vibrating wildly in their slots.

“Go You stupid bitch!” Keeton yelled. He had forgotten that they were merely pieces of tin fashioned into the crude likenesses of horses. He had forgotten he was in the shop of a man he had never met before. The old excitement had him. It shook him the way a terrier shakes a rat. “Go on and go for it! Pull, you bitch, PULL! Pour it ON!”

Now the five pulled even for the lead… and drew ahead.

Gaunt’s horse was moving up on its flank when Keeton’s horse crossed the finish line, a winner.

The mechanism was running down, but most of the horses made it back around to the starting line before the clockwork ceased entirely.

Gaunt used his finger to push the laggards up even with the others for another start.

“Whew!” Keeton said, and mopped his brow. He felt completely wrung out… but he also felt better than he had in a long, long time.

“That was pretty fine!”

“Fine as paint,” Gaunt agreed.

“They knew how to make things in the old days, didn’t they?”

“They did,” Gaunt agreed, smiling. “And it looks as though I owe you a favor, Mr. Keeton.”

“Aw, forget it-that was fun.”

“No, indeed. A gentleman always pays his bets. just let me know a day or two before you intend to call in your marker, as they say.”

Before you call in your marker.

That brought it all crashing back on him. Markers! They held his! They! On Thursday They would call those markers home… and what then? What then?

Visions of damning newspaper headlines danced in his head.

“Would you like to know how the serious bettors of the thirties used this toy?” Gaunt asked softly.

“Sure,” Keeton said, but he didn’t care, not really… not until he looked up. Then Gaunt’s eyes met his again, captured them again, and the idea of using a child’s game to pick winners seemed to make perfect sense again.

“Well,” Gaunt said, “they’d take that day’s newspaper or Racing Form and run the races, one by one. On this board, you know. They would give each horse in each race a name from the paper-they’d do it by touching one of the tin horses and saying the name at the same time-and then wind the thing up and let it go. They’d run the whole slate that way-eight, ten, a dozen races. Then they’d go to the track and bet on the horses that won at home.”

“Did it work?” Keeton asked. His voice seemed to be coming to him from some other place. A far place. He seemed to be floating in Leland Gaunt’s eyes. Floating on red foam. The sensation was queer but really quite pleasant.

“It seemed to,” Gaunt said. “Probably just silly superstition, but… would you like to buy this toy and try it for yourself.?”

“Yes,” Keeton said.

“You’re a man who needs a Winning Ticket quite badly, aren’t you, Danforth?”

“I need more than one. I need a whole slew of them. How much?”

Leland Gaunt laughed. “Oh no-you don’t get me that way!

Not when I am already in your debt! I’ll tell you what-open your wallet and give me the first bill you find in there. I’m sure it will be the right one.”

So Keeton opened his wallet and drew out a bill without looking away from Gaunt’s face, and of course it was the one with Thomas Jefferson’s face on it-the kind of bill which had gotten him into all this trouble in the first place.

Gaunt made it disappear as neatly as a magician doing a trick and said: “There is one more thing.”

“What?”

Gaunt leaned forward. He looked at Keeton earnestly, and touched him on the knee. “Mr. Keeton, do you know about…

Them?”

Keeton’s breath caught, the way the breath of a sleeper will sometimes catch when he finds himself in the throes of a bad dream.

“Yes,” he whispered. “God, yes"’ “This town is full of Them,” Gaunt went on in the same low, confidential tone. “Absolutely infested. I’ve been open less than a week, and I know it already. I think They may be after me. In fact, I’m quite sure of it. I may need your help.”

“Yes,” Keeton said. He spoke more strongly now. “By God, You’ll have all the help you need!”

“Now, You just met me and you don’t owe me a damned thing-” Keeton, who felt already that Gaunt was the closest friend he had made in the last ten years, opened his mouth to protest. Gaunt held up his hand, and the protests ceased at once.

“-and you don’t have the slightest idea if I’ve sold you something which will really work or just another bag of dreams… the kind that turn into nightmares when you give them a poke and a whistle. I’m sure you believe all this now; I have a great gift of I persuasion, if I do say so myself. But I believe In satisfied customers, Mr. Keeton, and only satisfied customers. I have been in business for many years, and I have built my reputation on satisfied customers. So take the toy.

If it works for you, fine. If it doesn’t, give ’

I it to the Salvation Army or throw it in the town dump. What are you out? Couple of bucks?”

“Couple of bucks,” Keeton agreed dreamily.

“But if it does work, and if you can clear your mind of these ephemeral financial worries, come back and see me. We’ll sit down and have coffee, just as we have this morning… and talk about Them.”

“It’s gone too far to just put the money back,” Keeton said in the clear but disconnected tones of one who talks in his sleep.

“There are more tracks than I can brush away in five days.”

“A lot can change in five days,” Mr. Gaunt said thoughtfully.

He rose to his feet, moving with sinuous grace. “You’ve got a big day ahead of you… and so do I.”

“But Them,” Keeton protested. “What about Them?”

Gaunt placed one of his long, chilly hands on Keeton’s arm, and even in his dazed state, Keeton felt his stomach curl up on itself at that touch. “We’ll deal with Them later,” he said. “Don’t you worry about a thing.”