by Stephen King
OPEN.
Keeton looked at it for a moment, thinking--as Brian Rusk had before him--that it must have been left there by mistake. Main Street shops didn't open at seven in Castle Rock, especially not on Saturday morning. All the same, he tried the knob. It turned easily in his hand.
As he opened the door, a small silver bell tinkled overhead.
4
"It's not really a game," Leland Gaunt was saying five minutes later, "you're wrong about that."
Keeton was seated in the plush high-backed chair where Nettie Cobb, Cyndi Rose Martin, Eddie Warburton, Everett Frankel, Myra Evans, and a good many other townsfolk had sat before him that week. He was drinking a cup of good Jamaican coffee. Gaunt, who seemed like one hell of a nice fellow for a flatlander, had insisted that he have one. Now Gaunt was leaning into his show window and carefully removing the box. He was dressed in a wine-colored smoking jacket, just as natty as you please, and not a hair out of place. He had told Keeton that he often opened at odd hours, because he was afflicted with insomnia.
"Ever since I was a young man," he had said with a rueful chuckle, "and that was many years ago." He looked fresh as a daisy to Keeton, however, except for his eyes--they were so bloodshot they looked as if red were actually their natural color.
Now he brought the box over and set it on a small table next to Keeton.
"The box was what caught my eye," Keeton said. "It looks quite a bit like the Lewiston Raceway. I go there once in awhile."
"You like a flutter, do you?" Gaunt asked with a smile.
Keeton was about to say he never bet, and changed his mind. The smile was not just friendly; it was a smile of commiseration, and he suddenly understood that he was in the presence of a fellow sufferer. Which just went to show how flaky he was getting around the edges, because when he had shaken Gaunt's hand, he'd felt a wave of revulsion so sudden and deep it had been like a muscle spasm. For that one moment he had been convinced that he had found his Chief Persecutor. He would have to watch that sort of thing; there was no sense going overboard.
"I have been known to wager," he said.
"Sadly, so have I," Gaunt said. His reddish eyes fixed upon Keeton's, and they shared a moment of perfect understanding ... or so Keeton felt. "I've bet most of the tracks from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and I'm quite sure the one on the box is Longacre Park, in San Diego. Gone, of course; there's a housing development there now."
"Oh," Keeton said.
"But let me show you this. I think you'll find it interesting."
He took the cover off the box, and carefully lifted out a tin raceway on a platform about three feet long and a foot and a half wide. It looked like toys Keeton had had as a child, the cheap ones made in Japan after the war. The track was a replica of a two-mile course. Eight narrow slots were set into it, and eight narrow tin horses stood behind the starting line. Each was mounted on a small tin post that poked out of its slot and was soldered to the horse's belly.
"Wow," Keeton said, and grinned. It was the first time he'd grinned in weeks, and the expression felt strange and out of place.
"You ain't seen nuthin yet, as the man said," Gaunt replied, grinning back. "This baby goes back to 1930 or '35, Mr. Keeton--it's a real antique. But it wasn't just a toy to the racing touts of the day."
"No?"
"No. Do you know what a Ouija board is?"
"Sure. You ask it questions and it's supposed to spell out answers from the spirit world."
"Exactly. Well, back in the Depression, there were a lot of racing touts who believed that Winning Ticket was the horse-player's Ouija board."
His eyes met Keeton's again, friendly, smiling, and Keeton was as unable to draw his own eyes away as he had been to leave the track before the last race was run on the one occasion when he had tried.
"Silly, isn't it?"
"Yes," Keeton said. But it didn't seem silly at all. It seemed perfectly ... perfectly...
Perfectly reasonable.
Gaunt felt around in the box and brought out a little tin key. "A different horse wins each time. There's some sort of random mechanism inside, I suppose--crude but effective enough. Now watch."
He inserted the key in a hole on the side of the tin platform on which the tin horses stood, and turned it. There were small clicks and clacks and ratchets--winding--up sounds. Gaunt removed the key when it wouldn't turn anymore.
"What's your pick?" he asked.
"The five," Keeton said. He leaned forward, his heart picking up speed. It was foolish--and the ultimate proof of his compulsion, he supposed--but he could feel all the old excitement sweeping through him.
"Very well, I pick the six-horse. Shall we have a little wager, just to make it interesting?"
"Sure! How much?"
"Not money," Gaunt said. "My days of betting for money ended long ago, Mr. Keeton. They are the least interesting wagers of all. 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 race-course. 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 six-horse--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.
5
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 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 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."
6
"John!" Alan called as John LaPointe slipped into the Sheriff's Office by the alley door. "Good to see you!"
It was ten-thirty on Saturday morning and the Castle Rock Sheriff's Office was as deserted as it ever got. Norris was out fishing somewhere, and Seaton Thomas was down in Sanford, visiting his two old-maid sisters. Sheila Brigham was at the Our Lady of Serene Waters rectory, helping her brother draft another letter to the paper explaining the essentially harmless nature of Casino Nite. Father Brigham also wanted the letter to express his belief that William Rose was as crazy as a cootiebug in a shitheap. One could not come right out and say such a thing, of course--not in a family newspaper--but Father John and Sister Sheila were doing the best they could to get the point across. Andy Clutterbuck was on duty somewhere, or so Alan assumed; he hadn't called in since Alan arrived at the office an hour ago. Until John showed up, the only other person in the Municipal Building seemed to be Eddie Warburton, who was fussing with the water-cooler in the corner.
"What's up, doc?" John asked, sitting on the corner of Alan's desk.
"On Saturday morning? Not much. But watch this." Alan unbuttoned the right cuff of his khaki shirt and pushed the sleeve up. "Please notice that my hand never leaves my wrist."
"Uh-huh," John said. He pulled a stick of Juicy Fruit out of his pants pocket, peeled off the wrapper, and stuck it in his mouth.
Alan showed his open right palm, flipped his hand to display the back, then closed the hand into a fist. He reached into it with his left index finger and pulled out a tiny ear of silk. He waggled his eyebrows at John. "Not bad, huh?"
"If that's Sheila's scarf, she's gonna be unhappy to find it all wrinkled up and smelling of your sweat," John said. He seemed less than poleaxed with wonder.
"Not my fault she left it on her desk," Alan replied. "Besides, magicians don't sweat. Now say-hey and abracadabra!" He pulled Sheila's scarf from his fist and puffed it dramatically into the air. It billowed out, then settled onto Norris's typewriter like a brightly colored butterfly. Alan looked at John, then sighed. "Not that great, huh?"
"It's a neat trick," John said, "but I've seen it a few times before. Like maybe thirty or forty?"
"What do you think, Eddie?" Alan called. "Not bad for a backwoods Deputy Dawg, huh?"
Eddie barely looked up from the cooler, which he was now filling from a supply of plastic jugs labelled SPRING WATER. "Didn't see, Shurf. Sorry."
"Hopeless, both of you," Alan said. "But I'm working on a variation, John. It's going to wow you, I promise."
"Uh-huh. Alan, do you still want me to check the bathrooms at that new restaurant out on the River Road?"
"I still do," Alan said.
"Why do I always get the shit detail? Why can't Norris--"
"Norris checked the Happy Trails Campground johns in July and August," Alan said. "In June I did it. Quit bitching, Johnny. It's just your turn. I want you to take water samples, too. Use a couple of the special pouches they sent from Augusta. There's still a bunch in that cabinet in the hallway. I think I saw 'em behind Norris's box of Hi-Ho crackers."
"Okay," John said, "you got it. But at the risk of sounding like I'm bitching again, checking the water for wigglebugs is supposed to be the restaurant-owner's responsibility. I looked it up."
"Of course it is," Alan said, "but we're talking Timmy Gagnon here, Johnny--what does that tell you?"
"It tells me I wouldn't buy a hamburger at the new Riverside B-B-Q Delish if I was dying of starvation."
"Correct!" Alan exclaimed. He rose to his feet and clapped John on the shoulder. "I'm hoping we can put the sloppy little son of a bitch out of business before the stray dog and cat population of Castle Rock starts to decline."
"That's pretty sick, Alan."
"Nope--that's Timmy Gagnon. Get the water samples this morning and I'll ship them off to State Health in Augusta before I leave tonight."
"What are you up to this morning?"
Alan rolled down his sleeve and buttoned the cuff. "Right now I'm going upstreet to Needful Things," he said. "I want to meet Mr. Leland Gaunt. He made quite an impression on Polly, and from what I hear around town, she's not the only one who's taken with him. Have you met him?"
"Not yet," John said. They started toward the door. "Been by the place a couple of times, though. Interesting mix of stuff in the window."
They walked past Eddie, who was now polishing the water-cooler's big glass bottle with a rag he had produced from his back pocket. He did not look at Alan and John as they went by; he seemed lost in his own private universe. But as soon as the rear door had clicked shut behind them, Eddie Warburton hurried into the dispatcher's office and picked up the telephone.
7
"All right ... yes ... yes, I understand."
Leland Gaunt stood beside his cash register, holding a Cobra cordless phone to his ear. A smile as thin as a new crescent moon curved his lips.
"Thank you, Eddie. Thank you very much."
Gaunt strolled toward the curtain which closed off the shop from the area behind it. He poked his upper body through the curtain and bent over. When he pulled back through the curtain, he was holding a sign.
"You can go home now ... yes ... you may be sure I won't forget. I never forget a face or a service, Eddie, and that is one of the reasons why I strongly dislike being reminded of either. Goodbye."
He pushed the END button without waiting for a response, collapsed the antenna, and dropped the telephone into the pocket of his smoking jacket. The shade was drawn over his door again. Mr. Gaunt reached between shade and glass to remove the sign which read
OPEN.
He replaced it with the one he had taken from behind the curtain, then went to the show window to watch Alan Pangborn approach. Pangborn looked into the window Gaunt was looking out of for some time before approaching the door; he even cupped his hands and pressed his nose against the glass for a few seconds. Although Gaunt was standing right in front of him with his arms folded, the Sheriff did not see him.