Almost Twenty minutes passed between the murder of Mrs.
Keeton and Buster's trudge to and through the shower. He might have been taken into custody without a problem at almost any time during that period... but on Lower Main Street a transition of authority was going on, the Sheriff's Office was in almost total disarray, and the whereabouts of Danforth "Buster" Keeton simply did not seem very important.
Once he had towelled dry, he put on a clean pair of pants and a tee-shirt-he didn't have the energy to tussle again with long sleeves-and went back down to his study. Buster sat in his chair and looked at Winning Ticket again, hoping that his depression might prove to be just an ephemeral thing, that some of his earlier joy might return. But the picture on the box seemed to have faded, dulled. The brightest color in evidence was a smear of Myrtle's blood across the flanks of the two-horse.
He took the top off and looked inside. He was shocked to see that the little tin horses were leaning sadly every whichway. Their colors had also faded. A broken bit of spring poked through the hole where you inserted the key to wind the machinery.
Someone's been in here! his mind cried. Someone's been at it!
One of Them! Ruining me wasn't enough! They had to ruin my game, too!
But a deeper voice, perhaps the fading voice of sanity, whispered that this was not true. This is how i't was from the very start, the voice whispered. You just didn't see it.
He went back to the closet, meaning to take down the gun after all. It was time to use it. He was feeling around for it when the telephone rang. Buster picked it up very slowly, knowing who was on the other end.
Nor was he disappointed.
2
"Hello, Dan," said Mr. Gaunt. "How are you this fine evening?"
"Terrible," Buster said in a glum, draggy voice. "The world has turned to boogers. I'm going to kill myself."
"Oh?" Mr. Gaunt sounded a trifle disappointed, nothing more.
"Nothing's any good. Even the game you sold me is no good."
"Oh, I doubt that very much," Mr. Gaunt replied with a touch of asperity. "I check all my merchandise very carefully, Mr. Keeton.
Very carefully indeed. Why don't you look again?"
Buster did, and what he saw astounded him. The horses stood up straight in their slots. Each coat looked freshly painted and glistening. Even their eyes seemed to spark fire. The tin race-course was all bright greens and dusty summer browns. The track looks fast, he thought dreamily, and his eyes shifted to the box-top.
Either his eyes, dulled by his deep depression, had tricked him or the colors there had deepened in some amazing way in the few seconds since the telephone had rung. Now it was Myrtle's blood he could barely see. It was drying to a drab maroon.
"My God!" he whispered.
"Well?" Mr. Gaunt asked. "Well, Dan? Am I wrong? Because if I am, you must defer your suicide at least long enough to return your purchase to me for a full refund. I stand behind my merchandise. I have to, you know. I have my reputation to protect, and that's a proposition I take very seriously in a world where there's billions of Them and only one of me."
"No... no!" Buster said. "It's... it's beautiful!"
"Then you were in error?" Mr. Gaunt persisted.
"I... I guess I must have been."
"You admit you were in error?"
"I... yes."
"Good," Mr. Gaunt said. His voice lost its edge. "Then by all means, go ahead and kill yourself Although I must admit I am disappointed. I thought I had finally met a man who had guts enough to help me kick Their asses. I guess you're just a talker, like all the rest." Mr. Gaunt sighed. It was the sigh of a man who realizes he has not glimpsed light at the end of the tunnel after all.
A strange thing was happening to Buster Keeton. He felt his vitality and purpose surging back. His own interior colors seemed to be brightening, intensifying again.
"You mean it's not too late?"
"You must have skipped Poetry IO 1. 'Tis never too late to seek a newer world. Not if you're a man with some spine. Why, I had everything all set up for you, Mr. Keeton. I was counting on you, you see."
"I like plain old Dan a lot better," Buster said, almost shyly.
"All right. Dan. Are you really set on making such a cowardly exit from life?"
"No!" Buster cried. "It's just... I thought, what's the use?
There's too many of Them."
"Three good men can do a lot of damage, Dan."
"Three? Did you say three?"
"Yes... there's another of us. Someone else who sees the danger, who understands what They are up to."
"Who?" Buster asked eagerly. "Who?"
"In time," Mr. Gaunt said, "but for now, time is in short supply.
They'll be coming for you."
Buster looked out the study window with the narrowed eyes of a ferret which smells danger on the wind. The street was empty, but only for the time being. He could feel Them, sense Them massing against him.
"What should I do?"
"Then you're on my team?" Mr. Gaunt asked. "I can count on you after all?"
"Yes!"
"All the way?"