He opened it on the counter and turned it around. “Take a look. Although if it’s been years, you’re shootin’ in the dark.” He looked surprised, then smiled. “Pardon my pun.”

Roland didn’t hear. He was bent over the book, studying pictures which seemed almost as real as the things they represented, marvellous pictures the Mortcypedia identified as Fottergraffs.

He turned the pages slowly. No . . . no . . . no . . .

He had almost lost hope when he saw it. He looked up at the clerk with such blazing excitement that the clerk felt a little afraid.

“There!” he said. “There! Right there!”

The photograph he was tapping was one of a Winchester .45 pistol shell. It was not exactly the same as his own shells, because it hadn’t been hand-thrown or hand-loaded, but he could see without even consulting the figures (which would have meant almost nothing to him anyway) that it would chamber and fire from his guns.

“Well, all right, I guess you found it,” the clerk said, “but don’t cream your jeans, fella. I mean, they’re just bullets.”

“You have them?”

“Sure. How many boxes do you want?”

“How many in a box?”

“Fifty.” The clerk began to look at the gunslinger with real suspicion. If the guy was planning to buy shells, he must know he’d have to show a Permit to Carry photo-I.D. No P.C., no ammo, not for handguns; it was the law in the borough of Manhattan. And if this dude had a handgun permit, how come he didn’t know how many shells came in a standard box of ammo?

“Fifty!” Now the guy was staring at him with slack-jawed surprise. He was off the wall, all right.

The clerk edged a bit to his left, a bit nearer the cash register . . . and, not so coincidentally, a bit nearer to his own gun, a .357 Mag which he kept fully loaded in a spring clip under the counter.

“Fifty!” the gunslinger repeated. He had expected five, ten, perhaps as many as a dozen, but this . . . this . . .

How much money do you have? he asked the Mortcypedia. The Mortcypedia didn’t know, not exactly, but thought there was at least sixty bux in his wallet.

“And how much does a box cost?” It would be more than sixty dollars, he supposed, but the man might be persuaded to sell him part of a box, or—

“Seventeen-fifty,” the clerk said. “But, mister—”

Jack Mort was an accountant, and this time there was no waiting; translation and answer came simultaneously.

“Three,” the gunslinger said. “Three boxes.” He tapped the Fottergraff of the shells with one finger. One hundred and fifty rounds! Ye gods! What a mad storehouse of riches this world was!

The clerk wasn’t moving.

“You don’t have that many,” the gunslinger said. He felt no real surprise. It had been too good to be true. A dream.

“Oh, I got Winchester .45s I got .45s up the kazoo.” The clerk took another step to the left, a step closer to the cash register and the gun. If the guy was a nut, something the clerk expected to find out for sure any second now, he was soon going to be a nut with an extremely large hole in his midsection. “I got .45 ammo up the old ying-yang. What I want to know, mister, is if you got the card.”