t pan, and carried it
off toward the disposal chute that led to the trash cans. In the room
where the brooms were kept, he paused and closed his eyes.

_Lenny! Are picking this up?_

_Sure, Rafe. I'm ready with the drawing board anytime you are._

As Dr. Sonya Malekrinova stood in her laboratory looking over the
apparatus she was perfecting for the glory of the Soviet State, she had no
notion that someone halfway around the world was also looking at it over
her shoulder--or rather, through her own eyes.

* * * * *

Lenny started with the fives first, and worked his way up to the larger
denominations.

"Five, ten, fifteen, twenty, twenty-five, thirty--forty, fifty, sixty...."
he muttered happily to himself. "Two fifty, three, three-fifty, four,
four-fifty."

It was all there, so he smiled benevolently at the man in the pay window.
"Thank you muchly." Then he stepped aside to let another lucky man cash a
winning ticket.

His horse had come in at fifteen, six-ten, four-fifty for Straight, Place,
and Show, and sixty bucks on the nose had paid off very nicely.

Lenny Poe took out his copy of the _Daily Racing Form_ and checked over
the listing for the next race.

_Hm-m-m, ha. Purse, $7500. Four-year-olds and up: handicap. Seven
furlongs. Turf course. Hm-m-m, ha._

Lenny Poe had a passion for throwing his money away on any unpredictable
event that would offer him odds. He had, deep down, an artistic soul, but
he didn't let that interfere with his desire to lay a bet at the drop of
an old fedora.

He had already decided, several hours before, that Ducksoup, in the next
race, would win handily and would pay off at something like twenty or
twenty-five to one. But he felt it his duty to look one last time at the
previous performance record, just to be absolutely positive.

Satisfied, he folded the _Racing Form_, shoved it back into his pocket,
and walked over to the fifty-dollar window.

"Gimmie nine tickets on Ducksoup in the seventh," he said, plonking the
handful of bills down on the counter.

But before the man behind the window grating could take the money, a huge,
hamlike, and rather hairy hand came down on top of his own hand, covering
it and the money at the same time.

"Hold it, Lenny," said a voice at the same time.

Lenny jerked his head around to his right and looked up to see a largish
man who had "cop" written all over him. Another such individual crowded
past Len