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and brawn? Randy was becoming seriously interested in
    this guy. If he offered him the big bucks for his box of toys, Randy
    might have to proposition him on the spot. “So, what do you think?
    Are they worth anything?”
    “Worth anything?” Max chuckled, picking one of the wind-up
    toys out of the box and setting it on the glass countertop. “Where did
    your boyfriend say he got these from?”
    “I think he said they were German,” Randy replied, picking up his
    favorite of the little toys—a weird-looking gnome guy with a toadstool
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    Vintage Toys for Lucky Boys * G.R. Richards
    for a hat.
    “Yeah, they’re German. That’s a definite.”
    Setting the gnome dude down on the countertop, he wound the
    key and the little guy’s arms and legs flailed like an epileptic troll. “His
    grandfather brought them home after the war. World War Two. That
    was long before Brent was born, obviously.” Randy trapped the gnome
    in his hands before it could throw itself off the counter. “Brent was
    pretty pissed when his grandpa died and only left him a shoebox of
    toys. They were really close.”
    Max laughed, throwing his head back and clapping his hands.
    “Some inheritance!”
    “Yeah, that’s what Brent said.”
    “No, I mean it,” Max went on. “Zero sarcasm here. If my
    grandfather left me a box of pre-war Schuco wind-ups, I’d have
    opened up my business years sooner.”
    A thrill of a chill went down Randy’s spine. “So, you’re saying
    they’re worth a lot?”
    When Max dug into the shoebox, he smiled like Cheshire Cat
    from Alice in Wonderland. He lined up seven of the strange little men
    side by side on the counter. “I guess you know who these guys are.”
    Randy picked up the first gnome, armed with a pickaxe, and
    wound him up. As he chopped a path across the counter, Randy said,
    “They always reminded me of, like, a cult of murderous leprechauns
    or something. Don’t you think they look sort of evil?”
    “No,” Max scoffed. Using a toothpick-like pointer, he drew
    attention to its pink painted-on lips. “Look at that darling little face.
    He’s smiling at you! How could you think he was evil?”
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    Vintage Toys for Lucky Boys * G.R. Richards
    It seemed odd for a man with so many muscles to use a word like
    darling. Randy smirked. “I don’t trust people who seem happy. I figure
    they must either be really stupid or have something up their sleeves.”
    “That’s too bad,” Max replied. His expression was pitying, like he
    took him a little too seriously. Although, Randy meant what he said.
    Smiley faces bugged the shit out of him. “All right, I’ll give you a hint.
    What if I told you this set was missing one figure?”
    With a shrug, Randy said, “Dude, I have no clue. Brent never
    mentioned what they were supposed to be.”
    Max sighed, shaking his head. He wasn’t going to give up until
    Randy figured it out. “Just one figure,” he went on like a grade-school
    teacher. “A female figure. Seven little men and….”
    “Snow White!” Of course! He felt like a total moron not guessing it
    right off the bat. “Snow White and the seven dwarves.”
    “Am I right in thinking you don’t have Snow White anywhere?”
    Thinking back through the years, Randy tried to visualize the
    shelf in Brent’s bedroom where he’d put them after his grandfather
    died. “No, I don’t remember ever seeing a Snow White. What about all
    those other little ones in there?” he asked, pulling a fuzzy rabbit from
    the shoebox.
    “Oh, those are nothing,” Max replied, waving the rabbit away.
    Randy put it back in the box. “The animals are a hundred. They all run
    okay, right?”
    “Yeah,” Randy said, though he’d never actually played with them.
    When Max bent forward to turn the keys on each of the seven
    dwarves, his intense man-scent smacked Randy in the face. It was a
    physical aroma, raw but clean, like a hot, soapy shower at the gym.
    Once that scent invaded his lungs, he didn’t