"That number has been changed," the operator told him. She gave him the new number and he dialled it.
"Happy Acres," said a singsong operator-voice.
"Huh?"
"Happy Acres," the voice sang. "Whom did you wish, sir?"
"The Morgan residence."
He waited and it was Morgan who answered.
"Homer Jackson. Just checking. How do you like the house? Are you getting on okay?"
"Perfectly," Morgan told him happily. "I've been meaning to come in and thank you for putting me onto this."
"Everything is really all right?"
"Couldn't be better. I hardly ever go into my office now. I stay out here and work in the amusement room. I go fishing and I take walks. The wife and kids are just as pleased as I am."
Morgan lowered his voice. "How do you guys manage this? I've tried to figure it out and I can't."
"It's a secret," Homer replied, thinking on his feet. "The answer to the housing problem."
"Not that I care," Morgan said. "Just curious, you know. I'll be dropping in one day. I'll bring you something."
"Glad to see you," said Homer.
He called the Happy Acres number and asked for another family. He went halfway through the list. He talked mostly to the women, although some of the men were home. They were not only happy, but enthusiastic. They asked him jokingly how he got away with it.
When he finished, he was glassy-eyed.
He went down to the drugstore for a cup of coffee. When he returned, he'd made up his mind. He took out his waiting list and began making calls.
"There just happens to be a vacancy in Happy Acres if you are interested." They were.
He reminded them about the cars. They said they'd take care of that matter first thing in the morning.
By supper-time, he'd leased twenty of the houses by making twenty phone calls.
"There's something wrong," Homer said to his wife. "But there's money in it."
"It's just that you don't understand," said Elaine. "There may be a perfectly good reason why Mr. Steen can't explain it all to you."
"But it means we have to give up our trip to Europe. And after we had got our passports and all."
"We can go to Europe later. You'll never get a chance like this again."
"It worries me," said Homer.
"Oh, you're always worried over things that never happen. Mr. Steen is satisfied and the people you have leased to are, so why are you worrying?"
"But where are these people? They aren't living in the houses and yet they talk as if they were. And some of them asked me how I got away with it or words to that effect. They asked it as if they admired me for being slick in some kind of shady deal, and if it turns out that I am smart, I'd like to know just how I managed…"
"Forget it," Elaine said. "You aren't smart and you never were. If I didn't keep behind you, pushing all the time…"
"Yes, dear," said Homer. He'd heard it all before.
"And quit your worrying."
He tried to, but he couldn't.
The next morning, he drove to Happy Acres and parked across the road from the gate. From seven o'clock until nine, he counted forty-three cars coming out of the development. Some of the people in them he recognized as those he had leased the houses to. Many of them waved to him.
At 9:30, he drove in through the gate and went slowly down the road.
The houses still were empty.
When he got back to the office, there were people waiting for him. The block was clogged with cars that gleamed with newness.
He did a rushing business. No one, it turned out, was interested in seeing the houses. Most of them had seen them earlier. All they wanted was a lease. He filled out the forms as rapidly as he could and raked in the cheques and cash.
Some other people showed up. Word had got around, they said, that there were vacancies in the Happy Acres tract. Yes, he said, there were. Just a few of them. He reminded them about the cars.
The last man in line, however, did not want to lease a house.
"My name is Fowler," he said. "I represent the Contractors' and Builders' Association. Maybe you can help me."
"I've got another house, if that is what you want," said Homer.
"I don't need a house. I have one, thanks."
"Pay you to sell it and get in on this deal. The newest thing in housing. A completely new concept."
Fowler shook his head. "All I want to know is, how do I get hold of Steen?"
"No trouble at all," said Homer. "You just go out to Happy Acres. He has an office there."
"I've been out there a dozen times. He is never in. Usually the office is locked."
"I never have any trouble finding him, although I don't see him often. I'm too busy handling the property."
"Can you tell me how he does it, Mr. Jackson?"
"How he does what? How he is always out?"
"No. How he can sell a house for five thousand dollars."
"He doesn't sell. He leases."
"Don't pull that one on me. It's the same as selling. And he can't build for anywhere near that kind of money. He's losing a good twenty thousand or more on every house out there."
"If a man wants to lose his money…"
"Mr. Jackson," said Fowler, "that is not the point at all. The point is that it's unfair competition."
"Not if he leases," Homer pointed out. "If he sold, it might be."
"If this keeps on, it'll put every contractor in the area out of business."
"That," said Homer, "would be no more than simple justice in a lot of cases. They throw up a shack with plenty of glitter and charge a fancy price and…"
"Nevertheless, Mr. Jackson, none of them intend to be put out of business."
"And you're going to sue," guessed Homer.
"We certainly intend to."
"Don't look at me. I only lease the places."
"We intend to get out an injunction against your leasing them."
"You make the second one," Homer informed him, annoyed.
"The second what?"
"The real estate boys sent a guy like you out here several weeks ago. He made a lot of threats and nothing's happened yet. He was bluffing, just like you."
"Let me set your mind at rest," said Fowler. "I'm not doing any bluffing."
He got up from his chair and stalked stiffly out.
Homer looked at his watch. It was long past lunchtime. He went down to the drugstore for a sandwich and a cup of coffee. The place was empty and he had the counter to himself.
He sat hunched over the lunch and thought about it, trying to get all the queer goings-on straightened out into some sort of logic. But the only thing he could think about was that Steen wore his shoes on the wrong feet.
Wearily, still worried, Homer went back to the office. There were people waiting, with their new cars parked outside. He leased houses right and left.
Apparently the word was spreading. The house-seekers drifted in all afternoon. He leased four more houses before it was time to close.
It was funny, he thought, very, very funny how the word had got around. He hadn't advertised in the last three weeks and they still were coming in.
Just as he was getting ready to lock up, Morgan strode in breezily. He had a package underneath his arm.
"Here you are, pal," he said. "I told you I'd bring you something. Caught them just an hour or two ago."
The package was beginning to get soggy. Homer took it gingerly. "Thanks very much," he said in a doubtful voice.
"Think nothing of it. I'll bring you more in a week or two."
As soon as Morgan left, Homer closed the blinds and unwrapped the package warily.
Inside were brook trouttrout fresh-caught, with the ferns in which they had been wrapped not even wilting yet.
And there was no trout stream closer than a couple of hundred miles!
Homer stood and shivered. For there was no point in pretending ignorance, no point in repeating smugly
to himself that it was all right. Even at five thousand a deal, there still was something wrongvery badly wrong.
He had to face it. They were beginning to close in on him. Fowler had sounded as if he might mean business and the Real Estate Association undoubtedly was lying in ambush, waiting for him to make one little slip. And when he made that slip, they'd snap the trap shut.
To protect himself, he had to know what was going on. He could no longer go at it blind. Knowing, he might be able to go on. He might know when to quit. And that time, he told himself, might have been as early as this afternoon.
He stood there, with the fish and ferns lying in the wet wrapping paper on the desk, and envisioned a long street of houses, and behind that long street of houses, another identical street of houses, and behind the second street, anotherstreet after street, each behind the other, each exactly like the other, fading out of sight on a flat and level plain.
And that was the way it must beexcept there was no second street of houses. There was just the one, standing lone and empty, and yet, somehow, with people living in them.
Lease them a second time, Steen had said, and a third time and a fourth. Don't you worry about a thing. Let me handle it. Leave the worry all to me. You just keep on leasing houses.
And Homer leased one house and the people moved, not into the house he'd leased them, but into the second identical house immediately behind it, and he leased the first house yet again and the people moved into the third, also identical, also directly behind the first and second house, and that was how it was.
Except it was just a childish thing he had dreamed up to offer an explanationany explanationfor a thing he couldn't understand. A fairy tale.
He tried to get the idea back on the track again, tried to rationalize it, but it was too weird.
A man could trust his sense, couldn't he? He could believe what he could see. And there were only fifty housesempty houses, despite the fact that people lived in them. He could trust his ears and he had talked to people who were enthusiastic about living in those empty houses.
It was crazy, Homer argued with himself. All those other folks were crazySteen and all the people living in the houses.
He wrapped up the fish and retied the package clumsily. No matter where they came from, no matter what lunacy might prevail, those trout surely would taste good. And that, the taste of fresh-caught trout, was one of the few true, solid things left in the entire world.
There was a creaking sound and Homer jumped in panic, whirling swiftly from the desk.
The door was being opened! He'd forgotten to lock the door!
The man who came in wore no uniform, but there was no doubt that he was a cop or detective. "My name is Hankins," he said. He showed his badge to Homer.
Homer shut his mouth tight to keep his teeth from chattering.
"I think you may be able to do something for me," Hankins said.
"Surely," Homer chattered. "Anything you say."
"You know a man named Dahl?"
"I don't think I do."
"Would you search your records?"
"My records?" Homer echoed wildly.
"Mr. Jackson, you're a businessman. Surely you keep recordsthe names of persons to whom you sell property and other things like that."
"Yes," said Homer, all in a rush. "Yes, I keep that sort of record. Of course. Sure."
With shaking hands, he pulled out a desk drawer and brought out the folder he'd set up on Happy Acres. He looked through it, fumbling at the papers.
"I think I may have it," he said. "Dahl, did you say the name was?"
"John H. Dahl," said Hankins.
"Three weeks ago, I leased a house in Happy Acres to a John H. Dahl. Do you think he might be the one?"
"Tall, dark man. Forty-three years old. Acts nervous."
Homer shook his head. "I don't remember him. There have been so many people."
"Have you one there for Benny August?"
Homer searched again. "B. J. August. The day after Mr. Dahl."
"And perhaps a man named Drake? More than likely signs himself Hanson Drake." Drake was also there.
Hankins seemed well pleased. "Now how do I get to this Happy Acres place?"
With a sinking feeling, Homer told him how.
He gathered up his fish and walked outside with Hankins. He stood and watched the officer drive away. He wouldn't want to be around, he suspected, when Hankins returned from Happy Acres. He hoped with all his heart that Hankins wouldn't look him up.
He locked up the office and went down to the drugstore to buy a paper before going home. He unfolded it and the headlines leaped at him:
THREE HUNTED IN STOCK SWINDLE
Three photographs on column cuts were ranged underneath the headline. He read the names in turn. Dahl. August. Drake.
He folded the paper tightly and thrust it beneath his arm and he felt the sweat begin to trickle.
Hankins would never find his men, he knew. No one would ever find them. In Happy Acres, they'd be safe. It was, he began to see, a ready-made hideout for all kinds of hunted men.
He wondered how many of the others he had leased the houses to might be hunted, too. No wonder, he thought, the word had spread so quickly. No wonder his office had been filled all day with people who'd already bought the cars.
And what was it all about? How did it work? Who had figured it all out?
And why did he, Homer Jackson, have to be the one who'd get sucked into it?
Elaine took a searching look at him as he came in the door. "You've been worrying," she scolded.
Homer lied most nobly. "Not worrying. Just a little tired."
"Scared to death" would have been closer to the truth.
At 9 o'clock next morning, he drove to Happy Acres. He was inside the door before he saw that Steen was busy. The man who had been talking to Steen swung swiftly from the desk.
"Oh, it's you," he said.
Homer saw that the man was Hankins.
Steen smiled wearily. "Mr. Hankins seems to think that we're obstructing justice."
"I can't imagine," Homer said, "why he should think that."
Hankins was on the edge of rage. "Where are these people? What have you done with them?"
Steen said: "I've told you, Mr. Hankins, that we only lease the property. We cannot undertake to go surety for anybody who may lease from us."
"You've hidden them!"
"How could we hide them, Mr. Hankins? Where could we hide them? The entire development is open to you. You can search it to your heart's content."
"I don't know what is going on," said Hankins savagely, "but I'm going to find out. And once I do, both of you had better have your explanations ready."
"I think," Steen commented "that Mr. Hankins' determination and deep sense of duty are very splendid things. Don't you, Mr. Jackson?"
"I do, indeed," said Homer, at loss as to what to say.
"You'll be saying that out of the other side of your mouth before I'm through with you," Hankins promised them. He went storming out the door.
"What a nasty man," Steen remarked, unconcerned.
"I'm getting out," said Homer. "I've got a pocket full of cheques and cash. As soon as I turn them over, I am pulling out. You can find someone else to do your dirty work."
"Now I am sorry to hear that. And just when you were doing well. There's a lot of money to be made."
"It's too risky."
"I grant you that it may appear a little risky, but actually it's not. Men like Hankins will raise a lot of dust but what can they really do? We are completely in the clear."
"We're leasing the same houses over and over again."
"Why, certainly," said Steen. "How else would you expect me to build up the kind of clientele I need to give me business volume in this shopping centre? You yourself have told me that fifty families were by no means enough. And you were right, of course. But you lease the houses ten times and you have five hundred families, which is not ba
d. Lease each one a hundred times and you have five thousand… And incidentally, Mr. Jackson, by the time you lease each of them a hundred times, you will have made yourself twenty-five million dollars, which is not a bad amount for a few years' work.
"Because," Steen concluded, "you see, despite what you may have thought of me, I'm squarely on the level. I gave you the straight goods. I told you I was not interested in money from the houses, but merely from the shopping centre."
Homer tried to pretend that he was unimpressed. He kept on emptying cheques and wads of money from his pockets. Steen reached out for the cheques and began endorsing them. He stacked the money neatly.
"I wish you would reconsider, Mr. Jackson," he urged. "I have need of a man like you. You've worked out so satisfactorily, I hate to see you go."
"Come clean with me," said Homer, "and I might stay. Tell me all there is to tellhow it all works and what all the angles are and what you plan to do."
Steen laid a cautionary finger across his lips. "Hush! You don't know what you're asking."
"You mean you see no trouble coming?"
"Some annoyance, perhaps. Not real trouble."
"They could throw the book at us if they could prove we were hiding people wanted by the law."
Steen sighed deeply. "Mr. Jackson, how many fugitives have you sheltered in the last six weeks?"
"Not a one," said Homer.
"Neither have I." Steen spread his arms wide. "So we have nothing to fear. We've done no wrong. At least," he amended, "none that they can prove."
He picked up the money and the cheques and handed them to Homer. "Here," he said. "You might as well take it to the bank. It's your money."
Homer took the money and the cheques and stood with them in his hand, thinking about what Steen had said about not doing any wrong. Maybe Steen was right. Maybe Homer was getting scared when there was no need to be. What could they be charged with?
Fraudulent advertising? There had been no specific claims that had not been performed.
For tying in the auto sales? Just possibly, although he had not made an auto sale a condition of transaction; he had merely mentioned that it would be very nice if they bought a car from Happy Acres Auto Sales.
For selling at less than cost? Probably not, for it would be a fine point of law to prove a lease a sale. And selling or leasing below cost in any case was no crime.
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