"I don't care particularly. Just so I get them leased."
"Do anything so far?"
"Got some interest in them. Here comes a prospect now."
It was Morgan. He had parked in front and was getting out of a new and shiny car, agleam with chrome. Gabby beat a swift retreat.
Morgan came into the office. He sat down in a chair and pulled out his cheque-book. "I bought the car," he said. "How do you want this cheque made out?"
Six weeks later, Homer dropped in at the shopping centre office. Steen was sitting with his feet up on the desk. He was wearing black shoes instead of the brown ones he had worn before. They still were on the wrong feet.
"Mr. Jackson," he said easily.
"I finally got rid of them. All the houses are leased."
"That's fine." Steen reached into a drawer, took out a small book and tossed it across the desk to Homer. "Here. This belongs to you."
Homer picked it up. It was a bank book. He opened it and saw a neat row of $4,500 entires marching down the page.
"You made yourself a mint," said Steen.
"I wish I had fifty more," Homer told him. "Or two hundred more. This thing is catching on. I could lease them in a week. I've got a waiting list longer than my arm."
"Well, why don't you go ahead and lease them?"
"I can't lease them a second time."
"Funny thing," said Steen. "There's no one living in those houses. They are all standing empty."
"But that can't be!" objected Homer. "There might be a few still emptya few that the people haven't occupied yet. But most of them have moved in. They're living in those houses."
"That's not the way it looks to me."
"What's happened to those people then? Where have they…"
"Mr. Jackson!"
"Yes?"
"You haven't trusted me. You didn't trust me from the start. I don't know why. You thought the deal was queer. You were scared of it. But I've played fair with you. You'll have to admit I have."
Homer stroked the bank book. "More than fair."
"I know what I am doing, Mr. Jackson. I'm not anybody's fool. I have the angles figured out. String along with me. I need a man like you."
"You mean lease all those houses a second time!" Homer asked uneasily.
"A second time," said Steen. "And a third. And fourth. Lease them as often as you like. Keep right on leasing them. No one will mind at all."
"But the people will mindthe people that I lease those houses to," Homer pointed out.
"Mr. Jackson, let me handle this. Don't you worry about a solitary thing. You just keep those houses moving."
"But it isn't right."
"Mr. Jackson, in some six weeks' time, you've made a quarter million dollars. I suppose that's what's wrong with you. I suppose you figure that's enough…"
"Well, no. With income tax and all…"
"Forget the income tax. I told you that this bank of ours had tax advantages."
"I don't get it," Homer said. "This is no way to do business."
"But it is," said Steen. "I challenge you to find a better way to do business. There's no end to it. You can become a multimillionaire…"
"In jail."
"I've told you we weren't doing wrong. If you don't want to handle it…"
"Let me think it over," Homer pleaded. "Give me a day or two."
"Noon tomorrow," said Steen decisively. "If you don't tell me you are willing to go ahead by noon tomorrow, I'll look for someone else."
Homer got up. He thrust the bank book in his pocket. "I'll be in to see you."
Steen put his feet back on the desk. "Fine. I'll be expecting you."
Out on the concourse, Homer walked along the gleaming shop fronts. And the shops, he saw, were no more than half-staffed and entirely innocent of buyers. He went into a drugstore to buy a cigar and was waited on by a girl of just slightly more than high-school age. He failed to recognize her.
"You live around here?" he asked.
"No, sir. In the city."
He went into a hardware store and into a grocery supermarket. He saw no one he knew. And that was queer. He'd lived in the area for almost thirteen years and thought he knew…
He recalled what Gabby had said about the contractor from somewhere out of town. Maybe, for some zany reason, Steen had a policy against employing local people. Still, he'd employed Homer.
It was a crazy set-up, Homer told himself. None of it made senseand least of all, the leasing of the houses a second time around.
Perhaps he should get out of it. He'd made a fair amount of money. Right now, most likely, he could get out slick and clean.
If he stayed, there might be trouble.
He lighted up the cigar and went back to his car. Wheeling out of the parking lot, he headed for the road that led into the housing development.
He drove slowly, looking closely at each house. All of them seemed empty. The windows stared blindly without drapes or curtains. The lawns had not been cut for weeks. There was no sign of anyoneand there should be children and pets playing. Almost everyone he'd leased to had had children and dogs and cats. The place should be jumping, he told himself, and instead it was silent and deserted.
He stopped the car and went into a house. It was bare and empty. There was sawdust in the corners and wood shavings here and there. There were no scuff marks on the floor, no handprints on the wall. The windows had not been washed; the trademark paper still was sticking to them. He went out puzzled.
He inspected two more houses. They were the same.
Steen had been right, then. Steen, with his shoes on the wrong feet, and with something elsewith his different way of talking now. Six weeks ago, when Steen had come into Homer's office, he had been stiff and formal, awkward, yet striving for preciseness. And now he was easy in his manner, now he put his feet up on the desk, now he talked slangily.
There was no one living in the houses, Homer admitted to himself. No one had ever lived in them. He had leased all fifty of them and no one had moved in.
And it had a fishy smellit had a terribly fishy smell.
On his way out, he stopped at Steen's office. The place was locked up.
The old gateman opened the gate and waved at him from the window of his kiosk.
Back in his own office, Homer took out of a drawer the list of leases he had drawn. He phoned Morgan, the first name on the lease.
"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.