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 trout?trout 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 wrong?very 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, another?street 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 be?except 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 explanation?any explanation?for 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 houses?empty 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 crazy?Steen 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 records?the 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.
