William Tenn - The Tenants.pdf - William Tenn - margozap

The Tenants

William Tenn

When Miss Kerstenberg, his secretary, informed Sydney Blake over the interoffice communicator that

two gentlemen had just entered and expressed a desire to rent space in the building, Blake's "Well, show

them in, Esther, show them right in," was bland enough to have loosened the cap on a jar of Vaseline. It

had been only two days since Wellington Jimm & Sons, Inc., Real Estate, had appointed him resident

agent in the McGowan Building, and the prospect of unloading an office or two in Old Unrentable this

early in his assignment was mightily pleasing.

Once, however, he had seen the tenants-to-be, he felt much less certain. About practically

everything.

They were exactly alike in every respect but one: size. The first was tall, very, very tall—close to

seven feet, Blake estimated as he rose to welcome them. The man was bent in two places: forward at the

hips and backward at the shoulders, giving the impression of being hinged instead of jointed. Behind him

rolled a tiny button of a man, a midget's midget, but except for that the tall man's twin. They both wore

starched, white shirts and black hats, black coats, black ties, black suits, black socks, and shoes of such

incredible blackness as almost to drown the light waves that blun-dered into them.

They took seats and smiled at Blake—in unison.

"Uh, Miss Kerstenberg," he said to his secretary, who still stood in the doorway.

"Yes, Mr. Blake?" she asked briskly.

"Uh, nothing, Miss Kerstenberg. Nothing at all." Regretfully, he watched her shut the door and heard

her swivel chair squeak as she went back to work in the outer office. It was distinctly unfortunate that,

not being telepathic, she had been unable to receive his urgent thought message to stay and lend some

useful moral support.

Oh, well. You couldn't expect Dun & Bradstreet's best to be renting offices in the McGowan. He

sat down and offered them cigarettes from his brand-new humidor. They declined.

"We would like," the tall man said in a voice composed of many heavy breaths, "to rent a floor in

your building."

"The thirteenth floor," said the tiny man in exactly the same voice.

Sydney Blake lit a cigarette and drew on it carefully. A whole floor! You certainly couldn't judge by

appearances.

"I'm sorry," he told them. "You can't have the thirteenth floor. But—"

"Why not?" the tall man breathed. He looked angry.

"Chiefly because there isn't any thirteenth floor. Many buildings don't have one. Since tenants

consider them unlucky, we call the floor above the twelfth the four-teenth. If you gentlemen will look at

our directory, you will see that there are no offices listed beginning with the number 13. However, if

you're interested in that much space, I believe we can accommodate you on the sixth—"

"It seems to me," the tall man said very mournfully, "that if someone wants to rent a particular floor,

the least a renting agent can do is let him have it."

"The very least," the tiny man agreed. "Especially since no complicated mathemati-cal questions are

being asked in the first place."

Blake held on to his temper with difficulty and let out a friendly chuckle instead. "I would be very

happy to rent the thirteenth floor to you—if we had one. But I can't very well rent something to you that

doesn't exist, now can I?" He held his hands out, palms up, and gave them another

we-are-three-intelligent-gentlemen-who-are-quite-close-in-spirit chuckle. "The twelfth and fourteenth

floors both have very little unoccupied space, I am happy to say. But I'm certain that another part of the

McGowan Building will do you very nicely." Abruptly he remembered that protocol had almost been

violated. "My name," he told them, touching the desk plate lightly with a mani-cured forefinger, "is

Sydney Blake. And who, might I—"

"Tohu and Bohu," the tall man said.

"I beg your pardon?"

"Tohu, I said, and Bohu. I'm Tohu." He pointed at his minuscule twin. "He's Bohu. Or, as a matter of

occasional fact, vice versa."

Sydney Blake considered that until some ash broke off his cigarette and splattered grayly on his

well-pressed pants. Foreigners. He should have known from their olive skins and slight, unfamiliar

accents. Not that it made any difference in the McGowan. Or in any building managed by Wellington

Jimm & Sons, Inc., Real Estate. But he couldn't help wondering where in the world people had such

names and such disparate sizes.

"Very well, Mr. Tohu. And—er, Mr. Bohu. Now, the problem as I see it—"

"There really isn't any problem," the tall man told him, slowly, emphatically, rea-sonably, "except for

the fuss you keep kicking up, young man. You have a building with floors from one to twenty-four. We

want to rent the thirteenth, which is appar-ently vacant. Now if you were as businesslike as you should

be and rented this floor to us without further argument—"

"Or logical hairsplitting," the tiny man inserted.

"—why then, we could be happy, your employers would be happy, and you should be happy. It's

really a very simple transaction and one which a man in your position should be able to manage with

ease."

"How the hell can I—" Blake began yelling before he remembered Professor Scoggins in Advanced

Realty Seminar II ("Remember, gentlemen, a lost temper means a lost tenant. If the retailer's customer is

always right, the realtor's client is never wrong. Somehow, somewhere, you must find a cure for their little

commercial illnesses, no matter how imaginary. The realtor must take his professional place beside the

doctor, the dentist, and the pharmacist and make his motto, like theirs, unselfish service, always

available, forever dependable.") Blake bent his head to get a renewed grip on professional

responsibility before going on.

"Look here," he said at last, with a smile he desperately hoped was winning. "I'll put it is the terms

that you just did. You, for reasons best known to yourselves, want to rent a thirteenth floor. This building,

for reasons best known to its architect—who, I am certain, was a foolish, eccentric man whom none of

us would respect at all —this building has no thirteenth floor. Therefore, I can't rent it to you. Now,

superficially, I'll admit, this might seem like a difficulty, it might seem as if you can't get exactly what you

want here in the McGowan Building. But what happens if we examine the situation carefully? First of all,

we find that there are several other truly magnificent floors—"

He broke off as he realized he was alone. His visitors had risen in the same incred-ibly rapid

movement and gone out the door.

"Most unfortunate," he heard the tall man say as they walked through the outer office. "The location

would have been perfect. So far from the center of things."

"Not to mention," the tiny man added, "the building's appearance. So very unpresentable. Too bad."

He raced after them, catching up in the corridor that opened into the lobby. Two things brought him

to a dead stop. One was the strong feeling that it was beneath a newly appointed resident agent's dignity

to haul prospective customers back into an office which they had just quit so abruptly. After all, this was

no cut-rate clothing shop—it was the McGowan Building.

The other was the sudden realization that the tall man was alone. There was no sign of the tiny man.

Except—possibly—for the substantial bulge in the right-hand pocket of the tall man's overcoat...

"A pair of cranks," he told himself as he swung around and walked back to the office. "Not

legitimate clients at all."

He insisted on Miss Kerstenberg's listening to the entire story, despite Professor Scoggins's stern

injunctions against overfraternization with the minor clerical help. She cluck-clucked and tsk-tsked and

stared earnestly at him through her thick glasses.

"Cranks, wouldn't you say, Miss Kerstenberg?" he asked her when he'd finished. "Hardly legitimate

clients, eh?"

"I wouldn't know, Mr. Blake," she replied, inflexibly unpresumptuous. She rolled a sheet of

letterhead stationery into her typewriter. "Do you want the Hopkinson mailing to go out this afternoon?"

"What? Oh, I guess so. I mean, of course. By all means this afternoon, Miss Kerstenberg. And I

want to see it for a double-check before you mail it."

He strode into his own office and huddled behind the desk. The whole business had upset him very

much. His first big rental possibility. And that little man—Bohu was his name?—and that bulging

pocket—

Not until quite late in the afternoon was he able to concentrate on his work. And that was when he

got the phone call.

"Blake?" the voice crackled. "This is Gladstone Jimm."

"Yes, Mr. Jimm." Blake sat up stiffly in his swivel chair. Gladstone was the oldest of the Sons.

"Blake, what's is this about your refusing to rent space?"

"My what? I beg your pardon, Mr. Jimm, but I—"

"Blake, two gentlemen just walked into the home office. Their names are Tooley and Booley. They

tell me they tried unsuccessfully to rent the thirteenth floor of the McGowan Building from you. They tell

me that you admitted the space was vacant, but that you consistently refused to let them have it. What's

this all about, Blake? Why do you think the firm appointed you resident agent, Blake, to turn away

pro-spective tenants? I might as well let you know that none of us up here in the home office like this one

little bit, Blake."

"I'd have been very happy to rent the thirteenth floor to them," Blake wailed. "Only trouble, sir, you

see, there's—"

"What trouble are you referring to, Blake? Spit it out, man, spit it out."

"There is no thirteenth floor, Mr. Jimm."

"What?"

"The McGowan Building is one of those buildings that has no thirteenth floor." Laboriously, carefully,

he went through the whole thing again. He even drew an out-line picture of the building on his desk pad

as he spoke.

"Hum," said Gladstone Jimm when he'd finished. "Well, I'll say this, Blake. The explanation, at least,

is in your favor." And he hung up.

Blake found himself quivering. "Cranks," he muttered fiercely. "Definitely cranks. Definitely not

legitimate tenants."

When he arrived at his office door early next morning, he found Mr. Tohu and Mr. Bohu waiting for

him. The tall man held out a key.

"Under the terms of our lease, Mr. Blake, a key to our main office must be in the possession of the

resident agent for the building. We just had our locksmith make up this copy. I trust it is satisfactory?"

Sydney Blake leaned against the wall, waiting for his bones to reacquire marrow. "Lease?" he

whispered. "Did the home office give you a lease?"

"Yes," said the tall man. "Without much trouble, we were able to achieve a what-do-you-call-it."

"A meeting of minds," the tiny man supplied from the region of his companion's knees. "A feast of

reason. A flow of soul. There are no sticklers for numerical subtle-ties in your home office, young man."

"May I see the lease?" Blake managed to get out.

The tall man reached into his right-hand overcoat pocket and brought up a famil-iar-looking folded

piece of paper.

It was the regulation lease. For the thirteenth floor in the McGowan Building. But there was one

small difference.

Gladstone Jimm had inserted a rider:...the landlord is renting a floor that both the tenant and landlord

know does not exist, but the title to which has an intrinsic value to the tenant; which value is equal to the

rent he will pay...

Blake sighed with relief. "That's different. Why didn't you tell me that all you wanted was the title to

the floor? I was under the impression that you intended to occupy the premises."

"We do intend to occupy the premises." The tall man pocketed the lease. "We've paid a month's

rent in advance for them."

"And," added the tiny man, "a month's security."

"And," finished the tall man, "an extra month's rent as fee to the agent. We most certainly do intend

to occupy the premises."

"But how—" Blake giggled a little hysterically "—are you going to occupy pre-mises that aren't

even—"

"Good morning, young man," they said in unison and moved toward the eleva-tors.

He watched them enter one.

"Thirteen, please," they told the elevator operator. The elevator door closed. Miss Kerstenberg

walked past him and into the office, chirping a dutiful "Good morning, Mr. Blake." Blake barely nodded

at her. He kept his eyes on the elevator door. After a while it opened again, and the fat little operator

lounged out and began a conversa-tion with the starter.

Blake couldn't help himself. He ran to the elevator. He stared inside. It was empty.

"Listen," he said, grabbing the fat little operator by one sleeve of his dingy uni-form. "Those two men

you just took up, what floor did they get off at?"

"The one they wanted. Thirteen. Why?"

"There isn't any thirteenth floor. No thirteenth floor at all!"

The fat little elevator operator shrugged. "Look, Mr. Blake, I do my job. Someone says 'thirteenth

floor,' I take 'em to the thirteenth floor. Someone says 'twenty-first floor,' I take 'em—"

Blake walked into the elevator. "Take me there," he ordered.

"The twenty-first floor? Sure."

"No, you—you—" Blake realized that the starter and the elevator operator were grinning at each

other sympathetically. "Not the twenty-first floor," he went on more calmly, "the thirteenth. Take me to

the thirteenth floor."

The operator worked his switch and the door moaned itself shut. They went up. All of the

McGowan Building elevators were very slow, and Blake had no trouble reading the floor numbers

through the little window in the elevator door.

...ten...eleven...twelve...fourteen...fifteen...sixteen...

They stopped. The elevator operator scratched his head with his visored cap. Blake glared at him

triumphantly. They went down.

...fifteen...fourteen...twelve...eleven...ten...nine...

"Well?" Blake asked him.

The man shrugged. "It don't seem to be there now."

"Now? Now? It's never been there. So where did you take those men?"

"Oh, them, I told you: the thirteenth floor."

"But I just proved to you there is no thirteenth floor!"

"So what? You got the college education, Mr. Blake, not me. I just do my job. If you don't like it, all

I can say is I just do my job. Someone gets in the elevator and says 'thirteenth floor,' I take—"

"I know! You take them to the thirteenth floor. But there is no thirteenth floor, you idiot! I can show

you the blueprints of the building, the original blueprints, and I dare you, I defy you to show me a

thirteenth floor. If you can show me a thirteenth floor..."

His voice trailed off as he realized they were back in the lobby and had attracted a small crowd.

"Look, Mr. Blake," the elevator man suggested. "If you're not satisfied, how's about I call up the

delegate from the union and you and him have a talk? How's about that, huh?"

Blake threw up his arms helplessly and stamped back to his office. Behind him he heard the starter

ask the elevator operator, "What was he getting in such an uproar about, Barney?"

"Aa-aah, that guy," the operator said. "He was blaming me for the blueprints of the building. If you

ask me, he's got too much college education. What have I got to do with the blueprints?"

"I don't know," the starter sighed. "I sure as hell don't know."

"I'll ask you another question," the operator went on, with a little more certainty, now that he saw his

oratorical way, so to speak. "What have the building blueprints got to do with me?"

Blake closed the office door and leaned against it. He ran his fingers through his thinning hair.

"Miss Kerstenberg," he said at last in a strangled voice. "What do you think? Those cranks that

were here yesterday—those two crazy old men—the home office went and rented the thirteenth floor to

them!"

She looked up from her typewriter. "It did?"

"And believe it or not, they just went upstairs and took possession of their offices."

She smiled at him, a rapid woman-smile. "How nice" she said. And went back to her typing.

The morning after that, what Blake saw in the lobby sent him scurrying to the tele-phone. He dialed

the home office. "Mr. Gladstone Jimm," he demanded breathlessly.

"Listen, Mr. Jimm. This is Sydney Blake at the McGowan. Mr. Jimm, this is get-ting serious!

They're moving in furniture today. Office furniture. And I just saw some men go upstairs to install

telephones. Mr. Jimm, they're really moving in!"

Gladstone Jimm was instantly alert. He gave the matter his full attention. "Who's moving in, my boy?

Tanzen Realty Corporation? Or is it the Blair Brothers again? I was saying only last week: things have

been far too quiet in the real estate field; I've felt in my bones that last year's Code of Fair Practices

wouldn't be standing up much longer. Try to raid our properties, will they?" He snorted long and

belligerently. "Well, the old firm has a few tricks up its sleeve yet. First, make certain that all important

papers—tenant lists, rent receipts, don't overlook anything, son—are in the safe. We'll have three

attorneys and a court order down there in half an hour. Meanwhile, you keep—"

"You don't understand, sir. It's those new tenants. The ones you rented the thir-teenth floor to."

Gladstone Jimm ground to a full stop and considered the matter. Ah. He under-stood. He began to

William Tenn - The Tenants.pdf

Plik z chomika:

Inne pliki z tego folderu:

Inne foldery tego chomika: