"William Tenn - The Tenants" - читать интересную книгу автора (Tenn William)

"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. AndтАФer, Mr. Bohu. Now, the problem as I see itтАФ"
"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 argumentтАФ"
"Or logical hairsplitting," the tiny man inserted.
"тАФwhy 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 IтАФ" 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 architectтАФwho, I am certain, was a foolish, eccentric man whom none of
us would respect at allтАФthis 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 floorsтАФ"
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 shopтАФit was the McGowan Building.
The other was the sudden realization that the tall man was alone. There was no sign of the tiny man.
ExceptтАФpossiblyтАФfor 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?"