The Homeless Millionaire

I spent the next couple of hours wandering around the room: although Jack Robinson's armchair was very comfortable, I felt uncomfortable sitting in it. I definitely didn't want to be sitting in it, and at his desk, when he came in.

I tried to be productive: I wiped the cupboard and coffee-making table with a wet rag, then repeated the procedure with a dry rag. While I was at it, I drank two coffees. Klein hadn't properly introduced me to the office can, but I located it just the same. I expected a water cistern from the Victorian era at the very least, and was greatly disappointed. It was a standard office can, very utilitarian. The ugly toilet and hand basin had been made by a company called American Standard. They really needed to hire some fresh design talent over there.

I took a leak, sneering at the toilet. Then I treated myself to a cigarette and a third coffee. My new job definitely wasn't one of those jobs where you worked up a sweat. I regretted that I hadn't bought a newspaper on my way in, then thought that maybe Klein had, and left it behind. So I sauntered over to his desk for a look.

There was no newspaper, but the top drawer hadn't been properly shut: through the slit, I could see a color magazine cover, but not enough of it to have an idea of the picture. I was still in the process of gathering the nerve to open that drawer and have a good look when Jack Robinson came in.

I snapped to attention, and said good morning. He shot me a look that said it wasn't all that good. He took off his hat and hung it up and then turned his back on me and spread his arms slightly, like a kid imitating a jet plane. He stood there like that for quite a while and I stared at him and tried really hard to figure out what the f.u.c.k was going on. Eventually he bawled:

"What are you waiting for, my boy? Help me with this damned coat, damn you."

I had been well-trained in cloakroom duties by my parents: Josh and I were the designated attendants whenever they threw a party. So I sprang into action and relieved old Robinson of his coat and hung it up in a professional manner, smoothing the shoulders. I could feel Robinson's eye boring into me as I did that. The moment I was done, he said:

"What were you doing at Abel's desk?"

"I was examining it," I said. I felt myself flushing, and explained: "He told me today it used to belong to John Macdonald. The first prime minister. He said it was more valuable than the, er, the desk he'd assigned me to. I wanted to ask you if that really is okay. I mean, it's your desk. It's a little intimidating, actually."

He liked that. He said:

"Of course it is okay. It's a desk, a piece of functional furniture. It's meant to be used. Just take good care of it, will you. Do you drink milk?"

I told him that I did not drink milk, and that in fact I wasn't planning to drink anything at his desk. Then I told him Klein had said he'd be back around two. It wasn't well received.

"But that's almost a full hour!" Robinson exclaimed. "I cannot afford to wait for an hour. Oh well. I suppose I must. Might as well get some work done."

He seemed to find the prospect depressing, so I asked him if he'd like a coffee.

"Coffee? I don't drink mud, my boy. But tea would be nice. Yes, a cup of tea would hit the spot. You know where the tea things are?"

"In the cupboard?"

"Excellent. Don't bring the pot here, just the cup. Make sure the saucer's spotless, and dry."

"Of course."

By the time I'd made the tea - the teapot and the cup were Royal Worcester - Robinson drafted three letters for me to type out, and mail together with Klein's. There was a funny little dance when he had to vacate his seat so that I could use the typewriter.

Jack Robinson did not make any spelling mistakes. However, he wrote in pre-war British English - 'connection' was spelled 'connexion', 'diverse' - 'divers', and so on. On top of that, his handwriting was small and crabby. It took me a while to get closely acquainted with those three letters, with Robinson hovering nearby in a faintly hostile manner. Eventually I asked him if he'd like them typed exactly as they were, or if he wanted me to use Canadian English.

"Of course I want you to use Canadian English," he said. "That's why I put such importance on your spelling skills. Go on, now."

I typed the letters up and this time, the three of them took me just over fifteen minutes - I was getting good at this. Robinson seemed to share that view.

"Excellent. Excellent!" he said, when he'd finished reading the letters I'd typed. "Now buzz off to the post office and get them posted. Abel told you about the procedure?"

"Yes," I said. "He was disappointed I don't have a car."

"The man is insane," said Robinson. "He'd take the car to the lavatory if he only could. Take a walk. Do you a world of good."

"It will take a while."

"That's fine. Nothing much to do around here today, and it's time for your lunch break anyway. Just make sure you're back here by four. This way, if something does crop up, it can be dealt with by the day's end."

I thanked him and put all letters into the brown leather doc.u.ment case and left for the post office. On my way there, I repeatedly congratulated myself on getting that job. Getting paid eighteen bucks a day for making a pot of coffee, typing half a dozen letters, and maybe answering a few phone calls! I was on a lucky streak.

The weather gods seemed to agree with me. It had become a sunny day, the first such day in quite a while. The pavement was full of people: it was the lunch hour. Everyone seemed to be in a good mood - there definitely was that vibe in the air.

It ended just as I was approaching the final intersection before the post office. There was a cop car stopped at the lights. The cop in the shotgun seat was dangling his arm out of the open window. His hand held a smoking cigarette and as I drew closer he raised it to his mouth, and looked around lazily. His gaze fell on me and instantly, his face changed: he was on full alert. I could almost hear him trying to remember what made my mug important.

Cops run into a lot of faces in their line of work: retrieving a face file from their memory banks can take a while. It was lucky it did, and it was lucky that the light changed to green. They drove away, and I made it inside the post office as fast as I could. My good mood was gone, and I cursed the sunny weather. Rain was much better. When it rained, people opened their umbrellas and turned their collars up and generally, everyone looked the same.

There was no lineup and I had the letters posted by registered mail within a couple of minutes. It was a quarter to two; I had over two hours before I was due back at the office. I decided I'd pay G.Papadopoulos a visit.

There was a guy selling hot dogs from a cart just a few steps from the post office building. The hot dogs were just forty cents each and they weren't bad, so I ate three and picked up an apple for a nickel at a convenience store further on.

I arrived at 4 Myrtle Street on the stroke of two o'clock without running into any more cops along the way. I went in and thought I'd smoke a cigarette in the lobby before taking the elevator to the third floor. The information board still listed unit 31 as occupied by Brightstar Incorporated.

There was a cleaner, a middle-aged woman passing a rag over one of the windows by the entrance at the rate of maybe five strokes a minute. She got at most half a window clean in the time it took me to smoke a full cigarette. I went up to her and asked her about the information board: how often was it updated? She didn't know what the f.u.c.k I was talking about, she kept grinning at me and agreeing with everything I said.

I finally realized that she barely spoke English and was terrified of me for some reason. There was no way she could have identified me as someone who was wanted by the cops, but of course that was the first thing that came to my mind, and I had a minor freakout while inside the elevator. I ran an appearance check on myself before going inside unit 31, and found that I was wearing a ferocious scowl. No wonder that poor woman downstairs had been terrified, she was probably getting paid under the table or didn't have proper papers and scowling strangers were very bad news, for her.

I knocked and waited a couple of seconds before going in. G. Papadopoulos was on the phone: it was my day for walking into offices to find guys on the phone. Like Klein that morning, he was listening to someone at the other end. Unlike Klein, he was smoking a cigarette and blowing smoke rings.

He seemed pretty relaxed: he raised a friendly eyebrow at me when I entered and waved his cigarette hand at the two chairs in front of his desk. They hadn't been there on my previous visit, and the poster on the wall behind G. Papadopoulos was a recent addition, too. It showed a bunch of pensive guys with long hair and beards and guitars; a turd-colored headline announced The Bears, Live. A list of town names and dates followed.

I finally had a fix on G. Papadopoulos: one way or another, his line of work involved the entertainment business. The bottle of Pepto-Bismol standing by the phone hadn't been brought about by mafia loan sharks hovering in the background. It was caused by his dealing with artists, and people who thought that they were artists - it was difficult to tell which would be worse. It would be a highly stressful occupation, with constant complaining and people trying to f.u.c.k with his mind on a daily basis. It was no wonder he needed to go to the park with a bottle on a Sunday morning.

I sat down on the nearest chair and waited patiently. After a while, I regretted not having taken off my outdoor jacket: it was hot and stuffy in that office. But taking my jacket off implied I was setting up camp in there, and I just wanted to get the mysterious Jane's name and address and leave. I tried to make my face convey to G. Papadopoulos that I was in a hurry, and I seemed to succeed, because he said:

"Hey. Listen, I'll call you back in five, okay? Someone's just come into my office. Okay."

He put down the receiver and picked up the Pepto-Bismol bottle in the same smooth movement. It had the look of a much-practiced move, he could probably do it with his eyes shut. He had a good swig from the bottle and grimaced horribly and said:

"You here for that address, correct? Jane something? Wait."

He got up and left the office, leaving me like a dolt, sitting and sweating and waiting as ordered. He returned a couple of minutes later with a foam cup of coffee and a freshly lit cigarette. After depositing the cup on his desk he rooted around in a drawer and pulled out a slip of paper and said:

"You wanna write this down?"

I had to ask him for a pen and paper, and he made a comment about smartasses coming unprepared before he obliged.

"Ready? Jane Moore, double o - are - ee, got it? Seven four three one one five, that's the phone number... Want me to repeat? Okay, now the address: 1212 Welch Street. Long way from here, north Vancouver. Postal code - "

He had to give me the code three times, because of course I got fixated on the 4-3-1 in the phone number the moment I wrote it down. I thanked him and got up to leave and then, on an impulse, I asked:

"Are you in the entertainment business, by any chance?"

He gave me a heavy look.

"Yes, I am," he said. "And let me tell you something, it's a hell of a long way from entertaining. Get out of here, I've got a phone call to make."

I thanked him again and said goodbye and left. The cleaning lady was gone: two of the lobby windows were still dirty. I guessed she needed to have something to come back to, the next day.

I took the long route back to the office, avoiding major intersections and other areas that I thought could include cops. All the same, I was back before three o'clock. This pleased Klein, who was reading one of those mysterious color magazines of his. Just like before, he hid the magazine in the top drawer of his desk when I entered. It made me determined to get a look inside that drawer first chance I got.

Klein left moments after I came in, claiming to have a meeting nearby: I suspected he was meeting someone in a bar. He promised to be back by six, to lock up after me. I had a go at the top drawer of his desk, and found that he'd locked it. That was very intriguing.

I spent the next three hours gradually getting bored out of my skull, smoking cigarettes and glancing at the phone and thinking about calling Jane Moore. The Jane I knew looked like she might have a second name like Moore.

Then I thought about calling Roch, and then - my parents. It was a mistake not to have called them from the post office. I wouldn't have needed to lie about being on a break from work and being pressed for time. Whenever I called my parents, I needed a stand-by excuse to end the conversation quickly. It was highly likely it would come in useful.

Klein showed up at three to six as advertised earlier. He was very jolly - he definitely had attended a meeting in a bar. He congratulated me on a good first day, and reminded me to get a car. Then he sent me home, and on the way I did some shopping and had yet another A&W pigout. There was a girl in the A&W that reminded me, very slightly, of Jane. She was a couple of tables away and I had to force myself to stop looking at her and I knew that I would pursue this idiotic Jane Moore trail until it blew up in my face.

I felt very tired by the time I got home and I was glad I didn't have to deal with any of the Noyces: they were all assembled in front of the TV set in the big room downstairs. I went up to my 'studio' and unpacked my shopping and recounted the contents of my wallet. I had just over seventy five bucks left.

Happily, my paranoid pal was as tired as I was, and we didn't have one of those bedtime conversations that prevented me from falling asleep for hours afterwards. I started work at noon the next day, and could sleep until ten, but I was in bed early anyway.

Right before I fell asleep, I remembered I had once known a Moore. His name was Brian and he was a dark-haired, freckled boy with sad eyes. He was my classmate in England, a local guy, not connected to the Canadian embassy in any way. He was always very quiet and kept to himself and everyone felt sort of sorry for him, though not enough to socialize with him.

He abruptly disappeared from school one day and it was whispered he'd been caught stealing stuff from the coats in the teachers' cloakroom. Another rumor had it that he'd drowned in the family swimming pool - apparently his father was a bigshot in the textile industry. Yet another story had him run over by a car, and I also heard he'd died from some kind of a hereditary heart disease.

The possibilities were endless when it came to the Moores of this world. I wondered what my second Moore would be like.

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