The Homeless Millionaire

The cops arrived when I was in the shower, and I didn't hear their car. I became aware of the hammering on the door, increasingly loud, when I was toweling myself dry. Naturally I thought it was her, and spent some extra time primping myself before going to answer the door. On the way it finally dawned on me that it couldn't be her, because the fist that had begun to beat on the door sounded massive.

They were both pissed off by the time I opened the door, I could tell. Seeing two angry cops, where I had expected to see her, shocked me. My lips and limbs went limp, and I felt my mouth open. I must have looked like the proverbial village idiot, and the cops were pleased. They were getting a return of sorts on all that knocking and waiting.

There were two of them. The one on my right was as tall as me, and had blue eyes and freckles and pale, sandy eyebrows. The one on my left was a good couple of inches shorter, but he had a black mustache to compensate, and his dark eyes were full of hostility. He barked something at me in French which I failed to understand. It made him dislike me even more.

"Good morning," I said, and it seemed it wasn't the right thing to say, because the tall cop snorted and tightened his mouth.

"I'm sorry I took so long," I said. "I couldn't hear you, I was taking a shower."

They looked at each other as if I'd just confessed to washing the blood off after I'd committed the murder. The tall one said:

"You live here? Is this your cottage?" He was English, I guessed he was obliged to have a French partner so that no one could accuse him of beating up on a French Quebecker without a good reason.

"Yes and no," I told him, pissing him off further. I added quickly:

"This cottage belongs to monsieur Caron. I am a family friend, and I am temporarily staying here. I'm a good friend of Roch's, that's his son."

"What's your name? You have any ID?" That was the French guy, I could tell he was extra angry because he had to speak English. I said quickly:

"Sure, let me show you, I'll just get my wallet from the bedroom."

They exchanged another knowing look. Then the tall cop put his hand on his belt, next to the gun, and said:

"Okay, go get it. But be quick about it."

I was quick about it, as requested. I half-ran to the bedroom - I suspected they would enjoy hearing me hurry - grabbed my wallet, and also the envelope with my doc.u.mentation from the Ecole. Then I half-ran back, slowing down near the door. I held out my wallet to the Anglo cop and said:

"You'll find several pieces of ID in there." Then I turned to the French cop and said, offering him the envelope:

"I'm a student at the Ecole des beaux-artes in Montreal. These are my papers."

I scored points with both of them. The Anglo guy was tickled by my gesture of trust when I handed him my wallet. The French guy was impressed by my educational status and liked the fact I had chosen to study in Montreal; he could see from the papers that I lived in Toronto. They weren't hostile any more by the time they returned the envelope and my wallet. The English guy said:

"Can we ask you a couple of questions, sir? How long have you been staying here?"

I had been promoted to a sir; things were improving fast. I said:

"A little under a week. Roch, Roch Caron, he was here too, he's just gone for a couple of days to take care of some business back in Montreal. He'll be back soon though, maybe even tomorrow."

The French guy said:

"Is there anyone staying in the house across the lake from you? Did you see anyone?"

I was instantly wary; my atavistic reaction was to protect her from those cops. They noticed that, so I quickly shifted into an uncertain stance and said:

"Well, I didn't see anyone but I saw a light in that house. Let me think... A couple of days back? Yesterday? Yeah, yesterday for sure, and maybe it was there couple of days ago, too. And I think I heard a car from that direction the other day, when I was out on the deck."

My smokescreen worked. They had a cooperative guy volunteering extra information, video and audio. The English cop said:

"Thank you. That's all we wanted to know. Enjoy your stay, sir."

"We will be back in a few days," the French cop warned me. His eyes clearly said, you'd better watch your step.

They turned and walked away to their cruiser. When they got inside, I shut the door and stood behind it, listening to them drive away. Then I went to the kitchen and opened a beer and lit a cigarette. I went out on the deck and smoked and drank and looked at the house across the water. Nothing, no one. I listened hard for a while, then I realized that I probably wouldn't hear the cop car approach her house because the wind was blowing the wrong way.

I tried to think of a reason why the cops would be interested in her. But maybe they weren't interested in her at all. Maybe they were interested in me, and they'd just been making smoke and waving mirrors. If I could do it, why shouldn't they? After all, telling lies is an essential part of any policeman's job, it often isn't possible to arrive at the truth without telling a lot of lies along the way.

It dawned on me that I finally had the perfect pretext to go and see her. Informing her that cops were around, asking about her, was an excellent excuse for a visit. More than that, it should earn me some points with her, too. Would she be grateful, or resentful that I'd brought disturbing news? A lot could hinge on that. Assuming she would be grateful, she -

I stopped myself in time from going on a wish-fulfillment trip. This wasn't the right moment to go dream-surfing, there was some serious business to consider. Was it possible that the police had somehow heard about the planned museum robbery? Hardly. I could bet that if anyone walked into a police station and told them about it, they'd said thank you very much for your statement sir, we appreciate your coming over, and then just file the whole thing away. Cops have a busy enough time dealing with places that don't have alarm systems and security guards, and none of us had a criminal record. I definitely didn't have one (though I deserved it), Roch didn't have one (he deserved it, too), Michel did not have one - if he had, he wouldn't be in his final year at the Ecole, they'd have expelled him. And he wouldn't lie to me about it in Roch's presence. Of course he deserved to have a criminal record too, even more so than me and Roch: in addition to doing drugs, he was carrying an illegal handgun that he'd smuggled into the country. You needed a good reason to legally own a handgun and an even better reason to legally carry it around, and I was sure Michel had neither.

I really hoped the cops wouldn't pay a return visit to the cottage when Michel and Roch were back. I had to tell the guys about the cop visit, there was no way around it. They might suspect that I was lying, trying to frighten them into abandoning their plan. And if I told them about the cops' visit, I'd automatically have to tell them about Her - and they'd sense that she'd been on my mind, and there'd be no end to the stupid ribbing and teasing they would inflict on me when they found out.

I spent the rest of the day worrying about all that shit. F.u.c.k! It was almost as if there was this guy up in the heaven, after all. He would be giving me the cold eye, and thinking: this stupid little shit is up to no good, let's send some cops round on a visit to remind him what's what. I got so spooked by all this that I had to drink half a dozen beers to calm down. I had been promising myself to stay off the booze for a couple of days, so this upset me too, and forced me to smoke a joint. Of course I smoked it in some bushes by the house, listening for approaching cars, I was too paranoid to smoke it on the deck. Cops had binoculars, too. The whole f.u.c.k.i.n.g countryside was equipped with binoculars. The French cop had been right, I'd better watch my step.

In spite of watching my step, I stumbled and fell when I was going inside after smoking that joint. Smoking it made the beers feel really potent and I didn't get up for a while, just rearranged myself into a sitting position on the ground. It helped that there were no roots and stones to bite into my a.s.s. I sat there for quite a while, looking around with newfound wonder. The trees and water were turning golden from the setting sun; I wished I weren't too bombed to paint or draw. My life back in Toronto seemed ancient, so far away that the best binoculars in the world wouldn't help any.

As I ate my supper, I wondered when Michel and Roch would show up. There was a possibility that they'd arrive the next day. I found myself wishing fervently that they would not. I needed a little more time by myself to recover. My imagination - so optimistic the previous evening - was now showering me with various doom scenarios. I wasn't sure I wanted to take part in that heist any longer. I had absolutely no idea how to back out of the whole thing without upsetting Michel badly enough to use that gun on me. I knew that he wouldn't, not really, but my imagination kept insisting that he could.

I drank a lot of beer that night to wipe all this bad shit out, it was close to midnight by the time I was relaxed enough to go to sleep. I knew that things would be grim in the morning, but I also knew that could actually be helpful. A monster hangover changes priorities, you just focus on feeling better physically and when you do, your mood's automatically improved.

That's the rule. But as I found out the next day, there are exceptions to every rule.