The Homeless Millionaire

By ten o'clock the next morning, I was already halfway to her house. I hadn't washed or shaved, just brushed my teeth and hair after drinking the remaining three beers, and a pint of extra strong coffee. My breakfast had consisted of three hamburger buns without the hamburgers, and a couple of raw eggs stirred with Tabasco sauce and salt. I was going at full throttle plus afterburner, and I covered the distance to her house in half the time it took me the other day.

There was no car in the driveway, so most likely there was no one home. It made me angry. I marched up to the front door and banged the bejesus out of it with the big brass knocker. I was pretty sure there was no one inside, so I really let myself go with that knocker. I stopped banging it against the door only because I'd barked my knuckles. I turned away and lit a cigarette, seething with fury. I barely managed to get a single lungful of smoke in before I heard quick, heavy steps approaching the door from the other side.

The guy that opened the door was pissed off, too. He was as tall as me, with iron grey hair arranged in a combover that had gone astray, revealing strips of sunburnt scalp. By way of compensation, he had bushy sideburns and eyebrows like fat, hairy caterpillars. He wore an open-necked shirt, black with revolting purple whorls, and black bell bottoms wide enough to cover his feet. He also wore a scowl to rival my own. He had small, dark, deep-set eyes and he did his best to pierce me with them. I glared right back, mad as hell that he answered the door instead of her. I said:

"You own this house?"

"And who the hell are you to ask?" he snarled.

"Your neighbor across the water. I've got cops visiting me at inconvenient times, asking questions about this house and the people staying there. I don't need that. You likely don't need that either. So why don't you stop whatever you're doing, or maybe do it somewhere else. Okay? That's all. Have a nice day."

I turned my back on him and started hoofing it down the driveway. He called out:

"Hey."

I ignored him, and kept on walking.

"Hey," he called again. "Hold on a minute. Please wait."

I stopped; it was the 'please' that did it. I looked at him and smoked my cigarette.

"When did they - those cops you're talking about, when was that?"

"Yesterday."

"They were asking you questions about this house?"

"My guess is that they weren't interested in the house," I said. "They didn't look like they're into real estate. My guess is they were interested in you. Enjoy your day." I turned my back on him again, and resumed walking. When I was nearing the end of the driveway, I heard the front door slam shut with a bang that scared a couple of birds out of nearby trees.

I was nearing the main track that led to the highway when I heard a car approaching. A moment later, the red snout of her Mustang appeared round the bend. I felt fresh anger and put out my hand and signaled for her to stop.

She did, a few steps away from me. She was watching me through the windshield as I approached. She was wearing big black sunglasses even though it wasn't a sunny day. Her hands held the top of the steering wheel and I noticed her fingernails had been painted red. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail and her mouth was set in a thin line. It seemed everyone around was pissed off that morning, maybe the stars above were forming awkward angles or there were fresh spots on the sun, or whatever.

I walked over to the driver's side and bent down to look at her. She was wearing a skimpy tie-and-dye tank top and there were goosebumps on her arm. I said:

"Hi. I've just been to your house. I told the guy there I had cops come over yesterday, asking questions about you guys. That's just so you know what's going on."

She didn't say anything. She just stared at me with the insect eyes of those big dark glasses, and it pissed me off. It really didn't take much to piss me off that day.

"See you," I said, patted the roof above her head and shoved off. She remained where she was for a quite a while, engine idling; I heard her take off just before I turned into the track leading to Roch's place.

I was boiling with rage. I kept imagining the guy I saw at the house humping her: over, under, from the back, every which way. I burned up the track to Roch's house in record time. Had I bumped into any squirrels giving me the reproachful eye, I would have told them to f.u.c.k off and got them going with a boot up the arse.

There was no booze left at the house, which made everything even worse. I rolled a joint from what remained of the pot and was about to light it when I heard a car coming. My first thought was that the f.u.c.k.i.n.g cops had returned for another pow-wow about the house across the lake. But the engine sounded familiar, it was a Ford Mustang, it was her!

It was Michel and Roch. I stood in the doorway, staring stupidly as they got out of the car. They saw me and waved and grinned. I didn't grin or wave back. I called:

"Did you bring any booze?"

Those two idiots started laughing. Michel opened the trunk and Roch heaved out a twenty-four, held it and called:

"You want to help with this?"

I did. I helped them carry stuff inside the house, and I had even begun to smile. They noticed my mood, of course, but assumed it was caused by a hangover. They were both very merry, throwing jokes and fooling around, so I kind of went along. But once we all had a beer going, I wiped the smile off my face and said:

"Listen, guys. This museum thing, I'm out. And if you've got any brains, you're out too. There were a couple of cops here yesterday, asking questions."

That got their attention, all right. They stopped grinning like idiots and looked at me. Roch said:

"The police?"

"That's right. Uniformed members of the Surete du Quebec. I didn't ask them for their ID, but they looked genuine. They asked me for my ID, though. They also said they'd be coming back."

Michel frowned and said:

"What did they want? Apart from your ID. You said they asked questions? What about?"

"They wanted to know who I was, and what I was doing here. They also wanted to know about the people in the house across the lake."

"There are people in the house across the like?"

"Yes," Roch told Michel. "I saw lights there the other night. You saw them, too."

Michel shrugged. He said:

"Okay. So they asked about you, because you're not Roch's family, a strange new face. And they asked about the people in that house. So what's the big deal? Hey, Roch. Didn't you tell me cops come round at the end of the summer, checking everything's okay? Remember? When you were getting all paranoid about the gun."

"It's too early for that," Roch said. "They never come before Labor Day. Two-three weekends later, end of September, something like that."

Michel frowned again. I suspected he'd be doing a lot of frowning all day. He said:

"Let's back up for minute. Can you tell us exactly what went down, blow by blow? What they said, word for word if you can?"

So I did. I went over everything word by word. They interrupted me constantly with extra questions, and tried to trip me up - you said something else a moment ago, no, you said - that kind of shit - and got me so angry I threatened to clam up a couple of times. But they apologized and bribed me with more beer, and so it went, on and on.

It was late afternoon by the time we were done with all this shit, and it ended mainly because we were all very hungry, and snapping at each other all the time. But it started all over again while we were still eating. Michel got into full Grand Inquisitor mode and grilled Roch about everyone he'd talked to in the meantime. Roch didn't like being accused of blabbing something to someone, and they quarreled with each other for quite a while, which was good: they left me in peace. No, that's not true, I wasn't at peace at all. I didn't care about those two retards and their moronic plans, what made me furious was the presence of that sideburned baldy in the house across the lake. I was jealous, it was incredible, I hadn't even touched her and I was jealous.

I waited until Michel and Roch stopped fighting and asked:

"Hey, Roch. Don't you know anything about the guys in that house? Maybe there's a valid reason for the cops to be interested. Maybe those questions they'd been asking weren't just a smokescreen."

"Yes," Michel said instantly, quick to pick up on anything that made the planned robbery still viable. "What do you know about them, Roch? Any trouble with the law?"

"How the f.u.c.k should I know. I didn't ever meet them, I don't even know what they look like. The old man said that the guy that owned the place was some kind of a businessman. It was ages ago. I don't remember."

"Come on," said Michel. "You must have seen them, a few times. Out on the deck or whatever. They never came over? Your people never went to visit? Two houses in the middle of nowhere, and the neighbors don't get to know each other? I don't buy that."

"Maybe my old man went over there, I don't know. And maybe he didn't. F.u.c.k! What does it matter? The point is, I don't know. You want to know more about these guys, go talk to my old man."

"Come on," Michel repeated. "You never saw anyone from that house? Like, they would all hide whenever you appeared?" He changed his voice to a falsetto and said:

"Oh, daddy, I'd like to play out on the deck." Switching to a bass: "No, dear, that guy is out, over there. His name is Roch and he's a dirty old pervert. He mustn't see you, ever." He turned to look at Roch.

"You must remember something," he said. Roch sighed heavily.

"Okay," he said. "I saw people outside that house. I didn't watch them, there wasn't anything to watch, it's too far. A middle-aged guy and a woman, she seemed younger than the guy. I remember she had blond hair."

"Blond hair? How did you know she was younger than that guy?" That was me, I had become very interested in what Roch was saying.

Unfortunately, he didn't satisfy my curiosity; he didn't have anything to add. Him and Michel had another fight, this time in French: I went to get some more beer. When I came back I told them there might be police in the bushes listening to everything that was said. It was nonsense of course, but it shut them up all right.

When we finally broke up nothing had been cleared up, nothing decided. I didn't really care, I was out of it anyway. What I did care about was that f.u.c.k.i.n.g weirdo who had answered the door when I came knocking. What I did care about, that evening, was her. It was completely insane. Just a few hours earlier, I couldn't have cared less. The fact that I still didn't even know her name was almost like a physical pain.

I learned her name and plenty more about her the very next day.