The Homeless Millionaire

It was raining cats and dogs when I woke up the next day. The guys were up and about already: I heard them quarreling over who was going to use the bathroom first. I decided to lie in until they'd finished their morning ablutions. I didn't feel like talking to them. I didn't feel like doing anything at all.

I wanted to go back to sleep, it was the perfect morning for doing that: grey and rainy. But I couldn't. I was gripped by one of those trains of thought that don't let go until they've tortured you into submission. It started when the image of Landscape With Cottages floated into my mind. I remembered what it looked like very well, it had made a great impression on me. This was because Landscape With Cottages wasn't about the landscape, and the cottages. It was about life. Sure, it featured a landscape and two crumbling cottages. They were huddled on a soft, short slope that ended at the shore of a shallow, winding creek. A young woman was waiting next to the cottages, standing on one side of the rickety wooden bridge across the creek, . She was waiting for an older couple, a man and a woman approaching the bridge from the other side. It was obvious they were coming home, tired and eager to rest. But the young woman wasn't looking at them. She was looking directly at the viewer. Was she looking at Rembrandt when he painted that? Maybe she had been wondering why anyone would take the trouble to paint something as boring as two houses on the verge of ruin.

I wanted to have that picture so badly! But I was too scared to take part in the robbery. Yeah, those two cops had given me a scare. And I couldn't completely rule out the possibility that their visit might have had something to do with the museum heist. I was sure that neither Michel nor Roch had let anything slip, they'd spent a good part of the previous evening interrogating each other about that. But there was the original third guy, the motorcycling daredevil that presently wore a cast on his leg, the guy that I was supposed to replace. His name was Denis, he had been Michel's friend since early childhood, and Michel swore by him. Roch wasn't fully convinced, and neither was I. Denis had been pumped full of morphine: having an ankle crushed kind of necessitates plenty of morphine, fast. He would have been totally out of it, and he could have been babbling all sorts of things.

My thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a car approaching, and I was instantly sure it was the cops, paying me the promised return visit. I turned over onto my side and pulled the blanket over my head. Let the guys deal with that shit, I thought; they were French, they could deal with that asshole French guy.

My bedroom was located at the very end of the house, and I didn't hear much from under the bed covers. I heard the car stop and the car door slam, footsteps inside the house and some panicked whispering and hissing between Michel and Roch right outside my bedroom door. They must have decided to leave me be, because I heard them going away right before the first knock on the door.

It was a very determined knock, and it made the guys scurry like c.o.c.kroaches seeking shelter. I pulled the bed covers off my head and started listening hard. The front door opened and I recognized Roch's voice. I couldn't make out what he was saying, but he sounded surprised. He would be; I had been surprised as hell myself, the previous day. Then it was my turn to be surprised yet again: the voice that answered Roch was female.

I was out of the bed like a shot and started dressing. Roch knocked on my bedroom door even before I'd finished pulling on my boots. He called out:

"Hey! Mike? You awake? Get up, you have a visitor. Mike?"

"I'm coming!" I shouted. Roch giggled stupidly and said:

"Well, don't forget to wipe yourself off before you leave." He went away, still giggling, the stupid asshole. Jokes about jerking off didn't work for me.

I put on my black jumper to hide my skinny frame, dropped into the bathroom for a quick face wash and gargle, and went to the door combing my hair with my fingers. I was sure it would be Her.

It was. She was wearing the red raincoat again and standing to the side of the door, smoking a cigarette. Her hood was up and I couldn't see her face. I said:

"Hi. What's up?"

She turned round to face me and said:

"How about you tell me what's up. What the hell did you say to my uncle, yesterday?"

"Your uncle?"

"Yes, my goddamn uncle. You talked to him at the house yesterday."

"I told him cops came round here asking about you guys," I said. "Same as I told you."

"No, you told him much more than that. You said something that made him really angry. I want to know what it was."

"I have no idea," I said. "Really. But listen, won't you step in and out of the rain?"

"No, I'm not going to step in. I'm in the rain, all right. You know what you did? He's throwing me out. He told me I can't stay there any more. What did you say to him?"

I needed a little time to think when I heard that. I said:

"I told him about the cops, and that was it. Listen, I'll go get myself a cigarette, okay? Then we'll straighten this out."

"You can have one of mine," she said. She pulled a pack out and held it out to me. She was smoking Black Cat Number Seven, which I guess is the world's most stupid brand name for cigarettes. It was the reason why I had never smoked one before. She passed me a booklet of matches as well and I saw they advertised a bar in Montreal. I said:

"You live in Montreal?"

"Right now I'm not living anywhere." She took the matches back from me and said:

"Are you going to tell me what you said to him? It wasn't just about the cops. There was something else."

"There was nothing. I didn't even tell him my name. It's Michael, by the way. What's yours?" She hesitated for a short while, as if telling me her name was a reward I hadn't earned. Eventually, she said:

"It's Tracy. Who is the other guy? The guy that answered the door?"

"He's more than just the other guy. His family owns this place. I'm a friend of his."

"I see," she said, in a voice that told me I had just slipped down in her ranking.

"You said you don't have a place to stay?"

"I did not. I said I'm not living anywhere."

I stayed silent. I'd found that staying silent was often a good way to make the other person tell you more. It worked. She said:

"I'm between apartments. I'm moving into my new place middle of next month. I've already paid the deposit and a month's rent and I can't afford to stay three weeks in a hotel. I'm between jobs, too. My uncle let me stay at his summer house, but now he's throwing me out. And it's thanks to you. Everything was fine until you came to see him yesterday."

"Tracy," I said, "I honestly didn't say anything apart from telling him about the cops. That they asked me about the house across the lake, and the people there. Why is he telling you to go? Didn't he give a reason?"

"Yeah, he gave me a reason. He said I could bring him trouble he doesn't need or want."

"How?"

"Just by staying there."

I didn't know what to say to that. She took a drag from her cigarette and flipped it onto the driveway and said:

"Well, I've got to be going."

"Wait," I said. "Going where? You just told me you have no place to stay."

"I'll work out something."

"Tracy, wait a moment. I'll go and talk to Roch and maybe you'll be able to stay here."

She laughed.

"What, stay with two strange guys?" she said.

"Actually, three. There's also Michel, a friend of Roch's. But him and Roch are leaving today. They won't be back for a few days. I'm sure you can stay here."

"With you?"

There was a new, teasing tone in her voice. It made me hopeful. I said:

"You'd have your own room. Can you wait a little while I fix this up? And why don't you come inside?"

She shook her head.

"No," she said. "I really have to be going. I'll work something out, don't worry. Thank you for the offer." She turned away from me and walked down the front steps. She was wearing flared jeans and brown flat heels, and the jean bottoms were completely wet.

"At least wait till the rain stops," I said. It made her stop and turn around and for the first time ever she smiled at me.

"I've got to go," she said. "If you remember something more about that talk you had with my uncle, let me know. I guess I'll just have to persuade him to let me stay for a couple more days."

"I'll talk to Roch about your staying here."

She didn't answer that. She walked to her red Mustang, got in, and drove away while I finished smoking my cigarette, her cigarette. Then I went back into the house, determined to work on Roch until he agreed to have another guest at his house.

It didn't work out that way. They were conferring with each other in low voices in the kitchen. but when I entered, they immediately turned up the volume and started teasing me about my visitor. I told them they were just jealous, pulling on their d.i.c.ks while I went on scoring beautiful blondes even when marooned in the middle of nowhere. It was the wrong thing to say because it incited them to make a ton of stupid jokes about Tracy, me, and anything related to my having a s.e.x.u.a.l life. It wasn't the right moment to ask Roch if she could stay for a few days.

Then the guys started talking about the museum heist again. The cops' visit didn't seem to bother them at all any more. They were sure Denis hadn't talked, too. Denis was a guy who preferred doing to talking, they told me. He was the original action guy. He was renowned for not opening his mouth for hours at a time, even while attending a party. Trappist monks were said to look at Denis with both admiration and envy. No, Denis would never blab anything about the planned robbery, not even when when flying high on morphine. When Denis did drugs, he practically turned into a mute. Conclusion: the cops' visit was purely coincidental.

"Or maybe those guys across the lake ARE up to something dirty," Roch said, leering at me. Michel frowned and pouted and said:

"I agree. It's a distinct possibility. We already have the proverbial red woman. Now we just need a black character to complete the picture."

"She told me the cottage was owned by her uncle," I said.

"That's what she said. It mustn't be true, you know. People say a lot of things all the time."

"But not Denis."

"No, not Denis. We're agreed on that."

"Maybe Michael here is the black character, not that fake uncle."

"No, not black - look, he's turning red."

"They're well matched, him and her."

"Oh no, he's getting angry."

"Don't try to beat us up, Mike. Remember, we have a gun."

"Two guns."

"Three. If you try to beat us up, Mike, you'll have to deal with some serious weaponry. So think about it well."

By then, it was pretty obvious they were both completely stoned. They must have smoked a joint on the deck while I was having my big pow-wow with Tracy. They had had breakfast while I was still in bed, but when I started preparing something to eat for myself they both suddenly got hungry. We ended up doing a big barbecue; they'd brought tons of meat again, along with a salmon. Michel claimed his old man had caught the salmon just a couple of days earlier. It had been gutted and kept in a freezer in the meantime.

"He is completely nuts about fishing," Michel told us while we were eating. "He just disappears almost every weekend, even in the winter. He takes this small tent along and a Primus stove and drinks all day sitting in the tent over a hole bored in the ice. I think all this fishing business of his is about drinking by himself, without having to talk to anyone. He doesn't like to talk. He's like Denis in that respect."

"Denis wouldn't blab anything to anyone."

"No, he wouldn't. Denis is all right."

And so it went, until they finally upped their asses and left in the late afternoon. This surprised me. It was Friday, and I had assumed they were over for the weekend.

"No, Mike, we cannot stay here this weekend," Michel told me. He grinned at me and put his hand on my shoulder and said:

"We have a lot to do this weekend. A big dress rehearsal, you might say. Because we're going to rob the museum the weekend after that. Labor Day weekend. You're in, right?"

This was very sudden for me. My instinct was to wriggle out.

"I'm starting classes right after Labor Day," I said. "I don't know if I can handle robbing a museum just a few hours before my first class starts."

Michel looked at me heavily.

"I'm in my last year at the Ecole," he said. "You're talking to a veteran here, so pay attention. Roch tells me you're paying your own way. Is that correct?"

"Yes."

"In that case, as a decorated veteran I advise you to cut all of the September classes. You won't learn anything, anyway. They are all about getting people settled into a new environment and new routine. Lots of partying, but you can do that on your own anyway when you feel like it, correct? If you're not collecting a stipend, no one cares whether you show up or not. In fact it's in their interest for you not to show up at all, because then they can fail you on a couple of exams and force you to pay for the same courses again."

"You're kidding."

"I'm not kidding. That's how it works. You make them money. What's so hard to understand?"

"There are a ton of people who weren't admitted and would gladly take my place."

"Yeah, but they are not a worthwhile investment of time and effort. Roch tells me you got real talent. They like that. There's a small chance they might get famous through you. Then years later they can puff themselves up and say, oh yes, that guy, we've actually taught him how to paint."

And so it went. Every argument I came up with was dismantled, shown to be rubbish, and thrown away. At some point in the conversation, I nodded. It was as much a nervous reflex as anything. Michel patted my shoulder.

"Great," he said. He turned to Roch, who had just entered - he had been carrying stuff out to the car.

"Ready?" he asked.

"Yeah," Roch said. "We have to get going right away, it's getting late. Mike?"

I looked at him blankly. I was in a daze, busy digesting what that nod of mine really meant.

"I'll be back Thursday morning. Want me to bring you something?"

"But Roch," I said. "Your family is coming down here for the Labor Day weekend."

"I know. We'll leave Saturday or Sunday. I will have urgent work to do in one of the houses, and I'll need you to help." Roch winked at me, and added:

"Are you okay for now? We've brought plenty of food, and there are a couple of packs of cigarettes in my night table if you run out. ONLY if you run out."

"Thank you, I'm fine, thanks," I said bitterly. "No worries here."

The irony was completely lost on them, they went out to the car chattering happily, and drove away. I was left alone again, and within moments I was thinking about the mess I'd gotten myself into, and regretting everything I'd said and done from the moment I was born.

It went on for a while, but by the time I went to bed I was thinking about Tracy, and how to see her the next day.