The Homeless Millionaire

The sun was shining right in my face when I woke up the next day. At this time of the year it was rising at an angle that put it between two peaks on the opposite shore, and shining straight at the front of Harry's house. The light that came through the two front windows filled the room with magic - it made it look beautiful, almost like a movie set lovingly designed and assembled for SCENE 01: HE WAKES UP.

I checked my watch and found that I had slept for ten hours. I often slept that long after a day that was exhausting psychologically as well as physically. And the previous day had been both, having started early while I still had a hell of a hangover and continuing through many ups and downs.

That f.u.c.k.i.n.g 431 number! I felt sure it made me miss out on having a good time the previous night. I was sure it would make me f.u.c.k me up many, many times in the future. I was scared of it the way a caveman would be of a mysterious symbol that kept reappearing on his life path. I could bet that when I was born, the hospital assigned me a number that featured 431. Everyone was assigned many, many numbers while making their way through life. Starting with the number of the hospital file and the birth registry, down to the number of their grave.

That morning, I felt my future numbers would all include 431 in some shape or form, and it spooked the hell out of me. My paranoid pal was grinning from ear to ear, and taking lots of notes. I ignored him and thought about Chaz and the agreement we'd made, and instantly felt driven into action. The light that morning was just too beautiful to waste.

I knew from experience that could change at any moment, so I wolfed down beans straight from the can together with some bread and had just two quick coffees in the space of a single cigarette. I felt like doing a landscape so I got dressed and went outside for my second smoke to choose what I'd draw that day. I decided that I'd do a couple of charcoal sketches to start with. That would tell me what shape my hand was in, that day. If it wasn't too good, I'd subsequently give it a workout with a pencil. If it was good, I'd go the watercolor route.

But I did neither. As I was standing on the porch and smoking and looking at the view and feeling happy, I heard the thickening thrum of a powerful engine and a motor cruiser slid into view from behind the trees lining the shore. It was cream-colored with double dark blue slashes curving from its prow and ending in sharp points halfway along the hull. It had a small closed cabin midsh.i.p.s and three guys cl.u.s.tered in the open stern. They were all holding beers, and they were looking directly at me. They passed right by the end of Harry's pier and as they did one of them raised his bottle in a mock toast to me and shouted:

"Ahoy, ahoy!"

They all laughed after that and one of the other guys raised his hand and gave me a wave. They seemed like a friendly bunch of guys, long-haired and bearded make-love-not-war kind of guys. It would have felt awkward to ignore them. So I raised my cigarette hand in a semi-salute and then quickly put the cigarette in my mouth, as if Harry was standing by and watching what I did: he'd told me there was to be no making friendly with any of the boats passing by. But of course it wasn't Harry that was watching, it was my paranoid pal and he wasn't fooled by my deft cigarette moves. He saw through smokescreens, and knew the score.

He kept frowning at me meaningfully, so I took heed and listened to the cruiser's engine long after it had disappeared from sight. There were quite a few boats out because of the beautiful weather, but they were all sailboats except for that cruiser. The sound of its engine carried well over water and I heard it slow down and then the sound died.

The engine had been cut approximately where Harry's Cambodian pot plantation was located. It was no more than a hundred yards from the shore and the screening trees and shrubs had lost a lot of leaves, and I felt sure that if someone bothered to take a close look from just offshore they'd spot the vivid green of the pot plants through the remaining autumn foliage.

With my paranoid pal nodding with approval, I went back inside and prepared myself for the trip to the pot field. I dressed regretting that I didn't have my new jacket with me, and hesitated for a while looking at the shotgun. I compromised by taking my Finnish knife along. It was a killer knife, I could trust that knife with my life.

As I walked to the pot field, I kept my ears flapping for sounds coming from that general direction. But there were a lot of birds busy that day, and the seagulls screeched loud enough to drown out everything else. I knew the way to the pot field well enough to slow down to a semi-creep when I was a couple of hundred paces away.

I heard the guys halfway there: they laughed, and I was instantly suspicious because they laughed in that special subdued way people do when they don't want to be overheard. I started zigzagging from tree to tree like some f.u.c.k.i.n.g Viet Cong guy creeping up on a party of US Marines. I would have preferred it to be the other way around, but my weaponry definitely put me in the Viet Cong category.

I stopped the moment I saw the cruiser. It was standing just off the shore, which fell away pretty steeply in that spot - Harry had told me that he sometimes took his boat to check on his plantation, and had pointed out that exact spot to me. There was a huge, ancient tree trunk lying right on the waterline and it had thick, short branch stumps that were ideal for mooring a vessel. It also made shore access easy, all anyone had to do was jump onto that trunk and then jump off the other side onto dry ground.

But the guys weren't near their boat. As I stood still and listened while looking at the moored cruiser, I heard them moving through the forest - the occasional crunch of a footstep, the murmur of voices. My paranoid pal was sure they were up to no good, and so was I.

I went into full Viet Cong mode and followed them at a distance. They were easy to track. And soon enough I knew exactly where they were because they couldn't help letting out whoops of joy when they came across the pot field.

They babbled excitedly for a little while while I crept closer, close enough to hear and understand single words. Words like 'take', 'get', and 'bag'.

I managed to slide back between the trees just in time to avoid being seen by one of those guys. He was trotting briskly to the cruiser and a short while later reappeared trotting back, and bearing a wad of plastic bags. I could tell he was really looking forward to filling those bags with Harry's best pot.

There was only one thing I could do to derail those guys' plans. I crept back to the shore and climbed onto that tree trunk. Then I got out my killer knife and cut the cruiser's mooring line. I lay down on my back and gave it a good push with my legs and got it drifting away from the shore. By the time I had gotten off the trunk and concealed myself in the tree line, it had already moved a good ten feet away. A few moments later that increased to twenty.

I went home as quickly as I could and when I was getting close I realized that the guys I'd just marooned on the island were marooned there with me. And that sooner or later, they'd pay me a visit. It was only logical they would come looking for me. They'd seen me on their way in and would quickly figure out I was the guy most likely to have cut their boat adrift. And they'd seen Harry's boat too, moored to the pier. They could use that to get their cruiser back under control.

There was only one thing I could do. I ran into the house and got my wallet and a couple of extra packs of cigarettes. I made sure all the windows were locked down and locked the padlock Harry had put on the door. Then I ran down to the pier and got into the boat and cast away.

I took extra care not to flood the carburetor and the engine fired sweetly right away and I pointed the boat at Lion's Bay. It really took me a big effort not to crack the throttle wide open. It was a small engine, and if I kept it chugging at just above idle speed there was a chance that those guys wouldn't hear it, as long as they remained inside the woods. So I putt-putted along for ten minutes and only sped up a little when I was passing the rocks south of Anvil Island, about a mile away from Harry's pier.

I made Lion's Bay just after noon. It was lucky that it was a Friday: the marina shop was open and the guys there called a cab for me. I was on my way to Vancouver in record time. I hadn't noted the name of the street Gina lived on, but the restaurant nearby that I had been to was called Red Door Bar and Grill, and I was sure I'd find my way from there.

My cab driver knew the Red Door Bar and Grill, and deposited me in front of it inside twenty minutes: there had been little traffic on the way into the city. Harry's car was still in the restaurant's parking lot and my knees went weak with relief when I saw it; I had to pause and light a cigarette before I started walking to Gina's house. I couldn't remember its number but I found it easily, it was right across the street from my 431.

I smoked another cigarette standing on the pavement outside Gina's place; if Harry had bothered to look through the window, he'd have seen me. But he didn't, and I ended up going up to the front door and ringing Gina's bell.

She took a while to answer the door and when she did it was obvious that I'd gotten her out of bed. Her hair was tousled and she was wearing a long fluffy white robe and her accountant's glasses. She held her head tilted slightly sideways to hide her squint.

"Yes?" she said. She didn't sound pleased.

"I'm sorry," I said. "I've got to see Harry. It's an emergency."

She gave me the full force of her good right eye. After a while, she said:

"All right. Come on in."

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