The Homeless Millionaire

By the time the sun rose the next morning, I was ready to kill the guys that had landed on the island the previous day, and stolen Harry's pot. Because of those assholes, I'd spent the whole night freezing my a.s.s off by an open window. Because of those assholes, I'd been forced to splurge on a cab to Vancouver when I was almost out of money. Because of those assholes, I'd get paid a fraction of what I was to be originally paid by Harry. Because of those assholes, I was going to spend most of the coming day wandering around in the woods when I should be churning out pictures for sale.

I found myself hoping that when we came across the aforementioned assholes, they'd do or say something to make Harry blast their nuts with rock salt from his shotgun.

When Harry emerged from his room it was pretty clear he was in a combative mood, too. We had a quick breakfast, exchanging ideas on what we could do to those guys when we found them. When we graduated to stripping them n.a.k.e.d and leaving them hog-tied over ant hills, Harry said:

"You know, we better have a couple of beers and a smoke to mellow out before we leave. Otherwise someone might really get hurt."

So we did that, and formulated a detailed plan while we were at it. Harry would lead, and I'd follow at a short distance; it was important that those guys didn't see me. They'd seen me already on the porch of the Harry's house, and he didn't want them putting two and two together. Harry said that he would take the shotgun and the half-dozen shells he'd loaded with rock salt; I was to take the scoped .22, loaded with a blank.

I took a shower while he converted a couple of .22 cartridges into blanks by pulling out the bullets. Then he had a shower too, and we had another beer each and smoked a couple of joints. While we were doing that Harry had the idea to take the boat's engine off its mounting and put it inside the house together with the paddle.

"If they're still on the island, they might come by while we're away and take my boat," he explained.

"Maybe one of us should stay and keep watch here," I said. Harry shook his head.

"No," he said. "We've got a lot of ground to cover. After we get to the field and have a look around, we'll split up for a couple of hours and then get together to share what we found or didn't find, and decide on what to do next."

It was well after eleven when we finally left the house, which was fine: Harry wanted to give those guys a chance to wave a boat inshore, and get off the island. It would spare much unpleasantness, he said.

We walked to the pot field with Harry in front, and me following a dozen paces behind. When we got close, we both went into full Vietnam mode, making as little sound as possible and pausing often to listen hard. It was another beautiful, sunny day. But there were sudden gusts of wind whenever a small cloud passed over the sun, and they bit to the bone.

We got to the pot field without encountering anyone, and when Harry saw the slaughtered plants trampled into the soil he cursed softly for a good couple of minutes. Then he said:

"Okay, time to split up. I'll cover everything north of here, I know my way around and it won't take me that long. You go back and check on the house and then go on to the summer camp. Maybe they'd seen it from the water, and figured they can find help there."

"Can they?"

"No. It's closed down for the winter. A caretaker sometimes drops by to check on things after a storm, but we haven't had any. Anyway, after you've checked it out come back here, say two hours from now. Go along the western shore, but not too close, in fact throw a couple of doglegs on the way to cover more ground. And be careful, you hear me? Be the f.u.c.k.i.n.g Invisible Man. Imagine that you're being stalked by a f.u.c.k.i.n.g tiger or something like that. Whatever it takes."

"Let's make it two and a half hours," I said.

Harry nodded.

"Fine," he said. "If somehow you end up in deep shit, fire the gun and run to the house and so will I."

We wished each other good luck and went our separate ways. I went inland for a bit before I turned in the direction of the house but that really didn't make sense. The further from the shore, the rougher the terrain became, and I was sure that no one would take that route. They'd want to get to the house and the summer camp as quickly as possible, without dealing with rocks and cliffs and vegetation thick enough to form impenetrable barriers every fifty steps. I remembered that the first time Harry and I went to see the pot plants, we returned along the western shore, and that the going had been pretty easy. I decided to take that route on my way back to meet Harry, after I'd checked out the summer camp.

It took me half an hour to get back to the house with all that creeping and stopping to listen every few steps. There was no one around. I explored the area behind the house, then turned in the direction of the summer camp. I was really getting good at this Vietnam stuff, I could walk for as long as a minute without making a single sound. It wasn't really necessary to be that stealthy because the birds were all excited by the weather, and they were singing their hearts out.

I got to the rise overlooking the summer camp about an hour after I'd split up with Harry. I found a spot that afforded a view without too many trees getting in the way, and raised the rifle and examined the camp through its scope.

I saw two of those guys right away. They were standing at the very end of the pier, and when I looked at them they were both waving their arms at a boat that was too far to see them, unless someone aboard happened to be looking at the camp through binoculars. That scope was fantastic, they were around three hundred yards from where I was hidden, but it seemed like forty or fifty. I watched them for a while, grinning, until I remembered that there had been three of them.

I stopped grinning and did some pretty intense Vietnam stuff - at one point I actually crawled from tree to tree. It took me a while to locate the third guy. He was hidden behind one of the buildings, a barracks-like house next to the canteen that I took to be a dormitory. It had a little entrance porch and he was hunched on a small wooden bench nearby and blowing into his cupped hands. The range wasn't bigger than seventy-eighty yards and I could see his face clearly enough to tell he'd had a really rough night. He was shivering and looked very unhappy in spite of the three plastic bags lined up next to him, all bulging with Harry's Cambodian pot.

I examined the situation from every angle. He was at least a hundred and fifty yards from the guys on the pier. If I played it right, they wouldn't hear what was happening, and they wouldn't see it either - the other buildings got in the way.

Harry had told me that I shouldn't show myself to any of those guys, but this was an opportunity too good to miss. I wished to hell I'd taken a couple of real cartridges for the gun along with me, not just the blanks Harry had made. If those guys on the pier were alerted and came running, it would be nice to be able to put a bullet into the ground in front of them. After my experience with D.i.c.ky of the holed sailboat, I knew that showing a gun might not be enough.

I thought for a while about leaving and meeting up with Harry and letting him decide what course to take. But there was a real chance that those guys wouldn't be there any longer when we returned. There were loads of boats in the bay, just as Harry had predicted, and sooner or later one of them was bound to spot the guys waving from the pier, and come in to rescue them.

And so, I moved into action. I crept a hundred steps to the side so that I could approach building unseen, and then entered the camp with the gun held ready. There were a lot of gulls wheeling around overhead, excited by human presence and hoping for something to eat. Their screeching was much louder than any sound I made. And I made very little sound, because I was becoming a pro at all this Vietnam shit. I'd been getting plenty of training, and it showed.

I edged around the house and came to the final corner and stepped out, aiming the rifle at the guy sitting on the bench.

"Freeze," I said. In retrospect, that was a cruel choice of word.

He did. He was f.u.c.k.i.n.g blown away by my appearance. He turned on the bench and his eyes nearly popped out and his mouth fell open. He half-raised both arms although I hadn't told him to. He was shocked and scared shitless and I felt very pleased. I said:

"Don't even think of calling your friends, because I'll shoot you right in your stupid f.u.c.k.i.n.g face. You're a f.u.c.k.i.n.g thief and I'll enjoy doing that."

I suspected he pissed himself with fright at that point, because his face just fell into pieces and he started to cry.

"Now listen carefully," I said. "You'll get up and walk slowly to join your friends on the pier. The three of you will stay there until someone picks you up. Any of you step off the pier, they're gonna get a bullet in the a.s.s. Got it? This gun can castrate a mosquito at fifty yards. And I like the idea of shooting your balls off. Assholes shouldn't be allowed to breed."

A tear rolled down one his cheeks and disappeared into his beard. He was definitely a make-love-not-war kind of guy. I said:

"All right, that's it. Move your a.s.s."

He got up from the bench and stood there looking at me and I saw that he did have a dark wet patch spreading over his groin.

"Turn around and start walking, but slowly," I said. "Like ten steps a minute. Go."

He took a step and waited before he took another. He was being a very good boy.

I waited until he'd moved a few more steps and moved forward and gathered up the bags with my left hand. It was difficult, threading my hand through the loops while keeping the gun pointed with just my right hand. But my boy didn't even think about disobeying me, he kept taking a small step forward every few seconds and I fancied that I heard a muffled sob.

The bags weren't heavy, they weighed no more than four or five pounds in total, but they were very unwieldy. I told my boy:

"You're doing fine. Keep at it."

Then I started walking backwards, a step at a time. I was halfway to the treeline before my boy reached a spot where he could be seen by the guys on the pier. I slung the rifle over my shoulder and transferred a couple of bags to my right hand, and quickly walked up the slope and into the trees making next to no sound at all.

When I reached the trees, I turned and saw that my guy was still moving towards the pier at a snail's pace. It seemed his friends still hadn't even noticed him. I unslung the rifle from my shoulder and took a look through the scope and saw that they were jumping up and down and waving like crazy at a boat maybe a quarter mile out. It appeared to be turning their way, and it was time for me to beat a quick retreat to the house.

On the way there I marveled at what had just happened, and congratulated myself at least a dozen times. I was surprised by how easy it all had been until I thought that those guys must have been really low on morale. They'd spent a cold night out in the open without any food, definitely a major downer. The guy on the bench had probably spent several hours regretting he'd ever laid his eyes on Harry's pot field. That was why he'd been so obedient.

I made it to the house all right and deposited the pot inside and went off to meet Harry. I was running late, because all that creeping around the summer camp and getting a plan in place took quite a while.

I ran into Harry before I got halfway to the pot field. He had started walking home when I didn't turn up on time and he was walking fast. He looked sad and tense and didn't brighten up much when he saw me. I stopped and let him approach and when he got close I said:

"Harry, I've got the pot back. It's in the house."

He looked a lot like that guy on the bench when I told him to freeze. I had to repeat the message twice before he got it and he was so happy he hugged me and said I was a f.u.c.k.i.n.g miracle worker. I told him the story as we walked to the house and he became a little upset with what I'd done. There were a couple of totally unjustified critical remarks about the consequences of waving guns at people, and I had to remind him he'd been ready to fill those guys' asses with rock salt - to say nothing of stripping them n.a.k.e.d, and tying them over anthills.

That shut him up, and when we walked inside and he saw the three bags of pot lined up against the wall he hugged me again. Then he said:

"You know something? I thought it was all lost. I'd been preparing a speech about how I can't even pay you the five hundred. But I can. I definitely can now. And I'll put on an extra hundred as a bonus."

The rest of that day passed very pleasantly.

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