The Homeless Millionaire

My nap lasted as long as a full night's sleep: I woke up around three in the morning. I felt fully rested, there was no way I could go back to sleep. So I got up and made myself some coffee, trying to move around as quietly as possible, and then spent ten minutes by the bookshelf looking for something to read. I used my new flashlight for illumination: I was pretty pleased with it, it fit well in my hand and threw a strong beam.

None of the books caught my fancy, so I switched off the flashlight and spent a while sitting on the sofa in the darkness, smoking and sipping coffee and thinking about things. I'd seen a new side to Harry the previous day. It seemed being a pot dealer wasn't all sweetness and love and peace and free pot. I wondered about that handgun of his: was it registered? It wasn't that easy to get a permit for a handgun, but maybe his father had fixed him up with one. That was when I had a brainwave: the gun probably had belonged to his Dad, and he'd taken it along because he knew he was going to have a tough time dealing with those Viper guys.

I started wondering about the Viper guys. It made my paranoid pal very happy. It gave him a chance to really spread his wings, and come up with a number of interesting scenarios for the future. A couple involved my getting shot: I had it coming, I'd been pointing guns at people recently, it was time somebody pointed a gun at me. It went on and on, and when my bowels signaled they d.e.s.i.r.ed to be emptied, I was glad of the distraction.

It was beginning to get light by then, so I decided to do the brave, manly thing and take a dump in the woods. I had a shot of rye to give me courage and got dressed and had another shot. Then I got a wad of toilet paper and my new flashlight and the shovel, and went for a walk in the woods.

There was a fine mist hanging in then air, and it wasn't as cold as I'd expected. The mist made my flashlight useless, so I stumbled on from tree to tree, steering the other way from the area I had chosen previously. I didn't want to piss off any squirrels. Things tend to happen in a series, and I wanted the world to like me.

It's curious how helpful defecating can be for thought process: maybe doing all that squeezing down there sends extra blood to the brain. By the time I was buttoning up, I decided it would be wise to distance myself from Harry. Just a little, he was a great friend and I definitely wanted to stay in touch. But it was time I collected whatever Harry was prepared to pay me, and found myself a room in Vancouver.

So I'd have to tough it out for a while before Chaz got around to selling my stuff - big deal. I was a grown-up, tough guy, I could handle a month one way or another, especially if I had some booze and pot.

Of course, my paranoid pal made a long series of snide comments about my cowardice. It was common sense, I told him. I already had cops looking for me. And if they found me, serious complications would ensue.

I'd taken my cigarettes with me - I liked to smoke while crapping, it killed the smell - so I smoked a couple, going over selected serious complications in my mind. My pal loved that, he was bursting with ideas. I let him run with it. The world was still and quiet, so quiet I could hear tiny drops hit the ground, from moisture condensing on the trees. They were actually quite noisy when they happened to hit a dead leaf.

My pal got a little breathless from all that talking by the time I finished my second cigarette. I spent quite a while looking for a suitably dramatic dead branch to mark the spot I'd used earlier. It was full-time dawn by then; the mist was starting to lift; amazingly, it promised to be a sunny day, or morning at any rate.

I was walking back to the house when I heard an engine out in the bay.

I stopped and listened. The sound was getting louder. I walked up to the treeline, and had a look around. The mist was pretty much gone, there were a few tendrils drifting above the ground here and there, but the visibility was good enough for me to see the end of the pier, and maybe another fifty yards out.

The engine was getting pretty loud: a boat was going to pass pretty close by. It was approaching from the south so it was hidden by the trees to the right of the pier, but I still strained to see something.

Suddenly, the sound died: someone had cut the engine. I knew what this meant. The boat was going to dock at Harry's pier. I wondered who that would be. The cops? Another visit from Joey and his friends?

It was the Vipers. They were in plain view when the big, sea-going cruiser slid out from behind the trees. I counted at least five on board, all wearing the same uniform: black biking jackets with jean vests on top. Their ship - it was big enough to be called a ship - floated up to the pier in perfect silence. A couple of the guys leaned out to cushion the impact of the hull on the pier: it hardly made a bump. Then they were out on the pier, walking in a single file, and I saw that there were seven of them and that they all carried guns. There were a couple of sawn-off shotguns, a short rifle of some sort, handguns, and even a f.u.c.k.i.n.g submachine gun of a kind that I'd seen in movies, short and ugly, resembling a grease gun. One had what looked like an overnight bag slung from his shoulder.

The Vipers fanned out the moment they stepped off the pier, with three guys going for the front door and two moving to encircle the house from each side. They made no sound, this was top quality Vietnam stuff. They threw some searching glances in my direction, and I pressed myself closer against the tree trunk that was concealing me.

Part of me wanted to do something, at the very least warn Harry. But the other, likely more sensible part, insisted there was nothing wise I could do, and that whatever I did do was sure to bury me up to my eyes in shit. I briefly regretted that I didn't have the scoped .22 with me: I could have easily shot at least three Vipers by the time they docked, and came out on the pier. Then I was deeply thankful that I didn't have the rifle with me, because there was a slight chance I'd actually open fire on an impulse, and then tons of shit really would come crashing down.

I could see three corners of the house from my spot, and pretty quickly there was a Viper stationed on each of them. They nodded to each other and glanced around and then the guy closest to me moved to the kitchen window and took a good, long look inside. Then moved on to the side window of the big room and stopped right beside it, nodding to the guy by the front corner on my side of the house. He in turn nodded to the guys I couldn't see, the ones that had went up to the front door.

There was a thud and a terrific crash as the front door went down. smacking the floor so loudly it made me jump. A muffled, jeering voice called out:

"Harry? Drag your a.s.s out of bed, man, it's a beautiful day. And we need to have a talk."

There was a short silence. Then I heard Harry call out in a pinched voice:

"Okay, I'm coming out. Take it easy."

I didn't hear him open the door and leave the room, but I heard his appearance give the Vipers much joy. There was widespread cackling, and a couple of barks of laughter. Then the Viper who had announced a beautiful day said, loudly enough for me to make out every single word:

"We've come to close the deal we have. Two ways to do this. One, you deliver what you promised, and so do we. Second way, we take what you promised us anyway, and give you some brand new holes here and there. Show him the money."

There was a silence during which they all presumably admired the money while I swooned with relief behind my tree: there was going to be no bloodbath after all. I guessed they'd brought it in that overnight travel bag. I had been speculating what it contained, and was relieved to realize it didn't contain more guns or ammo or explosives - I'd actually thought it might be a satchel charge, brought to blow the whole f.u.c.k.i.n.g place up.

Harry said something I couldn't make out; some muttering followed. I heard someone leave the house and come down the steps to the porch and a fresh Viper appeared around the corner, carrying something small in his hand and heading for the back of the house. He went right up to the shed where Harry had put all the pot and I saw he had been carrying Harry's key ring: he held it up to his face before selecting a key and unlocking the padlock on the door. He poked his head inside and let out a delighted laugh and called:

"It's cool! It's all here!"

It all went quickly from there. The Vipers had come well-prepared: they brought a shitload of plastic garbage bags, and they took all the pot from Harry's shed and carried it inside the house. There were more mutterings punctuated by laughter. I guessed all the laughing was being done by happy Vipers, Harry likely didn't have much to laugh about. He'd told me the deal he had with those guys was for skunk, and now they were taking all his prime Cambodian, worth at least twice as much ounce for ounce.

They took their time inside the house. The Vipers outside got bored, and wandered off to the front of the house. I heard some go inside, they made a point of stepping down hard on the busted door. Just one guy remained in my field of vision. He stood about halfway to the pier, and smoked a couple of cigarettes while admiring the view. It was magnificent: it was a beautiful, sunny morning.

I watched that guy smoke and began dying for a smoke myself. Smoking where I was seemed unwise; I moved back into the woods, and found a nice big trunk to lean against and lit a cigarette. A hundred, maybe hundred and twenty yards away a bunch of criminals with guns were conducting a drug deal, and I was smoking a cigarette and trying to see the sun through the crowns of the trees and actually getting bored with it all. It was cold and I wanted to get back inside the house and have a glassful of Johnnie Walker and a coffee, with breakfast to follow.

I smoked two cigarettes before creeping back to my observation point. I arrived there just in time to see the Vipers trooping out of the house and walking down to the pier. They had the easy gait of men satisfied with the day's work, the step of men content with life and what it had to offer. Each carried a taped plastic bundle big enough to hold under the arm, and the overnight bag was bulging full. They got on board of their battleship as efficiently as a squad of Marines or some other hotshots, cast off, and pushed the hull free of the pier. The engine started up with a deep rumble and a moment later they were gone from sight, going south towards Lion's Bay or maybe Vancouver itself.

Bearing the shit-masking shovel, I went back inside the house. Harry was standing in the open doorway, smoking and drinking what looked like rye from a big glass. He gave me a wan smile as I approached and said:

"Hey. I gotta say you picked the perfect moment to go shit in the woods."

NOTICE

This work is available to read online exclusively at .com.

/book/14813966006779805

If you are reading it at a different site, it has been copied and reproduced without the author's consent. The owner of that site is a thief.