The Homeless Millionaire

Old habits die hard, and I left the pub with two bottles of Toby in my pockets. On the way home I passed by both the Montrose Bed & Breakfast and the Bella Notte; I wondered how the guy with the nosehair was getting on.

I had the beginnings of a plan by the time I walked into my room. I undressed and had some Johnnie Walker and opened one of the beers. I spent the next half hour chain-smoking and drinking and thinking about my new plan.

My new plan revolved around keeping a low profile and staying out of sight of other people as much as possible. Unfortunately, that meant staying put on 134 Yale Avenue. I'd be getting enough exposure at work anyway, and all I could do was hope that Robinson, Klein, and the clients visiting their office hadn't also visited a police station recently. By the time I finished the second beer I calmed down, and told myself that most people visiting police stations didn't even bother to look at mugshot posters, and if they did they were much more likely to look at the criminals. A thief or a killer was much more interesting than a missing guy.

But you're all three, said my paranoid pal. Your mug qualifies in all three categories: missing guy, thief, killer. And had there been a poster featuring outstanding assholes, you'd qualify there too.

I tried to tune my friend out, but I was unsuccessful. I knew that if I stayed in my room he'd kick the shit out of me. It was still raining, but I got dressed and went out anyway.

It wasn't windy, and I could deploy my umbrella. I went to the park and smoked a couple of cigarettes walking back and forth. There was no one around. It was all bleak and wet. My pal liked it very much, so much that he shut up and just admired the sights. After a while I started to feel really hungry, and when I glanced at my watch I was shocked to see it was already two in the afternoon. So I went to the A&W to get stuffed, and when I was paying I saw I had less than a hundred dollars left.

That hit me bad, because Klein had told me I would be getting paid twice a month. I would get my first paycheck on the fifteenth, in just a few days' time, and this was bad. It was bad because it would be a tiny paycheck, covering just a couple of days, and I would have to wait until the end of the month for the next one. In the meantime, I would have to pay three weeks' rent. That amounted to $180, and I would be fifty dollars short even if I somehow managed to live on thin air for the next three weeks.

I had decided that I wouldn't ask Roch for any money, and there was no way I'd ask my parents to help out: I'd sooner die of starvation under a f.u.c.k.i.n.g bridge. The only thing I could do was give a month's notice to the Noyces. This would see me through to the 6th of December. The 3rd of December fell on a Sunday, which clearly was the day to go looking for a place to rent. Armed with a fresh, full-sized paycheck, I should be to get a cheap room somewhere. Hell, at five bucks a night I might even stay at the Montrose Bed & Breakfast. It would be much cheaper than this wonderful studio of mine.

It wasn't raining by the time I'd finished eating, and I went to talk to Richard and Nancy right away. Richard answered the door. He seemed very surprised to see me, he actually kept me standing outside until I told him I wanted to talk about getting a room for a number of nights.

We went into the lobby; I could hear someone, most likely Nancy, moving around in the kitchen. There was a tense vibe in the air; my paranoid pal was sniffing like a hunting dog, and it seemed he liked what he could smell. I thought that maybe Richard and Nancy had been having a fight when I showed up. It spelt bad for negotiations.

They went as badly as advertised. Richard advised me that he and Nancy were about to go away for their much-deserved annual vacation, closing down the guesthouse for an entire month; they wouldn't reopen for business until a week before Christmas. I also found out that the five bucks per night was a special rate; I'd received it because I was with Harry. I wasn't with Harry any longer, and that meant eight bucks per night.

I must have looked pretty crestfallen because he took pity on me and said he'd talk to a couple of friends that rented out rooms to people. If I called or came round Sunday afternoon, he'd let me know what he'd found out. It was clear he preferred me to call: he made a show of getting and giving me a card, and pointing out the phone number.

I thanked him and left, feeling disappointed. When I reached the street I stopped and tried to think of a good move. I thought that perhaps I should ask about a room at the Bella Notte - who knows, maybe they had better rates than Richard? Then I remembered that the Bella Notte was ran by my landlady's cousin, and I instantly lost all inclination to go there.

I turned in the opposite direction to the Bella Notte and started walking and a couple of minutes later found myself by the entrance to the Park pub. I went in, getting my paranoid pal all excited but I outfoxed him: I stopped by the payphone and called Roch. I still had plenty of change left over after the call to my parents: it hadn't been a long conversation.

Naturally I called Roch at the aunt's house; I had no d.e.s.i.r.e to talk to his parents. I listened to the phone ring over there and waited and waited and was about to hang up when Roch finally picked up the receiver.

He had taken so long because was on the point of leaving: when he heard the phone ring, he was in the act of locking the front door. He was in a hurry, too. He didn't sound friendly but that changed when I told him I'd called my parents and talked to my father.

"Thank God," he said. "This morning, I got a fresh shitload of recriminations over that business. They're using it to beat up on me, man. How did your old man react? Gave you shit?"

"He tried to, but I cut him off," I said.

"Good. Listen, I gotta run. There's a ton of stuff I must get done by the end of the day. Great to hear everything's been cleared up. You got a number I can call you at?"

"Not yet," I said.

"I'll be hearing from you then. Keep in touch."

"Sure," I said, and that was it. I had absolutely no intention of asking Roch for money, and that wasn't why I called. But yeah, I had hoped that maybe he would bring up the subject himself, and give me an opening to ask for a loan.

I left right away, and started walking on automatic. I felt as if I'd been dropped into a vast ocean, with no land in sight. I had a choice: go under right away, or swim until I did. So I kept swimming, and suddenly found ground in front of the liquor store. I hadn't planned to go there. It was quite a long walk to the liquor store, and I had made it on full automatic, without making a conscious decision.

I went in, and bought a standard-sized Johnnie Walker Red and that was when I realized that all along I meant to pay an official visit to the Noyces, bearing a bottle of their favorite booze to cushion the impact of what I had to tell them. It would help cushion any resulting impacts on me, too.

It was nearing four and getting dark when I reached the house. I went up to my room and made myself a shitty instant coffee and looked through the paper I'd gotten on the way. There was nothing about Schmidt. There were no new murders in Toronto or elsewhere. Most importantly, there was no progress being made in the investigation of the great art robbery in Montreal a couple of months earlier.

That last item occupied half a column next to an ad for a store that featured a really crummy ill.u.s.tration. It showed a guy wearing someone's idea of a smart business getup, a suit complete with a silly hat with a headband that was wider than its brim. It made me feel good to see someone's bad ill.u.s.tration. However bad I was, I wasn't as bad as that. The article next to the ad called me a cunning, reckless thief. It read as if it had been written about someone else: the described events felt as if they'd taken place in a different lifetime. Did I really do all that? It hadn't felt like cunning, reckless robbery; it had felt like playing a risky joke, okay, a dangerous joke, but no more than that.

I was still brooding over the article when the Noyces came home. I thought I'd give them some time to settle in before popping up with my bottle. But then I thought it might be better to leave the whole thing until the next day. That article about the robbery really threw me off balance, and I just wasn't up to conducting skillful conversation.

I got my sketchpad, noticing that it was in poor shape and that I really ought to get a new one: another expense. I got my pencil anyway, and drew a better version of the guy in the ad. My new lamp was just fantastic, I loved the way I could move the light around whichever way I liked.

The guy I drew was on the move, too: he was a guy that was going places, unlike the loser in the ad. He was without a hat and had longish hair and there was a slight breeze blowing where he was; a couple of strands had fallen over one of his eyes. His suit had been cut by a top-notch tailor, and he was wearing kickass ankle boots.

After a short hesitation, I gave him a cool sports car in the background. After another short hesitation, I presented him with a chick that was all t.i.t.s and legs. She was standing to the side, pouting and trying to draw his attention, but he was having none of that. His mind was on other, higher things.

I wished I could swap places with that guy. I'd have even swapped places with the chick.

I made two more drawings of couples. In first one, the guy was saying something that made the girl grin. They were fighting in the second drawing, screaming at each other with faces contorted by rage. I would have swapped places with any of them, anyway.

It was late when I was done and the room was blue with smoke. I stood by the open window taking swigs from the big Johnnie Walker marked for personal use while the room got aired out. The Noyces were trooping in and out of the bathroom: it sounded like they were preparing to go to sleep.

A moment later, so did I.

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