The Homeless Millionaire

I felt sleepy and dazed next morning. Even though I'd slept for a full eight hours, I moved like a snail on holiday. This changed when I had to leave the house: rain mixed with snow and sharp gusts of wind got me going at double speed. By the time I got to the office, I was fully alert. There was a good side to everything, even rotten weather.

As usual, Robinson left soon after I came in, maintaining a stiff upper lip against the weather: most likely it was child's play compared to keeping watch on a destroyer in the North Atlantic, with U-boots lurking all around. He left a couple of letters for me to type out, and I was done with them very quickly. Robinson told me he would post them himself, in the evening: he wanted me to stay in the office, and take any calls that came in.

Very few did: the phone rang just twice in the three hours, and both times I expected it to be Moore. It wasn't. I went into my usual routine of drinking coffee and smoking and walking around the office, glancing at the phone every few minutes. The rain and snow stopped but the sky was grey with clouds and by three it was so dark I had to switch on the light.

I decided I would draw something; I really needed to work a bit more, if only to improve my hand. I completed my preparations and was about to have another go at drawing the telephone on Robinson's desk when it rang, making me drop my pencil. This time it had to be Moore. He'd said he would call that day at the latest, and he looked the kind of guy who kept his word when he'd promised something unpleasant.

I cleared my throat twice before picking up the receiver.

"Robinson and Klein, good afternoon," I said.

"Michael? It's Fiona."

It took me a while to switch gears, long enough for her to say:

"Hello? Are you there?"

"Yes," I said. "Sorry. I was expecting a call from someone else."

"Really? Who?"

"Never mind." I cleared my throat again and said:

"Jane was here the other day with a tiny black and white photo of your father. I'm sorry, it just wasn't good enough for me to work with."

"She told me. Were you rude to her?"

"No. No, I don't think so. Why?"

"Because she thought you were, obviously. Anyway, I've found a large, colour picture of my father. Hopefully it will be good enough for you."

There was a trace of a sneer in her remark. I said:

"It sounds okay. Unless he's wearing a false nose and whiskers, or pulling some sort of a face."

"He isn't. It was taken to hang in a boardroom."

"I take it he looks pretty serious, in that photo."

"He does."

"Well, if you could bring a couple of extra photos showing him smiling or talking to other people, it would help."

"You want a whole collection of pictures for a simple portrait?"

"Portraits aren't simple," I said. "A good portrait shows the subject's inner self. The thing some people call a soul."

There was a short silence. Then she said:

"Tell me, are you being serious or is this the sort of manoeuvring that ends with a higher fee?"

I felt myself blushing. I said:

"Let's make a deal. You'll pay me whatever you want to pay for that portrait, okay? No, I'll go one better. I'll do it for you free of charge."

"Don't be so touchy," she said. She sounded amused.

"Don't be silly, then."

There was another short silence.

"I'll bring it round to your office in half an hour or so, if that's convenient," she said eventually. She wasn't sounding amused any more. I wondered how many guys had told her not to be silly. Probably not many. Most likely I was breaking new ground there.

"I am here until six," I told her. "Any time before that is fine."

"Okay. Bye."

She hung up.

I went to the lavatory to splash cold water on my face and curse myself for being an obnoxious prick. My first commission, from someone who had bought a picture of mine, and I was doing my best to screw it up! I made myself a fresh coffee and lit a cigarette and decided I'd really do that portrait free of charge.

The phone rang again the moment I sat down with a firm determination to get going with my drawing. I was pretty sure it was Fiona calling to say she wouldn't be able to make it, after all.

It was Moore.

"We're going to have to postpone our little get-together," he told me right away. "I'm busy the next few days. I'm going to call you beginning of next week."

"Any time is fine," I said airily.

My tone was meant to irritate Moore, and I succeeded. He slammed the receiver down after a snarled goodbye. I made a face at the telephone, and finally began working on my drawing.

It was going to be good this time, I could see that right after I'd drawn the first few lines. I kept going, and pretty soon it was clear this was a phone that could kill people if they weren't careful. The round numbers on the rotary dial were like a variety of future fates. One was a barbed lance meant to pierce your jaw, two chopped your legs off, three ate you alive. I had packed six feet and two hundred pounds of Detective Moore into that small box, and he was understandably very angry.

I decided that I'd draw the wire curling out of sight behind the phone, then I thought of turning it into a lit fuse, changing the phone into a bomb about to explode. It was a nice idea but a little cheap, and I was thinking how to draw the spark at the end of the fuse without making it cartoony when the door opened, and Fiona made an entrance.

She didn't simply come in the way most people do: she made an entrance. She walked proudly, wearing her long burgundy coat like a royal gown, with her shoulders back and her chin thrust forward. When she appeared, people were meant to fall onto their knees and worship her presence.

I'd been telling myself over and over to be nice to her. So I sprang out of my seat and offered to take her coat and asked if she'd like a coffee, all in the same breath.

She was pleased, but her smile carried a hint of suspicion. No wonder: I really was acting out of character.

"No," she said. "I'll keep it on, it's bloody cold and I need to warm up a little. But a coffee would be nice."

"Milk? Cream? Sugar?"

"Black and one sugar. Heaped spoonful. Can I help myself to one of your cigarettes?" She pointed at the pack lying on the desk.

"Of course," I said. "Go ahead."

I went to the annex, congratulating myself on making a fresh pot of coffee a little earlier???I had gone, all by myself, through a whole pot by four o'clock. I considered using Robinson's china, but in the end poured the coffee into one of the white office mugs. They had the Robinson & Klein logo just below the rim on the inside, so that anyone holding the mug in their right hand would instantly see whose coffee they were drinking every time they put the mug to their lips.

I made her coffee and when I took it to her I saw that she'd parked a buttock on Robinson's desk and was looking at my drawing, holding it in one gloved hand and a cigarette in the other.

"Fiona, I'll put your coffee here," I said, placing the mug on Klein's desk. "Robinson told me he'd have me shot at dawn if I drank anything at his desk."

"Okay," she said without moving or looking at me???she was still examining my drawing.

"This other desk is actually the important one," I said. "It used to belong to John Macdonald."

That made her turn round and look at Klein's desk and she put my drawing down and finally got her ass off Robinson's sacred desktop.

"That's a good picture," she said, sauntering over and blowing smoke. "That phone is satanic. You just know it's Lucifer calling when it rings."

I laughed with pleasure.

"You like it?" I said.

"I do."

"Then take it. You can have it."

"Really?"

"Really."

"Thank you." But there was that suspicion in her smile again, so I said, quite stupidly:

"And don't think that's one of those manoeuvres you mentioned earlier. Making you feel obligated to pay more for the portrait. I'm going to do it free of charge."

It only made her more suspicious, and somewhat embarrassed.

"No, really," she said. "That's going a bit too far. Anyway, look at those photos and tell me what you think."

She unbuttoned the top of her coat, and pulled out a buff envelope from an inside pocket.

"I've brought three," she said, handing it to me. "One is a smaller print of that boardroom portrait. The other two are family photos that show him smiling and talking, just like you wanted."

She drank her coffee and smoked while I looked at the photographs. Fiona's father really did look as if a lot of people could be living in his pocket. He had thick brown hair brushed straight back and the sort of imperious face you see on illustrations in history books. He was a handsome man, with good features and big dark eyes that are sometimes called soulful. But in this particular case the soul behind those eyes was a ruthless bastard. Warm-hearted, yes, but a bastard.

That was the boardroom shot, so this kind of expression was to be expected. But it also came through on the family photos. In one of these he was holding a four-foot salmon in one hand and a fishing rod in the other, and was indeed smiling widely, the way people smile when they'd won.

The other family snap showed him seated at the top of a very richly loaded table; part of a Christmas tree showed in the background. He was bending forward slightly in his seat and talking to a woman seated on his right, who just had to be Fiona's mother. The resemblance was striking, it was exactly the way Fiona would look thirty years down the line, and it was clear that she would look pretty fucking good.

"Those are great," I said to Fiona.

"Excellent," she said. She put her mug down, and put out her cigarette in Klein's ashtray.

"You really want to give me that drawing?" she said.

"Yes."

"Thank you," she said. I got a big envelope from Robinson's desk, and she put the drawing inside.

"I think I'll have something to show you after the weekend," I said, when she'd finished fucking around with that.

"Wonderful. Can I call Monday?"

"Sure. Can I ask you a favour?"

"Go ahead."

"Please apologize on my behalf to Jane. She couldn't have come here at a worse time."

The look in her eyes resembled her father's and I got a valuable hint for that portrait: it was the look of someone examining a property for hidden flaws.

"I'll do that," she said. "Until Monday, then."

"Goodbye."

She left and Robinson came in literally a few moments later and instantly said:

"Michael, you've been entertaining women in the office. Refined women with class, my nose tells me."

My jaw dropped and he saw that and smiled and said:

"It's the perfume. I think it's Chanel, but I'm not sure; I've got a bit of a runny nose."

I sniffed and indeed, there was a whiff of perfume in the air.

"I didn't smell it earlier," I said wonderingly.

"Of course you didn't, how could you when you're breathing smoke like an angry dragon all the time. Well?"

"That person who commissioned a portrait from me, Fiona McKay, was here," I explained. "She dropped off a couple of photographs for me to work from."

"You paint portraits from photographs?"

"It's much better to work with a live subject. But it's not always practical, especially when the portrait is supposed to be a surprise gift."

"Ah. Of course. Fiona McKay? You're moving in exalted circles, Michael. Watch your step, my boy. That sort of people can be very touchy."

"Yes, I've noticed that."

"Mmm. Have you got those letters ready for me? Excellent. Buzz off home, old boy, there's nothing for you to do here. I'll be leaving early today, too."

I was about to leave when Robinson said:

"By the way, did Moore call?"

"He did. He said he'd call again."

"I see. You know, one wonders why policemen invariably seem to be so unintelligent... Well, I expect anyone intelligent would be unlikely to want the job. All right, I'll see you tomorrow."

"Goodnight."

I was halfway home when I realized I'd left the envelope with the photographs at the office.