The Homeless Millionaire

I went on full automatic. I said hi and nodded to the guy, and walked halfway to the street before turning and calling out to Tony in a silly show of nonchalance:

"Talk to you around five!"

He smiled and waved and I walked away, trying to keep my step even and steady, trying very hard to walk like a guy without a care in the world. Tony's house was about midway down the block of maybe a dozen big family homes: a couple were three stories high. I quickly came to a cross street called 14th Street, as if it was fucking Seattle or New York or some other Boston. I turned south and kept going, passing a school: three school kids, guys in their early teens, were huddling in dark overcoats on the street corner. They had a conspiratorial air about them and when I was passing them I smelled tobacco smoke and guessed they were sharing a cigarette.

After a couple more minutes I regained my mental equilibrium to the point where I could start thinking about what had happened. I started out by questioning if it had really been the guy from Salmon Arms. My paranoid pal roared with laughter and he was right, it was that guy, the security guard from the supermarket. He'd recognized me. He knew that he'd seen me before. It was him.

I seemed to remember reading in the paper that he'd even given my description to the cops. I shivered, and it wasn't from the cold.

I got to a major intersection and stopped and looked around. I'd entered a commercial area, there was a small supermarket right on the corner. A sign said it was open till late seven days a week and I automatically took note, just as if I was moving into the flat on Fulton. But there was no question of my moving there or even calling Tony about it. The right course of action was to head for the hills and bury myself somewhere deep in the forest and stay there for a couple of years.

I turned and crossed the street and started walking along something called Marine Drive and came across a very inviting-looking bar after just a hundred steps. What was more, there was a liquor store across the street. I was maybe half a mile from the house on Fulton. It really was the perfect place to move into, what with all the amenities.

The bar was called The Black Dog. I went in and saw it was about quarter-full, mostly young guys drinking beer singly or in groups of two or three. There were also four girls clustered around a single table and one of them looked at me as I came in and I half-expected her to react like the guy from Salmon Arms, maybe even run screaming at the barman to call the police. When she didn't, it was kinda reassuring.

I walked up to the bar counter and waited while the barman, an older looking guy, wrapped up his conversation with another older guy who looked like he might be a regular. He was sitting on a bar stool at the counter in a floppy, relaxed pose that suggested he spent a lot of time doing just that. There was a guy like that in every bar, drinking a beer per hour and pissing his life away.

They had Toby on tap but I ordered a bottle of Heineken instead - anything to break the goddamn spell. It was a fucking spell, that goddamn number popping in my face everywhere I turned. I couldn't understand why the fuck I didn't take that as a warning and steered clear of everything that featured those three digits. My pal was having a hell of a time, he was practically rolling on the floor.

This was bullshit, if I were to follow through I'd have had to refuse the check I got from Chaz. It ended with a 4-3-1. It was all a lot of bullshit. I ran out of beer and ordered two more bottles of Heineken from the barman. He gave me a knowing look when he brought them and pushed a bowl of peanuts in my direction. I ignored them. Given my luck, the fingers that had been previously delving into that bowl belonged to someone who was dying of a lethal and contagious disease. If I wanted peanuts, I'd buy a pack.

I got busy with my beer and cigarettes and tried yet again to get my head around recent events. The guy from Salmon Arms was in Vancouver, he was actually in the process of moving to stay in Vancouver - why else would he looking to rent a place? He'd seen me, and he'd recognized me. Better than that! He'd remembered me well enough to recognize me from the description given to the cops by the kids at the gas station in Calgary. That was why he'd talked to the cops: he'd read that description in the paper, and went and told the cops that he'd seen me in the local supermarket.

All he had to do was talk to the cops again, and my mug would be featured once more on Wanted posters in police stations all over Vancouver. And Detective Moore would have another of those incredible strokes of luck that only fools seemed to get.

I killed the third bottle of Heineken and while the barman was getting me two more I realized that it was already getting dark. The Salmon Arms guy would have looked at the flat by now, and could be en route to the local police station to report a sighting. He would do that, he was a fucking security guard, people who took that kind of job were deviated that way.

But if everything turned to shit, I still had a last line of defense: Harry's sworn statement that on the date in question, I was helping him repair a roof. It placed me on an island in Vancouver Bay instead of a supermarket in Salmon Arms, talking to a retarded security guard who could well have been mistaken about a face after three months had passed.

I began to feel hungry and I ordered a club sandwich with fries from the barman. He asked if I wanted another couple of bottles of Heineken with that and I told him one would be just fine. I'd gotten tight already, and there was a hiss in my ears from all the chain-smoked cigarettes.

I began feeling better after I'd started eating: the food seemed to calm me down. I decided that I'd mind my manners, and call Tony to tell him I wouldn't be taking his flat. I finished my beer and hit the can and ordered a coffee and tried to come up with something convincing that would explain my change of mind. I settled on something stupidly simple: I'd tell Tony that I'd lost the cash I'd withdrawn for the deposit, and could no longer afford the move. Had it in an envelope that fell out of my pocket - something like that.

It was nearing five by the time I finished composing my story for Tony. I smoked a cigarette and went to the payphone by the can and called him exactly at two minutes to five.

He answered right away, and he was in a great mood. Before I could start my bad-luck story, he told me that I was the chosen one and that I could come over and sign the lease right away. I was completely stunned. I said:

"I, I thought that you would rent it to the guy who came to see it right after me. He seemed to recognize you, I thought the two of you had met before and that it was a done deal."

"It wasn't about me," Tony said. "He told me you reminded him very strongly of someone he'd met. So, are you coming over now or do you want to fix another time?"

I heard myself saying that it was fine, that I'd be right over and he said see you and disconnected. I couldn't believe that I said what I'd said. I smoked a cigarette by the payphone trying to will myself into calling Tony again, and telling him I'd just discovered I'd lost the deposit money. I went back inside the bar and ordered another coffee and the bill and found that my trusted Zippo lighter had run out of fuel: I'd forgotten to top it up that morning. I got a light from the barman and spent a couple of minutes wondering whether this wasn't another sign.

When I realized that I was thinking like some Stone Age moron I got angry and paid my bill and left the Black Dog and went to see Tony. I intended to tell him I lost the deposit money face to face. He'd been really nice to me, and he deserved that.

I tried to take a shortcut and got lost - a pretty good hint to pack it all in, and go home. But it made me all the more determined to see Tony and explain why I couldn't take his flat. It crossed my mind I was behaving just like a moth flying to a flame, but I did it anyway.

It took me a while to locate Tony's house and he was overjoyed to see me: he told me he'd thought that I'd changed my mind and wouldn't be coming, after all. He also told me that would have severely fucked things up for him, because he'd already said no to the guys that viewed the flat after me.

"Well, actually I turned away just the second guy," he said. "The one that you met when you were leaving didn't like it."

For some inexplicable reason, this seemed like a good sign.

"He didn't like it? Why?" I asked.

"No idea. He said he was also looking at other places, and this wasn't quite what he had in mind."

That was the moment to tell Tony I'd lost the money, and couldn't take his flat. But I didn't. I let him invite me inside and hung up my jacket and followed him to the kitchen, where a kettle had started to whistle. He had the lease papers out on the kitchen table and asked me to look them over and if I'd like some tea.

"Or maybe how about a drink?" he said. I agreed, and he disappeared to return with a bottle of fucking Johnnie Walker Red.

Three drinks later, I signed that fucking lease and gave Tony the deposit money and went home in a cab he'd called for me.