The Homeless Millionaire

I reviewed the work I'd done the moment I got out of bed the next morning. It consisted of four really bad drawings of apples, and one that was somewhat good. I dumped the bad ones in the bin and then examined the somewhat good drawing over a coffee, trying hard to determine why it wasn't just good.

The apple portrayed was still around - I hadn't eaten it - and after I'd compared it with the drawing I realized I'd made all the curves too curvy. I'd been getting frustrated with all the earlier failed efforts and put too much pressure on the charcoal stick and every curved line was exaggerated as a result. The apple I'd been drawing was a model apple, it was so pretty it could have appeared on a poster advertising apples, but in my drawing that model apple was seriously overweight. It had been gorging itself on water and sunlight and whatever else apples gorged themselves on.

I'd drawn an apple that invited the viewer to take a bite right away, but it wasn't true. The drawing was somewhat good because it did show something had happened, and implied something was about to happen. It was only somewhat good because it lied.

I didn't want to keep thinking about that in the bathroom, so I went down to the ground floor and called Harry on impulse and lo and behold, he was there. He told me he'd be staying for a day longer and then had a serious New Year's Eve party scheduled with Gina, and would likely be fighting to stay alive after that for a couple of days at Gina's place. He gave me her number again, just in case.

He had time on his hands this particular day and he'd been thinking about dropping in on Richard and Nancy, the owners of that guesthouse where I'd stayed a few nights. We agreed to meet at the Park pub at three in the afternoon. I hit the bathroom with my mood much improved and spoiled it slightly with the discovery I really needed to start shaving every day. My face hair was very dark and even very short stubble showed. At close range it looked like a collection of blackheads, and it gave my jaw a cadaverous sheen from a distance. Given my standard scowl it hinted at a zombie rising from the grave, a zombie with numerous, serious complaints about accommodation quality.

I scraped my face clean of all zombie traces and cut myself slightly on my right cheekbone. I hoped it would heal by the next evening. I didn't want to be taken for a kiddie who had just learned to shave when I attended Fiona's famous party. I went back upstairs, made the usual coffee-and-cigarette arrangements, and resumed reading about Stewart Grange, or Stew to friends.

Stew flew into Bucharest with his gun disassembled into individual parts cleverly hidden here and there. This set the stage for the opening scene where he was putting it back together, and the subsequent escape while disguised as a room-service waiter. After getting out of the hotel, he took off the jacket and the little black bow tie and rolled up the sleeves of his white shirt and transformed himself to just another guy on the street - the action took place during hot Romanian summer.

Subsequently, Stew rewarded himself with a meal in a nearby restaurant, a meal that included a jug of Romanian wine. It was sour and otherwise unpleasant but he drank it all anyway while reminiscing about the cheap wine he used to drink with his first love, both prior to and after some heavy sexual action. That bit firmly established Stew as a sensitive, romantic type of guy, in spite of all the killing he was doing while earning a living.

After Stew stopped mentally masturbating about his first chick, he proceeded to make his way on foot across what seemed like the entire city of Bucharest. The population of Bucharest viewed Stew with suspicion - he was giving off Western vibes - he was so obviously a better specimen of the species than they were. This led to Stew receiving plenty of unwanted attention from cops all around the city and he dodged them and ran and hid for the next couple of chapters. Some of the Romanian cops he encountered were less retarded than the others. On one occasion, Stew had to enter a public lavatory and escape through a little window at the back, a fakir-style feat that finally shook off the cop currently following him.

He had a meeting scheduled with the beautiful millionaire-hunting secretary. At this point, it was revealed that the secretary came in fact from one of Romania's oldest families who had owned vast swathes of land in the preceding centuries. She had about half a dozen titles to her name: Countess of This, Baroness of That and so on. In other words she made the perfect wife for good old Stew, who liked an aristocratic piece of ass.

They met at cafe halfway across the city from Stew's hotel. Stew was completely blown away by the aristocratic secretary. In fact, she reminded him of that first love of his, only of course she was better - far better. Being a man of iron will, Stew remained professional and asked about the top secret document copies he was supposed to receive.

The secretary's name was Ana, and Ana turned out to be a top professional too. She prudently brought along just a couple of copies, and said she'd deliver the rest when she and Stew met for the escape run. Stew discreetly reviewed the documents received and found they contained top grade information: the strength and airports used by the mighty Romanian Air Force, ready to turn Western cities into rubble at a moment's notice.

Stew agreed to meet Ana again, and help her escape to the freedom-loving West. He'd cunningly brought a set of false documents identifying him and Ana as husband and wife, and I had the feeling he wouldn't get out of this one. He had airplane tickets for the very next day's flight to Vienna and he told Ana they'd be relaxing in a Viennese restaurant in just twenty four hours' time.

There was no way they were going to do that, I was less than halfway through the book and there had to be unexpected shit happening soon. But it was already past two in the afternoon and I was feeling really hungry - I'd eaten a very skimpy breakfast - and I thought I'd go to the pub early, and have a helping of that shepherd's pie, if they still had any left. I'd face Harry feeling fed and watered and generally ready to have a good time.

I was halfway to the pub when I had the thought that I could run into mobile lip Jane in there. It seemed to be the place where she took her boyfriends on a regular basis. She had to live somewhere nearby. It made me paranoid even though my pal was nowhere in sight, and I crept into that pub as if I were Stew entering a hotbed of Romanian cops.

It was pretty full, lots of people seemed eager to increase their alcohol intake and improve the yearly average before the year ended. There were no mobile lips around and I managed to get my order in and then secured a table from people leaving, thanks to the ceaseless vigilance maintained while drinking my first pint. I got another one when I collected my shepherds' pie at the counter and settled down to some serious eating.

When I was done I obligingly took my plate to the kitchen hatch for dirties and got a third pint and used it to stake my table while I took a leak. When I returned I found Harry right in the process of taking his pint from the barman. I gave Harry mild shit for paying for his beer and told him he was my guest.

We sat down and engaged in a bit of banter about the time at the cottage and our present lives and stuff like that, and Harry updated me on Richard and Nancy. Things weren't good there; there was even some talk of a divorce. Then Harry said:

"Uncle Don paid my Mom a Christmas visit."

"Yeah?"

"Uncle Don. The cop that used to work with my father."

"Got him."

"I took that opportunity to pump him a little over a drink. He said they're getting reports every day about the mysterious guy last seen with Peter Schmidt. He said they'd already had a few dozen."

"Oh Jesus. Fuck."

"He also said that all of them were false and that everyone was sick of the whole fucking thing and that no one really wanted to nail the guy that killed Schmidt because he'd actually done society a favor. He'd had a few by the time he said that, and he sounded pretty sincere."

"Did he mention any details?"

"Details? What details?"

"Like who made the report." And I told Harry about my unexpected meeting with the security guard from Salmon Arms. He was aghast.

"Fuck. And you're moving there? That's like sticking your head in a noose."

"You just told me the cops were sick of looking for me. You just told me they basically wanted to shake my hand, and wish me the best."

"Yeah, and it's true, but you gotta understand something. Most of the things cops do, they don't want to do them. They aren't pleasant to do. But they do them anyway because it's their job."

"What are you saying? Make it simple."

"They won't go out of their way to look for you. But if you present yourself to them on a fucking tray they'll have no choice but to do what they have to do. Get it?"

"Do you think moving to that house is presenting myself on a fucking tray?"

Harry shook his head.

"Hard to tell," he said. "If that idiot from Salmon Arms keeps insisting he recognized you, they'll eventually have to send someone along to check it out."

"So it's a question of him camping outside a police station with a placard."

"Something along those lines. If he comes in and reports you just once, they'll probably toss it."

"But they might not."

"They might not."

"It definitely gives me something to think about," I said.