The Homeless Millionaire

I woke up with the feeling something was very, very wrong.

Then I remembered what I'd been up to prior to falling asleep and that feeling—that something was seriously wrong—ceased to be mysterious. I had taken part in an armed robbery. Short of killing someone, things couldn't be more wrong.

I opened my eyes and was reassured: everything looked normal. The window of my room faced west, and the setting sun gave everything a reddish hue. I listened: a car passed in the street outside, a bird twittered in the huge tree growing in the backyard, another bird cooed, another screeched. But there were also noises coming from downstairs, little noises—a knock, a scrape, a couple of soft thumps. Cops?

I had no idea how cops would behave if they entered the house: would they shout 'police, come out with your hands up', or would they creep around, guns ready? They thought that they were dealing with an armed robber. They would go the stealthy route.

More noises came from downstairs: a soft knock, a muted rattle. I had to investigate. I slid off the bed feeling far from brave and did some creeping of my own, swearing under my breath when the floor creaked. I'd left the door to my room ajar: I put an ear to the slit. Total silence. I opened the door and poked my head out—nothing. I was about to persuade myself that I'd been imagining things when I heard a soft, muffled cough downstairs. I knew that cough, and I relaxed.

"Roch?" I called out softly.

He didn't answer. I went downstairs, still in the cautious mode, but it was impossible to use that staircase without making a lot of noise, even after repairs.

"Roch?" I called again. Another cough: that seemed to be his preferred means of communication. I ran my hands over my face and hair and entered the kitchen.

Roch was sitting at the kitchen table, smoking a cigarette and looking completely exhausted. There was a bottle of brandy in front of him. It had been freshly opened—there was maybe a glassful missing— but I could see no glass. I opened the cupboard and took out a couple of small brandy snifters. They didn't look too clean, but what the hell: alcohol was a disinfectant.

"Roch," I said, sitting down and putting the glasses on the table. He finally looked at me. His eyes were sunk in pools of black, as if someone had punched him there. He glanced at the glasses and picked up the bottle and poured two big brandies.

"Salut," he said, and threw the contents of his glass back into his mouth. I followed suit. When I could breathe again, I said:

"You okay?"

"No."

"I've been going crazy with worry. I heard the alarm go off. What the fuck did you do?"

"Michel set it off by accident when he went out to get the van. We ran. We ran like hell."

"Where were you all this time, then? I was waiting for you to show up all morning."

"We were holed up at Michel's. We had a hell of a time smuggling all this stuff into his room, his roommates didn't leave the house until noon. And we were worried about you. It wasn't fun."

"What stuff? You said you ran like hell."

"We did, but we took as much as we could carry, too. We got to Michel's car, no problem. There was no one around. It was crazy. We ran into a couple of drunks arguing on one of the corners. They didn't even look at us. That alarm was making a hell of a row, but no one seemed to care. It was fucking crazy."

"You drove straight to his place?"

"I wanted to come here, but he wouldn't hear of it. He said he had a hiding place all prepared for that stuff, the fucking liar. You know where everything is? Under his fucking bed. He's got this big bedspread reaching the floor. That's his top secret hiding place."

"You didn't run into any cops?"

"None, man. None."

"Amazing."

We sat together for a while, reflecting on our amazing good luck and drinking brandy. Eventually we became hungry, and found we'd run out of eggs. Roch went to wash himself while I got my wallet, and went out to buy groceries. It was the brave thing to do.

I had to fight the urge to look over my shoulder all the way to the store. When I got there, I discovered that my total capital amounted to twenty three dollars and a few cents; I'd thought I had more than that.

I spent a long time shopping, calculating and recalculating what I'd have to pay at the register every time I picked something off the shelf. It was unreal: I had a painting worth a million dollars under my pillow, but there I was, counting pennies.

When I was paying, I glanced at the newspapers on the stand next to the checkout counter and felt faint. The afternoon edition was out, and the museum robbery was the top news item. I dropped some coins on purpose to hide my face from the clerk until I had it under control. I was too uptight to buy a newspaper.

Michel hadn't been too scared to buy newspapers. Michel was fucking Robin Hood and Zorro and Superman and Batman all rolled into one. He showed up at Roch's place around seven in the evening with a whole bunch of papers under one arm, and a big paper bag full of Chinese food under the other. The hand belonging to the Chinese takeaway arm was clutching a big bottle of red wine, while his other hand held a six-pack of Brador.

"We're famous!" he announced, by way of greeting. "We have to celebrate."

Roch had emerged from his bedroom just a short while earlier, looking like a panda: white face and black pools around the eyes. I wanted to tell Michel what I thought about his setting the alarm off, but I was so hungry I decided speeches could wait.

Michel had brought a real feast, and we all ate like starving men, washing the food down with wine. Then we spent half an hour smoking and reading the papers. They called us daring and resourceful: one writer went so far as to say the robbery had been planned and executed by criminal masterminds. We all had a good laugh over that. Michel improved the general mood even further when he pulled out a bunch of banknotes, saying:

"I talked to my guy before I came here. Took along a couple of trinkets to prove I had the goods. You know what he did when he saw them? He put a hundred dollars down on the table without saying a word. I said a few words, and he put down an extra fifty. Some more well-chosen, intelligent words from me and he added another twenty. Fifty for each of you and seventy for me, okay? I did all the negotiating, and bought the food and the booze."

We didn't protest. We took the money, and put it away. It was a fucking lifesaver as far as I was concerned. I had less than ten bucks left after my visit to the store. I said:

"Thank you, Michel. There's something I wanted to ask you, though. You see, Roch told me you're storing all that stuff under your bed."

"Sure. It's the perfect spot."

"Oh, is it?"

"Yes. I got a good lock on my door and anyway the people in my house, they never look under beds. I do. The guy next room, you just wouldn't believe what he's got under his bed. It's a fucking jungle with wild animals and Viet Cong and everything. He's a fucking moron, walks around with an inhaler and red runny eyes complaining about his allergies. I told him he could try cleaning his room properly once in a while, and he felt insulted. He deserves all the suffering he gets. Don't you worry about our stuff, it's safe. Anyway it won't be there much longer. I'm taking the first batch to my guy day after tomorrow."

"Why not tomorrow?"

"He's closed for business tomorrow. He told me he wasn't feeling well, and needed a rest."

"That's odd."

"There's nothing odd about it. He's over seventy. When you're that age, you don't feel so good most of the time."

"You sure he'll manage to handle everything?" I said.

"Of course he will. He's been in the business for a very long time. Forty years, maybe more. How the hell do you think he got all those contacts? Stuff like that takes time, plenty of time."

"How long do you think it will take him to, you know, sell everything?"

"We're not selling everything," Michel said. "At least, I am not. I'm going to keep a picture, maybe even two. And I remember you saying you want to keep the Rembrandt. Correct?"

"Hey," Roch said. "What the fuck is this? You guys starting an art gallery? "

"Don't worry," Michel told him. "Whatever we keep comes out of our shares."

"That Rembrandt alone is worth a million."

"The stuff we have is worth over three million, easy. Maybe four."

That shut Roch up. Michel gave him a stern look, and added:

"I made an inventory before I came over. We can go over it now, and split everything into three shares."

"As long as I get my million plus," Roch said.

"You won't. Your share is worth over a million, for sure. But remember we won't be getting full value for the goods. We'll be selling everything at half price, maybe even less. But I think I can guarantee you're looking at six figures."

"A couple of hundred thousand?"

"Maybe."

"Shit," Roch said.

"That's how it works when you sell on the black market. Remember, my guy takes a provision, too. And it won't be small."

"Shit," Roch said again.

"I think it would be best if went over the list right away," Michel said.

We spent the rest of the evening going over the list of the stuff we had stolen. There was a total of 18 paintings and 38 other items, such as the gold medallion Michel had given me. It turned out that Michel had relented, and let Roch cut some paintings from their frames before the alarm went off. He'd changed his mind because those morons actually wanted to take even more stuff after securing the van. They wanted to load the fucking van full. Idiots!

Michel wanted to keep the Corot, and I was keeping the Rembrandt. Everything else would be sold, and Roch would get the biggest share. I couldn't count on more than maybe ten or twenty thousand in cash. That was okay. Even five thousand would have been okay.

I was one of the very few people in the world to own a painting by Rembrandt.