The Homeless Millionaire

For so-called normal people, leading so-called normal lives, Friday is a day filled with happy anticipation. Here comes the weekend! Just a few more hours, and it will be time for some fun!

Just like so-called normal people, Roch and I were filled with anticipation that Friday morning. However, our anticipation was mixed with dread. Roch was to see Michel that evening, meet him—seemingly by chance—in a downtown bar.

Talleyrand, the Machiavellian French diplomat, once said words were simply a means of hiding one's real thoughts. It was very true that morning. Roch and I talked almost incessantly over breakfast and during the drive to his aunt's turreted mansion. Neither of us said a word about the robbery and the upcoming meeting with Michel, and that said a lot.

When we arrived at the house, we began by inspecting the top floor. I hadn't been there before. The door on the top of the staircase led to a flat complete with its own kitchenette and bathroom. It had been converted into a self-contained unit just a few years earlier. Occupied by a succession of nurses who cared for Roch's aunt during her final years, it needed very little work. Nurses were tidy and clean; nurses really had it together.

The only room that needed a fresh coat of paint was the kitchenette. We decided that was what we'd do next; that way, Roch would be able to tell his old man we'd done the whole top floor. He always briefed his father on progress made after Sunday's dinner, when his old man was full of food and booze.

"It's about the only time when he's not in his professional mode," Roch told me. "You have no idea what a fucking horror life is when your old man is an efficiency expert. One big stream of constant criticisms. You're doing this wrong, you forgot this, you should do that, and so on. Mother doesn't let him do that to herself, and Heloise always escapes into hysterics, so that makes me the victim by default."

He babbled on about how happy he'd been to move out of the family home while I silently smoked a cigarette, and wondered what he'd find out from Michel that evening. When Roch finally shut up, I said:

"What time do you think you'll be back tonight?"

"Jesus, Mike, we've been over this already. I'll be back when I'll be back, okay? Let 's just get going with this. Can you bring up the trays and a can of paint from downstairs? I'll get the drop sheets."

"White?" The kitchen had been painted a pale banana yellow; it had turned orange in the corner over the tiny, two-coil electric stove. Roch said:

"Yeah, white. It will mean two coats, maybe three for that corner, but fuck it. Let's go with white."

"Okay," I said. I went down to the ground floor to fetch the stuff, and found out I needed another cigarette before starting work. So I smoked it standing by the front window, looking out onto the street. It was all big residential houses and completely deserted: no one and nothing except for a cat trotting along the sidewalk on my side of the street.

It was white with a couple of black patches and didn't look at me even though I tapped the the window pane to get its attention. It just flicked an ear my way for a moment. That cat knew exactly where it was going. I wished I felt the same way.

Roch and I worked on the kitchenette in silence, broken only by the slap and whirr of the paint rollers. We put down the first coat in a little over two hours. Roch went down to make some coffee while I fucked around with a paintbrush, doing the corners. In the corner to the left of the entrance, someone had written a short column of tiny numbers:

4

3

1

The numerals were so tiny that they were invisible a couple of steps away. They had been written with a blue ballpoint pen, and I had to slop on extra paint to wipe them out. Somehow, that felt spooky. Someone had written that for a reason. There was a message of some sort in those numbers. Maybe it was a message meant for me.

When I went downstairs, I told Roch about the tiny numbers on the wall. I must have had a stupid look on my face, because he started laughing.

"Yeah, it's sign for sure," he said. "They add up to eight, maybe you should play with that. You know something, that paint will take a while to dry, let's just go out and have a long lunch. There's that place round the corner I told you about. You can buy a paper on the way, and read your horoscope. Maybe it will make you feel better."

I didn't tell him to go fuck himself because that was the moment I had an idea what those numbers could mean. There were four people initially involved in the robbery: us three and Armand, who had just died. There were three of us now; soon, there would only be one.

I tried to shake that mood, but it just wouldn't go away. We went for that lunch, drank beer and ate, surrounded by other people going about their lives. Everything was normal, everything was fine, and then I caught myself watching Roch's plate. He had four of the famous Belgian fries left.

I watched him eat one; that left three. Then he speared a couple with his fork and ate them, leaving one. He snatched it up with his fingers when the waitress came round to take our plates away, looked at it, and said:

"Fuck! It's all burnt on one side." And he tossed it into the ashtray with disdain.

I stood up, and said:

"Let's go, the paint will be dry by now."

We finished painting the kitchenette pretty quickly. Then Roch dropped me off at home. I got out of the car and was waiting for him to get out, too. But instead, he rolled down his window and told me he was driving to his parents' place: he'd promised his mother he would return the car by the evening. He also informed me that he wouldn't return home until after he'd seen Michel.

I watched him drive off and saw that the Toyota's registration number ended in 431. I needed a drink. I needed many drinks, and fast.

The house was well stocked for that. There was a total of thirteen bottles of wine: ten of Beaujolais, and three of German white. I opened a bottle of that, it was weaker and not as good as the Beaujolais and thanks to that it wouldn't get me drunk as quickly.

I wandered around the house with a glass in my hand, looking around. I didn't enter Roch's room—it felt wrong—but I examined every other room. There was no writing on any of the walls.

I finished the German white looking at my Rembrandt. I was still keeping it under my pillow, wrapped in a T-shirt. It definitely wasn't the best place to hide a stolen million-dollar painting.

I tried to think of a better hiding place. Holding the Rembrandt, I glanced around my room. It had next to no furniture; basically, the only thing I could do was to put it in my bag. I decided I'd re-wrap it in my T-shirt, put the resulting bundle in my haversack, and then put the haversack in my bag.

While I was doing that, I looked at the back of the picture. It was the first time I did that. The museum's catalog number was written on the back of the frame in indelible ink. It consisted of a bunch of letters separated by a slash, and followed by three digits: 431.

My hands were shaking when I put the haversack in my bag. Then I jammed the bag between my bed and the wall. I made sure opening the bag involved moving the mattress. Then I went down to the kitchen and got going on the Beaujolais and cigarettes.

Halfway through my second bottle, I became sleepy from all that smoking. I put my head down on my arms, and fell asleep.

I woke up when the front door slammed shut. I looked at the kitchen clock: it showed a couple of minutes past midnight.

I listened to Roch approach down the hallway, trying to guess the kind of news he brought from the way he was walking. I couldn't tell. Then he appeared in the doorway and his face was pale and pinched with fear. He said:

"Sober up, Mike. I've got mixed news.. We've made contact with the museum guys and they're willing to pay, but Michel's got cops on his tail."