The Homeless Millionaire

On Saturday morning, I returned home to find Roch sitting in the kitchen with a coffee and a cigarette. It was ironic: I'd missed him the last couple of mornings, and wished that he was there. After the run-in with Tracy, I wanted to be alone, and there he was.

We were good friends, and he knew something was up right away. He asked me what was wrong, and I really didn't want to tell him. But of course I did. I knew that I'd feel even worse if I didn't.

It wasn't easy. It necessitated opening one of the three bottles of wine that were left. When I fell silent Roch shook his head, pulled on his cigarette, ran his fingers through his hair, then shook his head again a couple of times. Looking down at the table, he said:

"I didn't want to tell you, Mike, but... I thought she was a whore right from the start. Well okay, maybe not from the moment I saw her for the first time, but after you'd told me about her when we were driving back from the cottage—you know, that clinched it for me. You told me she was hot in bed, right?"

He looked at me and puffed on his cigarette and broke into a grin. He said:

"Time for a quiz, ladies and gentlemen: what do you call a woman that appears on a guy's doorstep in the middle of the night, fucks like a professional, and disappears by the morning? A whore, ladies and gentlemen; a whore."

"I think I need some more wine," I said.

"So do I," Roch said. "I have something to tell you, too."

"Something connected to your mysterious absence here over the past couple of days?"

"Yes."

I got busy with the corkscrew and we had a short but intense exchange about the necessity of obtaining more wine in the nearest future; there was just a single unopened bottle left. We were in full agreement that this constituted a grave emergency.

Roch declared he'd lay in a fresh supply that very afternoon. Then he said:

"Actually, I've got a situation that's similar to yours. I've got myself a girlfriend. No, that's not right. I've got myself a new fuck. I spent the last couple of nights at her place. But I'm not enjoying it, it's not what I wanted. So my new fuck will change into an old fuck sometime in the very near future. Hard to say when. Maybe I'll try and drag it out until I've identified another new fuck."

"What's wrong?" I asked. It was nice to ask what was wrong, instead of being asked.

"Pour me some more wine, okay? This is going to be heavy work. Basically, Mike, my new fuck is a whore, too, only she doesn't fuck as well as your does. She's a different kind of whore. She plans for the long term. She gets her payoff a long way down the road, but man, it's one hell of a payoff. It's not just enough money to lead a nice life, it's the whole package: a house, a husband, kids."

"There's nothing wrong with wanting a house, a husband, and kids," I said.

"There's plenty wrong when someone just uses you to get what they want."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about Anne-Marie. That's her name. She's pretty, too. I've had the hots for her for a while. I met her nearly a year ago and I couldn't get anywhere with her, she wouldn't give me the time of day. The moment I'd become the owner of a house—boom! Magic transformation. She cooked me breakfast the last two days, can you believe that? Bad move, very bad move. She's a fucking rotten cook."

Roch refreshed himself with some wine, lit a fresh cigarette, and added:

"When you come into a bit of money or property or both everyone suddenly wants to be your friend, Mike."

"Hey," I said. "Let me make something clear. We didn't become friends just because I wanted free cigarettes. I mean it may have helped a little, but look—I've got a pack. Would you like one?"

We started laughing.

Right after that Roch left to work on his aunt's house, taking the last bottle of Beaujolais with him in case, he said, he experienced a sudden crisis in motivation. I ate breakfast, and before long I was in bed and asleep.

I slept for a long time, most likely because of the wine. I woke up around five in the afternoon; the sun had already begun to set. I had a coffee and a couple of cigarettes and a long bath. Then I dressed for work and went to the Chinese place for dinner and sat there over a pot of green tea for a long time after I'd finished my combination plate. My fortune cookie told me not to regret anything that made me smile. I sat and smoked and came up with at least twenty occasions when I'd smiled only to regret it immediately.

I got to work twenty minutes early, and Larry was so happy he offered me one of his cigarettes. I smoked his Craven A while he gave me the rundown on the situation. Things were busy, they had been busy throughout the afternoon. Five out of the six rooms upstairs had guests, and the sixth was taken by a really young couple a moment after I'd come in. The guy exchanged wisecracks with Larry about not having a place to fuck. They had a whole conversation about it while the girl looked more and more embarrassed. Larry went to show them to their room and returned to say:

"I'm going to fuck off now. We're full up, so you'll have to turn people away until someone checks out. Make sure you change those sheets fast, eh? By the way, there's a real looker in number four, make sure you check her out when she checks out, ha ha. Wouldn't mind jumping her bones myself if I weren't a family man."

I watched the family man leave, thinking about his wife. I wondered whether she was as ugly as him. I chewed on that mystery for quite a while. From time to time, the front door bell chimed and I opened the door to apologize and announce there were no rooms available. Each time the bell rang I hoped it wouldn't be Tracy with some guy, and it wasn't. Then I stopped being afraid of it being Tracy because I thought I'd enjoy telling her she wouldn't be able to fuck in the Montrose Hotel, not that night. No one checked out: Sunday was coming up, and people weren't in a hurry to get home.

By midnight I had turned away five couples of varying shapes, sizes, and in different stages of inebriation. I was very polite and full of regret that there were no rooms free and only one guy, really drunk, started to get difficult. Luckily, his girl dragged him away after he'd offered to poke me in the snoot.

Things got really quiet after midnight; the bell rang only once in the next couple of hours, and I opened the door to see an old woman in a quilted bathrobe and slippers. She was looking for her cat; I told her there weren't any cats present at the Montrose.

She looked at me as if I were lying and instructed me to notify her at once if a cat showed up, no matter when, even if it was four in the morning. It was a very special cat and she was really worried about it. She lived next door, and she'd be awake all night with worry, anyway. The cat's name was Tootsie, it was black on white, and didn't take kindly to strangers. She had prepared a lovely meal for her Tootsie, chopped cod fillet with milk and butter. Did I know cats were just as intelligent as people?

I barely stopped myself from telling her Tootsie was probably busy composing a symphony or writing a novel in a secret hideaway where she wouldn't be disturbed by her owner's constant prattle. I told her repeatedly that I would notify her immediately if Tootsie showed up, requesting a room; after the fourth or fifth time, she finally shuffled away, mumbling something. It was only then that I realized she'd been drinking.

I didn't see Tootsie that night. Instead, I saw Tracy.

It was nearing three in the morning when I heard a door open upstairs: someone was finally ready to check out. I listened to steps coming down the stairs without looking up: Houghton-Briggs had laid in a fresh supply of magazines, and these included a month-old Esquire with a good short story. I was halfway through it, and loath to stop reading. I only looked up from the magazine when I heard the steps approach the reception counter.

She was standing by the front door already, wearing her black mac, and pretending to admire the umbrella stand by the door so that she wouldn't have to look at me. Her guy was a different guy than the previous night. He was middle-aged, and wore a checked tweed jacket with jeans and an open–necked shirt. He had short curly blond hair and a silly moustache that looked like a smear of egg yolk he'd forgotten to wipe off. His beady blue eyes were twinkling with joy. He'd probably just had a blowjob that had catapulted him into outer space. I knew from experience Tracy was capable of giving a blowjob like that.

He turned in the key and tipped me a full dollar and I showed them out; Tracy gave me an imperious glance, and thanked me for opening the door. I returned to my spot behind the reception counter and tried to continue reading the story, it was really good. But I couldn't focus, I kept thinking about Tracy's behavior. I had the feeling that she liked the Montrose, and that likely I'd be seeing her again and again.

Suddenly, I didn't feel like working at the Montrose any more.