Blizzard Ball (15 page)

“Wrong!” Earl unsheathed the large bowie knife from his hip and ripped through the phone cord with an uppercut. A backhand swing sliced Jake’s tie just below the knot.

“Please, please, don’t hurt me.” Bonnie cowered. Jake held tight to the door jamb.

“Morty, I mean Mr. Frish, the Lottery director,” Jake stammered, “will be in tomorrow. I’m sure he can assist you.”

“We’ll wait.”

“I think you should know I’m expected back in the conference room.” Jake hoped that alerting Earl to the fact that there were others in the building would scare him off.

“I thought you weren’t open for business.” Earl looked accusingly at Bonnie.

“We’re not, technically, holiday schedule and all,” Jake interposed. “But I agreed to meet a Lottery winner and get the paperwork out of the way.”

Bonnie dropped her chin to her chest, and Jake realized he’d given out too much information.

“The BlizzardBall Jackpot?” Earl saw Jake flinch. “No fucking way.” He raked his hand across Bonnie’s desk, clearing the contents and sending them against the wall. “That’s my goddamn money!”

Earl waved the knife in Jake’s direction. “Get busy and issue a press release about how I got ripped off by your BlizzardBall scheme. Name’s Earl. Then we’ll all go have a chat with your winner who’s treading on my money.”

“What are your demands?” Jake prompted. “I mean at the very least, you gotta order some food. You can’t let ’em starve you out.”

“You better not be fooling with me.” Earl gave Jake a hard stare, then softened. “Pizza, with the works.”

“I was thinking a Jimmy John for me.” Jake started to make a list. “What about you, Bonnie?”

“What is this, a picnic?” Bonnie pressed her palms against her face. “God help me.”

“JEFF JARDINE HERE. CHANNEL 11 NEWS. Two employees of the BlizzardBall Lottery and a Lottery jackpot claimant, believed to be a Canadian national, were taken hostage earlier today by a captor identified as Earl Swanson, an unemployed miner from the Iron Range. Swanson demands to be awarded the BlizzardBall jackpot prize, claiming he was victimized when the Lottery drawing was suspended and eventually restarted after a long delay. Swanson’s lottery ticket included the first number drawn, a ten.”

Jardine was pointing to numbers superimposed on the TV picture, displayed in the order they were drawn.

[10], 34, 22, 50, 37 BB 21. Swanson’s numbers

34, 22, 50, 37, [16] BB 21. Winning numbers

If the game had not been restarted and the ten not discarded, all of Swanson’s numbers would have matched the first five red balls drawn plus the BlizzardBall. However, the ten was discarded in the restart and supplanted by the number sixteen. SWAT teams and hostage negotiators are on the scene as is a swelling of sympathizers, some carrying “BuzzardBall” signs. We now take you to Hibbing, Minnesota, where we have a reporter standing by.

The TV scene cut from the Lottery headquarters to a white van with a satellite boom parked along a tree-lined street, where an attractive female stood outside the home of Earl Swanson. Although the winter day was mild, the reporter wore calf-high buckskin mukluks more suitable for the Arctic. Her puffy red down jacket with a Channel 11 logo on its sleeve bloated her midsection. A Russian Cossack hat topped her blonde head. The cameraman, wearing only a thin blue windbreaker and tennis shoes, followed the reporter to the front door. The aluminum storm door opened fast and wide, and the reporter stepped back quickly to keep from being swept off the concrete steps.

“Mrs. Maureen Swanson?” the reporter asked, regaining her balance.

“None of your damn business,” Maureen’s sister-in-law, Florence, growled as she stuck her orange-thatched mane out the door. “Now, get off this property,” she said as she pointed to the street. “And move that van.”

Floyd, Earl’s brother, dashed from the side of the house in a low crouch and laid a thick forearm across the cameraman’s throat.

“Screw his head off, Floyd!” Florence yelled from the steps.

“Stop it!” Maureen Swanson emerged from inside the house, pushing Florence aside. “Floyd, let that man go.”

The reporter seized on the opening, tapped the handheld microphone, and motioned the coughing cameraman into action. “We’re sorry for the intrusion, Mrs. Swanson. This must be a trying time for you. Perhaps you could share a few thoughts about your husband and the Lottery situation.”

“You don’t give a fig about me or my husband,” Maureen said as the wind lifted the bangs off her forehead. She had recieved the news about her husband at work and was still wearing her nurse’s assistant sea-spray green hospital scrubs. “You and the voyeurs will nag me until I talk to you,” she said as she waved a hand in the direction of the neighbors gathered behind the reporter and the cars creeping past on the street. “So I’ll give you your sound bite.”

“My Earl is a good man who never hurt anyone in his life.” She twisted her wedding ring around her finger. “He was foolish to play the Lottery, but principled enough not to be manipulated by so-called technical difficulties. As far as I’m concerned,” she said as she pointed toward the camera, “the filthy, pathetic lottery is holding my husband hostage, as well as the souls of millions of other people every day. Obscene sums are dangled in front of folks, causing them to focus on what they don’t have. Brainwashing ’em into thinking that winning can change their lives. The clever parasites get you hooked on the drug of false hope with a little taste of a win here and there, and it never stops.”

Jessica, wearing a princess outfit and a little tiara, appeared at the door and latched onto her mother’s hand. “Mommy, there’s a man on the phone who wants you to talk to Daddy.”

Earl pushed Jake down the Lottery office hall and burst into the conference room where the happy winning bridegroom waited. Bonnie trailed behind with a limp, having lost a shoe somewhere along the way. “Hey, Canuck! Word is you got the winning ticket.”

Roddy scanned Earl’s burly figure, workman’s clothes, and unshaven face and considered that it all added up to a decidedly uncharacteristic Lottery official. “You are … ?”

“I’m the guy you’re trying to rip off.”

“How so, eh?” Roddy looked past Earl and saw that the side of Bonnie’s face was swollen and hanging slack like a Bell’s palsy victim’s, one eye lolled sideways. Jake looked like a circus clown with his red nose and necktie stub.

“As these peons can tell you,” Earl pointed an accusing finger at Bonnie and Jake standing stiffly against the conference room wall, “there was a mix-up with the numbers during the drawing. If we are to play by the rules, then my ticket’s the BlizzardBall jackpot winner.”

“Good luck with your situation, but it’s got nothing to do with me.” Roddy picked up the Lottery claim form and the envelope containing the winning jackpot ticket and stood to leave. “Guess I’ll revisit my business another day,” he said.

Earl grabbed a chair and smashed it against the wall. Cat-quick, he picked up a spoke from the chair base and wedged it between the handles of the conference room’s double entry door. “We got some business to take care of.” Earl kicked the broken chair parts aside. “Give me the ticket, Canuck.”

“Be cool, eh?” Roddy said, stealing backward steps. “I’ll tell you what, when I cash the ticket I’ll toss you a nice piece of the action. I understand you got screwed, and for reasons I don’t care to go into at the moment, it’s very much worth my while to complete this transaction discreetly.”

“Ain’t you charitable? Afraid they’ll dig up your unpaid parking tickets?”

“One other detail. I’ve signed the ticket,” Roddy said.

Earl brandished his bowie knife, took the ticket envelope from Roddy, and shoved it in his breast pocket.

Kirchner drove into the Lottery headquarters parking lot to a swarm of local TV crews, police and news helicopters buzzing the gray sky. He quickly established himself with the Roseville chief of police and entered the main floor of the Lottery building, now secured by the Roseville SWAT team. The Lottery director had been called but had not arrived. It was immediately understood that the BCA, with a multi-jurisdictional mandate and an existing stake in the game, would call the shots.

“Earl, this is Agent Kirchner,” he said in the screech of a bullhorn. “We understand you have a problem with the Lottery. We’ll get it straightened out. Please release the hostages. Earl, I know you’re a good guy.”

A quick search through the BCA’s crime database had found only a “DUI with aggravation” on Earl—he had resisted arrest. Earl had pleaded guilty, lost his license for six months, and paid a fine. That was three years ago. There was nothing to suggest criminal behavior.

Earl emerged from the conference room. “Bring me the head guy,” he shouted down the hallway, “along with my jackpot winnings and an apology for fucking things up.”

“Be cool, Earl,” Kirchner volleyed back through the horn. “We have a call coming in to your cell phone from your wife. Listen to her. She wants you home.”

The ringtone song We Will Rock You burst from Earl’s phone. “How’d you know I was here?” he said anxiously to his wife while keeping an eye on his hostages. “The TV?” Earl walked over to the conference room window and looked down at the media crews and growing number of supporters with signs. “BuzzardBall, they got that right. Everybody knows I’ve been cheated. Not going to let these leeches rip me off.”

“We don’t need the money!” his wife screamed. “Earl, don’t you do it. Please walk away from this madness.”

“I’m going to make them pay one way or another.” Earl clicked off.

Kirchner had been monitoring the call. He gave Earl about fifteen minutes to let his wife’s plea sink in and then picked up the bullhorn. “Earl, this is Agent Kirchner. Take my call.”

Earl picked up. “Yeah, this better be about delivering me my prize money.”

“Sounds like you’ve been had, Earl, but this is not the way to handle it, partner,” Kirchner said. “How about you release those folks you got huddled up and we chat about the ticket problem. Work something out.”

“Where’s the food we ordered?” Earl asked, and hung up.

A stand-off ensued. Kirchner was deep into studying the building’s layout with the SWAT team when he heard the Lottery director’s voice.

“What’s going on?” Morty barked, ducking under the yellow police tape as he rushed into the building. “Hell of a way to spend New Year’s. Who’s in charge? What’s the status?” He abruptly halted at the sight of Kirchner. “What are you doing here?”

Kirchner felt a flash of anger. Morty had a talent for trying to take control by tossing off rapid-fire questions and not waiting for answers. Kirchner would have none of it. The Lottery headquarters was Morty’s turf, but Kirchner was now the ringmaster.

“The status,” Kirchner said, meeting Morty head-on, “is that two of your employees, one of them being Bonnie, who I had a meeting with, and a big winner are holed up on the second floor, held hostage by a disgruntled lottery player.”

“Jackpot winner?” Morty asked as he took a step backwards, feeling the press of Kirchner into his personal space.

“Reported to have the winning Pick Six ticket,” Kirchner said, and watched the color drain from Morty’s face. “Probably from the Cash and Dash lottery mill.”

Kirchner had Morty off balance and piled it on. “What did you tell me about the internal drawing screwup?” asked Kirchner, recalling their meeting at the BCA. “That you had it straightened out?”

“You can’t hold me responsible for a nut case,” Morty protested.

“I want you off premises and out of sight,” Kirchner said with a dismissive wave, and pointed to the exit door. He needed to focus on the Lottery crisis, and his distaste for the Lottery director was getting in the way. He’d deal with him later. Once Bonnie was extricated from the hostage scene, he felt certain she’d throw Morty under the bus.

Morty started to object, but Kirchner held up a flat palm. “If our hostage taker gets one whiff of you, God knows what will happen. You understand?”

A SWAT member interrupted the conversation. “Our undercover pizza delivery guy confirms what we saw on the video survellance tape. The hostage taker’s armed with a hunting knife. No other weapons are apparent.”

Kirchner looked at his watch. The hostage siege had been in play for over five hours. Kirchner considered Swanson to be like a caged animal. The longer he was penned in, the more stressed and irrational he would become. With his deadly force limited to a hunting knife, he would be quickly overpowered by the SWAT team and injuries would hopefully be minimal. Kirchner cleared the building except for the SWAT team and gave the signal to move in.

“Everyone on the floor. Now!” a bullhorn barked from the SWAT team crouched behind shields in the hallway leading to the conference room. A tear gas grenade crashed through the conference room window and rolled around in smoking, fitful jerks. A strong wind came down from the flint-gray sky and gusted through the broken window, stirring office papers into a fury. Bonnie and Jake dropped belly-down to the carpet, coughing and crying. Roddy removed his shoe and used it to push away the broken window glass, and gasped for air.

Earl circled the room in slow motion like a vaporous ghost. Suddenly, he felt small, lost, and tired, aware of the corrosive black mood consuming him. Luck would never strike this close again. He’d always know he had been cheated. But he had pushed it too far. Right now all he wanted to do was go home, close his eyes, and sleep.

“I’m coming out,” he yelled, and threw the knife on the floor. “It’s over,” he said, and started to remove his vest.

Roddy, seeing Earl pitch the knife lurched and grabbed for the winning Lottery ticket in Earl’s breast pocket.

Earl caught Roddy in a bear hug and squeezed. “Explosives, don’t move,” he said in a tight whisper into the side of Roddy’s face. Earl could feel the sweat spring from Roddy’s greasy scalp and smell the sour stench of fear boil up on his breath. Roddy had snagged the detonation cord.

A battering ram smashed the conference room door. Earl and Roddy froze in their embrace. Red laser dots roamed the room and quickly trained on Earl’s forehead.