Blizzard Ball (20 page)

Zip’s mother transacted her son’s lottery activity at the local convenience store–the Cash and Dash. She thought the gambling exercise was ridiculous to start with, but Zip insisted. A nice young man named Fahti, always studying, would pause from his book, take the lottery tickets, and scan for a winner. She had been told all the tickets were losers and she had no desire to have more paper cluttering up her life. Fahti would just shake his head, drop the ticket in the trash, and go back into his book.

Zip was released from prison after six years due to overcrowding. By Zip’s calculation he should have won $1,850. Not the fortune he had hoped for, but a nice return on the $416 he had earned in laundry money. He had planned to use the money to buy an interest in a car-detailing business.

Zip raged and boiled inside. About the money, sure, but even more about his mother, defenseless and without guile, being repeatedly stooged by some lowlife scumbag. “Used to be you could trust people in the neighborhood.”

Zip stood outside the Cash and Dash and surveyed the frozen, boarded-up storefront. He still knew people who kept tabs on all things eastside. The convenience store owner, Jamal Madhta, was dead and his wife had left town, but as far as anyone knew, Fahti, a part-time employee, was still around. Zip set out to find that sonofabitch rip-off clerk.

Zip told his mother to move out of the house, go live with her sister until she heard from him. Couple of days at most. She protested. Zip understood that if this Fahti caught wind that he was being hunted, he might retaliate. Most likely by fire-bombing his mother’s house or some such terrorist shit.

“Look, that’s the way these people work.” He pointed toward the TV covering the news of a suicide detonation in the middle east.

Kirchner asked Tyler to arrange a visit to the television station where the BlizzardBall Lottery drawing had been conducted. He needed a physical fix on things to square with Tyler’s endless numbers, stats, and variables. The television station, nestled under a TV transmission tower with blinking KSTV call letters, was near the University of Minnesota. Tyler was waiting in the lobby.

“Hey, Kirch, meet Hoppy, our tour guide.” Tyler bowed at the waist, exaggerating the introduction.

“Please excuse my ill–mannered, yet capable, colleague.” Kirchner shook hands with Tad Hopkins, managing partner of the independent auditing firm Hopkins and Geisbauer, charged with overseeing the Lottery drawing.

“Yes, I’ve already encountered your analyst.” Hopkins gave Tyler a reserved nod. “This way, please.” Hopkins led them from the station lobby to a small studio dedicated to the BlizzardBall Lottery, with access controlled by a numeric touch pad. A fixed overhead camera provided constant video surveillance.

“Looks like a giant twin gumball machine.” Tyler tapped on one of the acrylic bubbles of the electronic Lottery ball apparatus.

“Please. The equipment’s very sensitive.” Hopkins straightened his slightly stooped shoulders and positioned himself between the machine and Tyler. “As you can see,” Hopkins said, “the ball draw-machine has two chambers. One chamber’s loaded with fifty-nine red balls for a Pick 5, and the other chamber’s loaded with thirty-nine white balls for a Pick 1, the BlizzardBall. The machine’s air velocity can be adjusted to move the balls at different speeds to ensure there are no fixed mixing patterns. Presently there are four drawing machines and four ball sets available for use in the BlizzardBall Lottery.” Hopkins pointed out that the specific machine and ball sets used for a given drawing were determined by random selection from among the available equipment inventory.

“Here we have another drawing method.” Hopkins moved on to a computer terminal. “Digital drawing systems.”

“The cartoon version,” Tyler quipped.

“Not exactly.” Hopkins wrinkled his forehead at Tyler. “We use the computer-generated drawing method for lower value lotteries, like the Daily 3. Instead of numbered Lottery balls being drawn from a machine, a computer randomly picks the numbers and displays them on a screen. The winning numbers are then presented digitally in an animation sequence and distributed to broadcast media for public airing.” Hopkins’ words came across with exacting clarity, aided by the sound-deadening panels on the ceiling and walls. “We find, however, the public is more comfortable with the tangible, visual presentation of the ball machines when the big jackpots are at stake.”

“What about insiders rigging the system to produce winning numbers for a specific draw date?” Kirchner’s inquiry was trained in on the BlizzardBall Lottery personnel.

“Pre-programming is impossible.” Hopkins explained there were an undetermined number of test draws before an actual drawing was conducted. Tampering could easily be detected. Plus, after the official drawing, further test draws were conducted with the machine to ensure the validity and randomness of the official drawing results.

“Any chance of a power surge or an electrical interruption?” Kirchner asked as he scanned the overhead lighting rigs and the cameras set on pedestals.

“No, we have backup generators, and each ball machine has its own independent power supply that allows it to run on batteries for approximately thirty minutes. And we insist all off-site venues have a redundant power supply as well.”

“Off-site?” Kirchner directed the question at Tyler, then swung it back to Hopkins. “You lost me. I thought you conducted the Lottery drawings here at the TV station.”

“Typically, that’s true, but occasionally the drawings are conducted elsewhere as part of a road show or to accommodate a special situation.”

“Where was the $750 million jackpot drawing held?”

“The downtown Westin in a large conference room. The TV studio simply wasn’t large enough to handle the intense media and public interest.”

“Who selected the location?”

“The Lottery director, Morty Frish.”

“Tell me about the database problem that interrupted the big jackpot drawing.” Kirchner thought back to the conversation he had had with Morty at the BCA office shortly after the Cash and Dash robbery.

“Never encountered a situation like that before.” Hopkins scratched the side of his neck, as though the question had set off a rash. “Prior to the drawing, we receive two database files containing the records of all eligible tickets purchased for the event: one file from the ticket equipment vendor and one from the BlizzardBall Lottery office. We verify receipt and affirm the counts are balanced prior to the drawing. There’s only an hour between the close of ticket sales and the drawing, so verification is always last-minute.

The file we received from Bonnie …” Hopkins stopped mid– sentence, suddenly aware he was speaking of the tragically deceased BlizzardBall data security manager. “Oh, my God, that poor woman.”

Kirchner gave Hopkins a moment to collect himself.

Hopkins continued, “The BlizzardBall file counts didn’t match up with the tickets sold and recorded by the equipment vendor. Bonnie’s database was one ticket short. A disaster, to be sure, but there was nothing we could do but stop the drawing and get the error corrected.”

“Could someone have hacked the BlizzardBall file and deleted a ticket?” Kirchner asked, looking first to Hopkins, then Tyler.

“Anything’s possible, but I don’t see how that would be to anyone’s advantage.” Hopkins squinted, as if trying to see the logic.

“Pretty clever distraction,” Tyler said. “Got you running in circles, didn’t it, Hoppy?

“Who was at the drawing?” Kirchner pressed on.

“Too many to be certain.” Hopkins shook his head. “I protested that it was impossible to run a secure operation with that many people hovering.”

“Got a list?” Kirchner directed the inquiry at Tyler.

Tyler pulled out his iPhone and tapped on the screen. “About a hundred and fifty authorized, but from all accounts security was lax and the place was overrun. No telling who was there.”

“As you can imagine, all hell broke loose,” Hopkins said apologetically, his voice breaking. “The TV personality had an on-air melt down and Morty was shouting. I was scrambling to get the ticket files balanced so we could get back on the air to conduct the drawing. We were all feeling the pressure that goes along with $750 million on the line.”

“Somebody didn’t follow the rules,” Tyler needled.

Hopkins swiped a handkerchief over the crown of his bald head. “In hindsight, I should have been more vigilant. It was total chaos. Once we received the corrected file from Bonnie, everyone was in a flustered rush to get the drawing restarted. We employed a backup machine rather than re-rack the original. The alternate machine and balls should have been dictated by our random selection process, but there was no time. We just grabbed the closest machine and ball sets at hand and put them into play.”

“Define we,” Kirchner pressed.

“Myself and Morty, maybe others, but we were in panic mode. Everybody was helping to get the drawing back on the air.”

“What else?” Tyler coached.

“Typically we conduct our post-draw test immediately after the drawing to determine if the machine’s behavior fell within statistical expectations. But we were swamped by the press and the frenzied scene. So we packed up and conducted the post drawing back here at the TV studio.”

“Gotta come clean, Hoppy.” Tyler cocked his head.

“The alternate ball machine used should not have been employed. It was our oldest machine and did not have a variable air mixer.”

“And … ?” Tyler paused, thumbing through his text messages long enough to make sure nothing was lost in Hopkins’ account.

“All the balls were missing except one white ball that we found at the bottom of the machine.”

“Let me guess. Number 21, the winning BlizzardBall number?” Tyler said.

“Yes, and it proved to be an alien.” Hopkins removed an official racked ball and held it up at eye level for examination. “Our balls are solid rubber, tested to the milligram to ensure tolerances for weight and dimension. The ball we found was made of silicone, with weight inconsistent with our standards.”

“Can you get anything off the hotel video surveillance?” Kirchner turned to Tyler.

“No, it was like a mosh pit in there, lots of bodies, fixed position surveillance camera. Could have walked a midget in and out and not been detected. We’re checking out the hotel personnel and the equipment handlers.”

“Who knows about the compromised machine selection and alien ball?” Kirchner asked.

“Just our firm.” Hopkins pulled at his tie. “And Morty. He was furious, and told us to keep a lid on it, as the press would crucify our firm and the BlizzardBall Lottery if they found out.”

“So much for independent auditing,” Tyler said, piling on.

Kirchner actually felt a twinge of pity for the buffeted and spent bean counter, and cut him loose.

Kirchner and Tyler hung back in the empty TV station lobby. When Kirchner had entered the building, he hadn’t paid much attention to the large black-and-white portraits of early TV stars now staring at him from all angles: Milton Berle, Walter Cronkite, and a host of others, including his favorite character, Joe Friday from Dragnet. He had all he could do to keep from saying, “Just the facts, ma’am.” Tyler drifted off and was looking at a picture of Elvis from The Ed Sullivan Show.

“Okay,” Kirchner said, reeling Tyler back in. “Besides a lot of procedural fuckups, compromised machines, and missing balls, what do we have?”

Tyler gazed into space, his internal computer caching; then he blinked and regained focus. “My guess is the ball machine had a consistent and predictable airflow pattern, and the balls were of an inconsistent weight and dimension. The pairing would certainly compromise randomness and potentially result in a predictable draw pattern. With the right computing power and data points, some big ‘brain’ most likely constructed a probability model that could predict a relatively tight range of possible number hits. Then someone, insiders most likely at the BlizzardBall Lottery fenced off these picks from the public, minimizing duplicates, while the ‘brain’ bought up all the high probability combinations, transacting the purchase through the Cash and Dash via a Canadian agent.”

Kirchner put a hand up to pause Tyler, who was apt to outrun his headlights. “Without a full set of the Lottery balls available to test your theory, we got nada.”

“True enough,” Tyler said. “And I would suggest anyone smart enough to pull this off probably has recast those silicone balls into breast implants by now,” he smirked.

“Maybe these insiders aren’t so smart, if past history is any indicator.”

“Kemo Sabe know many things,” Tyler wisecracked, tilting his head toward the photo of Clayton Moore as the Lone Ranger.

Kirchner did not have to dig back very far to find the present day lottery, like days of old, was fertile ground for internal scheming. He related to Tyler that the Lottery director previous to Morty, George Fergusen, was caught playing loose with Lottery operating funds. In advance of the County Attorney’s Office investigation, Ferguson committed suicide. He overdosed on pain medication, took a stroll into the back yard of his home and slashed his wrist with a fish filet knife.

“Kind of a hara-kiri.” Tyler mimicked the Japanese suicide ritual of disembowelment.

“With Ferguson dead, the pending charges against him were dropped.”

“Just like the lottery.”

“How’s that?” Kirchner bit.

“Need not be present to win,” Tyler laughed.

Kirchner looked up at the photo of Joe Friday, as if pleading for patience. He shook his head and walked out of the TV studio into the parking lot ducking a raw, cold wind.

Zip knew from prison that birds of a feather flocked together. Especially minorities. Strength in numbers. Blacks, Chicanos, Indians, Asians, Aryans–where there was one, more were not far behind. Once Zip found out Fahti was a Pakistani, he simply looked for the mother ship. In this case, the Masjid Al-Rahman.

The Masjid Al-Rahman mosque, a storefront on University Avenue, was pinched in between an auto parts store and a pawn shop. Colorful posters with verses from the Qur’an were secured to the windows like “Special Sale” advertisements. Behind the posters, heavy drapes blocked the view into the building.