Blizzard Ball (26 page)

Kirchner didn’t want any involvement in the governor’s disposition of the winning lottery ticket. Nor was he interested in the offer to salvage his job. He really didn’t give a shit about it anymore. But the deal included Tyler, and as much as the kid irritated the hell out of him, he couldn’t stand by and watch Tyler’s career be flushed for what he considered his own ill-gotten plan. Besides, the kid was starting to grow on him. He reluctantly accepted the governor’s offer to short-circuit the BCA’s internal investigation levied at him and Tyler. Almost immediately, Kirchner began to second-guess his decision. After all, it meant he was a coconspirator to the governor’s lottery ticket plan.

Kirchner sat alone in his living room and listened to a leaky faucet dripping somewhere in the house. Not a day went by that he didn’t think about finding and terminating the carjacker that had killed his wife. Well, that day had come. But instead of feeling relief or closure, he had a sense of being spent and incompetent. Outside of a stint in the army and a couple of rock-bottom security jobs, he had worked his entire adult life in law enforcement. More and more he was missing critical investigative pieces, overlooking the obvious. Or making deals off the reservation. Not that others particularly noticed or cared, but he did. Back in the early days of his career he ran so hard and fast he was able to distance himself from internal misgivings. But he couldn’t outrun himself anymore. In the end he had failed his wife, just like he almost always did. He picked up the kirpan dagger off the coffee table. The strange gift the Imam Akmani had pushed on him. Perhaps it was luck or a freak confluence of events that had erased Eli “Zip” Cooper. But Kirchner could take no credit. Nor did he feel any responsibility to chase down or investigate the death of his wife’s killer. He withdrew the dagger from its scabbard and wrapped a tight grip around its bone handle. “Maybe this is what they call divine justice,” he said tightly, elevating his hand overhead and slamming the dagger into the table.

Kirchner went outside and stood on his back deck. The winter night was cool and crisp. He popped a peppermint candy into his mouth and raised his head toward the heavens. A billion stars spread out across a seamless sky. Each star a wish, its own lottery of dreams. Some people wished upon a star and some didn’t. Some sold out their dreams and took what they could get. Some held their dreams and wishes as close and sacred as a child. Kirchner wasn’t sure if he had a dream left. The only hope he had to hang onto was that she would forgive him.

Kirchner leaned on a granite column inside the state capitol’s rotunda and awaited the start of the Lottery award ceremony. The marble floor in the center of the rotunda featured an inlaid eight-point North Star crafted of glass and brass. From the star, the rotunda soared 142 feet to the domed ceiling. At the base of the dome were allegorical murals. In loose brushwork and vivid colors, full-breasted women offered fertility to the furrowed land worked by muscular men and beasts of burden in pursuit of the fruits of their labors. In between the rotunda columns, an oversized facsimile check was cradled by an easel, next to a podium. Television, radio, and newspaper crews strung cable, checked lighting and sound, and jockeyed for position. Politicians and onlookers filed in.

A Lottery spokesperson tapped the microphone. “This thing on? Test, test?” The governor appeared and began to work the crowd. Kirchner watched as he bent down to whisper something to a woman seated in a metal folding chair near the podium. It was Alita, and next to her sat Brian, the counterfeiter, his head shaved and partially bandaged.

“Agent Kirchner!” A woman’s voice boomed from across the rotunda. Her heels clicked on the stone floor as she bumped her way toward him. “Figured you’d be here,” she said. It was Lasiandra from the bank. “I didn’t want to miss this show. Better than Wheel of Fortune, huh? Now, when you gonna fix my parking tickets?”

“Laaaadies and gentleman, members of the media and television audience.” The spokesperson stretched his words like a ringside announcer and called the attendees to attention, “In a moment, you will be introduced to the winner of the richest Lottery jackpot ever to be awarded. Seven hundred and fifty miiiiiiillion dollars.” His voice rose to the domed ceiling, taking Kirchner’s attention with it to heads bowed over the balcony rimming the rotunda. Among them he spotted Imam Akmani wearing his skull cap and beaming back at him. Kirchner nodded.

“Good luck and good fortune has found today’s favorite,” the Lottery spokesperson said, “but keep buying those lottery tickets, because you could be the next winner.”

Around the rotunda the crowd bobbed their heads at the promise of riches in waiting. Even the jaded media types seemed to have caught Lottery fever. Kirchner sensed a new reality. The architectural and historical solemnities of the halls of government had been transformed into decorative accents for a gambling parlor. The mothers of earth in the murals had been recast as burlesque show girls and the balcony turned into the rail of a blackjack table with players pushing in to see the action. The inlaid star on the floor of the rotunda was a roulette wheel and the announcer an unabashed croupier coaxing ever-larger bets. Here the suckers pony up and the politicians rake the pot.

“Now, on behalf of the BlizzardBall Lottery,” the spokesperson said as he pointed toward an approaching cluster of security guards, “I would like to introduce you to the winner of the largest jackpot ever awarded. Please welcome Mr. Carlos Vargas.”

The room erupted in applause. The governor gave Carlos a pat on the shoulder as he stepped up onto the platform with the empty sleeve of his sport coat flapping. A young woman with a beauty-queen smile tried to present the poster-sized check. It tilted in the grasp of the one-armed man. The cameras flashed and microphones pushed toward Carlos like cobra heads.

“How does it feel to be one of the richest men on the planet?”

“Why did you wait so long before coming forward?”

“How is it you bought a ticket in St. Paul when you’re from Albert Lea?”

“What is the first thing you’re going to buy?”

Carlos stood firmly planted on the stage with a large fixed grin on his face.

“I am very happy. Thank you.” Carlos said in response to every question. “Yes, I am very happy. Thank you,” his smile disarming and guileless as a new morning.

The spokesperson stepped into the line of questions. “Mr. Vargas is a native of Mexico. English is his second language. I think most of us would be near-speechless at a time like this.” The spokesperson removed a three-by-five card from his coat pocket. “Mr. Vargas, in a prepared statement, says he’s humbled by his good fortune and feels it represents both an opportunity and a responsibility to help others in the community. Details will be forthcoming.”

Kirchner shook his head at the comical and totally absurd performance. Carlos, by feigning poor English, had successfully dodged the scrutiny of the media circus.

The spokesperson put a congratulatory arm on Carlos’s shoulder and directed him away from the podium. Carlos waved energetically. The security guards closed rank and ushered him into a waiting chauffeured Lincoln Town Car. Alita and Brian joined him and they sped off.

You’re rich, Carlos!” Alita squeezed his brown gnarled hand. “Omigod, I can’t believe this is really happening.” Her smile had not relaxed since they left the press conference.

“I am just a caballos culo,” Carlos said and shook his head.

“If you were a horse, I’d understand the long face,” Alita laughed, in an attempt to coax some enthusiasm from Carlos. “Think of what you can do with the money.”

“I help out my old friend today. That is all. Time will tell if I made the right decision.” The car stopped at a red light and Carlos looked out the window toward a car wash on the near corner. It was a cold but sunny winter morning. Steam billowed out of the car wash door as it opened to let a car into the wash bay. From the misty cloud, the pre-wash man emerged with a pressure hose wand. He sprayed the tires and rocker panels of the incoming car. His clothes were damp and wet from the back spray. The entry garage door shut and the exit door opened. Out popped a clean car with a gang of rag men tagging along the slowly rolling vehicle. The car stopped, and two men previously not visible, the window cleaner and vacuum man, jumped out of the car like circus clowns. The car owner appeared and palmed a tip into the hand of a rag man who held open the car door. The car pulled away, and like rats caught in daylight, the crew scurried back into the wet damp garage.

“When I was a poor laborer like my compadres,” said Carlos as he rapped his knuckles on the car window in the direction of the car wash and addressed no one in particular, “I was obsessed with owning something. New clothes, mostly a car, and if God was willing, a piece of land. When I lost my arm, the settlement allowed me to purchase the restaurant. And to my surprise, it became moderately successful. Successful enough for me to say to the entire town and myself, “Hey, look at me. I’m Carlos, I made it; I’m special.” Then, just as I gained success, I became fearful that I would lose it. I became upset and anxious. Then one night, I had a dream. I was back in the grain elevator, under the corn, the auger chewing on my arm like death’s appetizer. The end was certain. But I wanted to bring my restaurant with me and the friends that made me feel important. This is how crazy I’d become. The bite of the auger churned me into another world and stripped me of my possessions, and I found myself alone, the lowly Mexican laborer. When I awoke from the nightmare. I was suddenly at peace with myself.”

Carlos dug the receipt for the wire transfer of lottery funds out of his pocket. He looked at it and handed it to Alita. “Only a crazy person would want this.”

Alita and Brian looked at each other, deflated. It was as though someone had taken away the spiked punch bowl just as the party was getting started, someone with the foresight to think about what the hangover would feel like.

“It’s not like we asked for this,” Alita said, her excitement tempered. “The lottery found us.”

“And it brought trouble,” Carlos said.

“But that was different. We’re now free to do whatever we want.”

“Does the sleeping coyote lose its cunning?” Carlos gently tapped Alita’s knee. “Don’t be foolish, nothing’s free.”

The car fell silent except for the hum of the tires as they drove toward Albert Lea.

Kirchner and Tyler met at the Mai Village Vietnamese restaurant on University Avenue for lunch and to write a final case report. The BCA brass had lost interest in the misconduct investigation against Kirchner and Tyler by way of the governor’s office. The media and conspiracy theorists had also moved on to more open-ended stories.

“Pretty easy to use, once you get the hang of it.” Tyler twiddled his chopsticks in between stabs at the cashew chicken dish.

“Didn’t need ’em in ’Nam. Don’t need ’em here.” Kirchner proceeded with a fork. “Whattya got?”

Tyler pushed his plate aside, opened his laptop, and began reading the investigation bullet points. “Two men of Mexican descent suspected of robbing the Cash and Dash convenience store …”

Kirchner reached over and snapped down the screen of Tyler’s computer. “Save it.” He settled back in his chair. “Basically, we’ve got fraud, robbery, a pile of bodies, and sadistic brutality. We put our jobs at risk and got bupkis to show for it. Gratifying, ain’t it, kid?”

“We took the scheme down,” Tyler mumbled, his cheeks full of sticky rice.

“The scheme took itself down, as they usually do. Losers tend to sabotage themselves, self-destruct. We just manage the consequences.”

“But—I mean—you came up with the winning lottery ticket,” Tyler said. He looked like an anxious little boy grasping for something to believe in. “There’s got to be some satisfaction in that, even though we can’t put it in the report.”

Kirchner thought about that for a moment. Carlos, with the help of resources on loan from the governor, had established a foundation to assist recent immigrants with small business grants. He set up an office in the historic Freeborn Bank building near his restaurant in Albert Lea. Alita was the foundation administrator. One of the first grants was to Imam Akmani to help him open his own retail appliance business. The governor and his surrogates were greasing all the skids, making sure there’d be no blowback. Alita was engaged to be married to Brian, a big bash was planned. Kirchner had to smile at her good fortune even though present company was not invited.

Kirchner absent-mindedly cracked open his fortune cookie and pulled on the ribbon of white paper. He read the string of six good-luck numbers and passed it to Tyler. “Tell me again about the hot zone. The Lottery’s up to $110 million.”

$1,000,000

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Dennis Kelly is a marketing professional with twenty-five years’ experience in developing and administering sweepstakes, lottery, games, and contests. He knows something about luck, and the novel BlizzardBall gives it center stage.