by Dennis Kelly
“Hey, man.” Rafie rubbed the sleep out of his eyes; the revelation of the tickets was coming into focus. “Maybe we should FedEx them back to Canada.” Rafie pointed at the shipping label.
“Shut the fuck up! If you weren’t so stupid, you’d be funny.” Eduardo swatted at Rafie and continued sorting the tickets.
“Wait here.” Eduardo slammed the car door and entered the truck stop. He handed the clerk fifty lottery tickets.
“Looks like you got some winners here,” the mustached clerk, who only moments ago had tried to evict Eduardo from the parking lot, said enthusiastically.
“All right!” Eduardo high-fived the clerk, then quickly tamped down his eagerness. “Might have a few more tickets in the car,” he said as he backed out of the store, quick to seize on the opportunity. “I’ll be right back.”
“Rafie, hand me another stack of tickets.”
Rafie watched Eduardo head back into the store and flipped open the glove compartment. He pulled out the Irishman’s cell phone and dialed Alita. “Hey, Alita, Rafie. Just called to say, we’re cool. We’re living large, Eddie’s cashin’ out right . . .” the phone beeped three times and went dead. A battery icon with a diagonal line slicing through it appeared. “Shit!” Rafie banged the phone on the sole of his shoe in an attempt to beat some juice back into the battery. “Just wanted to share the good news,” he said to no one, tossing the dead phone on the dashboard.
“Pretty good streak of luck—$810,” the clerk said, keeping track of the winning tickets presented by Eduardo. “Newspaper says the winner of the $750-million-dollar ticket is still floating around out there. Couple of more matches and you could have been the big winner.”
“No matter, just playin’ for fun,” Eduardo said, poker-faced, trying to diffuse the attention.
“Say,” the clerk said, fingering through the till. “I don’t quite have that much cash on hand. Need anything?”
Eduardo kicked at the car door. “Rafie, give me a hand,” he said. His arms were loaded with beer, snack food, motor oil, and scratch-off game cards; a wad of cash bulged from his shirt pocket.
Rafie tore at a bag of chips and opened a beer. “You got all this from a couple of ticket bundles? Let’s go in and cash ’em all. To hell with that slaughterhouse.”
“We don’t want to call attention to ourselves,” Eduardo cautioned. “Better to take this down the road.”
“Yeah, like all the way to Albuquerque. Get me some senoritas,” Rafie hooted.
“Where did that phone come from?” Eduardo asked, snatching the phone off the dashboard.
“The Irishman,” Rafie said innocently.
“Goddamnit,” Eduardo growled, his temper sparking like a live wire. “Who did you call?”
“Just Alita. To give her the good news.”
Eduardo smashed the phone against the steering wheel. Now they had her number. This was bad.
Joanne Finstedt jumped out of the parked sleeper cab, landing hard on the pavement, and dashed across the parking lot of Siminonson’s Food and Fuel. A fat, bald trucker in stocking feet and a sleeveless shirt gave chase. She grabbed onto the rear door handle of Eduardo’s car just as it started to roll out of the parking lot. Dumping her backpack on the floorboards, she jumped into the back seat and punched the door lock. The truck driver hopped along the side of the car, hammering the roof with his fist.
“Hey, man! Don’t be fucking with my car,” Eduardo yelled, jerking the steering wheel, throwing the trucker off balance.
“Gimme that log,” the truck driver yelled, trying to keep up with the rolling car.
“Drive. Get out of here. He’s crazy!” Joanne shouted at Eduardo.
“He sure is ugly.” Rafie strained to look at the trucker from his shot gun position.
As Eduardo sped off, Joanne rolled down the side window and tossed the trucker’s logbook onto the frozen pavement. She watched as he bent to pick it up and tossed her the middle finger.
Joanne was no stranger to the road. In her earlier days she had been one of the original Deadheads, traveling across the country in the wake of Jerry Garcia’s band. To survive, she braided hair, peddled LSD, bootlegged CDs, and sold tee-shirts. But the Grateful Dead were history and so were her hippie days.
Up until a year ago Joanne had worked as a receptionist at a veterinarian clinic and lived alone in a co-op high-rise in Minneapolis. A series of maddening headaches led to the diagnosis of an inoperable brain tumor, which propelled her on an alternative healing quest. Waw-wah Jesus, a Paiute shaman, conducted nomadic healing journeys into the Smoke Creek Desert north of Reno, Nevada. After two months of schlepping around the desert in tents, losing fifteen pounds, and being left alone with the coyotes while Waw-wah slipped off to get drunk, Joanne called it quits. The ten thousand dollars she had spent on the endeavor had been her entire savings.
She managed a lift into Reno and hung out at a truck stop hoping to catch a ride east, home. A trucker hauling a refer rig was likewise looking for some company. He considered Joanne’s company an added stimulant in case the Red Bull with Benzedrine lost its edge—and it did. Joanne drove the rig over 350 miles while the trucker’s greasy head jiggled like a bobblehead doll in the passenger seat.
At the truck stop in Luverne, Minnesota, the trucker considered that she owed him something for the ride—a blow job would do for starters.
Eduardo, with his uninvited passenger in the back seat, sped out of the parking lot, onto the service road, and toward the Interstate 90 entrance ramp.
“You want to party?” Rafie opened a beer and extended it to the woman in the back seat wearing a woven stocking cap and tie-dye tee-shirt under a heavy woolen sweater. The earthy scent of the desert hung on her clothes.
“Knock it off.” Eduardo reached over and batted the back of Rafie’s head.
“Actually a beer sounds good,” Joanne said, exhaling, feeling irrationally comfortable with the two amigos. “Thanks for the help.” She removed her stocking cap and swept her flattened hair into a loose ponytail. “You can drop me at the next truck stop.”
“That trucker, he was like an ape-man pounding on the car. I shoulda kicked his ass.” Rafie handed a beer over the back seat. “You steal something from him?”
“I knew that retread would be trouble at some point. So I borrowed his logbook in case he got stupid with me, and of course he did. Where you guys headed?”
“Anywhere we want.” Rafie raised his beer and laughed. “We won the lottery.”
“Shut up,” Eduardo snapped.
“Congratulations, I sure could use some luck.”
“What kinda trouble you got?” Eduardo asked.
History
Kirchner was scratching around for a lead in the convenience store operator’s death. The Pakistani had originally drawn the attention of the feds because of his curious financial transactions at a local bank. Certainly Kirchner would start by paying the bank a visit. But beginnings were a slippery slope for a history major, and he was curious about lotteries themselves.
Kirchner had found accounts to support the notion that the lottery, in various forms, has been around since the dawn of mankind. The random outcome was seen as divine will intervening on human meddling. Formal documentation picked up somewhere around two thousand years ago. It has been claimed that the Great Wall of China was built with lottery funds.
The lottery caught on with the Renaissance crowd, too. Queen Elizabeth I established one of the first English lotteries, offering tickets for a chance to win royal pieces of gold. It quickly spread throughout Europe and was carried onto American shores with the first settlers. It became a favorite colonial pastime, especially among the Founding Fathers.
Kirchner found it telling that even back in the early days, the lottery was a conflict-generating concept. Protestant reformists, who opposed gambling on moral grounds, embraced the lottery to raise funds for schools and churches. The same government that outlawed gambling promoted the lottery. Old Ben Fran
klin financed cannons for the Revolutionary War using lottery money. George Washington operated a Virginia lottery to finance construction of roads to the West. Even Thomas Jefferson couldn’t resist raising a quick buck by means of a chance event.
Lotteries were pretty commonplace, doing mostly good work, funding public projects and universities right into the late 1800s. But over time, the scheme fell prey to scoundrels whose only mission was personal enrichment. One of the most notorious operations was the Louisiana State Lottery, also known as the Golden Octopus for its reputation of having a hand in nearly everyone’s pocket. President Harrison did not take kindly to the rogue nature of the lottery and enacted legislation that put a ban on it in 1900. This led to all manner of underground numbers rackets. The prohibition didn’t hold, with the government getting back in the lottery business in the 1960s. Kirchner thought about that. They should have kept the lid on it.
Kirchner found Jerome “Fitz” Fitzgerald sucking down a cigarette on a sidewalk in front of the Minnesota National Bank, East Side Branch. He was standing with a gaggle of other nicotine-addicted bank employees. Kirchner waited patiently while Fitz finished the butt and escorted him inside the bank. Fitz, an assistant branch vice president, was eager to help and extended a hand shake which felt like a limp, dead fish.
“When someone from this neighborhood walks in and cashes a $9,995 check, I know something’s up.” Fitz rearranged the already neat stack of papers on his desk. A piston-like jaw working a piece of Blackjack stretched his mouth from ear to ear, revealing tiny teeth set in gums the color of licorice. “I assume you want to see the surveillance tapes?” Fitz asked, nodding his head up and down to prod a confirmation from Kirchner. Fitz led Kirchner to the second-floor security room. The time-dated tapes, from a camera positioned behind the teller, showed Jamal from the Cash and Dash presenting a check and handing the teller a box. The teller cashed the check, stuffed the money in the box, and handed it back: always the same routine. “What’s with the box?” Kirchner asked Fitz.
“Don’t know. I’ll introduce you to Lasiandra. She’s the teller supervisor.”
“So you’re a cop?” Lasiandra said as Kirchner squeezed into her partitioned cubicle. “Could tell straightaway from those scars on your noggin and lordy those shoes.” Her laugh shook her generous proportions. “Hey, can you fix a parking ticket? ’Cause, honey, I got a back seat full of ’em. Someone had the bright idea of creating permit parking in my neighborhood. I got two cars and one permit. My old man always gets to the permit spot first. I know you see the problem. Can you help a lady out?”
“Depends. What can you tell me about Jamal Madhta from the Cash and Dash who’s been cashing big checks and walking out with boxes of money?”
“I hear he’s dead.”
“About his banking business,” Kirchner said patiently.
“Suspect he was running a game like most fools in this neighborhood. What it was, I can’t say. I only approve the checks and make sure the cash count is correct. Alita’s the teller he did business with. They were always chatting it up.”
“Which one’s Alita?” Kirchner looked toward the counter.
“She’s not here, gone for a few days. Left, not feeling well, and hasn’t been back.”
Kirchner made a note on a small spiral-bound pad. “Is this Alita in contact with you?”
“If she wants to keep her job, she is.”
“Call me when you hear from her.” Kirchner dropped his card on her desk.
“Sounds like you’re asking me for a favor. Could that be worth some help with the parking tickets?”
First Step
Alita stepped onto the wraparound porch of the Eastside AA Clubhouse and wiggled her way past the smokers huddled over Styrofoam coffee cups in subfreezing temperatures. She paid little attention to them as she headed towards the Spanish-speaking meeting. Inside the tired old mansion, she stomped her feet and held her hands over a hissing radiator. Volunteers were busy staging folding chairs in loose circles throughout the house, as if the attendees would be swapping stories around a campfire. Meetings went on from early morning until late evening. Sessions were open to anyone and tended to fill in by natural selection— first-step, substance addiction, Spanish-speaking, old drunks, young drunks, friends and victims of drunks.
Alita had stopped drinking three years earlier in the wake of her failed college experience. After graduating from high school, she had received a partial scholarship from the Centro Campesino Agency and attended Southwest Minnesota State College in Marshall. Hoping to fit in and prove she belonged, she drank hard and partied hearty, as they say. She got pregnant the beginning of her sophomore year and kept it a secret until she couldn’t. The shame of squandering precious resources and the disgrace of failing sank her ship in an abyss of alcohol and drugs.
Growing up in the migrant community, Alita had experienced the zeal of religious missionaries who were as ever-present as horse flies. Church buses with painted slogans—“Christians are square with God.” “If your life is rusty, your Bible’s dusty”— rolled into the fields prowling for converts. Wide-eyed poverty voyeurs brought gifts of date-expired hygiene products and used clothes. Alita remembered receiving a pink T-shirt that read, “Buy ’em a shot, they’re tying the knot, Hammer & Katie, June 13, 2008.” The trade-off for their largesse was an opportunity to claim your soul. The migrant families sat their haunches dutifully on wooden orchard crates, swatting fruit flies with the fresh Bibles and catechisms as the do-gooders pitched their exclusive road to glory. The Catholics were particularly adept at defining guilt-ridden sin—the pathway to eternal damnation. The only escape was sacramental absolution.
The Catholics no longer held sway over Alita, but the need to confess and be forgiven, or at least not judged, was indelibly ingrained. The convenience store robbery, the death of the Irishman, and her cousins’ plight as rudderless fugitives weighed heavily on her. She wasn’t sure what she would say tonight, if anything. Just hanging out with people who felt remorse for their past transgressions was some measure of comfort and kept her sober.
“What’s your poison?” a first-stepper asked Alita as she stood in the hallway warming up and waiting for her meeting to begin. “I love Scotch,” the man said, pressing in on her. “And not the cheap shit, either. Single malts. Got a three-hundred-dollar bottle staring me in the face. My attorney said these bitch-and-moan meetings will help me plead out my DUI.” He threw his hand up on the wall over Alita’s head. “Name’s Lucky,” he said, his breath buffeting her face. Even in the dim hallway she could see red and blue capillaries bursting on his cheeks and nose. “I’m forty-six, but I got the energy of a horse, if you get my drift. Just because we’re dry-docked don’t mean we can’t have some fun.”
Lucky’s hand slid off the wall and stroked the side of Alita’s cheek, still rosy from the cold.
Few people at the AA Eastside Clubhouse knew Kirchner was a cop. He preferred to keep it that way. The AA house was only five minutes from the BCA’s headquarters. His wife had died seven years ago, but he could barely remember the first two years after her passing. He’d lost her face, couldn’t picture her. But as he bit back on the bitter truth, it was clear he’d abandoned his wife, put his job before the marriage, certain she’d always be there.
A story had circulated that the last thing he said to his wife was “I love you.” A lie. On their last rocky encounter, a Saturday morning, his wife had wanted him to stay in bed, hit the pause button on the job, make love. “Later,” he’d said, convinced that he was working for their future and the bad guys couldn’t wait. She became angry, bolted out of bed, told him to “get his fucking head on straight,” and locked herself in the bathroom.
The loss and the guilt without recourse sucked him into a hopeless dark place. It had taken two tours in alcoholic treatment to lay the self-loathing to rest. Tonight, with a four-year chip in his pocket, Kirchner had been asked to introduce the First Step to new AA attendees and those who had
fallen off the wagon. Rebounders.
Kirchner heard someone say, “Trouble,” and he headed in the direction of the commotion where a circle of attendees were watching a man bent over, head low and holding his crotch.
“Christ, just making conversation,” the stooped man coughed out. “What’s wrong with that woman?” he asked, pointing at Alita.
Kirchner steered the hunched-over injured man toward the First Step meeting room and watched him waddle off, hoping he had learned AA etiquette.
The petite woman was being given a wide berth by milling attendees. She stood by herself and appeared shaken and vulnerable. Yet, just moments ago, she had dispatched a man almost twice her size to his knees. Kirchner knew from police domestic calls the lashing fury of a Latina’s anger. In their macho culture, they learned early to push back, often violently, to keep from being dominated.
He wasn’t sure if he had previously encountered this woman with midnight black hair, cinnamon colored skin, and full eyebrows that crowned her dark eyes. “First-stepper,” he said apologetically. “I should have collared that guy the minute he walked in the door. Teach him some manners. Is there anything I can do for you?”
“Sorry,” she said, her defenses down. “I’m on overload.”
“Are you going to be okay?” Kirchner asked. He felt an uncharacteristic urge to put a comforting arm around her shoulder. But he let the gesture pass, aware of the boundaries. “If you need anything, let me know. My name is Kirchner.” The words felt awkward. He had not extended himself to a woman since before the death of his wife.
The woman looked at him curiously. As a rule people in AA did not use last names.
Kirchner met her eyes and felt something familiar. Suddenly, self conscious, he heard the clacking of the mint rolling around in his mouth. Reaching into his pocket he produced a handful of individually wrapped hard candies, “Peppermint?”