Powerball Assassin
A knock on the door, and I made sure it was the movers. These days it’s always good to check. This will be my second move in the last eight weeks, this time to Massachusetts, far enough into the liberal East to minimize the chances of my ending up in a plastic garbage bag in a dumpster. It’s funny how people who say the rich have a right to do what they want with their money still get upset when someone who has money exercises that right. But there it is: I’m moving again.
Three months ago, I was on my way home from my job as an engineer. I know — you don’t often read stories about engineers because, let’s face it, we aren’t very exciting. We are folks who were pretty good in math and science in high school and turned that into a well-paying job after college. Pretty good is the word. We were not stars. If we were stars we would be professors and researchers, or people you see unveiling new tech products at shows in Las Vegas, science celebrities who get grants and prizes and buyout offers from Silicon Valley. Not being stars, we take regular industrial jobs with steady paychecks and go on to be pretty average. Not that our work is average — I pride myself on excellent work, I’ll have you know — but a well-designed distillation column isn’t a thing of beauty, not even to another engineer. But the point is, I ended up where I am now because I’m an average American professional, and because I’m a straight up lucky one-in-a-million. Not for any special reason. The product of a random system ought to be, you know, random. Ordinary.
So on that fall day when I was coming home, it was raining and chilly. The daylight was failing and all the wet surfaces were turning black and gray and shiny as I pulled off I-20 at my usual gas station. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred I just gas-and-go, but that day I went into the store to pick up some cough drops. There was a line at the register. A man in a porkpie hat with a tattoo on his neck said to me, “You here to play?”
“To play?”
“Powerball! The pot is one billion. Highest pot ever. Everybody’s playing.”
“Not my thing, man,” I said, and waved for some reason, even though I didn’t know him. From a rack I selected two boxes of cherry flavored lozenges and lapped around to the end of the line. As I waited, I studied the pictures of bing cherries on the boxes. I stacked the boxes in my palm so one overlapped the other, lining up the two cherry bunches in a row, like on a slot machine. “What the hell,” I said when I got to the front of the line after Porkpie had paid and left. I asked for a single two-dollar ticket.
I could stretch the story out the way I was told to do in high school English. “It isn’t the destination, it’s the journey,” Mr. Mack said during my senior year at West Monroe High School. “Be concrete. Add meaningful details. Tell a story, not a list of facts.” But being an engineer, all I know are facts. To tell it otherwise would be to leave me out of my own story. So I will skip the details and just give you the bullet point: The ticket won the billion dollar pot the next Saturday.
It wasn’t until the day after the draw that I found out I had won. Sunday was laundry day, and when I passed through my kitchen with an armload of dirty clothes I noticed the ticket lying on the kitchen table and decided I ought to check it. Which I did, six hours later. On page four in the local paper there was an announcement with the numbers posted.
The next day I dumped my girlfriend. Kimmy was probably cheating on me — her response latencies to my texts were getting longer and longer, and lately she had something to do on Saturday nights. Not good. She was fifteen years younger than I was, so it was inevitable. I don’t hold it against her too much. It’s all about reproduction in the end, and a woman of twenty-three ought to be looking for a healthy partner, and that means young. So when I sent her a text saying we would not be seeing each other anymore, no reason given, she responded with a curt “Fine.” Which proved she had another man to fall back on.
No word from her since. I suppose I ought to give her some credit for not calling me when she learned about my ticket. She must have found out at some point.
Two days later I lay awake in bed, looking with one opened eye at the convex ticket arched on the night stand like a little tent. It had really happened. Before I rolled over and opened my other eye I had determined to keep it a secret. No one needed to know. I didn’t want the phone calls, the hangers-on, the cons. I didn’t want Kimmy calling me back. Or my other ex, Laura, whom I had seen only at a distance these last two years, but who was more likely than Kimmy to try to make contact again. An online search and a couple of calls later I got in touch with a lawyer to help me collect in secret. He didn’t believe I was the winner when I called him, but I texted a picture of the ticket and next thing he was begging me to drop by the office. Actually, he wanted to come to my house, but I put an end to that in the first minute.
At first, the Powerball people didn’t want to do the anonymous thing, but they backed down when they heard I had lawyered up. After two days of back and forth, they agreed that my lawyer would come to the office to pick up the check, and he would make a public statement. There would be no photo-op. That was the plan.
But I spoiled it. In the end, I let it slip to one of my colleagues at work. And that was it. Within an hour, everyone knew. Neighbors loitered around my car in my driveway. My cell phone was useless because my ex-girlfriend Laura gave my number to anyone who asked for it when I quit returning her texts. When I went to get a new phone, the eyes of the shop girl kindled after she saw my name on the credit card. There was no way the anonymous pickup was going to work. The News Star website was running my graduation portrait, and next to it a two-year-old picture from the company Christmas party of me balanced on a barstool, an alcohol-sodden grin on my face, and Laura on my lap with her tongue in my ear.
Anyway, I got rid of the lawyer, which was good because he thought he was getting twenty percent. I sent him a hundred bucks, explaining that his services were no longer required. He said we had a deal, and I told him he wasn’t getting $200 million to stand next to me at a photo-op. Turns out a lawyer is not a good person to try to short. He sent me a summons the next week, but after what happened later, I never heard from him again.
The media had packed the Powerball office, leaving almost no room for me. Camera flashes scorched my retinas white and pale blue while a team of execs in navy suits handed me an oversized check for $1.033 billion. If there was ever a time I realized there was no turning back, that was it. I would have to quit my job. Move to a big city. Maybe buy a yacht with a helicopter pad. It seemed like too much. As all this rolled through my head, I held the cardboard check aloft, waving it like a lost fool trying to flag down a search plane. A reporter asked me what I was going to do with the money. I said I would get a house on the water and a rich supermodel girlfriend and someone else asked why she had to be rich. I said I couldn’t have a girl who I thought was after the money. Everyone laughed, way too loud, and I had to get out of there. Next to the back door a hired limo idled, with a driver who knew his tip depended on his willingness to lean on the horn and accelerator to cut through the crowd.
The next few days I sulked in my house like a modern Achilles. The landline rang and rang until I unplugged it. Through the slats of my blinds I could see eyes in the shrubbery looking back at me.
Before this, I had no high aspirations in life. I liked my job and I liked my neighborhood. Now I had to give it all up. People I hardly remembered knowing lurked at my door at home or my desk at work, looking for a chance to discuss business opportunities. Neighbors who used to complain at the homeowner’s association meetings about kids selling raffle tickets door-to-door had no qualms about trying to make friends with the new billionaire on the block. Four times I called the sheriff and the cops came and cleared the beggars out of my yard, but the fifth time the deputy sheriff said I had to get myself a security detail. The police couldn’t keep doing this. I said I pay taxes. He said there were too many disruptions and he didn’t have the resources to police my yard. “Move,” he said. “You can afford it.”
When you have a lot of money, people don’t expect you to use public services. You can afford to buy your own. I even got attitude from a librarian, who first asked why I didn’t own my own library and then if I would contribute to hers. She was polite about it, though.
After the cops told me to get lost, I plugged my landline back in and it rang within three minutes. “I’m going to have a press conference at 3 pm tomorrow,” I said, and hung up. I had no idea who was on the other end, but it didn’t matter. The next day by mid-afternoon a crowd of reporters began congregating in my driveway.
At three o'clock, I stepped out of my door. “I have decided,” I said, “that I will give the President of the United States the entire billion if he agrees to resign from office.” The reporters gave out a kind of a yawp, like they were sucking in air and trying to say “what the hell” at the same time. There was a pause. Finally a machine gun burst of shouted-out questions, but I turned my back on them all, went into my house, and turned on cable news to see how the story would develop.
The next day I got a call from one of the President’s lawyers.
“How did you get my number? It’s a new one,” I said.
“Don’t be ridiculous, I work for the President. He can find out the color of your stool if he wants to know it. So, is this a serious offer?”
“Of course, it’s serious. I wouldn’t have said it.”
“The President doesn’t like being made fun of. He’s a rich man and won’t tolerate taunting.”
Not rich enough to turn down a billion dollars, though. “It isn’t a taunt. It’s an offer. That’s it.”
“It’s outlandish. So much money for someone to give up.”
“If he’ll keep up his side of the deal, I’ll sign the ticket over. I told you.”
“What I’m here to tell you is that if you aren’t serious, you’ve got to stop. That’s an order from the President. He’s a serious man and doesn’t need distractions. We don’t need jokers in national politics.”
“I’m not a joker. I told you, man, I would.” I took a breath. “That’s all I’ve got.” And I hung up.
Five days later I met two men at an airport hotel. I had to sneak out of my condo at four a.m. to avoid the reporters and the neighbors still skulking around looking for a scrap. I jumped my back fence and was picked up by a car waiting on the next street.
We were in the hotel room, the two men and I. The entire time my bladder was full, to the point of bursting, but I didn’t think that was the kind of thing I should be discussing with two presidential lawyers at five in the morning. But it added to the urgency of the discussion, that’s for sure.
They introduced themselves as Mr. Clark and Mr. Miller. They asked me if I had the money. I explained that I gave Powerball my bank account number, and they had wired me the first payment. There would be monthly payments over 20 years to total a billion, but I didn’t have it all right now. I asked if that was a problem.
They laughed and said no. They said the President had friends who would advance him the entire billion and take over receipt of the payments.
“I’ve heard of such things, but usually you have to give up a percentage.”
“The President,” Mr. Miller said, “has friends who will offer him the service for zero percent.”
“They must be counting on influence,” I said.
“That’s none of your business,” Mr. Clark said, the words measured out like milliliters of medication in a psych ward. He cleared his throat. “What matters is if you are going to hand over the money. We’ll figure out how to convert the whole thing over to cash.”
“Fine,” I said. “But I need a guarantee that the President is going to quit if I give him the billion.”
“We’ve got that worked out,” Mr. Miller said. “We’ll draw up a contract that allows the President to take possession of the account on such and such a date, but only if he’s not president on that day. That will all be in the contract.”
“Is this a Cayman Islands deal?”
“Cayman Islands.”
“You know, secret. Under the table. Offshore.”
“No, we wish,” Mr. Miller said. “You made the offer public, and so the deal will have to be public, too. There for all to see. Some people won’t like it, some will, but the President wants the billion. So that’s what we’re going to do.”
“If I had made it secret…I don’t know. How was I supposed to make a secret offer of a billion dollars? That’s absurd.”
“Nothing is absurd in finance. We could have figured it out.”
“I am sure you could have. But would you have taken my call?”
“Probably so. You’re a billionaire now. The President always picks up when a billionaire calls. But let’s stop with the theoreticals, okay? We didn’t come all the way from D.C. to chat. So, about the money. You’re ready to do this?”
“If the President will step down, I’ll do it. I said I would, on national television. That’s as good as a contract, as far as I’m concerned.”
“We can draw up the documents and send them to you to sign on Thursday,” Mr. Clark said.
“One other thing,” I said. “I’d like to keep a bit for myself. Maybe ten million.”
“If it were up to me, I’d say fine. But the President made me promise. You said a billion. He expects a billion.”
“The total was 1.033 billion.”
“He wants all of it. He said. It's all or nothing. You don’t want it to be nothing. I shouldn’t have to tell you, this looks like a bribe attempt. You want the President on your side here. The FBI could come looking, and the President won’t be a friendly witness for you.”
I looked at the floor.
“I’m sorry, fella, I actually am,” Mr. Miller said. “But once you get mixed up in the big leagues, you can’t just walk away. People like the President can’t be fooled with. So here we are.”
“I get it,” I said. “But if he takes it, why won’t the FBI come then?”
“We’ve got it.”
“You’ve got it?”
“We’ve touched base with the necessary folks. I’ll just say it boils down to this: if he goes, the opposition party is happy with that and will not investigate. The President’s party is happy enough with the Vice President stepping in, so they will do nothing. The thing about Washington is, if neither political party is interested, practically any crime you can imagine can go unpunished.”
You would think I would have been loved by both sides. The opposition got rid of a president, and the party in power got to replace a brat with a company man. But if you thought that, you’d be wrong.
A few days after I signed over the money I was shopping at a grocery store, which I had to do because I was no longer a billionaire. A man stopped me in the meat section. “What, a billion dollars not good enough for you? I’ve worked my whole life and I’ll never see that kind of money, and you just pissed it away. Pissed it away. And for what. To get rid of a great president.”
“Great? Really? He took a billion dollars to leave office.”
“Because of you. Because of you.”
“I didn’t make him take it.”
“He did what anyone else would have done. Who wouldn't quit his job for a billion dollars? No one. Except a fool like you.”
“I was trying to help my country. So many people hated him.”
“Not around here they don’t. They hate you.”
Since I had given up all that money, I needed a job. So I asked my old boss if I could come back and he hung up on me.
I texted a colleague at work. He filled me in. A board member of our company had given the President a lot of money in the last election. The board member had a signed photo of the now ex-President shaking hands with him at a fundraiser in Dallas, framed and hanging on his office wall. After the President stepped down, a memo circulated that advised employees not to talk to me. “Employees should generally avoid corporate association with scandal,” it said.
The colleague told me never to text him again.
Since then I’ve had to move twice. First to what looked like a good job in the Midwest. But the people there didn’t like what I had done, either.
“I thought people around here didn’t like the President,” I said to a man in my apartment complex who stared at me every time I passed him in the hallway.
“We don’t, but we don’t like what you’ve done. You used your money to reverse an election. What gives you the right to buy off the results of an election?”
Soon my employer realized what it had gotten itself into, and offered me six months severance if I would leave town without telling anyone I ever worked there. I moved out of the state the next week. Now I am up east. I picked the most liberal neighborhood I could find, and so far I have gotten by. When my neighbors realized who I was, I thought I detected a trace of discomfort, but so far, so good.
Once I got settled in and started my new job, I got a phone call from a very, very rich woman from the West Coast who had divorced an even richer man in the Internet business. I knew all about it — it was on all the celebrity websites.
“I have to say,” she said, her breath as audible as her words, “I never would have thought to do that with my money. I don’t have the courage of my convictions that you do. I’m proud of you.”
We have a date next Friday night. Somehow, when you become rich, you’re anointed. It never washes off.
