Copyright (c) 2016 by Randall R. Peterson ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
This is a work of fiction. All persons, locations and actions are from the author's imagination or have been used in a fictitious manner.
LOTTERY
Part
2
By
R. Peterson
Janet
Reynolds and Lisa Jennings lay across the bed both helpless and naked as the
three men undressed. Both were both bleeding from the mouth. “Too bad your
husband is unconscious,” the biggest one sneered. Jack was bound and tied in
the corner. “He might enjoy watching three ex-convicts having a little fun.”
“You’re
Harry Walton aren’t you?’” Janet pleaded with the largest gang member. “Don’t
do this! You don’t want to go back to prison do you?”
“Me
and these other stooges will be back in the joint in a month or so,” Harry
said. “That’s a given. Why not enjoy ourselves while we can? Besides …” He held
up the Tupperware container with the winning lottery ticket inside. “Eighty-six
million dollars is enough money to start a new life almost anywhere!”
“How
are you going to explain you and your two thugs accompanying me and my husband
to the lottery office?” Janet said.
“Bodyguards!”
Harry told her. “When someone wins this kind of money, half the people in the
country go nuts.”
The doorbell rang just as Harry
started to climb onto the bed. He looked at his watch. “It’s two-twenty in the
morning,” Harry cursed. “Who the $#%# would be coming to your house at this
time of night?”
One of the other convicts peeled back
one corner of the bedroom curtains. “A lot of somebodies,” he whispered as he
peered out the window. The flashing lights of a police car reflected on the
bedroom wall. “There must be at least six cars out there … and a string of
headlights backed-up clear into town.”
The doorbell rang again and someone pounded
on the door.
Harry jerked Janet off the bed and
thrust her toward the closet. “Put on a robe and go tell all your friends to get the hell out of here.” He walked to the
corner and kicked an unconscious Jack with his work-boot. A glimmering knife
appeared as if by magic in his hand. “One word about us being here and your
husband gets his tonsils extracted … same with this one …” He gestured toward
Lisa, “… and all three of your kids.”
Thirty seconds later, Janet opened
the door to constant pounding, and Mary Jennings pushed past her, followed by a
smiling Don Jepson, the town mayor. At least twenty others were crowded onto
the lawn in front of the trailer, with more arriving by the minute. Everyone was
talking at the same time. Lights from at least three TV News cameras blinded
her. “We know yall has the winning ticket … We figured it out!” Mary screamed. She
grabbed Janet’s arms and began to dance with her across the living room as she
jumped up and down. She waved a copy of a cash-register receipt in the air like
a flag. “Yall were the only person in the store who bought diapers and a
lottery ticket!”
Mayor Don Jepson threw his arms
around Mary crushing her and Mrs. Jennings. “We’re sorry for coming over so
late,” he shouted. “But with the changes this town is going to make with that
kind of money … who can sleep?” Deputy Bobby Joe Tinker was right behind the
mayor followed by a beaming Ruth Watson and Nancy Livingston. “You really had
me fooled with that smoking truck,” Bobby Joe bellowed. “Who knew that truck
was actually burning money!”
“Honey,
you don’t know what this money is going to mean to the Georgia Daughters of
Dixie,” Ruth Watson yelled. “We’ve been needing a new lodge since … forever.”
“This means I’ll be driving one of
them new Dodge Chargers with state-of-the-art Whelen LED Lights just like
the cops in Atlanta,” Bobby Joe gushed.
“One
new police car?” The mayor thundered at the overweight officer, then smiled for
the news cameras. “We will have at least twenty, plus new state-of-the-art
vehicles for all the city employees.”
Luke Brady, the local Baptist
minister, pushed his way through the crowd a little irreverently. His hair
stood up on both sides of his head obviously tussled by the crowd. The glare of
the TV camera lights made him look like a young devil. He waved a thick manila
folder in his hand. “We have hundreds of people in this town who are in dire
need,” he said. “Janet, I know you and Jack will do the right thing.”
Kit Kat’s cries somehow rose about
the chatter and the questions being fired from a dozen reporters. “Oh your poor
baby!” Nancy Livingston pushed past Janet moving toward the bedroom. “All this
noise must have woken her up!” Janet turned around to stop her and noticed the
back door to the trailer was wide open. She could just see three running
figures disappearing behind the clothesline and woodpile as Nancy opened the
door to the wrong bedroom. The crowd grew suddenly quiet when Nancy screamed.
“Looks like we’ve found out where your little sister got herself off to Mary…”
She pointed toward a naked Lisa trying to cover herself on the bed, then
scowled at a bound and tied Jack who had just woke-up in the corner. “If this
is what money does to people … then I guess we’re all going to hell.”
-------2-------
Sheriff Buford Big B Jackson and three deputies,
including Bobbie Joe pushed the crowd and the reporters out of the trailer
while Jack and Janet sat in the kitchen. It took minutes for Janet to blurt out
the details of their horrific ordeal while Jack patted his swollen face with a
large T-Bone steak courtesy of Jim’s
Custom Meats. A smiling Jim Turner was the last to leave the trailer.
“Don’t you worry none about them convicts,” BB assured Jack and Janet as he
closed the door. “They all in a heat wave. The Governor promised me his state police
will have Harry Walton and his gang jerking chains before those cotton-pickers
can sneak out of Georgia.
Jack spent twenty
minutes looking for the Tupperware sandwich container with the winning ticket
inside. He had all but given up hope, sure that Harry and his gang must have
taken it with them when he spied it leaning against a corner in the bathroom
along with a dented can of leaking hairspray, crushed disposable razors and two
wet towels. It had been stepped on so many times the plastic was broken … but
the ticket inside was still intact.
The Sheriff was on the
phone in the other room; Janet tucked the ticket inside her loose-fitting bra.
One strap was broken from when it had been used to bind Jack’s hands.
“The first thing we got to do, is get yall and your
ticket safely to Atlanta,” The Sheriff said. “Yall still got that ticket don’t
you?”
“It’s in a safe place,” Jack looked at Janet’s sagging
breasts beneath her dress and the Sheriff’s eyes followed his.
“I’ll drive you to lottery headquarters in Atlanta in my own
private car,” BB said. “It’s a Cadillac CTS sedan, not new, but still a nice
ride. It won’t attract attention like flashing-lights will.”
“Thank you, Sheriff. We’re not used to such luxury,”
Janet told him. “Your car will do just fine. We were worried about driving
clear across Georgia in our old truck.”
“My pleasure.”
Something about the
Sheriff’s gleaming teeth reminded Jack of an alligator that he once helped
chase off a golf-course.
“I like nice things,” BB
told them.
-------3-------
Buford Jackson picked
them up an hour later, no longer wearing his Sheriff’s uniform but a pair of
oversize khaki pants and a loose fitting Hawaiian shirt. Jack and Janet were
both happy to see him arrive; half the population of Baxley was still lingering
around the outside the doublewide trailer. “Hey! You haven’t forgotten about
last winter when I pulled you out of the ditch with my Bronco have you?” Tony
Cordess was even drunker than the day before. “Because I’ve got me a long list of
things you can pay me back for.”
Ruth Watson tried to
push a pre-printed check made out to the Georgia
Daughters of Dixie for two-million dollars and a pen into Jack’s hand as he
carried Sally and Mick and Janet lugged Kit Kat, a suitcase and his car seat through
the crowd toward the Sheriff’s Cadillac. “It’s all legal,” she beamed. “All you
have to do is sign!”
Some of the people in
the crowd were getting angry by the time the Reynolds family reached the
Sheriff’s car. George Brady threw an empty beer bottle that just missed Janet’s
head and skimmed the windshield of the Cadillac. “This is what happens when
people get money,” he yelled. “Zoom … instant #$%$#^%#$!”
“Can I put these bags in your trunk?” Janet asked as the
crowd began to press forward.
“No, Just squeeze into the back seat for now,” BB said.
“We need to get out of here.”
It took Bobby Joe
Tinker and all three Appling County deputies to push back the crowd so they
could get the doors open.
“I can’t believe it!” Jack sat in the front seat next to
the sheriff. “I’ve known these people all my life … suddenly they’ve turned
into animals.”
“They were always animals,” The sheriff said. “The smell
of money makes them hungry.”
“Speaking of food,” Jack said. “I don’t think any of us
has eaten since yesterday. How about stopping at that Burger King just outside
of Hinesville. I think a couple of Whoppers and fries might help us all forget
about losing our friends.”
“I already thought about that.” BB handed Jack a large bag
from McDonalds. “I didn’t know what yall liked, so I got a little bit of
everything.” He smiled. “We have a long way to go and stopping when your
pictures have been plastered all over the TV news is going to be dangerous.”
“Thanks sheriff!” Jack discovered he was ravishingly
hungry as he handed out the burgers.
An hour later they were
headed south on Interstate ninety-five. Jack, Janet and all three children were
asleep, good thing or they might have noticed the change in direction. Sheriff
Buford Jackson smiled and began to sing softly as he sped-up to pass a slow
moving semi just north of The Florida border. It sounded like the song from the
Gold Diggers musical from the 1930’s.
We’re in the money. We've got a lot of
what it takes to get along!
-------4-------
Jack opened his eyes
just as they pulled into the gravel parking-lot of a bar in Miami called Toro Magnifico. His head was swimming
through a swirling fog. “What the hell! I’ve been drugged,” he gasped. “What
was in those hamburgers”
“Just a little something to help you sleep,” Sheriff
Jackson said as he opened his door. Three Cuban looking men in dark suits
appeared to be waiting for them. They surrounded the car.
“I told you I like nice things,” BB went on. “I got
myself in a bit of a jam spending from the Appling County police fund. Rico
Alfaro …” He gestured toward a fat
Latino waddling toward them from the bar entrance. “…offered to loan me enough
to get past the last two state audits, now he wants paid in full.”
“Do everything they say,” The sheriff whispered. “These
guys make Harry Walton and his gang look like choir boys.”
“Veo que entrega las palomas,” Rico said. “Are you sure
they have the ticket?”
Sheriff Jackson opened
the back door to his Cadillac and dragged a semi-conscious Janet out. He thrust
flabby fingers down her blouse, lingering longer than necessary and then pulled
out the card.
“You’re a good looking woman with a great figure,” the
sheriff told her as he slapped her behind. “You don’t need any padding.”
Rico smiled as the
sheriff handed him the ticket. “Volaremos le todo a Atlanta mañana in my
private plane,” he told Jack. “Hacer todo lo que digo … and there might be
something in it for you … like your lives!”
Janet was still groggy,
Jack helped her as they were pushed toward the back entrance of the bar. Kit
Kat was sleeping soundly in Janet’s arms but Sally and Mick each walked beside
their father holding one of his hands. “Is this what’s it’s like to be rich?”
Sally asked as she stared at a flashing neon sign above the main bar entrance
showing a naked woman riding a bull.
“I hope not,” Jack told her. “If it is, I’ll never buy
another lottery ticket again.”
Ten minutes later the
Reynolds family found themselves locked in a tiny back room without windows. A
mattress that smelled of sweat, urine and sex was on the cement floor. The bar
was obviously packed with mostly Latinos. Loud music with Spanish lyrics played
almost constantly. Just before two AM, two loud blasts that sounded like
gunshots made all three children wake up and begin to cry. The music stopped
and a minute later the noisy sounds began to diminish.
“Thank God,” Janet said. “Now maybe we can get some
sleep.”
They heard the door being
unlocked and then it burst open. Two men dragged a bleeding corpse into the
room and flung it into the corner. “Sorry, but the boss said to put this stiff
in here until we figure out what he wants done with it,” one man said.
Janet buried her face
in Jack’s arms and began to cry. “I can’t take this anymore,” she sobbed. “How
can this night possibly get any worse?”
Her question was
answered ten minutes later when the door opened again. Four men stood there.
One with a jagged scar that ran across his nose from cheek to cheek was
smiling. “El Jefe promise us a little something extra nice after we disposed of
his body.” Two of the men grabbed the corpse and dragged it from the room; the
other two grabbed Janet. “Hay un montón de putas latinas en este lugar … but
none of them moan like the white women do.”
Jack tried to pry their
hands off his wife. O ne of them punched him to the floor and then kicked him
repeatedly. “Ser agradecido no es su hija (Just be thankful it’s not your
daughter),” he said pointing to the children on the mattress.
“We’re going for a ride on a very expensive yacht,” the
one leading Janet away whispered in her ear. His hand was sliding up the back
of her legs. “I know you will like the way the ocean waves makes the water-bed
rock.” All four men laughed. “We all do,” he said. “Todos nosotros lo!”
To be continued …
