11. Lucky Luci

Loopy Luci, her friends teased; an affectionate tease, though.

Luci confessed to being a dreamer.

Believing that everyone should live happily ever after.

“I mean, screw you, call me a romantic,” she told her friends.

A brown-eyed Portuguese beauty, her Mom always said. With a great big heart.

The right one will come along, Mom told her. “I promise.”

Admittedly, Luci hadn’t thought much about the future.

High school was a blur of boring classes and gloriously lazy summer days and suddenly it was over.

She tried working at the store her aunt managed.

Tried the new Amazon warehouse.

Basically spent the two-plus years after graduation spinning her wheels and trying to figure out what the hell to do with life, while fending off the unwanted advances of that tattooed motorcycle freak Chuck.

But Luci never doubted her faith in the future and believed her Mom.

And just like that—Rico!

Rico with the smile and the smooth talk and everyone (including Luci) was skeptical. At first.

Now, even her most skeptical friends had been won over.

Rico wasn’t just eye candy.

“You hit the jackpot, girl,” they had to admit.

She was lucky Luci now.

Because everything was better since Rico showed up.

The job at the restaurant he encouraged her to try after they met Oscar and Carla had turned out awesome.

Luci was fulltime and making good money, never having considered the hard work of waitressing would be such a comfortable fit for her energy and personality.

And even Chuck was out of her life!

The big shit bag finally crossed someone even worse than he was and got beat so bad all he could do was sit in a wheelchair, drooling.

Luci felt terrible about that and would never wish such a thing upon a person, not even Chuck, but damn!

Rico showed up and all kinds of things worked out in her favor.

Loopy Luci was gone.

Luci was Rico’s girl now and she was going to get him a million dollars.

***

Luci sat in the Corolla in the parking lot of a nondescript industrial brick building, just off the highway.

Smoke-glazed windows, swaths of manicured grass, parking lot sectioned by mulched verges, each with a single hardwood sapling.

Oscar worked in this building five nights a week, but Rico told Luci she wouldn’t see him.

Rico had been surprisingly forceful in demanding that they keep the lottery winnings a secret, even from Oscar, his best buddy.

“At least for now,” Rico said. “Nobody knows about this, but you and I.”

The man she had fallen in love with had finally opened up about his upbringing and Luci understood the insistence on privacy; Rico was a saint to be the man he was today, having been raised in such a hellhole.

She held the slip of paper between forefinger and thumb, elbow propped on the steering column, staring at the ticket.

Voice soft, “I can’t believe you’re worth a million dollars.”

Rico said it would probably end up being more like half that, actually. After taxes.

Luci had blurted, “That’s not fair! They really take that much?”

Rico, with his cute laugh told her, “Thirty-seven percent by the feds. Almost 10 percent by the state.”

Rico knew about stuff like that.

And now Luci knew more about Rico.

He had been waiting with flowers when Luci got back from the restaurant yesterday.

Gave her the flowers and told her to sit down.

Described how he was out looking at properties the other day and stopped at a convenience store for a soda.

Occasionally, Rico explained, he liked to buy a lottery ticket and spontaneously pick numbers out of thin air.

Luci, wowed by the flowers and mesmerized by the tale, giggled when she realized Rico didn’t even know the name of the store.

He showed her the lottery ticket where it read 234 Second Street Convenience.

“That’s Mario’s, I think.”

“Yeah, I was driving all over,” Rico said.

Luci screamed when he told her the ticket had won a million dollars.

Rico then told Luci other stories.

Stories that were easy to tell because he didn’t have to fabricate anything.

It was a lie to say that he still feared his so-called family; that they were always looking for him and if they ever found out about the lottery money, would be sure to swoop after him like vampires.

Rico finished by telling Luci that he loved her. And could trust only her.

At that point, Luci was ready to do anything Rico asked.

“But I didn’t buy the ticket,” she said.

“Doesn’t matter, Chica,” he told her. “Look at it this way. It could be a gift. Someone’s always buying them to stick in a birthday card.”

Sounding confident like he always did, added, “The thing is, they don’t care about any of that. You have the ticket, that’s all that matters. You bring them this ticket and the proper identification and the money is yours.

“If anyone asks—which they won’t—you tell them you did what I did. You were in the area and needed a snack or something and on a whim, bought a lottery ticket.”

Nevertheless, Luci was so jazzed she stayed up half the night with Rico going over the details.

Found a copy of her birth certificate.

Collected bills for the apartment (it was in Luci’s name, of course) to show her current residence.

Verified her driver’s license was up-to-date and wrote out her banking information.

Managed a few hours of sleep before rousing to arrive at lottery headquarters for when it opened.

Sitting in the Corolla, Luci smoothed the blouse she bought to wear to the House this weekend, olive with dog eared collars and a sheer material that accentuated her curves. Wore a black skirt and high heels to match the blouse. Felt sophisticated and pretty and determined to make Rico proud.

Still holding the ticket between her fingers, Luci took a deep breath and got out of the car.

***

Sitting in the beater across the parking lot, unseen by Luci, Henry watched.

Stunned, he had to admit, having seen in the local newspaper and TV news, that Ticket-winner was the mother of a famous, professional athlete. Her family a kind of Worthboro royalty

What were the odds of that?

Probably no greater than him pulling off this caper in the first place.

Regardless, Henry would be hyper-vigilant, knowing the local cops would be equally hyper-vigilant.

The victim being a celebrity wouldn’t matter; in fact, the added commotion might work in his favor.

Henry was confident nothing could connect the death of the old lady to a winning lottery ticket, but he followed Luci to the lottery building because … that was just what he did.

No more than 20 minutes after going inside, Luci hustled back through the same door.

Henry, too far away to see the smile on her face, could tell from body language that things had gone splendid.

Luci got into the Corolla and pulled out of the parking lot.

Henry, making sure that no other vehicles were following, waited until Luci was out of sight and then tailed her back to the westside.

When Luci made a left onto Foster Street, Henry stayed on Main.

Parked the beater, per usual, a few blocks away.

Circled his way on foot back to their place on Foster, watching everything and everyone around him.

Luci squealed as soon as he opened the door to their second floor apartment. Ran into his arms crying, “Oh baby I did it! Just like you said. And everyone was so nice!”

***

Reared in a web of dread spun by Gram and the cousins, Henry found solace with Pop.

Pop was a retired cop.

Retired because during a routine traffic stop, some madman tried to run him down and Pop was a bit slow jumping out of the way.

The bumper snapped his legs and sent him spinning into another car, that impact snapping Pop’s spine along with a bunch of other bones.

Miraculously, Pop survived. Retained the use of one arm, but not much of the one smashed apart and reassembled. Nothing from the waist down.

At the time, Henry’s biological mother was a baby and Gram still had dark hair, but there were four young adults already in the house.

It was the late 1960s and the Vietnam War had transitioned from bad to worse.

The city could only offer Pop a pittance of a settlement, a full pension and a lifetime supply of wheelchairs.

When fellow cops pestered Pop to take the settlement to a financial advisor, he told everyone to screw off.

Pop was proud and had been to college before the cop stuff. Economics. Became a shrewd commodities trader, steadily building what the city had given him as settlement into something larger.

Eventually, a lot larger.

Henry used to climb to the pillow on Pop’s lap (he had to sit on the pillow because as little as Henry was, Pop’s shriveled legs couldn’t support him).

Pop’s hands moving across the newspaper and magazine pages, even the hand with the useless fingers, tracing columns and rows, muttering into Henry’s curly hair about logistics and debt and profit margins.

Got a kick out of what a fast learner Henry was and when his grandson became too big to sit on his lap, Pop ordered a little desk delivered.

They would sit together and Pop would give Henry problems to solve.

Though Henry dropped out of school before reaching high school, his math skills were more advanced than most college graduates.

Pop loved Henry in his own way; though, there was little a crippled old man could do to protect him from the cousins.

The week after Pop died, Henry, just 13-years-old, fled to the street.

“First rule, protect your principal,” Pop once told him.

When he learned what that meant, Henry said, “But Poppa, I don’t have any principal.”

Pop smiled and answered, “You have this.” Gently put a gnarled finger against Henry’s forehead. “That’s what you protect.”

And so when things felt good, as in those moments of refuge with Pop, Henry knew that the calm was only the eye because the storm was always swirling.

Today was Friday and Henry’s hope was that the money would be available by Tuesday.

No way a town bank would allow Luci to withdraw over a half million in cash at once, so it would take a few days to get it all.

After the successful trip to the lottery, Luci was scheduled for a full shift at the restaurant and when she left for work, Rico headed downtown, intent on doing more watching and listening; still, utterly flabbergasted at how Ticket-winner turned out to be the mother of somebody famous.

He tried to avoid thinking about that part—Ticket-winner being a mother.

Henry parked near The House and wandered about the Common. A bit after lunchtime. Sun high above the sycamores.

The presence of television crews brought all kinds of folk out, making it easy to blend in.

Henry played the over-eager, recent college graduate, dressed in jeans and loafers and a white polo shirt, hair in a ponytail, clean shaved, wearing his favorite John Lennon sunglasses.

He stood by a large cement planter exploding with multi-colored tulips.

Worthboro locals milled about enjoying the weather and unusual activity.

Henry kept an eye on the police station across Main Street as well as the news crews parked on the curb across from the newspaper building; no doubt, waiting to pounce on clues of a possible suspect.

Spotted the blond lady right away. Gorgeous and superbly dressed and clearly, boss of the crew scrambling to do her bidding.

Henry wandered closer just as a tall guy and a short guy crossed the street from the newspaper building.

Got a kick at the way the blond lady squealed and threw her arms around the tall guy. Clear as a bell he heard the blond lady say, “Kevin Dell, are you and the girls still in that cute yellow cape on Locust Street?”

Henry watched and listened for a moment longer, wondering if the short one was Chip.

A screech of excitement from a child in a stroller nearby and the newspaper guy named Kevin looked his way.

Just by meeting his gaze, Henry knew that Kevin Dell was another rare person who remembered everything he saw.

When the blond lady grabbed his arm to say something, the tall guy looked away and Henry moved on.

***

Luci didn’t have to be back at the restaurant until Monday.

On Saturday, Henry drove the Corolla into Boston for the weekend, wowing Luci with an overnight stay at a downtown suite with a balcony overlooking Faneuil Hall.

The happy couple returned to Worthboro Sunday night.

On Monday, Luci worked the breakfast shift at the Cozy Nook and by the time her shift ended, the Marionettes were welcoming visitors into their home.

Leaving the restaurant, Luci checked her phone and there was a message from the Lottery.

The background check was completed and the money had been transferred to her account.

***

Tuesday morning, Luci stopped by the bank to verify that almost $600,000 had been deposited.

She immediately requested a cash withdrawal of $100,000.

Rico had told her they couldn’t just yank everything out right away. Banks didn’t make that kind of cash available without notice. He told her to start with a $100,000 chunk and the bank would probably ask for 24 or 48 hours.

The bank told Luci the cash would be available at 1:00 in the afternoon, the next day.