“What’s next? Champagne from Saudi Arabia?”
“Claude, you see all the lottery ticket transactions. Please assure me Roddy will pay off the BlizzardBall winner.” Gisele crushed the cigarette under her heel. “I mean, he’s always honored winning tickets in the past, right?”
“I think it’s wise to consider we are in uncharted, shark-infested waters.” Claude hitched his pants as if expecting the sidewalk to flood.
“Are we finding Nemo or lottery tickets?”
“Seven hundred fifty million is a lot of chum, ma cherie.” Claude looked at his watch and walked back inside the building, leaving Gisele to hold up the wall on her own.
In the distance, she could see Vancouver’s gleaming glass towers reflecting the majesty of the distant North Shore Mountains and shimmering with a montage of commerce from the streets below. Deep within that reverberating image, just beyond the gritty auto repair shop and adult video store, stood Gisele and Lotto2Win’s faded-red, four-story brick building with gulls perched on its brittle cornices. She wondered how the hell she had landed here.
Teller
Alita could not get back to sleep with the mischief of lottery tickets outside her bedroom door. She trudged through a blanket of new snow on the way to her bank job and stopped for coffee at the Mediterranean Deli. On the opposite side of the street sat the Cash and Dash. The hole-in-the-wall convenience store was squeezed between the Worn-A-Bit and Julio’s Barber Shop. The metal shutters were locked down. A curious amount of ice layered the sidewalk. A Channel 5 TV truck idled at the curb with its satellite boom extended skyward. Alita shoved a quarter in a newspaper dispenser and quickly scanned the Pioneer Press for a notice of a breakin. Nothing. Too early, she concluded. Racked with anxiety, she considered turning herself in and admitting to being a party to the robbery rather than be humiliated in front of the bank staff and customers. She wanted to skip work and go back home and kill those two mongrels. Force of habit, however, carried her into the bank, where she took up her teller position with a pasted-on smile.
“Is it you that’s got the winning lottery number, honey?” her supervisor asked.
Alita flinched. She swiveled her head, expecting someone to step forward with handcuffs.
“Didn’t mean to startle you, girl.” Lasiandra spread her arms wide and inhaled, expanding her already robust figure. On an audible exhale, the suspended weight dropped like a free-fall elevator. “Maybe I do have a career as a cat burglar. Ha!”
Alita felt a headache beginning to sink its talons into her skull.
“Honey, you okay?”
“Yeah, just had a rough night.” Alita yanked at a twist of hair as if pulling the rip cord on a parachute. “And I don’t waste my money on gambling.”
“Good girl, but too bad, because the winning ticket was purchased at the Cash and Dash.”
“Who won?” Alita asked, avoiding eye contact.
“Don’t know, but I can tell you who lost. They found the owner of the Cash and Dash sliced up like a cucumber. That man be dead.” Lasiandra thumped her bosom like an altar boy saying mea culpas.
“Oh, my God.” Alita put her hand to her mouth, trying to keep more words from falling out. A knot squeezed her chest. She fought for air to keep from being sucked into the blackness of panic whirling below the surface.
“What’s that, honey?”
“Just a little faint,” Alita said, trying to hold back tears about to burst a dam. “I gotta call it a day. Coming down with something I don’t think you want me to share with you.”
As Alita hurried back toward the apartment, she felt like she was being dragged along a chamber of horrors, one monster after another jumping out at her in the form of a question. Did her cousins hurt the convenience store owner? Did they steal the winning ticket? Is someone looking for them, for her? Did her big mouth trigger this stupidity?
As the
“Claude, you see all the lottery ticket transactions. Please assure me Roddy will pay off the BlizzardBall winner.” Gisele crushed the cigarette under her heel. “I mean, he’s always honored winning tickets in the past, right?”
“I think it’s wise to consider we are in uncharted, shark-infested waters.” Claude hitched his pants as if expecting the sidewalk to flood.
“Are we finding Nemo or lottery tickets?”
“Seven hundred fifty million is a lot of chum, ma cherie.” Claude looked at his watch and walked back inside the building, leaving Gisele to hold up the wall on her own.
In the distance, she could see Vancouver’s gleaming glass towers reflecting the majesty of the distant North Shore Mountains and shimmering with a montage of commerce from the streets below. Deep within that reverberating image, just beyond the gritty auto repair shop and adult video store, stood Gisele and Lotto2Win’s faded-red, four-story brick building with gulls perched on its brittle cornices. She wondered how the hell she had landed here.
Teller
Alita could not get back to sleep with the mischief of lottery tickets outside her bedroom door. She trudged through a blanket of new snow on the way to her bank job and stopped for coffee at the Mediterranean Deli. On the opposite side of the street sat the Cash and Dash. The hole-in-the-wall convenience store was squeezed between the Worn-A-Bit and Julio’s Barber Shop. The metal shutters were locked down. A curious amount of ice layered the sidewalk. A Channel 5 TV truck idled at the curb with its satellite boom extended skyward. Alita shoved a quarter in a newspaper dispenser and quickly scanned the Pioneer Press for a notice of a breakin. Nothing. Too early, she concluded. Racked with anxiety, she considered turning herself in and admitting to being a party to the robbery rather than be humiliated in front of the bank staff and customers. She wanted to skip work and go back home and kill those two mongrels. Force of habit, however, carried her into the bank, where she took up her teller position with a pasted-on smile.
“Is it you that’s got the winning lottery number, honey?” her supervisor asked.
Alita flinched. She swiveled her head, expecting someone to step forward with handcuffs.
“Didn’t mean to startle you, girl.” Lasiandra spread her arms wide and inhaled, expanding her already robust figure. On an audible exhale, the suspended weight dropped like a free-fall elevator. “Maybe I do have a career as a cat burglar. Ha!”
Alita felt a headache beginning to sink its talons into her skull.
“Honey, you okay?”
“Yeah, just had a rough night.” Alita yanked at a twist of hair as if pulling the rip cord on a parachute. “And I don’t waste my money on gambling.”
“Good girl, but too bad, because the winning ticket was purchased at the Cash and Dash.”
“Who won?” Alita asked, avoiding eye contact.
“Don’t know, but I can tell you who lost. They found the owner of the Cash and Dash sliced up like a cucumber. That man be dead.” Lasiandra thumped her bosom like an altar boy saying mea culpas.
“Oh, my God.” Alita put her hand to her mouth, trying to keep more words from falling out. A knot squeezed her chest. She fought for air to keep from being sucked into the blackness of panic whirling below the surface.
“What’s that, honey?”
“Just a little faint,” Alita said, trying to hold back tears about to burst a dam. “I gotta call it a day. Coming down with something I don’t think you want me to share with you.”
As Alita hurried back toward the apartment, she felt like she was being dragged along a chamber of horrors, one monster after another jumping out at her in the form of a question. Did her cousins hurt the convenience store owner? Did they steal the winning ticket? Is someone looking for them, for her? Did her big mouth trigger this stupidity?
As the
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