“You catch the first episode of JACKPOT!?” he says, yanking me back from the ledge of the freak-out pit I was about to topple into.
“I didn’t.” Wanted to, but we don’t have that channel.
“You didn’t miss much.” Zan shifts the Jeep over into the HOV lane and settles down into his seat. “Mark my words: Wally Winkle will be flat broke in five years.”
Wow. “Well, that’s epically pessimistic.”
“I speak only the truth,” he says. “The first show was basically an episode of MTV Cribs. We got a tour of the seven-million-dollar house he bought, complete with an indoor pool and racquetball court.”
“So he wanted a nice home” is my tempered response. “He’s still got forty million to live on.”
Zan shakes his head. “The place was full of expensive furniture and electronics. He’s already bought two luxury cars for himself, and a car and house for each of his three kids.”
“What’s your point?”
“Rico, giving forty-seven million dollars to a person with no financial acumen and little impulse control is a horrible i—”
“Little impulse control?” My voice totally cracks. “You don’t even know this guy!”
“I don’t have to. People who go from rags to riches overnight tend to be clueless about money management,” he says. “There was this guy who worked at our factory ten years ago. He had a freak accident on one of the machines and wound up losing three fingers on his right hand. Got a five-million-dollar settlement.”
“Okay…”
“Well managed, he should’ve been able to live a pretty good life for fifty-plus years—that’s a little over eight thousand dollars a month. Honestly, invested properly, he could’ve stretched it even further.”
“You sure know a lot about this…” (said semi-sarcastically).
“My dad’s been drilling ‘financial responsibility’ since I was old enough to know the different coin values in my piggy bank. Read Rich Dad Poor Dad aloud to me for the first time when I was in pre-K.”
“Ah.” Damn know-it-all.
“Like I was saying, this guy who lost his fingers should’ve been set for a while, but within three years, he was begging to be hired back because he’d totally blown the money. Just like Wally Winkle, he bought a big-ass house and a brand-new car. Turns out he was also an alcoholic with a gambling problem.”
I don’t reply.
“People see the lotto as this Holy Grail that’ll solve all their problems, but it’s really nothing more than an ugly system preying on the hope of the poor and destroying lives. Wally Winkle has no idea what the hell he’s doing, man. It’s gonna get ugly.”
I still don’t say anything. This is the first time he’s ever said this much unprompted, and…well, I’d be fine with him never speaking again.
If I open my mouth right now, fire might come out. What the hell does Alexander Gustavo Macklin know about “the hope of the poor”? I tuck my hands beneath my thighs and stare out my window at all the cars we’re blowing past.
No clue how much time goes by, but suddenly he says, “You’re mad at me.”
“What?”
“I can feel it. You’re mad at me because of what I said.”
I sigh. “Can we talk about something else, please?”
“I wanna hear your thoughts,” he says. “And don’t tell me you don’t have any because I know you do.”
He’s right. “It’s just funny that the boy who’s never wanted for anything has all this shit to say about people who spend most of their lives with next to nothing.”
And there’s that calculating look that gets under my skin.
“You have no idea what it’s like to be poor, Zan.”
“Fair enough. Please continue.”
“People like Wally Winkle and the guy from your factory don’t have the luxury of taking stuff like home and car ownership for granted,” I say. “You probably never even think about it, but there are people who can’t take it for granted that they’ll have food on the table every week—”
“Like you and Jax?”
My mouth snaps shut.
He knows he said the wrong thing because he doesn’t say anything else. After a few minutes of contemplating whether or not I should leap and barrel-roll out onto the shoulder of the highway when we change lanes, I muster the courage to peek at him. He’s staring straight ahead with his lips sealed.
“Why are you helping me, Zan?”
He peeks over. “Huh?”
“With this whole thing. If you think the lottery is evil—”
“I didn’t say it was evil, geez.”
“ ‘Ugly.’ ‘Preying on poor people.’ Whatever. If that’s how you feel about it, why are you helping me look for the lady who has the ticket?”
Loooooong pause. “Because you asked me to?”
Mmmm…“Last I checked, all I asked for was help with the Gas ’n’ Go security footage. You’ve initiated everything else, this road trip included.” So what are you after?
He swallows. Like, more than once. Adam’s apple looks like one of those bobbing ocean buoys.
Why do I feel like a bomb is about to drop?
He sighs. “Don’t hate me, all right?”
“Ummm…”
“I was bored.”
He—What? “Come again?”
He sighs. “Boredom,” he says. “That’s why I’m helping. I’ve been in that town doing the same things with the same people for as long as I can remember.”
I pinch my lips together. Of course something that could change a person’s whole existence would be nothing more than a boredom cure for Alexander Macklin. Clearly the endless crap he has access to All.
The.
Time.
isn’t nearly enough to provide him with adequate entertainment.
He keeps going. “You dragging me out of that cafeteria was the most exciting thing to happen to me all year. Felt like being called upon to embark on some epic hero’s quest.”
I don’t—
“So this is just a game to you?”