Jackpot (Frank Renzi mystery series) by Susan Fleet Page B

down his cheeks. By God that old woman in the store was right. A winner was due and it was him!
    He felt like screaming. Light the fireworks! Sound the trumpets!
    Unable to sit still, he jumped up and paced the room. Now he could pay off his debts. Compared to twelve million, they didn’t amount to a hill of beans. He’d pay them off and have millions left over.
    A giddy laugh bubbled up in his throat. He’d buy a big house on the ocean. Bloody hell, he’d buy two, one on each coast!
    He had to call Vicky and tell her! But she’d probably be angry with him for gambling. He’d have to tell her sooner or later, but he’d better think things through first.
    Maybe he’d call Hale. No, bad idea. When it came to money, Hale was a shark. He might even try to take some of the winnings.
    Should he call Joanna? He owed her five thousand dollars in alimony, and she was threatening legal action. But he couldn’t face talking to her now.
    He went in the bathroom and looked in the mirror. His eyes were bloodshot, and his nose looked like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.
    But so what? He was a winner. He couldn’t tell anyone, but he could bloody well go down to the pub and celebrate.
    He put on a clean shirt and checked the ticket again.
    Every number matched. His money problems were over!
    _____
     
    Still seething after his mother’s humiliating taunt, reminding him he used to wet his pants sometimes when he was little, he unlocked the door to his basement room, first the deadbolt, then the lock in the doorknob. When he went inside, the fluorescent light above the fish tank gave off a dim glow.
    He turned on the overhead light. His shoes were lined up in a row beside his bed, and his magazines lay on the desk, just as he’d left them. Satisfied no one had been in his room, he massaged the dull ache above his ear. After the accident the doctors had said the pain would go away, but it hadn’t.
    Mouth-mother pain in his head. Hearing her voice right before the accident: Silas, you’re going too fast!!
    Now his father was dead, but his mother wasn’t.
    The ache near his ear kept throbbing, but he ignored it and studied the nametags pasted to the fish tank. Now there were seven. But Number 7 had no name. He scattered food on the water and seven orange goldfish darted to it, but Judy hung back. Judy was different.
    Judy and her beautiful calico-spotted fins.
    Mysterious. Lonely. They were so much alike.
    He watched his girls gobble the food, their eager mouths moving: Lulu and Tessa and Lilly. His groin ached, just thinking about them, remembering his excitement. Then came Betty and Rosie and Florence. Each one more thrilling than the last. Now he had a new girl.
    “Jooody,” he crooned. “My new girl needs a name.”
    He powered up his computer. Maybe he’d read his journals. Which one? Lulu, his Powerball princess? He touched his crotch, remembering. No. Not yet. He had to fix his resume so he could take it to the Quincy Library. He opened the file and studied it. The BS in Library Science was bullshit, of course. BS. Bull Shit. He’d taken only one course. The Film Classics professor gave him an F, but he didn’t care. He had fallen in love with Judy. Beautiful, talented Judy Garland. Little, abused Judy. Judy was so brave. Her mother fed her diet pills to keep her thin. She wanted to please her parents, but the drugs and the diets finally killed her.
    When he was little he wanted to please his parents too, but . . .
    He scrolled past the bogus college degree. He hadn’t bothered to list the electronics courses he’d taken after high school. Libraries didn’t care about that. The college degree got him the job at the Bourne Library.
    How he loved working there! He’d read every book and magazine he could find about Judy. When the head librarian fired him, he wanted to kill her, but she was bigger than he was, muscular, with a long horsy face. One day she caught him in the ladies restroom hiding in a stall. He loved