Burn: A Novel Read online

  “Can I ask you a question?” she finally said.

  Ms. Smith looked faintly interested. “Of course, but I might not answer it.”

  “Fair enough. How long have you worked here?”

  “A little more than two years.” She didn’t seem surprised by the question. “It’s obvious I’m low man on the totem pole here. That doesn’t mean I’m not good at my job. I’ll work my way up.”

  “How old are you?”

  Ms. Smith gave a bark of laughter. “That’s more personal than I expected, but I don’t mind telling you. I’m twenty-seven. Yes, I’m young. I understand your concern. But I’m here to help, and I won’t always be in one of the back offices.”

  The straightforward ambition appealed to Jenner more than any generic, diplomatic reassurance would have. She glanced around the small office, thinking that Al Smith might be leaving it sooner than she’d expected. Her gaze fell on the shelf behind the desk. There were a couple of plants, smaller and less perfect than those in the lobby, and some simply framed snapshots of Ms. Smith and another woman smiling into the camera, their arms looped around each other’s shoulders. The pose struck Jenner as somewhat romantic, and she stared at the photos a moment too long.

  Ms. Smith glanced over her shoulder at the photos, and her mouth tightened. “Yes, Ms. Redwine, I’m a lesbian—but don’t worry; you aren’t my type. Skinny little blondes don’t appeal to me.”

  Judging from the photographs, Jenner would say Ms. Smith preferred tall, curvy redheads. To each his—or her—own.

  Jenner smiled, relaxing. She liked this plainspoken, up-front woman. “I don’t have an inheritance,” she admitted, digging into her bag and pulling out her wallet. Opening it, she pulled out the newspaper clipping and laid it on the desk in front of Ms. Smith. Next she took out the lottery ticket and placed it beside the piece of newsprint.

  Ms. Smith gave her a curious look, then picked up a pair of glasses and slid them in place. She looked down at the two pieces of paper, and Jenner watched her expression change as she realized what she was seeing. “Holy sh—Excuse me. Is this what I think it is?”

  “Yes.”

  Al Smith abruptly sat back. With one finger she adjusted her glasses, as if to make certain she was seeing properly. She looked back and forth from the newsprint to the lottery ticket, comparing each number much as Jenner had done. Finally she lifted her head, and looked her new client in the eye. For the first time there was a twinkle there as she said, “I think skinny blondes just became my type.”

  Jenner was surprised into a snort of laughter. “Sorry. My type comes with a penis. Besides, your redhead could probably beat me up.”

  “She could,” Al admitted. She and Jenner grinned at each other, two tough-minded young women who recognized similar qualities in each other. They were both used to working hard for what they had. Al no doubt made way more money than Jenner did, but she was still fighting and clawing her way up the career ladder.

  Jenner didn’t know anything about investments, but she understood people, and how the pecking order worked. That lottery ticket represented a huge stepping-stone to Al, just as it did to her. By bringing in this size of an account, Al would leapfrog over everyone else on her level, and would quickly move into one of those larger offices. With her added influence, she would gain other accounts, and the effect would snowball. If she was half as good as Jenner thought she might be, Al Smith could one day have her own investment firm, or at least be a senior partner at Payne Echols.

  Al sobered, surveying Jenner over the top of her glasses. “Most lottery winners are broke within five years, no matter how much they win.”

  A chill rippled over Jenner’s skin. She couldn’t imagine how she could possibly lose that much money, but the possibility made her feel a little sick to her stomach. “That’s why I’m here. I don’t want to be broke in five years.”

  “Then you’ll have to be very careful. The only way to completely protect the money is to set it up in an irrevocable trust that will pay you X amount every year—or every month, however you wanted to set it up—but you’d lose control of the principal, and you don’t strike me as the type of person who would like that.”

  Everything in Jenner rebelled at the idea of letting someone else have control of her money, even though the act would be voluntary. Irrevocable. She didn’t like the sound of that.

  “That’s what I thought,” Al said drily, reading Jenner’s expression. “So … whether or not you’re insanely rich in five years, or broke and working a dead-end job, is entirely up to you. If you can’t turn down the moochers, you’ll go through this pretty fast. I’d strongly recommend either an irrevocable trust or getting the winnings in a yearly payout rather than lump sum. Lump sum is the smartest choice, if you can leave it alone.”

  “I can leave it alone,” Jenner replied, thinking of Jerry. “I want it protected, invested, where no one can get to it without my in-person say-so. My dad—” She stopped, her expression wry. “He’s the main one I’ll have to watch out for. Let’s just say he doesn’t believe in working for what he has.”

  “All families have one like that,” Al observed. “Okay, let’s start working out a plan. Lump sum, you’ll probably get about”—her fingers danced over a calculator—“a hundred and fifty million dollars.”

  “What?” Jenner sat up straight. “What happened to the other hundred and forty-five million?”

  “Taxes. The government gets what it wants before you get anything.”

  “But that’s almost half!” She was outraged. Yeah, a hundred and fifty million was still an incredibly hefty amount of money, but … but—she wanted the rest of it, too. She’d won it, fair and square. Yeah, she’d known, vaguely, that she’d have to pay taxes, but she hadn’t realized the hit would be that big.

  “Sure is. If you add up all the taxes—income, social security, sales taxes, the taxes on gasoline and the phone bill and everything else, it isn’t unusual for people to end up paying over sixty percent to the government, but a lot of it is hidden. If the average guy realized how much Washington is sucking out of his pocket, there’d be riots in the streets.”

  “I’ll carry the pitchfork,” Jenner muttered.

  “I bet you would. Still, we can put a hundred and fifty million to serious work.” She put some more numbers into the calculator. “A return rate of four percent would give you an annual discretionary income of around six million, without ever touching the principal. And four percent is a low estimate. You should make more.”

  Okay. Wow. Six million a year, without drawing down the principal at all. She didn’t need six million, she could live on a lot less, so that much could stay in her investments, working and earning. The more she had, the more interest it earned, and her worth kept growing. She felt as if a door had just opened, and she could see what was inside the room. She got it.

  All she had to do was be smart, and not blow it.

  Al launched into a mini-lecture about the variety of investments available—stocks and dividends, Treasury bills, and high-level debt. Jenner didn’t pretend to understand it all, but she absorbed what she could and asked a hundred questions. She set her own requirements: no one would be moving her money around without her permission. She didn’t want to find that Al or anyone else at Payne Echols had decided to invest her money in a risky stock or whatever, and she’d lost everything. She wanted to be the final word on every decision. She also didn’t want anything at her house that would leave her open to theft. She wouldn’t put anything past Jerry. He’d do whatever he could to get his hands on the money. People like him were a big part of the reason most lottery winners were broke within five years.

  Al set to work formulating a plan. A small part of the money—a hundred thousand—would be put in a bank for Jenner’s immediate use. Most of it would be in a savings account that she could easily access, moving money to checking as she needed it. She would also need a safe-deposit box where she could keep all her papers, and no one e