He grabbed Donovan under his armpits and lifted him up to the couch and sat down across from him. The groggy journalist listed to one side. Jackson gently propped him up with a pillow.
“It certainly wouldn’t pass the closest of scrutiny; however, the result isn’t bad for a half hour’s work.”
“I need to get to a doctor.” Donovan managed to get the words out through blood-caked lips.
“I’m afraid that’s not going to happen. But I will take a couple of minutes to explain some things to you. For what it’s worth, I believe that I owe you that. You were quite ingenious in figuring out the bankruptcy angle. That, I admit, had never occurred to me. My main concern was to ensure that none of my winners would want for money. Any shortage of funds might give them motivation to tell all. Fat and happy people rarely double-cross their benefactor. You found the hole in that plan.”
Donovan coughed and, with a sudden motion, managed to sit up straight. “How’d you pick up my trail?”
“I knew LuAnn would tell you basically nothing. What would you do next? Ferret out another source. I phoned all my other winners and alerted them that you might call. Ten of them I instructed to blow you off. I told Bobbie Jo—excuse me, Roberta—to meet with you.”
“Why her?”
“Simple enough. Geographically, she was the closest one to me. As it is, I had to drive through the night to get here and set everything up. That was me in the Mercedes, by the way. I had a description of you. I thought that was you in the car watching the house.”
“Where’s Bobbie Jo?”
“Not relevant.” Jackson smiled both in his eagerness to explain and in his triumph and total control over the veteran reporter. “Now, to continue. The substance applied to nine of the ten balls was a clear light acrylic. If you care for precise details, it was a diluted solution of polydimethyl siloxane that I made a few modifications to, a turbocharged version if you will. It builds up a powerful static charge and also increases the size of the ball by approximately one thousandth of an inch without, however, a measurable change in weight or appearance or even smell. They do weigh the balls, you know, to ensure that all are of equal weight. In each bin the ball with the winning number on it had no chemicals applied to it. Each passageway through which the winning ball must travel was given a small trace of the modified polydimethyl siloxane solution as well. Under those precisely controlled conditions, the nine balls with the static charge could not enter a passageway coated with the same substance; indeed, they repelled each other, much like a force field. Thus they could not be part of the winning combination. Only the uncoated ball would be able to do so.”
The awe was clear on Donovan’s face, but then his features clouded. “Wait a minute: If the nine balls were coated with the same charge, why wouldn’t they be repelling each other in the bin? Wouldn’t that make people suspicious?”
“Wonderful question. I thrive on the details. I further modified the chemical so that it would be instantly activated by the heat given off by the air flow into the machines to make the balls gyrate. Until then, the balls would remain motionless.”
Jackson paused, his eyes shining. “Inferior minds seek convoluted scenarios; it takes a brilliant one to achieve simplicity. And I’m sure your background research revealed that all of my winners were poor, desperate, searching for a little hope, a little help. And I gave it to them. To all of you. The lottery loved it. The government looked like saints helping the impoverished like that. You people in the media got to write your teary-eyed stories. Everybody won. Including me.” Donovan half expected the man to take a bow.
“And you did this all by your lonesome?” Donovan sneered.
Jackson’s retort was sharp. “I didn’t need anyone else, other than my winners. Human beings are infinitely fallible, completely unreliable. Science is not. Science is absolute. Under strict principles, if you do A and B, then C will occur. That rarely happens if you inject the inefficiencies of humanity into the process.”