Chapter Eleven
Organized chaos. There was no other way to explain it. The second everyone figured out that George had the winning lottery ticket, the entire office became a whirlwind of activity.
They were escorted into a conference room, offered something to drink, then three men in dark suits came in.
"Mr. Carver?" one of them asked. He was an older gentleman with salt-and-pepper hair and a very well-trimmed mustache. George guessed him to be about sixty or so, and definitely human.
George raised his hand. "I'm George Carver."
The man smiled as he reached out to shake George's hand before sitting down. The two men with him sat down on each side of him. "My name is Oliver James. I'm the director here at Mega Money Lottery headquarters. Considering the size of your lottery winning, I'll be handling all the paperwork for you today."
George gave a little nod. "So, what do you need from me?"
"Well, I'll need to see the lottery ticket before we go any further. I need to authenticate it."
George grabbed his wallet out of his pocket then pulled the ticket out and handed it over. "I signed it just like your website said to."
Olive smiled. "That's good."
He pulled out a tablet then flipped the ticket over. George leaned forward to see what he was doing and realized the man was comparing the number on the back of the ticket to ones listed on his tablet. After nodding—George had no idea who he was nodding at—Oliver turned the ticket back over and verified the numbers that won George the lottery.
"Okay, it looks as if everything checks out." Oliver smiled again. "Congratulations, Mr. Carver. You are two billion dollars richer."
"No, sir. The lottery was for one point six billion dollars."
"That's true, but the money has been sitting in an account waiting for you to claim it. Interest on that money has raised it to two billion dollars."
George blinked. "Holy crap."
Oliver rested his arms on the table and folded his hands together. "I know this can all be a bit confusing, Mr. Carver, but it's a fairly easy process. I have the winning ticket. I just need to verify your identity, and then we can proceed with the paperwork."
George grabbed his ID, which had been returned to him by the bank manager. Just on the off chance, he handed over both pieces of identification he had. "I have a copy of my birth certificate if you need it."
"No, that won't be necessary. These should do just fine." Oliver held up the two pieces of ID then handed them to the accountant. "Harold, would you go make copies of these?"
Harold nodded as he grabbed the IDs then got up and walked out of the room. He was back a few minutes later with George's IDs and a sheet of paper. He handed the IDs to George and the sheet of paper to Oliver, who slid it into the file in front of him. As he did, he pulled out a stack of papers and set them on the table in front of George.
"We're going to go over these papers one by one so you know what they are, okay?"
George nodded.
"Okay, let's get started."
Paper after paper was set in front of George for what seemed like forever. He heard a lot about taxes and accounts and liability and stuff he didn't really understand, but he wasn't stupid. After reading each page, he handed them to his uncle to read.
What he did understand was that even after taxes were taken out, he was still walking away with over a billion dollars. He was pretty sure if he left all that money in a bank account somewhere and didn't touch it for an entire year, he could buy the moon.
George signed where his uncle said he was supposed to sign, wrote his initials where indicated, checked the boxes pointed out to him, and filled in the information requested on the forms. By the time he was done, his fingers were cramped.
He dropped the pen down onto the stack of papers then sat back in his chair and shook his hand. "First thing I'm going to do is hire someone to massage my hand."
There were a few chuckles before Oliver gestured to the man sitting at his right. "I believe Mr. Jenkins has some papers for you to sign."
Mr. Jenkins pulled some papers out of his briefcase and set them down in front of George. "This is all just a formality really to ensure that the money gets transferred into the appropriate accounts."
George read them over slowly. The man was correct. They were pretty straightforward. It was basically a money transfer form. There was just one little problem. The account listed for the money to be transferred to had George's old account on it. One, he had closed that account, and two, he had never given the account number to anyone, so how did this guy have it?
George set the pen down without signing the form then pinned his gaze on Mr. Jenkins. He wanted to know just who he was up against. He probably wouldn't have known there was an issue if he hadn't gone through such a fucked-up morning.
