Part 17
When the orderly left the room, after putting Zander back into bed, Joe Quinn sat down again.
"It would just be so much more work than they think it is," he said, to the ceiling.
"They're willing to do it," Joe said.
"The shrink, I looked up his name, and he's the shrink. They've got one of those on me. He'd be looking for people I don't even know in a foreign country. I don't even know whether they'd be alive still. I don't know what part of the country; it's big, and they wouldn't tell me later what cities they were from, and if they told me when I was younger I don't remember. I looked at that map over and over trying to get some city to sound familiar. I've looked for these people myself, and don't know where to start."
"People search their family tree," Joe said, thoroughly confused, and deciding it was better to leave it be without asking questions. "I know Kathleen traced hers back to the very guy who came over on the boat from Ireland, and she traced the Connors back there too. She knows whatever very town in Ireland they came from in the 1800s. She must be able to figure out two generations ago. You were a kid. Probably a terrible investigator."
"I don't know anything about these people. I can figure out what the grandfathers' names must be. They must not care all that much about my parents, or by now they could have found them. Still, I can't be sure they wouldn't turn my parents back on me. I swore I wouldn't go near them again or have anything to do with them until my little brother was 18, when I'd run to his rescue and help him with getting away from both of them. And at that, I will have a hard time finding him. And I'm not much of a rescuer, I know. But I still have a couple of years."
"You wouldn't think anybody would help you with that, would you? Now as it is, I have nothing better to do."
"Rich people can do terrible things. They can make up medical records. And you've got your family, I mean, your Connor family. That's something better to do. These rich people, they can do bad things to better people."
"They can't touch us. Exactly why. What are they going to do? Buy out the state of New York? They'd have to buy out McKinley Engineering and the whole school system. This hospital and all the other hospitals in the world. McKinley is now owned by a consortium of one multinational and a couple huge corporations that yesterday probably merged with two other corporations. And then what are they going to do? So you see, our very smallness gives them nothing to latch onto. How'd they get so rich, by the way? Danny might want to try it."
"Just by working at it and pushing and exploiting the system that wasn't theirs and not caring about much else. Having nothing better to do. Not giving a damn about anybody else."
"If they aren't criminals who will do anything violent, I don't see real dangers. If I say, Mr. Smith, tell me your medical history, he says next: tell me where my son is or I won't tell you. I say: you would rather your son be severely ill than just tell me your family medical history. He gives me the medical history."
Zander smiled.
"Well, I know I'm an innocent babe in the woods when it comes to this."
"I don't mean it that way. In a good way. Really."
"I know it. So you don't have a thing to be concerned about for me."
"He hires this army of lawyers and stuff. They find me. Using you, of course."
"Must be. Or they'd have found you by now. Maybe you're smarter than you think."
"He pays a doctor to make up any set of records that requires me to be where he thinks best for the purpose of going to her to blame it on her."
"They wouldn't be divorced, would they?"
"They're divorced. Very divorced. They've been working on this divorce for years. Just because the decree is signed doesn't mean they're not still working on the divorce. It goes on and on."
"Guess he wishes she'd just go find a cabin in Maine."
"She'd never go to a cabin in Maine. Not unless he needed a cabin in Maine, and only if it was the one he needed."
"I hope there are no stepparents involved in this too. It sounds like a bad soap opera as it is."
"No. But it's been 4 years. Plenty of time to draw two unsuspecting people in."
"They can be charming. Persuasive."
"Yeah, oh yeah. Very talented."
"They sound like enough to make a guy want to leave home and give up all the perks of being rich and live on the streets."
"Nice of you not to add and sell drugs to kids."
"Well, I can't say what I'd do in the situation. Never been in it. Don't be rough on yourself. You can't say what you'd have done in my situation. I dare say you would not have sold drugs had you been in it."
"Thanks for saying that. I've never heard anybody put it like that before. Really."
"Take a rest now. Take these pills. I'll be here, just sitting here reading, and when Nurse Question comes you'll be too out of it to fend off questions. An offer you cannot turn down!"
Zander looked at the letter lying on the table, then at the ceiling, then at Joe. "OK," he said.
