Part 98
"Q. really likes you, Sandy," Peter said, hitting Zander on the back as they walked back to the house from the tennis courts. "She comes over so early in the morning to visit you," he added with a mischievous smile.
Zander looked heavenward, with a slight grin.
In the house, Rosa poured them glasses of ice water.
"Yeah, you're a lucky guy, Sander," Peter said. "Q. is a dream of a girl."
"She's lucky!" Rosa insisted.
Zander smiled. He went over and hugged her.
"I get that only for saying that!" Rosa exclaimed. "I didn't know it was that easy!"
"It's for thinking that, whether or not it is true," Zander said. "I remember with Emily, everybody thought I was lucky and even thought I was terrible and should stay away. Not a soul said she was lucky."
"That's why you need your family around," Rosa said. "I saw this Reginald, in the grocery store, and he said they were all in a tizzy all the time to get rid of you. I told him that made no sense whatever. He said you could knock him over with a feather your family was living in the neighborhood. He thought you were a punk. I almost took a tomato from the bin to throw it at him."
"Did he tell you they eat pizza for Thanksgiving?" Zander asked.
"No, why would he admit a thing like that?"
"It's not his family that is doing it."
"Who would work for a family that did a thing like that?" Rosa asked.
Pete laughed. "That would be worse than working for a crime lord!"
"This lady I ran into who works for Mrs. Barrington said criminal underlords own part of their company. ELQ, it is called. It is not on the up and up," Rosa informed them.
Zander's eyes flew open. "You don't miss much, do you, Rosa? And neither do the other people working in these houses!"
"No, so you best be on your good behavior."
"How do you get ready for a test?" Zander asked Quinn, sitting with her for a cup of coffee at Kelly's.
"A test like this, relax. Get your mind calm. Nothing you study at this point can do anything to improve your knowledge. It can only get you nervous. That was the advice for the SAT. And the Nursing Boards. You've never had a test like this, before, have you?"
"No."
"How do you feel?"
"OK. Good."
"Would it be better to stay at your place alone, at your place with me, or at my place with me?"
"What shift are you on?"
"Never mind that. This is a one time thing for you. I'll deal."
"My place, with you, if that's OK."
"OK."
Edward Quartermaine and Ned were sitting across the room. Quinn noticed them from where she was sitting.
"Wonderful," Zander said. "How much are you willing to bet on, one, that we can't go unnoticed, and two, that if they see me, we can't escape some snide comment?"
"Not much," Quinn said. "That Grandfather looks around like a hawk. He doesn't miss a thing. Must be how he got where he did in life."
"Which is where?" Zander said. "Dad thinks he is a heart attack in the making."
"Your Dad? Has he met Grandfather Quartermaine?"
"Yeah, and it looks like Dad is crossing him in some business matter."
"Mr. Quartermaine is so grouchy acting, but maybe that is how he doesn't have a heart attack. He doesn't keep it all in."
"Right, nurse! He lets it all hang out! He unloads it all onto somebody else! As your Dad would say, you got it! You're a smart one! The way my Dad put it fits in, too. He said something like, he looks like he's having a heart attack every day!"
"Yeah, Sandy, he's having a little bit of his heart attack every day. It's the people who save it all for one day who get killed from it!"
They paid their check and left, and were standing out front deciding whether to go and walk in the park for awhile or go to the gate house when the door opened for Edward and Ned.
"Oh, no, here goes," Zander whispered to Quinn. "I wonder if it will be business instead of Emily, this time."
"Well if it isn't the Port Charles hoodlum," Edward said. He shook his finger at Zander. "If you think putting your criminal father up to these shenanigans is going to get back at us, think again."
"You think I have anything to say about Dad's business?" Zander asked. "What do I have to get back at you for?"
Edward ignored that, and walked off as if he were too big a person to get into any argument. Ned said, "Because we finally convinced Emily you were worthless."
"Emily again," Zander answered. "I knew you'd get back to that. Get it through your heads. Your efforts are worthless. I have no interest in Emily. If you aren't really good at running your business, Dad will grind you into the ground. It will be only your fault. Because you were slack on your business. And it will be only about that."
Ned walked off as though he were too was too big a guy to get involved in such an argument.
"How can they call other people worthless?" Quinn asked to herself, aloud.
"Maybe I'll ask Dr. Baldwin to explain it," Zander said. "It is probably some psychological explanation."
"They think themselves worthless, and project it," Quinn suggested.
"I'll bet that is it," Zander answered. "You did learn something from your shrink boyfriend, nurse."
"Ex-boyfriend."
"Let's go and see if Sergei Kanishchev is in," Zander said. "I wonder if he has been kicked out of the Port Charles Hotel."
"OK," Quinn said. "Let's see if Grandfather has kicked him out!"
Sergei was not only still staying there, he was in.
"I can stop if you want, Sander," he said.
"Oh no," Zander said, "They'll always talk to me like that, Dad. I told them it was business only. They're the ones that try to make it personal."
"Doesn't it feel just a little bit good?" Quinn asked Zander. "Sort of a little fun, maybe, having a Dad who can annoy the Quartermaines that much?"
"No, not really. It only gives them something to say to me they wouldn't have had otherwise. They would still have said something, I'm pretty sure. It would have been about something else, is all."
"Well, I wouldn't blame you if you enjoyed it just a little bit," Quinn said. "Even I do, just a little."
"Do you think what Alexis said right?" Sergei asked. "He will do something to you, Sander, though it is just business?"
"Maybe," Zander said. "I don't know what he could do, now, though. He can't frame me for anything. I have an alibi for about any time of day. Maybe he could go to the University and try to pull strings. Tell them not to let me in."
"Did he go there?" Quinn asked. "If he is not an alumni, and unless he makes big, huge donations, he might not have any strings."
"I don't know," Zander said. "Funny, I know very little about them, either. As Emily knew nothing about me."
"All they know about is Emily," Quinn said. "And all Emily knows about is Emily. Well, Mom and Dad are alumni of that place. Don't think they make any contributions, though! Nothing significant."
"Grandfather Quartermaine is all hot air," Zander said. "I wonder if they would even listen to him on a thing like that. And he'd have to make a big contribution."
"I'll make a big contribution," Sergei said.
"You do enough for me, Dad," Zander said.
"Good for business," Sergei countered.
"True!" Quinn said. "A benevolent reputation in the community! I wonder if ELQ even has that. I don't know a lot of people who work for ELQ."
"I don't think anybody works there, hardly anybody, who isn't a family member," Zander said.
"I don't know anybody who does, either," Quinn said. "I would have thought it was a huge company, though. I guess I figured the employees all worked somewhere else. In another city."
"They owned one of the cranes, is all I remember," Zander said. "Somebody must work there. But you're right, Quinn, most of them might be in some other city. That wouldn't stop the Quartermaines from talking as if they own this one, though."
"They don't own any city," Sergei said. "They own a falling company. They weren't careful enough. Criminals own part of it. You gotta keep the mob out of your company, or they can bring it down."
"So you've done that, Dad?"
"Pretty well. Where I didn't, the company failed. Where I did, the companies did good. You learn the symptoms."
"Symptoms of criminals working in your company?" Quinn asked, looking interested.
"Sure. Bad reports. No reports. Slow to get tax returns. Slow paperwork on stuff. Guys who hang around but aren't on the payroll. People that you want to talk to that always happen to be out of town when you want to talk to them."
"I could see that kind of stuff getting by the Quartermaines," Zander said.
"Especially when they are so busy trying to manage each other's personal lives," Quinn said.
Zander laughed. "Or spying around the hospital," he added.
"Fancy seeing you here," Joanna said. She was waiting in the waiting room at Baldwin & Baldwin, when she saw AJ come out from the inner sanctum of lawyers' offices, back to the waiting room. "Usually I see you lurking around the hospital. You lurk around law firms, too?"
"Yes, I do," he flashed his most brilliant smile, as he stepped up to the window. He began to write a check. As he handed it to the receptionist, he looked back at Joanna. "Let me guess. You are here about your divorce."
"Yes. Melinda Delaney is my attorney."
"Mine too. What a coincidence."
"I would have thought you had everything all wrapped up," Joanna said.
"Mostly it is, but I wanted to find out what would happen if we did any voluntary visits or if we even should," AJ answered. "I wanted Michael to see his mother, even there, so she wouldn't be a stranger to him, totally."
"Well, you could blow me over with a feather."
AJ smiled. "See, I am not all bad. I finally got a clue to think of Michael first. Of course, my entire family is against it, and thinks I am insane. Even Emily, who to this very day still thinks Carly should have custody."
"Even after she shot you?" Joanna exclaimed. "Or, er, tried to shoot you and hit Zander instead?"
"Well, with her it's more that if I had not fought about it, Carly would not have tried to shoot me. Which is true as far as it goes, but it's pretty ridiculous in the long run, to argue that I should have stayed away from my son forever or be shot at, and then once shot at, should never let the person see the child, whom originally was going to be the only one to see the child. Emily is smart, but she's still young, I guess. She doesn't understand the big stuff. Just the school stuff."
"I'm confused. I'll just accept that your whole family thinks you are crazy."
AJ took his receipt from the receptionist. He sat down for a minute next to Joanna. "I hope you don't have anything big still in issue," he said.
"It is just some wrap up stuff about the property," Joanna said. "I got a new house, and we finally got the old one sold. For awhile, Charlie wanted me to stay in the old one. But I could not qualify for a big enough loan alone. So I got a new place. It is smaller, but it's all mine."
"How do you like that? That must be a good feeling."
"Yes, I like it a lot. Smaller places that are all yours and you feel pretty sure you can afford are all right. Better than bigger places that your ex feels like he has some interest in and like he can direct what you do, because you still have the house."
"Oh, does old Charlie still try to boss you?"
"Yep," Joanna smiled. "You would be amazed. The nerve of the man. But I won't complain to you. At least he isn't shooting at me."
AJ smiled. "Carly is a special breed. She really gets carried away with things. And I had thought Zander was bad. But he is starting to look relatively benign. Life is funny that way. I thought Emily was the unlucky one, here it turns out I was much worse off. I never dreamed Carly would end up doing the things she did. She got worse while Zander got better."
"You didn't have any hint she was violent?"
"Little things. But nothing that would suggest it was anything serious, or could turn lethal. Maybe it wouldn't have happened if her new husband was somebody other than a career criminal."
"She wouldn't have found a gun so easy?"
"Yeah. Or wouldn't have seen murder as the easy way to eliminate her problems."
"How do these people manage to stay out of jail? He's still out."
"Who knows? It sure is hard to understand how they do it. Everybody knows he is a criminal. Nobody can catch him at it. He even owns part of our company."
A secretary poked her head out. "Ms. Delaney will see you now," she said to Joanna.
"Good luck," AJ said, "See you."
"Thanks, same to you," Joanna answered. "See you next time you're lurking around somewhere."
He laughed and went out the waiting room door. Joanna followed the secretary.
Quinn and Zander were laying in his bed in the gatehouse. She was reading to him out of James Joyce, which strangely, seemed to soothe him quite a bit. Eventually, he was asleep. She looked down and smiled, stopped reading and turned the lights out. She felt sure he would get a good night's sleep, the best preparation for a test like this.
In the morning she went across the hall to get him breakfast; she had insisted on being there to help with the perfect breakfast with all the minerals and vitamins and orange juice. You always had to insist with him, he was always going to do things on his own first. She smiled fondly to herself at how his way was generally not the best idea. Fortunately, he was reasonable when you tried to persuade him, so long as you had a reasonable case for your side.
So they ate their perfect breakfast and sat in the lobby area waiting for Amanda, who had earned the privilege of driving him over to PCU, where the test was given, making sure he got there OK and all that. "It's much easier when you don't have to hassle with little things, like where to park," Quinn had said. Zander knew that, since Alexis had thought so since he had been driving her around.
When Amanda pulled up, Quinn kissed Zander for good luck. "Thanks, nurse," he said, "I'm sure that'll do it."
"You'll do it," she laughed. "You'll do fine."
She sat there for awhile, after Amanda pulled away with Zander in the car. She noticed then that Oksana was driving out. She looked every inch the wealthy woman today, in her expensive sunglasses and tailored suit, driving her white Mercedes. She stopped the car.
"Good morning," she said. "Is Sander still there?"
Quinn explained that Amanda had already taken him off.
"Oh, I wanted to wish him luck," she said. "I forgot last night."
"Everything looks good," Quinn said. "I made sure he had some orange juice and all of the daily essential vitamins."
Oksana smiled. "Thank you! We were only now thinking of that up at the house."
"Any time!"
"See you later," Oksana put her window up and drove away.
At the office, Lucky Spencer came to see Oksana.
"I was out at the Quartermaines, and going around their garden," he said. "The old gardener hardly knew what was there. I don't understand it. Anyway, over your place, your gardener was a big help. Could you spare her to help me in the other gardens?"
"You think she can be useful?"
"Yes. If we label the photos we end up taking, or know what we're taking them near, we have more information for the spread. We're not going to attract customers who are otherwise intrigued with the garden end of it unless we know what we are talking about."
"True. Try with her at one place and if she's any help in gardens other than her own, she can go to the rest of them with you, too."
"Thanks Oksana. This is going to help this project be a success, I'm sure."
