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The Quintessential Q
Chapter Twenty Nine
The Real Thing
Carly sees Lucky as he is walking away. She stands in the doorway of the tackroom holding Michael's hand. Michael had gotten to know Lucky from Lucky's forays into Bobbie's refridgerator on days when Bobbie had claimed grandmother priviledge. Michael calls out to Lucky and Carly releases his hand.
"Luck." Michael makes his way fearlessly over the slightly uneven terrain. "Luck. Luck. Luck."
Lucky turns around and walks over to Michael. "Hey shortstuff." Lucky kneels down next to Michael. Michael throws his arms around Lucky's neck. Lucky rises smoothly but mocks a groan. "Wow you're getting really big."
"To what do I owe the pleasure?" Carly inquires sort of defensively reaching out for her son. Lucky had never been one of her fans.
"You've got company. Nevermind. I'll stop back another time." Lucky says flatly.
"They're talking business my husband wouldn't want me to know about. Or that if I knew about officially I'd feel obligated to tell him and he would probably feel he'd have to tell Edward. And you know what Edward is like..." Carly rambles.
"Ha right, Carly." Lucky rolls his eyes.
"It's mostly true. Johnny came up here to talk about his sister."
Lucky's eyes narrow. "Victoria Porter?"
"No the other one, his little sister Rita." Carly's eyes narrow. "Why? What do you know about the queen bitch?"
Lucky shrugs and weighs options. This was a tough one but maybe this was where he was going to have to trust Carly at least enough to trap her. "Only that she seems to be working to come between Emily and Nikolas."
"But they're just friends right, he thinks of her as his little sister." Carly says mockingly. "How could Vicbitchtoria come between such good friends?"
"Nikolas was kind of isolated as a child. Unless they look like his grandmother, Helena, he has a tough time figuring out who the bad guys are-- he doesn't have the Spencer bullsh*t radar. All he knew about Victoria was that she was fighting with you at the wedding. And you have the rep for fighting with just about everyone."
"Are you saying that I look like Helena Cassadine? That I am automatically the bad guy?" Carly protests.
"Only when you wear that fur coat and then it's more like the portrait at Luke's on a bear skin rug." Lucky taunts.
"I got rid of that damn coat!" Carly defends. "Jeez, first being compared to Katherine now Helena. What do I have to do?"
"You've been good to Em." Lucky says reluctantly. "Look you're into money..."
Carly is immediately ticked again. "Oh yeah, take an ad out in the Herald...."
"Oh knock it off. I got something here. You might know if it's just a piece of paper or it's worth something. That's all I meant." Lucky opens up his backpack and reaches for the wad of papers from the safe. "This one I can pretty much figure out myself." He shows her the old Disney stock certificate with it's picture of Walt Disney and cartoon characters on it. "But there are some names I don't recognize and wouldn't know how to track down."
Carly grabs Michael's hands back before he can reach for the certificate. "Where in the hell did you get those?"
"An old safe that was salvaged." Lucky shrugs. Carly walks over to the hood of her car taking the folder from Lucky as she goes. Juggling Michael and the folder she tries to hold things down on the hood. Lucky reaches over and offers to take Michael. "Here let me hold the little cuz."
"Thanks." Carly lays smooches on Michael and hands him to Lucky. She sorts through the certificates. "This company still exists. Jerry had me doing research on mining companies-- they are kind of high risk... get sued a lot on environmental issues." She mutters absently. "It's trading at less than 5 dollars a share but the number of shares--there might have been some dividends or splits in the last...." She looks at the date the certificate was issued "... oh gees fifty years?!"
"I knew I came to the right place."
"I need the computer. And I think I'm actually going to have to talk to that damn stockbroker. Jerry might have recommended the guy but he's a neanderthal to talk to. Sometimes it seems that all of Jerry's associates are a bunch of knuckledraggers where women are concerned." Carly mutters. "Emily might recognize some of these too."
"Em?!"
Carly looks up. "Yeah, so?"
"Emily knows about stocks and stuff?"
"Knuckledragger." Carly gathers up the stocks and walks into the office without knocking. "Emily, Lucky brought me a project; I'm going to need your help with this one if I'm going to get out of here before six tonight. Johnny, you need to leave. Next time you see Rita tell her that she has a fitting for the outfit she is wearing for the horseshow. She needs to give me a call at home. What's the special tonight at the restaurant? If it's fish forget it."
"Carly, three quarters of the world is covered by water. Somewhere there is a fish that you would like." Johnny gets back into the old argument.
"Yeah, but I'm not going to keep trying all the yucky ones until you find the one I like. I'll have AJ stop and pick it up." Carly says absently already spreading out the certificates on the desk. Emily hops off the desk to look over Carly's shoulder. She reaches around to touch one or two.
"Are these real?" Emily asks in shock. "I've never actually seen a stock certificate. Everything is electronic now or held by the brokerage house."
Lucky shrugs. "I don't know, are they?"
Carly mutters, "You'd think the companies would have records of the outstanding stocks even these old things. Why don't they have the purchasers name on them?" Emily and Carly pore over the certificates. Johnny looks over at Lucky and shrugs. Lucky indicates with a tilt of his head that he wants to talk to Johnny outside.
Lucky cuts to the chase. "I hear you got a problem with my brother, Nikolas Cassadine."
Johnny winces. "Not with him exactly."
"Yeah, well I'm sure that he doesn't have a problem with you exactly either. Em's a good friend of mine. I've known her longer than either of you. I don't have to be Lucy Coe to figure out that she is the one that could get really hurt here."
"Emily's pretty good at taking care of herself." Johnny says calmly. "I'm just here for back up. It's not my job anymore to protect Emily."
Lucky looks at Johnny and gives just the hint of a grin. "Sure." But then he gets serious. "Nikolas told me how he ended up in your restaurant. I'm not saying what he did was right, just human and Emily already tore him a new one over it. I'm just gonna tell ya-- watch your back, man."
"From you, from Cassadine?" Johnny grins unimpressed. "Right."
"Nope, a lot closer to home. Or maybe this is something you and Victoria are working on together. To drive a wedge between Emily and Nikolas and score your sister a rich boyfriend in the bargain."
Johnny's grin falls away and his eyes go flat. "What has she done now?" Johnny asks grimly.
Lucky shrugs. "Nothing that I can lay directly at her door. But isn't it interesting that right after your sister lays a bug in my brother's ear he starts acting like a dog with a bone? Nik and I've had issues; and definitely don't do things the same way, but the stunt he pulled at the restaurant was obvious. Something that Cassadines as a rule aren't."
"What kind of bug?"
"You and Emily seemed real close at the welcome back party for your folks...real close. Probably even closer than what I almost walked in on a few minutes ago." Lucky mutters.
"But you weren't at the party." Johnny muses then the pieces fall in. "Victoria was. Damn. How did Rita and Viki come from the same gene pool?"
"You seem like a nice guy so I'll say it flat out. Em is a friend of mine and if I can stop her getting hurt--I'm going to do it. I owe her." Lucky remembers allowing Emily to believe Laura had died and then leaving town and Emily vulnerable to Dorman and Matt. Something that he'd regretted ever since. "But Nikolas is my brother, and I'm not going to let him be headhunted by some golddigger. You can let Victoria know game's over. Nik is on to her tricks and won't be played that way again." Lucky walks back into the office.
Johnny looks down at his watch and then at the office. He wanted to talk to Emily about this, needed to but now wasn't the time. "Damn." Shaking his head he climbs into his car and drives away. Johnny slams the steering wheel. "Viki's gone too far."
Inside the stable office, Emily is on the computer and Carly is on the phone. Carly paces in front of the desk. "Look. It's a research question. You don't have to know why I need the information you just need to get me what I'm looking for. No, you don't need to call Jerry. If you'll look on the account information I'm your freakin' client. I've been giving you a lot of business and you've been making your commissions either get me the info I want or someone else will be making those commissions. And if I found out you breeched my confidentiality I'll have your ass... I thought you might see things my way." Carly says smartly. Reaching over to the desk Emily hands her the file where the certificates had been placed in alphabetical order. Carly reads off the company names on the certificates and the date of issuance. "Call me back at this number when you get the information." Carly hangs up the phone without saying goodbye. "Putz."
"Um Carly... you should take a look at this." Emily says hesitantly looking up from the computer screen.
"What did you find?"
"Haloid corporation -- if those certificates are the real thing then Lucky is going to need a bodyguard himself. A hundred shares over fifty years old, how many times do you think this has split?"
"What?" Carly looks over Emily's shoulder. "You spelled the company name wrong, right? There is no way."
"I've run it twice." Emily bites her lip. "I didn't bother with the Disney cause I figured that would be easy enough to verify."
"What the hell is Haloid Corporation anyway?" Lucky asks from the doorway.
Carly looks up from the computer screen her hands resting on Emily's shoulders. "You might know it by the name they changed it to-- Xerox."