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The Quintessential Q
Chapter Ninety Two
The Deal
Lucky grabs the coffee pot and grudgingly refills all the coffee cups. Stefan was good at covering, had decades of practice but Nikolas looked like he was going to come out of his skin. Every little noise drew his gaze to the door to the basement.
"A watched pot never boils." Lucky quips.
"Will you stop saying that! It's not true. It takes just as long whether you're watching or not." Nik protests his reaction over and beyond what would be appropriate. "Damn stupid sayings."
"Maddy's cool and all, but bro, why are you so concerned?" Lucky decides to press.
"You don't know anything about this guy." Nik says quietly. He knew exactly enough to make him nervous.
"And you do, Nikolas?" Stefan lifts a brow. Nik had been holding out on him.
"I know what Maddy told me. And that was enough." Nik continues under his breath. "More than enough."
Liz knocks on the backdoor and then comes in. She'd had an idea that something was up at the main house when she'd come out of the carriage house and seen the two limos and the jag parked beside Lucky's truck between the carriage house and the main one. She'd turned right back around and got dressed in something other than her Sunday grubbies. This was her day off, damnit! The day she and Lucky spent listening to music, doing a little painting and just vegging in each other's company. She and Lucky would have Sunday dinner with Gram and the damn cat. But that was suppose to be the only stress introduced to this day of rest. "Okay what did I miss?" Liz inquires cheerfully. "One limo explained. I guess that means that Poppi is here."
Lucky nods. "He and Maddy are downstairs fighting."
"What's the line?" Liz pours herself a cup of coffee and comes over to sit on half of Lucky's chair.
"The line?" Stefan frowns.
"Our best bet on who is going to win." Lucky explains grudgingly. "I'd have to go with Maddy. But that's only cause I've never seen this Pete guy run."
Stefan tries to decipher the comment. "If I understand correctly then I would have to say the outcome is in question since the competition is unknown." And he really hates that. Unknown drove him nuts. And this whole situation should be irrelevant. Maddy should be irrelevant so why was he still sitting here?
"It depends on how high Pete raises the stakes." Nik starts pacing the kitchen. "He could buy the pot on this one."
Stefan frowns and winces. "Buy the pot?!"
"It's a poker term." Liz explains to Stefan. "It means to make the cost of the game so high that everyone else folds... quits."
"I am familiar with the term, just didn't realize that you were." Stefan says to Nikolas.
"There was a poker game over at Bobbie's last night."
"And Barbara sanctioned this?" Stefan's disapproval is clear.
"Aunt Bobbie had to work but she practiced with Lucas before the game so he'd be able to hold his own." Lucky says cheerfully not seeing a problem. "Taggart underestimated the kid more than once."
"The police were at this gambling function."
"Sure, he lives there." Nikolas tries to shrug it off.
"Carly invited him." Liz says cheerfully at the same time. Lucky chokes on his coffee and Liz pounds him on the back. That was one way of putting it.
"It's too quiet down there." Nik says out of nowhere. "I'm going down."
"Nikolas! Sit down." Stefan orders. "You gave your word."
Happy Family House
Carly and AJ kick around the study in grubbies. Carly had to introduced the idea of grubbies to AJ. Since Carly is on the computer, AJ reads through the section of the Herald he'd missed over breakfast with his wife. This pregnancy was effecting her oddly, well not to oddly really. She is high energy as she always has been and go go go right up until she took a nap. And the naps were sudden onset. AJ glances up and over to his desk. In fact Carly is in the middle of one now, a random victim of the World Wide Wait. They were going to have upgrade to a high speed line maybe one of those cable thingees. AJ looks at his sleeping wife and vows to himself that this pregnancy is going to be different from Michael. If it took flying fresh salmon in from Iceland then the ELQ jet pilot is going to be logging some frequent flyer miles. Setting aside the paper, AJ kicks back by the fire and enjoys the view of Carly curled up in his chair sound asleep.
Outside. "I hope they're here." Emily worries as she unfastens Michael from the backseat of Johnny's van.
"That's right they head out of town most weekends, right?"
"It's a tactic. Carly thinks she is getting AJ away from Grandfather and AJ thinks he is getting Carly away from Jason." Em stands by the van side door holding Michael's hand while Johnny slides it home and locks it up. They'd used Em's access code to get through the gate and driven around to the back where Johnny remembers exactly where Carly has her spare key hidden. Johnny opens the door to the kitchen easing out of the way so that Em can enter. Michael runs in ahead.
"Michael wait!" Johnny insists. Leaning over he unzips the kid from his jacket and tosses the jacket over the back of a dining room chair. "So if you were your mama and papa where would you be?"
"Study!" Michael yells and starts to make a run for it.
"Oh GOD! Johnny, catch him." Em's eyes go wide. Johnny swings Michael up in an airplane move and then tips him upside down brushing his fine red hair against the floor in a swinging motion. "Thank Goodness. Who knows what he would have walked in on. Knocking first is not Michael's forte."
"Hey Mister Man." AJ says from the doorway. He thought he'd heard Michael's voice. The door to the soundproofed study had been open.
"Papa!" Michael holds his hands out still hanging upside down suspended by Johnny. Johnny rights him and puts him on his feet. "I had French toast with white sprinkles. Played boats with Daddy. Ticia has a BIG ring on her hand and it makes rainbow sparkles on the wall."
"Oh wait. That's news to me." Em catches the last. "Rainbow sparkles? Reggie hasn't said anything to the family."
"Are you kidding and watch the fit that the Q's would throw?" Carly yawns and stretches having just woke from her impromptu nap. She'd come in in time to hear the last. AJ picks Michael up. Carly leans around an plants a kiss Michael. "Is that why Reg didn't give you a ride to the house? You told him you had it covered and he's off getting busy with his girlfriend."
"Well contrary to what the Q's think, present company excluded of course. Slavery was outlawed back in the sixties, eighteen-sixties. A guys got to have a day off now and then." Johnny quips although the crud his mother had put up with on a daily basis from that crew would have driven a lesser woman around the bend.
"What do you think Reg is doing all the time with Grandmother? She works on dictating her correspondence and he is working on his new play. Which is why he never answers the door. He has Grandmother run lines with him now and then. And they are spending a lot of time at the theater. Grandmother is ducking Amanda Barrington and the charity guild."
"Oh those people." Carly grimaces. "Amanda has been calling and leaving messages ever since the horse show." Carly puts a stuck up tone in her voice. "Caroline, my dear, I realize that you have your hands full with Emily being missing but we could really use your assistance with the latest blah blah blah. The woman is a total oblivious menace."
"Oh you get those calls too?" Johnny laughs. He pulls out a chair for Emily at the kitchen table. Once Carly is seated he takes a seat next to Em. He slides his own foot beneath Emily's cast elevating it slightly.
Em smiles at him gratefully. "Oh let me guess she wants you to cater whatever, for free of course, since it would be such good publicity for the function." Emily guesses.
"I get enough publicity." Johnny shakes his head, resting his arm along the back of Emily's chair. "We're already booked through the new year for holiday parties. Now a little privacy and breathing room would be nice."
"Ha! You're living in a dream world." Carly scoffs. "Welcome to the fishbowl. But you've been lucky so far kinda flying under the Q radar."
"If Grandfather saw the two of you right now..." AJ agrees with his wife shaking his head. "I have no idea what the old man would do." AJ looks at Carly with a frown on his face. When it came to Edward's possible schemes, Carly was actually the best gauge. Whatever she would do you could bet the old man would do.
"He won't mess with Em." Carly bites her lip staring off to a wall. "He can't threaten boarding school; he just got the tutor. The cast does a better job of grounding you than he could." Carly looks at Johnny straight on. A shudder goes down his spine. He'd lived around Ms. Benson long enough to never want her undivided attention. "Do you own the building?"
"What building?"
"Oh heck you're right." Emily nods emphatically. "Porters. Do you own the building or lease? Who holds the mortgage? What is the zoning? Is it okay to have residential there?" The questions start flying in quick succession.
"I'm hearing everything you are telling me. And I'll keep an eye out but you seem to be forgetting a piece of the puzzle." Johnny hints.
AJ starts laughing uproariously. Michael grins at him, wanting papa to share the joke. "You'd sic Cookie on him."
"I wouldn't have to." Johnny says ruefully. "But Rita might get a horse out of the deal."
"Honey, I think we're going to have to expand the stables." AJ quips.
Maddy sits on the edge of her futon watching as Pete paces the width of her room. Pete had called this meeting; he got to open.
"It's a cell."
"It's temporary." Maddy volleys back. "You know I never spend any time at home. I'm always at work. The rent is right and nobody would be looking for me here."
"You can afford better. Don't tell me different, Madeleine. I know you bought the building your mother lives in. The rents from the other 3 apartments pay the mortgage and your mother's utilities."
"You getting into the property management business, Poppi?" Maddy shakes her head.
"I've always been in the property management business, little one, among other things. Now you will tell me exactly why you shouldn't get right on that plane and come back to N'Orleans with me."
"Ask me in February." Maddy sees that Pete is not going to relent. "Poppi, I have a clientele here now. I have friends. I am being tutored rather than going to the local high school so I'll be able to finish up months earlier."
"Living here, with another woman's fiancé."
"Is that what he said." Maddy can't help but grin.
"Did young Nikolas lie to me?" Pete says quietly, too quietly.
"No, maybe to himself but not to you. He hasn't actually gotten around to popping the question." Maddy brushes her hair back away from her face. "Emily is my best friend in this town."
"Quartermaine the one that was kidnapped with that little girl Rita Porter."
"How do you know Rita already? Nevermind. Yes, that Quartermaine. Poppi, here's the deal. I've got my businesses, I've got my schooling, Lisette is taken care of. You don't have to worry; I can take care of myself."
"And here is my deal-- within one week you will be able to return to N'Orleans if that is your wish. You've made all the arrangements to care for your mother. You can do that long distance or right in the city. If you stay in this place then here is my condition."
"Condition?!" Maddy squeaks. Poppi had never been so demanding when she'd been in New Orleans but then when he wanted to see her one of his guys would just show up.
"You will check in at Porter's restaurant once a week minimum. I have an agreement with the owner. He keeps an eye on you and in return I will do the same if his little sister is ever in my town."
Maddy takes a rapid succession of breaths. It would not do any good to explode. Exploding would make things worse. "No."
"Oh?" Pete crosses his massive arms in front of him and glowers intimidatingly.
And it might have worked if she hadn't known him for over a decade. "No, I will Not check in with Johnny for you. I will not report to you. You are not my father, my uncle or my brother. You are the son of the dearest woman no longer on this earth. I can come back to N'Orleans anytime I want with NO action on your part. The cop has nothing on me; he never did." Pete looks like he is about to protest and steps closer to Maddy. Maddy holds up her hand in a stop motion. "But..." Maddy relents some. "What you might not have figured out yet is that Johnny is one of my suppliers. I see him every day, every other day. If you want to be friends with Johnny-- great. He's a good guy. And if the conversation comes around to pain in the butt little sisters-- that's two guys talking and not my business."
Pete sees the out that Maddy is giving him but isn't ready to take it yet. "Tulane."
"I applied and I'm waiting to hear back from them. I have already sent all the stuff off to the schools I'm interested in. I added one. Port Charles University."
"Never heard of it." Pete dismisses with a wave of his hand.
"Poppi," Maddy shakes her head. "You don't have a degree, and you're a successful businessman; I don't see why I have to. You know as well as I do; it's who you know as much as what you know! Edward Quartermaine that's who I cancelled on to meet with you. He'd hire me like that." Maddy snaps her fingers. "Stefan Cassadine, the man sitting upstairs, Nikolas' uncle has companies all over the world. I meet with him once a week for at least three hours."
"Doing what?" Pete asks suspiciously.
"Playing chess-- it's a start. And you know I don't want a big business. I want my own business. I can do that here. I've already started putting my feelers out. I can make my mark here."
"Madeleine, you could make your mark anywhere." Pete shakes his head. "Don't think I can't see you are... managing things, Maddy. You think that being here you have cut off an avenue of police access to me. But it is a very small world. You being here doesn't make you less of a target for my enemies."
"I'm only a target if I stand out or our relationship stands out." Maddy disagrees. "I was in their face at home. The guys were always checking up on me. The cops didn't see me, they saw them. I can be in the background here."
"You'll watch your back anyway." Pete insists.
"Always. But if the cops are watching me it's 'cause of Aunt Dara not 'cause of you. And if the others are watching it's because of Emily since she is Jason Morgan's sister. Up until you came to town there was no local connection. I'm just glad Aunt Dara's boyfriend didn't show up at Luke's last night."
Pete exhales in a heavy sigh and sits down at the other end of the futon. "You've made your point, petite. But this place still looks like a cell." He grumbles.
Knowing she's won for now, Maddy curls on the futon so she is facing Pete. "It's temporary. Nobody knows this place exists."
Pete raises a brow and looks up to the ceiling. Right above them are three men who know exactly where this place is. "Right."
"No, it's true. This house is a present for Emily. It's a secret. Lucky will never tell nor Nikolas not until he is ready to spring the surprise. And Stefan never tells anyone anything. Four people now with you, five, know I am here."
"Who is the fourth?"
"Lucky's girlfriend. She lives with him at the carriage house." Maddy reaches out to take Pete's hand. "It's breathing room until I decide what I'm going to do. Until my legit business can cover my expenses like getting my own place as well as covering mama's."
"I can take care of Lisette." Pete offers.
"Don't worry about it, Poppi. I got it covered but..."
"What, petite?"
"Keep an eye on her boyfriends, please. She's always had lousy taste in men. Lisette drinks too much, does too many...." Maddy shakes it off. "But I think it'll be a man that will be the death of her."
"And she won't listen to you."
"No." Maddy rises. Pete does as well. They make their way up to the kitchen. Stefan is just coming in from outside where he'd made a tour of the grounds extending along each side of the house. It looked barren now but spring would be an awaking for this obsession of Nik's. Pete shrugs on his coat standing in the doorway. Maddy crosses her arms in front of her the chill of the autumn air giving her a shudder. Pete pulls her close in a hug and then tilts her head back, almost painfully so, making sure there is clear eye contact with no misunderstandings.
"If I send you word-- you will do as I say." Pete demands in a low voice aware of his audience.
"I'm not suicidal, Poppi. If you send word, we'll handle it." Maddy agrees quietly.
Pete nods satisfied for now. "Be good, my Madeleine." He presses a kiss to her temple.
"Always, Poppi."
"Mama would be proud of you. I'm proud of you."
Maddy hugs him close. "I'll walk you to the limo." Pete strings an arm over her shoulders. As they near the limo, Pete sees that the driver is out and the trunk is open. The driver is working on fixing one flat tire which is a waste of time considering that the opposite tire is rapidly deflating.
"Must have run over some nails on the drive. I've already called for another car." The driver informs Pete.
A voice from behind them draws their attention. "Mr. Robideau, I was just leaving from my visit with my nephew. Perhaps I could drop you at your accommodations."
Pete looks over Maddy's shoulder to where Stefan is putting on his gloves. "Yes, I think that would be only fair." since you slashed the tires. "I'll call you when I get home, Madeleine. Call me if there are any changes. Now go back inside where it is warm." Pete encourages as Maddy hesitates. Maddy looks at Pete and then at Stefan; this is such a set up. But from the look on both men's faces there is no way around it. Giving Poppi a last hug she returns to the house and watches from the window as the two drive away.
"Oh this is not good." Maddy mutters
Liz comes over to stand next to her. "Not good how?"
"Where are Lucky and Nikolas?"
"Around front. Stefan wanted to check out the grounds. He came back early."
"Total set up." Maddy shakes her head. "I can believe that Niknik fell for it but Lucky?"
"Maybe he wanted to, fall for it I mean." Liz suggests.
"Damn busybodies." Maddy shrugs. The fat is in the fire now. "You want some more coffee?"
"Sure. So when is the next Ladies night out?"
Inside a darkened theater, Emily sits watching the commercials flash on the screen with the pop music pouring through the many speakers. Johnny walks up with the sodas and buttered popcorn. "They didn't have any pixie sticks but I did get you some Milkduds."
"Oh that works." Emily takes the concessions from Johnny so he can take his seat after tossing his coat over the seats in front of them. "Are you sure this is what you want to do? A movie?"
"You know how long it's been since I've seen a movie?" Johnny asks. He reaches into the tub of buttered popcorn and tosses a couple of kernels in his mouth. Sliding his arm across the back of her seat, he leans in close keeping his voice low. "We started fast, Em. But I want it all: the first date, first movie, first kiss, first time."
"You're right; we're kind of in reverse order there." Em admits and sighs with relief. Her head and instinct war. Her head screaming at her to take things slow, to be cautious. Her instinct telling her to screw caution-- to go back to Johnny's place and not leave until curfew-- sometime in the next year. Johnny offers her a piece of popcorn. Looking at him she takes the piece in her mouth and licks the butter from his fingertips. In the dim lighting of the theater, she sees his laughing gaze. He knows exactly what she is up to. The lights dim further and the previews start.
"Pay attention." Johnny nuzzles up next to her ear sending shivers down her neck to her spine and lower still. "I'm sure your grandfather will give you a test later."
"Then it's good that I've seen this one before." Emily murmurs.