Dark as Daylight Ch. 23

"Goodbye Mr. Zabo, I'm on my way. I hope everything continues going as well as I think it will according to the x-rays."

Doctor Bulgari left and the doors to the x-ray suite doors opened. Jemma was rolled out into the corridor on a gurney, and from the look on her face, William wished he was anyplace else but here.

As loud as she could Jemma said, "William, I am tired of this shit. I want to go home, now."

From behind him he heard the answer to all his prayers for the year.

"Mom, shut up. When I was in the hospital all you could do was yell at me to keep quiet. Every time they wanted to do another test, and I complained you said 'Keep quiet. She will do it, Doctor.'

Test after test you yelled at me to behave myself. Now it's my turn, mom. So, keep quiet mom or I will get a sedative and stick a big needle in your vanishing ass."

William grabbed his daughter and said quietly, "I adore you, Patricia. You were right on time. I was about to give in to your mother, and take her home, before they gave her all the test she needs. Thank goodness you're here to keep her in line."

Patty said, "Dad, you look like shit. I'm going to get you a room, and have Manolo go over you with a fine-tooth comb."

"I am fine, Patty. This one is wearing me down."

"Gee whiz, dad, why didn't I think of that. Felicia would you contact Doctor Braverman for me. Tell him I want my fathers' suite readied and have him set up a full physical for him starting tomorrow at 10 AM. If my father gives him a problem, he is to contact me directly on my cell phone, and I will smooth out everything for him. I will be monitoring my mother's progress throughout her testing. If either of my brothers tries to get in between my parents and me, tell them they will be in the emergency room shortly thereafter.

William Junior will back down immediately, because he is the smarter of the 2 boys. Patrick may try to test me, but I will have my husband talk with him, before I break his neck."

"I will have Doctor Braverman up here to consult with you in a few moments, Mrs. Valentino. I will advise your brothers of their restrictions, especially Mr. Patrick. I doubt he will have any trouble listening to the advice from Mr. Stephano. I cannot believe how your father listens to you, and only you, in situations like these."

"It takes years of practice, Felicia, more years than you can possibly imagine."

10 minutes later, Doctor Manolo Braverman was listening to his marching orders from Patricia Valentino. She left nothing to chance, not one thing. When the doctor asked why she wanted a particular test done on her father, because it had been done 4 months ago, she reminded him that her mother had a full physical one year prior to her heart attack, and not one physician picked up the heart murmur that nearly killed her. He acknowledged the error, and put the test into the computer, with all the others she ordered, immediately.

Then he caught her.

"Patty, when was the last time you had a complete physical done here at the hospital?"

She looked at him with daggers in her eyes.

"If you don't remember, I can ask Stephano."

"Don't you dare talk to that traitor of mine."

"Okay, I'll ask Doctor Nall."

"You can't talk to her, she's my psychiatrist."

"She is no such thing. Doctor Nall is a Neurologist."

"Same thing, she takes care of my brain."

"Patty stop lying to yourself and me. When was the last time you had a physical? I don't want to find a hole in your heart as we did in your mother's. Your brain is fine. Your children are fine. I won't let you go to Atwater Luck without you taking a physical, in this hospital."

"I hope when you get into Olivia's pants, you find a steel gate protecting her pussy from your attack."

"I will schedule your physical for Thursday. It will start at 7 AM, and you'd better be on time, because if anything runs over on your father's exam it will start at 10 AM again. He will take precedence over you, and you will wind up waiting in the hallway for the next available slot. I hope you have to wait all day because of that statement."

"Manolo look around you, there is more young stuff running around this hospital than you can possibly take care of over the next 2 ½ months. Why is Olivia so special?"

"Olivia touched my libido the moment I first saw her. I wanted to take her innocence that day. I checked to find her age and was sorely disappointed when I discovered she was barely 16. When next school year ends, she will be 18, and she is mine."

"If you let me skip my physical, I'll let you use my ranch as a getaway."

"No chance, Patty. I'm going to take her to Spain and treat her like royalty."

"I hope one of the boys at school doesn't get to her before you do."

"The way she smiles at me, every time we meet, assures me that she is completely mine for the taking."

"Can we make it 8 o'clock, instead of 7?"

"Of course, we can, but you will be in the hallway most of the day following patients who have test scheduled before yours. Take your choice, Patty?"

"Can I check in Wednesday night and be ready for 6:30 AM?"

"If your family wasn't prolific donors to this hospital, and you had to pay for all these tests, I would have a heart attack looking at your bills."

"I guess $100 million a year, and that's just from Stephano and me, gives us some perquisites, Manolo."

"Yeah, I guess that would do it, Patty. Why didn't you have them put your names on the new extension?"

"Our names are on everything from restaurants to colleges. I knew we were going to be wealthy, when Howard and I came up with the formula to clean up the atmosphere, but our accountants keep begging us to give it away faster because of taxes. We have attorneys answering our mail from every organization worldwide seeking money from us. We have to keep our giving away from Zabo Internationals' giving, so it's not duplicated. If we had to do it ourselves, we would be overrun by paperwork.

Stephano still controls the funding at the Good Luck 2, and I live in South Carolina at least 6 months a year, just to be near him. He is very good for me, and I'm glad he caught me. You don't know how many years it took us to get together, and it was brutal, on both our parts.

He will not allow one penny to go missing from the Good Luck 2 project. It's not his pride that gets in the way, it's a matter of honor. His father was not a good man, and he wants to prove it does not run in the family. The Good Luck 1 came in under budget, and the auditors couldn't find one thing wrong over the 10 years the program ran.

The Good Luck 2 will either be on budget or below, because it is running well ahead of schedule. Liftoff is less than 3 weeks from now, and I am going to fool my daughter, Anna, and my son, Richard, by getting on that ship and going to see my daughter, Laura, and my grandchildren."

"Patty if you don't pass your physical, you're not going anywhere. If I have to put you in jail to keep you here, I will."

"Manolo, you are beginning to be a pain in the ass. There is nothing wrong with me. I am 66 years old. I refused to accept Medicare, and Social Security, because I have more money in my accounts then they do."

"I don't care how rich you are, Patty, you better be here Thursday morning."

"What's wrong with your short-term memory, Doctor? I'm checking in Wednesday afternoon. They better have me downstairs for testing, beginning at 7 AM, or I am going to blow a fuse. You do not want that to happen in your hospital."

"I will make sure to be here early, also."

"Just think, Doc, you will have 3 of your favorite patients in one place, at one time, and one of them is me. Won't that be fun for you?"

"Yes Patricia, the only thing that will be missing is daggers in both my eyes, and a bulldog hanging from my balls. Have a good day, I will see you Thursday morning, Patricia."

"You will see be seeing me a lot sooner than that Doctor. We will be discussing the conditions of my mother, and my father, while their testing is in progress, or has been completed."

"I will be looking forward to those discussions, with electrodes attached to my chest, and holding a lightning rod above my head during a thunderstorm."

"That is a very safe precaution, Manolo, you may live long enough to bed the darling of your heart's desire, before you pass away. I'll try my best to allow that to happen."

"The best way for you to allow that to happen for me, is to keep my 2 elderly patients calm, and for you to go through your tests, without incident. Good night Patricia."

"Good night Manolo, and if you call my mother, who is one year my senior, elderly to her face, she will get off her bed and kill you. Be nice Manolo, be very nice to her."

"It must be the Patty effect. I never lose sight of my patient's sensibilities, ever. However, I get near you, and the only thing I can think of is leaving the area unscathed. This conversation, any conversation with you, is beyond the realm of a normal male conversation. My capabilities are left in the dust when you are near me. I will see you later, Patricia. I'm going to check on Jemma now. She should have completed her CAT scan by now.

*****************************************************************

"Dammit, Stephano, how long have you been standing behind me?"

"Just long enough to watch you tear apart a doctor that could keep us here on earth for the slightest reason, instead of visiting Laura, dear. You really should control your temper, when someone has that much power over you."

"Steph, if he fails me on my physical, I will have another doctor check me over to verify the results. If Manolo's facts are incorrect, I will have a few of our guards give him a check-up. If he is right, then I will find out how to take care of my problem, and take whatever action is necessary, as long as it does not disqualify me from going to see Laura. I will not miss that liftoff for anything, or anyone. Steph, I want to see my daughter. I have to make sure she's happy. Her notes to us say she is, but I have to see it for myself. We did not part as well as I would have liked to. I was a pain in the ass, as usual, and I have to make up for it. Remember, if I get very sick on the flight, you can put me in stasis, until we get to Laura. It is very important to me that I see her again."

"Why do you have to be so logical, when I want to kill you. You are willing to go against a doctor's orders, just to see your oldest child. If you die on me, I will never forgive you. Do you understand me, Patricia? Without you, my life is meaningless. Who would I fight with every day when I got home? Who would I attempt to kill in bed? There is no one in this world like you Patricia, and I would be morally bankrupt, and physically dead without you.

You are the only reason our 3 children wound up normal. Laura is a mathematical genius. Anna makes money grow on trees. Richard is either going to be vice president of the United States, soon or the President's Chief of Staff. In 9 years, he could wind up being president, if that's what he wants to be. That boy never studied. He was the laziest person in this household and we all catered to him during his formative years, because we didn't know any better. I had my Masters from Penn, you had 3 Masters from the University of Massachusetts, and his sisters did everything for him. We all worked for him, while he was off getting laid. We were sure he was going to go nowhere in this life. Look at him now. He is so entrenched in 'Power Politics', when he is seen walking the halls of the Congress, when he is seen by the Senators and Congressmen/Congresswomen and he is coming their way, they know trouble is afoot. They know to listen to what he has to say, get their act together, and get whatever he wants done, and done as quickly as possible.

The best part of Robert's pitch was 'He was always a Gentleman, when he spoke to you.' He never raised his voice, or made a threat. He stated his governor's position as clearly and succinctly as possible, answered any questions you might have, and said goodbye politely. Why you always felt you had been run over by a freight train after a conversation with him, seemed illogical, when you thought about it, and ran your tape recorder back to listen to it again, because it seemed so innocuous. However, after 5 minutes with Robert, you wanted to have your suit washed and hung out to drip dry, take a nice cool shower to relax and to gain your strength back.

When you returned to your desk, regardless of how many items there were waiting for you to act upon, the first thing you took care of was the item Robert put into your brain. It was roaming around inside your head, and it would distract you from everything else for the remainder of the day, if it was not taken care of properly."

I can't imagine what Fred must have said to our boy the first time they were together that turned him around? I don't know what the Chief Justice said, and Robert won't say a word about it, but it must have been something godlike. It must have been life altering, because look what it did to our son."

"There is one problem with your thinking Steph, and there are a lot of smart people who have mentioned it to us before. 'Look at who his parents are'.

'That boy didn't stand a chance of being anything but a major player in anything he wanted to be.'

When I think about that remark, and look around us, I see what they were talking about. It has to start somewhere, but once it does, it takes off exponentially.

My dad once said to the Director of the FBI, Michael Free, "If Laura and I produced Patty, and Victoria and Bruno produced Stephano, what in God's name are Stephano and Patty going to produce? Michael's reply was, "Nuclear Fusion!"

Michael didn't know how close to the mark his answer actually was. I was great with computers, when I was under 21, but I became legendary by the time I was 30. When Harold Chase and I devised the plan to clean the atmosphere of harmful toxins, everyone knew our names.

Now our children have worked wonders, going further than their parents by miles, and they have yet to hit middle age.

Laura discovered the stasis chambers, which made deep space travel possible. No one believed travel into deep space was possible until she broke the code of how stasis worked. All I did was keep her angry, with herself, and kept pushing her, saying it wasn't possible to do, especially using those damn 'Wood Frogs.' I nearly froze my ass off, in Canada, studying those things, and we didn't learn anything from them. Between the cold, the flies, and the mosquitoes, the only place I want to go to in Canada, again, is Québec, and only there, because the food there is as good as it is in Paris.

The Good Luck 2 is ready to leave Earth soon, and proceed directly to Atwater Luck. The news we received about this new power source Gordon and Laura found is very exciting. We may not have to stay away for 10 years after all, and bring it back here to redesign the electric grid. That will be a mammoth undertaking here in the United States. It will be even harder to do in Europe, Russia, and around the world.

Anna has helped eliminate 78% of all disease's in the Northern Hemisphere, all around the globe. Not one country said no to accepting her massive monetary or medical assistance: not Libya, Syria, Afghanistan, Russia, India, or China. No one said no to her.

The common cold is still problematic. It mutates as soon as it hits the host. When the next victim is infected, and tested for the disease, it is unrecognizable, when it is cultured.

Eat chicken soup. Take Acetaminophen (Tylenol/do not take aspirin, because of Guillain-Barré syndrome possibilities).

It will keep your fever down. Try not to be grumpy, wait 5 days, and it will be gone. Everything you touch should be wiped down with a bleach disinfectant cloth, or sprayed and disinfected immediately. You are a walking germ factory. Of course, you will probably have already given this bug to someone else in your household, and they will hate you for it.

Advil (Ibuprofin) will keep your fever down, also, and keeps your body from swelling. It has some interesting effects on your liver and pancreas, and kidneys. So don't take (Advil) too often or for too long. It will weaken your immune system at a time when you're looking to strengthen it.

Finally, there is Aleve (Naproxen Sodium) it works quite like Advil, but gentler on the body. Don't forget to eat chicken soup! Drink a lot of liquids, and rest.

The Southern Hemisphere is more problematic, due to governmental corruption. They see her money coming their way, and the corrupt leaders want it for themselves, and not for their own people.

Anna's people won't deal with them. They use other methods to eliminate diseases, and corruption in these countries. The death rate may go up initially among a certain group of people, but the average people, the common people do get the appropriate medications and the disease rates do tumble.

And finally, we have Robert, who may never attain the throne, but who he may wield the power behind it.

Sandy Hastings, the three-term Governor of Maryland, is in 3rd place in the Democratic Presidential Polling, at this time She may be running behind the Massachusetts Senator, and the Governor of Oregon, but she has several things going for her that neither one of the others have.

Her father, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, the Honorable Fred Hastings, is one of the most astute political thinkers of our generation. He is not supposed to be political, but no one can tell him what to say to his daughter, or her staff, behind closed doors. He guided Clark Atwater from Attorney General to the Presidency, by writing speeches that were so centrist no one from the right or left could argue with. He made sure that the future president never promised anything. He would say, "This is what I hope for, and we will see if the Congress will deliver it for 'Us.'

Jim Green is an old hand at running presidential campaigns. He has not lost any election, in which he has been involved, in the past 16 years. When reporters ask him about his successes, he sounds as confident as ever about this one.

"Miss Hastings only serious rival in this campaign is her 2 children. The 11-year-old twins are taking up more of her time than the senator or the governor. As far as I am concerned, both of them should drop out now, because they should be able to see the writing on the wall. We have a clear lead in 6 of the 9 upcoming primaries, and we are fighting hard in the other 3 states for their votes."

Sandy Hastings, also has the deepest of deep pocket donors on this planet, 'Zabo International'.

The 3 men at the top of this corporation, William Zabo Senior, William Zabo Junior, and Patrick Zabo have guaranteed that Sandy's campaign 'can write as many checks for campaign expenses, as it wishes, and none will ever be refused.' To quote them, "We are behind her as part of Zabo International."

Before Chief Justice Hastings took his seat on the court, the Supreme Court decided, in 2010 that Corporations could donate money to all Political Candidates just as people do. The Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision has been a very divisive issue in this nation. However, as long as it stands as law, the Zabo's are perfectly legal in giving money to Governor Hastings' campaign to their hearts content.