Lois leaned back and put her hands on her tummy. “That may have been the best restaurant food I’ve ever tasted in my entire life.”
Smith smiled. “As I warned you, Nola’s may ruin your palate for any other food. Every time I eat here it’s a complete delight.”
She reached out and patted her husband on the wrist. “Well, I have an advantage, Walter. I married a terrific cook, so I’m sure I’ll see some version of tonight’s meal on our dinner table after we get home.”
Clark waved his free hand lazily. “Aw, shucks, honey, you’re embarrassing me.”
They shared a relaxed laugh just as someone’s cell phone rang. After a moment, Smith said, “Oh! That’s for me!” He pulled out the phone and checked the caller ID, then said, “I’m terribly sorry, but this is official business. I must take this.” He stood and put his chair under the table. “Please forgive my horrible manners.”
Lois waved at him. “Don’t worry about it. Reporters have to be on call a lot, too.”
The doctor put the phone to his ear and said, “Smith here. What’s up?” Then he walked toward the restaurant lobby.
Lois smiled and leaned close to Clark. “Can you hear him?”
Clark picked up his wine glass and swirled the remainder in the bottom. “No. Too much ambient noise in here. I can’t pick his voice out of the background chatter.”
She nodded and leaned back. “I hope he doesn’t have to leave us. He’s actually pretty entertaining now that I’ve gotten some sleep.”
Clark chuckled. “I know what you mean. For someone who claims not to know that much about the city, he’s a fount of interesting information. I think I could write two columns and a sidebar just on what he’s told us tonight.”
The waiter chose that moment to lean in. “Madame, Monsieur, would you care for the dessert? We have several chocolate specials available this evening.”
Lois laughed. “Not tonight! I’m about to burst as it is! But we’ll have to come back before we leave. You can ply me with chocolate desserts then.”
“Oui, Madame,” he said. “May I refill your coffee?”
“No more for me. Clark, are you game?”
“Yes, please. One more for the road.”
“Oui, Monsieur.”
As the young man glided away, Doctor Smith returned without his smile. “I’m terribly sorry, but I have to go to the office. We have a – a special guest coming in.”
“I’m sorry. Someone you knew?”
“No, but I need to make a call on whether or not this was a murder. Again, I apologize, but this is something I must do. Part of the job, you know.”
“Oh, don’t worry, Walter, we’ll make out. We’re not far from the hotel, so I think we can manage to find our way back.”
“Good. I’ve already signed the check, so you won’t have to wash dishes before you leave. Oh, if you aren’t quite ready to turn in, there’s a place to hear some local bands just a few blocks from here on the corner of Decatur and Iberville. The French Quarter Pizzeria and Bar is hosting live shows all this week. Drop by and give whoever is playing there tonight a listen if you’re so inclined. The concierge can give you directions.”
She glanced at her husband, then nodded to Smith. “Thanks. We just might do that. In fact, we should do that. It’ll give us a better handle on the local color.”
“Of course. And it’s a safe part of town, as long as you stay in the lighted areas.” He leaned closer. “Of course, you’d know about such things from living in Metropolis, wouldn’t you? Now that’s a place I’d love to visit. Perhaps I could even meet the famous Man of Steel!”
Clark and Lois both laughed with him. “Yep, that’s Metropolis, just one big tourist trap.”
“I didn’t mean that disparagingly, Lois. I hope you know that. New Orleans isn’t exactly perfect either.” His phone bleeped at him. “Oh, dear, I really must go. I’ll call you tomorrow morning between eleven and twelve at your hotel, assuming that’s all right with the two of you?”
They glanced at each other again and Clark answered. “Sounds good, Walter. Talk to you then.”
*****
They found themselves sitting outside the pizza bar, listening to a quartet of dreadlocked black musicians playing a mix of soft blues and jazz. The drummer and bassist were locked in the pocket together, and the guitarist sang harmony with the girl at the keyboard when they weren’t dazzling the audience with their flights of melodic majesty. The night was unusually warm, even for New Orleans, so Lois and Clark doffed their light jackets and leaned into each other.
As the group finished their first set and stepped away to a burst of applause from the audience, Lois said, “I can’t believe that guitar player! His left hand is barely moving but he’s playing notes I didn’t know were on the instrument.”
Clark nodded. “That bassist moves his hand over the strings like a spider, too. And he never plays too much or too little. These folks have been together for quite a while.”
Lois smiled and turned her head, then dropped her smile. “Clark! Skinhead alert. Three of them coming up behind the band and they don’t look like fans.”
He nodded. “I’ll just wander over in that direction and tell them how much I enjoyed their music. Maybe that will keep the peace.”
“I hope so.”
She watched her husband slide almost awkwardly between the nearest thug and the tiny keyboardist. He gestured wildly to show his appreciation of the music and ‘accidentally’ bumped into the closest skinhead. He then turned to help the man up and somehow managed to push one of his fellow morons into a fire hydrant where he banged his knee and fell, then stepped on the third man’s foot and rolled it over just enough to make him grab the fence along the sidewalk to stay upright.
Their pride dented and their momentum blunted, the three young men apparently decided that tonight wasn’t the appropriate time to demonstrate their inherent racial superiority. They turned and limped down the street in the direction they’d come from, tossing the occasional imprecation over their shoulders at Clark or at the musicians.
As the band smiled at Clark and quietly thanked him for the helping hand, someone sat down beside Lois.
She turned to face the newcomer. “I’m sorry, but that’s my husband’s chair. And he’s very particular where he sits.”
The tall, slender young woman licked her fingers and smiled thinly. “I can see why he would be, Ms. Lane.” She put her hand over Lois’ bare forearm and pressed it against the table. “But I need you to come with me. There is something you must see.”
“Listen, honey, I don’t – oh!”
The girl’s hand suddenly thickened and grew hairier. Her fingernails hardened and lengthened to suggest claws, and the girl’s wrist bent in one of the few angles the human wrist is not designed to bend.
Lois’ mouth opened in alarm and she glanced up at the girl, who exhaled sharply and sucked in a breath past gritted teeth. “Please don’t make me do that again. It’s hard enough to stop there without having to do it twice.”
Lois looked back down at the girl’s hand. It looked human again. “That hurt.”
“Yeah, it does.”
“No, I mean it hurt me.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t do it to hurt you, Ms. Lane, but I needed to get your attention.”
“Well, you’ve got it.” Lois lifted her eyes to the other girl’s face and nodded. “I guess we’re taking a walk together.”
The girl smiled. “I guess we are.”
*****
Clark smiled at the dreadlocked keyboardist again. “I’m sorry about that. I really came over to tell you how much I enjoyed your music.”
The girl smiled at him enigmatically. “Thank you, sah,” she said, her voice still musical. “But we got no problem wit those three. Dey just want to have fun wit us.”
He shrugged. “I’m not sure what you mean.”
She leaned closer. “Yes, you do. And we thank you for bein’ a good man.” She glanced around and her smile disappeared. “Sah, you should go an’ be wit you lady. I be thinkin’ she need you.”
He looked over at their table.
No one sat there.
“Go!” the girl hissed. “You mus’ follow dem! An’ be careful!”
He narrowed his eyes at the unusual young woman, but there wasn’t time to delve into her mystery at the moment. He skittered to the table, hoping that Lois had left a note or some other indication –
She had left something.
Clark touched the small dark wet spot, smaller than a dime, on the table beside Lois’ purse and brought his finger to his nose.
It was blood.
He pulled his glasses down and checked out the immediate area. No more blood spots popped up, but the area was too crowded to be certain that no one had a foot on another sample.
He tried sniffing for her perfume, but there were too many other scents in the area. He picked up cologne, aftershave, perfumes, multiple varieties of food, various blends of coffee, soaps, laundry detergent, deodorant, various intensities of body odor – the air was far too thick to single out Lois’ scent.
He tried listening for her heartbeat, but again there were too many other noises in between. People talking and laughing and crying and occasionally yelling, forks and knives scraping against dishes, brakes squealing, engines running, air conditioners struggling against the humidity – again, too much background to sift through.
Think, Kent! he commanded himself. Think of a way to find them!
Them?
He spun on his heel, looking for the keyboardist whose accent had sounded more Jamaican than Louisiana Creole, but he saw only the drummer checking his cymbals for the proper angles. The dreadlocked young woman was out of sight, and there was no time to find her and ask for more information.
He bundled Lois’ purse with their jackets, then jogged to the corner of Decatur and Iberville and looked around. He still didn’t see her.
Or – them?
Why “them?” Why did the girl tell him to follow “them?” Who was the other person?
It didn’t matter. He still had to think of a way—
Think. Of course!
He stopped and stilled his mind, then called out to Lois mentally. After a moment he felt a response. It wasn’t enough to hone in on her location, but at least he knew she was still alive and alert. And she seemed to be moving at a pretty good pace.
Another call gave him a direction to follow. They were moving south toward the river.
Which didn’t make sense. If one of their old enemies had followed them from Metropolis to New Orleans, taking Lois from a public restaurant to kill her was a dumb move. Kidnapping her might be a slightly smarter move if he knew who had taken her, but it still didn’t make sense to him. Someone from out of town would have few resources along the river, which even in the city was a place most law-abiding people avoided, especially at night. And a local wouldn’t have any reason to take her.
Unless—
Unless that local knew why they were really here.
He checked for traffic and loped across the intersection, heading south. He was starting to get a bad feeling about this.
*****
Lois would have been lost in the first hundred yards if the tall young woman hadn’t been pulling her along. She had no idea where they were or where they were headed. The city looked nothing like Metropolis, and the bad feeling she’d had since she’d seen – or thought she’d seen – the other girl’s hand change shape was getting worse.
Then Clark touched her mind.
She wished she could give him more information than “I’m okay and moving south,” but the link they shared was more an emotional pulse than a telephone line. She knew he’d start looking for her as soon as he could, and she needed as much information as she could get.
“Where are we going?”
The tall girl glanced back over her shoulder. “To meet some – some people.”
The girl abruptly changed direction. Lois didn’t follow her right away and bounced off a rough stone wall. “Ow!” She grabbed her left elbow and felt a warm dampness. “Could we slow down a little?”
“It’s not a good idea to keep these people waiting.”
“What people? Why do they want to see me?”
“They’ll tell you when they see you, Ms. Lane.”
“Okay. Since you know my name, how about you tell me yours?”
The girl glanced back again, this time with a sly grin on her face. “Call me Ishmael.”
“Very funny. What’s your real name, Ishmael?”
The girl stopped, licked the fingers of her right hand, and looked both ways at a T-intersection of alleys, then pulled Lois to the left. “You can call me Jane.”
“Okay, Jane. What’s your real name?”
The girl stopped so abruptly that Lois walked into her. “Don’t you ever stop asking questions?”
“Don’t you get tired of dodging them?”
The girl glared for a moment, then chuckled. “Point for Lane. Jane now serving, love-fifteen.”
They started off again with a yank on Lois’ wrist. “Are we there yet?”
“We’ll be there when we—”
Lois suddenly found herself slammed against a stone wall with one of Jane’s surprisingly powerful hands over her mouth. The girl put her lips against Lois’ ear and softly whispered, “If you want to live, make no sound.”
Jane slowly took her hand away. Lois tried to breathe silently as she focused on ignoring the sudden pains she felt from the rough wall and the scrapes on her arm. They seemed to be pressed into a small concave opening in the wall, something like an outdoor alcove. Lois hoped it was a good hiding place. Jane, who seemed to be someone who could deal with most anything, was obviously not happy about the possibility of being found by whoever was out there in the gloom.
Lois strained to hear something, anything, but all she picked up was something that sounded like the scrape of a shoe and a muttered phrase that might have been French and might have been almost anything else. This part of the city struck her as being unnaturally silent.
Lois counted seven of the quietest breaths she’d ever taken before Jane silently moved around her and leaned her head into the alley. Jane tilted her head as if listening, then lifted her face as if smelling the air around her.
Then she moved into the alley and grabbed Lois’ elbow and wrist. “Come on,” she whispered. “I think they’re gone.”
Lois considered asking who “they” were and why Jane didn’t want “them” to find the two women, but she didn’t. Right then, the most important thing in her mind was to get to wherever Jane was taking her. Clark could more easily find her if she wasn’t moving. And there would be more people there.
That, of course, assumed that Jane was taking her to see actual people.
*****
Clark could feel Lois not far away, but he was having trouble getting a directional fix on her. Either she was moving in something other than a straight line or their mental link was useless as a homing beacon. He considered flying over the buildings until he found her, but he didn’t want to risk their identities as long as she didn’t seem to be in immediate danger.
He turned yet another corner and was startled to see two men spin around to face him. They were on opposite sides of the small alley, and they didn’t seem to be happy to see him.
<We have been following this fool!> said the younger man in machine-gun French. <We have lost the others because of him!>
<Take care, Andre,> said the other. <You know our standing instructions.>
Clark lifted his hands. “Hey, guys, sorry to bother you. I’m just looking for a friend.”
The younger man answered in clear, unaccented English. “And you think your friend is here?”
“I don’t know. I must have gotten turned around. Can you give me directions back to Canal Street?”
The older man said, “Of course. Turn right on the next street and travel seven blocks—”
<Roger! He has seen us! You know what we must do!>
<No, Andre. Let him go.>
<No! He is mine!>
Suddenly Andre stood behind Clark. “You are in the wrong place at the wrong time, my unfortunate friend.”
There was no way a normal human could move that quickly. Even Clark had been taken by surprise. If they weren’t Kryptonian – and he didn’t think they were – they might be the werewolves he hadn’t wanted to believe existed.
Clark turned slowly. “Look, if you want me to leave, just say so and I’ll leave.”
Andre smiled lopsidedly and purred, “You should have left before you got here.”
Then he swung an open-handed roundhouse slap at Clark’s head.
Clark ducked and slid to his right. “I didn’t come here to fight you, mister.”
Andre’s smile widened. “Perhaps not. But we do not always get what we want, now, do we?”
The older man appeared between them, facing his companion. “Andre! Stop this at once before it is too late!”
“It is already too late!”
Andre shoved Roger to one side and leaped at Clark, who grabbed him by both wrists and fell back into an overhead leg throw. Andre skidded up against a wall and scrambled to his feet. <Ha!> he shouted in French. <This one thinks he can fight!>
Roger grabbed Clark around the chest from behind and pinned his arms against his sides. As Andre raised a fist – no, a paw – to strike, Clark jammed his elbow into Roger’s belly, then shoved them both backwards to avoid Andre’s swing. Then Clark swung his fist up and back into Roger’s head. The man went limp and fell in a heap.
Andre jumped again and Clark swung an uppercut into the man’s face. He felt bones crunch in his target’s jaw as the suddenly furry man awkwardly crashed into Clark and slid formlessly to the ground.
Clark skittered several steps back and looked at his assailants. They both appeared to be normal humans once again, but for a few moments during the fight both of them had changed into something different, something almost canine. And even though the older man had been reluctant to fight, he hadn’t hesitated to grab Clark from the rear once his companion had attacked.
Cautiously, he bent down to check both men. They seemed to be breathing normally, and a quick x-ray vision check of Andre’s jaw showed a clean break which was already healing itself even as Clark watched. It was almost frightening to see the broken bone knit itself back together again.
If these men weren’t werewolves, he’d hate to run into the real thing. A normal human might not have survived that blow, and Clark breathed a sigh of relief that he hadn’t killed either of them. He also made a mental note to apologize to Perry when he saw the editor again.
He doubted that they would listen to reason once they regained consciousness, so he resumed his course toward the river – and, hopefully, toward his wife.
