As much as Monroe and Sheehan would rather have been sitting in their brown nondescript department car as they waited for the forensics technicians to show up and back up to arrive, they grabbed the Polaroid camera and several film packs from the trunk instead. They went back inside to take the preliminary photographs and measurements.
Monroe had just finished taking photographs of the back room, taking care to note the position of the vat with the ‘body’ in it, when the crime scene people arrived and took over. They took samples of everything they could find, especially the blue slimy goo that seemed to be everywhere. There was broken glass on the floor and more of the goo.
“What do you think this is all for?” Monroe asked one of the techs.
“Not being a mad scientist, I can’t say,” the tech replied. “But that thing in there is still growing and getting more human looking all the time.”
“Who do you think it’s going to be?” Monroe asked.
“Another of Capone’s cronies, no doubt,” the tech said. “I wish we could find this Hamilton guy’s notes. He’s pulled off one hell of a trick, bringing back dead gangsters. How many bank hold ups is in now?”
“Four. And yeah, we need to find the live ones that are already around,” Sheehan said bitterly.
0 0 0
The house lights came up in the nearly empty auditorium, to the groans of the several teenagers in the seats who had not been watching the screen. A few older people also groaned, but because their entertainment on the screen, or their naps, had been interrupted.
Leocadio scanned the area. All the exits were covered, as were both restrooms, the office and the stairwell that led to a maze of tiny storage and dressing rooms that dated from vaudeville days. Two men were already behind the screen, searching the old stage. She gestured for her team to begin searching the rows of seats, starting with the back. “Ladies and gentlemen, this is the police,” she announced loudly. “Please remain in your seats until we ask you to move, then leave the theater in an orderly manner.”
She could see the confusion in their faces, except for one man in a camel colored coat. He’d put on sunglasses as soon as the house lights had come up and was now hunkered down in his seat. While the rest of the people in the theater had turned to look at her when she gave her instructions, this one man had turned away.
“Pete?” Leocadio spoke to her current partner, Pete Quinn, over the radio link. “See him?”
“Got him,” Quinn replied, stepping over to the row where the man in the sunglasses was sitting. Other officers were clearing out the other rows, directing the people to go one by one up the center aisle. Outside the building, other officers would take their names and addresses, ask for ID. Inside the theater, officers put up the fold-down seats, checking under them for anything unusual.
Finally, the man in the sunglasses spoke to Quinn: “Hey, flat-foot, what about me?”
“May I see some identification, sir?” Leocadio asked as she stepped closer. She had unclipped the safety strap on her holster, keeping one hand close to the butt of her automatic.
The man hunkered further into his seat. “Since when do cops dress up like…? What sort of getup is that, anyway? Not exactly lady-like, but then, I never met a female cop who was a lady.”
Quinn chuckled, earning a glare from Leocadio.
“John Dillinger, you are under arrest,” Leocadio said. “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed to represent you if you wish. You can decide at any time to stop answering questions if you wish. Do you understand what I’ve just told you?”
“Yeah, yeah. I got rights,” the man said, straightening up in his seat and putting a hand inside his coat.
Quinn was immediately behind him, his standard issue 35 automatic just out of arm’s reach of Dillinger’s head. “Hands were we can see them, nice and slow. Then hands on your head.”
Dillinger pulled an empty hand out of his coat and put both of his hands on his head. Leocadio came closer and snapped a hand cuff on around Dillinger’s right wrist. “Lean over,” she ordered, keeping hold of the restraint and pulling Dillinger’s right hand behind him as she reached for his free hand. Dillinger started to stand, then began to move away from his seat.
“Both hands were we can see them,” Quinn ordered. Leocadio was still holding onto Dillinger’s wrists and he started to pull her across the back of the seat. She let go of him and pulled out her automatic. “Stop or I shoot,” she announced.
Dillinger kept moving. “Hey, who you kiddin’? You won’t shoot an unarmed man,” he announced with a sneer. “You’re one of the good guys.”
She pulled off a single shot that just missed his ear. Dillinger spun around and stared at her. “I’m real sure I saw a gun under that coat. Didn’t you see a gun, Quinn?”
“I’m real sure I did, Lieutenant,” Quinn agreed.
“And I have been known to miss, on occasion,” Leocadio added. “So, what’ll it be? You come along quietly, or do I try again? Believe me, I wouldn’t mind saving the taxpayers some money.”
Dillinger went pale. “You wouldn’t.”
“Try me.”
0 0 0
“Is Jimmy back yet?” Perry White yelled into the newsroom from his office.
“No chief,” Gil Truman told him. “And he hasn’t called, either.”
“Blast that kid,” Perry muttered to himself. “I swear I’ll fire him if he shows up dead.” He stalked over to Gil’s desk. “Has anyone heard from Clark’s parents?”
“You’d be the first to know chief,” Gil told him. “I swear. You know, I bet they’re already on their way here to find out what happened.”
0 0 0
Jimmy Olsen tried to get more comfortable despite the fact that he was stuck in the trunk of an antique car with his hands tied behind his back, his feet tied together and a smelly rag in his mouth. Capone and his thugs had taken him and Professor Hamilton away from the office, shoving Jimmy in the car trunk. He had no idea what they had done with Hamilton. Jimmy was afraid the older man was already dead.
‘If I can't buy them, I'll eliminate them,’ Capone had said. He’s planning on having a killing spree the party tonight and I have no way to warn them. I can’t even yell for Superman.
The car had been driving around for sometime, over bumps, maybe railroad tracks. He’d lost track of the turns. He didn’t know if they were trying to confuse him, or they had something else in mind. He went back to working on the ropes that secured his hands.
0 0 0
Lois unlocked the door to Clark’s apartment and walked in. She’d gotten his key from his clothes before they’d been turned over to the police for examination. His wallet hadn’t been found yet and probably wouldn’t be.
She closed the door behind her and walked down the steps into his living room. Oddly, she smelled fresh coffee brewing in the kitchen.
“Clark?” Martha Kent called, coming out of the kitchen. She seemed surprised when she caught sight of Lois standing in the living room, but covered it quickly. “Jonathan, Lois is here,” she said. She looked worried as she glanced back into the kitchen. Clark’s father came out. He looked tired and even more worried than Martha did.
“Lois, Mister White called us yesterday night and said Clark had been shot,” Martha began. “Do you know where he is?”
“Oh, Martha,” Lois began, almost crying in relief. Clark’s parents were here, in Metropolis. They’d be able to talk some sense into him, tell him to stay in the hospital. “Perry’s been trying to get in touch with you since this morning. The police found Clark last night and he’s over at Metropolis General. They’ve upgraded his condition to serious. I came over to get some books for him to read.”
She walked over to Clark’s bookshelves to pick out some volumes to take back with her. Dostoevsky, Chekhov, Tolstoy, Aristotle, Dante, Sun Tzu, Machiavelli, Nietzsche both in their original languages and translations. History, literature, science, politics, religion. There was even a copy of Perry White’s Reports from the Ground.
There were the classics as well, of course. She wasn’t surprised to find a the complete works of Shakespeare and Charles Dickens, several Mark Twain books, Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, Mary Stewart’s Arthurian trilogy, C.S. Lewis, Dante, Homer, Victor Hugo. She recognized the names, if not the titles on some of them.
There were authors she had never heard of before, and some books had no visible title at all. Russian, German, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, Chinese… and was that Arabic? How many languages does Clark read? She was of the opinion that you could tell a lot about a person by the books they read. Eclectic was the best description of Clark’s collection – Tolkien and Jane Austin, sports almanacs and poetry, Tom Clancy and Andrew Greeley, Starhawk, Bishop Spong and Matthew Fox. An old copy of The Saints was tucked in next to a copy of the Qur’an.
“Clark’s in the hospital?” Martha asked. “How…?” She turned to her husband. “Oh, Jonathan, we’ve got to get him out of there.”
“Martha, he’s in the ICU. He was shot three times,” Lois told her, wide-eyed in disbelief. Don’t they understand? “He can’t leave the hospital yet. I mean, he was shot. One of the bullets bruised his heart.”
“Lois, honey, you don’t understand and…,” Jonathan began, but he stopped at Martha’s warning look.
Alarms started going off in Lois’s head as the puzzle pieces started to come together. “Perry said he wasn’t sure you believed him when he told you Clark might be dead,” she murmured to herself. “You were expecting Clark to show up here, not me… You didn’t think Clark could have been hurt…”
‘They’re going to find out I’m not normal and…’ Clark had said. And what? ‘You don’t understand,’ he said. ‘They had kryptonite.’
“They had kryptonite. They shot him with kryptonite,” she said aloud and watched Martha Kent flinch. “Oh my God. Why didn’t he tell me?” She felt the blood drain from her face and she started to feel faint. “Why didn’t he tell me?”
“Tell you what, honey?” Martha asked quietly.
“He’s been my partner all this time and he couldn’t tell me?” Lois went on, not looking at them. She sat down on the sofa, clutching the books in her hands.
“Lois, what didn’t he tell you?” Jonathan rumbled softly, coming closer.
“It explains so much – all those idiotic excuses, how he knew so much about what Superman was doing, about the rescues. It all fits. How could I be so stupid?”
“Lois, what didn’t he tell you?” Jonathan repeated the question. Lois finally looked at him. His broad face was filled with concern.
She chuckled, although it was a bit on the hysterical side. “He said his mother made his suit. That was you, wasn’t it? Are you from Krypton, too?”
“We’re from Kansas,” Jonathan said.
“I’m from Ohio, actually,” Martha corrected, giving Jonathan an indulgent smile. “But I live in Kansas.”
“And Clark?”
“He’s not from around here,” Martha admitted.
“How long? I mean…,”
“How long has he been here?” Martha filled in the question for her. “Lois, you saw his baby pictures when you stayed with us last year, after that nightmare with Trask.”
“But who is he?” Lois asked. It was just too much. Clark Kent was Superman were the same person? Her not always reliable partner was a superhero?
“Our son,” Jonathan told her. “Clark is who he is, who he’s always been, at least since we found him. He was, maybe, three months old. The other part, that’s just something he does, something he can do.”
‘I've been in love with you for a long time… You must have known,’ Clark had told her.
‘I knew... well I knew that you liked me, were attracted to me, but... I'm sorry. I don't think about you in that way... romantically,’ she had told him. ‘Clark, you're my best friend, the only partner I could ever stand to work with. I admire you, respect you, and I do love you, but only as a friend.’
‘If you had no powers, if you were just an ordinary man leading an ordinary life, I'd love you just the same. Can't you believe that?’ she had told him as Superman.
‘I wish I could, Lois. But, under the circumstances, I don't see how I can.’
“Why didn’t he tell me?” she asked.
“You know what happened with Trask and his bunch,” Martha reminded her. “That madman was ready to kill all of us. He nearly killed Clark.”
“I won’t say anything, you know that,” Lois told them.
“I know, Lois,” Martha said quietly. “Would you like some coffee, or maybe some tea? Clark has some herbal tea around here somewhere and some Lapsang Oolong.”
“Coffee’s fine,” Lois said.
Luthor had jumped from the penthouse. She was in her wedding dress, in Clark’s arms, watching the drama unfold above them. He had tried to move away, bunching himself like Superman did before taking off to fly. ‘I can’t,’ he had said, anguish in his voice. She had seen how pale he was, the marks on his hands like he’d been burnt, but she hadn’t asked why. It never occurred to her to ask why.
“He couldn’t save Lex that day,” she said aloud. “He wanted to, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t fly.”
“He told us later that Luthor had put him in a kryptonite cage, down in one of the subbasements,” Martha said. Jonathan had disappeared into the kitchen and came back with a mug of black coffee which he handed to Lois.
Martha’s voice was shaking as she continued. “He said Luthor had speakers installed so he could hear the wedding, then he said he was planning on taking you, by force if necessary, then personally hacking Clark to pieces with an ax. He had it all planned out.”
“Only Henderson and Perry got there first with an arrest warrant,” Lois said softly. “I’d already told Lex I couldn’t go through with it though.” She took a sip of the coffee. “How did Clark get out? I mean, I’m sure someone would have said something if they’d found Superman in a cage.”
“Luthor was so vicious, so arrogant, he left the key just out of reach, but where Clark could see it,” Jonathan told her. “Clark managed, by some miracle, to get the key, got himself out of the cage before Luthor came down to finish the job.”
“So, that’s where Luthor disappeared to when the cops were chasing him,” Lois said. “They knew he didn’t go straight to the penthouse, but they never figured out exactly what he did just before that. How could I have been so blind? I’m supposed to be the hottest investigative reporter in the city and I couldn’t see what was in front of my face?”
“People only see what they expect to see, Lois,” Martha told her. “Clark’s an ordinary guy with parents and a job and bills to pay. Superman’s an alien who showed up, eighteen months ago? He doesn’t have bills or an apartment. He doesn’t go to coffee with his friends. He doesn’t really have any friends. He can’t.”
“I thought I was his friend.”
“You’re Clark’s friend,” Martha corrected her. “Superman can’t afford to have friends. Look at what happened when Trask thought you were special to him. And don’t forget Luthor. Do you really think he’d have gone after you so hard if he didn’t think he was getting back at Superman for humiliating him? If he didn’t want to take down the woman who was arrogant enough to prefer an alien in blue tights to one of the richest men in the world?”
“I’ve tried not to think about that,” Lois admitted. “Plus there was the whole thing with Miranda and that pheromone stuff. I figured that had something to do with it. We don’t know if Miranda sprayed Lex with the hundred percent solution when she tried to get him to fall in love with her. But it explains why Clark wasn’t effected. I thought it was because he wasn’t attracted to me.”
“Lois, the first day he met you he came home and told us about you,” Martha said. “It was like a light had come on in his soul. I think he was in love with you from that first moment.”
Lois looked down at the books she’d selected to take to the hospital. “I told him I’d be right back,” she said. “He wasn’t real happy about being in the hospital.”
“Let’s all go,” Jonathan suggested. “We need to get our boy away from those quacks.”
“Doctor Bryant might object to that description,” Lois told them. “He’s one of the best trauma surgeons in the country.”
0 0 0
