Wrong Place, Wrong Time, Wrong Clark TOC can be found
HereWhen we last saw our characters in Part 125 …Nigel St. John walked into Lex’s living room, paused, and waited quietly for Lex to address him. Even though he seemed to be everything one had heard about in stories, television, and movies about British service, he still gave off this weird vibe, which made Lois uneasy in his presence. The man never gave any outward appearance of dislike, but Lois could feel he didn’t approve of her friendship with Lex, whatever that might be. Truth be told, she didn’t really care for the man either. He was too observant.
“Nigel?” Lex inquired after wiping his mouth with his napkin, when he caught Lois looking at his employee instead of him.
Even after all this time, Lois wasn’t quite sure of Nigel’s title or position in Lex’s household or company. If Mrs. Cox was Lex’s personal assistant that would make Nigel… what? His butler? His second in command? Thankfully, Mrs. Cox had been absent during their evening meals together. Strangely, though, Lois hadn’t seen his other manservant Asabi recently and wondered what had happened to the man. He had seemed such a fixture of Lex’s household last summer when they had gone on those few dates, even acting as chauffeur. She made a mental note to check on Asabi’s whereabouts.
“Sir, you asked me to remind you when it was seven thirty as you needed to take that phone call,” Nigel said, speaking in a soft voice.
“Phone call?” Lois asked Lex. It was odd that he would schedule a call during their ‘date’. Usually, Lex asked Nigel to make sure that nobody interrupted them during dinner. Was something up? Also, she hadn’t heard the phone ring.
“A conference call that I wasn’t able to reschedule, my dear. It shouldn’t take but a few minutes,” Lex answered vaguely. He stood up and looked at her as if memorizing her every feature. He took her hand in his and drew it up to his lips to kiss the back of it. “Although, after seeing you in this evening, I’m seriously reconsidering being out of your presence for even a moment.”
Lois bowed her head and turned away, pretending to blush. Her black evening dress looked good on her, she knew, but it wasn’t more fancy or revealing than any other of her black cocktail dresses. She knew she looked good, but not gushingly good. More often than not recently, Lois wondered about Lex’s growing attachment to her as resembling his attentions while affected by Miranda’s Revenge perfume. Was that how he normally wooed a woman, or was he treating her differently? She had teased him about considering this outing a date instead of evening entertainment between friends, but she could tell he had taken her at her word. “You’re all flattery tonight, Lex,” she replied, taking a last sip of her wine.
He smiled. “Aren’t I usually flattering, Lois?”
“Of course, Lex,” Lois hastened to reassure him, even though his treatment of her didn’t feel flattering. He usually was subtly patronizing, sickeningly suave while issuing backhanded compliments, and coolly charming as he tried to maneuver the conversation and her opinions to where he thought they should be. He was good at it too. Sometimes, it wasn’t until she was back home and rehashing in her mind their conversations for any nuggets of information worth retaining or exploring that she would realize that he had done it again.
Lex squeezed her hand lightly and then let go to follow Nigel up the stairwell to his private rooms down the hall from the mezzanine.
Lois’s brow furrowed. Why was Lex taking a conference call upstairs in his private living quarters instead of in his office? Standing up, Lois decided she wasn’t going to waste her time, sitting and waiting at the dinner table for him to return.
Part 126******************
A Night At the Opera******************
Opening the door to Lex’s office, Lois went directly to his desk. She knew she had only a couple of minutes before Lex returned; even less for Nigel, who she was surprised hadn’t remained in the room to keep a watchful eye on her. Something was definitely up for them to change their pattern. Had something gone wrong in one of Lex’s schemes? Was he planning on taking over another poor company? He did have a habit of scooping up failing companies, which were usually faltering for no apparent reason. Did he really have a conference call on a Saturday night?
Lois sat down at his neat desk, drumming her fingers on its solid wood surface. Of course, Lex wasn’t the type to leave files lying about, especially after hours. She looked at the items on the desk: a lamp, a cigar box, a fancy set of pens in a holder, and a letter opener, which appeared to be an ancient dagger. His collection of ancient weapons drew her gaze. She was amazed that she hadn’t questioned the integrity of a man who collected weapons when she had first entered this room during the White Orchid Ball. She scowled, turning back to his desk, as she bet that Clark had. Of course, as a supposedly unbiased reporter, she knew it was wrong to judge in hindsight, or with foresight, a man on his hobbies. Hobbies were just hobbies. They meant nothing. Right?
What was it about Lex which first set Clark’s teeth on edge about the man? What had he picked up upon that Lois hadn’t seen? Was it Lex’s obvious interest in her, or was it something more nefarious? She would have to ask Clark about it, when they finally could get together privately to have that long overdue talk.
There was nothing outwardly personal on Lex’s desk, no photographs – not that Lex had loved ones anyway. She hadn’t expected anything of the sort, having seen Lex’s desk before. The sturdy locks on his desk drawers required her lock-picking set, which she hadn’t thought to bring with her. Idiot!
As her eyes coasted over his desk again, she noticed that none of the lines on his phone was lit up. She glanced over at the doorway to his living room. Had his conference call not gone through? It had only been a minute since he went upstairs. Lex certainly couldn’t have concluded his call already. Had he lied to her about the call?
Her gaze shifted to the other set of doors to Lex’s office, which led to Mrs. Cox’s desk. As much as Lois despised the woman, riffling through her desk – like the woman herself – held no allure for her. Mrs. Cox was but a minnow in Lex’s pond; he was the grouper. Lois shook this thought out of her head. She had spent too much time listening to Perry’s fish stories over the years. Was Mrs. Cox aware of Lex’s illegal activities? She had been present at the Luthor House for Homeless Children Christmas party. Was she above reproach? Lois doubted it, which meant she couldn’t exclude the woman’s desk from examination.
For a brief moment, Lois wondered where Nigel’s office was located, if he even had one. Brushing that thought aside as something to explore another time, she stood up and walked to the main doors, listened for any sounds, and then opened them. It was quiet and deserted as she expected. Mrs. Cox’s desk was also tidy, but not as empty as Lex’s. Lois went straight for the files sitting to the side of her desk. Those must be what Mrs. Cox had been working on most recently. It was filled with correspondence to answer, none of which seemed intriguing or urgent.
The next file contained a financial breakdown of a new building and remodeling project for a new Luthor Foundation project, which was in its final stages: Luthor House for the Mentally Unstable. Lois’s hand froze as her heart began to race in fear. That name sounded familiar, although she couldn’t recall from where. Had Lex mentioned it at one of their dinners? She didn’t think so. Why would Lex want to finance a mental institution? Then again, why would
he want to help homeless children? She looked down a list of board members for the project. Her fingernail stopped at the name Dr. Arianna Carlin. Again, a wave of recognition washed over her like the foul stench of a paper processing plant. Whoever that woman was, Lois didn’t want to have anything to do with her. She pocketed the name into her memory banks and continued.
The next file held little interest.
Bored, Lois flipped open Mrs. Cox’s telephone message pad. The second to last message of the day was from Simon Truesdale. Lois bit her lower lip in thought. That name was familiar. Wasn’t there a Truesdale on the board of directors at the Daily Planet? Why would Lex be in contact with someone who controlled the Daily Planet?
Another cold chill passed down Lois’s spine.
Could she and Clark have been wrong? Could the Daily Planet's current financial problems be linked to something other than Preston Carpenter’s unethical news-creating and scooping techniques?
She gulped, jumped to her feet, and headed directly to Mrs. Cox’s filing cabinet. It was locked, but luckily, Lois’s semi up-do came equipped with bobby pins. Less than a minute later, Lois had the top drawer open. Thank goodness for Jimmy and his lock-picking classes. Months of practice, failed attempts, and broken fingernails, and Lois now considered herself consummate at the art.
There, third file in, was a large one on the Daily Planet. The file contained financial projections on the newspaper, lists of assets versus expenditures, lists of the largest advertisers, some of whom had abandoned the paper over the recent months after years of mutual satisfaction, personnel lists, a history of the Daily Planet building, including a copy a structural analysis and a layout of the different offices and departments, as well as a copy of the blueprints, and personal information on each of the board members.
Why would Lex be researching the Daily Planet so thoroughly? She wondered as she returned the file to the cabinet. Two files back, she found a thinner one on the Metropolis Star, which made her feel better. Perhaps he was just researching the competition to LNN. She flipped through the file but didn’t see anything near to the detail as in the Daily Planet folder. Mostly, it was personal background on the Met Star’s newly arrested publisher. If Lex was researching the competition, why have almost nothing on the Met Star newspaper itself? Other than the obvious answer: the Metropolis Star wasn’t competition for either Luthor News Network or the Daily Planet.
Lois suddenly recalled her earlier thoughts of Lex buying up sound but financially mismanaged companies at bargain basement prices. From what Clark and Linda had told her of Preston Carpenter, she doubted he would ever sell to Lex Luthor, even from jail, and she knew in the pit of her stomach Lex wasn’t interested in Carpenter’s paper anyway.
Lois took a quick glance back at Mrs. Cox’s phone and saw that the lines still hadn’t lit up with Lex’s conference call. Did Lex not route his personal calls through the LexCorp line? What kind of conference call would be ‘personal’ enough to take on his home line though?
She closed the drawer and returned through Lex’s office to his living room, where they had eaten dinner. A quick glance to the clock on the mantel showed that Lex and Nigel had left Lois alone for five minutes. She hadn’t worn her LoLex watch tonight. What was the point, since she would be with Lex? Anyway, without it she felt breathing easier.
Her pager buzzed inside her clutch purse on the table. She opened it up and glanced at the number, not recognizing it. She glanced around the room for Lex’s telephone and didn’t see it. He must have a cordless one somewhere, or not take calls in this room. She returned to Lex’s office to use that telephone. She wouldn’t want to interrupt Lex’s conference call anyway, and thus be caught eavesdropping on it by accident; although, she’d love to know what it was about.
Lois sat down at Lex’s desk and dialed the number on her pager. “Lois Lane returning a page,” she said to the man who answered.
It was Hicky Ricky, one of her sources. “What took you so long, Lane?”
“Ricky, what’s up?” she asked, ignoring his question.
“Duncan’s in jail. He bought a gram from an undercover. Happened about fifteen minutes ago on Edge Street,” Hicky Ricky told her.
She groaned. “But… but… Fine. Thanks for the heads up, Ricky,” she said. Duncan was supposed to be her infallible link to the stock trading scandal that she wrote about for tomorrow’s morning edition. At least, when Hicky Ricky pointed her to Adam Duncan yesterday morning as a goody-goody teetotaller, who knew something he shouldn’t about stocks trading at his firm, Ricky was good enough to call her back about Duncan’s not-so-spot clean record. Better late than after the story hit the stands.
“Sorry, Lane.”
“You better be, Ricky. I don’t need this tonight,” she grumbled, thinking it was time to do some legwork to get herself some new, more reliable, sources. The ones she had were drying up faster than a puddle on a hot day.
“Lois?” Lex’s hesitant voice interrupted her thoughts.
Lois hung up the telephone just as Lex entered his office. Feeling a little embarrassed to be caught sitting in his chair, she stood up and walked towards him as if it were no big deal. Lex stared at her intently. She could feel his gaze slowly travel down her body and then back up, pausing at her chest on the way to her face. A beaming, yet sly, smile burst across his face fleetingly before he buried it.
Okay. That was new.
Lois glanced down to make sure that she hadn’t spilled any food on herself, she hadn’t, and saw her dress was perhaps a tad lower in the bodice than many of her other dresses, but Lex’s reaction still surprised her. It wasn’t like him at all.
“Are you ready?” she asked, heading into the living room. Duncan’s arrest was a mere annoyance, but it would be a good excuse to stop by the Daily Planet and tell Perry her hunch about Lex’s interest in the Daily Planet. He would want to get rolling on that angle immediately.
“What are you doing in my office?” Lex asked, more directly than she expected of him. He never even asked her that at the White Orchid Ball, when he had caught her and Clark snooping around.
“I received a page,” Lois explained, lifting up her pager for him to see. “I needed to return it to see if it was urgent, and I didn’t want to interrupt your conference call by using your home line.”
Lex thought about this answer, and then nodded. “Okay, but next time: ask.”
“You and Nigel had gone upstairs, Lex. Who was I supposed to have asked?” she shot back.
“We should get going,” Lex replied, changing the subject and glancing at his watch. “‘Madame Butterfly’ starts in forty-five minutes.” He took her elbow and guided her to the elevator beneath his main staircase, pressing the call button. “You smell wonderful, by the way.”
“Thanks,” Lois replied, glancing at Lex, who had never once complimented her perfume before. “Where are you taking me?” She remembered the bunker, which he had taken her to through his wine cellar the night before Impact Day. This elevator led to that wine cellar.
“To my private parking garage,” Lex said, matter-of-factually.
Duh! She reminded herself. She forgot that they had taken this elevator when they arrived, instead of passing through the lobby as she usually did. He had been telling her the plot of ‘Madame Butterfly’, so she wouldn’t become lost later on, and it had distracted her from noticing her surroundings.
“Asabi will be driving us to the Luthor Conservatory of Music in the Daimler Limousine,” he went on, holding out his hand for her to enter the elevator first.
Ah, so Asabi was still around. Good to know. She could cross that question off her to-do list. “Nigel isn’t driving us?” she inquired.
“No, he’s busy. I’m so glad you’ll be accompanying me, Lois,” he said, staring into her eyes as if he had fallen in them. “You are ever so beautiful…
tonight.”
“Thanks, Lex. Are you feeling all right?” she asked. He was starting to act extra complimentary as he had when Miranda dosed him with her Revenge.
“Never better,” he replied with a smile, holding the elevator door open for her to exit. “Shall we?”
***
Seven forty…Cat heard the ding of an elevator and ducked behind one of the numerous cars in Lex’s private collection. She knew, just
knew, Lex had a way to sneak all his paramours in and out of Lex Tower without anyone being the wiser. It only made sense that he wasn’t using the same parking garage as everyone else who came to Lex Tower, but she never figured the entrance was a block away from the building. Even though Cat had insisted that Lois tell her the next time Lex picked her up in his limousine, so she could tail them on her Moped, Lois had done nothing of the sort. Fortunately, Cat had overheard Lois agree to let Lex pick her up in his limousine for their date at the opera.
She watched as Lex Luthor, dressed in a different suit and tie than he had worn earlier that evening when he had picked up Lois, exited the elevator and went over to a side door, slipping inside. Cat was curious what Lex was doing down here without Lois.
In her black leggings, black turtleneck, black knit cap, and black sneakers, Cat blended into the shadows and could move silently through the echoing garage, but she decided to err on the side of caution and stay put. She pulled out a pair of binoculars from her satchel and pointed them at the door Lex had entered. A few minutes later, he exited carrying a dusty bottle of wine. Cat’s brow furrowed, and glanced down at the watch on her wrist. It was a little late for Lex to be retrieving wine for his date with Lois. The opera started in just under an hour.
Instead of returning upstairs, Lex turned towards the garage, pushed a button on the key ring he pulled from his pocket, and unlocked what looked to be a brand new dark metallic blue Jaguar XJ220. Cat had noticed it while she was cataloguing his car collection after following Lex’s classic limousine inside. She had heard more about the XJ220 than she ever wanted to know about it, on Christmas afternoon when her brothers had droned about what they’d buy if they won the New Troy state lotto, which had been over a hundred million at the end of last year. Apparently, the XJ220 cost more than a million dollars and was one of the fastest cars in the world. Cat shrugged. Men and cars.
She wondered as Lex drove out of the garage, if he would be pulling around to the front of Lex Tower to pick Lois up. She hadn’t expected them to leave until at least quarter till eight. Cat swore under her breath at her bad luck of now being locked in his private garage until after the opera ended. She went over to the door that Lex had gone through after exiting the elevator and found a large wine cellar. Big surprise. He had brought a bottle of wine with him from the room, hadn’t he?
She decided to walk back to the entrance and see if there was another exit out of the garage, as she was sure that security was watching the elevator. The garage exit gate might be monitored as well, but if she didn’t have to sit twiddling her thumbs for the next three hours, all the better. She was a good way down the long tunnel when she heard the ding of the elevator again.
That’s strange, she thought, turning to look back down the tunnel towards the elevator.
Cat pulled out her binoculars once more and caught sight of Lex’s East Indian manservant, standing and waiting by the limousine, which he had parked in front of the elevators when he had dropped off Lois and Lex. Had Lois angered Lex and he had decided to cancel their date to the opera? Frankly, Cat didn’t care what had happened between Lois and Lex. As long as Lois made it out of Lex Tower alive, Cat wouldn’t have to try to stop Clark from retaliating against the billionaire and ruining Superman’s heroic reputation. She doubted if Lex would be stupid enough to harm Lois when others, besides Cat, had seen them leaving Lois’s apartment building earlier in the evening. With that flashy car, they were hard to miss. Anyway, Cat knew Lois could take care of herself. It was one of the things that most frustrated Clark about her, Lois’s apparent lack of need of his protection.
Cat wasn’t going to lose her opportunity to leave Lex’s parking garage and started huffing it the last hundred meters or so down the dark tunnel to the garage door, so she could easily slip out when it opened. As soon as the garage door started to open, Cat ducked underneath and skipped over to her Moped parked nearby. She had just pulled on her helmet, when the classically styled limousine pulled out. Using the night vision mode on her binoculars, Cat could briefly see inside the car’s tinted windows, and what she saw puzzled her. Lois wasn’t alone in the back of the car.
Stuffing the binoculars back into her satchel, Cat decided to follow the limousine to see if she could a better look at who was with Lois. If Lois was with Nigel St. John, Lex’s right hand man, trouble could be brewing, and Cat might need to make a call to her best friend. She could picture Lex leaving separately to establish an alibi for himself.
Cat followed three car lengths back. Luckily, the limousine was unique enough that it wasn’t hard to tail from this distance. As the car traveled downtown, Cat was curious where it was headed. This wasn’t the most direct route to the Luthor Conservatory of Music. The car stopped to the side of the Daily Planet building, and Cat wondered if her initial hunch about the opera date having been broken was right and Lois was returning to the work.
The chauffeur stepped out and walked around to let Lois and someone who looked an awful lot like Lex out of the car. They entered the Daily Planet and the chauffeur waited beside the car.
Cat set down her binoculars in confusion. That couldn’t be right. She had
seen Lex Luthor get the bottle of wine and then leave Lex Tower in the Jaguar XJ220. That wasn’t something that she had daydreamed. She even had a picture of the sports car, which she had taken for her brothers. Of course, she hadn’t taken a photo of Lex and the car, because she wasn’t a professional photographer and her automatic camera didn’t do telephoto as well as Jimmy’s did. Those photos always ended up being blurry. Additionally, the last thing she needed was its automatic flash to go off in the dark garage when she wasn’t alone. It was definitely time to invest in a better camera.
Had Lex driven the bottle of wine somewhere nearby in the Jaguar, and then doubled back on foot to go to the opera with Lois in the limousine? That didn’t make any sense either. One didn’t leave a million dollar car parked on the side of the road in Metropolis and expect it still to be there five minutes later. Lois’s car theft ring story from last year proved that without a doubt, and with much less expensive cars. No, there was definitely something else going on.
Maybe Lex Luthor hadn't entered the Daily Planet with Lois. Cat hadn’t gotten a good look at him. She had only seen him from behind. She would need to figure out a way to discover the truth and she probably had less than five minutes before Lois and whoever accompanied her returned to the limo. Cat needed a good reason to be at the Planet this early on a Saturday night.
Cat unlocked and flipped open her storage compartment of her Moped. Inside she dropped her helmet and black knit hat. Then she pulled off her black turtleneck revealing a skintight scoop-neck cheetah print dress, which she untucked from her leggings and pulled down over her butt. She kicked off her sneakers and removed her leggings, dropping both inside her storage compartment. She fished around inside her compartment and pulled out a pair of black wedge high-heels.
After slipping on her shoes, locking up her Moped, and fluffing her hair, she walked into the Metro Diner. Standing at the cashier, Cat spotted the perfect target: the blonde equivalent of Clark Kent. He was tall and gorgeous and wore both a sport jacket and glasses, and no wedding ring.
“Hi,” she said, sidling up beside him and licking her lips. “How would you like to earn a quick ten bucks?”
The man did a double take, slowly taking her all in the second time. “Pardon?” he replied, glancing around nervously as if some friend had sent her to him as a joke. “I’m not sure, Miss...”
“Grant. Cat Grant,” Cat said, holding out her hand. “I want to prank my friends over at the Daily Planet, and you’re just the man for the job. I swear it won’t take more than ten minutes tops.” She made an X over her heart.
The man continued to stare at her chest, and then gulped. “George. George Filmonterton,” he said, shaking her hand. “What exactly did you have in mind?”
***
Seven fifty…Clark glanced up from the pile of papers on his desk as the elevator dinged, and Jimbo walked out. He waved. Jimbo returned the wave, rolling the magazine in his hand into a tube, and then crossed over to Perry’s office where Jimmy was arguing with the Chief over some piece of memorabilia that their boss had collected over the years.
“Chief!” Jimmy interrupted. “It’s junk!”
Perry put a hand to his chest. “But it’s
my junk! Okay?”
Jimmy rolled his eyes and bobbed his head. “Yeah. Okay. Well, this isn’t exactly the best way to spend a Saturday night, so why don’t you just…”
“All right. All right. All right. Look,” Perry said raising his hand. “Let’s keep going, okay?”
Jimmy conceded.
Perry raised his hand again. “Okay, but I’ve got to warn you, you touch that Elvis box and you’re a dead man.” He turned back to the office.
Jimmy looked at his cousin and Clark with exasperation.
Clark chuckled to himself at Perry’s seriousness. It was great to see those two working things out. Jimmy had always been a little… okay, extremely intimidated by Perry. After Jimmy had thought the Chief was going to kill himself and found out the old man was just going through a midlife crisis, it made him see him for what Perry was – another human being with flaws, just like him. Ever since then, they worked better together. Jimmy didn’t look at the Chief with quite as much awe, and the Chief gained respect for his junior reporter for pulling the hypnotism trick on him.
‘Sometimes, son, you have to catch someone on their worst day to see them at their best,’ Clark’s father had once told him.
Jimbo tagged Jimmy’s arm with his rolled up magazine. “So, I’m guessing movie night’s off?”
“Sorry, Cuz,” Jimmy said, shaking his frustrated fists at his boss’s departing backside. “Not happening.”
Jimbo sighed and wandered over to Clark’s desk. “You wouldn’t happen to be in the mood for a movie, CK.”
“Taxes,” Clark replied.
The younger man’s shoulders dropped. “Oh. That’s too bad.”
Clark glanced at the clock on his desk. It was shortly before eight p.m. “Hey, give me an hour to finish this up, and we can catch a late show.”
Jimbo’s face brightened. He flopped into the chair next to Clark’s desk and opened his magazine. “Okay. Thanks, CK.”
Clark nodded and stared back at the forms in front of him. The IRS couldn’t be serious, could they? Was this really how this dimension handled paying taxes?
“Hey, listen to this, CK,” Jimbo said, folding over the front half of the magazine to read. “‘
Dear Love Fortress International’…”
“Jimbo,” Clark tried to remind him that they wouldn’t make the late movie if he interrupted him every few minutes, but the kid kept on reading.
“‘
I know you receive letters like mine all the time, but I promise you that this is a true story.’ Yea, I bet,” Jimbo scoffed. “‘
The reason I’m writing is because I’m at a loss to what I should do.’”
“James,” Clark attempted again.
“‘
Back at the beginning of February, I went on a service call to a large office in Metropolis.’ Whoa, a local story,” Jimbo said with a grin. “‘
There I had the most amazing twenty-four hours of my life. Anyone will tell you that I’m not much to look at, and it’s true. I’m a self-professed nerd in a geek’s clothing. On this one day, none of that mattered. This ravishing auburn-haired beauty took one look at me, and… well, I won’t go into details, beyond saying it wasn’t just a meeting of bodies, but a meeting of souls. Let’s just say, I haven’t been able to look at a copier in the same way ever since.’”
“Mr. Olsen!” Clark repeated louder, just as Jimbo’s last words sunk into his brain.
“Oh, sorry, CK. I’ll shut up,” Jimbo apologized.
“No, wait. Did you say ‘auburn-haired beauty’ and ‘copier’?” Clark asked, rubbing his forehead. That would be too much of a coincidence.
Jimbo grinned, and bounced his eyebrows. “That’s what it said.”
Clark leaned forward to listen. “Go on.”
“Oh! Okay,” Jimbo said, clearing his throat. “Whoa, Spencer Spencer himself added an editorial note next… ‘
Dear Filled in Metropolis...’ I’ve got to say, CK, that’s an awful tag line.”
“‘Filled’ as in ‘Phil’? P-H-I-L?” Clark guessed.
Jimbo pointed at him. “You know, I bet you’re right. Genius!” He glanced back to the letter. “Let’s see… oh, right Spencer Spencer’s note: ‘
Next time don’t edit out the good stuff. That’s what we all want to read anyway. Not crap about meeting your soul mate.’ Man, that’s harsh, and here I thought Spencer Spencer was my main man.” He closed the magazine with a frown. “Never mind, CK.”
“You can’t stop there, Jimbo. Skip Spencer Spencer’s editorializing and go back to ‘Filled in Metropolis’s’ letter,” Clark said, waving him on. It couldn’t be the same Phil, Cat’s Phil. “What does he say about his ‘soul mate’?”
“Okay, CK,” Jimbo said with a shrug. He opened the magazine back up and flipped through a few pages. “Here it is. Spencer Spencer. Blah. Blah. Blah.” He cleared his throat again. “‘
Never have I had such a connection with any woman before in my life. I think she could be ‘the one’. I thought she felt the same way, because when I finally finished my repairs, she wrecked the machine again, just to have her way with me one more time. I swear she was insatiable.’ That’s funny. You’d think he was talking about Cat Grant with that description.” He laughed. When Clark didn’t join in, Jimbo continued, “Okay, then. ‘
Before I left, she whispered in my ear ‘I never do this’ and handed me her phone number, and told me to call her. As I mentioned before, if I hadn’t been bone-tired, I would have floated home. I was that happy. A few days later, I read that her office had been sprayed by a love-potion, and that everyone had gone crazy in love, doing things they normally wouldn’t during the time I made my service call.’ Gee, CK, do you think he’s talking about the Daily Planet?”
Clark nodded. “Go on.”
“Do you know this woman he’s talking about?”
“What else does he say, Jim?” Clark said.
“Oh, right. Um… ‘…
doing things they normally wouldn’t. Now, my question is, Mr. Spencer, should I risk losing out on my soul mate and spending my life alone to keep from ruining my one perfect encounter? If I call and discover she’s married or never wants to see me again, or if we were just under the effect of the love-potion, I don’t know if I’d have the will to go on. On the other hand, I’ll be moving back to Houston this summer, and if I don’t call, and she feels the same way I do, I may never get a second chance. What should I do? Signed: Filled in Metropolis.’ CK, this is deep. Do you know the woman he was talking about? Does she feel the same way? What should we do? We can’t leave it up to that Spencer Spencer guy.” Jimbo read further. “Oh, no! Spencer tells him not to call! CK, you should tackle this. This should be your next investigation. Find this woman and make a love match! True love wins out! Mr. White would totally go for that story.”
Clark looked at him skeptically.
“Yeah, right,” Jimbo said, peering over at Perry’s office where they could hear Clark’s boss arguing with Jimmy. “The Chief would never go for it. Too bad. It would make for a terrific story.”
Clark sighed. Cat had said she was over Phil, but was she really? Should he butt in and tell her about Phil’s letter to Love Fortress International or keep out of it?
“I’m going to shut up now, but first, I’m going to order a pizza. You want a pizza?” Jimbo asked as he walked over to Cat’s desk with his magazine.
Clark nodded, returning his focus to his taxes.
Sure, pizza. That sounds good. He flipped back a few pages of his tax instruction booklet and stared at the tables again. Had he figured this right? Clark doubted he would be able to concentrate on his taxes after discovering that Cat’s soul mate wanted her. Apparently, Phil wasn’t married after all. It had all been a huge misunderstanding.
“Hey, Jimmy, you want pizza?” Jimbo called towards Perry’s office, lifting up the receiver of the telephone.
“Now, you’re talking! Fresh tomatoes, mushrooms, onions, and olives,” Jimmy said, sticking his head out the door.
“Cuz, if it goes on a salad, it doesn’t belong on a pizza,” Jimbo hollered back. “How about Canadian bacon and pineapple instead?”
“Pineapple on a pizza? It’s amazing we’re related,” Clark could hear Jimmy mumble to Perry, before calling back out to the newsroom, “Just put pineapple on your half, Jimbo.”
The Chief chuckled, and Clark smiled, returning his gaze to the tax forms.
The elevators dinged again. This time, Clark heard a familiar heartbeat approaching.
***End of Part 126*** Part 127 Comments
