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Wrong Place, Wrong Time, Wrong Clark TOC can be found Here

You can find Part 144 here.

Part 145

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Two
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After roughly ten minutes of Perry yelling at him for disappearing off the face of the Earth without notice, for dropping the ball with the Nazi story, and for leaving him yet another reporter short, Clark was finally able to get a word in edgewise.

“I’m sorry, sir. A friend of Superman’s was in the hospital, and he asked for my assistance around his… um… place,” Clark said contritely. He felt guilty for speaking so poorly to Perry and Cat before blasting over to Lois’s to try to talk to her once more. He slid a quickly typed up story about what happened in Pequenópolis across Perry’s desk.

“What’s this?” Perry asked, skimming it quickly. “You went to Brazil?”

Clark shrugged. “Luckily, Superman was able to give me a lift.”

“I don’t see Superman’s involvement mentioned,” the Chief said, tossing the story back across to Clark.

Clark cleared his throat. “He asked if his friendship with Father Carlos could be kept off the record, so that it wouldn’t draw more attention to the man. That’s why I also haven’t signed the article and would prefer it be listed as written by a Daily Planet staffer.”

Perry nodded. “I understand. How’s Father Carlos doing now?”

“He awoke from his coma last night. Superman said that he thanked me for my assistance, but that I wasn’t required anymore,” Clark replied. “He’s being moved out of the ICU today. He still has a long way to journey on his road to recovery.”

“Did Superman mention how he knows Father Carlos?” Perry asked, picking up the story again.

“They met when he went to solve the illegal clear-cutting of the rainforest by Barbara Trevino and Hob’s Mining last Christmas.”

Perry sat down on the edge of his desk. “Did you learn anything about this ‘Jaguar’ character to which the drug dealers were referring? The Daily Planet readers would be interested in knowing that there were other people, besides Superman and Batman, out there protecting the world.”

“A little,” Clark said. More than I had before. “He’s a mythical half-jaguar / half-man spirit who protects the Brazilian rainforest. He’s very fast, so nobody has ever gotten any proof of his existence. I’d say he’s comparable to the Bigfoot legends of the Pacific Northwest… only, well, friendlier.”

“Mythical, huh?” Perry said skeptically. With a bit of disappointment, he looked over the story again. “Too bad.” He sighed, setting the story back on his blotter. “Did Superman say anything about what he’s been up to since finding that nuclear bomb in Los Angeles last Friday?”

Clark winced. “He told me on the way to Brazil about putting out that chemical factory explosion in North Carolina last Saturday. I’m sorry, Chief. I didn’t expect to be out of town for so long. I should have faxed in my whereabouts and that story.”

“Right. Right. Well, that’s old news now. Don’t worry about it, son,” Perry said, waving the issue aside much to Clark’s astonishment.

“When he dropped me off in Brazil, Superman had said he was going to take a few days off to recharge after being underground for most of last week, but he’s back now,” Clark reassured him.

“Probably best not to advertise Superman’s vacations in advance, but since he’s back if you could write up something…”

“I’ll do that, Chief,” Clark replied.

“Good. Good. Okay, since you’ve been… well, uh… out of town and… uh… out of the country, let me get you up to speed with what’s happening on the home front,” Perry said, and took a deep breath.

Clark nodded, surprised there wasn’t any harsher repercussions for his unprofessional behavior. From the expression on his boss’s face, he expected the news Perry was about to impart not to be good. He braced himself to hear Lois’s name.

“Last Monday’s paycheck bounced,” Perry said, picking up an envelope. “You might not have noticed, being that you never picked yours up.” He handed it over.

“Bounced?” Clark echoed, staring at the envelope. He wasn’t expecting that.

Perry nodded. “They covered it by last Friday, but… this week’s check was returned for insufficient funds too,” he said, handing him another envelope. “So, you might want to wait a few days for the finances to clear up before depositing those.”

Clark groaned softly. Just what he needed on top of everything else. He hoped he had saved enough over the last nine months to pay last week’s now-late rent payment without a bump from his paycheck. “Thanks for the heads up,” he replied, slapping the envelopes against his palm. “I thought with Carpenter behind bars and the Met Star busted for endangering the public, our subscription numbers would rise again.”

“You and me both, son, and they have. It seems to be a case of too little, too late. The advertisers are still abandoning us for some unknown…” Perry raised his gaze out to the newsroom and seemed to get lost in thought for a moment, his brow furrowing. “— reason.” He rose to his feet to return to his chair. “I’ve got some urgent calls to make, Clark, if you could get me that Superman story. Then, I’ve got something important I want you to work on.”

Clark nodded as he stood. He hesitated with his hand on the doorknob. He knew he should probably leave things as they lay. “Sir, have you heard from Lois?” he asked.

Perry paused before sitting down in his chair. “Right. You’d better sit back…”

A loud knock sounded on the door before Jimmy opened the door and stormed past Clark to Perry’s desk. “Sorry, CK.” He held up a check-sized piece of pink paper in front of his boss’s face. “Rumors of layoffs, huh?” he said.

“You’ve been laid off?” Perry said sounding just as alarmed as Jimmy as he took the slip from him. “It says that they’ll pay you until the end of the week.”

“I need more than ‘until the end of the week’, Chief! How are Jimbo and I going to make rent if we’re both out of a job? You’ve got to stop this. You’ve got to,” Jimmy insisted.

Clark glanced back into the newsroom and saw a score of people gazing at similar sheets of paper. Several more people hurried past Clark into Perry’s office, and Clark decided that he could wait to hear any new news on Lois’s marital and employment status.

He walked over to his desk to write that ‘Superman’s back’ announcement and see what phone calls he missed over the last… he shook his head… almost three weeks. One week undercover at the Metropolis Star, one week following Superman on his nuclear bomb hunt, and half a week down in Brazil. He slid into his chair, booted up his computer, dropped his currently worthless paychecks on his desk, and went to grab his pile of messages.

“Hey, CK,” a friendly and familiar voice said, causing Clark to glance up.

“Hi, Jimbo. What are you doing here?” Clark asked.

“Summer internship. Started last week,” Jimbo explained, and then glanced down at the pink sheet in his hand. “Ended this week. I mean getting laid off ten days into a summer internship sucks royally, but at least I still have six weeks left of school before my scholarship funds dry up, and I really need to start earning dough. Uh-oh…”

Laying square in the middle of Clark’s desk was a white #10 envelope. Clark picked it up and opened it, holding his breath. The sheet of paper inside wasn’t pink, but blue.

“Blue?” Jimbo asked in confusion. “What does blue mean, CK?”

Clark sighed, but it wasn’t in relief. “Suspension without pay,” he said, his shoulders slumping. “One week.” Well, it wasn’t as if he could deposit his paycheck anyway.

“What? How could the Chief do that to you?” Jimbo asked.

“I don’t believe he did, otherwise he would have mentioned something during our meeting, Jimbo. I’m thinking this came straight from upstairs,” Clark said, setting the notice down.

“This is bad. Don’t the suits want the Planet to survive? I mean without you or Lois… Oh, sorry, man. I saw her two-minute notice she gave on Saturday. She certainly was steamed about something,” Jimbo apologized.

Clark already knew how furious Lois had been after his failed proposal without reminders.

“I can’t believe she’d leave the Planet for LNN, though. She’s always hated their Superman coverage,” Jimbo continued, much to Clark’s chagrin.

“Perhaps she has another reason for wanting to work there,” Clark said softly, unable to meet Jimbo’s eyes.

“Oh,” Jimbo replied. “So, are they giving you until Friday before your suspension starts?”

Clark shook his head. “Effective immediately.”

“But why?” Jimbo sputtered. “I don’t understand.”

“In the news business, you’re only as good as your last story,” Clark explained, picking up his rubber paychecks and slipping them into his jacket pocket. “And my last story was last Friday… Saturday… And somebody upstairs noticed. It wasn’t as if I was deep undercover or anything. I just needed a few days off and I forgot to ask for them first… and now I’m being punished for it. It’s okay, Jimbo, I deserve it.”

“I’m sorry,” Jimbo said with a frown.

“Me, too.”

“Look, for what it’s worth, I think you deserved a couple of days off after working non-stop with Superman on those nuclear bombs stories. That was just freaky, man. Freak-y!” Jimbo said.

Clark looked up at him with respect. Here, the kid had been laid off and he was trying to make Clark feel better for losing a week. “Look, Jimbo, I’m sure these layoffs are just temporary. Sometimes, upstairs does a thing like this to scare people into cutting costs. Perry’ll hire you and Jimmy back as soon as he can.”

“Thanks, CK,” Jimbo said with a reluctant smile, but they both knew it was just platitudes. Without knowing why the Daily Planet was doing so badly financially, there wouldn’t be any rehiring soon.

“Hey, I promised Perry my ‘Where has Superman been?’ story. If I gave you my handwritten story, do you think you could type it up and pass it on to the Chief for me?” Clark asked, glancing over his shoulder at the crowd of angry employees currently clogging his boss’s doorway. “I’d like to give him something before I go.”

“Sure, CK. Anything for the man who introduced me to Superman. Man, he is soooo amazing. I mean, before I met him I thought he was cool, but there’s just something about him. You can just feel as if you’re in the presence of greatness just standing next to him. He radiates it, you know. And he is cool as a cucumber, ‘smooth’ as Jimmy would say. You’re a lucky guy to be friends with him. I have no idea how you can talk to him without it sounding like gibberish,” Jimbo gushed, his cheeks turning rosy, before heading back to his desk calling, “Just drop your story off with me on your way out.”

Clark smiled weakly, feeling anything but cool. He was the lucky one for having a friend like Jimbo. Clark much preferred this laid-back kid to the businessman James Olsen he knew back in his home dimension. He sat down, pulled a notebook out of his drawer, and super-quickly sketched out a rough draft of a nothing article about Superman meditating as he had done after Lois was shot. He sighed again. Well, he now had the free time to turn that lie into the truth.

***

Lois rubbed her face. All this down time was making her stir-crazy. She needed to work. She couldn’t investigate with Lex’s spies constantly following her and she couldn’t constantly be changing into disguises. Her apartment was watched. Her computer was probably bugged. She already felt like Lex’s prisoner and she hadn’t even told him she’d marry him. Hell, she hadn’t even spoken to Lex since they had dinner last Saturday night.

Lex had been in Gotham City for meetings when she called him on Monday after LNN essentially told her not to call them, they’d call her. It was now Thursday, and neither Lex nor LNN had telephoned. If Mrs. Cox told her one more time that Lex was a busy man and that she would pass on Lois’s messages, Lois would march down to LexCorp to meet with Lex herself. If it meant punching Mrs. Cox in the nose to accomplish it, so much the better. Lois had put too much in and given up too much to get this far in her investigation.

She stared out her living room window and out into the endless, cloudless blue sky. Still no Superman. Where was he?

At least, Lois knew that Rat had delivered her note Tuesday night. She had followed him as unobtrusively as she could. For one moment, she thought he had thrown away the note and then she saw that he had actually stuffed it into his pocket. When she had watched him choose a Double Fudge Crunch Bar from the candy rack, she knew that they were kindred spirits and this partnership was meant to be. She would be sure to add a bar to his next payout.

A couple blocks from Clinton Street, Lois had caught sight of a man following her, and ducked into an Italian restaurant to try to lose him. Once inside the restaurant, though, Lois had realized with a heavy dose of déjà vu that she had been there before… with Clark. It was dark and cave-like with booths in shadows along the walls. Each table was lit only with a candle.

She had swiped one of the menus off the hostess’s desk and seen the name of the restaurant was Aunti Pasto’s.

Oh, God! This was that pasta place where they ate after Miranda had sprayed her with Revenge, she had realized in horror. She and Clark had made out at this restaurant. She had begged Clark to make love to her. They had gone from here to his apartment, and…

Lois had swallowed, refusing to let her thoughts linger too long at what happened at his apartment afterwards or of how blissfully happy she had been for those two days. That had been the worst part of Revenge, the crashed-and-burnt feeling after the perfume wore off. The feeling that all that happiness wasn’t real.

If someone could guarantee her that a marriage to Clark would feel as blissful as that, she would’ve… She closed her eyes, willing away the tears and the throbbing in her heart. No. She had seen close-up with her parents what marriage was like. She never wanted that with Clark. She didn’t want heartache and tears and yelling and distrust and the saying of hurtful things and disappearances for days on end not knowing where the other person was or what they were doing or how they…

Oh, crap.

Thankfully, the hostess had arrived to show Lois to a table.

The man following her had entered and made a to-go order over at the hostess’s desk. Lois had gone back to the restrooms, and had ducked into the kitchen, asking the staff where there was a back door for her to take a smoke break without her boyfriend noticing. The men had pointed the way, and Lois bolted through the alley and over to Clinton. She had glanced up from the alley to Clark’s balcony, but couldn’t even see any lights on in his apartment.

Even if Clark hadn’t been there, Lois had felt the overwhelming desire to break in and be someplace where Lex wasn’t watching her every hour of the day and night. She wanted to escape this trap she had made for herself, even for a few hours or days. She wanted to go back to the way things were before Nightfall, before Lex had tried to kill Clark, and before she had taken on this personal vendetta against him. If only she could jump back in time and fix it, she would change everything. She would have brought Clark in. She would have told Clark she knew. She never would have thrown out that watch at Christmas.

Well, maybe not everything. Before Nightfall, she didn’t know the truth about Clark. Would she be willing to give up knowing he was Superman to save him from Lex and stop this insane investigation?

Something furry had brushed her leg, causing Lois to flinch and knock over some debris from on top of a garbage can.

So much for being stealthy there, Lane, she had scolded herself.

As Lois had darted back into the shadows, she had seen that kid ‘Rat’ disappear out through the front door of Clark’s apartment building. The note had been delivered. She had then returned quickly to the restaurant, passing through the kitchen to head back to her table. The man following her had been none the wiser on her true goals that night. She only hoped that he hadn’t noticed that she was following Rat. She couldn’t lose yet another person not under Lex’s control.

Lois pulled her thoughts back to the present as she continued to scan the blue sky outside her window for a glimpse of Clark. She needed him. She missed him.

She glanced down to the sidewalk below and saw her newest accessory, her very own tail.

Enough! It was time to play hardball with this investigation. Even Superman wouldn’t be able to return one of her wicked serves. Lex wouldn’t know what hit him.

***

Ralph ducked into the storage room after overhearing Kent’s conversation with that new intern what’s-his-name, Olsen’s cousin. If the Daily Planet was laying off people and suspending their ‘top’ reporters, Ralph would have to do something extra to make sure he wasn’t on the chopping block. This was his chance to have Perry White see what a valuable member of the staff he really was. Maybe Ralph could even line himself up to take Lane’s spot as an investigative reporter.

He knew Kent wouldn’t be able to hold his own without his three-time Kerth Award-winning partner. It was why Ralph had mentioned Kent’s unplanned absence to his buddy in HR, who got him his interview and who clearly passed the information up to his boss. He knew White must have been keeping Kent’s unscheduled vacation under wraps and that wasn’t fair to all the other working stiffs on the newsroom floor.

Ralph had talked to all his snitches and sources down in the financial alley, and none of them had anything new for him. He even talked to that skank at LNN he sometimes dated for information to see if there was anything he could steal from their ‘works in progress’ file. She said that there wasn’t anything new, except some gossip that ‘the great’ Lois Lane had come in for an interview, but hadn’t gotten a job. Apparently, everyone there was laughing their heads off about that one. Ralph had to admit it was a great tidbit, but it wouldn’t get him in with his boss. Despite Lois marching out on the paper without notice, White still harbored paternal feelings for his little sharp-toothed, sharp-tongued, and sharp-kneed protégée. If Ralph didn’t come up with a front-page story while Kent was out of the office twiddling his thumbs, he might as well brush up his resume writing skills.

He tripped over a box and landed with a crash on the floor. This place was a dump.

Maybe he should apply at LNN, too. It would be another blow to the great Mad Dog Lane if Ralph got the job when she hadn’t. Of course, then his source at LNN might think he was more serious about her than their current sex for information relationship. It was bad enough that she had hinted that she was holding out on him because he had called her instead of visiting her in person. Well, he couldn’t blame her for wanting more of him.

He wasn’t looking forward to his dinner break, and their upcoming date, that was for sure. He knew he had to keep his source happy or she’d stop telling him what she knew about upcoming LNN stories. There was better and less homely tail out there for him to chase but, on the other hand, he did get sex and information out of the deal.

Ralph rubbed his shin, which had been bruised by that blasted box. He kicked the box for good measure and was rewarded with a shooting pain up from his big toe. Just what he needed. What was in that box anyway? He crawled over to the box and saw it was stuff from some ex-employee or somebody’s desk.

Cool! Free stuff!

He started picking through the items and decided that there wasn’t anything worth stealing; although, he did pocket the two Double Fudge Crunch bars he found. Down at the bottom of the box were a couple of notebooks, and he pulled one out to see if he could find any story ideas. As soon as he started reading, he cackled with delight! This box belonged to Lois Lane. These were her story notebooks. Jimmy must have dumped them in the box with her stuff by mistake instead of giving them over to her partner.

This box was solid gold! There had to be some story ideas in these notebooks.

Ralph pulled out all three of the notebooks found within and subtly carried them back to his desk for more in-depth perusal. He barely noticed his limp and bruised shin as he whistled an innocent little tune.

***

Clark pulled his pile of bills out of his mailbox and dropped them into the bag of groceries he had bought on his long walk home. First, he stopped by the Daily Planet’s home bank. After a quick check, the teller told Clark that the funds were not yet available to cash his paychecks and to try again in a few days.

He then stopped by the National Bank of New Troy, his bank, checked his balances, and withdrew enough funds to pay his overdue rent and tide him over for the next few days, or until his paychecks could finally clear. Stopping by the grocery store between his bank and home, Clark picked up some fresh food. He wasn’t looking forward to opening his fridge when he returned home and the beautiful new odor that would be permeating it.

After climbing up the stairs to the first floor, Clark shifted his groceries over to one arm in order to knock on Floyd’s apartment. Floyd answered, wearing a much too loose bathrobe to Clark’s chagrin. Clark handed over the eight-hundred dollars owed and then the five percent late charge with an apology. He waited as Floyd wrote him up a receipt for the cash, and gave another pile of old mail, which hadn’t fit in his mailbox, before heading up the rest of the flights to his apartment.

He remembered the first time Lois had met Floyd after bursting into Clark’s negotiation deal with the landlord, thinking that Clark was meeting Superman. Clark shook his head. Then he recalled her disdain for the apartment and his lack of decorating sense when she barged in to yell at him after Superman had tried to inform her, that first time, that they could only be friends. Then there was that time that Lois had come to him in the middle of the night after her old friend Allie had almost been run over in the street, dying subsequently in the hospital of a heart attack.

For an entire flight of stairs, he next recollected the evening they had shared pasta after Lex had shot her and Superman had dumped her. Then there was the time Barbara Trevino had threatened her, and she had begged Clark to cuddle with her because of nightmares about Mr. Make-up attacking her. So, Clark had held her through the rest of the night. His mind lingered on the memory of her snuggled in his arms. Returning home held too many memories, good and bad, of Lois. He didn’t even want to think about the times she had visited this year. Thankfully, he had reached his door by this time.

Clark set down his bag of groceries to pull out his apartment keys to unlock his door. He then scooped up the bag again, along with his pile of unread Daily Planet newspapers. At least, he wouldn’t be bored this week. Who was he kidding? He would be done reading them by dinnertime. Inside his apartment, he walked down the stairs and over to his dining table to set down his bundles, before returning to the front door to lock up. Sitting on the floor just inside his door was an unmarked beige envelope. He tossed it onto the table with his other mail.

It had been several weeks since he had spent any real time at his apartment, so he did his usual security sweep for anything out of place or new. Other than new additions to his ever-growing dust bunny collection, his apartment was untouched. Well, thank goodness for small miracles.

Having learned his lesson last Saturday, he went directly to his answering machine to listen to his messages. He’d be surprised if any of them were from Lois, but that didn’t stop him from hoping.

Beep! “Clark! Come on! Pick up! Pick up! Pick up!” Cat’s voice pleaded into his ear. “Dammit, Clark. I know you’re there… Okay, maybe you’re not there. You could be anywhere. I know that you’re mad at me, but this is important. Call me.”

The machine informed him, the message and the next three similar ones from Cat as well as three no message hang-ups were all from last Saturday.

Beep! “Hey, CK,” Jimmy’s faux-chipper voice said in the next message. “The Chief and I have been a bit worried about you after you stormed out of the newsroom yesterday. I just stopped by to check on you, again, and you didn’t answer. Look, I picked up your Daily Planets. Apparently, you forgot to pick them up when you came home from LA. You need to place a hold on them when you go out of town on assignment to discourage would-be thieves from knowing your apartment is unoccupied; if you want, I can do that for you... Huh? That’s strange. How did you get into your apartment without tripping over them? Anyway, give me a call if you want to do anything, go for a beer, catch a strip show…” The crack in Jimmy’s voice told Clark that his bravado at that suggestion was full of embarrassment. “Talk, you know, anything.”

A hint of a smile tilted the corner of his lip upwards. He had good friends, who cared about him. In many ways, this dimension still trumped his old one.

Beep! “Yo, Cowboy, Cat here. Again. Look, we need to talk about you-know-who, and we can’t do it playing phone tag. Call me!”

Beep! “Jerome, we got a call from that nice Olsen boy you work with and he said that you received some bad news about Lois on Saturday afternoon, after we spoke with you, and disappeared. Let us know you’re all right. Please know that we’re always here for you if you need to talk,” Martha said before hanging up.

Beep! “Clark, I’m your best friend and I’m a woman. We need to talk about what happened between you and Lois, and then you need to let me tell you what really happened. Call me!”

Beep! “Okay, fine. I’ll spill everything over the machine if that’s what you really want, since you won’t return my calls. The truth is… she knows. She figured it out just over a month ago and swore me to secrecy. She wanted to punish you for lying to her. I refused to get involved, but you know her, she dragged me in kicking and screaming. Call me, if you want more details.”

Clark winced. A month? So, the beginning of March? Or did she mean the end of February? Nightfall. He had known Lois had figured it out, but then she made him doubt himself. He shook his head. Lois must have been livid, but why hadn’t she confronted him about it? That was more her style. Moreover, how did Lois know that Cat knew?

Beep! Then silence. He had gotten quite a few of these hang-up calls while he was gone. Usually, they were just telemarketers who didn’t want to leave messages on people’s machines, but… He stretched out with his microscopic hearing. Someone was definitely there. He heard a sniffle and then the ‘message’ was cut off.

Clark’s spine began to tingle as the hairs on his arms stood up on end. It could have been anyone, but he knew who it was.

Lois.

He rewound the tape to the beginning and listened to those blank calls from Saturday and Sunday again. Really listened to them, instead of listening to them with half an ear as he flipped through his mail.

Beep! “Clark! Come on! Pick up! Pick up! Pick up!” Cat’s first message. He pushed skip.

Beep! Dead air, some breathing, and then nothing.

Beep! More empty air. Some background noise, possibly a café. Indistinct voices. It could have come from anywhere.

Beep! “Clark, look we need to meet face to face and talk this out. No running off,” Cat pleaded before Clark skipped that message and the next, which was also from Cat.

Beep! More indistinct background noise. It was a public phone. He could hear people ordering coffee and pancakes in the background, so she was in a diner perhaps.

Clark shook his head. Maybe he was…

His thoughts were cut off by Lois’s barely audible voice, “I shouldn’t…” the machine cut off.

In a flash, he rewound the message and listened to it three more times.

What did Lois mean, she ‘shouldn’t’? Shouldn’t what? She shouldn’t have called him? She shouldn’t have yelled at him? She shouldn’t have ordered a pastrami sandwich? She shouldn’t have told him about Luthor in that way? She shouldn’t have rejected him? She shouldn’t have what? He wracked his brain. Although he came up with a thousand positive or negative ways that sentence could continue, he had no idea which one was the correct one.

Eventually, he stopped. He took the tape out of the machine and put in blank tape. He picked up the telephone handset and dialed. He grabbed his bag of groceries and started to unload them as the phone rang.

“Hi, Cat. It’s Clark,” he said when she answered. “I’m back and just got your messages.”

“Clark! Thank God! I’ve been worried sick,” Cat said frantically into the phone. “I was afraid that you might do something rash without knowing the truth and…”

“So, you knew she knew and you didn’t tell me?” he interrupted, opening his fridge and then closing it again quickly. He would clean it as soon as he was off the phone.

“How did I know you were going to go there?” Cat said, and Clark figured she was rolling her eyes. “Look, HotPants, that’s between you and her. I didn’t sign up to do full-disclosures. I didn’t tell her that you were lying, and I didn’t tell you that she was lying. Don’t blame me for what was essentially your mistake.”

“You’re right, Cat. I’m sorry,” Clark murmured. He should know by now that a woman was never wrong. He should just shoulder the blame and move on. He picked up the blank envelope, which had been on his landing when he came in. The flap was open. He glanced down at it. At some point, it had been sealed. He could see that the glue of the envelope had been used, but someone other than him had opened it.

“Why don’t we get together tonight for an early dinner before I have to hit the charity circuit? I’d like you to meet Phil, and we can talk about Lois,” Cat suggested. “I know a great bistro over in the West End.”

“Uh-huh. That sounds good,” Clark murmured. It wasn’t as if he and Cat could really talk with Phil there, or at a public restaurant. He pulled the card out of the envelope, but it was blank. He flipped it over.

STOP IT! The card shouted at him in bold-printed letters. It was unsigned. Clark raised a brow, completely dumbfounded by what the sender wanted him to stop.

***End of Part 145***

Part 146

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