“I really don’t think I brought anything appropriate for a night club,” Clark said, opening the door to his hotel room.
Lois brushed past him, undeterred. She stopped at his bed and turned to face him. “Show me the options. We’ll find something. It doesn’t have to be fancy.”
Clark sighed, wondering where she found the energy. They had been in perpetual motion since nine o’clock that morning. A visit to The Daily Planet, a lengthy exploration of the Natural History museum, and a late lunch from a vendor as they walked through Centennial Park. They hadn’t stopped moving in nearly nine hours, and she was still whirling around him like a miniature tornado.
At some point over the course of the day, she had decided he would be the perfect person to accompany her to the Metro Club in her quest to find out more about the weapons used in the series of arsons she had been investigating back when they first started emailing. At first it seemed that she just wanted to hang out and see if they could stumble across any information about who was currently in charge of the organization, but as she ferried him back to the hotel room to survey his wardrobe options, she had begun rambling about financial records and finding evidence of where a monthly payment was going. And Clark was starting to wonder if this surveillance operation was turning into more of an undercover investigation.
He would have been lying if he said he was entirely opposed to the mission. He wanted to watch her action, and imagining himself as her partner in the investigation was a bit of a rush. A part of him still wondered what his life might be like if his father hadn’t suffered his heart attack. If he had come home on his own terms and paid some dues, climbing the ladder of print journalism. Maybe he would be here, in Metropolis, hatching schemes with Lois and working with her on investigations.
He rolled his eyes at that fantasy. It seemed highly unlikely that a man whose strongest writing credit to his name was a piece about the mating habits of knob tailed geckos, published in the Borneo Gazette, would be partnered with someone like Lois Lane, even if he had been given a little more time to work on his resume.
Still, this was going to be fun. Besides, he figured, if she was determined to go down there and put herself in harm’s way, he would rather she do it when he was around to protect her.
Apparently he wasn’t moving fast enough for her, and Lois had begun sorting through the clothes in his suitcase, making herself at home. He shook his head and laughed quietly. She was a force of nature.
“Aha!” she said, pulling out a pair of black slacks and a gray button down shirt. “Perfect. No tie.”
He looked at her skeptically.
“It used to be pretty formal – strict dress code, real stuffy place. But whoever’s in charge now has been doing some updating. When I was there with Cat a few months ago, no one was wearing a suit or tie. And the entertainment acts had been updated too. No more chicken costumes.”
“Chicken costumes?” he said, his curiosity getting the better of him.
“You don’t want to know,” she said. “Just trust me, this’ll work. We just want to blend in, and that outfit will do the trick. I’m going home to shower and change. I’ll pick you up at 8.”
She was out the door before he could even consent. He looked at his watch. Just under two hours until she would be back for him.
He took a quick shower, washing off the grime of the city, and then sat on his bed in a pair of boxer shorts and flipped on the tv. The local news was on, and he watched for a while, making sure there was no mention of that morning’s miraculous save. He didn’t think anyone had been suspicious about his rescue that morning, but the usual anxiety had been sitting in his stomach all day.
He had seen the cab as it approached the busy intersection, swerving wildly, and had hoped the pedestrians would run for safety. He had planned to use his heat vision to blow the back tires, stopping the car before it could hurt anyone else. He just hadn’t anticipated the mother freezing in horror, paralyzed by her fear. As the taxi barrelled toward her, she stood still as a statue, eyes wide with horror. And Clark couldn’t just leave her and her baby to be sacrificed.
He had dashed into the road, trying to keep his speed to something that appeared human, and grabbed the stroller, yanking it back out of the path of the vehicle and knocking the mother to safety. As soon as the car was through the intersection, he’d ducked away, hoping not to garner too much attention. Still, he’d been terrified, anticipating Lois’ reaction.
To his relief, she hadn’t seemed suspicious at all. She had certainly been awed. And now that his panic had subsided, he could admit that the admiration in her eyes, the feel of her hand on his arm, her laughter as she told him he was really something…all of it had combined to make him feel as if he was walking on air. He had tried to minimize his actions, as he always did when he was caught in the act. But for the first time ever, he had desperately wanted to revel in the attention for just a minute.
All day he had waited for her to bring it up again, to press him for details on how he managed to get there so quickly. But it seemed that she was less concerned with the how and more concerned with the why. She wasn’t interested in the details of how he had done it, only with the fact that he had…while so many others had stood by. That made him feel guilty – he knew that he hadn’t been putting himself in harm’s way when he rushed into the road, and the other onlookers didn’t have that assurance. But then again, he was risking things she couldn’t even imagine, so maybe her praise was deserved indeed.
Satisfied that there was nothing on the news, he flipped through the channels until he found a rerun of an old basketball game, and he watched passively for a while, uninvested in the outcome, just content to watch the game.
Before he knew it, it was nearly time for Lois to return and collect him for their undercover shenanigans. He dressed quickly, not wanting to be caught off guard by her arrival again. He grinned, remembering the stunned look on her face as she blatantly assessed his body and obviously found it to her liking. Maybe running late hadn’t been the worst thing in the world.
He was standing in front of the mirror applying aftershave when she knocked. He strode quickly across the room and opened the door. She was wearing a red dress, cut low in the chest with multiple straps criss crossing her shoulders. The dress was fitted on top, showcasing her curves, and flared at the waist, the skirt falling loosely and ending well above her knee.
He was staring. He knew it, and he couldn’t stop himself. His eye traveled from her delicate shoulders, over the curves of the dress, down to her legs, which seemed to go on forever, and then back up again.
“I thought we were trying to blend in,” he managed to croak out eventually.
She blushed, a delicate pink spreading across her cheeks as she ducked her head and smiled at him. “You like it?”
“Lois, you look…. Are you sure this is a good idea? I thought we were supposed to be flying under the radar. I’m going to spend the entire night beating back your admirers.”
He was torn between wanting her to go home and change into something that wouldn’t have the whole club drooling after her, and wanting very much for her to stay in that dress and come hang on his arm the way she had done earlier.
She laughed, her blush gone now, her coy look replaced by a practiced nonchalance. But he could hear her heartbeat racing, and he knew she was affected by his compliment whether she wanted to admit it or not.
“Are you ready?” she asked.
He nodded and stepped out, letting the door swing shut behind him. He rested a hand on her back, guiding her down the hallway and through the lobby out into the evening.
“Just follow my lead when we get there,” she said. “I don’t know what we’re going to find. We’re just going to have to play it by ear.”
On the way to the club, she filled him in on what little information she had about the Metros, rehashing some of her previous experience with them. Their last known leader, the woman who had funded the Toasters back when Lois was undercover in the establishment the first time, was still in jail, and there was no clue from her research thus far of who was in charge currently. Lois didn’t think she was running things from prison, and her brother, from whom she had wrestled control of the gang before her downfall, was still persona non grata, and hadn’t been spotted in the club since Toni took over.
When they arrived, the club was bustling with customers. A few couples were seated at high top tables scattered around the space, but most people stood, lingering with drinks or dancing on the dance floor in front of the stage where a man in a tux crooned old standards.
They ordered drinks at the bar and then slowly began to circulate. Lois pointed out a few notable patrons – a city councilman, a disgraced businessman, a federal judge.
One table, off to the far right of the stage, sat in shadows and Lois squinted, trying to see if she could recognize the man seated there with a woman draped on either side.
“I wish I could get a better look at the guy at that table,” she said softly.
“Do you think he might be important?” Clark asked.
Lois shrugged. “He could just be some random sleazeball. But the way people keep coming up to the table to talk to him makes me suspicious that he’s someone important. He could be a member of the Metros, or even the leader. No way to know if I can’t put a name to the face, or even see his face. If I could just see him better… Come dance with me.”
“What?” he said, startling at her sudden change of topic.
“Dance with me,” she repeated. “If we dance over on that corner of the dancefloor, I can get a better look at his face, and maybe I’ll recognize him.”
She grabbed his arm, and began tugging him out onto the dance floor. He took a deep breath in an attempt to calm his racing heart, and slid his arm from her eager grasp.
She looked up at him in confusion, and he smiled at her. “You don’t have to twist my arm,” he teased, moving his hand to the small of her back and leading her out onto the dance floor. In the dim light of the club, he couldn’t be sure, but he thought she blushed again.
He took her in his arms, wrapping one arm around the small of her back, holding the other hand aloft beside them and smiling as she slipped her hand into his. She raised her other arm, resting her hand on his shoulder, and he smiled at her as he began to lead her around the dancefloor.
The singer finished his current song and slid seamlessly into another, and Clark forgot all about the undercover mission and Lois’ desire to dance so she could get close enough to identify the familiar-looking man in the corner of the room. All he could see was her, smiling up at him with a look in her eyes that seemed perilously close to adoration.
“Where did you learn to dance?” she asked, her fingers stroking his shoulder gently in a way that made him forget how to speak. Three hundred and forty seven languages, and he couldn’t think of a coherent sentence in one.
She raised an eyebrow playfully, and his grin widened, his ability to speak returning to him.
“I learned from a Nigerian princess,” he told her.
She laughed, delighted. “You’re lying. That can’t be true.”
“Cross my heart,” he said. “She studied ballroom dancing in England.”
“I’m not sure if I should be jealous or grateful,” she teased, and his heart tightened in his chest.
“You have no reason to be jealous. Ever,” he confessed. The words were out before he could stop them, and he waited for her to withdraw, to remind him with her actions if not her words that this was just a platonic friendship, that this chemistry between them was best left unacknowledged.
Instead, she beamed at him, and then her eyes slid away as if she was as overwhelmed by the intimacy of the confession as he was. She stepped closer, resting her head against his shoulder, and he tightened his grip on her waist. He could die happy with her in his arms like this.
They danced silently for a minute, and then out of the corner of his eye, he saw movement at the table they had allegedly come onto the dancefloor to the monitor. The man Lois had said looked familiar was standing, stepping out of the shadow that fell over the table and stepping out into the light.
He spun her so she was facing the table. “Your man is on the move,” he said softly.
She pulled back immediately, not out of his arms, just surprised and reacting to what she had seen.
“It’s Johnny,” she whispered, clearly shocked.
“Johnny?” he asked, not following.
“Johnny Taylor. Toni’s brother. The former leader of the Metro gang. According to every source I have, he hasn’t been seen here in nearly two years. I thought he had left Metropolis altogether.”
They watched as Johnny began to circulate the room, stopping to talk for a minute here or there. He approached the bar, and was handed a drink before he said a word, the bartender obviously familiar with his order.
“Well, I didn’t expect that,” Lois said. “I need to get in the back. See if I can find some confirmation that he’s in charge. Or maybe find out more about those payments to Beece, Inc.”
“The back?” he said.
“Come on, while he’s distracted,” she said, stepping back and walking off the dance floor without looking back.
His arms felt empty with her sudden absence. He followed her off the dance floor, and through the dark club. She lingered for a minute at the door to the back, waiting for the coast to be clear. He slid his glasses down, looking through the wall to the hallway beyond. She started to go, and he reached out, putting his hand on her arm and stopping her with his touch. She looked up at him questioningly.
“Wait,” he whispered.
Before she could ask why, a pair of cocktail waitresses burst through the door, trays of drinks in their hands.
“How did you-?” she asked.
“I heard them coming,” he whispered. “Go ahead.”
She slipped through the door, and he followed closely behind, making sure no one saw them.
“This way,” she whispered, grabbing his arm and leading him down the hallway. She made a beeline for a closed door, opening it and pulling him through, closing the door behind them. He looked around, surveying the room quickly and realizing it was an office.
Lois was quickly but methodically searching the desk. He wasn’t sure what exactly she was looking for, but she seemed to hit pay dirt suddenly, holding up a disk victoriously. A quick glance told him the disk was labeled “Beece”, the name of the company the club had been making payments to monthly. Lois seemed convinced it was a shell company and key to her investigation.
She set the disk on the desk and continued her search. Just as he was about to ask what she was looking for now, he heard voices approaching in the hallway. He listened quietly for a moment, hoping they would pass by. He slid his glasses down a tiny bit and looked over the top rim. In the hallway, two bouncers approached.
“Who knows,” one said, replying to a question Clark hadn’t heard. “All I know is he said it’s in his office. It can’t be too hard to find.”
He spun around and grabbed Lois’ arm. “Someone’s coming,” he hissed. “Now!”
He heard the door knob rattle, and before he could process what was happening, she was in his arms. She wrapped her arms around his neck, her hands threading through his hair, and pulled him to her, slanting her lips across his.
He was too stunned to react for a second, and then her lips moved against his and instinct took over. He raised a hand to her cheek and tilted his head, his lips pulling at hers gently. His heart raced as his lips clasped hers again, tugging insistently. He started to pull back, and she whimpered, destroying whatever was left of his coherent thought process. He pressed forward, capturing her willing mouth yet again, his tongue darting out instinctively to taste her.
When he had kissed her goodbye in Miami, his lips had barely brushed hers. The kiss had been as brief and as chaste as possible. This was something wholly different — passionate and intimate — and his heart was racing.
“What the hell are you doing in here?” a voice broke in, and suddenly he remembered where they were.
He pulled his lips from hers, lingering just a moment when he saw her head tilted back, eyes still closed, as if she too was not quite ready for this ruse to be interrupted.
He spun to face the two bouncers, instinctively putting his body between them and her. “Uh, sorry,” he said. “We didn’t mean to… We were just looking for someplace a little more private… We’ll just get out of your way.”
He grabbed her and propelled her past the bouncers and through the doorway, into the hallway.
“Not so fast!” one of the bouncers said, following them into the hallway.
“Sorry about that, fellows,” he said, keeping his body between her and them, grateful she was facing away from them now. He gave them a lascivious grin and gestured to Lois’ back. “Did you see that dress? Can’t blame a guy for wanting a little privacy.”
They lingered in the doorway to the office, still stunned, and he moved quickly, putting some distance between them. And then they were back on the floor of the nightclub, slipping through the crowd.
He wasted no time, his hand on the small of her back, guiding her through the crowd and out the door. He listened as they walked, and was relieved to realize that they weren’t being pursued.
Night had fallen while they were inside, the duskiness of earlier fading to the inky blackness of night. Once they were a few doors down, he slowed his pace and turned to face her.
She was grinning ear to ear.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
She laughed. “Of course. What a rush. I thought for sure they were going to call for Johnny. Nice job talking your way out of there.”
His mind flashed back to the feel of her lips on his, his mind still reeling. “I can’t believe that worked.”
“Thank goodness you were there. I’m not sure what explanation I’d have given for being in that office alone.”
Suddenly he wanted nothing more than to be her partner on every investigation. If there was any chance of her needing a cover, he wanted to be one she pretended to share a fleeting moment of passion with. In a perfect world, it wouldn’t be pretend and it wouldn’t be fleeting. But he would take what he could get.
“We made a pretty good team,” she said, almost as if she could read his mind.
“I’m just sorry we had to rush out of there so fast you didn’t have time to get your evidence. Now we’ll never know what was on that disk.”
“This disk?” she asked, fishing the black square from her purse and holding it aloft.
“How?” he asked, amazed yet again.
“Never underestimate the importance of a quick sleight of hand,” she said with a smile.
“A little bit of magic?” he teased.
“There’s no such thing as magic, Clark. And a good magician never reveals their secrets.”
