A/N:
Thanks again to Carol and alcyone.
*.*.*.
Part Two
*.*.*.
“I need everything you’ve got on the Southside,” I said breathlessly as I bumped into Henderson at the rather slack-looking police station.
He glared at me. “Not now, Lane,” he told me, his voice somehow less friendly than normal.
“Yes, now,” I argued back, “don’t you want me to solve this thing?”
Henderson said nothing as he walked away to an open door, through which I could hear happy chatter. Obviously some cops were taking a well-deserved break from eating doughnuts to have a conversation. “Everything sorted?” he asked as two people walked through the doorway.
“Just about,” answered a familiar voice and I tried not to gasp as I recognised Clark. I must have made some sort of noise, though, because the three faces turned to look at me. I immediately turned away and looked at the walls, pretending not to notice their gazes.
What shocked me most wasn’t the expression on Clark’s face, that look was pretty much a given, but the almost identical one Henderson wore. While the man had never been the most affable I’d ever met, I’d always got the impression that our traded taunts were just our own bizarre version of inane chatter; I thought he was a friend. I didn’t anymore; obviously his friendship lay with the man who should have been my colleague but for me. The woman was someone I didn’t know and she obviously didn’t know who I was either. Tactfully, she didn’t ask, but I could sense her curiosity while she looked at me.
As they returned to whatever I had interrupted, I allowed myself to surreptitiously watch them. Clark and Henderson had clearly become good friends, but I was more interested in the strange woman who was stood at Clark’s side. She had frizzy blonde hair that was probably supposed to be curly and was obviously dyed, her roots needed touching up. Her fitted outfit had blatantly been chosen to flatter her curves, her figure was fuller than mine, but that didn’t make her a big woman. When she was talking to Henderson she appeared very serious and professional, but as soon as she looked at Clark her face lit up with a warm smile that was anything *but* professional. She was obviously very much interested in Clark, although I assumed his sex-life must have greatly improved now that everyone knew that he was Superman and for some reason I couldn’t put my finger on, I didn’t like it. It didn’t seem right to me that he should be dating and I had no idea why. He *should* have found someone to be with, he always seemed to be so lonely in the pictures I saw of him.
As the pair moved to the exit, she moved further away from him as if to avoid any connection. That’d be why I hadn’t heard anything about Superman’s girlfriend, then. There had been rumours, of course, attaching him to just about every available female celebrity but to my knowledge there had been no confirmation of Clark dating anyone, famous or otherwise.
After they left, Henderson returned to me. “Sorry about that.” He wasn’t, there was nothing in the tone of his voice to back up his statement.
“Who is she?”
Henderson followed my gaze to the empty doorway. “I thought you were here to get information on the problems in Southside, not to dig dirt on Superman.”
His barb stung, obviously I had truly overestimated his opinion of me. I couldn’t help but glare at him and grit my teeth as I tried to restrain my response. “I am. I’m curious, so sue me. Are they dating then?” I caught his look and quickly mimicked the scout salute, “Won’t print a thing, I swear. Just gossiping. I’ll take it to my grave.”
“You’d better,” Henderson grumbled, “because if Kent discovers I’ve told you about his private life, I’ll lose a friend.”
Lose a *friend*? I had noticed a bond of companionship between them, but I hadn’t realised that it went deeper than that, to the level of real friendship. Clark couldn’t have many real friends anymore, and I knew Henderson would be a good one to have. I sighed. “I know, I’m sorry. Don’t tell me.”
He looked surprised at my backtrack. “You feeling OK?”
I sighed, “I’m fine. So, the Southside?”
Henderson signalled for me to follow him into the room Clark and his girlfriend had just vacated. He shut the door before speaking. “We don’t know what’s going on for sure. We have no proof, you understand. None of this is printable.”
“I’ll get the proof.”
He ignored that comment. “This, whatever it is, comes from high-up. I’m only telling you this because I’m running out of people I can rely on and although your methods aren’t always ones I can condone, I know which side you’re on. There’s a lot of focus on the Southside. Precincts are having their funding cut; men transferred; equipment sabotaged; cops paid to look the other way.”
“Why?”
“Think about it. What happens when a good neighbourhood goes bad?”
“People want to move. Prices go down. Whole blocks go on the market for pennies on the dollar.”
“Exactly. And whoever’s planning on buying it up has infiltrated the force. So I’m left confiding in a reporter.” His voice was its usual disparaging self, the voice he used to tell me off when he found me hanging around a crime scene.
I rolled my eyes at him. “Thanks. Is that all?”
“For the moment.” There probably was more information. I didn’t doubt that Henderson was busy trying to straighten it all out and knew much more than he was letting on, but it was enough for me to start with. I didn’t want to push Henderson any further than I had to. Like him, I needed someone I could trust and I wasn’t in a position to be picky. I started to walk to the door.
“Her name’s Mayson Drake and she’s the assistant D.A.”
I turned to look at Henderson but all I saw was his back retreating to his office.
*.*.*.
I was disappointed as I entered the alley to find it empty. My source must have been delayed. Henderson wasn’t my only link in the police force, but he was undeniably the most trustworthy. The man I was meeting was a turncoat. He had information for me, which he had gained from being friendly with some of the less law-abiding characters in the city.
I couldn’t guarantee that he wouldn’t double cross me but it was unlikely. He had the misfortune of wanting justice and riches. So he broke the law for money and gave me evidence for justice. I could have spent hours pondering his logic and probably could have done it while waiting for him to show. Instead, I decided to spend my time thinking more about what was going on, trying to figure things out and still not getting very far.
I had also spoken to Bobby Bigmouth. According to him, it was a gang thing. A new one had started up and was busy making its presence felt. But these were no ordinary gangs fighting for turf, apparently. This was much bigger than that, and for some reason the Southside of Metropolis had become the main focus of their attention. For the time being at least. I didn’t understand why. It was a strange place for them to be fighting over, I couldn’t see anything special about the place. Maybe it was coincidence. I doubted it, though, I was obviously missing something. Well, I hoped I was about to find out what that missing piece was.
“You Lane?” a male voice asked, interrupting my thoughts.
I turned to look at the rather ugly and unkempt man who was stood in the shadows. “Who are you?”
“Someone with information for you.”
“I don't think so. I’ve met the person I’m waiting for before and it’s not you,” I informed him fearlessly. These people are like animals; they can smell fear. If you act like you can take care of yourself, nine times out of ten they’ll assume you can and leave you alone. Well, maybe nearer eight times out of ten. Or seven. But definitely more than 50 percent of the time.
He snorted. “He’s busy. He sent me instead. I’ve got the info you want.”
“What’s he busy with?”
“Dunno. I wanna talk to you.”
“And we’re not talking now?”
I caught the flash of metal as he drew out a rather lethal looking knife from under his jacket. “Stop your smart-mouthing and come with me.”
I tensed and reminded myself that if Superman heard me screaming he’d probably find something better to do than get involved. I was in this on my own and I had to deal with it on my own. And make Knifey wish he’d stayed at home instead of prowling the street looking for reporters to harass. “And I’d want to come with a man who’s threatening me because...”
“Otherwise you’ll end up like your friendly neighbourhood copper. He put up quite a fight, but we managed to relieve him of his coat,” he threw something to me. It was a jacket. It was covered in blood, some still slightly sticky by the small hole in the chest area that looked a lot like a bullet hole. There was something bulky in one of the pockets. I reached in and pulled out a bulging wallet. Knowing I was being watched, and had a knife pointed at me, I cautiously opened it. Although I had never known his real name, or what he had really looked like, the floppy disc in the note compartment that wasn’t allowing it to shut properly caught my eye. In what I recognised as his handwriting, the label simply read in thick, black letters, ‘LL - I’. I pulled it out to look at it in more detail, knowing that it contained the information I wanted.
“Give that here!” The wallet, jacket and disc were taken away from me as the knife came dangerously close to my throat. He repositioned the blade slightly further away from me once the evidence was safely back in his possession. “Now, come with me,” he repeated firmly.
“Not even a please?”
Apparently not, as he roughly grabbed my arm and pulled me towards a darkened van, where I noticed some movements in the surrounding shadows. Before I could even guess at the number of other ‘informants’ that were there, I felt a sharp blow to the back of my head and I lost consciousness.
*.*.*.
All around me was darkness. There was no light or sound, no sense or feeling. There was no time either, the darkness could have lasted for years or for seconds. The first thing I was aware of was a nagging sense of something being wrong, accompanied by something that sounded like a light whisper of my name. As I tried to focus in on it, I felt hot and cold simultaneously. I was feverish, I realised as I got my thoughts together enough to make sense of what was happening. I was dreaming. The first thing I remembered was that I had been knocked out. I forced my eyes open.
I was in a darkened room when I woke up. I groaned and reached up to feel the sizeable bump on my head, wincing as I did so. Maybe I’d leave that for now; I didn’t feel like passing out again at that moment. I managed to sit up, but in the very faint light that was all that lit up the room I couldn’t see much and was none the wiser as to where I might be. The only thing I noticed was that everything seemed to have a green glow to it.
A groan alerted me to the presence of another person in the room. I levered myself onto my feet, crouching, ready to spring, in case it was an attacker. Whoever it was groaned again and I noticed some movement in a far corner. Then my dense skull recognised the noise as a sound of pain. Cautiously I made my way across the room, to where someone was writhing underneath an old blanket. I threw it aside and gasped when I recognised the sickly figure beneath. “Superman!”
His swollen eyes slitted open to regard me, then he moaned again.
“You’re hurt!”
He tried to speak, but I couldn’t make out the words. I doubted that he was telling me how happy he was to see me.
“Is there anything I can do?” I asked frantically, wondering if he’d let me help him, hoping that his hatred hadn’t blinded him so much that he couldn’t see that I was the lesser of two evils.
“Get ... it ... a...way ... from ... me,” he managed to gasp out as he turned his gaze away from me.
‘It?’ What was hurting him? The blanket? He rolled over slightly and I could see a large green rock on the other side of his spandex-covered body. It probably wasn’t the blanket. I picked up the rock and then wondered what to do with it. He didn’t seem any better, so he hadn’t been lying on it and had to suffer it poking him in the back or something.
“What--?” I began to ask but he interrupted me, obviously anticipating my question.
“As ... far ... as ... poss...ible,” he gasped and rolled back to his previous and more comfortable-looking position, “ra...dia...tion ... hurts ... me ... not ... you.”
I thought I understood what he was telling me, so I quickly deposited the rock into the furthest corner from him and returned to his side. He did look slightly better, although nowhere close to being described as ‘well’, let alone ‘super’. “Will you be OK now?”
Clark slowly, with effort, pushed himself up into a sitting position and managed to shake his head, leaning heavily on the wall behind him, “No. It’ll still ... kill me. It’s ... the best we ... can do ..., unless you ... have any ... lead .... on you.” His voice was still shaky and breathy, but he was at least sounding more coherent now.
“Sorry.”
He sighed and closed his eyes. I noticed that he was sweating and shivering and I wondered how long he’d been locked up in here with that poisonous rock. Actually, I wondered how long I’d been locked up. In his condition there was no way he’d know how long I’d been there even if they’d got him first and he had watched as they bundled my unconscious body into the room. I picked up the blanket and pulled it around him, then sat beside him, drawing his body against mine as I mopped his brow with the blanket’s edges. I could feel his ragged breath against my neck.
“We’ll get out of this,” I assured him, although I couldn’t for the life of me think how. “Do you know what’s going on?”
“Intergang.”
“Who?”
He drew in a deep breath and nestled into my shoulder for comfort and support. “Intergang. They’re taking over, fighting Luthor for turf. Just moved into Metropolis. I’ve been helping Mayson and Henderson try and stop them getting a foothold, easier that way.”
“So why have they captured me? I’ve never heard of them.”
“Dunno,” he said, then coughed. He sounded so weak, I knew I had to stop pressing him for information. I’d done enough damage to this man. He continued talking anyway and I decided not to stop him. This was the sort of person I’d become, a parasite leaching off the words of a dying man in pursuit of a story. “Intergang are burning the Southside, getting property. You, better than police, on the story--”
“I get it. Shut up.” He drew in another shuddering breath and I cursed myself for being so blunt. What was it about me that I couldn’t give the guy a break? And why did I care so much that I kept hurting him? That wasn’t at all like me. “You’re weak, save your strength.”
“Lois--”
“No, we’re getting out. Trust me.”
He snorted at my statement. OK, so maybe that was too much to ask for. He’d never trust me. I don’t know that *I’d* ever trust me. We just sat there, neither one of us speaking. I expect he felt uncomfortable in my arms but he never made any attempt to free himself. I wanted to protect him and make all the hurt go away and comforted myself that he at least needed to be kept warm and that was what I was doing. It wasn’t just that it felt nice to have some human contact for a change.
“You’ll get out. You always do. ‘Cept last time.”
“Huh?”
Clark raised his head to look at me. “I patrol at nights. Do you know how many times I’ve heard trouble and found you?”
“But you--”
“I know. I never interfered. I kept telling myself that you could handle yourself and that I’d step in if you needed... I think I was lying to myself. I think I would have only tried after it was too late.” There was a deep sorrow in his voice at that statement. I didn’t blame him for feeling like that, but it was obvious that he blamed himself for his feelings. Well, he *was* Superman.
“I would have called for you if I’d needed you. I wouldn’t have expected you to come, but it was always going to be my last resort.”
He sighed. “I hate myself for knowing I might have ignored you.”
“I don’t.”
Another awkward silence followed. “Two men are coming,” was his next opening statement, “I can hear them.”
I stood up, possibly a little too fast because Clark nearly fell over as his support fled. Right, yes, I was helping him once again by breaking him. Honestly, I just couldn’t help myself, could I? “Be ready to run,” I told him, keeping my face neutral and my eyes firmly on the green-shadow that looked most like a door.
“Run? I can barely breathe!”
“Just be ready,” I hissed as I looked around for a weapon. My eyes fell on the rock, the not-so-fictional and rather pointy-looking kryptonite. Justice would be served. I glanced at Clark and saw his eyes widen in horror as I picked up the rock. I really hoped he didn’t think I was going to use it to attack him, but I supposed he couldn’t be blamed for any negative thoughts he might have about me. I hid behind the door-shaped-shadow and waited for it to open.
And waited.
And waited a little more as my arms began to grow tired from holding the kryptonite above my head, ready to dash it against the heads of our captors.
Clark coughed behind me. “Can’t you smell that?”
“Smell what?”
“Smoke.” He struggled to his feet, leaning more and more on the wall, causing it to creak in warning.
I lowered the kryptonite and stared at him. “Smoke? As in, they locked us in then set fire to whatever building we’re in?”
“They did burn down your uncle’s cafe.., they have experience in these matters.”
“How did you--?” I shook my head. I was going to ask how he knew about that, but that wasn’t the most important thing at that point in time. “How do we get out?”
Clark shrugged. The simple movement caused him to slide back down the groaning wall and started off a coughing fit. I dropped the kryptonite, the hefty rock nearly landing on my toe as I raced over to him.
“Come on,” I said, heaving him to his feet and realising what the wall’s problem had been. He was not a light man. “Let’s try the door. With a bit of luck they’ve run off and aren’t waiting outside to shoot us in case we escape.”
“Let’s hope,” he replied through gritted teeth as he hobbled towards the door, his pain appearing to increase as we drew nearer the kryptonite. I paused and looked at the rock. Part of me thought that I should take it with me, but I realised that would cause Clark even more pain. He must have known what I was thinking about.
“Leave it.” His voice was tinged with an almost regret, but mostly it was just resignation. I suppose he had been thinking the same as me.
Accepting it as his decision to make, I helped Clark out of the room and through the burning building, not concentrating on anything other than making it outside without turning into one of my tastier home-made meals; in other words - burnt. As we went, we held the blanket against our faces, trying to block out the smoke.
Our luck was in. There was no-one waiting outside what turned out to be an abandoned warehouse waiting to gun us down as we emerged from the flame-engulfed building. God bless incompetent criminals. We walked away from the burning warehouse towards the city centre where we could find a taxi to transport us home, with me mentally mapping the route so that I could at least tell Henderson where we had been. Clark kept the blanket wrapped around his body and his head low to avoid recognition. I could only hope that his red boots wouldn’t stand out too much in the dark.
When we finally found a cab, I asked the driver to take us to my apartment, more out of automation than rational thought process. Clark and I still hadn’t spoken but he didn’t complain and ask to be taken somewhere else, like to his girlfriend’s house or his home. It would have been a terrible idea to go to Clark’s, not that I had any idea where that was but it would have been a media circus within minutes. With no better plan I decided to bring him home with me.
To Be Continued...
