PREVIOUSLY IN THE PORTRAIT:
Clark Kent, investigating the life and death of Lois Lane, has interviewed many who knew her and, as a result, has imbued her portrait with qualities he has come to love. He is unimpressed by Billionaire Lex Luthor who regards him as a threat to his mysterious enterprises. Using her apartment as a quiet place to review the files on a story she had been investigating, Clark is shocked and overjoyed when a very-much-alive Lois walks in the door. Perry White assigns him to stay with her to protect her, and he uses the opportunity to get to know the real Lois Lane, but he finds that she is not the person he had idealized in the portrait.
AND NOW:
Lex Luthor was humming “I’ve Got The World on a String”, as he briskly entered the dining room of his Lexor Hotel penthouse. All was well in his world, and he was looking forward to whatever challenges he would be overcoming in this new day. Sometimes he regretted that getting his way proved so easy. He wished that a formidable foe would appear to make winning a bit more difficult. Throughout his career, there had been many pebbles in his path, but they had provided no greater hazard than a brief stumble. Perhaps the world held no equal who could excite his Machiavellian genius. What a pity. He would have to make do with the humdrum.
Good morning, sir.” Nigel greeted Lex and held a chair for him at the long table. “I trust you had a pleasant night.”
“Good morning, Nigel. Yes, indeed, it was most pleasant. Miss Technology World was an enlightening and stimulating companion. I congratulate you on your taste.”
“Thank you, sir. I take it you were pleased with her endeavors, then.”
“But of course. She is blessed with an abundance of unusual talents and exhausted herself in displaying them. She should sleep for some time. When she wakes, see that she has breakfast and transportation, and, of course, appropriate remuneration.”
“You were not disturbed by the brief power outage, then?”
“ A small hazard of her methodology, Nigel. Fortunately Miss World is not completely dependent upon technology. She displayed remarkable versatility at the moment of crisis. You deserve a reward for finding such a fascinating creature.”
“Thank you, sir. I always appreciate your displays of gratitude.”
“What shall it be? I’m feeling particularly generous this morning.”
“Perhaps, the usual, doubled, sir?”
“Nigel, you’re in a rut. How much gold do you need in that Swiss bank vault of yours? Have a little fun for a change. How about a yacht and a sports car? I could even be persuaded to give you some time off to enjoy them.”
“Thank you, no, sir. Perhaps when I feel that my future has been comfortably provided for.”
“You only go around once, Nigel. Don’t forget to live a little.”
“Spoken like a paradigmatic hedonist billionaire, sir.”
“True, true.” Luthor smiled, ruminating briefly upon the many privileges accompanying the accumulation of fortune. “Well, let’s to business. That’s where the real fun lies.”
“I couldn’t agree more, sir. I have always found the greatest pleasure in my work.”
“What’s happening on the Clark Kent front?”
“There has been a rather unexpected development.”
“All right, you have my attention. What is it?”
“Mr. Kent spent last night in Ms. Lane’s apartment. Late in the evening, a young woman arrived, and she, too, spent the night there. Then, this morning, the DEA agent, Daniel Scardino, also entered the apartment carrying a bouquet of flowers.”
“Now I’m intrigued. Who was the young woman.”
“It was difficult for our contact to see her. It was dark and raining. However, he took this photograph. I believe you’ll have no difficulty in identifying the subject.”
Lex took the photograph and drew in his breath sharply as he recognized “Lois Lane! She’s come back from the dead?”
“Apparently so. It also appears that she, Mr. Kent and Agent Scardino could be working together on a certain matter.”
“This is disastrous, Nigel. We must somehow divert them from our enterprise. Perhaps a little sleight of hand can focus their attention elsewhere. Obviously, the continuation of her faux death is a ploy to apprehend the culprit who attempted to murder her. We must keep them pre-occupied with following that line of thought.”
“May I suggest a welcome home celebration, sir?”
“Perfect. I can announce our engagement at the same time. Make all the arrangements for a surprise party at Lois’s apartment. Telephone invitations to everyone we can think of. It must take place immediately, of course. A chic soiree, I think.”
“I’ll see to it, sir.”
++++++++++
Clark slammed the door of Lois’s apartment behind him and ran down the stairs, angry and disappointed. She was not at all the person he had imagined. And that’s just what he had done. Imagined a wonderful being who fulfilled every hope he’d ever had for a woman to love and love him, someone to spend his life with. This is what happens when you let your imagination run away with you he thought, and all because of that portrait. He had endowed it with all his fancies, but it was nothing more than the flat canvas he had seen on that first day in Perry’s office. He had been a fool, but it was over, and he would put it behind him. He set a course for the Apollo Hotel to shower and change. He was going to see Perry, and then spend the afternoon looking for an apartment. Working at the Planet was the job he’d always wanted, and Lois Lane wasn’t going to drive him away.
++++++++++
“Clark, please don’t....” It was too late. The door was emphatically closed, and he was gone. She stared at it, feeling a surprising sense of loss.
“I thought he’d never leave.” Scardino’s patented irony was not funny.
Lois regarded him guiltily. “He’s right, you know. What we did was unfeeling and terribly wrong.”
“Forget him. He’s nothing. Let’s talk Operation Big Fake. What have you got for me?”
Casting a glance at the closed door, Lois reluctantly picked up her laptop from where she had set it when she came in last night. Placing it on the coffee table, she fired it up and opened her file on Lex Luthor.
“Well, there’s a lot of innuendo about Lex’s alleged association with lower criminal types in Metropolis, but no hard evidence. There is also a tenuous link between the two corpses found in the Hobbs Bay district. When Clayton Kimball was fired from STAR Labs, he was immediately hired by Lexlab Scientific Research. His work there was top secret. Jimmy hadn’t been able to break into their computer before I left. Robert Nolan had volunteered for an experimental strength training study at the physiotherapy unit at LexMed. So they were both involved with one of Lex’s enterprises, but not the same one. It’s remote, and there’s no proof that points directly to Lex knowing them or about them. What did you find out?”
“Mr. Big has been sweeping Hobbs Bay for the dregs, guys on the bottom willing to do anything to get a fix. A black van picks them up, and they disappear, ten or twelve of them, so far. Rumor is that he’s promising some kind of new super drug if they’ll ‘volunteer’. Only the most desperate are going along with it. Word on the street says once they get in that van, they don’t come back. It’s all just coincidence, so far, though. What do you think?”
“I think we have too many coincidences. I think I need to get close enough to Lex to see what he has in his files and his computer, so I guess we’ll be announcing our engagement as soon as I come back from the dead. Any thought as to how we’re going to pull that one off?”
++++++++++
Clark went straight to Perry’s office when he arrived at the Planet. As he walked in, Ralph was leaving, Perry yelling behind him, “Don’t come in here again with one of your preposterous leads. We’re not printing a bunch of accusations without absolute proof that they’re true, and that means more than some sleazy source you’ve found crawling around.” Ralph almost ran to the elevator.
Perry turned his ire on Clark. “What are you doing here? I told you not to leave Lois.”
“Hold on, Chief. Lois kicked me out, but I didn’t leave until Scardino showed up. I think you can give up any idea of our working together.”
“So she sent you packing? That sounds like Lois. You just have to learn how to handle her. And what was Scardino doing there?”
“She called him. Can you believe that? She doesn’t call you or her family. She calls Mr. DEA. I had almost bought into your delusion that she cares about something other than her next big story.”
Perry heard anger, but he also heard disillusionment. He sighed. Young folks had a hard time learning that there were no perfect human beings. He suspected that Clark had fallen more than just a little in love with Lois. He wasn’t the first, and he wouldn’t be the last.
“Well, you’re both just going to have to be professional and put your differences aside until we get this story.”
“I don’t see how that’s going to happen if she won’t let me in on what she’s doing.”
“So she locked you out? I’ve seen her that way before. When she makes up her mind, she hauls up the drawbridge and nobody gets in. Leave it to me, son. I’ll threaten to take the story away from her, and she’ll come around. Right now, we need to figure out how we’re going to let the world know she isn’t dead. Where’s she been anyway, and why didn’t she let us know she was alive?”
“I have no idea where she was, and you can thank Scardino for the deception. He talked her into it. I can’t imagine how her family’s going to feel when they find out about it.”
“They’ll probably be relieved that she’s alive and mad that she didn’t tell them. Isn’t that kinda the way you felt?’
Clark thought about that, saying hesitantly, “Yes...I guess so.”
“And then, because they love her, they’ll forgive her, and it’ll just be one more of Lois’s crazy stunts in pursuit of a story. Like that time when Elvis was young and just breaking into movies. One of those Hollywood types persuaded him that he needed to be seen out on the town for the publicity and took him to a strip joint where he was photographed with some floozy on his lap. As you would expect, Priscilla didn’t like that one bit, but, see, she understood that The King wasn’t being unfaithful to her and didn’t mean to hurt her so she let that hound dog come crawling back. When you really love someone, you forgive them when they make mistakes. It’s kind of a rule.”
Clark regarded Perry with new respect. Here was a very wise man. The key words had not been lost on the reporter, “ When you love someone, you forgive....” He exhaled his anger and felt the stone in his chest dissolve. He would go check out the apartment he had circled in the Want Ads, and then, even though she was wrong and he was right, crawl back to Lois and apologize. He must remember to ask Perry, some time, if this was the way things usually worked between men and women.
“Perry, I have to find a place to live. I have an appointment to see an apartment in about half an hour. When I’m through, I’ll go back to Lois’s.”
“Better call me first, son. You could walk into a buzz saw, if she doesn’t take to having you as a partner. You might want to wait a few hours, give her a chance to calm down before you go back.”
“Right. I’ll come back here first. See you later.” He left Perry’s office, his heart light as clouds.
The apartment he looked at was dirty and in disrepair, but it was close to Lois’s, and it had an outside entrance that was not visible from the street or any adjacent building, a most necessary feature. The rent was only slightly outrageous, and he and the landlord came to an agreement that, for a bit of a reduction, he would do his own repairs and painting. It took only a few minutes after the building superintendent left for Clark to turn the place into a clean and comfortable flat. Tomorrow, he would buy some furniture.
Clark got back to the Daily Planet about 3:00 p.m. to find Perry smiling. “You must have worked some kind of magic on Lois, son. She seemed almost happy that you two were going to be working together. She said for you to come right back over there.”
Clark regarded him with suspicion. This didn’t sound like the Lois he had left a few hours ago. “Why? Why would she say that?”
“Well, I don’t know Clark, but I wouldn’t hesitate. When a high strung filly invites you into the pasture, you’d better get over there while she’s still in an agreeable mood.”
Attraction overcame suspicion, and Clark trotted back to a, he hoped, receptive Lois.
++++++++++
Lois was almost relieved by Perry’s call. She hadn’t liked the way Clark had left things between them. It had buoyed her self-esteem that he’d thought so much of her after his investigation, and she didn’t want to lose his good opinion of her. However, even though she would admit to herself that he’d been right about her deception, she didn’t know him well enough to admit it to him. That would be out of the question. They would have to have a much closer relationship before that happened. Relationship? What relationship? She barely knew him. She would just wait to see how things went between them.
Reluctant to retract her prickles yet, when he knocked on the door, she let him in, saying, “So, you’re back. I guess we’re stuck with you.”
Clark, immediately rejecting crawling and apologizing retorted, “That cuts both ways.”
Scardino was equally cordial. “I don’t like it, but Perry says we either work with you, or Lois is off the story. Since she’s my spy in the Luthor camp, I have to let you be tag-along.”
“I can do more than tag along, Scardino, so why don’t you just wait and see who pulls his weight here.”
Lois stepped between them. “All right, we’ve established that nobody’s thrilled about this. Let’s just try to get along. Sit down Clark. I’ll tell you where we are.”
“First, I want to know where you’ve been for the three and a half days you were gone.”
“What difference does it make?”
“Let’s just call it a little show of faith, proof that you’re willing to include me in everything and tell the truth.”
She looked hurt. “Why wouldn’t I be truthful? What do you think I am?”
“I think you’re a devious reporter who wants to get a big story no matter what the cost. Quit trying to change the subject. Where were you?”
“Oh, all right. It’s not that big a deal. Carl Benson has a summer cottage up on Lake Ogopogo, and when I found out he was going to Ecuador, I asked him if I could use it for a few days. It’s well stocked with everything, and I took additional food with me. I didn’t have to go out or anything.”
“And I assume it, at least, has a radio?”
“Of course.”
“Why didn’t anybody see you?”
“It’s November. Nobody else was up there.”
Why didn’t the highway patrol spot your car on the way back? There was an APB out for it.”
“How do I know? I used the back roads instead of the highway. Maybe they’re lousy at their jobs.”
“So you were deliberately trying to avoid being found out?”
“I guess so.”
“And you wonder why I think you won’t tell the truth.”
One part of her admired his questioning technique. He knew how to bore in to the essential truth. He would make a good partner to work with, and she wasn’t immune to that great smile. She suspected that under the suit was a physique worth getting to know, too, but she wasn’t going to let him get the upper hand. If they did get close, Lois Lane would be in charge. She had a lot of experience using her prickles to keep guys where they belonged.
“Okay, that’s it. I don’t have to defend what I did to you. I don’t even know you. Do you want in on the story or not?”
“You’re right. You don’t. What I think doesn’t matter. Let’s forget it. Just give me the background.”
Lois was bringing Clark up to speed with the story when there was another knock at the door. Without thinking, Lois started toward it. Scardino grabbed her and hustled her into the bedroom. After looking through the peephole, Clark, a shocked look on his face, turned the knob to reveal Nigel St. John and Lex Luthor.
“Ah, Mr. Kent. Surprised to see me? But of course you are.” Luthor and St. John pushed past Clark into the apartment. “Lois, come out, come out, wherever you are. I know you’re here.”
Clark gasped. “Luthor, what are you doing here? How did you know-?”
Lois and Scardino came back into the sitting room, puzzled confusion in their faces.
“Lois, my dear!” Lex grasped her upper arms and kissed her cheek. “I was so relieved when I learned that a mistake had been made in identifying your body. You can’t imagine how I grieved when I thought you were no longer with us.”
An appalled Clark wondered how Lois could believe this barnyard waste.
Lois, astonished to find the billionaire in her apartment, exclaimed, “How did you know I was here, Lex?” She looked pointedly at Clark who shook his head indignantly. “How did you find out I wasn’t dead?”
“I have informants everywhere, my dear. You did not escape their notice when you returned last night, nor did Agent Scardino, this morning, when he turned up at your door with flowers. I expected you to call me, and when you didn’t, I decided to surprise you. Nigel, inform the caterers that they can come in now.”
“Caterers? What caterers?” Clark yelped.
