Chapter Three
Lois detached herself from Clark by the front door and left him with Jimmy, who immediately began gushing over both Lex Luthor’s professional accomplishments and the man himself. She drifted purposefully through the other partygoers, aiming to get close to the room’s main staircase by the time Luthor hit the bottom step.
He wasn’t going to get away this time.
The gathering storm outside stepped up its tempo, and the resulting lightning sent creepy highlights across the dance floor. She looked up just as the great man himself started down the staircase, glad-handing the people he passed as if he were running for office.
Maybe he really is campaigning for something, she thought. Maybe he needs some positive press. But if that were true, why? What was he planning? And was he planning to unveil it here, tonight, at the White Orchid Ball?
It was the first time she’d seen him in the flesh, and his impact exceeded his carefully posed publicity shots. Lois judged him to be just under six feet tall and around a hundred seventy pounds, although if his shoulders were real and not just jacket padding he might be as much as fifteen pounds heavier. His curly brown hair was perfectly brushed and sprayed for maximum effect. Most of the women he spoke to on his way down the stairs smiled wider than necessary for mere politeness, and she was sure that at least one of them barely stifled a giggle.
The man didn’t look in her direction until she called out “Lex Luthor!” His reaction was further dramatized by the flash of lightning which cast his face in momentary highlights which reminded Lois of old silent horror movies.
Luthor stopped in mid-sentence and turned to look at her. She knew she looked good with her hair up, and it matched her gown for elegance. Still, his gaze seemed to assess her net worth in two seconds and only then look at her as a woman.
“Lois Lane, Daily Planet.” She knew it sounded like a challenge, but she felt that this man would respond better to that approach than to something feminine and seductive. “Why haven’t you returned my phone calls?”
A slick smile appeared on his face as he glided closer and took her hand. “I assure you, Ms. Lane, I will not make that mistake again.”
His kiss felt cold on her knuckles, but she didn’t know if his lips were chilled or her hands were too cool to feel his touch. The White Orchid Ball was no place to conduct an interview, but maybe – just maybe – she could parlay this greeting into a one-on-one with him.
As long as it didn’t kill her, that is.
Luthor took her in his arms as the orchestra – a full twenty-piece orchestra, mind you, not just a string quartet or a jazz trio – began playing something for the slow dancers in the crowd. As he turned her around with his first step, she looked over his shoulder and saw her partner standing next to Jimmy across the crowded room – but he looked as if he were almost seven feet tall! Two turns later, she looked across the room again, but this time Kent appeared at his normal height.
Was he jumping up to keep track of her? Or had he been standing on something she couldn’t see for the moment?
She pushed Kent out of her mind. It didn’t matter. The interview with Luthor was the most important thing at the moment, the only thing that mattered. It was time to strike.
“I hope you’ll forgive me for being so bold – “
“But boldness is a trait I find very attractive in a woman, Ms. Lane.”
She smiled what she hoped was a flattered smile and chuckled. “Well – thank you. Anyway, Mr. Luthor, I – ”
“Lex,” he corrected her as he lifted her arm for a quick turn.
“Lex,” she smiled back.
The thought slipped into her mind that despite his handsome appearance and refined manner, he wasn’t as good-looking as Claude had been.
And not as good-looking as her new partner, either.
Stunned, she almost stopped in place for a moment, then smoothly resumed their dance. Where had that crazy thought come from? And why was she comparing Lex Luthor to Clark Kent? What did Kent have that Luthor didn’t have in spades?
Integrity and honesty, she answered herself.
She shoved that thought as far away as she could. She didn’t know anything personal about Lex – as he’d invited her to call him – and she didn’t know enough about Clark to make that call about him. After all, they’d only known each other for a couple of days.
She saw his lips move but didn’t hear the words. She shook herself out of her momentary funk and said, “I apologize. I was – woolgathering.”
He frowned in what she took to be mock annoyance. “I hadn’t thought that I was so uninteresting, especially to a reporter.”
“No! No, not at all, I assure you. I was just – just thinking about my husband – my late husband. You remind me of him – a little.”
It wasn’t a complete lie, she told herself. He doesn’t have to know how poorly he came out in that comparison.
Luthor stopped for a moment and stepped back slightly. “I apologize if I’ve caused you any discomfort. Please forgive me.”
He seemed so sincere that she almost reevaluated her impression of him. But then the real reason she was here popped back into her mind. “There’s nothing to forgive. You couldn’t have done it on purpose.”
“Still, if my presence makes you uncomfortable – “
It did, but she couldn’t tell him that. “No, please! Let’s continue. The dance, I mean.”
He nodded suavely and pulled her back into his embrace. Give him points for boldness, she mused.
Time to get down to brass tacks. “I know you’re hesitant to give interviews – “
“Well, you can understand a man in my position. I wouldn’t want to be – misinterpreted.”
There was no way to misinterpret the leer in his eyes and his forward lean against her chest. It was almost as if he were trying to hypnotize her.
He let her slip back a few inches, to a distance where she could breathe without rubbing against him. “I have had one or two bad experiences with the media,” he continued.
She smiled confidently. “But not with me.”
He leaned closer and spoke almost seductively. “So why don’t we make it – “ here the lightning cooperated with a bright flash which lit up the room, and the accompanying crash of thunder made her listen closer for his next word as he caressed her cheek with his own “ – dinner?”
Bad idea, Lois! screamed her personal red alert siren. Bad idea! Don’t get sucked in!
Before she could respond, an unassuming tenor voice overrode the sound of the orchestra. “Mind if I cut in?”
She took a deep breath. “Um – Lex, this is Clark Kent. Clark works at the Planet. With me. In – in the newsroom.”
Wow, she thought, that didn’t sound too junior high school, did it?
Lex quickly shook Clark’s hand and took hers again. His adoring gaze was for her alone. “Later.”
And he walked away.
Lois took a deep breath as Clark put his arms around her and resumed the dance, but without trying to pull her inside his cummerbund. “I don’t know whether to thank you or slug you, Clark.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “I was kind of hoping for the former.”
She pursed her lips. “Okay, thanks for the rescue, but it took me a year to get this close to that man.”
He tugged her to him as Luthor had done and gave her a hooded, almost smoky look. “What, this close?”
Too close. She was too close to him. Her position reminded her of when she’d danced with Claude and how much she’d enjoyed it. But she found, to her surprise, that dancing with Clark wasn’t the hardship she thought it would be.
Clark didn’t feel like Claude, but he didn’t feel like Luthor, either. Lex had felt hard and almost unyielding. Clark’s body was firm too, but there was a gentleness in his embrace that the other man lacked, that he couldn’t have bought if he’d liquidated his entire fortune. Lex had tried to bend her the way he wanted her to go, but Clark simply molded himself to fit against her. He was willing to accommodate her, not force her to accommodate him.
It felt – good.
But she didn’t need to be this close to him, not now. She pulled back a little and smiled. “I would have thought that square dancing was more your style.”
“Actually, I learned from a Nigerian princess who’d studied ballroom dancing in England.”
Now that sounded like a snow job. “Really?”
He held her gaze and softly responded, “Really.”
Still too close. She was having trouble focusing on the story. “She did a good job with you.” She gave him a ‘come along’ motion with her eyes and turned away.
“Lois, where are you going?”
She knew he’d follow her. Somehow she knew that he’d do just about anything she asked him to do. He was just that nice a guy.
Too nice for what she was about to do.
*****
The door had to be Luthor’s private office. And if he’d left anything in plain sight – or maybe not quite in plain sight – which would help her identify the real Lex Luthor, she’d find it.
“Lois! What are you doing?”
She ignored Clark’s agitated whisper and began scanning the huge desk in front of the French doors leading to the balcony. “I’m being a reporter. You should try it some time.”
She scooted across the office – my apartment isn’t much bigger than this one room, she admitted to herself – and closed the double doors leading to a hallway designed to accommodate a Roman chariot. Whoever this guy really was, he didn’t hide his light under a bushel.
“Lois, you can’t – you shouldn’t – “
Poor Clark. Being a nice guy from the breadbasket of America, he couldn’t know how a real reporter worked. Instead of answering, she opened a second set of double doors – correction, she thought, my apartment would fit in here very nicely with lots of closet space – and slipped into the adjoining room. He leaned in behind her and drew a breath as if to protest once again, but she forestalled him. “Just look around! See if you find anything suspicious.”
She gave the second room a quick scan. Nuts. There didn’t seem to be anything in this room either, and her “looking for the ladies’ room” excuse wouldn’t buy them much more time. She was about to reenter the front room when she heard Clark calmly say, “Macedonian,” as if he were describing a shoelace.
Then Lex said, “Belonged to Alexander the Great.” His voice was tight and intense.
Oh, great, she thought, they’re going to have some kind of peeing contest in there. What a time for Kent to open up his testosterone valve!
She peeked into the room and saw Lex holding a short sword close to Clark’s throat. She didn’t dare just burst in – one or both of them could get badly hurt if she were to startle them.
Her breath stalled in her lungs as Lex allowed the sword to drift away from Clark. He said, “A brilliant tactician.” He backed up and moved toward the center of the room. “Alexander’s strategy was simple – always seize the high ground.”
The tableau held for a few seconds or hours, she wasn’t sure which, then Lex relaxed, smiled, reversed the sword, and offered it to Clark. “It was with this sword that he defeated – “
“Darius the Third,” Clark interrupted as he lifted the sword to examine it, “and was proclaimed king of Asia.”
Lex stiffened again, then said, “You surprise me, Mr. Kent. I’m not often surprised.”
It was time to break up the contest before they decided to reenact Alexander’s final battle with Darius. With her best sheepish smile plastered in place and the lightning dancing around the building again, she stepped into the room and said, “I hope you don’t mind us poking around. You have a beautiful home, Lex.”
What the hey, he’d tried to flatter her, so returning the favor felt appropriate to her. It seemed to defuse the situation when she inhaled and lifted her chest slightly, then gazed adoringly into his eyes. Clark took the opportunity to replace the sword in its mounting.
Lex relaxed and gestured toward the balcony. “Have you seen the view from here?”
She led the two men – two men who, she sensed, would never be more than icily polite to each other – onto the balcony. Shielded from the downpour by the small roof, they stood looking out over the inundated cityscape.
“The tallest building in Metropolis,” bragged the owner. Lex moved in front of her and pointed down at the buildings below. “I must confess,” he gloated, “that I love the fact that everyone in the city has to look up in order to see me.”
Lois wasn’t impressed by his boast, and judging by the lack of response from her partner, neither was Clark. Thwarted, Lex said, “Well, let’s get back to the party. I think you’ll find that my announcement will interest you.”
*****
Lois was silent as she drove me back to my crappy hotel. Luthor’s announcement about his space station project was indeed a stunner, but it was in keeping with what I’d already known about him and what I’d learned that night. When he’d pointed that sword at me, I wasn’t sure he whether he’d try to impale me with it, and that wouldn’t have done either of us any good.
Would’ve ruined a valuable antique sword, too.
His boast about having the entire city look up to him bothered me, so much so that I finally asked Lois about it.
“Yeah,” she said, “it bugs me too. I’m not comfortable with one man having that much power and influence over Metropolis, much less Earth’s entire space program.” She shifted in the driver’s seat and flexed her fingers on the wheel. “He’s the third richest man in the world, yet he’s not content.”
She pulled over to the curb in front of my hotel and stopped. “I’ve met a couple of people like him on my travels,” I said. “One of them was a warlord in a small Third World country and the other was a Chinese politician. They were both extremely dangerous.”
“What happened to them?”
I sighed. “As far as I know, the warlord is still grabbing for power and land and people, still fighting against other warlords in his area and against his nation’s legitimate government. The politician was arrested for corruption and executed by the Chinese government about three months after I met him.”
“Typical Communist efficiency. They hate to look weak or indecisive.”
“That description would probably fit our host tonight as well.”
She nodded and looked at the dashboard clock. “It’s pretty late, but I’d like to get started on what little we have on the Messenger story tomorrow morning. Be in the office by nine, and be ready to work hard.”
“Will do. Thanks for the lift.”
I opened the door – the rain had finally eased off – and leaned out, but Lois put her hand on my arm and stopped me. “Clark? I just – thank you for being there with me tonight.”
I smiled. “You’re welcome. I don’t know how much help I was, though.”
She smiled back, and I thought the moon had broken through the clouds. “More than you know, I think. Anyway, I’ll see you at nine in the morning. Oh, bring in something for breakfast, will you? Bagels and cream cheese and some Starways coffee.”
“Will do. Any specific flavors of anything you’ve requested?”
Her smile twisted into real amusement. “Surprise me.”
I nodded and got out. She pulled away as soon as I shut the door, and I never thought to ask her how much she’d be contributing to our make-do breakfast.
Or was this part of the rookie hazing?
It didn’t matter. I’d figure out a way to surprise her.
*****
They went over the limited information they had on the Messenger disaster four times before Lois threw up her hands and called a halt. “That’s all I have right now, Clark, I just can’t look at this stuff again! And it’s not even lunchtime yet!”
Clark sighed. “Okay, then, let’s take a break. Better yet, why don’t we take a swing at something else? Maybe if we go away from this for a while it’ll gel in our minds.”
She frowned at him. She didn’t want to stop working on it, but it was obvious that they were at a dead end. They needed more information, something new, something to kick-start the old reporting engine.
Just then the phone rang. “Lois Lane, Daily Planet.”
“Ms. Lane? This is Samuel Platt. My report is ready for you. Just send someone down to my place to pick it up.”
“Thank you, Dr. Platt. Shall I send a pizza along too?”
Platt laughed. “That’s okay, Ms. Lane. I still have some left from the last one. Besides, I have to watch my girlish figure.”
She chuckled in response. “In that case, we’ll see you again very soon. Bye.” She put down the phone and turned to Clark. “That was Platt. He’s got the full report ready.”
“Good. Shall we repair to milady’s chariot and sally forth?”
She gave him a wry frown. “We’ll either send someone or go ourselves. First I need to meet Jimmy.”
“Jimmy? Why?”
Lois stood and pulled on her overcoat. “I sent him back to watch the truck with Messenger wreckage inside. If they did anything funny with it, I wanted to know.”
“Where’s he meeting you?”
She glanced at her watch. “Whoops! He should be waiting for me on the far corner of Spenser Drive and Hawk Avenue, across from the fire station, unless he got hung up somewhere. Come on.”
They rode the elevator down together. “Oh, Clark, I didn’t tell you earlier how good those bagels were. I like that raspberry cream cheese. Where’d you find it?”
He blinked as if he’d been caught with his hand in a cookie jar. “Oh, uh, it was some little deli not far from here. I ran in and out so fast I didn’t even look at the name of it.”
“Well, I hope you can find it again.” The elevator car dinged and the doors slid open to carry them to the ground floor. They strode down the street together scanning for the young Mr. Olsen, but Lois spotted him first. “Oh, good, there’s Jimmy.”
Jimmy didn’t wait for them to come to him. “Oh, man, Lois, am I glad to see you! Dr. Baines had the wreckage loaded in that truck but you know that but you don’t know that they moved the truck to a hangar about half a mile west and somebody saw me and yelled at me and ran after me but I got away and I’ve been watching for someone tailing me but I don’t think they followed me here and – “
Lois grabbed his arm and pulled down. “Jimmy! Stop and take a breath, okay? We don’t want you to pass out.”
Jimmy took her advice literally and inhaled deeply before letting it out slowly. “Thanks. I was getting dizzy. Anyway, there wasn’t anyone else around from any media outlet, and the move wasn’t on the daily press release, so I think they’re trying to hide something from us.”
Lois nodded. “I think you’re right. Jimmy, you go get that report from Platt. And take a copy of it over to your buddies in Star Labs. I think we’re going to need their help decoding it.” She turned to her partner as Jimmy vanished on his errands. “Clark, let’s go back to the office. I need to check on a few things before we go back out to EPRAD and confront the lovely and talented Dr. Antoinette Baines.”
“Sounds like a plan to – what’s that over there?”
She snapped up her gaze in time to see a jet of steam erupt from an open manhole which was surrounded by warning signs. Something had certainly happened – the steam jet also tossed up small rocks and clods of dirt and a few small chunks of asphalt. Someone shouted, “Hey! There’s a man down there! The sewer tunnel collapsed and he’s trapped! Help! We need help!”
She ran forward and elbowed her way to a good view of the manhole, ignoring the protests of the people she shoved aside. Suddenly a man’s sagging head appeared, followed by his chest – held up by a pair of strong hands under the man’s armpits – and the other workers grabbed him and dragged him the rest of the way up.
Who had rescued him? Was there another man down in the sewer? If so, he didn’t appear in the manhole. Was there a danger of another collapse? She needed to ask some questions.
The man who’d been rescued coughed several times, then looked up at her, pointed, and called out, “That – that man! He pulled me out! That man – cough-cough – that man saved me! He – he pulled me out!” Then he leaned back and seemed to pass out.
Standing beside her, Clark lifted one arm and said, “He’s delirious!”
“Obviously,” she agreed. Then she looked at his clothing. “Clark! What happened to you? You’re a mess! Did you throw yourself under a garbage truck or what?”
He turned back to her and gave her that caught-in-the-act face again. “Well – I – I – “
“Never mind! We’re busy. But from now on, do what I do, bring a change of clothes to work.”
*****
I knew my dad would have been mad. He would have cautioned me to be careful, to keep my ‘special abilities’ a secret, to keep myself from being caught and dissected like a frog. The refrain was permanently embedded in my brain, I’d heard it so many times.
I wished I could hear him say it to me just once more. But that wasn’t possible.
As I followed Lois onto the newsroom floor, I was distracted by someone purring in my direction. “Good morning, handsome.”
I turned to see Cat Grant slinking seductively toward me. “Oh, hi, Cat. If you’ll excuse me – “
She grabbed my lapel and stopped me. “No, I don’t think I will excuse you,” she said with a pouty smile. “I’ve asked you to have dinner with me two times. And that’s two times more than I’ve ever had to ask any man to do – anything.”
The last thing I wanted at that moment was any kind of idea of what Cat might be willing to ask any man to do for her. “I’m sorry – I’ve been really swamped, what with this Messenger thing that Lois and I are working on – “
I tried to turn away but she snagged my tie to hold me in place. At that moment she resembled a cougar with its next meal almost under its claws. “Poor Lois,” she said. “All work and – well, she hasn’t had much fun lately.”
She started straightening my tie, even though it didn’t need it. At least, it hadn’t until she’d grabbed it. “Um – yeah. If I could take a rain check on that dinner?”
She leaned her head to one side and gave me one of the best smoky looks I’ve ever seen outside a Bogie and Bacall movie. “Sure. But – “ she leaned in and tapped my nose, then whispered, “Don’t wait too long.”
It was time to escape. I smiled and said, “Okay,” and then backed away as she let my tie slip through her fingers. Then I turned and walked toward the conference room as quickly as my rookie dignity would allow.
I couldn’t help but hear her say, “Oomph! I love it when they play hard to get.”
Oh, great, now I had the Planet’s resident man-eater after me. And since she and Lois seemed to be friends, I wondered how that would affect our partnership.
Nothing like a little pressure to make the day more interesting.
