PREVIOUSLY IN THE PORTRAIT:
Lois is a guest in the penthouse of her fiancé, Lex Luthor while the police look for her would-be murderer. Taking advantage of Luthor’s temporary absence, she searches his study looking for evidence that he is Mr. Big. Unable to find anything, she is joined by Clark who has discovered that the murder weapon was once a part of Lex’s wall collection. Together they find the password for Lex’s computer, but before they can access anything, he returns.
AND NOW
“What are you up to?”
As she asked the question, the door opened and Lex stepped in. “Lois, my dear. I see you have a visitor. I’m so pleased you found something to occupy yourself with while I was away.” He crossed to her and gave her a kiss on the cheek. She smiled up at him. He turned to Clark.
“Mr. Kent. Just what *are* you up to?”
“Uh, why, uh....” Clark stuttered.
To cover his distress, Lois quickly answered. “He was just telling me that he’s been re-reading all of Charles Dickens, and I was asking how far along he is.”
“Is that so,” asked Luthor. “And what is the answer, Mr. Kent?”
“Oliver Twist,” replied Clark, thanking Lois with his eyes.
“Ah, yes. I’ve always liked that one. Orphan boy caught up in a web of crime.” He paused, for a moment, lost in a thought that brought a faint smile to his face. “So inspirational. ‘The law, sir, is a ass.’ I heartily agree, don’t you?”
Clark regarded him steadily. “I’ve always respected the law.”
Luthor looked back, his eyes a steely glint. “Yes. You would. But don’t you think there’s a certain excitement, danger if you will, in being a scofflaw?”
Refusing to be stared down, Clark replied, “I would call that kind of attitude perverse.”
Lois interceded once again. “We were enjoying your collections, Lex. I told Clark about some of the background you gave me on the paintings. But you know, we found something odd when we were looking at the weapons. One of them seems to be missing. I hope nothing happened to it?” Her innocence as she spoke would have done justice to a Carmelite nun.
Clark was horrified. Did she have a death wish? To his surprise, Lex showed little concern.
“Oh, really? Which one?” he said, his eyes roaming the weapons.
“It’s that cute little shotgun you told me about. What was it called? Lupo..., Lupa...?”
His eyes immediately sought the bottom corner. “Oh, yes, of course. You mean the Lupara. I’d forgotten all about that. Some time ago, Nigel mentioned that one of the maids had knocked it off the wall when she was dusting. It was damaged, and he had to send it to the gun maker for repair. The maid is no longer with us, of course.”
“Oh, you have a special gun-maker?” asked Clark. “Maybe I could get my dad a new shotgun for his birthday.”
“I take it you’re not familiar with the Lupara, Mr. Kent. It’s of Sicilian origin. For a time, it was the popular choice of the Mafia there and in this country. Mine is an antique made by the great-grandfather of the gun-maker from whom I purchased it. His name is Giovanni Corleone, and his shop is in Palermo. If you’re still interested, I’ll have Nigel get the address for you.”
“Thank you. I’d like to look into what Signor Corleone has available.”
At that moment, Nigel entered the room to announce that luncheon was served. Lex instructed him to give the address to Clark, and added, “Mr. Kent, would you join us for lunch?” Without waiting for an answer, he turned to Lois, as he went on. “I’m sorry darling, but there’s some sort of emergency at LexLab. I’m going to have to run out there, and I’m afraid Nigel will need to accompany me, so no one will be here to entertain you. Perhaps Mr. Kent would be kind enough to stay on for a while. You can discuss Dickens at length.”
As they moved to the dining room, Clark mentioned that he needed to check in at the Planet, and Nigel led him to a telephone in the sitting room. Clark thanked him and waited for him to leave before making a call to Jimmy.
“Jimmy, it’s Clark. I have to talk fast. Lois and I are in Luthor’s penthouse at the Lexor Hotel. We’re on the track of something big. Get hold of Bill Henderson and tell him I was right about the shotgun.”
“What shotgun?”
“I phoned Henderson about it before I came over here; I’ll tell you later. Now let me finish. I don’t have much time. Tell Henderson that Lex admitted that the gun should be on the wall but isn’t. The Metropolis police should ask Interpol to check with a gun-maker named Giovanni Corleone in Palermo, Italy, to see if he’s repairing a Lupara for Lex Luthor. If he isn’t, then a shotgun that meets the forensic description of the murder weapon is missing from Luthor’s collection, and that should be good enough for a warrant to search for it here. Okay?”
“Is that l.u.p.a.r.a?”
“Yes. Get that to Henderson fast.”
“I’m on it. Take it easy, C.K., and don’t let anything happen to Lois either.”
“Don’t worry, Jimmy. We’ve had one miracle. I’m not going to count on another.” After he hung up, he went in search of the dining room
Lunch was a delicious salmon chowder followed by steak tartare with the usual toast points and condiments, and concluded with a simple lemon ice. Lex devoured the steak tartare with gusto while assuring his guests that the uncooked beef was from his personal livestock, and, therefore, carefully handled to prevent bacterial contamination of any kind. Lois ate toast piled high with chopped egg, tomato, and capers while moving the bloody ground meat, topped with a raw egg yolk, around on her plate.
The meal was accompanied by a lot of polite small talk, and when they had finished, Lex and Nigel took themselves away to LexLab. As soon as they were gone, the two reporters hurried to the study.
“Clark, get that computer going. I want to see what Lex has in his files.”
Clark followed her into the room and started to close the door.
“No, don’t close the door! We won’t be able to hear when they come back.”
“Lois, I heard before.”
“No, you didn’t. You had a hunch. You couldn’t get that lucky again. Leave it open. There’s no one around to see what we’re doing.”
“I don’t know. It just seems strange to me that Lex wouldn’t leave Nigel here to keep an eye on us. I have a bad feeling about this.”
“Enough with the hunches and the bad feelings! Let’s get into that computer.”
He pulled the computer up to the desktop, typed in the password, found the directory, and they began looking for a filename that might be incriminating.
Almost all of the files were about Lex’s corporations and were quite dull. Even LexLab and LexMed produced nothing interesting. There was no sign of experiments on vagrant men or a clue to what Clayton Kimball’s research might have been. There were various project names representing Lex’s charitable enterprises. There was no smoking gun.
“You might as well turn it off, Clark. However he keeps track of his Mr. Big enterprises, it isn't with that computer.”
She was turning away from the screen, and he was about to close the directory when she saw it. Right in plain sight in the middle of a long list of projects, she saw “Project Dragon’s Teeth.”
“Clark, wait a minute! What’s that?” She pointed to the file name.
He opened it, and there was the whole dirty scheme: Kimball’s research data on synthesizing a drug combining the properties of steroids and amphetamines and the reports on his progress; the experimental trials on vagrant men and on Robert Nolan; the unforeseen side effects and deaths.
“Lois, do you know what this is? Do you understand what he’s trying to do?” asked Clark angrily.
“I can see what he’s done and that’s pretty awful, but what’s the point of it all?”
“He’s trying to make super-strong, super-charged men. It’s the Greek myth of the Dragon’s Teeth.”
“The myth of the what?”
“The Dragon’s Teeth. You know. The story of Jason and the Argonauts and their mission to bring back the Golden Fleece.”
“I don’t think I ever read that one.”
“What kind of reading did you do as a kid? It’s a great story all about quests and tests, love and betrayal, and unexpected dangers. It even has fire-breathing bulls and monstrous dragons.”
“I was more into Harriet The Spy. What were the Dragon’s Teeth?”
“They were one of the last obstacles put in the way of Jason's getting the Golden Fleece. He had to plant the teeth of a dragon and reap the crop all in one day.”
“Oh, now I see. It was research for you farm boys.”
“That’s a good one, Lois, but this is serious. Do you want to know the rest or not?”
She nodded, and he continued. “Wherever one of the teeth fell, a fully armed warrior immediately sprang up. All together, they were an army eager to kill Jason and the Argonauts. Imagine if the ambitious leader of a small country or any country could create a super army overnight. Enhance the abilities of an army and you can conquer anything you want. A drug that would do that would be worth a fortune.”
“Lex doesn’t need money, but if he held the formula and was the only supplier, he’d have power and control beyond anything imaginable.”
“Exactly.” Clark continued to read through the file.
“Somehow we have to get his file to the police. Couldn’t we send it to Perry?”
“Chain of evidence, Lois. The police have to have possession of the original and the computer from the start. Otherwise there’s no way to prove that it wasn’t tampered with.
“We have to stop them!”
“It looks like they’ve stopped themselves. Kimball wasn’t able to get rid of the side effects from massive doses of steroids. The experimental subjects continued to have uncontrollable rages, and attacked and killed each other. That’s ironic because that’s how Jason defeated the army from the Dragon’s Teeth. He threw a rock and hit one who thought another had done it, and they started fighting among themselves and killed each other off.
“Sounds like the influence of the myth was greater than Lex intended. Did all the experiments end that way?”
“No. Some of them got hooked on the amphetamines and required such high dosages that when those combined with the steroid rages, they just sort of blew themselves up with cerebral hemorrhages and heart attacks. It looks like Lex poured millions into this. He wasn’t happy with Kimball’s continued failure.”
“I’d say. Do you suppose that’s how Lex punishes everyone who fails him? He kills them?”
“I think that’s what Mr. Big would do.”
“We have to get this information to Henderson,” she repeated.
“First we need to get out of here. I alerted Henderson to the mystery of the shotgun. When he finds out that it’s not being repaired in Italy, and he may already have that information, he’ll get a search warrant for this place. Then, because of what we've seen, he can seize the computer and use it for evidence.”
“Clark, we still haven’t found any direct proof that Lex is Mr. Big.”
“No, but this should put him away for quite a while. Come on, let’s go.”
He tucked the computer back under the desk and started for the door. As he did, Nigel materialized in the doorway holding a gun.
“I’m afraid that won’t be possible now. Lex very wisely left me here to keep an eye on you two. He would be very disappointed if you left before he had a chance to congratulate you on your ingenuity in discovering the Dragon’s Teeth project. Since you like this room so much, you won’t mind enjoying it a little longer.” And he closed the door and locked them in.
Clark immediately went over and tried the handle. “It’s locked all right. What do we do now?”
Lois began circling the room. “Look for another way out of here.”
“The only other door leads to the terrace, Lois. Unless you know how to drop 50 stories without being killed, I think we can pretty much rule that out.”
“Maybe there’s a hidden panel to a secret escape route.”
He just looked at her in tolerant amusement.
“Okay, so it’s a little far out. At least look. Stranger things have happened.”
He sighed and walked around the room ostensibly looking for a hidden door while actually using his X-ray vision to scan everything in the room. He discovered a couple of things. One was that the cigar lighter had a false bottom containing a key, probably to the locked drawer. The other was that the credenza had a secret compartment behind the center panel, which appeared to be solid but could be opened. A clever hiding place, but it was empty at the moment.
"Lois, this credenza has the same carving on the panel as that trophy case in your apartment."
She looked at it briefly. "Yep. They're a pair. Lex gave me the trophy case after I won my second Kerth. He said I needed a place to display all of the awards I was going to win. And what difference does that make. Keep looking for a way to get out of here."
“Lois, this is getting us nowhere. You said yourself the room is soundproofed, so it’s not likely to have a secret passageway that would break the seal.”
She smacked her hand against several books. “All right! There’s no way out. So let’s plan our strategy for when they come to get us. If it’s just the two of them, you distract Nigel and I’ll sweet talk Lex into taking me into the hallway. Then I’ll-.”
“Lois, don’t you think you’re overestimating your allure and underestimating Lex’s criminal designs. He might be willing to take you out of here, but you might wind up in the bedroom where things could get infinitely worse. We can’t let them separate us. Our best chance is to stay together and stall. Henderson could be here at any minute.” He hoped that was true because if Henderson didn’t show up, he would have to reveal his powers, and the only thing he could think of that would be worse than that would be if Lois was badly hurt or killed.
‘You’re just going to give up without a fight?” The word ‘wimp’ hung in the air, unspoken.
“I’m going to resist, Lois, and stall until Henderson comes.”
“You don’t even know if he’s coming.”
“If things get dicey, then I’ll take appropriate action.”
“What? You’ll bore them to death with stories about your escapades with Lulu Belle and lost cows?”
“Is this the way you handle frustration? By striking out at your friends?”
She looked up at him hesitating, softening, retracting her prickles. “That is what we’re becoming, isn’t it? Friends, I mean. I’m sorry, Clark. You didn’t deserve that. I just get so mad at not being able to do something in situations like this.”
“You’ve been in this kind of situation before?”
“Oh, sure. It’s kind of like a signature thing for me. Getting into hopeless situations, being locked up by bad guys. It’s a good thing the Planet’s benefits include medical and disability insurance. I’d probably be a very bad risk for individual coverage.” She smiled wryly.
“So how do you get out of those scrapes?”
“So far, I’ve managed to talk my way out, or the cavalry arrived just in the nick of time. I’ve never gotten somebody else in hot water with me before, though. Sorry about that.”
"Any time." He looked deep into her eyes and smiled. Then he looked around the room. “Did you notice that there’s only one chair in here? Looks like Lex didn’t want anyone lingering after the museum tour. Here, I’ll move the desk chair out so you can sit down.”
“What about you?”
“I noticed some cushions out on the terrace. I’ll bring one in and sit against the wall.”
“Make it two. It’ll be friendlier that way.”
She smiled at him, and his heart felt light as a butterfly. Her bravery and droll humor in the face of danger were new to him. None of the people he’d interviewed had mentioned that side of her. He knew from experience that the way earthlings conduct themselves in times of stress was the key to their true character, and he did not find her wanting. Any thoughts he’d had of walking away from her because of her career driven willfulness went floating out the door and across the terrace, dissipating in the November haze.
“See,” he said. “I told you, you’d get used to me and we’d be friends.”
She considered a prickly retort but thought better of it. They might be dead in a few hours. Why not enjoy the time they had left? She watched him retrieve the cushions, and they sat next to each other, leaning against the rare books and first editions, talking quietly about past experiences and unfulfilled expectations.
++++++++++
Immediately after he locked the door to the study, Nigel called Lex to tell him what happened.
“Ms. Lane and Mr. Kent have stumbled upon the Dragon’s Teeth file. They were about to leave when I intercepted them and locked them in the study.”
“I shall return to you immediately, Nigel. I’ve taken care of the records at LexLab. All that remains to be done is to eliminate the file in my computer and deal with Lois and Kent. I’m bringing a laptop identical to the one at my desk except that it contains no Dragon’s Teeth file. When I arrive, we’ll substitute one for the other and destroy the incriminating one. I should be there before too long. Be sure that our guests are not too uncomfortable. Once we’ve destroyed the last bit of damaging data, they will be unable to prove anything. And with no evidence, they have no case.”
++++++++++
To Be Continued
