Chapter 27: They’ll Put You Away in a Cell

Well, they’ll put you away in a cell.
They’ll put you where the cold wind blows.
--“Frankie and Johnny”

****

They put me in an unmarked van and blindfolded me. But I was able to see through my blindfold with my x-ray vision, and I realized quickly they were taking me to Lex Towers. I didn’t know what that meant, but I knew it couldn’t be good.

They guided me inside the building and into a wine cellar, where they tied me to a chair. Then they removed my blindfold and left.

But I wasn’t alone. The government man who had tried to kill me on the rooftop was there, sitting in a chair and holding a gun in his lap. Standing beside him—cool and collected—was Lex Luthor.

My anger and surprise were warring with each other, and I had far more questions than I had answers, but I remained quiet, not wanting to give them the satisfaction of me speaking first.

I wasn’t surprised when Luthor was the one who broke the silence. “I am sorry it must come to this, Mr. Kent, but Lex Luthor will not be made a fool of. I know the reason Lois left me standing at the altar was her love for you, a pitiful nobody from a backwater town in Kansas.”

I glared at him. He was obviously delusional. Lois wasn’t in love with me. Superman, maybe, but not Clark Kent.

“Let me go, Luthor,” I gritted. I resisted the urge to strain against my restraints, lest I accidentally break them at an inopportune moment.

“I’m sorry, Kent,” the government man said with a sinister smile, “but we’re counting on Superman coming to save you.”

“What?” I asked with a frown. What did he mean?

Luthor clasped his hands together, looking pleased to have the upper hand. “You see, Mr. Kent, Jason Trask and I made a deal. If he would reveal Superman’s weakness to me, then I would help kill him. You see, everyone has an Achilles heel—even Superman.”

“Why are you doing this?” I gritted. “Why are you bringing Superman into this?” I wanted to buy some time to think. I didn’t know what I was going to do. If I revealed my secret to them, no good could come from it. But I certainly didn’t want to die.

“Well, yes, it might be easier, perhaps, to simply kill you,” Luthor conceded. “But you did, after all, save my life, and so I won’t kill you. By the same token, you also destroyed my life, so I can’t let you go.” He gave a menacing smile. “You see how I am in a bit of a bind. But then I started to think about it, and I realized that the best form of payback would be to show you how it feels to be torn from someone you care about.”

I wasn’t sure whether that meant he was going to kill Lois or keep me as a permanent prisoner, but I didn’t want to think about it in any depth. The gun Trask was holding had to have meteor rock bullets in it, which couldn’t bode well. My mind racing, I asked, “How is Superman going to know where to find me?”

Luthor waved a hand in the air. “I’ve already thought of that. A message has been left on Lois Lane’s answering machine for her to give to Superman.”

My brow furrowed. The message had been left on her machine? Why wasn’t she at home?

“He is to fly to the top of a certain building to find a letter,” the billionaire continued. “This letter will tell him where you are. And then, we will spring our trap.” He inclined his head. “Now, if you will excuse me, I have to go do a few things to help avert this disaster you have caused.”

I watched Luthor go up the stairs and then turned my eyes to Trask, who was taking a few steps toward me with a disgusted look on his face. He still held the gun in one hand, obviously ready to shoot immediately should Superman arrive.

“I thought you were enjoying a vacation behind bars,” I told him with a hint of a growl in my voice.

He smiled. “Let’s just say I have friends in high places. I got out without too much trouble—it just took me a little time.” He grimaced and shook his head. “People like you disgust me. Has the alien brainwashed you, or are you willingly a traitor to your country and homeworld?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I snarled at him.

His eyes fell on my locket. “What’s this? Do you have a picture of the alien inside?”

I swallowed. Had I been standing, I would have backed away. But I was tied to a chair, and I couldn’t keep him from touching the gift Lois had given to me.

With a strange sort of eagerness, he opened the locket, only to see a picture of my grandmother instead of Superman. He sneered at me. “So, you have a thing for old ladies? You really are sick.” Not shutting the locket, he let it drop onto my chest.

“That’s my grandmother,” I gritted. The pain had of course started the moment he opened the locket, and I was trying with all my might to look like I was angry rather than hurting.

He walked away from me and sat in his chair, where he glared across at me and watched me like a hawk. Little did he realize that there was basically no chance I was going to be freed—by myself or by Superman—from my situation.

I had been exposed to the meteor rock often enough—or perhaps the shard was small enough—that I was able to close my eyes and keep myself from showing the pain in my expression, though I doubted I achieved anything resembling calmness. But pretending the open locket didn’t affect me wasn’t enough to prevent a sweat from eventually breaking out on my forehead.

When Trask noticed my perspiration, he gave a grim chuckle. “I’d be nervous, too, if I was an alien lover like you. But before long, you’ll meet a traitor’s end.” His eyes met mine, and I realized he intended to kill me regardless of Luthor’s plans. Either the man didn’t realize how powerful a figure Luthor was in the city, or he was insane. I was frankly leaning toward the latter.

The pain continued to spread, and I was finding it harder to breathe by the second. Fighting against despair, I asked Trask, “What will happen if Superman never comes?”

“You don’t want to find out,” he replied in a low voice. “Just know that most military men like myself have no problems with the ethics of torture.”

I grimaced. It was starting to occur to me that I was going to die soon. As the time ticked by, so fled my grip on life. I didn’t know if Jericho really knew what I had meant by “firemen.”

My thoughts turned to Lois. While I had called Perry to help remove the meteor rock bullet after my first contact with Trask, I had desired so much to ask Lois to help me instead. She was such an important part of my life . . . . I had known I was going to basically lose her when she married Luthor. A powerful man like him wouldn’t want his wife to have a dangerous and busy career with a newspaper. There was no question in my mind that things would have changed between us if she had gotten married. I had understood that on a subconscious level, and it had just increased my aversion to her marriage. There would be no more evenings with greasy foods and bad movies or all-night stakeouts playing Spades or Old Maid. But I had been willing to sacrifice what we had because I had thought that was what she wanted. And because she would have been put into harm’s way if I had pursued a relationship with her.

And now, everything I had done was coming to nothing. I was dying—and I would probably never see Lois again.

I flung thoughts around in my head like wet noodles at a wall, hoping one would stick. Finally, I thought of something.

I groaned loud enough for Trask to hear, but not so loud that he got suspicious. His eyes narrowed immediately, and he stood up. “What is it? Is the alien invading your mind?”

My breathing was already labored, and I simply started to exaggerate it more. “My locket’s new,” I mumbled, twisting my head a little. “I think I’m having an allergic reaction to it. Could you . . . could you take it off?”

“I could care less about your comfort,” he informed me with contempt as he returned to his chair.

Thinking on my feet (figuratively), I pointed out, “Luthor won’t be happy if you let me die—and my dead body won’t bring Superman to your doorstep. You had better watch out—Luthor isn’t someone you want to make angry.” I closed my eyes in real pain, inhaling deeply but carefully.

“Fine,” he growled. With obvious reluctance, he removed the necklace and threw it on the floor by a wine cask.

I was instantly able to breathe better. I didn’t try to struggle out of my bonds because I knew I would need to gather what little strength I could. It was too bad we were in a cellar rather than Luthor’s penthouse—otherwise, I might have been able to get a little exposure to the sun if it had peeked out from behind a cloud. As I was casting about for new ideas, I remembered my homing beacon watch.

Had enough time passed for Jericho to find the firemen? What if he hadn’t found them and was just sitting in my apartment? If I activated the homing beacon and Jericho came alone and burst through a wall, then his connection to Krypto would be obvious. But if Jericho came with the police, then there was a small chance that Jericho wouldn’t need to show off his powers.

And if Jericho did give evidence of his abilities, then Trask might put two and two together and realize I was Superman. If that happened, then any chance I would have at a life as Clark Kent would be gone. Was it better to wait for a miracle on the off chance that I would protect my secret identity as Clark Kent? Or would it be better to just throw away that chance so the world could have a Superman?

The question thundered through my head. Now that I had begun helping people instead of inhibiting my powers, I couldn’t give it up. I couldn’t let accidents like that which had occurred with the out-of-control bus continue to happen. Not if I could stop it.

And so, with a little creative maneuvering, I pressed the button on my watch. Hopefully, I had given Jericho enough time.

When Luthor finally returned to the cellar, he gave me a glance and then looked at Trask. “Has there been any trouble with our guest?”

“No,” grunted Trask, cradling his gun.

Luthor turned to me, his eyes glinting like those of a snake about to strike. “The American journalist Helen Rowland once said, ‘Falling in love consists merely in uncorking the imagination and bottling the common sense.’ Perhaps I was a fool to fall in love with Lois Lane—but she became my inspiration. Of course, then you decided to have Lois Lane for yourself.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Lois isn’t an object—she’s a person. I didn’t take her from you—she just doesn’t love you.” I should have held back my next words—I couldn’t determine what kind of person Luthor was based simply on what could be the actions of a love-crazy man—but I was growing more frustrated by the second. “How could she ever love a monster like you?”

When he backhanded me, I wasn’t surprised at the action so much as the pain that spread through my jaw. The nauseating taste of blood flooded my mouth, and I spit some of the red liquid out to the floor at Luthor’s feet.

He gave me a look of disgust. “Really, Kent, I would have expected more from you.”

“Funny,” I muttered. “I could have said the same about you.”

Luthor gave me a look of bitter amusement before turning to Trask. “Now, when Superman gets here, you need to kill him immediately.”

Trask shook his head. “No. I need to ask the alien a few questions before he dies. As the advance guard, he may know some important information about those to come. His information is too valuable for us to kill him.”

“He is too dangerous to leave alive. If he escapes with knowledge of my complicity with you—”

“Are you afraid your public image will be tarnished?” Trask scoffed. “Afraid that the world will finally learn Lex Luthor is in fact the B—”

A shot rang out, and a hole appeared in Trask’s chest. He fell to the floor, his gun clattering away from him.

The wealthy business tycoon put his gun back in his coat pocket smugly as I stared at him in shock. Then he gave me a tight smile. “Trask, as you have seen, was insane and dangerous. His death was inevitable.” At my skeptical look, he conceded, “I, too, am dangerous—that is not to be contested. Certainly, there is a fine line between genius and insanity, as Oscar Levant noted. But all my moves are carefully made. For men such as myself, the world is a giant chess board. One simply needs to know what pieces to move and when.”

He was bending over to pick up Trask’s gun when the wall exploded.

At least, it seemed to explode. In actuality, it was just Jericho bursting through the wall with his extra-canine strength. Ordinarily, an observant man such as Lex Luthor probably would have noticed that the super-powered dog had black ears instead of white ones, but I thought he was so surprised by what came in after Jericho (as was I) that he didn’t pay the dog much attention. Of course, the dog was so covered in dirt and dust that he was almost unrecognizable.

In the midst of the broken-down wall—against all my expectations—was Lois. She had a grim look on her face as her eyes met Luthor’s. “Lex,” she said in bitterness.

“Lois,” he returned softly, brought close to speechlessness.

I gaped at Lois myself. What was she doing here?

Jericho ran to me and pawed my leg. I glanced at Luthor, whose attention was wholly focused on Lois. Then, with a little maneuvering and quiet encouragement, I managed to enlist the help of my canine companion’s teeth in releasing me from my bonds. I sat there for a moment, assessing the situation. I looked from Luthor to the meteor rock gun he had failed to pick up and then back again. With Luthor being so stunned by Lois’s appearance, I might have the advantage if I went for the weapon. I only hoped I would be quick enough. But my heart was thudding in my chest. One wrong move, and Lois could die. I had to get to that gun in time.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Lois asked in a voice filled with disappointment and disgust.

“I might ask you the same,” Luthor replied wryly. “I dreamed about you bursting into my private sanctuary—but not quite like this.”

“Yeah, well, I dreamed about marrying a man who wasn’t an utter scumbag,” Lois retorted.

And then I dove for the gun. Luthor swirled to face me, but I was jumping up with the weapon and pointing it at his chest. I stepped closer to him and told him in a low voice, “Don’t make any sudden movements.”

His eyes stared at me with the sort of confidence that shouldn’t have been in a man in such a situation, and when he thrust his hand into his coat pocket to pull out a gun, he found my hand there fighting him for dominance of his weapon. I whipped it out and held both guns in front of his head. “Don’t move,” I growled.

Though Luthor kept his eyes on me, he began speaking to Lois. “I could have given you a life of luxury, Lois. And what can Kent give you? He is a man of no ambition or vision, more fit for manual labor than the world of reporting.”

Lois stabbed a finger into his chest, causing him to take a step backward. “Listen, Lex. Clark Kent has more integrity in his pinky than you do in your entire body.” I was surprised to hear her defend me so vehemently.

“Lois,” I said, my voice lined with steel, “go call the police. Luthor isn’t worth wasting your breath on.”

She stared at the billionaire before finally nodding and turning away. She finally noticed Trask’s body on the floor and let out a small gasp. Recovering quickly, she knelt and picked up my locket, which she closed. Slipping the necklace into her pocket, she left the cellar through the open wall.

Luthor stared at me, obviously trying to figure out an exit strategy.

“I should have left you bleeding to death in that alley,” I told him, the tension filling my body making my voice hard and cold. “But go ahead and try something—it’ll be easy enough to remedy that mistake.” In truth, I wouldn’t take back what I had done, and I wouldn’t be able to bring myself to kill Luthor even if he tried to escape, but he didn’t know that.

And so, we remained in a glaring contest until Lois returned. “Henderson’s on his way,” she said sweetly. As an afterthought, she knelt on the floor to grab the bonds that had held me and then tied Luthor’s hands behind his back.

“You will regret this,” he said in a dangerous tone. Perhaps his words were directed at both Lois and me, but it was my eyes he was meeting.

“I don’t think so,” I returned. Gesturing with the gun, I told him, “Sit on that chair while we wait.”

****

When the normally dour Henderson arrived, he was, as Aunt Opal was fond of saying, pleased as a peach, particularly since both Lois and I were willing to testify against Luthor. As the criminal was led away, Henderson told Lois and me in a low voice, “We’ve been gathering evidence against the Boss for a while. I’ve suspected it was Luthor, and what you’ve told me should be another nail in the coffin of his life as a free man.”

Lois, who had taken the whole situation in stride, had listened intently when I had told Henderson what had happened. I had left out details about the meteor rock, of course, but I told him what I thought was most important. Lois and I gave our statements, and Henderson finally dismissed us.

“If you happen to gather any other evidence against Luthor, let me know,” the detective said.

“Thanks, Henderson,” I told him with a smile.

We started to leave when Henderson called to us. “By the way, how did you bust through that wall, Lois?”

She gestured toward Jericho. Fortunately, he was so covered in dust and dirt that his black ears and tail weren’t especially noticeable. “I ran into Krypto and enlisted his help.”

“You just ran into him,” the detective said flatly.

“Yep.” She grinned. “If you don’t know where Superman is, well, Superman’s dog is the next best thing.”

“Uh huh.” He still sounded skeptical, and my heart started to race, but evidently he didn’t intend to pursue it any more. “You two head on home. I don’t want to hear about you getting into any more trouble for a while.”

“We’ll see,” Lois replied mischievously.

When Lois, Jericho, and I were finally outside, however, her whole demeanor changed. Gone was the woman who loved to exchange verbal barbs with Inspector Henderson. In her place was someone quiet and pensive.

I had a hundred questions for her, but I wasn’t about to ask them until she gave me a clue about what all she knew or suspected. And so, as we hailed a cab, I just told her, “I’d like to go with you to make sure you get home okay,” and she didn’t argue like she normally would. She just gave a sharp nod and remained lost in her thoughts. The taxi driver seemed incline to argue about having a dog as dirty as Jericho inside his vehicle, but one look from Lois shut him up.

We arrived at her apartment building, and Jericho and I walked her up.

“Would you like to come in?” she asked.

Part of me wanted to—I knew we needed to talk, as it was either that or explode—but another part of me said I should run as far away as I could and never return. However, I listened to the first part and told her, “Sure.”

When Lois opened the door, Jericho rushed in like he owned the place.

“Stay off the furniture,” I warned him, and he simply walked around sniffing at corners and plants.

Lois and I sat on the couch, and she finally broke the silence. “I’m assuming your dog and Superman’s are the same?”

The urge to deny hit me, but Lois wasn’t stupid, and if I denied this, then I would basically be putting an end to our friendship. “Yes,” I admitted. “I was . . . keeping him for Superman.”

“And the black ears and tail?”

I winced. “Dye.”

“He must have a great sense of smell if he was able to track you all the way to Luthor’s.”

“Yeah. He does.” It wasn’t a complete lie—Jericho did have a great sense of smell, even if that hadn’t been how he had found me. But I couldn’t admit the existence of the homing beacon—if I did, she would wonder why I was wearing the watch that activated the beacon, and there would be no hiding the Superman connection then.

“Well, I guess we should go ahead and write up the story.” She stood and moved toward her laptop.

“You aren’t going to out my dog, are you?” The words hadn’t come out exactly as I had wanted to, but my tone must have been pitiful, as Lois’s face softened slightly before becoming a blank mask.

“No. I won’t. But I’m doing it more for Superman than for you. You should have trusted me.”

I didn’t know what to say to that, so I just said, “I’m sorry.” I stared at her for a few seconds, and she looked sadly back at me. “Why were you with . . . Krypto?”

She looked down at her hands. “I was . . . coming to talk to you. I knocked on your door and heard him whimpering anxiously. So, I picked the lock, and I found the note you left in his collar.”

“You should have called the police, Lois. That was dangerous.”

“And you should have told me about Krypto,” she returned. “I wish you had trusted me.”

She sounded so hurt that it hurt me. I wanted to take her in my arms—once a place I had kept off limits to everyone—and apologize for all the pain she was going through. But I couldn’t explain my reasons for keeping Jericho’s identity as Krypto a secret, so I asked her, “What were you coming to talk to me about?”

“It doesn’t matter,” she whispered. “We should work on the story.”

“Okay . . . ” I wanted to know more, but I didn’t want to press her. It sounded as if she had wanted to tell me something important—but what? Had she just wanted to come confess her love for Superman? Had she wanted to talk to me about Luthor? I wasn’t sure. And she didn’t seem to want to give me the answers.

Though there was still a great distance between us, we managed to get the story written up and emailed to Perry.

“Tomorrow, we should work on helping Henderson gather evidence against Lex,” Lois noted in a no-nonsense tone. The sadness that had been afflicting her earlier might have appeared to be gone to an untrained eye—but I could still see it hovering beneath the service.

“Lois—are you okay?” I asked gently. I didn’t think she needed to come in the next day, but I wasn’t about to go into that.

“Of course I’m okay. Why wouldn’t I be okay? I just almost married a psychopath, but I’m fine. Everything’s all fine here. All fine.” And then she was sobbing and I was gathering her into my arms.

I rested my cheek against her soft hair as she cried into my chest. “How could I have such t-terrible judgment? I pride myself in my ability to know people—to scent out their s-secrets. How could I have missed something this big?”

It was all I could do to keep myself from stiffening. If she was reacting like this right now, how would she react if she found out I was Superman?

Well, that was simple enough to remedy. She could never know. The connection between Jericho and Krypto was as close as I could let her come. No matter how much I wanted to bare my soul to her, I never could.

When she was finally finished with her release, she pulled away from me. “Go home, Clark. I’ll be fine.”

Not understanding why she was suddenly pushing me away, I said, “Lois—”

“Really, Clark. Go.”

I stared at her for a few seconds, wanting to brush away those last few tears. But after looking at the stubborn jut of her chin, I moved toward the door and called out in a low voice, “Come on, Jericho.”

The dog got up from where he was curled up on the floor and stretched, his tongue curling upward in a yawn. Obediently, he padded over to my side.

I opened the door, only to pause when I heard Lois say, “Oh—your locket.”

I turned toward her. She held out the necklace in her palm, and I took it from her and put it around my neck. I stared into her dark brown eyes, making wishes I could never let come true, and then I left. After I shut the door, I could hear her break down into sobs once again.