House of Luthor - Matchmaker Style
Rated PG-13
*Word* is for emphasis
<"word"> is thoughts
/*word*/ audiotape playback
Previously
That evening Clark drove out to Perry's fishing cabin.
By mutual agreement the task force was using Perry's fishing cabin as their meeting place. When Clark had arrived it was deserted. Letting himself in he had settled to wait. It wasn't too long until he heard a car drive up. A few minutes later, Perry entered.
As soon as he was in the door, Clark asked, "Well, how did it go?"
When he entered the door, Perry was carrying a large case. Perry set the case down, took off his Panama hat, hung it on a peg next to the door and sat down before he answered. "Every member of the Daily Planet's old Board of Director's is ducking me." He pointed to the case he had carried in and said, "I did get hold of the transcript of the session where they decided to sell to Luthor." Perry looked around, making sure they were alone before he spoke again, "Instinct tells me they're hiding something." He considered his next statement for a second. "What I need is leverage."
"We'll have to wait and see what Lois sent. Jimmy should have that with him when he arrives."
"I'm sure that everyone will be hungry when they get here." So saying, to kill some time, Perry started cooking. He put a large pot on the burner and then started collecting his ingredients. He decided on a Cajun recipe that was a favorite of his.
While Clark arranged his notes, Perry was busy at the stove. He had all of the burners going with various concoctions simmering as he stirred the contents of a large pot.
Finally, Clark's curiosity got the better of him and he asked, "What's cookin'"
"My own Crawfish Etouffee recipe. I hope you like it spicy."
Clark snickered and said, "If you can cook it, I can eat it."
Just then, Jimmy and Jack entered. A few minutes later, Bill Henderson drove up.
As they watched, Perry poured in a batch of crawfish that he had prepared. They popped and sizzled as they hit the pot.
Jimmy and Jack exchanged a look and Jack stuttered out, "I uh, I, I'm not really hungry. I just ate."
Not willing to take no for an answer, Perry said, "You'll eat again." As he was speaking he was continuing to add ingredients. He narrated as he did, "You gotta use the sweet paprika, not the regular. And cayenne pepper, plenty of it. 'Course the secret is the apple juice, half a cup."
As he finished speaking, Bill entered and Perry announced, "Supper is ready. Grab a plate and fill-em up."
Jimmy and Jack looked at the concoction warily, but being hungry they were willing to give it a try. They had each loaded their plates after Clark and Perry. Before dipping in his spoon, Jimmy looked over at Clark and saw him take a mouthful, chew and swallow as if nothing was out of the ordinary. Encouraged by this, Jimmy took a spoonful and brought it to his nose. Taking a deep sniff he detected a fishy aroma and then thrust the spoon into his mouth. He instantly regretted his decision as a five-alarm blaze seemed to ignite in his mouth. Quickly chewing and swallowing he grabbed a glass of water in an attempt to quench the fire that started in his mouth and traveled all the way down his throat to his stomach. Looking down he was surprised to see that his shirt hadn't combusted.
Jack was only in marginally better shape and that was only because he had taken less on his spoon. Once he had drunk a quantity of water he choked out, "What's in that stuff, carbolic acid?"
Perry was laughing and Clark was having a hard time not doing the same. Perry replied, "That's just an old Cajun recipe. It'll put hair on your chests."
"More like burn off what hair I have," Quipped Jimmy.
Everyone, including the usually taciturn, Bill Henderson laughed at that.
And now
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Chapter 5
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Once they were finished eating Clark started cleaning the dishes while Bill, Jack, Jimmy and Perry started a council of war.
Perry started it off. "Every member of the Daily Planet's old Board of Director's is ducking me." He pointed at the overstuffed case he had brought in and said, "I did get hold of the transcript of the session where they decided to sell to Luthor." Reaching up he tapped his nose with a forefinger and said, "Something smells. Instinct tells me they're hiding something." Shaking his head he said, "What I need is leverage. According to the transcript, the board initially voted to reject Luthor's offer to buy the Planet. Then, suddenly, they all changed their minds. In the transcript there is no recording of any discussion to explain the change though. They're all also driving new Ferraris."
Jack said, "I might be able to help with that one."
"How is that?"
Picking up the video-camera, he said, "Let me hook this up for playback and I'll show you."
That was when Jimmy distributed the sheets.
Perry's interest was piqued and as Jimmy passed out the prints, he said, "Oh?"
Jack smiled and replied, "A picture is worth a thousand words and believe me, this is a mint."
As soon as Bill had the pictures in hand he started looking at them with a critical, detective's trained eye. Looking at the first picture, Bill asked, "Whose apartment is this?"
"Pete and John Black," replied Jimmy. "They're the ones that really built the bombs that were used to destroy the Planet. That is their bomb making setup there, on that table. Is that enough to give you probable cause to get a warrant?"
"How did you get the pictures?"
"We were able to look in from the fire-escape."
Bill sought confirmation, "You didn't break in to take these pictures?"
"Didn't need to. Just looked in from the fire-escape."
Thoughtfully, Bill nodded. "I'll send out a team from our special group to round them up and collect the evidence. Maybe they'll give up who hired them."
"I may be able to help with that too." Jimmy said, "That's not all I have. As we were leaving, we ran into John Black. He apparently had never seen either me or Jack. We pretended to be a couple of small time crooks looking to make a score." Jimmy pulled out a micro cassette player from his pocket. Just before he hit play he said, "We offered him a percentage of our pay if he would give us a contact. Listen to this."
The first voice was Jimmy, /*"Can you help us out here?"*/
An unrecognizable voice replied. Jimmy pushed pause, "That is John Black."
He pushed play again, /*"Yeah, I think I can. What will be my percentage?"*/
/*"How about twenty percent?"*/
/*"Twenty-five."*/
/*"Okay, twenty-five. Now, where is this gold mine?"*/
/*"The chick's name is Angelica Cox. I don't know who she works for, but I think it might be none other than The Boss. She paid me to build several bombs. She even provided the materials. All I had to do was assemble them. She didn't say what they were for, but I think I know. You heard about the Daily Planet building? Those looked like my bombs."*/
/*"How did you keep from being caught?"*/
/*"I just built the bombs. They can't even be traced to me because she provided the fixin's. She picked them up and delivered them."*/
/*"How do we get hold of her?"*/
/*"She gave me a number … I think it's a cell phone, untraceable. Here's the number."*/
Bill listened attentively and when the recording was finished, he said, "Well, that cinches it. He knew enough detail about the incident that he is unquestionably involved. We will pick him and his brother up, if not later today then tomorrow."
Clark interrupted, "Might I suggest that you do it under the cover of darkness?"
"Good idea, Clark. We've come too far to take a chance of someone seeing something."
Jimmy handed Bill the cassette which Bill quickly stuffed into his pocket. As he did, he added, "Make sure you have the back covered. Remember, his room has a fire-escape. I'm sure he picked that room for a quick exit."
Jimmy pulled out a card in a plastic bag which he handed over to Bill. "This is the number he gave me. I tried not to handle it any more than necessary so that I wouldn't smear his prints."
Bill took it and replied, "Trying for a spot on our crime scene unit?"
While Jimmy had been talking, Jack had hooked up a video-camera to the TV for playback.
Before he started the playback, Perry thumbed through the stack of pictures and documents until he came to the pages with the later dates. He blurted out, "Would ya look at that! Every single member of the Daily Planet Board of Directors is on this list." He gave a whistle of amazement, "Would you look at the dollar figures associated with each of them, WOW! No wonder they voted to sell out. They were already bought and paid for. Judas Priest, I wish I had them here right now. I'd tell them a thing or two."
Clark asked, "How can we use this information?"
In reply, Jack said, "Chief, I got something, too. This might just be that leverage you mentioned." Before he pushed the play button he revealed what he had been researching. He said, "Mr. Simon Truesdale, former Daily Planet board member, has had a sudden attack of conscience. He's now willing to confess to receiving a substantial cash 'inducement', I think he called it, to support the sale of the Planet to Luthor." He played the recording.
Off screen could be heard Jack's voice asking the question, "Why did you choose to vote to sell the Planet to Luthor?"
Truesdale responded, "Luthor assured us that if we didn't sell the Planet to him that our ad revenue was going to tank. He had total control of our advertisers and that they would do whatever he told them to do. He cited the recent downturn in ad revenue as evidence of his manipulation. After the damage done to the building during that criminal heist we needed to dip into our cash reserves to repair and replace equipment and facilities. When we approached the banks we usually deal with to procure some operating capitol, they refused. Luthor was gloating as he told us that he was also in control of the banks. Because of the amount of money he had on deposit, both corporately and personally they would do whatever he told them to do. He pointed out that he could drive all of our advertisers away and he could force the Planet into bankruptcy. If he did that, all of our stock would be worthless. We'd all be destitute."
/*"Once he had told you that, what other inducements did he provide?"*/
/*"Luthor was most generous. He offered cash compensation to each of us if we would vote to sell to him. After some haggling on our part which had no effect on Luthor, we acceded to his demands …"*/
After viewing the recording, Perry said, "That confirms the money transactions we saw in the ledger."
Jimmy asked, "Any particular reason for this 'sudden attack of conscience'?"
Jack smiled and replied, "I thought you'd never ask. It might be related to an earlier portion of the video tape he's hoping his wife never receives."
Perry let out a whoosh and said, "Poor woman."
Jack rewound the tape to its beginning, snickered and replied, "She wouldn't be after the divorce settlement." Jack pushed the play button and they all watched his philandering with the beautiful young woman and then witnessed his recorded testimony again.
Jimmy asked, "What about you, Chief?"
Perry grabbed his satchel and pulled out some papers. He said, "Lex has maintained that the Daily Planet building was under-insured and that he couldn't afford to rebuild. Well, now, Lexel Investments
did have additional insurance on the Daily Planet building." Perry paused.
Jack acting the straight man, asked, "How much?"
Perry, with an I-told-you-so tone said, "About twice what it would've cost to repair it." He paused to let that sink in and then gave the figures, "Lex Luthor cleared a cool seventy-five mil on the deal."
Jimmy said, in an awed tone, "That's motive. He's nailed."
Bill replied, "That's not only motive, it's also insurance fraud. We can now add that to the list."
Bill started leafing through the rest of the documents. After printing the pictures, Jimmy had used a regular copy machine to make the copies.
"By the number length and sequencing, I'd say that these have to be Swiss and Cayman Island account numbers. We will start the process of freezing them. We will have to have everything in place so that they can all be hit at the same time, but it can't be too soon. That would ruin our play."
"Can we have everything ready in one week? That's when the wedding is scheduled and we want to give Luthor his surprise wedding present."
Bill thought for a second before saying, "Yeah, I think so. Yeah, one way or another we'll have everything in place. Because of the security we have to work under, I've been in direct negotiations with upper echelons. I'll make sure that everything is in place." Bill thought for a second and then asked, "Do I need to ask where all of this came from?"
Clark's reply was one word, "Lois."
Shaking his head, Bill asked, "I wish I knew how she did it."
With a chuckle, Clark replied, "No, you don't."
Agreeing, Bill said, "You're probably right. I'm better off not knowing, but she was sure running a big risk to get this stuff."
"I'll pass along your concern the next time I see her."
Bill pointed to a list of names and said, "I recognize some of these names. Most of them are small time hoods with rap sheets as long as your arm. I can start bringing them in for questioning."
"I don't think you should be doing that just yet. If Luthor somehow finds out that people that have been on his payroll are starting to go missing, he might become suspicious."
"We did all right with Toni Taylor and Miranda. Don't forget we have St. John too."
"Those were special cases. We were able to fake the deaths of the two women and we made it look like Nigel skipped town. We don't want to push our luck."
Jimmy, in a desultory tone said, "This is all great, of course, but the problem is none of it'll bring back the Planet."
Perry started to wax philosophical and related an Elvis yarn, "Elvis, first recording session for Sam Phillips, June of '54 it was, didn't turn out too well, but darned if he wasn't back in that studio in July and turning out his first couple of hits."
Jimmy commented, "I just know there's a point to this story."
Perry smiled and said, "You bet there is. Elvis didn't give up, we won't either. We have a lot on him. We just need a little more."
Jimmy nodded and said, "Got it."
Perry started to issue his orders, "Jimmy, I want you to start researching these accounts. These show the disbursements, but we need to show that they all received the money. Jack, can you help Jimmy with that?"
Jack replied, "Only one can work on the computer at a time. I was thinking I'd try to find another board member."
"Sounds good to me. The more we have the better."
"Bill, what are you going to do?"
"I'm going to have a team pick up the Black brothers then I'm going to start checking on some of these other names on his list."
Jack said, "Let me see that list." Jimmy handed him a copy and he went through it carefully. When he finished he said, "Whew, my name isn't here. I guess it wouldn't be. He paid cash for the globe. There is an entry for $1000 made out as a cash disbursement. That must have been me. That's a relief. There's no paper trail leading to me."
Perry asked, "Clark, how about you?"
"I'm trying to keep an eye on Lois. If she gets into a jam I want to be there to get her out."
Bill offered, "That's a full time job in itself."
Clark replied, "Don't I know it."
Perry said, "All right, I guess we all have our assignments. Let's get to it. We'll meet back here tomorrow night.
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