Superman and The Shadow Matchmaker Chronicles Volume 0.5 11/26
Rated PG-13
/ “text”/ indicates telepathic communication
*text* indicates bold
<text> indicates thoughts
{text} indicates over the telephone
Universal Locator designation Alpha 023 x Gamma 004 x Tau -120 – Prime
Universal Locator designation Alpha 025 x Gamma - 086 x Tau 142 Alt 25 Shadow
Preeviously
Shrevvy helped Lois carry her purchases into the apartment. She said, “Thank you, Shrevvy.”
He replied, “Any time, Miss Lane, any time,” as he left.
Lamont was there, listening to a news broadcast on the radio as she entered. “Well, did you get everything you needed, my dear?”
“You were right. Shrevvy knew exactly where to go. Yes, I got everything. I should be ready for tonight. Oh, and I checked at Memorial, Dwayne Powers is there every other night.”
“What do you intend to be doing tonight?”
“While you are playing decoy, I’m going to be watching. Hopefully I’ll see where the shot comes from and I can see who the shooter is.”
“I must say, that isn’t what Margot would be doing. Usually I would have her monitoring the radio.”
“I’m not Margot and I think that I can be more useful spotting than sitting there monitoring the radio. Besides, this is what I do. I can’t tell you the number of all-night stakeouts I’ve done.”
“This is what you do as an investigator?”
“You bet your sweet, uh … next week’s pay, that’s what I do.”
“Well, all right. You seem to have assigned your own job on this stakeout. Please, just stay out of trouble.”
With a snicker she replied, “No promises. Trouble and I are old friends.”
“I can’t promise that I will be there to get you out.”
“Just like Clark. Look, I was getting myself into and out of trouble long before I met either of you.”
“Okay, I was just saying…”
“Trust me. I can take care of myself.”
“If you say so.”
“I say so. Let’s eat. I’m starved.”
He chuckled and said, “It should be on the way up. I hope you like fillet of sole.”
“Love it. Let me put these things away and I’ll be ready to eat.”
And now:
The links will take you to youtube videos of the music. Listen in the background. It will give you the flavor of the period.
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Chapter 11 –
New York 1937
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Universal Locator designation
Alpha 025 x Gamma - 086 x Tau 142 Shadow
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Shortly before 6:30 Lamont turned on the radio and allowed it to warm up. At 6:30 he tuned in to the station he broadcast from and they listened to his message.
“That should convince him that I will be on my way to Albany to protect the governor. I have the decoy prepared. We will leave shortly for 42nd street.”
Lois smiled then and replied, “I guess I need to change clothes, but first, I need to check my tools.”
“Tools?”
Grabbing her bag, she reached in and pulled out her compact binoculars. They were more powerful than opera glasses, but almost as compact. Removing the lens caps she used them to look around the room, checking the focus. Then she pulled out her camera. As she switched it on, she muttered, “Oh, what was I thinking? They won’t be able to develop this film. It is a modern emulsion.”
When she had pulled out the binoculars it hadn’t been anything too strange to Lamont. Binoculars were nothing new, but when she pulled out her camera and turned it on, that caused a stir. Seeing the compactness of the camera, and the lens extend at the press of a switch, his curiosity was aroused. “That’s a camera?”
Lois knew that she would have to explain, “Yes, auto-wind, auto-focus, and auto f-stop, built-in flash with color film.”
“Amazing, it is like something Doc. Savage would have. He has many advanced devices like that.”
Reaching into her bag again, she pulled out her mini-recorder. Clicking on the record button, she said, “Please do your laugh.”
He complied, “HAhahahahahahahah.”
She hit stop, rewind and play. From the speaker, he heard, “HAhahahahahahahah,” in perfect tonal reproduction.
He was shocked, “Amazing!”
“It’s a miniature tape recorder.”
“We use records or wire recorders, but they are rather larger.”
“The principle is the same as the wire recorder. It produces magnetic impressions, but on a tape rather than a wire.”
“The wire in a wire recorder is often subject to tangling. You can get what appears to be miles of wire all tangled up and it will represent perhaps ten minutes of the recording.”
“Not a problem with a tape like this.” She handed it to him to inspect.
As he turned it over and over in his hands examining all of the meters and buttons, he muttered, “Amazing device,” before handing it back to her.
Lois put it back in her bag and finished checking her ‘tools.’ As she headed for the bedroom, she said, “I guess it’s time to change clothes.”
“I need to change also. I must put on my own disguise. We shall meet here in the living room when we are both prepared.”
Once in the bedroom, Lois picked up the first bag and pulled out her new black slacks and laid them out on the bed. Next she pulled out a lightweight, black turtleneck top and laid it next to the slacks. From a third bag, she pulled black socks, gloves and a ski mask. This she shoved into her bag along with her ‘tools’ and laid the socks on the bed. The shoes she placed on the floor. After removing her skirt and top she donned the new clothes. She selected a black skirt and put that on over the slacks. Then she rolled up the legs of the slacks so that no one would even know that she had them on. She emptied her bag and turned it inside out. She’d had the bag custom made. It was bi-color and had two straps. The straps could be kept inside the bag or used over the shoulder. Once the bag was inside out, she had a black bag with a black strap which she loaded almost all of her tools back into. She didn’t replace the camera or the recorder. She placed the ski mask and gloves in the bag. All of the rest of the items could be explained, but that advanced technology would be impossible to explain if she were to be stopped by the police. Throwing the strap of her bag over her shoulder, she said to herself, “All set to go,” moved to the door and crossed into the living room.
Seeing that Lamont wasn’t there as yet, she crossed to the radio and turned it on. Once the tubes had a chance to heat up she heard some music. The piano had a heavy, rhythmic left hand while the right tickled the keys. That alternated with the rest of the band following the same theme. At the end, the announcer identified the piece as Tommy Dorsey’s ‘
Boogie Woogie’. That was followed by a very up-tempo swing number by Count Basie, “
Jumpin at the Woodside.” Just as a sax solo was finishing, Lamont came out dressed in a policeman’s uniform. His face was made up so well that if Lois hadn’t known it was Lamont, she wouldn’t have recognized him.
Lamont, who was something of an authority on the effectiveness of black clothing helping to conceal one in the darkness, when he saw her attire he said, “That outfit should do nicely. I’ll need to recommend something like that to Margot when she returns ...” his voice fell in volume as he finished, “if she returns.” As he was speaking, he crossed to the cabinet and removed his cloak and hat. These he placed in a satchel and closed it. “I have made arrangements for Shrevvy to pick you up. I need to transport certain items. I have already placed them in my car. I will meet you there.”
“This afternoon, Shrevvy shadowed me whenever I was out of the car. If he does that tonight, it could cramp my style. It would be better if he stayed with the car.”
Lamont crossed to, picked up the phone and dialed. He heard, {Burbank}
“Orders, relay to Shrevvy that he is to obey Miss Lane’s orders to the letter even though they may seem unusual.”
{Will do.}
He turned to Lois and said, “Done.”
“Okay, I guess I’m ready to go then. Where shall we meet after?”
“We can meet back here. If there is any change, have Shrevvy use the radio to call in to Burbank. He can then contact me.”
As she headed for the door, she said, “Okay. See you later.”
When she exited the building, Shrevvy was there waiting for her. He opened the back door for her and then climbed into the front.
“Shrevvy, we need to go back to West 42nd Street, where we were before.”
“Sure teng, Miss Lane. I’ll have you dere in a jiff.” Starting the cab he pulled out into traffic.
Lois was thanking her luck stars that it was an overcast evening and also that it wasn’t high summer when it didn’t get dark until around 9 PM. It meant that by the time they got to their destination she should be able to find some shadows to hide in.
After a time, Shrevvy pulled into a parking space and parked.
Before getting out, Lois surveyed the area. The heightened police presence was evident. There were guards at the door, in a car across the street and at each corner. She thought to herself, <Hopefully they won’t even look twice at me since they are looking for Powers.>
When she finished her survey, she made to get out of the cab and Shrevvy prepared to do the same and follow her. She forestalled that by saying, “Thanks, Shrevvy, but this time I want you to stay with the car. This is a one person job.” She opened her own door and exited the vehicle.
As she passed his door, she heard him say, “Good luck, Miss Lane. If youz need me, just holler.”
She paused and said, “Thanks, Shrevvy, I’ll keep that in mind.” She quickly crossed the street and made her way to go past 348.
Shrevvy watched her as she went, but quickly lost sight of her in the gloom. He muttered, “I hope she’s okay. The Boss won’t like it if she gets hoit.”
As Lois was crossing the street, she saw a black sedan pull up to the doors of 348 and a policeman climb out. She realized that it must be Lamont. He was stopped by the police at the door, but he showed them something. Whatever it was that he showed them, must have convinced them because he was allowed past. She paused until he was inside, then she crossed by the doors greeting the guards as she passed and continued on to the corner of the building. She pulled out and donned the ski mask and gloves, rolled down her pants legs, found a dark corner with a vantage of both the short building and the taller apartment building beyond and took up her station. She thought to herself, <I wonder how long this will take. If it will be a long time I might regret not bringing some coffee with me. It would have been a lot better if I’d had Clark here to talk to.>
Things were very quiet. The traffic on 48th lessened until there was only a car every minute or so. It was as black as pitch, but with her binoculars, she could see the windows of the apartment building clearly.
After what seemed like half the night, but which was actually only an hour and a half she saw the lights suddenly go off in an apartment on the sixth floor of the apartment building. She swung her binoculars in that direction. Just as she centered her glasses on the window, she saw what had to be the barrel of a rifle come out of the window. She noted where on the sixth floor so that she could find it after the fact. While she was watching, suddenly there was the flash of a rifle shot. The sound reached her a second later, but in the flash, she had seen what she had needed to see, a man’s face. It was hard to tell, but the face looked somewhat pale.
She hoped that Lamont had been able to set up his decoy in time and that he was uninjured. Stuffing her binoculars back into her bag, she ripped off her ski mask and gloves, stuffed them in the bag and ran for the doors of the apartment building. As she ran, she shifted the strap of her bag so that it was across her body. She knew that it wouldn’t be long until the police arrived at this building and that she would have to hurry. All appeared to be quiet when she got to the doors. She looked around and noted that the police that had been on the corners had deserted their posts and run for 348. Nodding to herself, she let herself in. Taking the self-service elevator to the sixth floor, she checked on the alignment of the doors on that side of the building.
Finding the apartment that she believed to have been used, she knocked and received no answer. She knocked again with the same result. She tried the doorknob and was rewarded by it turning in her hand. She pushed the door open slightly and shouted, “Hello! Hello! Anybody at home?”
She heard a thumping sound and opening the door wide, stepped in, clicked on the light switch and listened. The thumping was repeated so she followed the sound to a bedroom. She knocked on the door and repeated her earlier hail, “Hello! Anybody here?”
She was rewarded by a more frantic thumping sound in reply. Opening the door, she saw a body writhing on the floor. She flipped on the light switch and made out that it was a woman, bound and gagged with a pillow case over her head. She crossed to her and removed the pillow case. At first there was fear in her eyes, but when she saw Lois, she settled down.
Lois said, “Let me get you out of these ropes.” The first thing she did was to remove the gag. As soon as she had, she asked, “What’s your name?”
“Mrs. Lake, Mrs. Frank Lake.”
Delving into her bag, she pulled out her Swiss Army knife. She opened the main blade and as she went to work on the cords, she asked, “Who did this to you?”
“I don’t know, but he looked weird. He was deathly pale, like he hadn’t been in the sun, for a long time.”
“How did he do this to you? What happened?”
“I was expecting my husband and when there was a knock on the door, I answered it. When I opened the door, he was standing there. It scared me so much, I must have fainted. The next thing I knew, I was bound and gagged. I heard what sounded like a gunshot then the door slammed. The next thing I knew, you showed up.”
Lois muttered to herself, “He must have gone out the back way because I came in the front and I didn’t see him.” Addressing the woman she asked, “Do you think you could describe this man to the police?”
“I sure can. I could never forget that face. It’s going to haunt my nightmares for months.”
“What’d he look like?”
“He was about medium height with brown hair. He had wide set eyes and pretty large ears, but the main thing was his pallor. He was almost as white as a sheet.” As she was speaking, she was rubbing her chaffed wrists and followed Lois back into the living room.
Lois moved to the window that the shot had been taken from and examined the area. There was a table that had obviously been moved in front of it to be used as a shooting rest. On it she saw some white powder. Bending down close she sniffed, gently. She picked up a distinctive odor. She said to the woman, “Don’t move or disturb anything. Tell the police what you told me.”
The woman asked, “Do you think it was Powers? I’ve been reading the papers and from what they have said, it sure sounds like him. Dead, but walkin’ around like that.”
“I don’t know. Like I said, the police should be here shortly, report it.”
“Just who are you, anyway?”
“Oh, I’m just someone that was passing by and heard you thumping on the floor.”
“You aren’t from this building. Why were you here? You act more like a cop than an innocent bystander.”
Knowing that the police should be getting over their shock and be starting to check for the shooter’s crow’s nest, Lois decided that it was past time to leave. She turned and said, “I really need to be going. Don’t forget to tell the police everything.” She heard the elevator grind into motion. Mrs. Lake stared after her as she fled down the corridor and entered the stairwell.
She took the stairs to the ground floor an as she was exiting the building she was stopped by an officer who asked, “Where do you think you’re going?”
Thinking quickly, she replied, “I had called for a cab. I’m supposed to be meeting my boyfriend.” She pointed down the street at Shrevvy’s cab and said, “There he is.”
He asked suspiciously, “What’s in the bag?”
“Not much.”
“Let’s see.”
Lois offered the bag to him. He opened it and rummaged around for a second. He was satisfied when he didn’t find a firearm and handed the bag back. As he did, he apologized, “Sorry, we can’t be too careful. There has been another shooting.”
Hoping for a negative answer, she asked, “Oh? Anyone hurt?”
“No! That’s the strangest thing. Someone got the target out and set up a decoy. It was the decoy that was shot. Okay, you can go.”
She said, “Thanks, officer,” and quickly crossed the street. Once on the opposite sidewalk, she made her way back to the cab. She startled Shrevvy when she opened the door because he had been looking for her on the opposite sidewalk.
“Geeze, Miss Lane, you startled me. How’d it go?”
“It went fine, Shrevvy, just fine. Let’s go back to the apartment.”
“Sure teng, Miss Lane. I’ll have you dere in a jiff.” Starting the cab he pulled out into the street. As he did, he said, “Did you find what youz was lookin’ for?”
She smiled and said, “Sort of. I missed him. He must have gone down the fire stairs while I was going up in the elevator.”
“Who went down the stairs?”
“The shooter.”
“I’m sure glad youz wasn’t hoit. The Boss wouldn’t have liked it if I had let that happen.”
“So am I, Shrevvy, so am I and you don’t need to worry. You were following my orders. It was my responsibility.”
“Still, I feel like I wasn’t doin’ my job.”
“You did just fine, Shrevvy. No harm to anyone.” While Shrevvy drove, Lois took a few minutes to write up the description she had been given by Mrs. Lake. She also wrote down what she had observed.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
In a short time they were back at the apartment. Lois took a few minutes to dump her bag, turn it right side out and refill it and then she went into the living room to wait. Crossing to the side table she discovered that all of the fixings for coffee were already there, so she prepared a pot.
It was almost half an hour before Lamont made his appearance. When he did, it wasn’t in the disguise he had left in, but as Lamont. As soon as he was in the door, he crossed to the cabinet and removing his hat and cloak from the satchel, returned them to it then he went to the side table and poured himself a cup of coffee.
Carrying it over to a chair, he sat and sipped before asking, “How did your mission go?”
Lois pulled out her notes and read them. She had the name, the apartment number, the description of the shooter, how he had used a table as a shooting stand and one final piece of information, “I don’t know how thorough the police are so they might miss this clue. On the table I discovered some white powder. I smelled it and detected a distinctive odor - baby powder. Whoever he is, he’s using talcum to give himself the pallor you would expect on a dead body. That tells me that it was a person that is very much alive doing the shooting.”
“I agree with you, Lo, uh, Margot. Yes, we are not dealing with a ghost at all. Now we just have to discover who it is. I do have a possibility.”
“Oh, who?”
“While you were shopping yesterday, I had an opportunity to compare the sign-in sheets for the hospital to the dates of the killings.”
“And?”
“And, the killings correspond to the dates that Dwayne Powers
was in the hospital. Most people would think that being in the hospital would be an alibi.”
“It would all depend on what kind of check the staff makes during the night. They indicated that they do check up on him.”
“It might be a good idea for The Shadow to pay Dwayne Powers a visit in his hospital room tomorrow night. By the sign in sheets he checks himself in at around 6 PM. The Shadow should be there at 7 PM.”
“While you do that, I’ll try to get ‘my father’ to safety.”
“How will you do that? You don’t know this Sam Lane; he’s a perfect stranger to you.”
“I’ll just have to try and bluff my way through. He can’t be there if the shooter tries his luck again. He missed his last target so he’ll be doubly anxious to make the hit.”
“I’ll have to trust your instincts. That paid off tonight. That was good work, interviewing Mrs. Lake and investigating the scene.”
Lois shrugged it off by saying, “All in a day’s work. Nothing unusual.”
“I don’t know if Margot could have done as well.”
“If she’s anything like me, all she needs is for you to give her some direction. Let her know what you want and see how she handles it.”
“I might just try that, once she is back.”
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