Perry sat in his office chair, too stunned to stand. He could not believe what he was hearing from the Daily Planet’s three best investigators. “Allie Dianello wasn’t murdered?” he asked.
“Hit-and-run accident,” answered Cat.
“No problem with the fights?”
“Not that we could find,” sighed Clark.
“And you had the District Attorney for the city of Metropolis come to our office for nothing?”
Lois looked at the DA. Mayson Drake stood staring through the window with her arms crossed. “Yes, we did,” Lois admitted. “I’m sorry.”
“And Max Menken gets away with murder,” Mayson said. “Literally.”
Lois fidgeted in her chair. “I know you don’t have enough evidence to get an indictment—”
“If we put what we have together with what you really have, we might,” Mayson snapped.
Perry looked at his team of reporters, then focused on Clark. “Kent, you’re the newest member of this club. I need you to be honest with me. Are you three bluffing on this, or are you playing this hand straight?”
Clark looked at Cat, who refused to make eye contact with him. Then he looked at Lois, who seemed to silently ask him something. He finally looked back at Perry, his face a mask of passivity. “I’m going with my partners on this one, Chief.”
Lois sighed and looked at her hands. Cat gave Perry a challenging stare but didn’t speak. Mayson finally broke the silence. “This was not a reasonable use of my time, people. I suggest you think twice before you ask the DA’s office for any consideration more serious than fixing a parking ticket.” She turned and glared at Cat. “And you’d better think twice before you use my home as a safe house again.”
She slung her purse over her shoulder and marched out the door without another word.
Perry tossed the story the three reporters had given him onto his desk. “That woman’s right. We wasted her time. We had a ten-high nothing and we put money in the pot against three aces showing. If Mayson bothers to give us the time of day for the next six months, I’ll head to Vegas as an Elvis tribute artist.”
“Perry, I—”
“Save it, Lois.” He sighed and shook his head. “Now I’ve got to tell the board of directors that we don’t have a terrific angle for the fights on Saturday. And I’m really not lookin’ forward to that conversation.”
Clark lifted an index finger. “Uh, I may be able to help there. I have a Superman angle.”
Perry leaned forward. “For the fights?”
“Yes.”
Lois glared at him. “And when were you going to share that little tidbit with Cat and me?”
“I haven’t had the chance, okay? The source I met this morning was Superman. I scored an interview with him and got his tentative commitment to fight the winners of each fight Saturday evening.” He looked at Cat’s open mouth and rapid blinks, then glanced at Lois’ sudden anger, and said, “That’s the big seller, that Superman participates in the fights.”
Perry looked at Lois’ welder’s torch-level stare and was glad that it was directed at Clark and not at him. Of course, he couldn’t show how relieved he was that this was so. He glanced at Cat, who had moved back to allow Mayson to leave and hadn’t come forward again.
Why did she look like she was trying not to smile?
Didn’t matter. “Clark, you get that story into shape and get it to me by two-thirty. No, make it two-ten. I’ll hold fifteen column inches open for it for tonight’s edition, and I know I’ll catch grief from the print room for pushing back the deadline that far. Lois, I’ve got your story, such as it is. Cat, you give Clark any assistance you can on his mini-feature.” He stopped talking for a long moment, then growled, “Why are you all still in my office? Get going!”
Perry watched Cat lead them out with Clark bringing up the rear. Clark closed the door and spoke quietly to Lois, whose expression softened after a moment. Then she nodded. The two of them gave each other shy smiles as they moved back to their desks. Cat, in contrast to her determined expression just moments before, looked almost forlorn.
Perry wondered for a moment about their three-way dynamic and whether or not he was reading it correctly, that Clark and Lois were feeling their hesitant way toward each other and leaving Cat as the outsider. Or, maybe Cat was showing the early signs of bipolar disorder. Then he reminded himself that he was an editor, not a relationship counselor or a shrink.
All three of them needed to be reminded just who drove this train. He had three particular stories in mind to assign them – but maybe he’d wait until they came in the next morning. After all, Lois needed a man in her life she could love, and if that man worked on the same reporting team with her, it didn’t matter to Perry.
As long as Clark didn’t hurt her more than the others had.
*****
As the three slouched back to their desks, Lois leaned close to Cat and whispered, “Eleven tonight, my place. Wear black.”
Cat’s eyebrows rose, then she controlled her reaction and waited for Lois to look at her face. “That means we’re going spelunking again, right?”
“If we’re calling Allie’s gym a cave, then yes.”
Cat nodded, then quietly said, “We’re taking the big guy, right?”
“Absolutely. We may need some muscle.”
“You’ll fill him in?”
“He’s having dinner at my place. I’ll recruit him then.”
Cat hesitated, then mouthed, “Chinese takeout, I hope. You don’t want to poison him.”
Lois’ eyes narrowed, then the corner of her mouth twitched and she nodded. “I’m buying the food, he’s cooking. We’ll be fine. You just be there with all your gear.” She stopped at her desk. “I’m not letting Allie die for nothing.”
Cat nodded and moved to her own desk. The fake story they’d given to Perry was just a delaying tactic, a stall to lull the bad guys to sleep so the reporters could get the truth before the bad guys knew they were in trouble. It was a classic Lois tactic, one she’d used with good effect before.
Just not against Perry. Cat hoped that the move wouldn’t come back to bite them.
*****
Eleven P.M. Time to roll.
Cat hated interrupting Lois’ dinner date with Clark – sort of – but they’d both affirmed to her that tonight was a good night to do some snooping in the gym. She made her way to Lois’ apartment, hoping that she’d allowed him to cook. Lois was a fair hand with Army field rations and simple meals, but they’d never show up on a restaurant menu. Clark, on the other hand, had made some delicious dinners for Cat back at Met U, and they were always—
No! Best not to go there.
As she stepped out of the elevator onto Lois’ floor, she heard what sounded like an argument behind one of the doors. Poor kids, she thought. That relationship sounded like a train wreck waiting to happen.
The argument got louder as she approached Lois’ apartment.
It couldn’t be.
Surely he wasn’t dumb enough to make her that mad!
The words didn’t come through the door clearly, but the sharpness of the disagreement was apparent to the most casual listener. Cat was glad she was on the outside of this one.
She hesitated, then knocked on the door, fearful of what she might see.
The door flew open. “Finally!” Lois burst out. “Come in here and tell him he’s nuts!”
Cat found herself dragged inside, facing Clark, who stood in the middle of the room with his hands on his hips. “Come on, Cat,” he challenged, “tell me I’m nuts.”
Cat realized she wasn’t on the outside after all. She looked from Clark to Lois and asked, “Why am I telling Clark he’s nuts?”
“You know the John Wayne movie ‘McClintock’?” Lois snarled.
“I’ve seen it once or—”
“Then tell him he’s crazy!”
Cat closed her eyes for a moment, opened them again, and said, “Nothing is orange, not even the clock, so this must still be reality.”
The oblique “Clockwork Orange” non sequitur stopped all conversation long enough for Cat to ask, “Will just one of you please tell me how a John Wayne western movie indicates that Clark is insane?”
Lois glanced toward Clark, then, sarcastically, he half-bowed and gestured for her to talk. “We watched that movie after dinner, which was heavenly, by the way, and you can take home some leftovers if you want, and you should because Clark’s a great cook, but he also seems to think that spanking a grown woman is the way to her heart and I told him he’s nuts!”
“No! That’s not what I said. I said that the setup and resolution are funny if you put the movie in its historical and cultural context. I don’t think it’s ever okay to hit a woman with anything unless she’s trying to kill you. I never have, nor do I plan to, but that conservative audience for whom the movie was made would have thought the battle between Wayne and Maureen O’Hara was hysterical. Remember that she landed some pretty telling blows herself. And if you knew your John Wayne history better, you’d realize that the same two actors did the same basic setup and resolution in ‘The Quiet Man’ about fifteen years earlier. ‘McClintock’ set that Irish story in the late American West and added some slapstick touches.” He stopped and crossed his arms. “I’m not nuts.”
Lois had lost her ferocity during his analysis. Cat turned to her and asked, “Anything you wish to add?”
Lois dropped her gaze. “I – I’m sorry, Clark. Sometimes I still lose my temper over dumb things like that. It – I guess – it’s my – my PTSD.”
Cat slipped back out of Lois’ line of sight and signaled to Clark to hug her. He seemed reluctant at first, but then he touched her elbows and she spun like a wind-up toy and snapped her arms around him. Cat thought she heard someone whisper, “Please don’t leave me.”
She realized that Lois actually had said that when Clark pulled her as close to him as she could come while they were both still dressed and quietly said, “I’m not going anywhere, Lois. I don’t ever want to leave you.”
Well. Good. Cat didn’t have to push Clark to tell Lois what was in his heart after all.
And she hadn’t had to take sides in one of the dumbest debates she’d ever heard.
*****
The three of them arrived at the gym just before midnight. Lois parked her Jeep two blocks over and around a corner from the entrance. All three of them were wearing black slacks or jeans with black or navy-blue long-sleeved sweaters. Cat and Lois each had a small soft-sided briefcase strapped across their bodies.
Cat caught up with Lois and asked, “You’re sure we can get in the gym? Don’t they lock it at night?”
“Will you give it a rest, Red?” Lois insisted. “Yes, it’s locked up, but there’s a vent on the second floor above the back entrance that’s been loose since I was fourteen, and yes, I checked it the last time I was here. It’s still a security vulnerability.”
“I sure hope so,” Cat muttered.
“So do I,” Clark added. “If only to stop her complaining.”
“That’s enough out of you, Farm Boy.”
He grinned at Lois. “As you wish.”
Cat watched Lois out of the corner of her eye and saw a smile sneak across her face. It looked like things were going very well on that front. Lois’ hair even looked a bit longer and more feminine than it had since Cat had known her, and she hadn’t heard Lois curse at anyone for anything for weeks.
The soldier was turning back into a woman, and it was a very good thing to see.
Of course, that meant that Cat’s own meager chances with Clark were shrinking by the moment, but it was a price she thought she was willing to pay if her friend could find real happiness with this complex and heroic man. She hoped they would soon progress to a point where he trusted her enough to tell her his biggest secret, one Cat was certain Lois couldn’t see because she was too close to him.
The only real conflict between the two women wasn’t over Clark, it was Cat’s tendency to editorialize about Superman and trumpet his good works in her news columns, while Lois continually edited Cat’s copy for that kind of content. It seemed to mean that while Lois was impressed with what the hero could do, she was more impressed with the person Clark was, which was a good thing where their developing relationship was concerned.
Cat hoped Clark was smart enough to know which end of that stick was the better one.
*****
Clark gave Lois a gentle smile and hoped that the vent she’d referenced was large enough for him to fit through. It would seriously damage his dignity if he got stuck.
Clark boosted Cat, then Lois, up to the fire escape ladder – it was stuck, probably rusted in place, a perfect opportunity to send the city after them for a safety violation – then jumped and grabbed the bottom rung himself. They crept to the vent above the back door where Lois and Cat both went to work on removing the cover with their covert and borderline legal tool kits. Since there was no room for him in front of the vent cover, he stayed back and acted as lookout.
No one moved in the alley below them. A big tawny cat hunted for rodents around a dumpster, braving the city rats which were rooting through the trash for their own meals. The cat, which appeared to be a female who’d recently given birth, seemed willing to risk the mob before her to feed her kittens. It was a tableau Clark had witnessed many times in his globe-trotting, and it always impressed him irrespective of the size or number of the participants. Perhaps the Superman Foundation could set up a catch-and-neuter program for feral cats and dogs to cut down on the groups of wandering—
A grunt from behind him reminded him why they were there. “Got it,” Cat stage-whispered. “Lois knows the building better, so she should go first. Clark, you’re our rear guard. Let’s go find the truth.”
He grinned. It was a better motto than “Go Team!” for what they were doing.
He helped Cat into the vent opening, then Lois, then he followed. The gym funk hit him right away. Lois didn’t react to it, but Cat wrinkled her nose and stifled a cough. “Does it stink in here or is it just me?” Cat whisper-asked him over her shoulder.
“It isn’t just you,” he replied.
“Whatever doesn’t kill me makes me stronger,” Lois muttered.
“Glad you feel that way,” Cat quietly returned. “Me, I’m going for a scented bath when I get home. I doubt that would kill me, but even if it did, I’d die with lilacs in my olfactory sense.”
Lois took a deep breath and stood up. “Anybody hear anything besides us?” she whispered. Cat and Clark both shook their heads in the negative. “Then we’re good. Even I can hear conversations on the ground floor from here, and except for us the building’s empty.”
Clark looked around. “Then let’s find Menken’s office and have ourselves a little look-see at what he’s got in there.”
Lois’ voice came out hard and flat. “I’ll go you one better. This is my dad’s office.”
Cat tried the doorknob. “Locked. Do you have a key?”
“No.”
Cat knelt before the door with her tool kit in her hand again. “Then I got this one.”
Clark took a few seconds to look around the building again. There was no one else there, not even a security guard. It bothered him, so he asked Lois about it.
She frowned. “I don’t know, but you’re right, they should have someone walking the halls for insurance purposes. A guard wouldn’t be expected to put out a fire or arrest a trespasser, but he could call in the alarm. Their premiums must be through the roof.”
Cat stood and pushed the office door open. “We can add the lack of a guard to the total mystery, but now I suggest we get in and out as quickly as possible. Somebody could always decide to take a late-night stroll up here.”
Cat led them in. Lois hesitated at the doorway. Clark reached out and put his hand on her upper arm. She turned and gave him a quavering smile, then squared her shoulders and stepped forward. He followed and closed the solid steel door.
Cat asked, “Do we use flashlights or can we turn on the room light?”
“Room light. We can’t be seen from outside.” She turned and pointed to a set of file cabinets. “I suggest we start there. Look for anything on Tommy Garrison. We can work outward from that if we have the time.”
Cat opened the first file drawer. “How much time do we have?”
“Allie used to open up at about a quarter to five and get the boxers moving. Menken probably does the same thing just to keep up appearances and keep the fighters in a rhythm. I’d guess we’ve got no more than four hours to find something and get out before someone finds us.” Lois glanced at Clark. “Hey! What are you looking at?”
He pushed his glasses back up on the bridge of his nose. “This room is the wrong size. It’s too small and it’s asymmetrical.” He examined the contents of the back shelf. “These books are medical, but they’re too old and too generic for Dr. Lane’s specialty. Some of them were published fifteen years ago. Is there a hidden closet or room back here?”
“If there is, I’ve never seen it. What are you—”
“Found it.”
Cat made a noise that sounded like “Huh” but he didn’t know what she meant. He’d puzzle it out later.
Clark pressed a hidden pressure plate on the back wall and a panel pivoted silently. A light automatically clicked on to show another bookcase, another file cabinet, and a table with a life-sized cutaway model of the human head and torso.
Lois quickly scanned the titles on the bookcase as Cat stared open-mouthed at the model. “Are you guys seeing this?” Cat blurted. “Look at that skeleton! This isn’t just bone, it’s a bone and metal sandwich! Is that what he’s been doing to these fighters?”
Lois pulled down a binder labeled “Surgery Results – Garrison, T.” She leafed through the first few pages, then said, “I think this has all we need. It’s a detailed description of the work he did on Garrison after he tore his rotator cuff, including photos of the surgery itself.” She leafed through part of the binder. “This is really damning stuff, Clark! There’s no way the AMA would approve of this kind of procedure!” She dashed tears from her eyes. “What has my dad gotten involved in now?” She slammed the binder shut and dropped it on the table. “I should’ve been with him! I could’ve stopped this – this abomination!” She turned and leaned her head against Clark’s chest, then took in a shuddering breath.
He wrapped his hands around her shoulders. “No, Lois,” he said, “this isn’t your fault. You would’ve gotten pulled in with him. He was trying to help injured athletes and just went too far too fast. Menken has him trapped.”
Cat picked up the binder and flipped through it until she found a specific page. “Clark, look at this. No wonder these guys are winning so easily. I could hit Garrison in the head with a baseball bat and he’d barely feel it. That would just make him crazier. The only guy who could possibly stop any of them in a fight is Superman.”
The look she gave him was almost pleading and he didn’t understand what it meant. After a long moment she shook her head and said, “I just hope we can get this data to the boxing commission in time to stop the fights. These clowns are liable to kill someone in the ring.”
“I think we have what we need,” Clark answered. “There’s no sense in pushing our luck. Let’s go back to Lois’ place and – what was that?”
“What was what?” Lois demanded.
Cat’s ears seemed to rotate forward like her namesake’s. “I think the front door just slammed shut.”
Lois reached for her purse and the pistol she carried, but Cat put her hand on Lois’ wrist. “We can’t shoot our way out of this one. If they catch us in here somebody will get hurt and they’ll scatter like roaches. We’ll never catch them. Clark, is there a hiding place up here?”
“There’s a closet where the two of you can hide. It’s not big enough for all three of us. It’s inside the lab room.” He reached over to one side and said, “This is the release for the hidden door. Just press it when—”
“No!” Lois burst out. “If they find you they’ll hurt you! I won’t let – you can’t – please!”
He held her elbows and looked down into her frightened eyes. “This is the best way, Lois. You two take Garrison’s binder and hide. If they catch me searching like I haven’t found anything, they’ll likely just escort me out of the gym. They won’t call the police on me because they can’t afford to reveal what they have here. If they find you two, though, something bad might happen.”
“No! I can’t – I can’t lose you!”
“It’s the best option now,” Cat said in her ear. “Clark could sell sand to a lifeguard and you know it. He’ll talk his way out of this.”
Clark pulled Lois to him and kissed her quickly, then pushed her at Cat. “Cat, give me your toolkit. They need to find something to convince them I’m working alone. I’ll get them away from here and delay them as long as I can. You two get in the closet. Now.”
*****
Cat could hear better than Lois, so she kept up a whispered commentary on what she could pick up. “They’re yelling each other’s names, I assume in surprise. Menken just took my tools. Clark better replace them or—”
“Worry about that later! What’s going on?”
“The other guy is Garrison.” Cat smiled. “He just called Clark ‘Princess’ again. Not very original. This guy’s definitely got sexual identity issues.”
She felt Lois almost laugh beside her. “Any punches thrown yet?”
“No. I think Menken is trying to convince Garrison that hurting a reporter is a really bad idea, especially since ‘Princess’ isn’t carrying any documents. Wow, even his threats sound like bad detective novel dialogue.”
Cat paused, and Lois said, “I can’t hear anything!”
“Chill, girlfriend. They’re escorting Clark out of the building – ha! I think Menken just tripped and fell into the wall. I’d bet Clark helped him take that tumble.” Cat frowned, listening, and after a moment she slowly opened the closet. “Now I can’t hear anything. I think we’re in the clear. You still have your tools, right?”
“In my pocket.”
“Then let’s get out of here. We should use the vent again in case they’re still downstairs.”
They hustled to the vent and, even short a set of tools and a tall man to boost them up, got out and replaced the cover in what had to be record time. Cat stopped on the landing to check out the area, then slid down the ladder as far as it would descend. She hung from the bottom rung for a moment, then let go and dropped a distance of about a little more than half her own height to land on her feet. No one reacted to her noise, so she hissed at Lois to drop the evidence to her and follow.
Lois stumbled when she hit the asphalt. Cat caught her arm and kept her from falling. “How’s the leg?”
Lois flexed her leg and took a hesitant step, then said, “It’s okay, but I wouldn’t want to do that again any time soon.”
“Then let’s get back to your apartment. We can start going through the binder and be ready for Clark to get back.”
Lois stumbled again, then righted herself. They hustled to Lois’ Jeep and got out of the area. Lois kept wiping her face as she skidded around street corners. If Lois had been standing in front of Menken with a weapon in her hand, Cat wouldn’t have given a nickel for his chances of survival. Cat wanted to reassure Lois that Clark was fine and couldn’t be hurt, but she couldn’t. Even now it was Clark’s secret, not hers, and he had to be the one to tell her, even if Lois were wound up tighter than a two-dollar watch over his safety.
Cat was just as angry as Lois at Menken and Garrison, because her best friend was scared and tearing her heart in two and trying not to show it.
*****
Lois did her best to hide her fear for Clark from Cat, but she was doing such a bad job of it that Cat knew exactly what she was feeling. The Jeep screeched to a halt in its assigned parking place in Lois’ garage, but the driver’s door remained closed and the engine kept running.
Worried, Cat touched her shoulder. “Lois? Honey, don’t be scared. Clark will be fine.”
Lois’ eyelids slid shut and she coughed out a sob. “I – I know you have to say that but don’t lie to me. Please.”
Cat reached over, turned off the engine, and slid the key out of the ignition. “You really love him, don’t you?”
Lois leaned her forehead on the steering wheel. “Yes,” she whispered. “I love him so much it scares me.” She turned toward her friend. “If he – if something happened to him – I don’t – I couldn’t—” She stopped and took a breath. “I don’t know if I could take it, Red! I don’t think I could live if they – if he – if he died.” She dashed fresh tears from her face. “I – I’d rather take that bullet or knife or poison and – and die so he could live.”
Cat reached out and Lois, weeping quietly, fell in her arms. Maybe it was partly Lois’ PTSD, maybe it was Clark’s innate goodness, maybe it was Lois’ lack of others showing love to her for much of her life, but Cat understood what Lois meant.
At the same time, she realized that she wasn’t sure she would give her life for anyone else, with the probable exception of Lois. The soldier in Lois was being supplanted by the woman, something that Cat would have bet significant money would never happen.
But it was happening, right before her eyes. It was beautiful to see. And Clark had been the catalyst.
No matter what else happened, Cat vowed to herself to help them protect that new-found love against any and all threats.
Including herself.
