Table of Contents
From Part 4:"Oh yeah, like Superman has nothing better to do than rescue me!"
"It's what I do," Clark pointed out. "And, Lois, you're my friend. I care about you. You think I wouldn't do anything to help you?"
He was watching her, and at his words he saw her flush slightly before ducking her head. "I think I know that, Clark. And not just as Superman, either."
She'd given him the opening he'd been looking for since that morning. "Lois, tell me about your family," he said, trying not to let his concern for her show. He was well aware that Lois hated even the suspicion that someone felt pity for her. Not that he pitied her. He cared, and he wanted to help. But he knew that Lois wouldn't see the difference. She was so proud, and prickly in her defence of those walls she’d built around herself.
She wasn’t going to let them down just because he asked. Of that he was very sure. But he was patient, and he wasn’t going anywhere.
*********
Now read on...“Goodnight, Clark,” Lois said several hours later, watching him walk down the corridor towards the stairs before closing and bolting her door. Leaning against the closed door, she shut her eyes briefly, shaking her head as she wondered just what it was about Clark Kent that she seemed unable to resist.
He’d actually persuaded her to talk about stuff she’d never told anyone before. Things she’d spent years trying to forget. Things she hadn’t even admitted to herself.
All he’d had to do was ask her, using that gentle, persuasive voice of his. “Tell me about your family, Lois,” he’d said, those deep brown eyes focused on her, his expression concerned, offering the caring support of a friend.
And she’d been lost, unable to resist the quiet persuasion, the unspoken plea in his eyes. Completely ignoring her first instinct, which had been to get the heck away from him, from the sort of question she
never answered for anyone, the kind of question she’d sidestepped from him only the previous evening, she’d told him. Everything.
Her father’s affairs. Her mother’s alcoholism. Her father never being around. Her mother drunk or out cold for much of the time. Lucy’s tears. Having to clean up after her mother and take care of her baby sister.
How they’d even run away one year, she and Lucy. It had been just after Christmas - yet another miserable Christmas when Sam Lane hadn’t even come home the night before, when their mother had half-heartedly put up the Christmas decorations not long before midnight. When she and Lucy had woken up on Christmas morning, excited to see what Santa Claus had brought them - and found nothing. Downstairs, Lois - who had made five-year-old Lucy stay in her bedroom - had discovered their mother snoring on the sofa, yet another empty bottle of vodka clutched in her hand.
Daddy had reappeared around lunchtime, holding a large sack of presents; paying no attention to Mommy, who by then was complaining about her migraine while haphazardly throwing a meal together, he’d fussed over his two little ‘princesses’. But it was all fake, Lois had finally realised. If Daddy had really wanted to be with his little princesses, he wouldn’t have stayed away all night. He wouldn’t have let them wake up on Christmas morning without any presents. He wouldn’t have done that to little Lucy.
Daddy didn’t really love them. That was the hard, cold realisation Lois had come to that Christmas. And Mommy didn’t either, otherwise she wouldn’t prefer a vodka bottle to her daughters. And so, once the holiday was over and she and Lucy were supposed to be going back to school, Lois had packed up as many of their things as she could fit in her backpack - including Lucy’s favourite teddy - and she’d taken her sister by the hand and just started walking. The bus station; that had been her destination. She’d emptied her piggy-bank - that had been one advantage of her father’s guilt, she remembered wryly now; he’d tried to make up for his absences by showering his daughters with dollar bills to buy themselves treats - and she’d been sure that she had enough money to get them tickets to go and stay with Aunt May, who lived in upstate New Troy.
But, at the bus station, a counter clerk had become suspicious at two kids travelling alone, and had attracted the attention of a young beat cop patrolling nearby. That cop had taken the two of them home, having managed to get their address out of Lucy.
He’d done them a favour, Lois recognised now. From the perspective of the nine-year-old she’d been at the time, she’d been furious. But when she thought of what could have happened to the two of them... it didn’t bear thinking about.
Which was one reason, although she would never in a million years admit it to him, that she had a soft spot deep inside her for Inspector William Henderson. Now hard-bitten and cynical, the homicide detective was a very different person from the barely-out-of-police-academy rookie who’d rescued Lucy and herself more than seventeen years ago. But he was still that rarity: a good, honest cop through and through. Not that he had any idea that the older of the two well-to-do runaways he’d returned to their home all those years ago was the reporter he complained about almost on a daily basis now - and she had no intention of ever telling him. It was, however, one reason why Henderson was usually her first call whenever she had a story the police would be interested in following up.
Clark had listened to the sad tale, told in semi-clipped tones and with repeated insistences on Lois’s part that she wasn’t looking for sympathy and that she didn’t even know why she was telling him all of it. She
hadn’t known - it was only that he’d asked. And that he was her friend. And that, somehow, she’d known instinctively that, whatever else his reaction would be, it certainly wouldn’t be pity.
He hadn’t offered platitudes. He hadn’t badmouthed her parents. Instead, when she’d finished, he’d just said quietly, sadly, “And through all of this, did anyone ever tell little Lois Lane that she was loved?”
She’d bitten her lip. And he’d wrapped his arm around her shoulders, hugged her briefly and then said, “I think we need chocolate here.”
And, before she could even think of a smart-ass reply, he’d vanished, to reappear seconds later bearing a slab of Swiss chocolate and a takeaway double-strength mocha from her favourite coffee joint.
Yes, he knew her weaknesses well. What had impressed her most, though, had been the fact that he hadn’t gone overboard on the sympathy. It was as if he’d known instinctively that she wouldn’t appreciate it, that she was embarrassed enough by the fact that she’d confided all that stuff to him anyway - and that she’d come close to tears as she’d done so, despite her efforts to remain detached.
If he’d tugged her into his arms and held her tightly, if he’d murmured platitudes to her, she might well have cried and clung to him. But afterwards she’d have felt humiliated. She would have wished that she’d never said a word to him about any of it. And she would have felt uncomfortable with Clark from then on.
But, instead, his brief demonstration of sympathy followed by the tender gesture of fetching her coffee and chocolate had allowed her to put the painful, intimate confession behind her. Once he’d come back with his gifts, he hadn’t referred to anything she’d said again. Instead, he’d turned the conversation to their story, due to appear in the morning’s Planet, and to Lex Luthor.
Lex Luthor.
Now, that had been an eye-opener. She’d noticed that Clark had pulled a face when she’d mentioned that Luthor had been on hand as well and had been prepared to rescue her from the fighter. “What’s your problem with Luthor, Clark?” she’d asked immediately.
He’d taken a deep breath. “Where do I start, Lois?”
“Cut to the chase,” she’d said. “It’s quicker, and you can fill me in on the details later. Just give me the big picture.”
“Big picture, huh?” He’d given her a wry grin. “Okay. I think he’s a crook. In fact, my suspicion is that he’s a major criminal, someone who controls a lot of the crime in this city, and also very possibly a murderer.”
“Whoa! Well, that’s a big picture all right,” she’d said slowly. “Lex Luthor? You’re serious?”
His expression had shown her that he was definitely serious. “You’ve never thought there was anything strange about him? Things that just didn’t add up - or added up too coincidentally?”
That had made her think. In fact, she was still thinking now as she prepared for bed. Not that Clark had said any more, or given her any indication of what he was basing his suspicions on - he hadn’t had a chance, since he’d been called away by a cry for help not long after. By the time he’d returned it had been late; their conversation abandoned, he’d insisted on seeing her safely home.
But he’d left her with plenty to think about.
Lex Luthor - owner of several major companies in Metropolis, the biggest employer in the city, man of the year three years running, friend of Senators and Congressmen, even spoken of as a potential future President. And Clark thought that he was a murderer?
That was big. Huge! And, if Clark was right, this was a story which would win them a Kerth. No, a Pulitzer.
Win
them?
Lois stilled in the act of undressing as she realised just what she’d conceded. Her lifetime ambition, ever since deciding that she wanted to be a journalist, had been to get her name on a Pulitzer some day. And now she was actually contemplating - in fact, planning on - sharing that Pulitzer with someone else.
No, not just ‘someone else’, she reminded herself. Clark. Her partner. Her friend. And a reporter who was equally as talented as herself.
Yes, she liked the idea of sharing a Kerth, or even a Pulitzer, with Clark.
Lois Lane had lost her competitive drive, at least where her partner was concerned. And she wasn’t one bit sorry.
***********
Lois had confided in him, after all. And, having heard the history of her childhood and her relationship with her parents - related in a detached tone which almost made it sound as if the events had happened to someone else - Clark could completely understand why the adult Lois had ended up so single-mindedly ambitious, so desperate to prove to the world that she was the best.
She was still trying to prove to her father that she was a deserving person.
Not that Lois would readily admit that, he knew. But he was very sure that she was, subconsciously or otherwise, still trying to win Sam Lane’s approval.
Clark shook his head disbelievingly as he landed on the balcony of his apartment. If Sam Lane didn’t value his daughter just as she was, he deserved to be alienated from her. But it was so very sad, he thought; families should be close. Family members should love each other just because they were family - not as a punishment and incentive system.
Lois had never known the kind of loving, stable environment he himself had grown up in. And, as a result, while she had family, she wasn’t close to any of them. Her sister, perhaps - but Lucy Lane had moved away now.
He wished that he could have known Lois years ago - in high school, maybe. If he could have been her friend then, maybe things would have been different for her. Maybe she would have begun to realise that she really was a special person. That she was deserving of love and attention. That her parents’ neglect was their shame, not hers; that she had so much to be proud of in who she was.
Okay, she’d done her best to suggest that her school years, especially high school, hadn’t been too bad; but then, he hadn’t forgotten what she’d said to him earlier that day, about her father’s expectations of her and in particular his lack of praise. Telling her, a child desperate for her father’s approval, that she still had two percent left for improvement if she got 98 on a test...! His blood had boiled when he’d heard it.
It wasn’t fair that she had missed out so badly; that she had no idea what a loving family environment could be like. But then, Clark thought as he prepared for bed, it didn’t have to be that way. She had him now. They were friends. And his parents loved her - she’d saved their lives, after all. Sometime soon, he’d have to bring her to Smallville for a few days. He’d enjoy that, and so, he was sure, would she.
They still had to finish their discussion about Lex Luthor, but that could wait; there was no immediate hurry which meant that they’d needed to do it tonight. After all, it wasn’t as if any other news team was rushing to investigate the city’s wealthiest man. As far as Clark was aware, he was the only person outside Luthor’s own empire to have any suspicions at all about the man’s bona fides.
Tomorrow, he thought. He’d already suggested to Lois that they have breakfast together before going into work. He was looking forward to that already; he loved bouncing ideas and hunches off his intelligent, quick-thinking partner. They’d talk, and he’d tell her everything he suspected about Luthor. He was looking forward to getting stuck into this investigation with his partner. They made a great team, in every possible way.
Well, almost every possible way, he acknowledged regretfully, remembering how much he’d wanted to do more than just hug her gently when she’d told him about her childhood. Of course, he’d known that she wouldn’t appreciate profuse sympathy or any attempt to dwell on what she’d said. But he’d longed to hold her in his arms and tell her that, if he had anything to do with it, she would never feel unloved or unwanted ever again. He’d wanted to hug her tightly and never let her go.
He’d wanted to cover her lips with his and banish all the bleak memories, all her insecurities, with his kiss.
But that wasn’t going to happen, and he knew it. He and Lois were friends, and that was the way it was going to stay. It was safer that way.
So he was just going to have to keep reminding himself of that. Friends. That was all he could have with her - and so it would be all he wanted from her. He could live with that; of course he could. She meant far too much to him to take risks with her safety or well-being.
Friendship was enough; of course it was.
And it felt good to know that she trusted him enough to confide in him about something which was clearly such a painful matter for her. Lois Lane, he knew, was an intensely private person - and yet she’d opened up to him. It reassured him that their friendship really was a two-way street, given all that he owed her and how much it mattered to him that Lois knew his secret and helped and supported him daily in maintaining it.
She needed him every bit as much as he needed her. And that, for the alien from a planet millions of miles away, who had despaired for most of his adult life of ever having someone special in his life, someone other than his parents to whom he was important, meant the world to him.
*********
To her surprise, even the following morning Lois had no regrets about confiding in Clark. No paralysing fear that he would somehow use the information against her; no fierce wish that she had never allowed any man an insight into what Lois Lane the person was really like under her public facade. No concern that Clark would despise the weak, insecure person she was in private.
Clark seemed to like her just as she was.
And that was something which she couldn’t remember ever having happened before.
She was hurrying to get ready now. Clark had said, on their way back to her apartment the previous evening, that he’d like to take her to breakfast so they could discuss the Luthor question. She’d been a bit concerned about having that conversation in public, but Clark had assured her that he knew a very discreet place where they could discuss anything they liked without worrying about being overheard.
“And don’t forget,” he’d reminded her with a grin, tapping his ear, “I’m pretty good at figuring out when someone’s taking an interest in me.”
“True,” she’d agreed, giggling. “Yet another advantage in having you as a partner!”
Now, she was itching to hear just what it was Clark thought he knew about Luthor. It had almost killed her that they hadn’t been able to finish their conversation the previous evening. It couldn’t be helped, she knew that; but still, her primary emotion when Clark had rushed off had been acute frustration. Well, that and a pang of disappointment that she was losing his company on what had become a familiar habit: spending the evening together.
It was going to be like that. She knew it, she understood it and she accepted it. Clark wasn’t just her partner and her friend, at her beck and call whenever she needed him. He was Superman. He had a responsibility towards the world. If someone needed him - someone other than her - he had to go. If it meant saving lives, or preventing serious injury or mass destruction, he had to go. And he would go - because that was the kind of person he was.
And she wouldn’t want him any other way, anyway, regardless of how frustrating it could be, and was going to be.
So... Clark believed that Luthor was a criminal - a crime lord, by the sound of it - and quite possibly a murderer.
As she dried her hair, Lois mulled over what she knew of Lex Luthor, billionaire businessman and known philanthropist.
She’d compiled a mental list the previous evening, of the sort of information she would consider if she were writing a profile of Luthor - since she was interviewing him next week, she already had some of it to hand anyway. Owned several companies, and all told was the city’s largest employer. Generally a good employer to work for, from what she’d heard; the various companies owned or controlled by Luthor had the reputation of paying employees well and offering good benefits. The culture in the various companies was also, she believed, good; while, as in all companies, workloads got frenetic at times, the management style wasn’t oppressive and initiative and innovation were rewarded.
That didn’t sound like the employment practices of a crime lord...
On the other hand, these were legitimate businesses. They also made a lot of money, and gave Lex Luthor personally a considerable amount of prestige and status within New Troy - and, Lois was aware, in the wider US. For some months now, she’d been hearing rumours that both national political parties were courting the billionaire, who had yet to declare any political allegiance. He’d donated money - large sums, too - to both Republicans and Democrats over the years, never favouring one party over the other. He’d be an enormous feather in the cap of whichever party managed to net him, assuming one of them did - and the rumour which had reached Lois’s ears was that there were efforts to persuade Luthor to stand for one of the state’s Senate seats which would become vacant at the next mid-terms. He could have either party’s endorsement, and thus the support of the entire party machine, for the asking - and Luthor’s prestige was such that he would be guaranteed election.
Did he harbour political ambitions? Lois didn’t know, and nor did any of her sources. Regardless, it would be an unusual person - and an even more unusual public figure - who wasn’t at least flattered by such approaches.
So it was certainly in Lex Luthor’s interests to have business interests which were entirely legal and above board - and to be known as a good, responsible and well-liked employer. Apart from the prestige and income, these also provided him with the kind of respectability he wouldn’t have if his only activity was crime. He’d be a shadowy underworld figure, in that case.
Instead, if Clark was right, he was Metropolis’s Godfather, running legitimate businesses in public and involved in all sorts of illegal activities in the background.
Was that really likely?
She paused in the act of slipping on her shoes, wondering for a moment if she wasn’t getting too carried away with her speculation and extrapolation.
What if Lex Luthor really was all that he appeared to be - a perfectly legitimate businessman?
Okay, Clark had suspicions, and it was certainly easy to think of ways in which Luthor’s public reputation could shield an awful lot of unknowns, but there were plenty of other rich, influential people in American business about whom she could speculate in just the same way and on the same grounds as she’d just used to speculate about Luthor. Would she really suspect, say, Bill Gates or Michael Eisner or Warren Buffet of engaging in illegal activities behind their public facades?
And it wasn’t even as if what they were talking about were the typical white-collar crimes of insider trading or securities fraud, of which some quite unexpected people had been found guilty: Ivan Boesky and Michael Milken, for example. No, Clark had mentioned murder. How likely was that, really?
Well, who knew? Who really knew what anyone might get up to behind the public gaze? There’d been that cleaning company back in the eighties... what was its name again? Oh yeah, she remembered. The ZZZZ Best Carpet Cleaning Company. Its owner, Barry Minkow, had been defrauding investors by coming up with a huge paper trail of false customers and misleading auditors by renting buildings and showing them to clients he had business with. He’d made millions as investors poured money into his fraudulent business. He’d only been found out when he’d tried to take his non-existent business public.
There was Jim Bakker, too - for years he’d been a successful evangelist, highly respected, even loved, by his followers. And, in his role as an ordained preacher, he was beyond suspicion... until he was found out as a swindler who had also bribed a prostitute to keep quiet about their sexual relationship. Other revelations had followed, including a gay lover and tax evasion. Yeah, there was no such thing as being beyond suspicion where any public figure was concerned, Lois mused.
And even Al Capone had appeared to run legitimate businesses for years, although in his case, Lois conceded, the police had had their suspicions about him - the problem there had been in proving anything. Did the Metropolis Police Department have suspicions about Lex Luthor?
It wasn’t unusual, in the history of crime and criminal activity, to find the most unlikely of people behind gangland or unlawful behaviour. And in any case legitimate businesses were the perfect accessory for a crime boss - the perfect outlet for dirty money and ill-gotten gains. Lois knew all that. So there was no particular reason why she should regard Lex Luthor as incorruptible or beyond suspicion.
Clark had asked her if she’d ever had her doubts; ever noticed anything which didn’t quite add up. She hadn’t - at least, not until he’d asked her. But a couple of things had been nagging at her ever since. Space Station Luthor was one of them. At the time, she’d been too caught up in, first, trying to land the first exclusive Lex Luthor interview, and later, chasing Superman around Metropolis.
Just why had Luthor decided to enter the space race? There were clear gains for his companies from having a private space station, of course - patents from any pharmaceutical or medical discoveries, for example - but the cost and the risk of such a venture would clearly outweigh by far any potential profit, even in the medium term. But that wasn’t all; she’d had a tip-off at the time that Luthor was involved with Antoinette Baines. She’d dismissed it as a coincidence; Luthor was a powerful - and attractive - man, and Baines was an attractive woman. Why shouldn’t the two of them be involved?
But now... well, it really did look like
too much of a coincidence. And when the plot to sabotage the shuttle ships had been discovered, Baines had mysteriously - and very conveniently - been murdered. Well, her helicopter had blown up, and so far the police hadn’t managed to prove conclusively that it was sabotage... but again, it was too coincidental.
Way too coincidental, maybe?
Luthor was also a philanthropist, on a pretty grand scale; only last year he’d donated close to fifty million dollars - from his personal fortune, not out of company profits - to a health charity for a water purification project in Africa. And there was the homeless shelter he’d funded the year before. Yes, he spent lots of money on good causes.
But that, too, was a great way to build good public relations and to create and maintain a good reputation - as well as, to some extent, making the city and even the state dependent on him and his charitable giving. Who would dare to criticise a man as generous as Lex Luthor?
Yes, it was easy to see how his reputation had remained intact for so long if he really was rotten underneath, as Clark believed.
And if Clark was right... yes, this would be one heck of a story. The lawyers would hate it - it would all have to be gone through with a fine-tooth comb before it could even get within sniffing distance of the printers’ ink, but she could live with that. They’d just have to make sure that they had as much proof as possible - and if that meant even bringing in the police once they’d got to the stage of having something convincing, she could live with that too, and it would make the lawyers happier. And that would make Perry happier still.
Oh yes, she could definitely smell a Kerth in this, if not even better. And wasn’t it good timing that she had that interview coming up?
That thought reminded her that she hadn’t yet told Clark about that. She frowned, trying to work out why that was. They worked together; she should have mentioned it. But then, they didn’t work together on everything - although Perry had paired them for a couple of major stories, they weren’t full-time partners, and this, if she got anything usable out of the interview, was her story.
But the thought of holding out on Clark felt... wrong.
Of course it was wrong now, she told herself. He’d raised the question of Luthor’s probity, clearly intending that the two of them should investigate once he’d filled her in on exactly why he was suspicious. Therefore she needed to tell him about the interview.
Well, she would tell him. She was sure that he’d agree that it was highly opportune timing. They had enough time to do a lot of digging before her interview, and by then she could well have enough evidence to ask Luthor some very pointed questions. Always assuming that Clark was right in his suspicions - and she found it hard to believe that Clark - Superman! - would accuse someone without being very sure of his ground.
With an anticipatory grin, Lois collected her bag and coat and headed for the door.
**********
...tbc
