Disclaimer: The familiar characters and settings in this story are not mine. They are the property of DC Comics, Warner Bros., December 3rd Productions and whoever else can legally claim them, nor am I profiting from their use. Any new characters, scenes, dialogue and the story itself, belong to me.
This is a continuation of the Alt-world Vacation series, and follows "Masquerade".
First Case: 1/2
by Nan Smith
New Year's Eve in Metropolis had a surreal feeling about it, Lois Lane thought, as she walked into the newsroom. The monitors were on and showed Clark, in his Superman guise, fighting a fire in a high rise situated in midtown Metropolis. He was bringing out smoke-stained human beings and the occasional cat or dog, which was greeted with relief by its owner. She made a point of clocking in and then turned on her heel and exited as fast as she had entered, only this time through the door to the stairwell. It looked as if the fire wasn't likely to be over soon, and she had an exclusive source for details ...
Snow was drifting down as she emerged onto the sidewalk. She looked frantically around and then lifted her fingers to her lips and produced a whistle that could, a number of people had assured her, be heard three blocks away. An instant later, a cab screeched to a stop beside her. She scrambled in. "Take me to the fire," she ordered.
"Which one?" the man asked.
"The one Superman's fighting," she said, adding peripherally, "what do you mean which one?"
"There's another one in Suicide Slum," the man informed her, swinging the cab around in a U-turn, in bland disregard for both the weather and the traffic laws.
"Oh." It sounded as if Clark was going to be busy today, she thought, belatedly pulling the cab's seatbelt across her lap. It turned out to be a good idea, as the cabbie had apparently learned his driving skills in the same school as her dad's last girlfriend, before Lois had left for the Congo -- the one that had wrapped her father's Mercedes around the telephone pole. By the time the cab screeched to a stop in front of the police lines, she was sure that she would never see the Daily Planet again, but swore that if she did, she was going to get that car that she had promised herself she was going to buy after the Congo assignment was over.
Displaying her Press pass won her access to the area behind the Fire Chief, where he directed operations. As she arrived in the location where three other members of the press also waited, Clark touched down beside him. "Everyone's out, sir," he informed the man. "What else do you need me to do?"
Lois listened as the man issued terse instructions, and watched as Clark hefted the enormous container of fire retardant and flew off with it. Then, she cautiously approached the chief. "Lois Lane, Daily Planet," she introduced herself. "Do you have time for a question or two?"
The man nodded. "Sure. Just make it fast."
"What happened? Do you have any idea how the fire started?"
"Possible arson." The Fire Chief was still following Superman's flight through the air. "There's been a pattern like this for the last couple of months. Big fire to pull in all the local resources; then another one in Suicide Slum, a little later. Might be some guy with a weird social agenda."
"A sick social agenda," Lois said. "What's being done about the other one?"
"We pulled in the trucks from the north side division. They're fighting it, and as soon as Superman finishes this chore, I'm gonna ask him to head over there. I sure hope the cops nail this character soon, though, before somebody gets killed."
"You and me both," Lois said. "Thanks, Chief."
"Don't mention it." The man turned to speak to a paramedic that was approaching and Lois craned her neck to see what Clark was doing.
The clouds of smoke had turned very dark; a sure sign that inroads were being made on the fire. A moment later, she saw the figure in red and blue emerge from the structure, turn and .... The flurry of flakes that whooshed toward the building startled her for an instant before she realized that her new partner must be using his incredible lung power to quench the flames in that particular section of the building. Quickly, he zipped around to another location and repeated the action. Apparently satisfied, he dropped toward the pavement and came to a landing next to the Fire Chief again.
The man was listening to his radio, and he nodded. "Right. Do that." He turned to Superman. "Thanks, Superman. I think we can handle this, now. You head over to the other one and see what you can do."
"Yes, sir," Clark said.
"Superman!" Lois interrupted. "Can you give me a lift over there, too?"
Clark's head swiveled instantly toward her voice. "Hi, Lois. Sure; come on." He held out an arm.
"Do the police have any clues about this arsonist?" Lois asked, once they were in the air.
Clark shook his head. "Not much. I've been trying to investigate, but having the press dogging every step I take makes it a little difficult. I guess they'd probably rather that I didn't get in *their* way, anyhow. Martin, from the Star, told me that he didn't think it was fair for me to compete."
"That wouldn't be Bill Martin, would it?"
"Yeah, why?"
"He didn't think it was 'fair' for a Kerth-winning reporter to be investigating crime in Metropolis, either. He said it made it too hard for the rest of them. Martin's a whiner. He thinks the world should be fair, so that he can get the credit he 'deserves' -- which is to say, none. The guy should be reporting on dog shows," Lois said, dismissing the Star's reporter. "You and I are going to go after this guy. Arsonists are the lowest of the low."
"All right," Clark said. He angled down toward the burning building. "Let's get this thing under control first and then you can tell me what you have in mind."
**********
"Have you seen anything that might be a clue when you were fighting the fires?" Lois asked. They were sailing through the air in the general direction of the Daily Planet.
"Not a lot," Clark said. "I have the arson investigator's reports, of course. They're at home, though. Chief Walters has promised to send me the one on this latest pair of fires as soon as his guys get finished with them."
"That's good," Lois said, "but I think you should go and watch while they collect evidence -- and maybe do a little snooping on your own. You might see something that they miss. Why don't you drop me off at the Planet and I'll take care of writing up the article under our byline -- and you can get a first-hand look at what they find."
"Okay," Clark said.
"And if Bill Martin complains that you're too tough, competition-wise, tell him to go suck an egg. It's not your fault that he's a second-rater."
"Uh -- I think I'll phrase it a little differently than that," Clark said, but she could see that he was trying not to grin. "I'll leave the insults to you."
"Probably the best idea," she agreed. "I'm better at it. Set me down on the roof," she added. "I'll take it from there."
Clark set her down on the roof and took off in a whirl of flakes. Lois opened the roof door and entered the stairwell. Her feet echoed hollowly as she descended to the next level and opened the door into the business level of the Daily Planet.
A secretary -- or some kind of female employee, anyway -- was waiting for the elevator. She glanced curiously at Lois. "Are you lost?"
"No," Lois assured her. "Superman just dropped me off on the roof. I'm headed for the newsroom."
The woman gave her a hard look and her eyebrows flew up. "You must be Lois Lane."
"That's right. How did you know?"
The woman grinned. "Do you know Ralph?"
"From the newsroom? Unfortunately, yes. Why?"
A giggle. "He was telling one of the guys in the elevator that you'd got yourself partnered with Mr. Kent so you could steal a march on him, so I figured if Clark was dropping you off, you must be her."
"Clark's just helping me get started again. Besides, I don't need Clark to help me steal a march on Ralph," Lois said. "The dogcatcher could do it without half trying."
Another giggle. "Yeah, I know." Suddenly, she sobered. "Mr. Kent is awfully nice, Ms. Lane, and an awful lot of people take advantage of him. I've heard you're going to be his representative from now on."
"I am."
"Then you should know that that Nunk guy -- you know: the creep from the Whisper -- was trying to get me to say some horrible things about him. He promised to pay me a lot of money if I'd say that Superman was -- well, you know -- using his being Superman to take advantage of me. All of us in the secretarial pool know about it. Clark's always been a gentleman to all of us, so I thought somebody should warn him."
Lois raised an eyebrow. "I should have figured Nunk would be up to his old tricks. Thanks for telling me." She reflected that the stuff in her files that Clark had retrieved for her from Lucy's attic was going to come in handy after all. Having blackmail material on someone as sleazy as the so-called journalist for the Whisper was always a good idea, especially since she and Nunk had crossed swords a few times before. She'd have to see if Louie could give her a little more recent material, just to strengthen her hand a bit.
"Don't mention it, Ms. Lane." The secretary smiled. "You don't find many genuine nice guys in this business. Mr. Kent is one of them, whether or not he's from Earth. I don't want to see him hurt by some publication like the Whisper."
"I know," Lois said. "I owe him a lot. Don't worry; I'll deal with Mr. Nunk. By the time I'm through with him, he's not going to have time to waste trying to harass Clark." She paused. "What's your name?"
"I'm Jonetta." She extended a hand.
Lois took it. "Glad to meet you."
Back once more in the newsroom, Lois placed several phone calls and then set about writing her article on the fires of the morning. As she was finishing, her phone rang. She touched the key to LAN her article to Eduardo and picked up the receiver. "Lois Lane."
"Lois, sweetheart! I'd heard you were back!"
"Hi, Louie," Lois said. "I was wondering if I could come by and see you."
"Sure thing, sweetcakes! You know where to find me."
"Same place as last time?"
"Yep, pool hall and everything. Drop by around noon -- or whenever you can make it."
"I'll be there. In the meantime, do you think you can find me some dirt on Leo Nunk -- more recent stuff than my file on him, that is? It's five years old."
"Nunk?" She could almost see Louie rubbing his hands together. "You bet I can. I been thinkin' about payin' him back for a while."
Nunk, it appeared, was making enemies in places other than merely the celebrities of Metropolis. "Great. Thanks, Louie. I owe you."
After she hung up, she sat thinking for several minutes. If she was going to resume her rightful place as the Daily Planet's top reporter, she was going to need to reconnect with her informants. Hopefully, Bobby Bigmouth was still around.
"What's going on, Lois?" It was Eduardo, standing behind her. "From all this activity, I assume you're working on something."
"I just LANned you the fire story," Lois said, reaching for the phone again. "Clark and I have decided to investigate the arsons."
"Oh?" Eduardo said. "Clark said he wasn't making very much headway with that story."
"Yeah, I know. The guys from the other papers seem to think he's the story. Those characters are lazy, and have no imagination into the bargain. They'd rather go for the easy story than take on the hard stuff. Well, Lane and Kent are going to force them to compete or leave them in the dust."
"I'm glad to see you don't lack for confidence," Eduardo said. He grinned. "I've been of the opinion that these characters have been having it too easy for stories, ever since Superman appeared. It'll be good to see them upstaged. Go to it."
Lois nodded. "Excuse me, I have to make a call."
"Don't let me stop you." Eduardo turned toward the reporter who was lounging by the water cooler. "Ralph! Where's that piece on the urban redevelopment plan?"
Ralph almost dropped his cup of water. "Uh -- I'm working on it."
"Not from what I can see. You've been standing there for at least ten minutes. Now get me something to fill up some space on page two or you're fired!"
Lois grinned and began to punch in a phone number.
Bobby Bigmouth was still around, all right. Her favorite snitch, it appeared, had graduated to the big time, so to speak. His answering service -- *answering service?* -- requested that she leave a message and a number for him to call her back. Lois did so and then checked the list of contacts that Clark had given her and phoned his contact at the police department. The woman promised to fax over the preliminary report as soon as it became available.
Lois put down the phone, only to have it ring almost immediately. She picked it up. "Lois Lane."
"Hi, Lois!" the voice at the other end of the line said. "I was wondering when you were going to get in touch with me."
"Hi, Bobby. I need some information," she said at once. "What's your going rate these days?"
**********
"*Who* did you say we're meeting?" Clark asked.
"Bobby Bigmouth," Lois said. "He was my most reliable snitch back before the Congo assignment. He's apparently done pretty well for himself while I was gone. Don't tell me you've never heard of him."
Clark shook his head. "Nope."
"Well, you're about to," she said. "He tells me his business has dropped off since Superman appeared. It's easier to report on Superman than it is to go after the hard stories. I told him I was going to put some competition back into the business again, and he was all for it. First, though, we need to go get him a deluxe deli sandwich, some kind of side dish, like gourmet coleslaw and some kind of dessert. He specified flan or fried ice cream, which means a visit to a good Mexican restaurant. Do you know one that you'd recommend?"
"Uh -- yeah, I think so," Clark said. "Senora Maria's is probably the best one that's open at this time of day."
"Okay, let's go. You're going to keep a low profile while we talk to Bobby. He says he's got something on the arsons that we can use."
"I'm all for that," Clark said. "The fires were arson, all right. They found the remains of incendiary devices."
"In both places?"
He nodded. "It looks like they were planted near gas lines and connected to timers."
"That's interesting."
"Yeah. There doesn't seem to be any connection between the arsons -- just the similar pattern to the other five."
"Then, if it's not just a nut," Lois said, "there must be some other reason behind it."
"I've been thinking that for a while," Clark said, "but every time I've tried to investigate, I've had a tail of two or three 'journalists' wanting to know what I was doing, and of course, the snitches don't want to talk to me. I've started to wonder if I was going to have to give up being an investigative reporter because of it." His lips twitched. "By the way, Bill Martin objected to me giving you an interview and leaving him out. Not to mention the fact that I gave you a lift to the fire."
"What did you say?"
"I told him that you gave me the courtesy of honoring my deal with the press, and that all of those who broke the agreement in the last month were on my freeze-out list for the next two weeks. Since that includes almost every journalist in Metropolis, you're going to get practically exclusive access to Superman interviews for a couple of weeks."
"Perfect." Lois said. "And as for your giving up being an investigative reporter, forget it. We're going to fix that, starting today. Just remember; you're Charlie King this afternoon. Clark Kent is just helping me get back up to speed, but to anyone we talk to, Charlie is my protege. Or he will be."
"You think they won't know who I am?"
"Not if we do it right. Now, let's go get Bobby his salary and see what he has to say."
**********
tbc
