Part 22
The afternoon didn’t get any better. An elevator accident in one of the city’s older office building cost the lives of three people and Linda King had been right on the spot. Lois could only hope that next time Linda would be a victim instead of a witness.
Clark had been pale when he came back to the newsroom late that afternoon but he gamely wrote up the story for Perry, even though the deadline for the next edition had passed. The Star was already on the newsstands. The Daily Planet’s lead story was about the weather and the predicted summer drought.
“How could you let that... that... bottom-feeder scoop you like that?” Lois demanded.
Clark gave her a blank look. “'Bottom-feeder?'”
“And what were you doing having lunch with her anyway?” she continued. Perry had come out of his office, holding a copy of the newest edition of the Star.
“What are you asking him for?” Perry growled. “If you want to know something, buy the Star. They know everything!”
“Bet they don't know how much rain we got this year,” Jimmy muttered.
Perry glared at him a moment before clearing his throat. “People,” Perry yelled at everyone. “I can assure you, if we don't come up with some solid page one stories PDQ, the only writing you'll be doing is your resumes!”
A phone rang and Jimmy moved to answer it.
“Well? Anybody?” Perry asked loudly. There was no answer from his audience. “Oh, this is just great,” he added sarcastically. “I can see the next edition already. Under 'Today's Top News' we'll just print 'We haven't got a clue!' Just what in Sam Hill am I supposed to tell the publisher if he calls?”
“Whatever it is,” Jimmy spoke out. “He's waiting to hear it on line one.”
Perry just sighed. “Just a warning, folks. I've seen papers shut down. It's not a pretty picture. Not pretty at all.”
He disappeared into his office. Lois sighed and went to the coffee machine to refill her cup. It was going to be another long day. Clark was sipping his own coffee, staring at the photo on the front page of the Star.
“I know Linda's writing style is absolutely mesmerizing, but please, don't drool,” Lois snapped at him.
“How long are you going to keep acting like this?” he asked, folding over the paper.
“Me? You're the one who's more interested in making the Star's society page than the Planet's front page.”
“Is that what this is about?” he asked, sounding surprised. “You're jealous because you think I'm infatuated with Linda King?”
“I wouldn't care if you were infatuated with Don King,” Lois growled at him. “What I care about is the quality of reporting at the Planet.”
“Then you'll be happy to see this,” Clark said, reaching into his jacket pocket and pulling out a Polaroid photo. Lois glanced at it. It was a picture of a piece of cable.
“Okay, I see it. When do I get happy?”
“This is elevator cable,” he explained. “From the accident. Check the end.”
“Well, I'm still not happy,” she told him. “But I'm closing in on bored.” She wasn’t about to admit she was curious as to where he was going with this.
“It's not frayed, Lois,” he went on patiently. “It's smooth. Like it's been cut.”
“Then the accident...”
“Wasn't,” he completed for her. “Elevators don’t just fall. There are too many safeguards. Somebody wanted that elevator to fail.”
Lois could feel the excitement rising. “Clark, do you know what this means? I can scoop Linda!”
“You?” Clark repeated warily.
“Us,” Lois corrected herself. “Didn't I say us? I meant us.”
“Uh-huh,” he said like he didn’t quite believe her. “Before we write anything, I want the building inspectors and the forensics team to verify my, I mean, our theory.”
“Of course. Absolutely,” Lois agreed too quickly. “That's the rational thing to do. Let’s get down to the forensics lab.”
“Lois, let's grab a bite to eat, sit down and talk this through,” Clark suggested. “You seem a little tense.”
“Tense? Me? I'm fine,” she protested. Clark just looked at her.
-o-o-o-
Clark took her to dinner at the Metropolis Press Club. Given the way things were going at the Planet… She didn’t want to think about what she would do if the Planet’s doors closed. She refocused on the story at hand.
“All right, let's think it through,” she began. “Assume the elevator was sabotaged. Who would benefit? You'd kill a random person.”
“The building owner?” Clark suggested “An insurance scam?”
A waiter passed by, presenting each of them a copy of the Star.
“What's this?” Lois asked.
The waiter shrugged. “Every customer receives a free copy.”
Lois handed it back but Clark opened his copy, frowning. The waiter moved on to the next table.
“It's bad enough Carpenter cut his news stand price. Now he's giving it away,” she growsed. Clark didn’t look up. “What are you looking at?”
“Carpenter has an editorial demanding stronger building codes in light of the elevator accident, calling for a criminal investigation into the manufacturers,” he answered.
“So?”
“So he's a fast writer,” Clark said. “It's in the same edition as Linda's article.”
“Clark, the man's a walking opinion,” Lois told him. “It's not like he has to do a lot of thinking.”
“Still...” Clark started thoughtfully.
Lois needed to take a break and rose from her chair. “I'll be right back. Order me a linguine pesto,” she instructed then headed for the ladies’ lounge.
-o-o-o-
Lois considered Carpenter’s editorial as she dried her hands. The man was a fast writer. And even though the Planet would likely get the scoop on the fact the elevator had been sabotaged, it still didn’t help that the Star had gotten the initial disaster story first, even if they had jumped the gun on the causes.
She finished drying her hands and tossed the wadded paper towel into the waste container. As she did so, the clasp on her bracelet broke, again, slipping into the trash. She sighed and reached down to retrieve it. It wasn’t an expensive piece of jewelry but it had sentimental value. Her father had given it to her after she won her first Kerth.
The door to the lounge opened and Linda King walked in.
“Looking for your career?” the woman asked.
“I lost my bracelet.”
Linda moved to look at her own reflection in the wide mirror. “I've seen how you accessorize, Lois. Believe me, it's not worth the effort.”
Finally, Lois felt the bracelet chain and grabbed it. She straightened up and dropped it into her purse. “Is there no getting away from you?” she asked.
“Actually I'm surprised to find you here.”
“I'm a member.”
Linda gave her a smug smile. “Really? I thought members had to be working for a news organization that was still in business.”
“I wouldn't start swaggering yet,” Lois warned her. Then she smiled. “Though, on second thought, your hips could use the exercise.”
Linda simply shrugged. “Speaking of bodies, your partner has a great one. Talk about buns of steel.”
“How would you know?” Lois demanded.
“You don't need Superman's x-ray vision to figure that out,” Linda said with a chuckle.
“I'm warning you, Linda. Stay away from him.” Lois ignored the little voice that said she was just playing into Linda’s hands.
“He looks like a big boy to me.”
“Clark's good-hearted... and a little naive. I don't want to see him get hurt. I know you only want to use him to get back at me,” Lois told her.
“Lois, for me to want to 'get back' at you, you'd have to have done something that mattered to me,” Linda stated. “Which you haven't.” With that, Linda sauntered out of the lounge.
Lois followed her, only to find the woman was heading toward where Clark sat waiting.
“Clark, I need to ask you a favor,” Linda began.
“He's working,” Lois interrupted “We're working.”
“You look like you're about to have dinner,” Linda commented.
“You had lunch with the man. Aren't you full yet?” Lois asked as she sat down across from Clark.
Linda ignored her. “I'd like you to walk me to the subway. It'd really help me out.”
“By all means, Clark. Help her out,” Lois said, not bothering to keep the disdain out of her voice. “Then lock the door behind her.”
“Such wit, Lois. I hope it'll help pass the hours at the unemployment office.” There was something very unpleasant in Linda’s voice.
“Do you two mind if I speak?” Clark asked.
“Tell her 'no,' and let's eat,” Lois ordered.
Lois watched Clark hesitate. “She probably doesn't know her way around,” Clark said finally.
“She knows her way around enough to beat us twice since she got here,” Lois reminded him.
“Trust me,” he told Lois quietly as he got up from the table. “There's a subway a couple of blocks from here,” he told Linda then turned back to Lois. “I'll be right back.”
Lois glowered at them as Linda snaked her arm through Clark’s and led him away. Linda looked back over her shoulder and grinned at Lois.
Lois didn’t wait for Clark to return. She couldn’t believe he was so naive as to fall for a bleached blonde in a tight dress. But he had left her waiting for him and that was something she simply wouldn’t stand for. It was bad enough when he disappeared on her to do a rescue as Superman. But he wasn’t Superman anymore. He had no excuse.
She was scrubbing the grout on her kitchen counter when there was a knock at the door.
“Who is it?”
“Lois, it's me,” Clark announced from the hallway. “I'm sorry.”
She unlocked the door for him but didn’t bother to open it as she hurried back to the kitchen and her cleaning.
“I was only gone a few minutes,” Clark said. “You didn't have to leave.”
“I'm a busy person. I have things to do. I have to…”
“Scrub your grout?” Clark asked. “You're really letting this woman get to you.”
She whirled around, waving the toothbrush in her hand at him. “Get to me?” she spat. She stopped and considered his observation. She had been letting Linda get to her. “This does not leave the room, understand?”
Clark nodded.
“Okay. Linda and I were best friends. But it was very competitive. You may not believe this, but there was a time when I had to be the best at everything,” Lois said. She ignored the bemused smile that came to his face. “Anyway, there was this editor I was trying to impress, a guy named Paul Bender. He was a senior, and I had a very big crush on him. My first. So when I found out some of the school's football players weren't taking their own exams, I thought, this is it. This is the story that's going to get Paul to really notice me.”
“Did it?”
“No,” Lois admitted. “Somehow Linda stole my story and wrote it under her name. Of course, he fell for her and she continued to impress him, in ways I won't go into. Needless to say, that was the end of our friendship. So now you know everything. Happy?”
“So, she stole a story and she stole a guy and now she's trying to do it again, huh?” Clark summarized for her.
“Don't flatter yourself,” she warned him.
“Hey, don't take this out on me.”
“Why not? You say 'yes' to her party, 'yes' to lunch, 'yes' to walking her home. You're behaving like her indentured servant.”
“So it's okay for me to be your servant, but nobody else's?” Clark asked.
“You're my partner and what you do reflects on me. I don't want the world to know my partner's a doormat for women,” she spat.
“That's not true, Lois, and you know it,” he said. He sounded hurt by her accusation.
“You want truth? You're a doormat with no taste,” she yelled.
“I'm out of here!” Clark yelled back.
“Perfect. Fine. I'm sure she's waiting for you.”
“And you know what? I'd love to hear her side of this,” Clark told her. “And I could tell her a few things about how impossible you are to work with!”
She opened the front door. “Really? Then why don't you go to work with her, too?”
“Maybe I will.”
She pushed him out the door. “You two deserve each other!” she screamed, slamming the door behind him. She leaned against the closed door, listening. After a moment she heard his footsteps heading away from the door. Then, with a sob, she slid down the door to sit, fighting to keep from bursting into tears.
-o-o-o-
Clark wasn’t at his desk the next morning. She tried his apartment and got his answering machine. He didn’t answer his beeper. Finally, heart in her mouth, she called someone she knew at the Star.
Lois barely believed what her source told her. Then she burst into action, running into Perry’s office. She ignored Jimmy standing in the office. What she had to tell Perry was more important than anything Jimmy had to say.
“Perry, I just got off the phone, I hate to be the one to tell you, especially when the paper's in trouble, but we've got a turncoat, a Benedict Arnold and you're never going to believe who.” She managed to get it all out in one rushed breath.
“Kent,” Perry told her quietly.
Jimmy seemed surprised to hear it.
“He offered two weeks notice but I told him he was free to go,” Perry continued. “So he's gone.”
“Boy, you think you know someone then...” Jimmy muttered.
Lois gave him a dark look. She was in no mood for his childishness.
“It's her!” Lois told Perry. “Linda King! She's cast some kind of spell on him. Drugs or something.”
Perry shook his head. “He's worried about his future. The way things are going around here, I couldn't give him much of an argument.”
“Did he mention what kind of medical plan they have over there?” Jimmy asked. Lois couldn’t believe how oblivious he was. Finally he noticed the glares in his direction. “I think I better check with the lab about... something,” he said, sidling out of the office.
Lois turned back to Perry. “Don't you see what she's done? She waves her skirt in front of him and he turns into a pathetic little puppy.”
“Don't go jumping to conclusions,” Perry warned her.
“Then what about loyalty? What about going down with the ship?”
“That's for captains. That's why I'm still here.”
“How can you be so calm?” Lois asked. It wasn’t like Perry to take something like this laying down.
“What's my choice?”
“Well, since I've worked here, I've seen you scream, throw things, you even put your fist through the conference wall once,” Lois told him.
“All we can do is keep doing what we're supposed to be doing,” Perry said. He glanced at the assignment sheet. “Now according to this, what you're supposed to be doing is covering the Orani Jewels that the Ambassador of Omir's giving to Secretary Wallace as a lovely parting gift.”
“That's the best we've got?” Lois asked. It was a society piece, not the front page.
“No,” Perry told her. “The best we've got is the editor of the Daily Planet hanging from the top of the Global Commerce building in a gorilla suit. But my costume hasn't arrived yet. I'll page you when it does. Now, go on. It'll be okay. Trust me.”
“That's what Clark told me.”
Perry just shrugged.
-o-o-o-
The ballroom at the Omir Embassy had been set up for a news conference. A small stage held a covered display case and a podium. The display case no doubt held the Orani jewels everyone had been talking about.
Doors opened on the far side of the room and Secretary Wallace entered, accompanied by an assistant and the ambassador of Omir along with a small entourage of Omiri aides. They moved quickly to the stage and the display.
Lois spotted Clark with Linda and looked away. It wouldn’t do to look interested in what he was doing.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Wallace began. “The Ambassador and myself will be happy to answer a few questions before the unveiling.”
Clark spoke up first. “Mister Secretary, Clark Kent, Metropolis Star. What do you think…?”
Lois cut him off. “Mister Secretary, Lois Lane, Daily Planet. Is it true…?”
“Excuse me!” Linda jumped in. “But I believe Mister Kent was asking a question.”
“Mister Kent can speak for himself,” Lois retorted, not bothering to look at either of them.
“Maybe. Except he's gotten so used to you doing it for him,” Linda spat.
Wallace simply looked confused while the rest of the press corps tried to keep straight faces.
“Hypocrite,” Lois sneered, finally turning to face Linda.
“Me? You sure can dish it out but you can't take it,” Linda shot back.
“Oh, get off your high horse!”
“And get down in the gutter with you?” Linda shouted back.
Wallace began to shout for order. “Ladies, please! Please! No questions. That's it…”
Lois snapped her mouth shut and glared at Linda.
Wallace continued. “Let's get to the real reason we're here, the ceremonial exchange from the Kingdom of Omir to the United States. Ladies and gentlemen, the gift from the Ambassador of Omir, the Orani Jewels.”
Wallace turned to pull the cloth from the display when a loud crash echoed through the room. With everyone else, Lois turned to see that one of the large statues in the hallway had tipped over. Then Lois caught sight of Clark whispering something to one of the uniformed guards.
It would have taken superpowers to knock that statue over. Clark’s powers were coming back. But was he smart enough to keep from revealing himself to Linda King? There was no telling what Linda would do if she found out.
-o-o-o-
Lois waited until she was sure Clark would be home before heading over to face him. She wasn’t sure what she was going to do, but she was sure she was going to have to save him from himself. He was just so naïve sometimes. Of course, blowing up at Linda during the news conference wasn’t going to help her case.
She knocked hard on his apartment door. After a few moments the door opened. Clark seemed surprised to see her there.
“All right, Clark?” Lois demanded “You can run, but you can't hide. What's going on?”
Clark eyed her warily. “What do you mean, 'What's going on?'”
Lois pushed past him. “Don't give me the innocent act.”
“Me?”
“So, that's how you're going to play this, huh?” she commented. She wasn’t surprised. He was very good at the ‘lil ol’ me’ bit, then something else occurred to her. “Oh, I get it. She's here, isn't she? You can't talk because she's here.” Lois started looking around Clark’s apartment. “Come out, come out, wherever you are.”
He followed her around, watching as she checked behind the sofa, under the bed, in the shower. Finally she opened the closet door and found… Perry.
She looked back at Clark. “Either this is a lot sicker than I thought, or it's not what I thought I thought. Which is it?”
Both men gave her sheepish looks. “Clark's been working undercover at the Star,” Perry finally explained.
It all made a bizarre sort of sense. “Of course! You couldn't possibly be ready to throw away everything you have for…” she could hardly stand to say it. “Linda King.”
“You're right about that,” Clark said. He sounded sincere.
“So talk,” she ordered.
“These accidents aren't accidents,” Clark said. “The arson fire that Linda happened to be at. The elevator fall during lunch. There was even supposed to be a heist of the Orani jewels.”
“We thought they might be staging crimes just to scoop us,” Perry added. “So we staged Clark's defection.”
“You could have told me!” Lois said. She felt betrayed. She had always been the one to go undercover.
“My idea,” Perry said as if reading her mind. “You seem to be personally involved here. I didn't want to risk it.”
“You mean I've been going through all these feelings for nothing?” She wailed then promptly regretted it. Clark’s eyes had lit up.
“What feelings?” Clark asked innocently. No, innocent wasn’t the word for it. Clark had managed to pull the wool over Linda’s eyes and that look talent. The woman was a man-eater. And Clark…? Well, Clark had been fooling everyone with his innocent farm boy act ever since he got to Metropolis.
“Forget it. I'm not feeling them anymore,” Lois told him. She resolved to deal with the feelings Clark’s apparent betrayal had brought her later. “So, Linda is in this up to her surgically sculpted chin.”
“I don't think so,” Clark said. “I mean, I thought that was it, that's why I wanted to get partnered with her. But I think she's out of the loop.”
“What do we do now?” Lois asked. That Linda might, just possibly, be innocent in all this only bothered her a little. She knew she had to be guilty of something. It was only reasonable.
“Well, now that you know, the two of you might as well start working this together,” Perry suggested brightly. “That is, if you think you still can.”
“Chief, I'm fine. It's Clark who's been turning to mush whenever he's around Linda,” Lois said.
“Me? You're the one who fell into the black hole the minute you heard she was in town,” Clark retorted.
Perry just smiled benignly at them.
“Don't exaggerate,” Lois warned Clark. She pitched her voice high, mimicking Linda’s voice. “'Clark, can you walk me to the subway?'”
“I was just being polite,” Clark defended himself.
“There’s polite and there’s pushover. You'd fly her to the moon if you could,” she came back. It felt good to be arguing with Clark, even if it was about Linda King. She didn’t even notice when Perry left.
