Part 27
Lois didn’t sleep well again. Luthor’s proposal felt wrong on too many levels. Again her dreams were filled with the trials of Loisette and Lucinda.
Baron Tempos had Sir Charles at his mercy. “I hope you believe in the afterlife.”
He prepared to plunge his sword into his defeated adversary’s heart.
Loisette screamed. “No! Stop!”
Tempos caught himself, although he kept his booted foot on Charles’s chest.
Loisette took a deep breath. “If you spare his life... I will wed you.”
“Touching,” Tempos sneered. “But if I do not spare his life, you will be forced into my marriage bed in any case. So why should I spare him?”
“Because you will gain the one thing you cannot force: my fidelity.”
Charles tried to protest but Tempos cut him off. “I accept, on one condition,
non-negotiable. Sir Charles is to leave this country, never to return. Not that I don't trust you, m'lady, but why tempt temptation?”
Again Charles tried to protest. Loisette cut him off this time. “He accepts,” she said. She smiled sadly at her lover. “I cannot let you die.”
“Getting cold feet, my darlin'?” Tempest Tex was saying. He was all but dragging her down the aisle at the small church. He was holding Lucinda’s parents somewhere and had threatened to kill them if she didn’t cooperate in this farce.
“More than understandable,” Tempest continued. “After all, marriage is a big step, not to be taken lightly. Especially in this case, when so much is at stake and time is so short. Shall we?”
He gave the reverend a nod.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we are gathered here today to unite these two fine people in holy matri…”
“Skip on down, Reverend,” Tempest ordered.
Reverend Percy flipped the pages of his book. “Do you, Tempest Tex, take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife, to have and to hold, in sick…”
Tempest was getting exasperated with the minister. “I do.”
“Aw,” Percy whined. “I was just getting to the good part.”
“Sorry, but we need to accelerate things. Now, skip on down!”
Percy gave Lucinda a sympathetic look. “Do you, Lulu, take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband... Blah, blah, blah, 'til death do you part?”
Lucinda was scanning the open windows for Calvin and Sheriff Jeremiah. She didn’t see them.
“Answer the good man,” Tempest demanded.
“Um... could you repeat the question, please?” Lucinda asked.
Lois knew her subconscious was screaming warnings at her. But she had no idea what she was supposed to do about it. Turning Luthor’s proposal down was as dangerous as turning Tempus down would have been for Loisette. All she could do was find a way to make him change his mind, without putting everything she knew and loved at risk.
The one thing she knew she had to do was keep her problem from affecting her work or her relationship with Clark. He needed her to be strong and he didn’t need any more pressure put on him.
-o-o-o-
“How many is that?” Lois asked Clark as they crossed the Daily Planet lobby to the elevators. She tried to keep the frustration out of her voice. One of the radio announcers had been talking about brain challenges. Clark had challenged her to list Santa’s reindeer.
“Six,” Clark told her.
She counted off on her fingers. “Dancer, Prancer, Comet, Blitzen, Dasher, Cupid... Donner...”
“That's seven… One more.”
“Donner...”
“You're stuck,” Clark announced.
“I am not stuck,” Lois protested, then she thought about it a moment. “I'm stuck.”
“Five bucks. 'Bucks', get it?”
“Okay, okay. Just tell me the name.”
He put his arm around her and grinned.
“Vixen.”
They had arrived at the elevators and were waiting for the next car.
“Double or nothing?” Lois offered.
“Okay…The Seven Dwarves.”
“You're on. Piece of cake… Happy, Dopey, Doc, Sneezy, Sleepy, Grumpy...”
“That's six.”
“Sleezy?” Clark shook his head. “Dippy, bippy, sloppy, wheezy... Joe, Steve...”
“Time's up. That's ten you owe me.”
“I hate this, I hate this. Tell me.”
“It's so obvious,” Clark told her with a grin.
The Daily Planet was a non-smoking building and had been for some time. Signs were posted in all public areas. A man in a business suit cut in front of them to get into the elevator. He had a lit cigarette hanging from his mouth and Lois snatched it, broke it in half and dropped it into the trash bin. The man stopped and stared at her, dumbfounded.
“Can't you read?” Lois demanded, pointing to the ‘No Smoking’ sign. She followed Clark into the elevator. The man chose to stay outside.
“Bashful,” Clark said as the elevator doors closed.
The doors opened onto the barely controlled chaos of the newsroom, only this time it looked like the beginnings of a riot.
“So when will we be paid?” Jimmy was demanding of an obviously tired and irritable Perry.
“They didn't say,” Perry responded. “I guess when there's money to pay you.” He held up his hands as a chorus of protests began. “I'm just the messenger, boys and girls. I can only repeat to you what I've been told. And that's not much.”
“What are we doing to resolve this?” one of the other reporters, Sanchez, asked. “I mean, what is the paper doing?”
“I have no idea. They haven't asked for my input,” Perry told them. He seemed to be having trouble hiding his own feelings on the subject.
Lois and Clark moved to Jimmy's side.
“What's going on?” Lois asked.
“Have you tried to cash your paycheck?” Jimmy asked.
“I deposited it,” Lois told him with a sinking feeling.
“Rubber.”
“Again?” Last week she’d had to run her paycheck through twice to get it to clear.
“They said last week's problem was a clerical error,” Clark reminded them.
“Yeah, like being broke,” Jimmy said. “There's a rumor the paper's going under.”
“Jimmy,” Perry interjected. “There's always a rumor.”
“And it's usually true,” Lois added.
“Anything else, Chief?” Clark asked. “Any more surprises?”
“They talked about layoffs,” Perry admitted.
The protests began anew, rising in volume to the point that Perry raised his hands once again for quiet.
Lois could hear muttered complaints. “That's not fair. What about the union? They can't do that.”
“All I know is if we don't find ways to save money around here, we're gonna be out of business.”
The room quieted.
“So they haven't been paid upstairs either?” Lois asked.
“I'm not sure about that,” Perry admitted.
This time Perry didn’t bother to try to quiet the shouts of outrage and disapproval.
-o-o-o-
The suits from upstairs sent down their suggested cuts.
“No business lunches, no payments for sources, no cabs...” Lois read from the list. Clark, Jimmy and Jack were standing beside her desk. She looked up at them. “We might as well hang up our word processors.”
“We'll adjust,” Clark said. “Hopefully it's only temporary.”
“Clark, we're newspaper people,” Lois stated. “We're supposed to have the resources to write the news as it happens. Old news isn't news, it's history.”
“Well I think it's a scam. The pinstriped pinheads upstairs only want us to think the Planet is broke,” Jimmy stated.
“Why would they do that?” Jack asked.
“I've seen this before,” Lois told them trying to sound more confident than she really was. “Management pretends there's this big crisis to panic everyone into cutting costs.”
“I heard some people talking about a strike,” Clark said.
“Strike?” Jimmy said. “No way, not me. I feel like I just walked in.”
“Tell me about it,” Jack muttered darkly.
“Besides, this is the Daily Planet,” Jimmy added as a messenger handed him and Jack envelopes. They tore them open. “We may be down, but we're not out. Things could be a lot worse. At least we're still...”
The envelopes held pink sheets of paper.
“Unemployed,” Jack said.
Jimmy stared at the slip. “Amazing. They really are pink.”
Lois’s heart sank. Things were even worse than she’d imagined if the suits were laying off the ‘non-essential’ personnel.
“I could talk to Perry,” Clark offered.
“We both could,” Lois added.
Jimmy shook his head. “Nah. It's not his fault. He would have prevented it if he could. He probably feels bad enough.”
“I guess it's back to a life of crime for me,” Jack said. Lois and Clark both frowned at him. “It's always nice to have something to fall back on.”
“This could turn out to be a good thing,” Jimmy told them. It was obvious he was trying to stay cheerful.
“How?” Lois asked.
“Remember my friend Buzz?” Jimmy asked. “We've been talking about going into business together.”
“Buzz, your reform school roommate?” Clark asked. His tone indicated he wasn’t sure he was going to like Jimmy’s idea.
“He got a bum rap, too,” Jimmy defended his old friend. “The guy is a marketing genius.”
“He's a con man,” Lois reminded the younger man.
“Same thing.”
“What kind of business?” Jack asked.
“We had this great idea: 'A Day in the Life of... You.' Anyone can do a wedding or a bar mitzvah, but we go into your home and capture an ordinary day on video. Kind of like your own personal 'Truth or Dare.'”
“Wouldn't that take equipment and capital?” Clark asked.
Jimmy shrugged. “I've got money saved. Not that much, but enough to get us started. Once it catches on, we'll be rolling in it.”
“That's what I'm afraid of,” Lois commented. Jimmy didn’t seem to hear.
Sanchez walked past them. He seemed dazed, almost ill.
“Steve, are you all right?” Clark asked.
The older man seemed to have aged years in just a few minutes. “I've just been laid off. I've been with the Planet twenty-five years. Where am I going to go?”
He walked away before Clark could come up with any suggestions. Lois knew Sanchez wasn’t an award winning writer but he was solid and reliable and Perry thought highly of him. Sanchez also had two kids in college.
“It's a massacre,” Jack announced, echoing what was going through Lois’s mind.
“It's all happening so fast,” Lois said.
“Maybe not,” Clark said quietly. “We know Carpenter hurt us pretty badly. Maybe management was having serious money problems even before then… We both know the employees are always the last to know.”
“This is ridiculous,” Lois protested. “The Planet’s had hard times before. We came through then…”
“Lois, I have a feeling this is more than just a ‘hard time’,” Clark said.
“Clark, you don’t think…?”
“I don’t know what to think,” Clark admitted. “But I do have a very bad feeling about this and I’m not just worrying about my job.”
Lois looked around to make sure no one was listening. Jimmy and Jack were clearing out Jimmy’s desk.
“Clark,” she began then hesitated. She took a deep breath and began again. “Luthor proposed to me last night. I haven’t given him a decision but I know he’s expecting one soon.”
“Lois, you can’t possibly say ‘yes’,” Clark protested.
“And I’m afraid of what may happen if I say ‘no’,” she told him.
Lois let he voice fall as Perry came out of his office.
“What's up?” Clark asked.
“Your guess is as good as mine,” Perry told them. He sounded worried. “I got a call from upstairs to expect an announcement right about... now.”
The elevator doors opened and Lex Luthor, accompanied by several men in dark suits, emerged. Mrs. Cox was by Luthor’s side as though she’d always been there and always would be.
“Please let this be a bad dream,” Lois heard Clark mutter. Unfortunately, Lois knew it wasn’t a bad dream – it was an all out nightmare.
Luthor took a position on the upper level, looking over the newsroom floor which had fallen silent, waiting.
“For those of you who don't know me, my name is Lex Luthor,” he began smoothly. “I, no less than you, have been greatly distressed by the sea of troubles that has mired Metropolis' one great newspaper. I don't know why your advertisers have deserted you and circulation is down. I don't know why the banks have shut off your credit lines. And I don't know why you depleted your cash reserves through unnecessary expenditures.” With that, he glared at the several men with him. “Though I have my suspicions… I do know that the problems can be solved with strong leadership and fiscal responsibility. Therefore, I have taken the one step that would guarantee the future well-being of this newspaper: I bought it.” He paused for effect. “I am the new owner of the Daily Planet.”
Cheers erupted from the newsroom floor, except by one desk. Lois, Clark and Perry were simply stunned. Clark actually looked a little sick.
“Today begins a new era,” Luthor continued. “I promise you no interference, only a few minor modifications, and no layoffs. Why tamper with greatness?”
Cheers drowned out whatever else Luthor had to say.
“Happy days are here again!” Jimmy yelled. He began to unpack the box on his desk.
“Maybe it won’t be that bad,” Lois suggested weakly.
“And maybe that’s what Loisette thought when she agreed to marry Baron Tempos,” Clark said.
-o-o-o-
The next day seemed to be business as usual – the newsroom people were at their desks, hard at work on their assignments. Someone from maintenance was hanging a large portrait of the new owner by the elevators. No doubt it was a reminder than no matter what he had said, Luthor was the boss.
Luthor had settled himself into Perry’s office with someone Lois didn’t recognize. She hadn’t seen Perry yet and assumed he was somewhere handling some sort of crisis.
The elevator doors opened and Perry hurried to his office. After a few minutes of conversation, Lois heard raised voices coming from the office.
“Luthor just told Perry he was now answering to a Supervising Editor-In-Chief,” Clark murmured to her. “The guy has no journalism experience. But he was top of his class at Harvard Business.”
“What happened to ‘minor modifications’?” Lois muttered back. Clark shrugged.
The office door slammed open and Perry stalked out, grim-faced. After a moment, he returned to the office and left again, this time with his Elvis portrait under his arm.
“Perry?” Lois asked. “What’s going on?”
“I’m going home,” Perry stated. “If you have any problems, take 'em up with our new owner and his new Supervising Editor-In-Chief.”
With that, Perry headed for the elevators.
Jimmy paused by her desk, carrying a box filled with personal items.
“What are you doing?” she asked. Another sinking feeling. “But I thought you got your job back. Jack, too.”
Jimmy shook his head. “We got jobs back. But not the ones we had,” Jimmy explained. “We report downstairs to the printing plant tomorrow.” He shook his head again and sighed. “I'm having a tough time thinking of this as a lateral career move.”
She watched after the younger man as he headed for the elevators. After a moment, she turned to find Luthor leaning over Clark’s desk.
“Excellent piece of writing, Clark, but I think we'll hold off on running it,” Luthor was saying.
“Why? This is a hot topic.”
“'Controversial' would be a better word.”
“Allegations of excessive rate hikes at Metropolis Electric is controversial?” Clark asked.
“That necessary rate hikes are 'excessive' is your opinion, not the opinion of this paper,” Luthor told him. Luthor’s expression was icy.
“This wouldn't have anything to do with your being on the Board of Metropolis Electric, would it?”
“That inference is insulting and unprofessional. I expected more from you, Kent,” Luthor said.
Jack had his own box in his arms as he passed close to Clark’s desk. He muttered something under his breath.
“What was that, young man?” Luthor demanded.
Jack stopped. “I said: 'Who died and made you king?'” With that, Jack hefted his box and continued to the elevators. Luthor stared after him.
“That boy has courage. I hope it doesn't get him into too much trouble,” Luthor muttered.
“Is this how it's going to be, Luthor?" Clark asked. “The 'free press' free only to do your bidding?”
Luthor expression turned ugly with anger. “If you don't feel 'free' enough around here, Kent, you're 'free' to leave.”
Clark gave him a slight bow. “Milord, do I have your permission to look into the double murder at the Hob’s Bay Carnival or is that too ‘controversial’?”
Luthor glared at him and stalked back to Perry’s office. Lois stepped over to stand by Clark’s desk. She was reasonably certain Luthor didn’t realize she had overheard his conversation with Clark.
“'Why tamper with greatness?'” Clark muttered bitterly.
Lois didn’t have anything to say to that. She knew exactly what Clark meant. Metropolis would be better off without the Daily Planet at all than with Luthor calling the shots.
Luthor was just about to settle in at Perry’s desk when Lois walked in. He smiled at her, his anger at Clark apparently already forgotten.
“Lois. Just the woman I wanted to see.”
“Lex, what's going on? Did you fire Perry?”
“What? No, of course not,” Luthor protested, seemingly surprised by her question. “I just hired another fellow to work with him. Take some of the load off.”
“But Perry wants the load,” Lois told him. “He won't accept this. He'll quit.”
“I sincerely hope not. It would be a great loss to the paper. If he only weren't so resistant to progress,” Luthor told her. He seemed genuinely worried. “If I've made a mistake, I better talk to him. I'll apologize.”
“And Jimmy and Jack?” Lois asked. “And Clark? What were you two arguing about?”
Luthor shrugged. “I gave Jimmy and Jack jobs. The only ones available. I'll have then back up here as soon as humanly possible. I promise,” Luthor said smoothly. “As for Clark, he seems to have this unreasonable hostility toward me. I don't know why. I have nothing but respect for him.” He reached over and took her hand. “Lois, I'm working to save the Planet. Give me a chance. Trust me. Everything will turn out fine.”
Lois forced herself to smile.
-o-o-o-
Lois sat across from Clark in the Planet lobby coffee shop. She stared down into her coffee.
“I can’t believe this is happening,” Lois said.
“Believe it,” Clark said.
“I want to believe he’s being honest and aboveboard,” Lois said. “I want to believe he wants to turn things around for the Planet.”
“But?”
“I know it makes me sound self-centered, maybe even delusional,” Lois began. “But since when does the new owner of a business with more than six hundred employees bother to know the names and fates of two junior gofers, except that they happen to be my friends?”
“If you expect to utterly defeat a battlefield opponent, you must destroy their support system, their allies, and any avenue of retreat,” Clark quoted.
“You think he’s decided I’m an opponent in a battle?”
“Lois, in his mind you were the property of his most formidable opponent,” Clark said. He held up his hand when she opened her mouth to protest. “When that opponent fell, you didn’t. You didn’t fall into his bed when he crooked his finger at you. That makes you a challenge and maybe even an opponent in his sick game.” He sighed. “Do you know what he does for fun, aside from buying and demolishing companies?”
She shook her head.
“He hunts predators, the more dangerous the better,” Clark said. “And he cruises places outside the metro for young, attractive, married working women. Waitresses mostly. He offers them money for sex, a lot of money, then takes off before they can decide whether or not to break their marriage vows.”
“And how…?”
“One of them was arrested a few months ago for making threats against him,” Clark explained. “I checked into it, found out that she wasn’t the only one he’d approached. Technically, what he does isn’t illegal. No money has changed hands and all he has to say is that they approached him. Who’d believe a billionaire like Luthor would make a habit of soliciting waitresses?”
“How long until he fires you?” Lois asked. Clark was the next person Luthor was likely to target.
“I think he’ll try to discredit me first,” Clark answered. “Make it impossible for me to do my job, make me want to leave.”
“Like Perry.”
Clark nodded.
“What are we going to do?”
Clark just shook his head.
