The Vampire Murders: 17/?
by Nan Smith
Previously:
Clark paused by the door which hung slightly ajar, and listened. Lois strained her ears, but could near nothing but the distant sound of the surf. Still, it was highly suspicious that there had been a sliding door in the closet. She'd be willing to bet that it hadn't been part of the vacation cottage's original design.
"Hear anything?" she whispered, barely breathing the words.
He shook his head and pushed the door wider. Together, they tiptoed out into the hallway.
It was, as Lois expected, empty, however leaving now was probably impossible, at least if they were planning on doing so without being discovered. Clark had turned toward the master bedroom and Lois followed him, the back of her neck prickling. They had no way of knowing if whoever had entered the other side of the duplex was going to come in here next.
The master bedroom's door was closed, and Clark paused, listening for several seconds before he quietly turned the knob and pushed it open.
**********
And now, Part 17:
Clark gently pushed the door open.
When he and Lois had entered the other half of the duplex, he had taken the opportunity to scan the house completely, and had seen what he was now aiming for.
The master bedroom, of course, was empty of furniture, and the door to the attached bathroom was closed. He turned toward it, listening intently for any sound in the structure. The footsteps of the person who had nearly intruded on them earlier had stopped but he could still hear the man's heartbeat. A glance with his X-ray vision over the tops of his glasses told him the fellow -- a thick-set, beefy man in the outfit of a Cost Mart employee -- was lifting the trap door that led to the passage under the Cost Mart parking lot. That was interesting. What was going on there this time?
But right now, the master bathroom was his destination. Moving quietly, Clark crossed the thick carpet of the bedroom, listened a moment, and opened the door.
Clark Kent was rarely caught by surprise in a situation such as this one. His better-than-human senses were always on the alert and warned him well in advance of any unexpected events that might decide to spring themselves on him but there were those few occasions that caught even him without warning. This was one of them.
He had already peeked into this room earlier, and knew that, although there was no one present to interfere with them, there was something else of interest in here -- several items that certainly did not belong in the luxurious bathroom of a vacation cottage. Listening now, before he opened the door, he had heard no sounds of breathing, and no heartbeat. The room was still uninhabited.
Or so he'd thought. There shouldn't have been anything alive in the room, but there was definitely someone present now when he opened the door.
At first he thought that he and Lois had stumbled on a corpse, for the man sleeping in the enormous bathtub lay deathly still. The blinds were pulled across the frosted glass of the window, blocking out the direct rays of the noon sun, but there was enough indirect light to see. Lois sucked in her breath in a shrill gasp at the sight of the figure, and the man's eyes opened.
Clark would have expected an expression of surprise in such a circumstance, which was odd to say the least, but the man looked at them calmly for several seconds and then slowly sat up. He surveyed them both with expressionless calm. Clark felt Lois's hand clutch his arm almost convulsively.
"It's him!" she said.
"Who?"
"This is the guy that rescued me from that room in Cost Mart!"
Clark looked sharply back at the man, who was now getting to his feet ."But not the one in your apartment last night?"
She shook her head. "No."
The unknown stepped from the tub with unimpaired calm, as if being found sleeping in a bathtub was an everyday event in his life. In the filtered light from the window Clark surveyed him with rigidly concealed interest.
On first appearance, he didn't seem particularly unusual. He was a short, slender brown-skinned man, dressed in slightly worn jeans and a green Cost Mart T-shirt with the Cost Mart logo on the left breast, which implied, at least, that he might stock shelves or do other basic duties for the store, and over it he wore a light jacket. His hair, eyebrows and eyes were of an almost glassy black, like obsidian, Clark thought. High cheekbones, a straight, full-lipped mouth and a firm, determined chin gave him a slightly Native American appearance. He stood straight, his shoulders back, and folded his arms casually across his chest in an almost Superman pose, watching the two of them stolidly.
Lois took a half-step forward. "You never gave me a chance to thank you last night."
The mystery man's mouth curled in a faint smile. "You are most welcome, Miss Lane." His strange, black eyes shifted to Clark. "And this is Mr. Kent, I presume." It was not a question.
Clark nodded. "And you are --?"
"A friend," the other man said, with another faint quirk of his lips.
"What are you doing here?" Lois asked.
"I do not wish to be found by the men of Cost Mart." The voice held a faint accent that Clark couldn't identify, and he thought he had heard most of the accents on Earth. "I concealed myself here, with samples of their wares until nightfall." He nodded at the two wrapped packages and the pair of automatic weapons lying in a long, wooden container in the corner, their surfaces gleaming slickly with oil. "I was unable to return to my usual quarters at the present time."
That was an odd way to put it. Clark frowned slightly. "Where would that be?"
The man glanced sideways at him. "That is not your concern. Are you able to contact your police inspector? I wished to show him this evidence, and speak to him of the men bringing these things into your city."
"We'll be seeing Henderson later," Lois said. "We could give him a message if you want."
The man nodded and gestured at the packages. "This is but a small sample of the death these men deal. They must be stopped. You must tell this Henderson that the shipments come in a vessel that sails beneath the surface of the sea. They wait now a little way from the shore to bring in more of these wares when his men no longer watch."
"A sub?" Lois said. She and Clark looked at each other. "That would explain why they haven't been picked up by the Coast Guard."
"Yeah," Clark said slowly. "It would, wouldn't it? If it's a small sub, and there's enough clearance in that inlet, it would be the perfect way to avoid detection by the authorities. Then they bring the goods into Cost Mart and distribute it from there."
"We can introduce you to Inspector Henderson if you like," Lois said. "I'm sure he'd like to talk to you."
"I dare not venture into the open now," the other man said. "Take my message to him. Bring him to this place where he may see these things."
Well, they couldn't force the guy to go with them, Clark supposed. "You'll be all right here?"
"Do not fear for me," Lois's mystery man said. "I shall be safe. Go now."
"You're sure?" Lois said. She glanced at Clark, looking a little uncertain.
The dark man's lips parted in a smile, and two rows of startlingly white teeth flashed for an instant. "I am sure. Time is, however, as I have heard said, of the essence. Tell your law enforcement officer what I have told you."
Clark made up his mind. "All right. Come on, Lois."
As the door closed behind them, Lois hesitated. "Should we leave him here? What if he's gone when we get back?"
"We can hardly drag him along against his will," Clark pointed out. "And I don't want to leave you here alone with him. He may have rescued you, but we don't know anything about him, really."
"Yeah." Lois kept her voice low. "There's something different about him. I don't know what it is."
Clark glanced back at the closed door. There was definitely something different about the mystery man, and the possibilities nearly raised the hair on his head. However, he simply nodded. "I know what you mean. Come on, though. We need to try to find Henderson."
"Won't he still be hunting around in Wilson's Cove?"
"Maybe," Clark said. "Or maybe he's just sent his people to do the hunting. If we can get out of here without being seen, maybe you can find the nearest pay phone and call the Precinct."
"There's one about two blocks from here," Lois said. "Do you think whoever that was next door is still there?"
Clark shrugged. "I don't hear anyone walking around," he said. "Do you?"
Actually the intruder, whoever he was, had descended the ladder down into the underground tunnel about the time they had encountered Lois's mystery man. There was no one in the vacation cottage now except themselves and the dark man in the master bathroom's tub. Assuming, Clark thought whimsically, that he had decided to continue his nap after they left.
Lois was silent, apparently listening. "No," she said at last. "But I don't want the security guy to spot us leaving, either. The other night, he probably thought we were just random trespassers, but after what happened yesterday, I don't want to count on it."
"Me, either. If he reported it to his bosses, they might decide it was too dangerous to continue their operations, and we might not ever be able to pin it on them. That wouldn't be so good."
"That's for sure." Lois led the way out of the master bedroom, walking almost on tip toe. "We'll just have to be careful."
"Why don't we go out via the kitchen door?" Clark suggested. "That way we'll have the house between us and the beach."
Lois regarded him thoughtfully. "You know, for a farm boy, sometimes you have some pretty good ideas."
"We Kansas farm boys try to please, ma'am," he said, thickening his Midwestern drawl slightly.
"I've noticed that," Lois said. "Somehow, I'm starting to wish I was in Kansas right now, even with your Kansas oceans and Kansas sea gulls. I think all this creepy stuff is starting to get to me. I'd like a nice, straightforward, honest Corn Festival, with lots of handsome, corn fed farm boys to ogle instead of blood-drained bodies and vampires in the dark. A nice sunny day in Kansas is looking awfully attractive at the moment." She straightened her shoulders. "But, we've got a gang of smugglers to bring down, so let's get cracking."
**********
Their departure from the kitchen door of the duplex was without incident, however. When they were sauntering side by side down the sidewalk once more, Lois felt her shoulders relaxing.
"Hold it a minute," she said, after a moment.
Clark paused. "Something wrong?"
"No. I just need to empty the sand out of my shoes. Mind if I lean against you?"
Her partner's teeth flashed in a grin. "Never," he said. "Lean away."
Lois pulled off a shoe and shook the sand from it, utilizing her partner as a leaning post. He stood patiently while she completed the operation and steadied her while she re-tied the jogging shoes. "Now," he added, "Where is the nearest pay phone? You notice I'm relying on your expertise."
"Just over two blocks from here," Lois told him. "It's over by Petrovitch's Gas Station."
"Who?"
"It's one of the little independent stations," Lois informed him. "The owner's name is Harvey Brown."
"I thought you said the station was called Petrovitch's."
"It is, but the owner is Harvey Brown. Come on."
A short time later, Lois put down the phone. "He's not there. They don't know when he'll be back."
"Great." Clark had acquired a pair of canned sodas while Lois was on the phone. "Here, you probably need this."
Lois accepted the cream soda. "Thanks. Henderson's probably still mucking around in Wilson's Cove, when we have information he'd probably kill for. What do we do now?"
Clark was frowning. "Let's get back to the Planet. With a little luck, I might be able to get hold of Superman. He might be able to get to Henderson, wherever he is, and pass along the message. Where's the nearest bus stop?"
"We don't have time," Lois said. "I'll call a cab."
"I thought you didn't want to ride in any more Metro cabs," Clark reminded her.
"I don't, but we're in a hurry. At least cabs are fast," Lois pointed out, a little crossly. "If I thought we had a chance of finding him, I'd personally invade Wilson's Cove, but we'd probably miss him, or the Cost Mart goons would find us first, or something." She grabbed up the receiver. "Let's get this over with before I lose my nerve."
Clark hesitated, and then nodded. "You're right. Like our friend back there said, time is of the essence. I don't suppose your friend Harvey would loan you a car or something."
Lois put down the receiver. "Clark, you're a genius!"
Thirty minutes later, Lois pulled the rusty and battered pickup truck, reluctantly loaned to her by the owner of Petrovitch's Gas Station, into her parking space at the Daily Planet and cut the engine. "Come on; let's get up to the newsroom. I don't want to be seen in this thing."
"What's the matter with it?"
"It looks like it came from a junk yard!"
"Well," Clark unwisely pointed out, "Mr. Brown said he'd just finished renovating his other car."
"He was afraid the same thing would happen to it as happened to the last one," Lois grumbled. "It wasn't my fault that that drug kingpin in Suicide Slum had his goons blow it up. It was just lucky I wasn't in it. Harvey swore he'd never loan me another car."
"How come he loaned you this one, then?"
"Because he owed me a favor. Come on!"
**********
tbc
