The Vampire Murders: 20/?
by Nan Smith
Previously:
As she rounded the corner at the front of the building, she almost collided with a familiar figure: a short, dark man wearing dark jeans and a leather jacket. She skidded to a stop so suddenly that she almost fell over.
The man who had rescued her the previous night caught her arm and helped her regain her balance.
"Miss Lane," he said by way of greeting. "Are you all right?"
Numbly, she nodded, telling her heart to slow down. "I need to call the police," she half-gasped. "Two men tried to kidnap me in the parking lot."
Her rescuer looked serious. "Then you must at once summon the police," he said. "I will accompany you until an officer of the law arrives."
"There's a phone in the lobby," Lois said, still struggling a little to recover her breath. "Come on."
**********
And now, Part 20:
He opened the door for her and stood courteously back to let her enter first. Lois did so and crossed to the wall-mounted phone. Not bothering to fish around in her purse for money, she punched the O, and waited.
The phone rang four times, and she had nearly given up hope that the operator would get back from her coffee break in time to answer, when there was a chime on the line, and a man's voice said, "Operator."
"I need to call the police," Lois said, still panting slightly. "Two men tried to kidnap me in the parking lot of my apartment house."
"Did you say you were nearly kidnapped?" the man asked, sounding not in the least alarmed.
"Yes. Two men. I need to call the Twelfth Precinct," she said. "Hurry, please!"
"You have a specific precinct you call?" the operator asked, sounding a little skeptical.
"This is Lois Lane, and the Twelfth Precinct is about four blocks from me!" she said, beginning to be a little angry. "Hurry!"
"The reporter?" the man asked, curiously. "Why don't you just yell 'Help, Superman!'?"
"Because Superman isn't my personal errand boy! For Heaven's sake, get the police! They had guns!"
Lois became aware abruptly that the sound of distant sirens, always present in Metropolis, were approaching her location rapidly. A police car, its red and blue lights brilliant in the dusk, screeched to a stop in the street in front of the apartment building as she looked through the glass of the front door, and the deafening siren died with a hiccup. More sirens were converging on her location. The operator said, "Sounds like they're already there. Somebody must have reported the gunshots."
"No thanks to you!" Lois said. "If I'd had to depend on you, you'd still be arguing with me!" She slammed the phone down.
"Be at ease, Miss Lane." The voice of her companion nearly made her jump. She had almost forgotten his presence while she argued with the skeptical operator. "The police are here. Perhaps you had best speak to them."
Two police officers were approaching the building as he spoke, she saw, and a moment later one of Metropolis's Finest shoved the door open.
"Excuse me, ma'am," he said. "We got a report of gunshots. Did you possibly hear anything?"
"Yes, I did," Lois said. "I was trying to call the police and got slowed down by a smart Alec operator. Two men tried to kidnap me in the parking lot behind the building!"
"Your name?" the second officer asked at once.
"I'm Lois Lane. I live in this building. I'd just got home from work, and parked in the apartment's lot, as usual, when two men got out of a car and tried to force me to go with them."
"Can you show us where this took place?"
Lois nodded. "Sure. It's around in the back --"
There were several more police officers just climbing out of their cars as Lois led the two, to whom she had spoken, down the steps to the apartment and around toward the rear parking lot.
The lot was still dimly illuminated, but it was silent now. Nothing moved within Lois's range of vision except the police. But on the pavement lay a dark, indeterminate shape. Lois drew in her breath, realizing what that shape probably was.
The beam from one of the flashlights employed by the responding officers played over the shapeless bulk, and there was a sudden movement toward what Lois could see now was two bodies, one lying across the other. Neither was moving, and, as she followed the police toward them, the light flicked over their faces and clothing. Clothing that was spattered with blood.
"Are these the two men who attempted to abduct you, Ms. Lane?" The voice of the officer who had taken her name broke through the faintly sick feeling in her gut that was suddenly taking up all her attention.
"Maybe," she said. Her voice sounded choked, even to her. "I didn't see their faces. It was too dark. I ran toward the street to get away."
Two of the police officers were bending over the still forms, and another was speaking rapidly into a radio. The man who had addressed her was a dark shadow in the dimly lit parking lot, but she could tell he was watching her closely. "Do you want to tell me in more detail what happened to you here?"
"Are they dead?" she asked, marginally aware that her voice was shaking slightly.
"Looks like it." The man was silent a moment. "I don't suppose you know what happened here?"
Lois shook her head. "Were they shot?" she whispered.
"Hey, Sarge!" A voice from one of the figures standing by the two dead men interrupted her. "Looks like we got another couple of vampire victims like those guys at Cost Mart!"
From somewhere, she heard a familiar whoosh of air, and an instant later, a familiar voice sent a wash of relief through her.
"Are you all right, Lois?" Superman asked. "What's going on?"
She didn't answer at once. Looking around, she realized abruptly, that her companion from the Cost Mart tunnel was nowhere to be seen.
**********
"You know, Lois, I thought I'd seen the last of you for today, when I talked to you this morning," Bill Henderson remarked. "I should have known better."
The lobby of her apartment building was none too large, and was now occupied by Lois, the cop who had first spoken to her, whose name happened to be, of all things, Sergeant Schultz, and Bill Henderson, as well as Mr. Tracewski and the larger of his two sons, who stood a head taller than the manager, and massed at least twice his weight, most of it pure muscle. Sergeant Schultz, however, didn't look anything like the actor portraying his namesake on the old sitcom. He was a tall, lean police sergeant, who had not yet begun to develop a gut, or a matching wide seat. He had maintained a polite but neutral air toward Lois ever since the discovery of the bodies.
"I never thought I'd be glad to see you, Henderson," Lois replied acerbically. "Two men tried to abduct me in the parking lot, and your sergeant here seems to think I might have sucked all the blood out of their bodies."
Henderson looked as deadpan as always. "I'm tempted to take you into protective custody to keep you out of trouble," he said, "but I guess I owe you a favor or two. I know Ms. Lane, " he continued, this time speaking to Schultz. "She didn't kill your John Does. In fact, she's been reporting on our so-called 'Vampire Murders'. How did you get mixed up in this one?" he added to Lois.
"You're not going to believe me," Lois said. "I wouldn't believe me!"
"Try me. I've seen more stuff I don't believe in the last week than most men do in a lifetime. Besides, I've already spoken to Superman, which is why I'm here."
"Can we do it in private?" Lois asked, glancing at Schultz.
"So you didn't tell him everything?"
"Well -- I told him the believable stuff."
The faintest quiver passed over Henderson's face, but his voice was as perfectly deadpan as ever when he answered. "Go on out and take over from Krutzfeld, Wally. I'll talk to Ms. Lane."
The sergeant regarded Lois with a look as deadpan as Henderson's. "She's hiding something, sir," he said.
"I'm sure she is, but she still didn't murder anybody. Go on."
With a last, doubtful look at Lois, Schultz departed. Mr. Tracewski spoke up. "You want Joey and me to stay, Miss Lane? We will, if you want."
"No." Lois smiled gratefully at the apartment house manager. Mr. Tracewski had managed the place since before she had first come to the apartment on Carter Avenue, and regarded his tenants as his responsibilities. As soon as he'd realized that she might be in trouble, he had come out to be a quiet, but reassuring witness to Lois's encounter with the enigmatic Sergeant Schultz, and brought his eldest son along for good measure. "Inspector Henderson's okay. But thank you for being here."
"All right, but you call me if you need me." Mr. Tracewski cast a suspicious look at Henderson and departed, followed by Joey.
"Looks to me like you have a champion there," Henderson said mildly.
"Mr. Tracewski takes this whole vampire business seriously," Lois said. "He asked me if I wanted to borrow an extra crucifix, but I told him I was already wearing one."
Henderson shook his head. "I'm glad I'm not the only one, but if you ever tell anyone --"
"You?" She was aware of a faint sense of relief. Maybe she wasn't being silly, after all. Or if she was, at least she was in good company.
"Yeah." Henderson patted the front of his shirt. "I guess I'm more superstitious than I like to think. But it's only for moral support. I don't believe in vampires."
"Neither do I, but after this evening, I'm beginning to wonder," Lois said.
"Do you want to tell me what happened?"
"I'm not sure I want to tell anybody what actually happened, but if I was the superstitious type, I'd think I was the first real witness to our vampire in action."
Henderson looked sharply at her. "You're not joking?"
"Do you think I'd joke about something like this? Superman must have told you those two men tried to abduct me in the parking lot, and when I got back with the police they were dead, each with two holes in his throat."
"I was just pulling into my driveway," Henderson told her. "He came to get me not only to get you out of trouble, but because he knew I'd want to know."
"Where did he go?"
"Wherever he goes. Maybe he's looking for your vampire. Kent's out there watching the investigation, though. He arrived about the time I did. I told him I'd talk to you and rescue you if necessary. Now, what happened?"
Lois sank into one of the straight-backed chairs that had been in the apartment lobby for as long as she had lived here. Now that the tension was easing, she discovered that her knees felt a little wobbly. "I'm not joking," she said. "Even if I didn't see the vampire attack those guys, I saw something, and it wasn't your ordinary murder, or assault. It definitely wasn't."
"All right: I believe it wasn't ordinary. Why don't you tell me what it looked like?" Henderson's voice was a little gentler, and she realized that the voice was the reassuring one that he used when trying to calm a witness or a victim, in the course of his job. Bill Henderson saw a lot more than she gave him credit for.
Taking a deep breath, she shoved away her reaction to what had happened this evening, and began to speak, trying to be as clear and concise as she could. Henderson remained silent, even when she got to the most unbelievable part, the black flying thing that wasn't Superman. And then, her meeting with the man from the Cost Mart tunnel, and the way he had disappeared when the police arrived.
"What time did all this happen?" he asked at last.
"I'm not sure. The sun had been down maybe ten or fifteen minutes."
"So that was just about the time Superman and I were leaving Mariner's Cove," he said finally. "But I don't see --." He was silent for several seconds, obviously thinking. "Well," he said at last, "I'll have to talk to Superman again, obviously. You're free to go, Lois. But do me a favor. Don't go running around by yourself in the dark until we get this thing solved."
"There was one thing," Lois said suddenly. "When those two pulled guns on me, one of them told me I had a date with a vampire. I almost forgot. What do you suppose he meant?"
"Good question," Henderson said. "I doubt it was anything good."
"What if Intergang killed those men in the park," Lois said. "Maybe even the Cost Mart manager. If they faked the vampire deaths, maybe they intended to do the same thing to me."
"Intergang?" Henderson said. "I thought we were talking about smugglers based in Cost Mart."
Lois could have bitten her tongue, but it was too late to back out now. "Clark and I think Bill Church is the head of Intergang," she said." And Bill Church owns the Cost Mart chain."
"Isn't Church a friend of your boss?" Henderson inquired.
"Yes. Perry thinks we're barking up the wrong tree."
"That sounds like something White would say," Henderson said dryly. "Maybe you'd care to fill me in on this theory when we have more time. In any case, I doubt they'd have killed their own men while they were attempting to bring you in, so that doesn't explain this incident. I'd like you to promise me that you'll stick with Kent or even Olsen when you're going about your business for a few days until this thing is wrapped up. I don't want to find your bloodless body lying around somewhere. Whoever they are, you're obviously a thorn in their side. A word to the wise."
Someone knocked on the door and Lois looked past Henderson to see Clark peering through the glass pane set in the door at them. Henderson glanced over his shoulder and waved for Clark to enter. "Speak of the devil, here he is now. Kent, I'm appointing you her bodyguard until all this is over. It's obvious to me that somebody would like to get rid of a snoopy reporter. Stick with her whenever she's running around loose, would you?"
"No problem," Clark said. "Would you like to tell me what happened?"
"I'll let Lois do that. I want to see a little of the lay of the land." He smiled dryly at Lois. "And I used to think police work was dull." With that sardonic comment, he pushed the door open and went out into the chilly night air.
**********
tbc
