Sorry about the long wait. We've had several things happen recently that came close to emergencies, and some ongoing things related to them that have made it very difficult to write. I persevered, however, and here is the latest effort. Hopefully there are only a few more parts to go, and if I can find the time to write, I'll have them done as soon as I can. We are, however, in the first stages of planning a move, so my writing time is spotty.

In any case, here is the latest part, moving the story along a little more.

Nan

The Vampire Murders: 23/?
by Nan Smith

Previously:

Another pause. "I guess so," Filner's voice said, a little doubtfully. "But I want to leave town right afterwards. I don't want anything more to do with any of this. There's too many dead people turning up. Something's not right. Mr. Brunner was drained of blood, just like that first guy in the park. Patty was so scared she didn't even come to work yesterday or today."

"Well, neither of you will have to worry about any of this after tonight," Church said. "Right after you make one, last appearance. Then it will all be over."

"All right. Is it okay if I pick up Patty's mug? Her sister gave it to her when she got the job with Mr. Brunner."

"No problem," Church said. "See me in my office in an hour and we'll go over the script."

"Yes sir." Clark heard the scrape as Filner apparently picked up the coffee mug. Cautiously, he turned his head and lowered his glasses. The solid wall disappeared before his eyes, and he saw the man whom Bill Church had called Filner.

He was a slender man of medium height with a narrow, pale face, dark, piercing eyes and thick, black hair. It was the kind of face people remembered. He had seen this man before, Clark thought, and his memory went back to the night he and Lois had first investigated the tunnel under the Cost Mart parking lot. This had been the man whom they had seen on the sidewalk outside the big store, just as they were leaving.

Several things were suddenly beginning to add up.

**********

And now: Part 23:

The opening and closing of the outer door leading into the hallway was followed by complete quiet in the secretary's little office.

Lois remained still, listening intently, but no sound broke the silence that had fallen.

Clark's glasses had crept down his nose while they were standing frozen behind the door, Lois noted. He pushed them back into place and released his breath softly. "I think they're gone."

"Yeah." Lois kept her voice low. "Did you hear all that? This Filner guy was the vampire that Henderson shot at in my apartment."

"Hired by the Churches," Clark said. "Things are finally starting to make sense."

"Well, some things are," Lois amended. "There are a few that still haven't been explained. But, you know, if I was that fake vampire, I'd worry. He's a liability. He knows too much for Bill Church to let him go. He'll never have the chance to get started in Montana or anyplace else. A gang that routinely assassinates world leaders and tried to kill Superman isn't likely to worry about getting rid of a third rate actor like him."

"If he has any sense at all, he'll run while he can," Clark said, a little grimly.

"That's for sure," Lois said. "We need to tell Henderson. After we look around a little more," she added. "Like Perry always says, we need hard evidence."

"He's already got samples of the drugs and weapons," Clark pointed out.

"But no proof of where they came from," Lois patted the pocket of her jacket. "I've got a camera. We're going to get some photos of that storeroom in the sub-basement. But first, since we're in Brunner's office, let's see what we can find, while we give our friends a little time to go about their business. You take the file cabinet and I'll take the desk."

"They probably cleared out anything incriminating," Clark said, moving obediently to the file cabinet.

"Yeah, probably," Lois agreed. "But 'Patty' didn't come in to work today or yesterday. Maybe they slipped up."

"Maybe," Clark agreed. "It won't hurt to look, anyway, but we'd better lock the door. We don't need any interruptions." He turned and went to suit action to word, and then returned to examine the file cabinet that stood in one corner of Brunner's office. Lois was already opening the top drawer of the big desk.

"Do you need me to open the locks for you?" she asked, belatedly.

"No," Clark said. "It looks like the locking drawer is broken."

"What?" She turned her head.

"This is one of those file cabinets where you lock one drawer and that fastens all the rest," Clark said. He was ruffling through the top drawer's files as he spoke. "It's open. Looks like the lock's broken."

"Lucky," Lois said, returning to her investigation of the desk and thinking absently that Clark seemed to have incredible luck with locks that way. The top drawers produced nothing of interest and she opened the second drawer down on the left.

Neither it, nor the corresponding one on the right, or the bottom left drawer contained anything that she could use as incriminating evidence, but the bottom right drawer was locked. She tugged on it a second time and then fished in her pocket for her lock pick.

"Try this," Clark said. His hand appeared over her shoulder and in it was a small key. "It was in the file cabinet."

Lois took the key. Sure enough, it fit and she opened the drawer.

At first, she didn't see anything of value that might warrant locking the drawer. In some disappointment, she picked up the top folder in the very small stack that occupied the space.

Inside were several 8X10 photographs of men's faces, all smiling with what she would call professional charm at the camera. Lois frowned. The man in the first photo looked vaguely familiar, as if she had seen him somewhere, but not on any significant occasion that she could place. He resembled an actor that she had noticed in a spaghetti sauce commercial she had seen on television now and then.

The second photo was similar -- in fact, Lois was sure this guy had been in a recent soda commercial, wearing speedos, displaying his rolling biceps, and guzzling down a cola while some blond bimbo fawned over his bronzed chest.

She dutifully riffled through the remaining photos without much expectation of discovering anything of interest, but on the fifth one she froze, staring riveted at the features that looked back at her. "Clark! Look at this!"

Her partner turned from his investigation of the file cabinet. "What?"

"It's my vampire! -- the guy who came through my window and Henderson shot!"

The man in the picture was smiling and showed no sign of elongated fangs, but there was no question in her mind that it was the same man. The dark hair was arranged attractively, and his features were pleasant, even mildly handsome -- not at all like the "vampire" in her apartment, but if he was an actor, how much talent did it take to bare your teeth and snarl, anyway?

Clark was looking over her shoulder. "I've seen that guy before."

"I've seen a couple of these guys before. I think they're aspiring actors or something. This one was my vampire. Where have you seen him?"

"The night we first investigated the tunnel under the Cost Mart parking lot. Do you remember that guy we saw just as we were leaving?"

"What guy?"

"He was standing on the sidewalk when we drove away. I noticed him because he was the only person around. I thought it was kind of strange. It was three in the morning and snowing besides."

Now that he mentioned it, she recalled the incident. "Yeah, I remember him now, too. You think this was him?"

"I'm sure it was the same man," Clark said.

"What do you suppose he was doing there?"

"Who knows? But if this is your vampire --"

"It is. No question."

Clark took the photo and turned it over. "'Aloysius Filner, performing artist,' and a phone number. This is a publicity photo."

Lois removed her tiny camera and took pictures of both sides of the photo. "I want to show this to Henderson."

"I suspect he'll recognize the vampire, too. Find anything else in the desk?"

"Not so far. Keep looking," Lois ordered. "We don't have all day."

"If I were an Intergang boss, I wouldn't keep evidence around," Clark said.

"Neither would I," Lois said. "But Bill Church seems to run Intergang like a branch of his business, so it wouldn't surprise me if he keeps records like any CEO. Maybe they slipped up and left more behind than just these pictures. I'm sort of surprised they even left them."

"Well, they're just pictures. Unless you saw the vampire up close, probably nobody would think much about them. They'd probably think Cost Mart was just looking for a spokesman to hawk their stuff."

"You're probably right," Lois admitted, returning to her task.

But despite a fairly thorough search of the office, nothing else of interest came to light. At last, Lois straightened up from the bottom drawer of the file cabinet, where she had been helping Clark to sort through the contents, and pushed the drawer shut with one foot. "Nothing."

"Not nothing," Clark said. "We have copies of the vampire's picture. That's worth a lot right there. What do you want to do now?"

"I don't think I signed up to have Little Merry Sunshine for my partner," Lois grumbled. "Okay, in case you didn't notice, there's an executive washroom over there --" She pointed. "There also happens to be a very nice suit hanging on the shower stall. It looks about your size, and if we go any farther, you'll be a lot less noticeable dressed like an executive around here instead of jeans and a polo shirt. See if it fits you."

"If it's Brunner's, it won't. I'm taller, and nowhere near as chubby."

"Don't nitpick," Lois said. "Try it on."

**********

Clarence Brunner had been a little shorter than Clark, but his shoulders had been broad. Unfortunately, so had his middle. Clark pulled the belt of the slacks tight around his narrow waist and straightened the florid tie. Yuck! Clark's ties were usually bright and eye-catching, but this thing was a bilious green and a kind of nasty yellow-brown with shapeless little blobs of red dotting it as if someone had thrown paint at the owner. It fit the man's character, Clark thought, distastefully, shrugging himself into the jacket. The shoulders were a little snug, but the cloth hung loose around his middle.

"I guess Brunner was fighting middle-age spread," Lois observed. "Button it up and stand up straight. I don't think anybody will notice unless he really looks closely."

Clark sighed and obeyed. Surveying himself in the door's full-length mirror, he didn't look too bad, he decided, after a critical scrutiny. With a small amount of luck, maybe it would be enough.

"Wow," Lois said. She felt the tight cloth across his back. "Your shoulders are almost too wide for this thing." She added, "I remember the time I saw you in a towel, back when you first came to work at the Planet. I guess you still work out a lot, huh?"

"Sort of," Clark said, uncomfortably. "Let's get going, huh? I'd like to be out of here sometime today. Preferably without being caught by Bill Junior's goons. Besides, his shoes don't fit me. I'm going to have to wear my jogging shoes. Let's hope nobody notices."

"They probably won't," Lois said. "They're dark, and you're not going to be standing still, talking to anybody for long."

"Not if I can help it," Clark said firmly.

"Just keep that in mind. Act like you own the place and people will think you do. The area I'm aiming for is the sub-basement. The room I was locked in is there, and so is the storeroom where I saw the packages, and who knows what other stuff they've smuggled in. Our friend from the beach house let me out the door there, right into the underground tunnel. I think I can find the elevator again without too much trouble. As soon as we're sure the hall is clear --"

Clark put his ear against the door. His super-hearing didn't pick up any sounds from the other side, and, looking over the tops of his glasses, he verified that the hallway was empty, at least for the moment. Quietly, he unlocked the door and stepped out into the hall. Lois followed him. He glanced at her briefly. "Okay, lead on."

"Keep going that way," Lois said, pointing. "When you get to the end of the hallway, turn left. There's an elevator to the first basement . . ."

**********

The elevator to the basement was empty, fortunately. Clark wasn't so sure of Lois's blithe assurance that nobody would give him a second look, but fortunately, it wasn't immediately put to the test. The elevator's control panel gave them options of the store's upper two floors and a basement. Lois punched the button for the basement.

When the elevator door opened on the basement level, a man in battered jeans and the green T-shirt of Cost Mart was waiting to board. They stepped out onto the carpeted hallway, and the man went past them, barely glancing at them. Clark let his breath out softly as the doors closed and the elevator departed upward, but Lois said, "*That's* where I first saw him!"

"Huh? Saw who?"

"The guy that rescued me from the room," she replied. "The first time I came through here, when I got on the elevator a man came out of it, wearing the same things as that guy we just passed. It was the man who rescued me. I'm sure of it. Later, when I saw him, he looked familiar, but I didn't know why."

"So he apparently knew about the sub-basement," Clark said.

"He must have. And he must have noticed me and realized I was heading for trouble."

"Or found out about it later," Clark said. "Our mysterious friend seems to have ways of finding out things that people are trying to hide."

"I'll say," Lois said. "I'd still like a satisfactory explanation for him being here."

Clark didn't say so, but he definitely wanted an explanation as well. There were too many things about their mystery man to make him entirely comfortable in the other man's presence.

"This way," Lois said.

The first basement level, Clark thought, appeared to contain a number of small offices and various larger rooms which seemed to be largely used for storage. He scanned them as they passed, and verified that they mostly contained store merchandise.

The white walls of the basement showed no pictures such as those that dotted the walls along the executive's hallway on the floor above. They moved along at a brisk pace intended to discourage any possible passerby from trying to snare them into a conversation which would surely prove to be their undoing.

They came almost at once to a place where the hallway branched, going both left and right.

"This way." Lois turned left.

"Where are we going?" Clark inquired.

"This is the way to the hidden elevator." Lois strode ahead confidently.

The passage this way was short, Clark saw. It turned right, and then right again, and ended in a blank wall.

"This is it," Lois said. "When I got here the first time, all of a sudden the wall started sliding and there were elevator doors behind it. And then Brunner and his two muscle boys stepped out, and you know the rest."

Clark bent forward, examining the wall. "There's probably something on this side to open the door," he said. "I don't suppose you know what it is."

Lois shook her head. "They just forced me into the elevator," she said.

"Yeah." Clark turned his head, looking over the top of his glasses. "Look for anything that might be a call button," he suggested. "There has to be something."

"Maybe it's on one of the side walls," Lois suggested. "I don't see where it could be hidden, though. How do you hide something on a white wall?"

"You make it the same color as the wall," Clark said. "Look."

"What?" Lois turned her head.

"Here." Clark indicated an inch square section of wall that, of course, wasn't wall at all. It was a white square of plastic set flush with the wall several inches above his eye level. If he hadn't been looking for it, he would never have seen it, and having X-ray vision certainly made it much easier to find.

"How did you see that?" Lois said. "Should we push it?"

That, of course, was the question. If they called the elevator, they would be able to reach the sub-basement. On the other hand, if someone happened to be in the elevator, they could be in trouble.

As the thought occurred to him, the wall started to move.

**********
tbc


Earth is the insane asylum for the universe.