From Part 3...
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Pausing before he walked out, Perry had said the five worst words Alice had ever heard.
“I guess it’s over then.”
And with that he had gone.
Alice’s thoughts were interrupted as she realised they were standing outside the Taj Agra, it’s spicy smells wafting out though the open doors of the restaurant.
Waving aside her sombre mood, Alice linked her arm in Lois’ and together they entered the restaurant, determined to let her hair down and enjoy the chance to get to know Lois better, gossip about men and generally relax. Something she hadn’t done in a long time.
And now Part 4
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The afternoon sun warmed Lois’ bare arms as she sat on a park bench, waiting. The sounds of children playing happily could be heard coming from the playground on her right, while a regular trickle of walkers, joggers and hurried businessmen walked past her on the nearby path. Lois wished she could be five again, safe and secure, before her parents started fighting. Her musings were cut short by the sight of a well-dressed man striding towards her.
Lois took a deep breath, trying to calm her nerves. She had told Alice that this was the only way, but that didn’t stop her from feeling repulsed at what she was about to do.
“Lois, it’s so good to see you. You look absolutely radiant in this beautiful sun.”
Lois shaded her eyes so she could clearly see the man standing before her. Forcing herself to smile, she responded, “Lex, thank you so much for agreeing to meet me here.” She waited while Lex lowered himself onto the bench. “I know I told you I would have an answer for you by yesterday, but…” Lois paused “…well, something happened and I just needed some time.”
“Lois, is everything all right?” Lex’s smooth voice and concern sounded so sincere that Lois had to mentally shake herself. ‘He’s a criminal, Lois, get a grip’.
“Yes and no. I had a… falling out with a good friend. We had a fight and it was… well…he said some unforgivable things.” Lois didn’t have to pretend to look upset, the conversation with Superman was still all too clear in her mind.
“Oh, Lois, I’m so sorry.”
“He… well…he made it pretty clear that we couldn’t be friends, or anything else for that matter. I guess it just threw me, I mean he’s my friend, or was. He should have supported me, not thrown accusations at me.”
“Lois, I never thought Clark would use his dislike for me to hurt you. I’m just as upset about this as you.”
‘Clark?’ thought Lois. Masking her surprise, she listened to Lex.
“I know you’ve lost so much that is important to you of late, Lois, and I’m sorry that you had to lose Clark as well.”
Two days ago, Lois would have taken what Lex said at face value, but after a day of looking into his companies with Alice and talking to her about Lex, Lois’ hackles rose. One thing she had learnt yesterday was that Lex didn’t do anything without an ulterior motive.
Lex continued, “After I saved the Daily Planet from financial ruin, Clark refused to listen to my suggestions as temporary editor, and after that criminal, Jack, blew up the Planet, I offered Clark another job, but he flat our refused. I don’t know what he has against me, I’ve got nothing but respect for him.”
The image of Lex standing in the Daily Planet as he announced he had brought it flashed before Lois’ mind. Perry leaving after meeting Chip, Clark accusing Lex, Lex knowing about the incendiary device in Jack’s locker, so soon after the explosion. Comprehension flooded Lois like a window blind being opened up in a dark room. Lex was behind all of it. He had deliberately set out to separate her from her friends, her work, those she lov… cared about. ‘But why?’ Lois asked herself.
“I just want you to know that you’ll never lose me.”
‘He set me up’ Lois thought angrily. ‘Set me up so I would accept his proposal.’
“Is that why you disappeared for a day, Lois?”
The mental image of Lois’ foot meeting Lex’s groin came to Lois’ mind.
“I got a call saying you hadn’t come into work and I couldn’t reach you at home.” Lex continued, as a flicker of annoyance crossed his face.
‘I’ll personally take every pair of Italian shoes that he owns and drag them through dog dung.’ Lois smiled sweetly at Lex. ‘He was checking up on me! I’ll staple the Pulitzer winning story about his demise on his suit, with my by-line staring up at him.’
“Yes, I just needed some time to sort my feelings out.” Lois replied, pushing the image of Lex trapped in his limo with 500 sewer rats aside. Lois’ thoughts shifted to the lengths Lex had gone to. ‘If Lex blew up the Planet just to get to me, what would he do to Clark?’ Lois knew the answer and it sickened her. ‘That low-down, mud-sucking, son of a mother-less donkey would no doubt remove Clark if he thought Clark was competition.’
Taking the solution Lex had handed her, Lois continued. “It’s over between Clark and me. He’s completely irrational when it comes to you, Lex, and he refuses to accept my decision.
Eagerly Lex asked, “And what decision is that Lois?”
Swallowing the bile that had risen in her throat, Lois replied. “That, I will marry you, Lex. If Clark can’t accept that, then we can’t be friends. It’s you I want to spend the rest of my life with.”
Lois willed herself to accept Lex’s kiss, praying her deception would save Clark from any harm Luthor may have planned for him.
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As Lois and Lex embraced, a pair of eyes watched from above. Clark knew he shouldn’t be eavesdropping, that he shouldn’t be watching. He had by chance seen Lois sitting forlornly on the park bench, and he had wanted to go down and hold her, to tell her he was sorry, to make it all right again. However, he had still been wrestling with himself when Lex had showed up. ‘I should have left then,’ he thought bitterly. ‘Why did I have to force myself to listen? To hear her accept Luthor’s proposal? To hear Lois say our friendship was over? The pain of watching Lex and Lois was too much for the Man of Steel, and in a flash he disappeared.
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David O’Hara was a small, slightly overweight man with a round clean shaven face. His once bright blue eyes were hidden behind a pair of small round spectacles which kept slipping down the bridge of his nose. The thinning hair that covered his head was flecked with grey, making him look older than his 33 years.
Despite the expensive suit he wore and the small fortune sitting in his bank accounts, David O’Hara was not a happy man. He glanced down at the photo sitting on the corner of his large desk. The smiling faces of his wife and young son were both a chain around his neck and the key to his freedom. For too many years he had been someone else’s puppet, forced to do their bidding.
How naive he had been twelve years ago. Under so much pressure to graduate as a lawyer, to follow in the family tradition laid down by his great grandfather, he had succumbed to temptation and cheated on his bar examination. David looked around his large office to the left wall where a photo his father, John O’Hara, hung.
‘Dad, I’m so sorry I let you down. I should have owned up to what I did, instead of letting that monster blackmail me. It seemed like such a small thing, to leak out the name of a leading witness and in return no-one would know I had cheated.’ O’Hara lowered his eyes, his shame not letting him look at the eyes of his deceased father.
‘To think that something I did resulted in a man being killed! I didn’t know. I didn’t know.’ David struck his desk in frustration. ‘And that man, that devil, didn’t let it go. No, he had me good and proper’. Looking at his family, David felt the past anger well up again. ‘How many times have I helped that vile man?’
David pushed himself up from his leather swivel chair and walked over to the bookshelf which covered the right wall. Pulling out a bottle of brandy that was hidden behind an ornamental bookend, he poured himself a glass before wandering around the spacious room.
He didn’t enjoy being someone’s lapdog, but the fear of discovery mixed with the large cash incentives were enough to keep him quiet. Or had been. When his young son innocently asked him about his job it had changed everything.
“It must be great being in a job all about Truth and Justice, Dad, just like Superman,” Josh had stated one evening, just before bed. “I reckon you’re much more of a hero than he is, Dad, ‘cause you do what you do without any special powers.”
David knew he wasn’t a much of a man, he knew he was a coward, but seeing his five year old boy’s eyes shining with admiration had made him want to become that great man little Josh saw. That was his key to freedom. To be the man Josh believed he could be.
Ever since then, David had been at war with himself over his actions, and today was no different. He had to find a way out, he had to escape from this nightmare he was in. If only he wasn’t such a coward, if only he could think of a way.
David’s musings were interrupted by the beep of his intercom. “Mr O’Hara, an Alice White is here to see you”, stated the chirpy voice of his young secretary.
With two quick strides David was at his desk, his finger on the intercom. “Sara, do you know what she wants to see me about?” David racked his brain trying to think why the feared Alice White would be at his office, while at the same time gulping the remains of his drink.
“She says it’s personal and she has to see you now. I’m sorry for interrupting sir, she was very persistent.”
“I’ll bet,” David mumbled to himself. Very few people could stop Ms White from getting what she wanted and David doubted Sara, as competent as she was, would have any more luck than the hundreds of other people Alice had steamrolled her way past.
“Let her in, Sara.” As an afterthought he added, “And make sure I don’t have any interruptions. Thanks.”
David had barely had time to hide his empty brandy glass in his drawer and sit down before the formidable form of Alice White stepped into his office. Immaculately dressed in a neat two-piece business suit, she exuded confidence.
Skipping pleasantries, Alice got straight down to business. “Mr O’Hara, I know you’re on the take and I have the evidence to prove it.”
All colour drained from David’s face. ‘Not now, not here, please no,’ he begged whatever higher powers might be listening.
“Specifically to do with the trial of…”
“STOP!” David shouted.
Alice stopped, raised an eyebrow and addressed David coolly. “Yes?”
“Please, not here, not now.” Grabbing his coat from the back of his chair, he moved towards Alice, ushering her out of the office. In a quieter voice, as though afraid someone was listening he whispered, “Please, I’ll talk, but just not here, it’s not safe.”
Alice allowed herself to be led out of the building to the park across the road. Watching David’s nervous manner as he glanced from side to side, she knew she had been right to go after him first. Although mostly circumstantial, the evidence Alice had against David O’Hara would be enough to ruin his career. However, as it didn’t prove Luthor’s involvement, she had decided to sit on the information, hoping that one day she could use it as leverage to get Luthor.
So far it looked like it had worked like a charm.
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Lois leaned back on her closed front door, her eyes closed, her shoulders slumped. Four days! Four days of lunches with Lex, boring meetings at LNN, hours spent in her office ‘not being bothered’ as her incompetent secretary had put it. Trying to delay Lex’s plans for an immediate wedding. Trying and not succeeding.
Letting her weary body slide down the door until she was sitting on the floor, Lois stifled the familiar lump that formed in her throat whenever she considered Lex’s favourite saying. “Just think, darling, four weeks and we’ll be man and wife.”
So far, Lois had been unable to do any digging into Luthor or the lawyers named on Alice’s ‘Spider Map.’ Lex had become very overbearing since she had disappeared for a day. Despite Lex’s probing, she had refused to tell him she had gone to Alice’s and she knew that was the reason for the constant surveillance whenever she left LNN or her home. Lois had noticed the two men trailing her two days ago and suspected that her secretary wasn’t the air-head she pretended to be, rather another means for Lex to keep his eyes on her. Lex’s insistence that she use one of his cars was another form of control, one that she couldn’t wait to be rid of.
But four weeks? How was she going to manage? Tonight had been bad enough. A night at the opera with Lex’s hands constantly on her. Despite agreeing to wait for the honeymoon, Lex made sure that she and anyone else who saw them together knew that Lois belonged to Lex.
Suddenly, Lois felt like she needed a long hot shower.
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