Derek Wolfe's eyes were already gritty with fatigue but he knew he wasn’t going to get a break until Capone and his cronies were behind bars. He already had twelve possible locations on them throughout the city. If the locations had been centered in one area, that would have been helpful, but calls had come in from all over and each one needed to be checked out.
He organized the growing file on the case. Both Clark Kent and George Papadapolous’s murders had been assigned to him and his team on the assumption that they were linked. It was a logical assumption, considering both cases dealt with the club. Chances were good that Capone and his gang were behind both of them.
Wolfe glanced through the statements. Lois Lane hadn’t signed hers. That, at least, was an easy fix. He needed the dress she was wearing last night anyway. The forensics team hadn’t found a lot of blood at the club – at least not as much as they’d expected to find considering the type of injury Kent had to have sustained.
He checked the new memos in his computer inbox – the list of John and Jane Does admitted to the city’s hospitals overnight. Most of them weren’t police business, really – mostly homeless people suffering from exposure. But one caught his eye and that one was police business – a gunshot victim, male Caucasian, late twenties, dark hair, around six-feet tall. Could we be so lucky?
Wolfe didn’t want to get his hopes up that he had only one murder on his hands, but maybe God was smiling on him just this once.
0 0 0
Perry stood outside his office door, watching his people as they went about their work. Nearly everybody was out working on their assignments, both the ones he had assigned them at this morning’s briefing and those they had assigned themselves – corruption in various city departments, corporate malfeasance in various forms, the plight of the homeless. The people who remained in the bullpen were going about their work as if dazed.
It was at the morning briefing that Perry had made the announcement that Lois and Clark had been at Georgie Hairdo’s club during the shooting and Clark had been the victim. He’d seen the surprise, the shock in their faces. It would be a long time before his newsroom recovered. Lois hadn’t shown up at all, but Perry hadn’t expected that she would.
The elevator doors opened and Lois stepped out. She looked like she hadn’t slept at all and she was dressed in an oversize Kansas State sweatshirt and dark pedal pushers. Clark’s sweatshirt, Perry realized. He recalled that Clark had graduated from Kansas State.
He watched as she came down the ramp, pausing at Clark’s empty desk before going to her own. Perry had never seen her looking so lost, not even after that fiasco with Claude Dupre. She’d been hurt and angry when that had happened, not lost.
“Lois, you didn't have to come in today,” Perry said gently. From a distance she had looked worn out. On closer inspection, she looked like she had aged ten years. Her skin was sallow, eyes bloodshot.
“I couldn't stay home. All I could think about was Clark lying there,” she said. “I can't help feeling it was all my fault Clark was killed.”
“Honey, you can't blame yourself,” Perry told her. “You had no way of knowing what was going to happen.”
Lois didn’t seem to hear him. “Clark died trying to protect me. In one lousy second, they took away my partner and my best friend,” she said. Perry had to strain to hear her, she was speaking so softly. “You know the worst part? Clark died without ever knowing...”
“Miss Lane?”
Lois and Perry both looked up to see Detective Wolfe walking down the ramp towards them.
“Sorry to bother you,” he said gently. He nodded to Perry. “I'm Detective Wolfe. Homicide.” He turned back to Lois. “I need to get your signature on the statement you gave last night. And if you could bring the dress you were wearing down to headquarters, that’d be appreciated too.”
Lois took the paper he pulled out of his notebook and signed it, handing it back to him. Somewhere on the floor, a phone rang and someone picked it up.
“Got any leads on these animals yet?” Perry asked.
Wolfe sighed. “Not yet. But we will.” He paused, as if contemplating his next words. “There is something. I don’t want you to get your hopes up, but a report came in of a John Doe over at Metropolis General. A gunshot victim. The description is pretty close to the one you gave me on Kent.”
“You mean, he might be alive,” Perry demanded.
“Like I said, don’t get your hopes up,” Wolfe warned them. “But if you could identify him, that would be a good thing.”
Jimmy came closer. “Detective Wolfe? There's a call for you on line two.”
Wolfe nodded and picked up the phone. “Wolfe. Yeah...” He grabbed the message pad off Lois’s desktop and started writing down the message. “Has it been confirmed?” he asked. “Look, we've got fourteen possibles on Capone's whereabouts... Okay. Add it to the list.”
He tore the message from the pad and pocketed it as he hung up the phone. “Look, let me know one way or another on that John Doe, okay?” He pulled a business card from his pocket and handed it to Perry. “You can leave a message at the number. You know we're gonna be working on this round the clock. I'll keep you posted.”
He gave Perry and Lois a small smile and headed toward the elevators.
“Shall we go see who it is at the hospital?” Perry asked.
“Why not?” Lois asked. “At least we can tell them who it isn’t.”
0 0 0
“No answer,” Jonathan told his wife. They’d been trying Clark’s number in Metropolis ever since Perry’s call telling them Clark had been shot. They hadn’t really believed it. Clark was Superman and only one thing could hurt him physically – at least as far as they knew – and that was kryptonite.
After Perry’s call they had expected Clark to show up, explaining what had happened. But he hadn’t shown up and he hadn’t called. That wasn’t like Clark. He was a considerate boy. Even when he was traveling around the world after college, he checked in to let them know where he was, how he was doing.
“There haven’t been any Superman sightings since yesterday afternoon,” Martha told him, turning off the television. “At least none that reached the news services and there was a train derailment in Italy that should have caught his attention.”
“So, what do you want to do?” Jonathan asked. He already had a suspicion.
“Let’s leave Clark a note, in case he does show up here,” Martha began. “I’ll let Rachel know what’s going on, in case somebody calls her to get in touch with us.”
“And I’ll get us a flight to Metropolis,” Jonathan finished for her.
0 0 0
“How did his parents take it?” Lois finally asked Perry as they walked through the main entrance of Metropolis General Hospital. Perry had driven them both over from the Planet. He knew she wasn’t in any shape to be driving. He wasn’t in much better shape but it was his car.
“I’m not sure they believed me,” Perry admitted. “It wasn’t anything they said, really. But I was expecting more questions, something.”
“Maybe they were in shock,” Lois suggested. “Clark was an only child. It can’t be easy getting news like that over the phone.”
“Well, I know I sure as hell never want to get that call,” Perry admitted.
They stopped at the front desk to ask directions and explain their mission. The woman at the desk directed them to the trauma center on the eighteenth floor.
The elevator doors opened onto a wide lobby that faced the nurses’ station. Two white uniformed women looked up as Lois and Perry stepped closed. “Yes?”
“I’m Perry White and this is Lois Lane,” Perry introduced himself and his companion. “We’re with the Daily Planet.”
“I’m sorry, but hospital policy forbids…” one of the nurses began.
“You don’t understand,” Perry interrupted. “The police told us you had a John Doe here, a gunshot victim. They thought we might be able to identify him. He might be one of our people.”
Mollified, the nurse checked the list of patients on the floor. “He’s in the isolation ICU. You’ll have to gown and mask before you go in.” She turned to the other woman who was watching the monitors. “I’ll be right back,” she said, coming out from behind the counter.
She led the way to the intensive care unit, to a side room with one glass wall looking onto the ICU nursing station.
Perry looked into the room, to the man in the bed. Dark-hair, late twenties. “Oh dear Lord,” he murmured to himself. Lois had gone pale.
“Do you recognize him?” the nurse asked.
Perry nodded. “He’s one of my people. His name’s Clark Kent. He’s a reporter for the Planet.”
Lois had stepped closer to the window, placing one hand on the glass. “Clark?”
“Is he going to be okay?” Perry asked.
“It’s too early to say,” the nurse admitted. “I’ll let the attending know you’re here. He can go into more detail.” She stopped and turned back to Lois. “Are you his wife?”
Lois shook her head. “He’s not married. We’re partners at work,” she said. “But we’re very close.”
The nurse nodded. “I’ll let the doctor know.”
0 0 0
Jimmy checked the carbonless copy of the note Detective Wolfe left on the memo pad against the address of the building in front of him: 1500 Old North Road. He’d taken the note from Lois’s desk after she and Perry left for the hospital. He knew Perry would never have agreed to let him be part of the investigation into Clark’s shooting.
The looked the building over. It was badly in need of paint, and the address was barely legible. The sign above the door ‘LC Storage?’ LuthorCorp? Jimmy didn’t remember seeing a storage building in the list of Lex Luthor’s properties, but he knew the accountants and auditors were still up to their elbows figuring everything out after the billionaire’s suicide death.
He tried the door and found it locked. He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a lock pick set. “Reform school was good for something,” he murmured to himself as he looked around before setting to work.
The door opened with a satisfying snick. He paused a moment before swinging it open. The room beyond was almost dark. The only light came from the one window, high on the outside wall. It was a small room that was probably once an office. Now it appeared to be a shabby sitting room that stank of cigar smoke.
Light came from underneath one of the inside doors. The door was locked from the outside with a deadbolt. Jimmy listened at the door for a moment before slipping open the deadbolt and stepping inside. He stopped, astonished at what he saw in the brightly lit room.
It was a cheap lab straight out of a bad science fiction movie. Two worn wooden tables with mysterious tubes and burners, glass beakers with blue ooze and goo that bubbled and churned. There was a vat large enough to hold a medium-sized man lying down. The vat has filled with blue ooze that seemed to be churning around a pulsating glob the size of a man’s torso.
Jimmy spotted a thin miserable looking man wearing a lab coat. The man was filling a glass beaker with more of the blue slime.
“Professor Hamilton?” Jimmy asked.
The man jumped, startled. He dropped the beaker in his hand and it shattered against the concrete floor. Slime splattered everywhere.
“Jimmy Olsen, Daily Planet,” Jimmy introduced himself, taking a moment to pull out his camera.
Hamilton went pale. “Oh, no. Not the press. Are the police with you?”
“No,” Jimmy admitted. “Is it true? Did you really create Capone and the others?”
“I'm afraid so,” Hamilton admitted. “But I can't control them anymore. They're... it's...
I...” He stopped, staring at the lab around him, a look of horror on his face.
“Professor Hamilton. Why are you locked in here?” Jimmy asked. He wasn’t a reporter, but he’d been around Lois and Clark and Perry enough to be able to fake it. He hoped. Maybe Perry would give him the byline if he pulled this off.
“It's Capone,” Hamilton began. “He's making me regenerate more of his gang.”
Jimmy took a photo of the vat and its glob. “What's in the vat?”
“Baby Face Nelson. Or at least, it will be,” Hamilton said. Jimmy started feeling queasy. Weren’t clones supposed to grow like normal people, only faster? What was in the vat certainly didn’t look like a human being, not even an unborn one.
“Please. You must believe me,” Hamilton protested, obviously mistaking the look of confusion on Jimmy’s face. “This wasn't supposed to happen. I just wanted to help mankind.”
“There’s a dozen versions of Frankenstein out there and you still didn't get the point?” Jimmy asked in disbelief. “One of those monsters murdered my best friend.” Jimmy paused at the horrified look on Hamilton’s face. It wasn’t the scientist’s fault, not really. He sighed. “C'mon, we've got to get out of here.”
Jimmy opened the door slightly and listened for a moment, then beckoned Hamilton to follow him as he headed to the outside door. Suddenly, there was the sound of a key in the outside lock and the knob began to turn. Jimmy motioned for Hamilton to hide as he opened the door to what should have been a broom closet. It was filled with gangster clothes all neatly hung on hangers. Hamilton ducked under the wooden desk in the corner as Jimmy closed the door, leaving only a crack to see out of.
The outside door opened and Jimmy saw Al Capone leading Bonnie Parker, Clyde Barrow and two thugs he didn’t recognize from the history books into the room. Capone plopped into one of the armchairs and Barrow settled onto the broken down sofa. Parker perched on the edge of the desk, watching Capone’s two recruits with avid interest.
“What's the matter with this town?” Capone complained. “The boy scouts take over? A hundred grand and nobody's interested in selling out?”
“I remember when you could'a bought three congressmen and a judge for half of that,” Parker commented.
“Well, I guess they call them the good old days for a reason,” Nigel St. John said, entering the room.
“I'm through playing nice with these people,” Capone said, puffing on his cigar. “If I can't buy them, I'll eliminate them.”
“Interesting management tactic,” St. John commented wryly. “But you haven’t completed the task you already agreed to. And you’ve already used half the ammunition I gave you.”
“The hunk in the tights didn’t show up in the club like you promised,” Parker told him.
Capone picked up the afternoon edition of the Daily Planet, looking at the headline about the man, the reporter, Barrow shot at the club. He turned the paper over to read the lower half of the front page. There was a secondary headline reading: Planet Event to Honor Slain Journalist.
“It’s was expected that he’d show up when Mister Kent and Miss Lane were threatened,” St. John told them. “Obviously we miscalculated. But there will be other opportunities.”
“There's gonna be a little get together at the Planet tonight. And anybody who's worth owning will be there,” Capone said with a smirk, tossing the paper aside. “I wonder if it's still bad manners to crash a party?”
Barrow shrugged off his jacket and crossed the room to the closet. He grinned at Capone and St. John. “Not if you bring a gift,” Barrow said. “I figure three slugs apiece should be enough.”
Clyde opened the closet and reached in for a hanger. He touched Jimmy instead. “What the...?” He jerked Jimmy out from behind the coats.
“Well, well, well,” Capone said, eyeing Jimmy. “We have a snoop.”
“Actually, I'm a reporter with the Daily Planet,” Jimmy said. “I’m looking for an interview.”
Capone slowly approached him, taking a long draw on his cigar. He blew a trail of cigar smoke across Jimmy’s face. “About what? My overcoat?”
“He's lying, Al,” Parker said. “You how these guys stick together. We shot his buddy. Only thing he wants from you is a confession.”
“Bonnie doubts your motives,” Capone noted. “And to be honest, so do I.”
“Look, I don't care about the guy you killed,” Jimmy lied. “He was just someone I worked with. But I do care about my career. And an exclusive interview with you can help take me to the top.”
Capone studied him for a long moment. “You’re still a snoop.” He motioned to an empty chair. “Take a seat.”
Jimmy hesitated, glancing over to where he knew Hamilton was hiding under the desk. He watched as Parker pulled a vial of perfume from her purse and dabbed some behind each of her knees.
“Um... you know what?” Jimmy said hurriedly. He wanted to distract them. “How 'bout I take you all to this little sushi place I know? We can get better acquainted over lunch.”
“What's a sushi?” Barrow asked suspiciously.
“It's fish. Raw fish. You eat it. It's quite popular,” Jimmy explained.
“Sounds yummy,” Parker commented, eyeing Jimmy speculatively.
Suddenly there was a barrage of sneezes from beneath the desk. Parker hopped off the desktop as if she’d been burnt. Barrow ran around the desk and pulled Hamilton out from under the desk. The man looked terrified.
“Well, well, well, how'd you get out of the lab professor?” Barrow asked unpleasantly.
Capone looked over at Jimmy. “Y'know, the morals in this country have absolutely gone to pot.”
St. John chuckled. “I’ve no doubt you’ll find a way to adapt.”
0 0 0
Oops - that section goes later.
