Smallville: 7/?
by Nan Smith
Previously:
Lana looked back at Lois, and her eyes narrowed slightly. "I'm Dr. Lang's daughter. We have standing in this town."
Lois raised her eyebrows. "Oh? That's nice to know. But we were *still* here first."
What Lana might have replied, Lois was never to know, for the approaching pedicab pulled to a stop beside them and the laughing couple in the passenger seat jumped down. Lois stepped firmly in front of Lana and began to hoist herself into the seat, completely ignoring the other woman. She heard a faint cough from Clark, and then he jumped into the place beside her. He leaned forward to greet the youthful source of motive power. "Hi, Jake."
"Hey, Clark! How's it going in Metropolis, man? Your name has been all over the headlines, the last two or three weeks!"
"Pretty good," Clark said, cheerfully. "There's never a dull moment in the city."
"Yeah," Jake said. "That's why I still live in Smallville. Okay, let's give you and your lady your money's worth." He started forward at a practiced trot.
"Sorry," Lois said in a low tone.
Clark put an arm around her shoulders as the pedicab turned onto the path that led to the entrance of the Tunnel of Love. "She'll recover." He chuckled suddenly. "You do have a way of puncturing an inflated ego, don't you?"
"Do you mind?"
"Not a bit." He tightened his arm slightly. "This is turning out to be a great Christmas Eve."
Lois relaxed against him as their cab entered the shadow of the big canvas tunnel. Abruptly, she felt Clark's body tense slightly and he lifted his head in a familiar gesture, obviously listening. "What is it?" she asked.
He shook his head and she fell silent, watching him. Seconds went by, and Clark slowly relaxed. "Later," he said, with a significant glance at Jake. "It might not be anything."
"Okay," she said uncertainly.
Clark took one of her hands with his free one. "Enjoy the ride," he said. "But we might --" He broke off. "I'll tell you later," he said in a low voice. "There might not be anything we can do, but we'll see."
**********
And now, Part 7:
Clark leaned back in the pedicab's comfortable seat, one arm around Lois's shoulders. Ahead, Jake turned down the pathway that led to the entrance of Smallville's Tunnel of Love, and they rolled forward into the big, canvas tunnel artistically draped with streamers of valentines and glittering crystal snowflakes.
Clark had been involved in the construction of this thing a few years ago. It was taken apart after Christmas every year and put back a few days before Christmas Eve in anticipation of the party. The animated scenes inside were clever and constructed with all the skill of many of Smallville's most talented people. He figured Lois would be amused at the innovative efforts of country people, and maybe even a little surprised at what they had managed to create. His girl was learning quickly that people in the country were anything but the boobs that many city denizens believed them to be.
It was then that his super-hearing clicked in unexpectedly.
"It's just not right," a familiar voice said. "Women shouldn't do things like this, honey. Law enforcement is a man's job. A woman shouldn't have to risk her life keeping the peace."
Rachel Harris's voice replied, sounding patient. "I don't *have* to do this, Roy. I *want* to. Dad was the County Sheriff for thirty years, and I've never wanted to be anything else. I told you that years ago. Now you can either accept that, or not, but I'm not changing my mind or my job. If you want to argue about it any longer, go somewhere that I don't have to listen, because that's the last word I want to hear about it. You either accept me as I am, or find another girl."
"I don't want another girl." Roy's voice was perilously close to a whine. "I love *you*! You're the only girl I'll ever want. I told you that years ago. I want you to marry me and raise a family together."
"Then there's no more to talk about, and I don't want to argue any more. Want to go over to the town square? I can hear the dance band from here."
Rachel and Roy, Clark thought. And the same old argument. Roy wanted Rachel, but he couldn't get it through his head that she intended to be the Sheriff for a long time to come.
He started to pull his attention away when another voice spoke from somewhere nearby.
"Everything's set, Mr. Van. I just got the phone call: the shipment's set to arrive while the party's going strong. The next shipment out will be on Christmas night while mostly everybody's watching football and working off their Christmas dinners. Nobody's going to notice -- not even the pretty little Sheriff."
"It better go right." The second voice was gruff and uncompromising. "Harris is sniffing around the place again. I don't think she's satisfied with the story we told her the last time. The Boss isn't going to like it if we have to eliminate her. You kill a county sheriff, it draws unwelcome attention. It was bad enough with that deputy."
The first voice again. "This time we got insurance. She won't be any trouble."
Clark strained his ears, trying to locate the position of the voices, but the conversation had stopped. Lois was looking questioningly at him.
"What is it?"
Clark shook his head, listening for anything more. After nearly a minute had gone by, he relaxed slowly. The conversation was apparently over. "Later," he said softly. He glanced at Jake's back. "It might not be anything."
Lois also glanced at Jake. "Okay," she said.
"Enjoy the ride," Clark told her. "But we might --" He hesitated. "I'll tell you later," he said finally. "There might not be anything we can do, but we'll see."
Lois nodded. She snuggled up against him in the seat. "You're nice and warm," she remarked, obviously taking him at his word and consigning the matter to the future.
He grinned back at her. "We don't get enough peace and quiet. Enjoy it while you can." Still, the conversation he had overheard worried him. It looked like Lois and he might be doing less vacationing and more investigating than they had intended. The mention of the "Boss" bothered him a little. Surely they couldn't mean Lex Luthor, could they?
But the leaders of many criminal enterprises were often called the boss, he reassured himself. So were the leaders of many perfectly legal organizations. The chances of this "boss" being the crime kingpin of Metropolis were pretty slim. 'Don't get paranoid, Charlie!' he cautioned himself. But if these guys intended to give Rachel trouble, it was possible that Superman might have to get involved. He didn't want her to get hurt or killed by some local criminal ring, either.
It figured, he thought. Ever since he had met Lois, life seemed to have shifted into high gear. Why should it be any different in Smallville?
**********
The ride through the Tunnel of Love took about fifteen minutes, and though he continued to listen for anything more from "Mr. Van," and whoever had been talking to him, Clark heard nothing. When the pedicab drew up once more in front of the bench where another couple was waiting, Clark jumped down and reached up to give Lois a hand.
"See you later," Jake said, before he turned to his next customers. Clark lifted a hand in acknowledgment and tugged gently on Lois's hand, urging her away down the sidewalk. The cab bearing Lana and her fiance would be here any minute, and he wanted to talk to Lois about what he had overheard before they had a chance to get snared into another conversation. Besides, it was fairly obvious that letting Lois and Lana get together was asking for trouble.
"So, how did you like it?" he inquired.
"It was nice," she said. "Now, what did you hear?"
Trust Lois to get to the point, Clark thought. "Let's stroll over to the pond," he said. He lowered his voice. "First I heard Rachel and Roy arguing," he said. "Then I picked up another conversation...."
Briefly, he repeated what he had heard. Lois frowned, absorbing the information with her usual concentration. "Have you ever heard of a Mr. Van before?"
"Not in Smallville."
"So the guy could be a newcomer."
"I guess. Or he might not be a resident of Smallville at all. Chances are good he's an outsider."
"But Sheriff Harris has dealt with him before."
"Maybe," Clark said. "This Mr. Van said she was sniffing around again. I guess that means she's been investigating whatever it is he's doing."
"Or something," Lois said. "But how do we find out who these people are? I guess you could keep listening."
"I have been. So far nothing. I suppose we could keep an eye on Rachel and see what she does, but she's going to be all over the place today. This is the Smallville Christmas Festival, remember."
"Maybe we could ask her if she knows a Mr. Van," Lois suggested.
"You really think she'd tell us?"
They looked at each other.
"Probably not," Lois said. "But that doesn't mean we can't find out. Keep your super ears peeled for now. Maybe you'll hear something that we can use."
"I am," Clark said.
"In the meantime," Lois added, "we can still go skating. But keep an eye out for the Sheriff on the way. You never know -- something might turn up. Nobody ever said investigative reporting was supposed to be easy."
The pond, of course, was frozen over and nearly a dozen couples were sliding about on the ice, to the music of the Smallville High School band. A glance over his glasses in the direction of the town square showed him a mob of people, a dance band, and Rachel Harris, in her sheriff's uniform, walking along with a morose-looking Roy Decker. Rachel was talking into a cellular phone, apparently to one of her deputies, judging by what he heard, and as he watched she hooked the phone to her belt again and turned to her companion. "All taken care of. Now, are you going to stand there sulking or are you going to ask me to dance?"
Clark pulled his attention away. Whatever was happening, it was obvious that Rachel wasn't in any danger at the moment.
**********
They met up with the elder Kents and the two boys an hour and a half later. Denny was carrying a small trophy that proclaimed him the second-place winner in the pig-wrestling contest, which he exhibited proudly to Lois and Clark.
"Congratulations," Clark told him. He turned to his mother. "So, what else have you got planned for the rest of the day?"
Martha Kent shrugged. "I'm ready to head over to Maisie's for some hot coffee and a warm up," she said. "Dinner starts in about an hour, and then after that, the dance. I told Maisie that I wanted to take some of the food to Wayne and Nettie. She said she'd put some aside for them."
Clark nodded and he and Lois fell in beside the rest of the party. "Sounds good. Wayne wanted to talk to me about something, so Lois and I can take it over to him, if you like. It'll save you guys a detour."
"Where you gonna get a car?" Jack asked.
"A friend of mine lives over that way," Clark said. "Pete can drop us off on his way home, and Wayne can give us a lift home afterwards. It's only about five miles."
Jack nodded absently as the small party made its way down the crowded sidewalk toward Maisie's little shop. Of course, Maisie wasn't there, since she was the coordinator for the Christmas dinner, and was presently at the Smallville Community Center, but many or the regular employees were present. Clark knew that they spelled each other so that all of them had the time to enjoy the Christmas festivities. He glanced sideways at Lois, and noted that she was regarding Jack oddly, but she said nothing.
Tonight, Clark thought, after the dinner, he would take a quick look around the town from overhead and see if he could spot any unusual activity. And, of course, he could watch to see if Rachel stayed at the dance or if she was out watching for whatever would be arriving after the party got going.
That conversation bothered him. He planned to keep an eye on things if he could. True, Rachel was a good Sheriff, but if the people whose conversation he had overheard earlier that day were willing to kill her to protect whatever business they were engaged in, it sounded as if she might need a little help.
**********
Tony Daus entered the little apartment that he shared with three other students just off-campus of New Troy State University.
He had the place to himself for the next week, since the other three had returned home during the holidays to visit their families.
Tony hadn't.
He supposed that he could have gone home, but the financial strain on his mother and stepfather would have been difficult, and he simply couldn't afford the trip on his own. He'd financed his own way into NTSU's journalism program with scholarship money and his job as a cab driver, and there was no room for a trip to New Mexico at Christmas in his budget. He'd have to be satisfied with a phone call, this year. Maybe, if the job at the Daily Planet worked out he'd be able to see them next Christmas.
The phone was ringing when he opened the door and he hurried to snatch up the receiver. "Hello?"
"Anthony Daus?" The voice at the other end wasn't familiar.
"This is Tony Daus. Who's this?"
"That isn't important. There was a package left in your cab this afternoon."
"Yes, there was."
"Did you open it?"
"No," Tony said. "I followed company policy and turned it in to my boss. If it's yours, you should go over to the company headquarters and identify it. They're holding it in the manager's office."
There was a pause at the other end of the phone, and then the click of the receiver being hung up.
Tony hung up and frowned at the phone for several seconds. He'd received some odd telephone calls while living at this place, including an occasional prank call, but that one was one of the weirdest. After a moment, he shrugged and turned to lock the apartment door. There was half a loaf of bread in the breadbox and some deli ham slices in the fridge. He figured there wasn't any point in cooking, tonight, and then having to clean up the dishes, so he prepared his sandwich, found one of the light beers left by one of his roommates in the bottom of the fridge, switched on the television and hunted around for a football game to watch. He'd volunteered to work tomorrow, but he was on the afternoon shift, so it didn't matter if he stayed up late. Driving a cab wasn't the most exciting job on Earth, but it paid the food bill, and starting in mid-January he could say goodbye to this place once and for all, as well as the taxi job. Or maybe he'd keep that for a while until he graduated to more than the minimum salary of a beginner at the newspaper. That, he thought, was negotiable, but the fact remained that he had a toehold on the most prestigious newspaper in Metropolis, and one of the best in the world. It was a dream come true.
Tony propped his heels on the battered coffee table, leaned back and prepared to relax and enjoy an evening watching football.
It was many hours later when a knocking on his door awakened him and he sat up, a little disoriented.
The knock came again and he got to his feet and he made his way to the door. "Who is it?"
No answer. A look through the peep hole showed him no one.
Cautiously, leaving the chain fastened, Tony eased the door open and peered out through the aperture. No one was in sight, but on the hall carpet at his feet lay another manila envelope, exactly like the one he had found in the cab.
Very slowly, he closed the door, undid the chain, and opened the door.
The envelope lay there innocently and Tony bent to pick it up. He closed and locked the door and stared at the thing.
Just a plain, manila envelope, apparently holding fairly bulky contents.
Cautiously, Tony felt the envelope with his fingers. He couldn't be sure, but the lumpy contents felt very much like stacks of bills.
Tony laid the envelope down on the coffee table and stared at it, thinking hard.
If it was indeed money, he had no idea why anyone might give it to him but the phone call earlier stuck in his mind. Someone had intended to give him this envelope, or one exactly like it, that afternoon in the cab. It probably hadn't occurred to whoever it was that he wouldn't open it and keep the contents. A lot of people would, but Tony had learned a long time ago that if you were strictly honest it was a lot harder for someone to cheat you, or get you into trouble.
He looked again at the envelope. If it was intended as some kind of bribe, or something, it meant trouble. What should he do?
A glance at his watch told him that it was six A.M. He had slept on the couch all night. No wonder there was a crick in his neck.
Again, he stared at the envelope. What should he do with it? Open it? And then what? Why would anyone give him a big envelope filled with a lot of money, if that was what it was?
The sense that he privately called his antennae was noticeably quivering. Something was definitely up, and it might even be a little dangerous, if he let himself get involved. Should he?
After several minutes, Tony Daus turned and headed into his bedroom to pick out clean clothing for the day. A quick shower and shave, he thought, would wake him up and help him think. Whatever this was definitely wasn't on the up and up. If he went to the police, that might be the end of it. He wasn't going to do that, though, at least not right away. But maybe his soon-to-be boss would have some ideas about what to do. He certainly had more experience with cloak and dagger stuff than Tony did. At the very least, Perry White could give him some advice on the subject. Besides, if there was a story in this, the Daily Planet should be the paper to have it and it wouldn't hurt if he brought it to his new boss's attention.
Fifteen minutes later he left the apartment, the envelope under his arm. Five minutes after the door had closed, the phone in his apartment began to ring, but there was no one to hear it.
**********
tbc
