Banner by Summerstarr882
PREVIOUS CHAPTER
Chapter 8
“Everyone does it,” Thomas said, leaning across the table.
“Doesn’t make it right. I thought you were an incorruptible man of the law,” Lois hissed, looking around them.
“It’s not exactly illegal. And I’ll never tell.”
“You’re a dirty politician and I knew it all along.” She glared at him as she sat back. “Do your worst. I’m not afraid of you.”
Tom chuckled, then signaled for the waitress, pointing at Lois’ glass. “Maybe we’ll split this one. You’re kind of a light weight.”
Lois scoffed. “These are big margaritas, you know. One’s like two. So, if you think about it, I’ve had four.”
“And on a work lunch.” He shook his head. “You lush.”
She rolled her eyes, “Maybe I have to be drunk to enjoy hanging out with you.”
“Maybe we’ll test that theory somewhere without a bar tonight. For dinner,” he said as the waitress put another curvy glass in front of Lois.
She trailed her finger over the salted edge. “What makes you think I’ll go to dinner with you?”
He shrugged. “Pity? I’m a condemned man.”
“Oh, really?”
“It’s December twenty-ninth. By my count, I only have two more days till I’m good and dumped.”
She balled up a napkin and tossed it at his head. “Stop it. I wish I’d never told you.”
He flicked it back to her, grinning. “I’m glad you did. It’s actually kind of hot. I’ve never been in on a sting operation before.”
“I wouldn’t go that far,” she said, stealing one of his tortilla chips. “But hopefully I’ll find a little something to expose at Moxie’s. Also, Perry’s been easier to deal with.”
The ticket to Moxie’s along with the fact that she was on a second date with Congressman Sharp’s intern, who did have some buzz as an up-and-comer, had actually earned her the two hour lunch she was taking. It also didn’t hurt that tonight’s edition would have a picture of The Flash in full regalia. That wasn’t hard to get, really. She just pointed Jimmy in the right direction and he clicked away. The only hard part was trying to signal Bart to stop striking brooding, thoughtful, heroic poses. He was much happier with his costume than he’d have people believe.
As for Moxie’s and the fact that she’d be technically on duty New Year’s Eve, she’d come clean at the end of their first date, not that she’d called it a date then. He was just so nice and open and she hated the idea of duping him. She also hated the idea of him changing their plans to somewhere less unsavory.
Still, she hadn’t expected to like him so much. They had a lot in common, both having similar ideas about corruption being exposed while the identities of supposed vigilantes should be kept safe. “We might have a little something on the Flash tonight.”
“Cool. I mean, I read your other pieces, but is it just me or… Does he come off a little… I don’t want to say immature, but…”
“You very well could,” she said. “But he’s doing good work.”
“Exactly. I look at The Flash or that guy in Star City…”
“Green Arrow,” she pointed out, hoping she hadn’t been too quick to say it.
“I guess you know them all, being kind of a… hero advocate.” She’d kind of supposed she was. “Anyway, those guys are doing amazing things. When I think of how some of the press savages them and questions their motives and so many politicians want to control them… I mean, what if Superman had to fill out a form before he saved a life and…”
“I get what you’re saying,” she’d cut in, wanting off the subject of Superman, not that she should feel guilty for being on a real date. She was perfectly free to be so. But it felt strange to be on a date and have thoughts of him intrude. “They should be left as… a separate organization.” Or a league. And she doubted Oliver and Victor wanted anyone poking their nose into what they were officially calling The Justice League. There’d been a vote according to Linda. Bart had tried to say it wasn’t valid without Clark there. But Oliver had pointed out that even if Clark voted Bart’s way, it would still be four to two against Team Awesome.
“Well, Metropolis seems to have the right idea, giving Superman free agency. This is a much more understanding place than the cesspool I grew up in.”
He’d opened up to her on that during a long walk after lunch, right before she fessed up to him about the reason she said yes. She didn’t know every detail, but suffice it to say, he lost his parents young… and violently.
“Do you ever think of going back to Gotham?” she asked now, pushing the margarita his way.
His smile dropped before he picked it up again. “Trying to get rid of me?”
“I don’t know. You always talk about how corrupt it is and not with the disinterest of someone who’s moved on.” He looked surprised. She tapped her head. “Reporter. We listen and you sometimes sound like you wish you could… fix it somehow.”
He shook his head. “Well, I’d rather move on. Fixing Gotham would take more than I have in me. A rain of locusts and pestilence, disastrous fire, maybe.” He took a long sip.
“You don’t mean that.”
“Sometimes I think I do. Anyway, I don’t want to go back there. Nothing but bad memories.” He winked at her over the rim of the glass. “I kind of prefer the ones I’m making now. And you haven’t actually answered my question.” He slid the glass it back to her. “What about dinner?”
She took a long sip, then a longer one. It was all so strange, being on a second date and now contemplating a third. Dating was… Whenever she tried to remember things like that, it seemed fuzzy on the details and heavy on the heartache, as if it hadn’t been very good for her. Then again, from what she knew, her love life till now, whether she remembered it or not, consisted of an affair, an unrequited crush, and a childlike romance with Jimmy. Maybe it wasn’t very good for her.
Maybe she was making new memories now, too. She smiled. “Pick me up at seven?”
********************
“Pick that up, will you, Four-eyes? Brush it off while you’re at it.”
“Sure, Boss.” Clark resisted glaring at Bruno Mannheim as he tossed his coat to the floor. He also resisted looking at the case. But he definitely wished Bruno had dropped that. It might be worth risking disappearing in a fit of speed to have it. He’d looked inside and couldn’t see a thing. Lead. Whatever they got from Luthor was in there and kept annoyingly close.
But he couldn’t risk screwing Turpin and Sawyer over and, besides that, Mannheim never put the thing down… unlike Clark and every other employee there.
Moxie’s might have actually been called pleasant before Mannheim showed his legendary ugly face. Stitches was creepy, but he stayed out of the way. Tiny and Rocco were idiots, but comparatively harmless. But Bruno strutted around the place like some big impresario. No one could stop working. There wasn’t a surface clean enough. There wasn’t a drink good enough, There wasn’t a worker he didn’t sneer at and there wasn’t a waitress he didn’t grope.
That annoyed Clark most of all, but they insisted they were fine, even seemed impressed, or more likely intimidated, by him -- all except Kandy. Clark noticed she seemed to be almost disdainful of him. But she still seemed pretty skilled at finding a diplomatic way to shut him down and get the other girls back to training with her. She didn't seem intimidated by him. Clark wasn’t intimidated by him, either.
He was a thug and, whatever power he thought he had, Clark still saw nothing but pockmarks and heard nothing but that snickering voice from that afternoon with the phony bomb.
But he was sometimes fearful of what he had, what he might do. If Mannheim would ever just put it down…
“I’m telling you. Black,” Tiny was saying as he and Rocco sauntered around behind Mannheim. “It just makes sense.”
“You’re an idiot. Red. Like blood or a stoplight.”
“Why don’t the both of you stop talking about things you don’t understand.” Bruno growled. “I’m the final word on this."
Clark continued trying to look busy brushing off Manheim’s coat. The entire place was red and black, but Bruno’s angry tone made him wonder if they were talking about something besides the décor. Then again, Bruno usually sounded angry.
“We’ll continue this meeting in the office.” Bruno eyed Clark. “You! Those hanging glasses look grimy to me. Make em shine.” He adjusted his tie, looking into the mirror behind the bar. “I see a spot when I come back and you’re out.”
Then you should hide your crater face. But Clark started taking the glasses down as they moved to the office, calling Stitches after them. Whatever this meeting was, he wasn’t missing it this time. Not even if he had to follow them out, wherever it was they went, and hide behind every tree.
He looked around as they shut the door, making sure no one else was near, then polished every glass… at his speed. It wasn’t until the last one was hanging that he moved from behind the bar and into the stock room, staring through the wall at… no one. Again!
“Damn it,” he muttered, moving out the back door. Wherever the hell they went, he’d catch them this time.
He nearly knocked over Kandy. “Hey, what’s the rush, Babydoll?”
“Sorry, I…” He stopped, righting her quickly and putting her purse back on her shoulder, glad he hadn’t plowed into her at his speed. “Did you see which way they went?” He picked up the paper she’d dropped and handed it to her.
“Who?”
“Did they come out here?”
“Sweetcheeks, nobody’s come out here. We’re all alone.” She smiled. “Isn’t it cozy?”
Then they hadn’t gone out the office door. Then where… His frantic thoughts stopped as he noticed her smile was forced, that and her mascara looked like it had been running. He looked at the paper in her hands. It was today’s Star and it was half-shredded. “What are you doing out here?”
“Me?” She shrugged and swiped at her cheeks. “Just reading the paper.”
“Didn’t you want to get a fresh one?”
She laughed, though it didn’t sound like she was amused. “Well, maybe I’m making confetti for the opening.” She gave it a rather violent rip. “Might as well start with this piece of trash.”
“What’s wrong?”
She gave it another rip, sitting hard on a crate and tossing it away. “Don’t act like you care or anything, Clemp.”
“I was just asking.”
“Well, I’m fine. And I’m kind of done tossing myself at you. I can take a hint. Just go away.” She reached in her purse, pulling out a wrapped pack of cigarettes, then fished some more. “Wait. Don’t go. You got a light?”
“I don’t smoke.”
“Well, aren’t you just a perfect little peach? Why do you even work here?” She said, tossing the cigarettes to the ground. “It’s probably a sign, anyway. I’d have bought a lighter if I really wanted to start up again. Still, might been fun to start a little trashcan fire with that oiled up rag.” She gave the paper an angry kick.
“Why are you…” He stared at her, putting a few things together. Kandy was in charge of the other servers. Kandy had access to the office, Kandy was in charge of confiscating cell phones, but seemed to always keep hers. And the Star’s earlier issue had pictures of the previously planned uniforms. Then he remembered her phone call the other day. She’d seemed awfully angry about her work being devalued, considering how much she seemed to hate this job. “You’re the leak,” he said dully. “You’re Cat Grant.”
Her eyes snapped to his, wide and scared. She looked like she wanted to bolt, but she stood slowly. “Listen, I’ll get my things and get out of here.”
He shook his head, still dazed.
“No one has to know and… and I can make it worth your while. I don’t have much money, but I have a little saved for…”
“No.”
“Are you kidding me? I watch you, Clemp. You seem about as crazy about this scum as I am. They don’t deserve any loyalty from…”
“I mean that I won’t tell,” he said quickly. Hell, he was almost relieved. He didn’t like to think of a single mom stuck working for Mannheim.
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Why not?”
He couldn’t tell her that. “Maybe you’re right about me. Maybe I do agree there’s nothing but scum in here.”
She shook her head. “If you think they’re such scum, then why do you work here?”
He picked up the paper and straightened it out, feeling slightly angry. “And if you think they’re such scum, then why do you write these…” He looked at the name on today’s Manheim piece. He hadn’t even read it. He saw the headline “Mannheim on Moxie’s and Second Chances” and turned away in disgust. But he saw it now – or saw the name on it. “Janet Purnell,” he read dully.
“I’ve been fired. I made it clear that they were not putting my name on another one of their hatchet jobs.” She grabbed the paper and gave it another rip. “I mean, I put up with it as long as I could. But I wasn’t about to let them put my name on this puff piece about Mannheim pulling criminals from the gutter and giving them a second chance here at the magical land of Moxie’s,” she sneered. “And I was almost okay with it, I mean maybe they were putting my name on a few things I didn’t write, but at least they were publishing my exposés. It seemed worth getting taken seriously for a change, but how serious would anyone take me after this?” She shook the paper at him. “Apparently, my name wasn’t a big draw anyway.”
“How did you get into this?”
She stared at him for a long time before she answered. “”Oh, who the hell cares? I mean, I’m probably leaving town, anyway. I’ve been feeding them stories since I got myself hired. They use my scoops, then they twist it around in the next. And I may be new to real journalism. Hell, all I did in LA was run a gossip blog. But this can’t be how it goes.”
“It isn’t,” he said sadly. “But it sure sells papers.”
“Well, the assh*les fired me when I refused to sit down for an interview with the thug. First of all, he’d know who I am and you can’t tell me that doesn’t put a bullet in my head. Second of all, there was no way I was writing sh*t like…” She angrily opened the paper. “Mannheim’s eyes grow sad and dark at the idea of the unfounded gossip always leveled at him, like his father before him.” She sneered. “Does that sound like a paper that’s not in bed with the enemy?”
“Not exactly.” And that shiny new Star machine out front made more sense now, too.
“So I’m officially unemployed. Unless I keep working here.” She laughed bitterly. “It really sucks to get punished for doing the right thing.”
“But you can’t work here. If he knows who you are…”
She tossed the paper in the dumpster. “Oh, he doesn’t know. And neither do they. I set up my own fake identity. I’ve been running from bad men long enough to do that with no help from anyone, thanks very much.” She shook her head. “Maybe I’ll just go back to Hollywood gossip. Same old stories and they call it news. Big egos and badly hidden affairs. I was kidding myself if I thought I could do something that mattered.” Her eyes filled again. “And I just got Adam into a good school. I thought we might finally have found a place to be happy and…”
He quickly pulled her in because one of his biggest weaknesses that wasn’t green and shiny was a crying woman. “You can do something that matters. And the Star isn’t the only paper in town.”
“Yeah?” she sniffed against his shirt, which he’d probably need to change now with all the makeup she wore. “And who’d print me? It’s not like the Daily Planet hires any woman off the street, especially one whose only credential is an online gossip show.”
He patted her back. “Hey, your pieces alone helped The Star outsell The Planet. That never happens.”
She drew back. “And how do you know about paper sales?”
“I know lots of stuff,” he said, trying to put on Irving Clemp’s customary grunt. “Like maybe you’re a better reporter than you think you are.”
She shook her head. “I'm too flashy. Hell, the Star wouldn’t even look at my writing samples until I started undercover. They said I lacked polish.”
“So you’ll pick some up.”
She smiled and Clark reflected she had kind of a pretty smile without all that makeup in the way. “You’re kind of unreal, you know. I watch you. You might keep to yourself, but I’ve seen the way you are with the other girls, even the guys. You’re not like the others, always helping out, always asking people if they're okay. You know?”
He knew. And he really needed to tone that down. Was she onto him?
“Not to be cliché, but…” She took the edge of her jacket and wiped at his shirt. “What is a nice guy like you doing in a place like this?”
“Just… took some wrong turns,” he finished, swallowing hard.
“Well, I hope you take some right ones. I got a feeling you deserve better.” She pulled him down and his arms involuntarily moved closer around her as she kissed his cheek. He was just surprised… and maybe she smelled nice and felt soft and, though he constantly tried not to dwell on that Christmas kiss, it was nice to be held, even in arms that weren’t hers.
He closed his eyes and breathed in deep, then let it out in a slight gasp when those lips slid from his cheek to his mouth. He tightened his grip reflexively, kissing her back before he realized that he shouldn’t… or should he?
Regardless he let her go and stepped back. “I’m sorry about…”
“No, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.” She was flushed and kind of lovely, he noted again. But Cat Grant was definitely not his type. Or was she? “I swear, last time. I really can take a hint,” she said with a rather awkward laugh. “And I should get back to work, anyway. This is the only job I’ve got now,” she said before she quickly moved through the back door.
***********************
Lois leaned against her door jamb, trying to figure out what to do now. It was a third date and though she didn’t think much of the popular notion that a third date meant a tumble into bed, she didn’t want to seem rude and not invite Tom in. Yet she didn’t feel completely on board with inviting him in, even though she was pretty confident he wouldn’t push her.
“I’d say to come in for coffee. But the place is a mess,” she finally said, turning to him with one hand on the knob.
He chuckled. “I expected something more creative from a writer.”
She lifted one eyebrow and pulled her door open, letting him have one good look before she closed it.
He nodded. “Okay, then. But, you know, I’m not expecting anything. Even if you did invite me in…”
“Then you could expect to impale yourself on something in the first few minutes. I really need to keep unfamiliar parties out of the danger zone. I still haven’t made good on my new year’s resolution to clean up the Christmas mess.”
“Eh, you have a few days.” He leaned against the wall next to her. “Maybe I’ll be around to see it.”
She chuckled and shook her head, “Aren’t you forgetting? You’re getting the brush off just as soon as I’ve used you for your tickets.”
“Heartless woman.” Those dimples of his appeared again and, damn it, why shouldn’t she just… He leaned in before she could, lips brushing hers. She’d made up her mind to kiss him tonight as there was just no sense in dating him further if he delivered a terrible kiss.
And it definitely wasn’t terrible. It also wasn’t… amazing. She slid her arms around his neck and tried to push that Christmas kiss from her mind, but it was so hard not to compare. Then again, the only kisses she truly knew in any conscious sense were Clark’s.
So what if Tom’s lips were thinner, moved side to side instead of those upwards nips and brushes she knew? So what if his hands didn’t clench her as if he couldn’t let go? So what if the hair under her fingers was stright, without that slight curl? So what if he didn’t drag her against him against him as if she could never hope to get away?
It was a very nice kiss. And, damn it, so what if it wasn’t amazing? Maybe it took time to get to amazing. And hadn’t she and Clark had more than enough time to get there? She pulled back and looked up at him, reflecting that she didn’t have to look quite as far up. And maybe that was a good thing.
“Can I see you again? I mean, before new years eve?” he said softly, one hand sliding up her back to her neck, fingers sliding back and forth.
It felt nice – not amazing, but nice. “No,” she breathed before she shook her head. “I mean, I have so much to do with work, preparing for Moxies. But after that…”
“Oh, yeah.” He chuckled. “The sting.”
“It’s not a sting unless you’re in law enforcement, you know. Use the word correctly, you supposedly learned man.”
“Hey, I was a history nerd. Never did the goodest in English.”
She laughed and pushed at him. “Oh, go away. I don’t even want to look at you again unless its two days later and you’re wearing a tux.”
He sighed. “I guess this is a pretty swanky affair. Probably will have to break out my tux.”
“You own a tux?” She supposed that was another point in his favor. He certainly had enough.
“Maybe. Hell, I might even get you a corsage to match your dress. Like prom.”
She giggled, then remembered she was prom queen… or Chloe Sullivan was. And she apparently went without a date. She was glad Lois Lane wouldn’t have that problem. Even if this wasn’t the prom. “Well, it’s green,” she said, thinking of the dress Linda had forced her to accept, the one with scary price tag. She might as well get some more mileage out of it.
“So just have them slap together some leaves and call it a day,” Tom said. “Got it.”
“Oh, get out of here,” she said on a laugh.
“One more thing.,,” He pulled her in, kissing her quickly again before he released her and moved down the hall. “I’ll see you in forty-eight hours.”
She stared after him, looking forward to it… and for more than the story. She touched her lips as she opened the door. It still hadn’t been amazing. But amazing didn’t just happen, did it? She skirted the boxes and bags still spilled all over her living room. She really did mean to get to those. She hadn’t planned on having a love life. Maybe when things settled down…
“Ow!” She leaned down to inspect her ankle, finding a paper cut from one of the boxes of pictures from her old stash. She kicked it out of the way and the bag with the rest of her Christmas goodies she’d tossed into it spilled over. She knelt down with a groan and picked up the pen recorder, the scarf and the poetry book. She looked closer at the recorder, thinking it could really come in handy at Moxie’s when she noticed something sticking out of the book. She’d think it was ruined again if the dog-eared paper hanging from it wasn’t pink.
She picked up the book, letting it fall open to the page with the pink paper. She touched the page, seeing the words “time for you and time for me” from that night in the Kent loft and her mad love affair with the boxes of Chloe Sullivan. There were also those blurry pink stains she’d seen over those words before. She’d noted the stains and the barely visible words, but she hadn’t been able to make them out at the time. It would take vision better than hers to…
She stared at the letter, also that worn pink. It hadn’t been there that night in the loft. She could swear it hadn’t. Also, Clark had had this book’s binding fixed. Surely, they wouldn’t have put this back when it has already bled on the book. Yet she could see it had been here. She could see a matching wet blob on the back of the pink paper with the shadowy words visible through it. And she could see it was her writing. This was hers.
She opened it.
Dear Clark…
She wrote this to Clark. And Clark got this repaired. Clark…
I want to let you in on a secret. I’m not who you think I am. In fact, my disguise is so thin, I’m surprised you haven’t seen right through me.
I’m the girl of your dreams masquerading as your best friend.
This letter had been pressed in here. She was sure of it. Yet the book was in her things that first night she’d gone through them. The letter wasn’t there then. Yet it had been there at some time before and… She shook herself and read on.
Sometimes I want to rip off this facade like I did at the Spring formal, but I can’t. Because you’ll get scared and you’ll run away again. So I decided it’s better to live with a lie than expose my true feelings.
Yet, she must have given this to him at some point, must have exposed those feelings. How else would he have had it? No one else would have put this letter where it hadn’t been.
My dad told me there are two types of girls—the ones you grow out of and the ones you grow into. I really hope I’m the latter. I may not be the one you love today, but I’ll let you go for now, hoping one day you’ll fly back to me, because I think you’re worth the wait.
Chloe
Lois tossed the letter away as if it had burned her, then stopped herself from picking it up again. There was more to Chloe and Clark than she knew. And he must have wanted her to know that. Otherwise, this letter wouldn’t have found its way back into this book.
She picked both up again, her eyes hungry to see the words again, even as her hand shook. She saw that pink stain, again, matching it to that spot in the letter.
...hoping one day you'll fly back to... ”Me,” she finished, staring at the clearer words on the letter. “No,” she breathed.
She was starting a new life, making new memories. She didn’t want these old ones. They didn’t matter. They couldn’t matter.
Yet she read the letter again, read the poem again, wondered why the past insisted on shoehorning its way into her present. It didn’t matter. It shouldn’t matter!
***********************
“But it does matter,” Clark said, staying on Turpin’s heels as they moved across Third Street. “They just disappear. There’s something weird about it.”
“You and your spooky mumbo-jumbo.” Turpin turned on him. “Listen, you’ve actually been doing fine. Hell, I thought we’d have you running scared and back to your cushy life by now.”
“My life isn’t that...”
“But Kent,” Turpin went on. “Everything you bring me is full of crazy.”
“I know what I see. They go into the office, then they’re not in there.”
“How do you see that?”
“I look through the… keyhole,” he finished lamely. He couldn’t very well tell Dan he was looking through the wall.
“You’re running around looking through keyholes? How the hell is that going to come off?”
“No one’s seen me,” Clark cut in.
“Listen, this is opening night. And it’s more than the city bigwigs and politicians invited. We’re going to be hobnobbing with every scum bag Bruno knows. So just keep this on,” Dan said, adjusting what looked like an innocent red carnation on Clark’s vest, then he gestured to Clark’s mouth, “and that shut. We’ll get something before this night is out.”
He stared after Turpin, rather glad he hadn’t told him and Sawyer about Kandy Kane being the leak… or Cat Grant. He’d promised her he wouldn’t, though. So he couldn’t. It kind of blew that, no matter who he was, he had to keep layers of secrets.
But fine. He had secrets of his own, even without that. He’d keep the PD away from them. Maybe all that “spooky” stuff Turpin found so annoying was just what he needed to be kept out of. Maybe that was for Superman and no one else.
And Superman was on duty. He had one suit hidden on the roof under an old tar bucket and another shoved behind the dumpster in the side alley. Tonight was the night everything would come to light, including the disappearing con-men.
He had his theories so far, but none that worked. He’d thought there was a trapdoor in the office, but the floor revealed no opening and the basement revealed nothing but wiring that looked like a damned mess and shoddy foundation. He had to wonder where all the renovation money went when this place was fixed up. He’d spent some time using his vision to carefully look through their files. They’d paid the most for “custom renovation” from Reilly Metalworks before Clark started working here with “reinforcement” scrawled on the invoice. Then again, these were crooks and everything was likely crooked.
But was there something supernatural underneath? He shook it off, wondering if he was seriously going nutty. Even being an alien, he didn’t always believe in magical explanations for unexplained things. His training with Jor-El had shown him the science behind everything about him. Even with his friends, there was something to explain them, something not so mysterious, something that made sense. But he couldn’t think of anything to explain Bruno’s gang’s disappearances.
He took off his coat in the stockroom, then stepped out to see Cat walking back and forth in front of the other girls. “…and you catch more tips with honey than with vinegar. If anyone grabs anything, you just slide to the side, smile, and offer them something that is on the menu.”
He chuckled as he moved behind the bar to set up, but tossed her a worried look. He’d taken her aside a few times yesterday, reiterated what could happen if Bruno and friends got any ideas about their lead server, Kandy Kane.
But she seemed to think she’d performed her duties well enough to avoid suspicion. Clark supposed she had as she was about the only employee besides Stitches Bruno didn’t hurl obscenities at yesterday. Of course, that might be because Cat seemed to have a way with men, a way of flirting while also keeping them at arm’s length.
Either way, she might find Irving Clemp’s concern “just too adorable, Sweetie. But I know how to keep myself out of trouble. Everything I sent The Star was printed and my payments, the last two of which the bastards welshed on, were cashiers checks sent to a PO box. You don’t work in gossip without learning a few tricks. You think Intergang could find out who I am when the very litigious Church of Scientology couldn’t?” But she made it clear that she was going to find something and, maybe this time, send it to “the real paper” -- also that he could put his big, strong arms around her whenever he was feeling protective.
He’d let it go, as Irving Clemp wasn’t supposed to be too concerned – also because she had a tendency to turn everything into flirtation that made him feel like a virgin farmboy. He still didn’t know how to feel about that kiss, except mildly guilty. Yet why should he? Lois had made it clear that she wanted to be nothing more than friends. Of course, she’d gone and laid one on him too. And now Cat kissed Clark while still thinking his name was Irving. Why were women suddenly kissing him left and right when it was horribly inconvenient?
He needed to focus on the case… and by that he meant the case. Mannheim would probably be schmoozing his ugly face off tonight. There was no way he’d carry that case with him at all times. Clark kept one eye on his work, but the other was following Mannheim around as he still clutched the thing like a damned security blanket. But he kept his ears open, too.
Tiny and Rocco seemed nervous and, if Clark wasn’t mistaken, just a little annoyed as they demanded at least four shots at ten minutes to opening. “You know, if this is what his new friends are like, then he can have them,” Tiny grumbled as Clark listened in from the far end of the bar, just far enough that they wouldn’t know he heard. He was learning by now. Give them what they wanted and find a reason to move away. It was the only way they’d talk freely. His carnation wouldn’t be picking this up, but that was the price of answers.
“Hey, the boss has reached enlightenment. He has knowledge we can only…”
“Oh, stuff it, Rocco. He’s being a giant dick and you know it. Look at the way he laid into you, laughed at you when you thought it was in Chinese,,,”
“Would you shut up about that? How should I know?” Rocco snorted. “How the hell am I supposed to read stuff that isn’t even words anyway?”
“I’ll tell you what I think,” Tiny hissed. “I don’t think he can understand it neither. He just makes out like he can. Don’t you think he’d have made a move without the new management coming down if he knew what he was doin?” His voice grew quieter and Clark concentrated on listening closer. “It’s like I been sayin. Just pull a move like with the bank, get Superman near and…”
WHAM!
Clark jumped back, holding his ears and staring at the tray Cat just slapped on the counter next to him.
“Didn’t mean to startle you, Dollbaby.”
“Hey, watch it, Clemp,” Rocco called from the other end of the bar as Clark cleaned up the glass he’d just shattered. “That’s comin out of your paycheck!”
“Yeah. That outta use it up,” Cat yelled back before moving around the bar. “You okay? Look at you, you’re shaking.”
“Just nervous, I guess.”
“About this? Just don't skimp on booze and everyone’ll be happy. It’s just bartending.”
“Well… first night,” he said, letting her think Irving Clemp was nervous about serving the perfect martini, but it was Superman who was nervous. Whatever “new management” meant, it was bad news for him.
“Well, you know where I am if you want a kiss for luck.”
“Ca… Kandy, I need to…”
“Hey, no harm in trying. But, Jesus, you need to relax.” He tried to unclench as Cat rubbed his back. But it didn’t seem to be something he could do, especially not when the patrons started filing in and the third couple through the door was a posh looking blonde man… with Lois Lane on his arm.
CHAPTER NINE
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