Yay! New year's reviews! Thanks, people, keep em coming, feed the needy author : ) Happy New year to everyone! I was hoping this would be a very short piece and add more of the Chlex I was planning, but I got kind of caught up in writing Lois. And this craving for pizza I had Anyway, I'll try to update more soon. On with it:
Six: In which two cousins have pizza'You cheating fuck'
No, Chloe thought, and deleted what she had written, can't start like that.
'Dear Mister Smith'
"Hell no, lying bastard."
'Mister Smith,' That was good, nice and neutral. 'I have run your papers through my associates at several medical institutions and would like to run you through now.'
"No, that last bit has to go." She chewed on a stray lock of hair.
'I am happy to say that your accusations are unfounded. LuthorCare is not experimenting on these kids, at least not with malicious intent. I do not know what made you believe this was the case, but I can tell you one thing, you son of a bitch, that if you want to blackmail Lex, you'll have to come up with something better.'
Chloe reread her note, sighed, and edited it. She thought of something else to write, perhaps something that would tell him in a subtle but clear way that she thought he was utterly despicable. But that might scare him off, and she didn't want Smith to just disappear. Because there was something about him that…stank. Maybe he hadn't counted on her knowing someone like Janey Metlock, who could tell her straight away that the file was harmless. Or maybe he was misled by someone himself. Still, she was sure that he could have found someone to interpret the numbers—but then why had he added those little notes?
No, he'd tried to put her up against Lex by feeding her legit illegally acquired facts, she was certain of it. But then, why choose her? He'd told her he wanted her to dig deep to find the truth, but all she had to do was scratch the surface and find that while illegal, LuthorCare's treatment was indeed for the best of the children. Yes, she could lawfully incriminate the corporation by publishing these papers, but with the cancer treatment finally successful, there was a bigger chance of LuthorCorp getting a better name because of it, than a lawsuit.
Then why was she so convinced that something more was going on? Smith must have known he was providing false and misleading comments. Why would he do that? To see whether she would really check? To test her integrity? Or was it something else?
When he talked about Lex, his eyes had glittered with hatred. And he'd said he knew one of the kids that died of cancer. But if he got those files from someone who was working at LuthorCorp and had some knowledge about the experiments, how could he then gotten the idea that Lex was harming the children? He wasn't. He was saving them. Anyone knowing anything about Kryptonite must know that. Yes, it was illegal because they hadn't received official permission to use the meteor, but…
"Aargh. What the hell do you want from me, Piggy-eyes?"
She was saved from further brain crackers by the first twelve notes from Mission Impossible and dived for her phone as if it were a double moccaccino with whipped cream. "Chloe!"
"Chloe, it's me, Lois. Do you have a TV in your near vicinity?" Lois had that high, slightly breathy quality to her voice she always got when she was excited about something.
Chloe looked up. There were three flat screens hanging from the ceiling. They were situated on exactly the same place on every floor of the Daily Planet from the basement up. The eight o' clock news was on and that bimbo from Channel Two was fluttering her eyelashes to the off-screen person she was speaking to.
"Is this a trick question? You know…"
"He's got HAIR!! Watch it, they'll probably show him again, yes, there his is! Look! Look at him!"
Chloe held the phone away from her ear and listened carefully. Yes, she could hear Lois one floor down. Working late, just like Chloe. Working alone, by the sound of it; someone would have shut her up if anyone else was still present.
While Lois raved on about the why and how about the sudden appearance of 'red grass on that white cue ball', Chloe watched the screen and felt a slow smile spread her lips. She completely missed what Lex was speaking about and just enjoyed the view. She'd been right. He was rather adorable. He didn't look at all ridiculous. She couldn't understand why she hadn't ever deduced that he'd had to have been a red head. With that pale skin with the dusting of tiny freckles that only showed when he got even paler, for instance if he got angry, he just had to be. The red fluff somehow made his face look softer, and surprisingly, very young. It made him human, she thought.
"How'd you think he did it, huh?" Lois was still going on. "Implants? I doubt it myself because why would anyone choose such a horrible color, but hey who knows, maybe he's just being eccentric. Or did he experiment with something, do you think? Maybe you can ask him tomorrow. He's got to…"
"Wait. Wait a minute!" Chloe said, as her cousin's words finally registered. "What do you mean, I can ask him tomorrow? Am I seeing him tomorrow?"
Lois laughed. "Missed your message again? Really, Chlo, and they'd given you such a hot little phone. You're going to interview him tomorrow."
"I am?" she checked her cell phone. It showed one missed call and a text message. "Oh. Ok. I am."
"I don't know why they keep picking you for that, though," Lois said. Chloe could hear her high-heeled boots patter down the stairs. "I'm sure if you told Perry you didn't want to anymore, he'd let you up. Well, maybe not, but he might send someone else for a change."
Chloe smiled. She knew very well why Perry always chose her to do interview the Luthors. Luthor Senior: she'd been tricked by him so often it didn't work anymore. He didn't frighten her anymore, and she'd gotten very good in reading him. As for Luthor Junior…Lex liked her. She never misquoted him, nor put him down any different than he was. Because she, in turn, liked him. The result was open, interesting conversation, in which he would let slip much more than he would to any other reporter. It was a mutually beneficial arrangement: Lex could trust her to publish the truth about him—as far as Lex was ever truthful, of course—and Chloe's rank at the Planet had risen from obituaries and advertisements in the cellar to interviews and a neat little desk on the first floor. And she had a column. On Wednesdays. It was called 'Sullivan's Lighter', and only those who had known her previous unpaid and undervalued job at Smallville High got the pun of it.
"I don't mind, really," she said, grinning at her cousin as she came sauntering into the room. Lois, unlit Marlboro already wedged in the corner of her mouth, grinned back so widely she almost poked herself in the eye with the cigarette. "He always pours really good wines."
"Psah," Lois spat disdainfully, still speaking into her mobile, although she was now less than ten feet away. "He can keep his Chateau de Mauvais Riche. I'd take a cheap Chianti over his fluid ruby anytime." She lowered her cell. "Speaking of Chianti, feel like going out for a bite? I'm not getting anywhere with this article of mine, and Clark isn't here to help me with the spelling."
"Sure," Chloe said. She cast one last glance over her mail to Smith, then shrugged and sent it. If he wanted to get back to her, he would. She was sick and tired of holding shouting matches with him in her head. It would be much nicer to actually talk to him and find out what he wanted. She turned off her computer. "Pizza?"
"Actually," Lois said, fishing for her lighter, "I was hoping for something more Italian."
"Pizza is about as Italian as you can get," Chloe argued.
"Not if you're talking about Shakey's, or Yo-Joe's. Those pizzas have never even seen real mozzarella. Let alone oregano. And they most certainly don't have any Chianti. No, I want my pizza made AND served by a tiny little genuine Italian man with a nasty moustache and huge amounts of oily, curly chest hair."
Chloe made a face. "Ugh." She shivered in her coat. Lois lit her cigarette two steps from the front door.
"That's what you say now, but you'll agree with me after the first taste. I promise!"
"So where is this heavenly temple of Italian ambrosia?" Chloe asked, shivering again. The winter was finally getting colder—just cold enough to freeze the slush on the streets and turn the entire road into an ice rink.
Lois blew out a huge cloud of condensed breath and smoke. "Juft awoumb ah cohnew of mimepeemime am feffenpee."
Chloe plucked the cigarette from between her lips. "What?"
"99 and 70."
"Ok. We can walk then." Lois opened her mouth. Chloe put the cigarette back where it belonged. Lois took a big puff and almost choked on a cough. "When are you going to stop smoking? I thought you said you'd give it up about two months ago."
"I did. I was weak. What can I say? I need a better reason to quit than just some…vague wish. Like a New Year's resolution, or something."
"That's what you said last year, and it didn't help you then."
"Change of subject?" Lois requested. "You keep buying boots and I'm not pestering you about that, am I?"
"That's Lana's fault!"
"Sure, blame the little princess."
"It's true! I'm innocent!"
"Ha. Does she pay for them as well?"
"Why did you need Clark to check your spelling anyway?" Chloe neatly sidestepped her fetish. "Even YOU must have figured out how to use the spelling checker by now."
"My Windows crashed," Lois grumbled. She shook another cig out of her packet, lit it with the stub of the last one and tossed the butt away. Chloe shook her head. "Swallow it and like it, Chlo. As I was saying, my Windows crashed and it wouldn't reinstall Word—in fact it wouldn't do anything but go prrt, prrt, krrrrrrrll, and then stop, so I've been using that dusty old thing in the corner, the one we only use to send mail to persons of questionable conduct with whom we don't want to be associated—or to download porn, in the case of Joe Darham and Buster Jennings; I mean, I actually saw them do it. Unless, of course, 'Deep Inside Tia Bella' is actually some kind of hacking program. But anyway, that thing only has internet and notepad, no spelling checker, and I kind of freaked out without all those red squiggly lines, so…" She paused to take a breath and a drag, "I thought; let's watch the news and see what everybody's making such a fuss about. I mean, there's this kid missing and all they're talking about is Junior's new hairdo. I'm sure it's just another one of his weird ass publicity stunts. Crazy bastard."
She huffed out another plume of smoke.
Chloe said nothing. Like Clark, Lois refused to see Lex as anything but The Enemy—perhaps because he had once told her that she smelled like an ash tray. Or maybe tasted like an ash tray, she couldn't be sure about that, but she doubted that Lex and Lois had ever come closer than the most formal of handshakes, if that. She knew better than to waste her breath defending Lex to Lois. Her cousin would just check her temperature and then claim that he had brainwashed her.
While Lois grumped about the Evil of Luthor, Chloe mentally rescheduled her Tuesday. The message had only read 'Next time, answr phone. Tomorrow Int. Luthor Jr. SV Mans. 5.30 w. Cam. Team. I'll mail. P.', but it effectively filled her entire day. She had to be there by 5.30, but it was always better to be at least fifteen minutes early to set up the cameras and stuff. So, a two and a half, three hour drive there…Make that three and a half with a coffee break or two and possible traffic jams. She had to leave Metropolis by one at the latest. If she was early, she could always look up some old friends—those unfortunates who had never left Smallville.
"Here we are," Lois said with a flourish, pulling Chloe out of her thoughts. She rubbed out her cigarette with the toe of her boot. A tiny, seedy-looking restaurant stood huddled away between a bookshop and a grand café. It was called 'Antonino's', and Chloe thought it was very well possible that the Godfather himself had founded it in his more desperate days. But as Lois had predicted, her reservations all disappeared when they opened the door and a truly divine smell of freshly baked pizza with oregano and other home cooking, garlic and lit candles washed over them.
"Mmmm…" Chloe moaned. She wished her nose had taste buds.
"Nice, huh?" Lois grinned with pride. She flashed all her splendidly white teeth at the small, moustached Italian waiter with the white, stained apron who'd come hurrying from the open kitchen, his hands still white with dough, to lead them to their table.
Once seated, Lois ordered a carafe of Chianti and two pizze Quatro Statione—"Trust me, Chlo, they're wonderful, you'll love them!"—and settled into her chair with the air of a conqueror. "Tell me I was right."
"You were right," Chloe said obediently. She laughed and watched with delight how the Italian waiter poured the sparkling red wine into her glass from at least a foot's distance.
On the inside, the little restaurant was as lovely as it was hideous from the outside. About twenty people, mostly in pairs, sat in the cozy half dark, eating and talking. About half of the customers spoke Italian, Chloe noticed. It was probably a good sign. Red-hooded lamps cast a warm light over gleaming, dark oak tables, and lit candles flickered wherever the shadows threatened to become to dark. Peculiarly-shaped wine bottles hung from the ceiling, reflecting the light in odd patterns. The walls were painted in yellowish hues with a few faded frescoes tucked away in the corners. There was one small statue of some doubtlessly famous Ancient hero, a man with a tiny dick but pectorals to die for. Chloe sighed with pleasure and took a sip of wine, letting all of her frustration with Mister Smith drain away.
"So," she said while they sat there waiting for their pizzas to arrive, "What have you been up to? I mean, it's past eight and you were still up there typing your little fingers off. Without a spelling checker NOR Clark, no less. What's gripped you this time?"
Lois snorted. "Apart from the usual Rape and Incest stories Perry usually drops on my plate?—Why's he do that, anyway? It's not like it's nice to interview girls who've been assaulted by their gym teacher, but whenever I hold out my hand for a subject—like an opening of some building, or a museum, or something else remotely pleasant he gives me another fifteen-year-old with a ripped hymen as if it's my UB40."
"I think he thinks you can handle it," Chloe said. "I couldn't. Neither can most of the men. You've got a way to reassure them, help them, convince them to sue AND get a story out of it as well."
Chloe hadn't been able to do that. She'd done one incest victim interview and spent half an hour hugging the girl, crying just as hard as her. Then she'd taken a knife and had almost unmanned the girl's uncle, who'd raped her from the day she turned eight. Only Clark's speedy intercession had saved her from spending the prime of her life in jail. Lois was much better with those kind of things. She published their stories with an objective tone of voice—although her reports on a criminal sent to jail because of her intervention were always darkly exultant.
Her macho cousin took a gulp of wine; as if she were doing shots instead of drinking wine. "At the moment, I'm investigating a man called Tippitt. Do you remember that whole business with that rice company a few weeks ago?"
"Orizon, yes. Their brand new CEO was murdered."
"Uhuh, and right after they had finally decided to sell to HealthFood, ex-convict!Luthor's little pet project with the blessing of his loving offspring. Poor man; almost a year of vigorous business battle, threats, lawsuits and everything, and then when things finally go his way and he manages to get his foot between Orizon's door, someone shoots his trump card five times in the chest."
The waiter put a basket of bread and a bowl with garlic butter on their table. Chloe lathered a piece of bread with butter; it was soft and creamy but firm enough to be real butter instead of margarine. I have to remember this restaurant. Even though she was beginning to feel too relaxed to give a damn about murdered CEOs, she caught Lois' eager eye and asked, dutifully,
"And you think this Tippitt is involved somehow?"
"I have no idea," Lois said around a mouthful of buttery bread. "I only know that he suddenly showed up, and that no one knows who he is. I mean, according to my informant he registered as an employee at Orizon a couple of days after Mowett was shot, but nobody knows how or why. He isn't a cop. He isn't a journalist either. He most certainly isn't your regular rice monger. Must be a private detective, but when I tried to find out about him, I got an absolute zero on my computer. He doesn't exist. There is," she picked up her spoon and regarded it solemnly, "no Tippitt."
"If he doesn't exist," Chloe asked, "How did you find out about him in the first place?"
"Someone pointed him out to me, or rather to my contact. Who was it, the usual, some Smith or Jones or Doe…"
Chloe sat up with a start. "Smith?" Could it be the same guy? If he is…Orizon would become a sister company to LuthorCorp…
But Lois waved her hand and said, "I think it was Jones, actually. Anyway, this Tippitt guy is combing down the entire Orizon organization and then snap! He's gone. One day later another employee bites the dust. "
"I remember." The wine was still warm in her stomach, but despite herself her curiosity was piqued. Lex had been very upset with Mowett's death, and the woman's death only a week later had disturbed him to such an extent that he'd called her for coffee. At one in the morning. Sometimes she'd swear the man didn't sleep at all. "They found her under a pile of rice bags. They called it an accident—I remember thinking that was the most unlikely accident I'd ever seen. That was a cover-up if I ever saw one."
"Exactly, that's what I thought too. So then I sent…" She coughed, "I sent someone to check it out, both Tippitt and that woman's death, only to find that Tippitt had already left. Then it turned out that that woman…Savez, Rachel Savez, used to be Mowett's under-desk hussy and a truly interesting mystery had appeared." She bit into another piece of bread and continued in a hollow voice: "Who is Tippitt? What does he want? What has he found? Does he like martinis or is he a beer man?" She grinned and refilled her glass. "We've been following Tippitt around for some time now, but he's really good. He moves incredibly fast."
"What is 'some time'?"
"About two weeks."
Chloe sighed. Smith had contacted her only five days ago. Then she frowned. "But why are you following him at all? Why bother with him, if you don't even know what he's doing?" Lois usually didn't have the patience to follow vague hints. She was a hunting dog, not a falcon; she needed a clear scent or a bone to bring down the prey.
Her cousin shrugged. "I hate the unexplained. I believe he knows something about Mowett's murder—and I want to know who he's working for. If he finds out, I want to take the credit by publishing it—although, of course, I'll have to share my reapings. Do you want more wine? Shall I order another carafe?"
Chloe let her glass fill again. The surroundings were peaceful and her body felt pleasantly heavy, but unease stirred in her belly—or maybe that was hunger pangs. She hadn't eaten anything since a quick lunch at one.
"You should be careful, though," she cautioned, laughing at herself even as she said it. As if she had ever heeded any warning herself. Lois smirked, and Chloe stuck out her tongue. Still: "Two people have died. It'd be a shame if you or your partner would be a third. That would really screw up my Christmas plans."
"Oh," Lois said airily, "my little investigator can take care of himself." And there was something in her voice, some strange mixture of affection, envy, annoyance and absolute reliance that told Chloe who Lois' investigator was, as clearly as if she'd said his name.
"Clark!" she exclaimed, then hushed her voice as several patrons looked up from their meal, "You're using Clark to check out Tippitt!"
"Using is such a negative word," Lois protested. "He suggested it himself. He's getting sick and tired of summarizing football matches. And you know how he reacts to everything remotely Luthor-related. Speaking of Luthor, do you have any idea how he cultivated that crop on his head?"
"I don't think…" Chloe began, but then the pizza arrived, and she forgot all about Lex. The pizza was at least 30 inch wide, very flat, and smelled so good she wished she could snort it, like tomato coke.
"Use your knife, Chloe," Lois giggled. "You're not very sexy with cheese on your nose."
Abandoning speech entirely for some time in order to shovel away at their meal, the cousins abandoned the subject 'work' when their mouths were empty for longer than ten seconds; they ordered another carafe of wine and talked about more mundane things—like the disappointment that was called 'Lost', how nice it was to watch the reruns of old Agatha Christie movies, what crappy weather they were having, the exploits of Lois' little sister and the General's reaction to seeing his youngest daughter's face on the cover of a Gothic Metal CD, and where to shop for Manolo Blahniks while still saving enough money to buy new clothes for Christmas. "Or maybe to just afford Christmas," Lois sighed. "They're lovely shoes, but I may have to give up on them if I have to choose between them and my Christmas turkey."
When the pizza was finished, Lois suggested tiramisu for dessert. It was, again, marvelous, and liberally doused with Amaretto. By the time Chloe and Lois had finished their coffee, they were both giggly and flushed, and when they tottered outside, waved a warm goodbye by the generously tipped waiter, tightly arm in arm despite the difference in height, they hardly noticed the bite of the wind or their uneasy footing due to the ice on the street.
"Oh Lois, don't smoke, you'll belch fire!"
"Don't be ridiculous," Lois scoffed. "It was only 5. You can't spit fire with Chianti. Now the original Russian Wodka, that's the stuff to use…Say Chloe, do you want to stay over? You probably shouldn't drive in the state you're in."
"State?" Chloe huffed. "What state?" She briefly considered staying over at Lois', then decided against it. Lois' apartment was a little like a student's flat—not because it wasn't respectable, but because her cousin did not believe in the benefits of tidying, cleaning, or not-smoking at home. Neither was she afraid of spiders. Chloe'd spent a few nights on Lois' couch, and quite a few of those nights had been sleepless, anxiously following the progress of some small, black, many-legged shadow on the ceiling and/or floor.
She grinned. "I'll manage. It's still at least ten minutes to my car; I'll be sober by the time I'm there."
"You sure? Yeah? I'll walk you to your car then."
"Clark's rubbing off on you; you're getting just as protective as him."
"Huh. Must be that helpless, 'please protect me!' aura you have."
"I'm not helpless!" Chloe said sharply. "I can take care of myself. And I don't need anyone to protect me!"
Lois glanced down at her and kept a firm hold of her arm when Chloe tried to pull loose. "Hit a nerve?" she asked calmly.
"No," Chloe growled. "Let me go."
"No. I know you can handle yourself. Not gonna change anything. I still hold the record dropkicking evil men and I, for one, don't want to find out you've been kidnapped by some crack-freak in the morning."
"As if I'm being kidnapped every other day," Chloe grumbled, but she relaxed her arm and let Lois hover. "I'm not Lana, for god's sake."
"For which we are all eternally grateful," Lois said, with feeling. "How would I ever be able to finish a story if she were around? Clark'd never find anything—he'd spend all his time saving her. I really pity her sometimes, you know. I really do. Blessed with such a face and the only people who want her are criminal nutcases of the Belle Reve kind, and the odd evil witch ancestor. And talking of criminal nutcases of the Belle Reve kind…"
"Clark wants her," Chloe cut her off.
And lo and behold, Lois faltered. Her mouth twitched a couple of times, smiling, but there was a strong hint of irritation in the curve of her lips and it took more than five seconds before she said, "Yes, well, we both know he's got a fatal flaw recognizing a woman who's actually worth anything, don't we?"
True words, certainly, but no longer consequential to Chloe. She'd gotten over Clark years ago. Ok, every time she saw his ass she wanted to bite it, but hell, every female alive would want to do that, so that was ok. Chloe glanced at her cousin from the corner of her eye. Could it be that Lois, Warrior Princess…
"Man's got biologically grown produce for brains," Lois grumbled, angrily tapping another cigarette from her package. Chloe hid a grin. Oh yeah. She recognized the signs of Clark infatuation, Lois-style setting in. Give her a few weeks and she'd probably start to physically assault him. The grin won out, and she giggled.
"Whap?" asked Lois around her cig.
Chloe shrugged. "Nothing! There's my car. Can I drop you off somewhere?"
Her cousin shook her head. She held up her almost empty packet of Marlboros. "Thanks. I need a refill of these. See you tomor—ah, no, you're going to Smallville."
"Right. Maybe in the morning?"
"No, I have another comforting and joyful meeting with Leslie Simms at the hospital. Teenage pregnancy is such a laugh…" She shook her head, losing the sarcasm. Her smile was warm again when she said, "If you see Mrs. Kent, say hello from me, will you? I haven't seen her in ages. And drive safe, the roads are a mess."
"Will do. On both accounts." They hugged, and Chloe got in. Lois waved. She stood on the slippery street with her long legs spread, her long hair and the smoke of her cigarette blowing around her head. Like a statue. Like a soldier. Irrepressible and unassailable.
Except, as it seemed, by Clark Kent.
As she turned up the radio, Chloe started to laugh.
TBC