Lex had turned his chair around and was staring out the window at the garden, where a spring rain was falling. He drummed his fingers restlessly on the arm of the chair for a minute or so, then abruptly spun back around and looked at the telephone. He had the numbers to the private lines of all sorts of interesting people at his disposal; he thought for a moment, then pulled a book out of a drawer. He flipped through it until he found what he wanted, then he picked up the handset and dialed. Ring. Ring. Then:
"Sullivan-Kent." A familiar voice, with perhaps a hint of perturbation not to know who was calling--the identity of calls coming from the White House was blocked, of course. 'Sullivan-Kent', as double-barrelled names went, it had a nice ring to it. He didn't say anything.
Annoyed, she added, "Hello? Well, who is it, what do you want?" Hanging up would be a bit childish, not at all befitting the chief executive. But did he really feel like a bout of 'verbal judo'? He decided that he did.
"Hello, Chloe." he murmured in the most dulcet tones he could manage. There was a moment of silence, then:
"Hello, Mr. President," she said, cool as anything. "I'm recording this call, of course, just so you know."
"Chloe, you're too good a reporter not to know that anything I say to you will be 'off the record'."
"Oh, naturally. Still, the very fact that you're calling is newsworthy."
"What's newsworthy about the President calling to talk to an old friend?"
"We're nothing even remotely close to friends, Lex," she said bluntly. True enough, he supposed. "Now, as I asked before when you were just wordlessly breathing into the phone like a lunatic, what do you want? I know I'm busy, and if you aren't, you should be."
Hm, what did he want? Off the top of his head, he threw out, "I just wanted to see if you'd be available for a one-on-one sit-down interview, at the White House. I'm trying to make myself more accessible to the public, through the media." Actually, he was generally trying to make himself even less accessible, where possible. Still, it might be fun.
She stalled, sensing a trick. "Don't you have a press secretary for this? Or is that a sore subject--was he one of the ones indicted? I forget." Ha ha--a decent jibe. Lex had recently had to sacrifice a couple of underlings to keep himself clean. It was really their own fault for being so naive.
"No, I still have one, but people usually appreciate the personal touch, I find. Come on, Chloe--no topic will be off-limits. It's a chance for you to really hold my feet to the fire." A rare chance--he hadn't talked to her in her professional capacity for years, with good reason.
"And you get plaudits for sitting down with me and answering the tough questions. Is that it, or is there more to it, some darker purpose?"
"You're getting as bad as your husband, Chloe. I'm not an ogre. I'm just a hard-working public servant doing the best he can."
She snorted at that, then said "Okay, fine--when?" It was too juicy an opportunity--she'd thrown caution away.
"Tomorrow afternoon."
"What! Impossible--I need more time to prepare, plus there's other--"
He cut her off. "You're the best reporter in the country, I'm sure you'll do fine on short notice. Someone will call you later with the exact time. I'm looking forward to seeing you, Chloe. Until tomorrow." He hung up quickly, giving her no chance to respond. He didn't even know what he had scheduled for tomorrow afternoon, but he'd move heaven and earth to fit this in if he had to. The question was, did he still have what it took to match wits with her? Either way, it would be amusing. It always was...
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Governor Lex Luthor looked out over the crowd of reporters gathered for this impromptu press conference in the lobby of the state legislature, and there she was, for the first time--how nice. They'd never come into direct contact until now; the Planet had kept her on other assignments. He wouldn't duck her, that wasn't his style, but he called on a couple of other people first, and decisively answered their limp questions about this latest sweeping initiative from the Governor's office. Then the moment came.
"Yes, Miss Sullivan?" He gave her a charming smile, which she returned.
"Governor Luthor, isn't it true that this project..." She went on to point out several irregularities that he could have sworn no one would be able to pick out from the tangled web he'd woven A shame she'd noticed, then, but hardly fatal.
"Well, Miss Sullivan, it's a very complicated issue. You see, the economy of Kansas relies heavily on..." He put them to sleep with a long and incomprehensible mix of statistics and jargon. This sort of bafflegab was more than good enough for the rest of them, but she was having none of it.
"You haven't answered my question, Governor, so I'll ask you again--why does the lion's share of the funding go towards..." Her eyes gleamed as she put the needle in--she was a predator who smelled blood.
The cameras were rolling; the usually-dozy press corps had their notebooks at the ready, sensing something. But he was Lex Luthor, and as good as Chloe was, he felt he could hold her off. A little leadership was all that was called for here.
"Because I felt it was necessary--I used my judgment and my discretion as Governor, which the people of Kansas put their trust in me to use as I see fit. It's the right call, and I stand by it." Stern stuff; but that's what people liked in their leaders--authority. "Now, next question?" He looked at the pack, but no one had their hand up, save one. What were they playing at? He nodded reluctantly at her.
"Follow-up question, Governor: why did you then personally, and I have sworn affidavits to this effect, order Kansas National Guard material and personnel into LuthorCorp facilities for a series of quasi-scientific experiments, which resulted in the deaths of..." She read a list of names and then stared expectantly at him without a hint of triumph on her face. The trap had swung shut. Tiny beads of sweat were forming on his brow. He now fervently wished the Planet had moved her to the city beat, or made her a foreign correspondent in a distant land.
"That..now, that is outrageous. I have no knowledge of these abuses, but if the allegations have any merit, which I doubt, I promise a full investigation." An aide hurriedly announced "No more questions!" Lex gave the press and the cameras a wan smile, and Chloe...Chloe winked at him, he could've sworn. He retreated back down the hallway, leaving them baying in his wake. It was supposed to be just another humdrum question-and-answer session in Topeka like dozens of others, but in a few quick thrusts she'd torn himapart and left the guts of his political life spilling out onto the floor. He dazedly made his way to his office, where he lay down on the couch. Lana isn't going to like this, he thought.
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It had seemed worse than it was, at the time--he'd been over-dramatizing. He wasn't finished, though of course Chloe did have the goods on him, which were spread all over the Planet for weeks afterwards. A less-ruthless Governor would have been toppled, but he'd bullied and bribed enough key men and women to hang onto power until the next election. Which he'd won--the Luthor political machine was unbeatable in Kansas; it could elect a ham sandwich Governor. The serious damage had been done to his loftier aspirations--he and his advisors had no real choice but to put off his run for the Presidency another four years.
Chloe Sullivan: star reporter for the Daily Planet and the love of Clark Kent's life. So different from her dissolute cousin, but anyone could tell early on, from their time in Smallville, which one was bound for greatness, and which one, obscurity. He felt a rare frisson at the thought of going toe-to-toe with her tomorrow--he felt alive.