It was just after midnight when the doorbell rang.
Roger Nixon looked through the peephole in the door of his Metropolis home, waving his wife back to bed. Two men stood there, both of them remarkable for their lack of a neck.
Enforcers.
"Who are you?"
"We need you to come with us, Mr. Nixon."
"Who do you work for?"
Roger watched with all the depth perception of a walleye as the two men looked at each other. The larger one, though not by much, shrugged apparently a signal for the other one to answer.
"Luthor."
Shit. His master's voice. Though the thugs were a new touch.
"I need to get dressed. Hold on."
"You have two minutes."
"Gee, thanks, boys," Roger muttered under his breath.
He hurried.
Roger was sitting in the back bench seat of the Escalante. The SVU was black, the tint on the widows dark enough to be illegal, the accents shiny burlwood and gold. Charlie Byrd played softly over the sound system.
The goons had been silent the whole trip so far, not talking with each other, him, or anyone on the cell phone that sat between the two front chairs. Roger wondered if they were going to the Smallville house, but when they passed the exit to the interstate, he began to feel a low level panic growing in his gut.
Ten minutes later they pulled off onto a lane leading into a gated drive. Big Thug got on the cell phone, and the gate started to open as they drove up.
Crap.
Lionel Luthor's house.
Little Thug dropped them off at the door and Big Thug escorted him down the halls and into a study. A fire was burning brightly in the fireplace, and Lionel Luthor sat in a leather wing-backed chair before it.
The fire reflected off Lionel's eyeglasses as he spoke. "Thank you, Miles. Roger, please sit down. Miles, get Roger a brandy before you leave, would you?"
Miles didn't respond, just got the brandy and the snifter, pouring a healthy portion into Roger's glass, refilling Lionel's without being asked, then left the room.
"So. Roger. How long has my son had you by the balls?"
"Mr. Luthor, if this about my article about the situation at the Smallville plant…"
"Hmm. Well, indirectly, I suppose it is, Roger. I was surprised to see you syndicated in the Smallville paper, though." Roger began to understand the vulture, feeling distinctly like carrion, sitting on the fine leather sofa. " I wonder how much Lex paid for that," he continued idly. "It was an amusing little article, Roger. My son's verbiage was a bit less erudite than usual, but then let's consider the forum."
"Why am I here, Mr. Luthor?"
"Because, Roger, you and I now share a common problem, and I need you to be aware of it."
"I beg your pardon?"
"You really fouled things up when you stole that file, Roger. You took the only thing that could possibly control Lex in the future."
"What the hell are you talking about, Mr. Luthor?"
Lionel got up and went over to the desk, returning with a case file that looked a lot like the one Roger's brother had stolen from the courthouse. He tossed it onto the table in front of Roger and sat back in his chair.
"That is the original case file and court documents."
Roger paged through, noticing that in this file, the charges against Alexander Joseph Luthor were murder in the second degree, as well as the drug charges.
"What the hell is this, Luthor?"
"Like I said. Those are the original court documents." Lionel looked at him; his eyes narrow behind the wire-framed glasses. "Lex killed someone and I got him off."
"How?"
Lionel gave him a disappointed look. "Money, of course. You should know that."
"So why the other file?"
"Because there were enough people who knew that he was up on charges, and there was enough in that file, without the homicide charges, that Lex's… entre into public life could be controlled, if need be."
"You people are nuts." The words were out before he could stop them.
"According to the best psychiatrists money can buy, my son is a sociopath." Lionel leaned back in his chair, tenting his fingers. "But he is still my son, Roger. And that is everything."
"I didn't think you two were that close."
The responding laugh was dry, a tired brittleness at the edges. "I love my son. But I cannot, and will not, allow him to destroy himself and others."
"You guys fight enough in public to make me wonder if that's true."
"Lex needs me, Roger. I allow him to... act out against me, and it stops him from harming others. I believe your daughter is what, three? You'll find yourself doing the same kind of thing, maybe, in a few years."
"I still don't understand why you brought me here."
"Because when you stole that other file from the courts, you stole the only publicly available document that could show that my son has a few... socially undesirable tendencies."
"But you just said he killed someone. And you sent him to Smallville?" Roger's voice went high on the last word. That Lionel Luthor was completely serious about this finally sinking deep.
"Lex should be fine as long as he is away from some of the..." Lionel smiled. "... seedier elements of society. Away from the drugs. He's a Luthor. He can overcome anything."
Roger stared at Lionel, not doubting the other man's sincerity, but wondering if the blinders came with the money. "Who did he kill?"
Lionel's attention turned back to him.
"His lover. A young woman named Lauren St. James." Lionel's fingers curled around the snifter, and Roger wondered if it would snap. He wondered if the whole Luthor family had snapped.
"Lauren was a student at Metropolis University with Lex. She was quite lovely." Lionel's eyes got a far away look behind the glasses. "Dark hair, skin the color of caramel. They were absolutely stunning together. Their children - their children would have been amazingly beautiful. She was a genius too, you see. Another child prodigy, just a few months younger than Lex. It was good to have him have another person his own age, being so young and in college."
"But..."
Lionel gave him a look that hushed him immediately.
"The doctors say that people with Lex's - condition - tend to form attachments, a few people they see as real as themselves. For Lex that was his mother and myself, and then, Lauren. Do you know what Strand is?"
Roger blinked at the shift in subject. "Yeah. Narcotic, nastier than crank."
Lionel nodded. "Lex discovered it early in their second year. When he was on it, he was different. I was home the first time Lauren ran here, scared of him. When he got here, he was angry. We fenced for three straight hours until he just -- dropped. He slept for twenty eight hours."
Roger stared at Lionel, then looked into the fire. The idle thought that the devil you thought you knew is the one that might fry your ass in totally new and unexpected ways meandered across his consciousness.
"And he killed her." It wasn't a question. It was a prod for Lionel to finish the damn story so Roger could go puke up the fucking brandy.
"Yes. Lex couldn't deal with the fact Lauren had found a fault with him. He started to take more strand. He started failing classes. I brought him home and locked him in the west wing with a team of psychiatrists and drug counselors. We thought he was getting better. He was off strand for two months."
"But he went back."
"Yes. I was in Zurich the night he went to Club Zero." Lionel set the snifter on the table with an expensive sounding thunk. "Lauren thought he was cured too." A bitter laugh. "Christ. Hopeful innocence is the devil's best ally, Roger. Never doubt it.
"We'll never know what they said to each other. I don't even think Lauren was trying to leave him. They ended up in one of the private rooms on the second floor." Lionel got up and moved closer to the fire. "Page sixty in the report."
Roger opened the file again, turning to page sixty; two glossy crime scene pictures were taped to it.
The expensive brandy came up much less smoothly than it had gone down.
Lionel didn't even blink as he watched Roger puke on the fine rug, just rang for Miles, who came in with a cloth and wiped the worst of the mess up.
Roger knew he'd see her every time he closed his eyes for a long time to come. Beautiful young girl, huge brown eyes showing more terror than anyone should ever know, so strong it was there even after death. Cuts on her face, her neck bent at a completely wrong angle.
Sweet Jesus.
"When they found them," Lionel was still standing in front of the fire. "Lex was almost catatonic. The police thought someone else had done it, but they couldn't figure out how they had gotten in. I wasn't called until Lex was brought to the station to give his statement. I was over the Atlantic, but my lawyers were there. According to the police, Lex was in shock, completely unemotional. But apparently there are a few Metropolis cops who don't just eat donuts all day. They did a little digging, looked a little deeper.
"It was two weeks later they notified us they were going to seat a grand jury."
Roger moved over to the bar and poured himself a glass of water from the lead crystal pitcher, trying to wash away the gorge.
"How did you do it?"
"It?"
"Get him off."
"I paid three members to vote no indictment. The rest were swayed." Lionel's smile was tight. "The meteor, back in 1989. My son is totally hairless. Amazing how much trace evidence centers around hair.
"So. Reasonable doubt. Lex went to Zurich for five months."
"Jesus."
"And now we're here, Roger. The court proceedings were quiet; Lex was seventeen. The juvenile records were sealed, until you had your brother steal them. I had the original records pulled and replaced days after the grand jury refused to indict.
"And now there is nothing in the court records to prove that Lex Luthor shouldn't be totally given carte blanche and total trust."
"But why did you want them there in the first place?"
"I've raised my son to power, Roger. Until the night Lauren died, I thought nurture could completely eclipse nature. It can't."
Roger settled heavily into a chair. "So what do we do?"
"You will continue to be Lex's drone." Lionel went over to the desk and opened a drawer. He pulled a small envelope out and tossed it to Roger as he sat back in his chair. "This is the access code to a Cayman account. The key is for a safety deposit box in Kansas City. The minute things go south, and I assure you, Roger, they will, get your family and get the hell out of the country. There are papers in the box, they will be updated as your daughter grows."
"Why?"
"Because you fucked up. But if I had left the originals, you would have tried to blackmail me first, saving us both this situation. This isn't a reward, Roger. It's an attempt to save my son from himself. He kills you, he falls deeper."
"I'm touched by your concern, Luthor."
"You should be."
Lionel got up and returned to the desk, scooping the file off the table as he moved across the room. "You need to walk softly, Roger."
Roger moved to stand next to the desk, clutching the glass of water so tightly the carved crystal pattern was imprinting on his skin. Luthor tossed a picture at him.
Roger didn't want to look, didn't want to see her again --
-- but the picture was of a young man, the boy who visited Lex every other day in Smallville with armfuls of fruits and vegetables. The one who had saved Lex from drowning.
"You know this one?"
"Yes. Clark Kent. He pulled Lex up from the river."
"He's real to my son. Do you understand what that means, Roger?"
"Oh, God."
"Good. You understand. There will be no repeats this time. Lex can be as angry at me as he wants. You may write all the scurrilous crap you want. But unless this boy is super-human, if and when it falls apart, Lex will hurt him.
"That is * not * to be allowed to happen. Do we understand each other, Roger?"
He was leaning against the desk, too much bad news and not a glimmer in sight of the good news. "Yeah. I'm supposed to tell you if I think your son is about to kill this kid."
"Good enough." Lionel pressed a button on the phone on the desk. "Miles and Logan will take you home now."
Dismissed.
Roger turned around, one last look at the file on the desk, the picture of the smiling boy next to it.
The thugs drove him home, as silent as they had been on the drive to Lionel's mansion.
It was three am when he locked the door. Then checked every window.
Twice.
He put the small envelope between the floorboards in the attic, stopping to look at his daughter before sliding into bed with his wife.
Whispered plea with God as he lay there.
Dear God, please let it be all right. Save me and mine. Save that boy, give him that strength.
Roger Nixon dreamt in blood.
© EAS, December, 2001
Disclaimer: All canon based Smallville characters belong to WB and/or DC Comics.
I am making no money, just enjoying playing in the sandbox.
Home | CLexicon Fic | CLexicon | Cerebral Mutation | Email