Yeah, Supermen got me back good. I promised several of you this chapter would be uploaded somewhere this week, and I wouldn’t dare break my promise.

The usual thanks go to: bluecatdevil, Kaimi Hoshi, Shannon K, beauty7890102, Magick not Magic, twrecks (especially you, you made me very happy when I woke up and checked my inbox!), Elliania (Kat! *smooch*), superlc529, Beatrice Otter, weirdIT, mistressbabette51 and andrea.

Then I want so say a heartfelt thank you to my fantastic beta and wonderful friend Abby. 

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Chapter 50 “Breakthrough”

Despite Clark’s conversation with Jimmy, he still beat Lois to the phone booth on the corner of 24th and Main. The usual traffic jam and a truck that had lost most of its load had slowed her down considerably. Clark could hear her cussing from afar, and he grinned. She’ll get through.

The corner of 24th and Main didn’t look like a very cheerful place to work. Like everywhere in Suicide Slum, the streets looked shabby. Laundry hung drying on lines tied between the balconies on the upper floors. More than a few broken windows were nailed shut with wooden planks, and it stank of exhaust fumes and garbage. Still, the women in their short skirts managed to smile and wave cheerfully at every male that passed by in car or on foot.

The phone booth itself was perfectly ordinary; it was a large square blue cabin that was open at the bottom. Someone had scribbled ‘Laura was here’ in black markercross the instructions. A little to the left Clark read a phone number in blue ink. It was a long shot, but Clark grabbed his cell and dialed the number. The characteristic beeps told him the number was disconnected, and he snapped his cell shut when a sudden hand on his shoulder startled him.

“Hello handsome. Can I help you with something?” The woman in front of him had long, curly, dirty blonde hair that fell to her back. Her face was pretty, but covered in thick layers of make-up. She was chewing gum and smiling in such a way Clark had no doubt about her business there. He automatically took a step back and pushed up his glasses. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.” The woman continued to smile, and didn’t seem to be sorry at all.

“N-no, it’s fine, Miss. I-I just wasn’t expecting…” Clark stammered without need to make it sound convincing. “I was looking for someone, a-a woman-”

“Well, you found me, sugar.” She took a step closer and put her hand on his chest. Clark backed against the phone booth.

“N-no, I mean… Miss, I don’t need...” Clark tried to think of a way to get away from this woman without getting closer to her first. Flying up wasn’t an option.

“You can call me Lisette. And there’s no reason to be nervous, sugar.” She raised a heavily pencilled eyebrow suggestively. “I can put you right at ease if you want.” Her breath smelled of cigarettes and mint; the same smell that sometimes hung around Lois, but the effect on this woman wasn’t quite the same.

“That’s a pretty one you got there, sister. Surely you aren’t going to keep him all to yourself?” A second woman came walking up to him. She had short, spiky, yellowish hair that had to have been bleached with peroxide. Unlike Lisette, who was still leaning close to him, this woman was wearing jeans. The way they clung to her legs, however, still left very little to the imagination.

Lisette retreated slightly when the new woman approached, and Clark seized the opportunity to step away from her and the phone booth.

“This is my friend CC. CC, I want you to meet… er…” Lisette tilted her head a little to the side questioningly.

“Er… Clark. Clark Kent.” He nodded slightly. “Nice to meet you both.”

“Well, aren’t you just adorable?” Clark saw the new woman was about to step closer to him, and he took a precautionary step back.

“Actually, I was looking for someone… a woman…”

“Hmmm?”

“Who made frequent phone calls from this phone booth.”

“Oh.” The woman called CC halted when she realised he wasn’t going to need her services, and she crossed her arms. “Well, lots of people use that phone, darlin’.”

“I know, but this woman made calls here daily. I was hoping one of you might have seen her? Her name is Kathy.” The sudden changes this simple question caused were remarkable.

“Kathy?” Lisette said sharply, her overly friendly attitude gone. “Why are you looking for her?”

“Well…” Clark pushed his glasses a little further, glad that the conversation was finally headed in the right direction. “I was hoping she might be able to tell me something about a friend of hers. Earl Basinger, maybe she mentioned…” Clark stopped talking when he caught the look the two women shared briefly. “Do you know where Kathy is?”

“No.” CC said decidedly. “She stopped showing up a year ago. No one knows where she went.”

“Stopped showing…” Clark repeated confused. “You mean she worked here? She’s a…-”

“A whore. Yes, like the rest of us.” From the corner of his eye Clark could see Lisette walking back to the other women on the pavement. He took a quick step closer when he saw CC starting to turn away too.

“That’s not what I wanted to- Hey, wait! Can’t you help me find her?”

CC merely shook her head and walked away. Lisette was now talking to the other women, and they were shooting him angry looks. Clark didn’t need his superhearing to know that she was telling them not to approach him. Dejected, Clark shoved his hands in the pockets of his coat and leaned against the phone booth, waiting for Lois to arrive.

So, Kathy was a hooker. That was another setback. Clark remembered Pete and Martin from Stanford & Young telling him he’d had arguments with his fiancée before he disappeared. No wonder Earl didn’t mention Kathy; very little women would be understanding if their fiancées ran off to prostitutes. Then Clark remembered something else; Lois’ conversation with Inspector Henderson earlier today. It would also explain the weekly expenses of 300 dollars.

Clark looked up when he heard a familiar heartbeat approach, and his spirits automatically lifted. He’d looked up in time to see Lois’ SUV swerve around a corner. He smiled and walked to the parking lot where she pulled up next to him.

Clark leaned against a streetlamp and tapped his watch. “Took you long enough,” he told her, and Lois glared at him.

“Don’t get started with me, Fly Boy.” Clark grinned as she pushed past him to grab her purse and voice recorder from the back seat before stalking off towards the phone booth. “So, what did you find out?”

Clark easily caught up with her. “I scanned the phone for prints, but there are so many smudges there is no way to find out which ones are Kathy’s. As for Kathy herself; she works here.”

Lois halted in her tracks. “She works here? As in, she’s a hooker?”

Clark turned around to face her and nodded.

“Damn!”

“So the phone calls and the cash withdrawals might not even mean anything. However, Kathy stopped showing up at ‘work’ a year ago. The women I talked to couldn’t—or wouldn’t-” he added darkly, “tell me where she is.”

At the mention of the other women, Lois looked over Clark’s shoulder. “Why are they all looking at you like that?”

Clark looked behind him; several scarcely dressed women were huddled together, eyeing him suspiciously. “They didn’t like my questions about Kathy too much.” He shrugged.

“You mean you got rejected by a hooker?” Lois face broke into a grin. “That’s gotta hurt!”

Clark chuckled. “I think I’ll die friendless and alone.”

“No, you won’t,” Lois said, her voice suddenly softer. This simple line warmed Clark and he smiled at her fondly. He was just about to raise his hand and stroke her hair when, for the third time that afternoon, an unfamiliar female voice interrupted him.

“Excuse me.” Lois pulled away from Clark immediately. “Are you that reporter? Lois Lane?”

Lois nodded, and Clark turned around to look at the new woman. Her clothes told him she was a prostitute too, but it was her face that shocked Clark. She was so young! She couldn’t be eighteen yet.

“I heard you were looking for Kathy…”

“We are.” Lois exchanged a significant look with Clark. “Can you tell us about her?”

The girl looked over her shoulder and Clark followed her eyes. The women, including CC and Lisette, were looking at her disapprovingly. Thankfully, she girl seemed to have made up her mind because she nodded. “I can. For a coffee and a pack of cigarettes.”

Lois reached in the right pocket of her coat and tossed the girl a pack of Malboro Reds. “Let’s go!”

The girl didn’t immediately follow and looked at Clark hesitantly. “Is he coming too?”

“Yes, he is.” Lois grinned at Clark. “He’s paying.”

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It took a while for the girl to relax enough to start talking. She had both hands clasped firmly around her mug of coffee and looked out of the window for several minutes before she started.

“My name is Charlene. Kathy was my partner, and a good friend.”

“Partner?” Lois repeated.

“Yeah, we all have one. You have to look out for each other out there, you know. We write down the licence plates of the cars, check in when they’re gone a long time… that sort of things. Kathy is a really nice person, she always had time for me. Her situation wasn’t easy you know, she’s got a little girl to take care of on her own. Then again, none of us have easy lives…” Charlene trailed off and took a sip from her coffee. “She let me live in her house for a few weeks when I got here, just so I’d have somewhere to stay until I found a place of my own.”

“Do you know why she stopped showing up?” Lois asked, sipping from her own coffee.

Charlene put down her mug. “Not exactly. Over a year ago, maybe a year and a half, we were just working as usual when this man came up. Said he knew what had happened to her and he wanted to help. He even gave her money so she didn’t have to work the streets. Me and the girls, we told her it was a bad idea to take his money, no matter how hard she needed it. People don’t just give us money for free, you know. They always want something in return. For the amount of money that guy gave her, he was bound to demand something huge in return. But Kathy said he wasn’t like that.”

“Do you know who he was? Did she tell you his name?” Lois asked eagerly.

“Earl, she called him. She talked about him a lot; how sweet and helpful he was.” Clark shared a brief look with Lois at the mention of this name. Finally, we got something!

“What did you mean when you said that Earl knew what had happened to Kathy?”

“The same thing that happened to half the girls out there. Kathy came from Poland. She lived a poor life, and when she got pregnant she wanted to come here. To America, the land of all possibilities. She just wanted to be able to raise that kid properly, without having to worry about money. Of course, she couldn’t afford a plane ticket, so she found a guy to get here illegally. Those bastards promise a lot, but they never deliver. Instead of a good life, they had her work the streets for them.”

A surge of anger flared up inside Clark upon hearing this injustice. “Couldn’t she just run away?”

Charlene shook her head sadly. “They take away people’s passports before they get here. There is no going back. And they threaten to inform to cops if the women cause any trouble. Half of them live in fear of having their children taken away by the government and put away in foster care. That’s an even more effective threat than beating; those guys are built like trucks.”

Clark had seen a lot of the ugly side of humanity, but the cruelty of some people never ceased to shock him.

“Is that what happened to you too?” Lois asked, the expression on her face told Clark she was as affected by the girl’s story as he was.

“Me? No, I’m American. I ran away from home when I was sixteen, and I desperately needed money for an apartment. It was either this, or living on the streets. Take your pick. Like I said, Kathy took me in the first couple of weeks. She helped me a lot.”

“Couldn’t you just go back home? Finish school?”

“So I can go live with my drunk Dad and be raped every night? I don’t think so. This might not be the most ideal way to live, but at least I’m in control.”

Clark stared at her, shocked at the casual way in which she had said this. Like it was the most common thing in the world. Then he realised that stories like these probably were common to women like her. All of them must have a tragic past that had led them to this.

Charlene drained her cup of coffee as Lois and Clark tried to get past the shock. “Can I have another?”

Lois was the first to recover. She cleared her throat as Clark nodded wordlessly and raised his hand to signal the waitress. “Right. We drifted a little. You were telling us about Kathy.” Lois prompted.

“Yes. Kathy accepted the money and after a while she stopped showing up. I tried to find out what had happened, but when I got to her apartment it was abandoned. She didn’t answer her cell either. I wasn’t really worried because, you know, if you want to get out of this mess you’ll need to disappear completely. If they find you, you’ll be lucky if you can work at all. Since I didn’t hear anything about her, so I figured she successfully managed to get away.” Charlene paused when the waitress brought the new coffee and stayed silent until she was out of earshot. “I was happy for her. They came asking about her frequently. They knew I was a close friend of her. But they couldn’t have beat it out of me if they wanted; I have no idea where she is.” She looked at Clark. “That’s why the girls didn’t trust you, you know. Another guy coming to ask about Kathy… You’re kind of broad, you know.” Clark nodded and Charlene turned her attention back on Lois.

“When I saw you, I knew you were trying to help. I recognized you from the paper; Kathy had mentioned your name several times; she somehow got it in her head that you could solve the entire mess. That the organization would be exposed and that no women would be lured to America the same way she had been. She and Earl were planning on telling you everything.” Charlene shook her head. “Kathy always has been a little too trusty. I wanted to believe her, and for a moment I did. Until I heard about the body they found in the river…” Charlene’s coffee stood forgotten as she stared out of the window with unseeing eyes, worry apparent on her teenage face. “I know Earl helped Kathy hide. I know Earl is dead. And I can’t find a trace of Kathy.” She stopped staring out over the streets, and fixed her eyes on Lois instead. “Please, you have to find her. I don’t have to talk to her or see her, but I just need to know she’s OK. I need to know she got away safe.”

“Miss, we will do everything we can to track her down,” Clark reassured her, “Is there anything you can tell us that could help us find her?”

Charlene frowned. “You’ll be needing her real name; Katalina Balcerowicz. She’s got a little girl called Celina who’s about three years old. Kathy didn’t have a lot of money, but I know she’d do everything to get her girl to school.”

Clark thanked Charlene profusely for her cooperation as Lois grabbed her cell and dialled. “Henderson, it’s Lois Lane. I got something for you; we need to find a three year old Polish girl that attends nursery school. Her name is Celina Balcerowicz. Hmmm… Oh… ” Lois put her hand on the receiver and called over her shoulder at Clark; “How do you spell that?”

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