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They’d been at the Lexcorp Youth Benefit for about an hour when the man himself made his way around to them.
“Mr Kent!” he said, extending a polite handshake. “Good to see you here.”
“Lex.” Clark returned the handshake, his grip carefully, precisely tight.
Smiling thinly, Lex said, “And who’s your guest?”
“Oh.” Clark nodded at Billy, standing next to him, looking mildly uncomfortable in a suit and sipping Coca-Cola out of a wine glass. “This is my nephew.”
“Cousin,” Billy corrected almost at the same moment.
Clark laughed. “Uh, first cousin once removed, technically,” he said. “Nephew’s simpler, huh?”
It wasn’t a blunder. They’d hashed it out while they were prepping for the mission. The details of what they’d say – the closeness, both in terms of familial and social connection, of their relationship. That kind of thing.
“Tyrone Baxter,” said Billy, smoothly returning Lex’s handshake.
“Good to meet you, Tyrone.” Lex’s smile was noticeably warmer. “So, are you thinking of going into journalism like your – uncle, here?”
“I’m keeping my options open,” said Billy.
Lex nodded. “You’ve got time at your age, huh?”
“Sure,” Billy said. “Hey, I liked the music earlier. It was cool.”
“I’ll be sure to pass on your compliments.” Lex touched Clark’s shoulder in a manner that was probably a little over-familiar. “See you around, Kent.”
Watching him leave, Billy toyed with his glass. He said, “Do you think he oils his head?”
“What?” said Clark.
“He’s so – glossy.”
Clark caught his meaning. “I don’t know, Billy,” he said, rubbing at his forehead. “Do you have to be Tyrone every time?”
“I like being Tyrone.” Billy shrugged. “Tyrone doesn’t take shit from anyone.” He sipped his Coke. “Also – dude, shut up? What are you, a rookie at this?”
It was a fair criticism. He held up his hands. “Sorry, Tyrone.”
Billy heaved a sigh and drank more Coke. “How long till we can go home?”
“Let’s give it another hour,” said Clark absently, gaze drifting off over the crowd of assembled important people and affiliated teenagers. “We should stick around for Lex’s speech.” After the speech there’d be more drinks and mingling and people would be getting a little tipsy and it would be a better time to slip away and do their job.
Catching the flash of a camera, he angled himself carefully between Billy and the photographer. Nodding across the hall at a group of journalists he said, “A friend of mine from the Post is here. Do you wanna maybe –”
“Who’s that guy with Lex?” Billy interrupted.
Clark followed his gaze. The man was older – bearded – wearing a nondescript grey suit with cufflinks that were, if he wasn’t mistaken, diamond. He didn’t recognise the face, or the voice. “I don’t know.”
“He looks important,” said Billy. “They were talking earlier in the evening.”
“You think he might be going to the afterparty?” said Clark.
“He looks like the type, right?”
“That’s profiling,” Clark informed him.
“Ha.” Billy drained the dregs of his soda. “I’m gonna go get a snack. You want anything?”
“Not just yet,” said Clark, still studying the bearded man, trying to think if he could place him.
“Cool.” Billy wandered away.
Left alone, Clark sipped his own drink and made some notes on his phone, tracking another of the guys on the afterparty guest list across the hall. So far so good. They just had to stick out the party for another hour. Maybe he could squeeze in some actual networking –
“Hey.” Billy popped back up at his elbow. “So, two things.”
“Yeah?”
“Turns out caviar is really gross,” said Billy. “And that guy with the beard is called Yuri Durov. He’s Russian, I guess? He’s the CEO of a company called PRX technologies.”
“Sounds like he could be one of our guys,” Clark said – and blinked. “Wait, how do you know that?”
“Lifted his wallet.” Billy slipped it nonchalantly into Clark’s hand.
For a second, Clark looked at the wallet, dumbfounded. He looked at Billy. He looked at the wallet, the dark leather still slightly warm from the pocket it had so recently been inside.
“You – what?” he stammered.
Billy held up his hands. “Simple but effective.”
“I –” Clark breathed out, trying to compose himself. “You can’t just steal people’s wallets!”
“Why not?” asked Billy.
“Cause this is a nice party?” said Clark. “We –”
“It’s a front for billionaire crooks,” Billy hissed.
Clark shushed him. “Keep – keep your voice down,” he said. “I cannot believe you did this. This is a work event. My boss is here.”
“Jeez, will you chill out?” said Billy. “He didn’t notice.
“Not yet!” Clark thrust the wallet into his hands. “You gotta go give it back.”
“Uh, no?” Billy pushed it back at him. “What do you want me to do, go up to him and say hey, sorry I stole your wallet? I’m not doing that.”
“Just tell him you found it on the ground!” said Clark, resisting Billy’s attempts to give him the wallet.
“No way.” Billy shoved the wallet back into Clark’s hand and Clark relented. “If you care so much you go give it to him.”
“Alright.” Clark fumbled with the wallet, adjusting his glasses. “Fine. Wait here.” Steeling himself, he adjusted his grip on the wallet and headed off through the crowd in search of Mr Durov.
He was about halfway there when Billy ducked after him, grabbing his elbow. “Wait up.”
“What now?” said Clark.
“You should probably put this back first.” Billy proffered a handful of bills.
“What’s that?”
“It’s his cash,” said Billy.
Clark stared down at the money, blood pressure rising steadily as he processed what Billy meant. Then he snatched it. “We will talk about this at home.”
“Talk about this at home?” Billy squinted at him. “Clark, bro, we don’t live together.”
“You know what I meant,” said Clark. “And we will talk about this later.” Turning away, he edged his way through the crowd and plastered on a smile. “Uh, evening, gentleman!” he said. “Anyone over here lose a wallet?”
*
“Okay,” said Vic. “I think that about wraps things up.” He switched off his projection. “Unless anyone has anything else they wanna discuss?”
Wally, as per usual, made a move as if to get up. Kid had no patience for the AOB section of the meeting.
Clark cleared his throat. “Uh, actually,” he said. “If everyone’s okay with staying another couple of minutes I wanted to have a real quick talk about etiquette?”
“Aw, what?” Wally sat back down. “Is this about the cups in the breakroom again? Cause I’m gonna deal with that –”
“No, it’s, uh,” said Clark. “It’s more about mission etiquette.”
At the other end of the table, there was a faint, “Oh my God,” from Shazam.
Clark opted to ignore him. “I just wanna make sure we’re all on the same page concerning conduct on League missions,” he said, soldiering bravely on. “Particularly undercover missions – uh, essentially that we shouldn’t be breaking any laws unless it’s actually necessary.”
“Was this prompted by anything in particular?” said John.
“Well –”
“Clark’s mad at me,” said Shazam, tacking on with a smile, “Again.”
He held up his hands. “I’m not mad,” he said, “and I wasn’t gonna mention you by name.”
“Alright, kid,” said Vic. “Fess up. What’d you do?”
“I didn’t do nothing,” said Shazam. “Okay – look. Clark’s a little upset cause when we were at the Lexcorp thing the other day Billy tried to steal some guy’s wallet. For mission reasons,” he added quickly. “FYI. Not just cause I wanted to.”
“It was not mission necessary,” said Clark.
“Okay –”
“It wasn’t necessary and I was at that event in a professional capacity,” Clark spoke over him. “You could have got me in real trouble. Also that’s not what I meant and I think you know that.”
Shazam spread his hands, painting on one of those innocent looks he was so good at. “What’d you mean?”
“I’m talking about you trying to take his cash?” said Clark. “You tried to steal his cash, Billy.”
“Yeah, so?” said Shazam. “Eat the rich – no offense, Bruce.”
“None taken,” said Bruce from the other end of the table.
“I can’t help but feel like this is something you guys could have hashed out privately after the meeting,” put in John.
“Oh, believe me,” said Shazam. “We did.”
“Look –” Clark held up his hands. “I don’t wanna get into what happened at the Youth Benefit, okay? I just want to make sure we’re all clear on appropriate behaviour.”
“You mean on stealing?” said Shazam.
“Yes,” said Clark. Lord, but the conversation was going off the rails. “Fine. On stealing.”
“You want to make sure we’re all clear on whether or not it’s bad to steal?” said Wally.
“Look, I just –”
“I don’t steal shit. Can I go home?”
Clark rubbed at a temple. “I’m sure you guys aren’t in the habit of stealing things,” he said. “It – it’s really more about behaviour when undercover –”
Vic leaned forward. “How stringent are we being with the definition of stealing?”
“What?” said Clark.
“I mean, are we including, say,” Vic went on, “music piracy?”
“Oh, yeah – good point,” said Wally. “I do do that.”
“Aw, c’mon, that’s barely stealing,” said Shazam.
Clark breathed in and wondered if there was any point trying to get the conversation back on track. “It’s – still a form of theft –”
“I’ve always thought of it as pretty value neutral,” said Vic. “Oh, don’t look at me like that. Most of what we do here is illegal – anyway, I don’t pirate a lot of music these days.”
“No?” said Clark hopefully.
“Yeah, I cracked Spotify Premium a while ago.”
“Ohh,” said Wally before Clark could respond. “No ads, huh?”
“Sure – want in?”
Wally leaned back comfortably in his chair. “I could go for that.”
“Anyone else want free Spotify?” Vic twisted around to face the rest of the table. “John? Arthur?” There was a murmuring of approval.
“Man, I’ve been paying for Premium like a chump,” said Arthur.
“Oh my God,” Clark groaned.
“So that’s a no on the free Spotify, huh?” said Vic.
Clark shrugged, his shoulders slumping, and confessed. “I don’t actually use Spotify.”
“Really?” Wally sounded unreasonably startled at the idea. He sat forward in his seat, eager for more details. Ever since the whole holiday season extraterrestrial invasion debacle he’d been champing at the bit for any and all scraps of information about Clark’s personal life. “So what do you use?”
“I – have a CD player?” said Clark.
“You got a CD player?” said Shazam, genuinely baffled at the idea. “What are you, like old people or something?”
“I also have a radio,” Clark offered.
Shazam stared at him. “Are you dead people?”
“No disrespect,” said Clark, spreading his hands, “I just don’t really understand what it’s for.”
“Uh, listening to music?” said Shazam.
“I’ve already got a CD player –”
“Finding new music?” Vic suggested, to a general murmur of agreement.
“Fair point,” said Clark. “But, y’know. I already know all the music I like.”
“Really.” Wally rested his elbows on the table, leaning forward. “So you know all the music that you like?”
Clark shrugged. “Sure.”
“Literally all of it?” said Wally. “In the whole world? There’s literally no chance there’s any more music out there for you?”
“That’s what the radio is for,” said Clark.
Wally sat back, a troubled look passing across his face. “Clark, man, I think you might be old people.”
“I’m an old-fashioned guy and I’m comfortable with that,” he said. “Can we please get back to the matter at hand?”
“I’d actually like to talk more about you not using Spotify?” said Wally.
“Not everyone has Spotify, okay?” said Clark. “Diana, back me up here.”
“Oh – Clark, I’m sorry,” said Diana, gracefully as ever entering the conversation. “I do have Spotify.”
Clark slumped back in his chair in disbelief. “Ah, forget it.”
“Are we basically in agreement?” rumbled Bruce.
“I’ve lost track of what we were talking about,” said John.
“Uh, me too,” said Wally. “But I also wanna go home so I’ll agree to basically anything.”
“I really hate to say this,” said Shazam. “But I have homework due tomorrow.”
“My point is,” said Clark. “I just think that there are some principles that should be applied as universally as possible and personal enjoyment isn’t a good enough justification to compromise a principle.”
At that, the table fell quiet. It was a pretty solid argument, he was pretty sure.
“See, I feel like that’s a logical stance to take when it comes to media piracy,” said Vic. “But in this particular set of circumstances I think Billy probably needed the money more than the guy he was stealing from.”
“Thank you,” said Shazam. “That’s what I said!”
“That – was really more about the timing – this is getting out of hand,” said Clark.
“Not to prolong this anymore,” said Wally. “But is what you’re saying basically that we shouldn’t pirate music while we’re on a mission?”
“No, I –” Clark pressed his lips together. “Alright, I guess – I guess that is kinda what I’m saying, but –”
“I’ve never understood the problem with media piracy and I still don’t,” said Diana.
“How about we stop talking about media piracy,” said Clark. “Okay? That’s not even when I wanted to talk about.”
“Yeah, Clark has a point,” said Arthur. “Media piracy is a whole different thing. Pick-pocketing a billionaire is more like, I don’t know. Shoplifting from a big-box store.”
“Stop prolonging this,” said Wally.
“People do often shoplift for reasons other than personal enjoyment,” said Vic.
“Well – obviously,” said Clark. “If it was necessary I wouldn’t take issue with it.”
“Define necessary,” said Shazam.
“I’m with Clark on this one,” said John. “I wouldn’t want to get a minimum wage worker in trouble if I could avoid it.”
“Hm – yeah.” Shazam sat forward eagerly. “See, one time I was shoplifting in Walmart – which, for the record, I do not do anymore – and this guy caught me taking candy bars and we made uh,” he motioned at his eyes. “Full eye contact. And he did not say a word.”
“Yeah?” said Vic. “So what’d you do?”
Shazam shrugged. “I just went on taking candy bars,” he said. “I’d also like to state for the record that I stopped shoplifting in Walmart cause I didn’t want to get arrested again, not cause I’m a giant square like Clark.”
“I’m comfortable with being a square,” said Clark. “Nothing wrong with being a square.”
“Just keep telling yourself that, bud,” said Shazam. “Okay – look. I’m down to apologise for stealing stuff on a mission, and I’ll totally apologise for putting you in a weird position at a work event, cause that was on me, but I’m not about to apologise for trying to steal twelve dollars,” he directed the figure at the whole table, “from a billionaire. Come on, man, that’s just dumb.”
Clark scrubbed a hand over his eyes. “I shouldn’t have brought this up under AOB.”
“No, you should not,” said Wally. “He was a billionaire and he only had twelve bucks on him?”
“Yeah, you know,” said Shazam with a half-shrug. “I guess rich people don’t really carry cash these days.”
“I really think we’re in agreement.” Not waiting for a response, Bruce got up from his chair. “I’d just like to remind everyone that we do have an electronic memo system in place for this kind of announcement.”
“Uh – yeah, I’m aware,” said Clark.
“Good,” said Bruce. “Next time, use it.”
Cape swishing, without another word he left the table.