August 23, 2005
Week 17 - Impossible Dreams 4
Episode 2
Lucy leads Powell to the Lamonts' kitchen.
"Why are you tormenting us?" Lucy almost cries. "We never did anything to you! Why are you hounding us?"
"Um..." Powell looks at her. "I'm not... I'm not hounding you... I'm just... pursuing a story..."
"You're destroying us! Do you know how delicate the situation is at our company? I'd finally beaten back my cousin... I'd finally convinced the shareholders to let my father keep their proxies! And then your damn article comes out... Says Donald Lamont thinks comic books are real! All my work... all the confidence I'd been building... Gone! Now I'm hanging on by a thread. Any more of your... your fantasies, and my cousin will gain control of everything!"
"Look... um... I don't know anything about any of that... But they're not fantasies! Everything I wrote in that article was true..." Powell sniffs. "Um... is something burning?"
Lucy whirls toward the stove. "Damn it!" she yells. "My eggs!" She turns off the flame and pulls a smoking frying pan off a burner. Then she scrapes the charred eggs onto a plate. "Completely ruined..."
"Look," Powell says. "Your father is... is running around, pretending to be a superhero. He's fighting imaginary villains. All... all in public. Sooner or later, he's going to get caught... How long do you think you can keep it a secret?"
Lucy pulls out a knife and begins cutting away the blackest parts of the eggs. "We have a good lawyer," she says. "If you print anything like that we'll sue you for libel. We'll put your damn magazine out of business."
"It's... it's not libel if it's true! I know Donald Lamont is Coyote Man!"
Lucy smashes the plate to the floor. It shatters, splattering porcelain and eggs in all directions. She looks at Powell. "You're a liar," she says, softly.
A tall, gangly man suddenly appears in the doorway. His grey, thinning hair sprouts in all directions. His eyes are sunken, but shining, behind thick glasses. "It's all right, Lucille," he says. "There's no need for this charade." He steps into the kitchen and turns toward Powell. "I've been listening from the hall..."
"Um... Hello, Mr. Lamont," Powell says.
"My young friend..." Lamont extends his hand. "Your powers of deduction are extraordinary!"