Sick! Sick. You're really sick!
Sick, Miss Teschmacher? When I'm mere days away from executing the Crime of the Century? How do you choose to congratulate the greatest criminal mind on our time? Do you tell me that I'm brilliant? A bit obvious, that, I grant you. Charismatic, then? Fiendishly gifted?
Miss Teschmacher, you don't know the half of it. [both laugh as Miss Teschmacher begins to search through a cabinet] Get away from there! Hey! I said get away from there!!
Tell me something Lex, why do so many people have to die for the Crime of the Century?
Why? You ask why? Why does the phone always ring when you're in the bathtub? Why is the most brilliantly diabolical leader of our time surrounding himself with total nincompoops?
Ah yes, Otis, I was just talking about you. You were followed again, weren't you? [Otis spins around, knocking over a lamp] In spite of those catlike reflexes.
Mr. Luthor? Mr. Luthor, I'm sorry.
Otis, is that the newspaper I asked you to get me?
Why am I not reading it?
Right. [snatches the newspaper from Otis' hand and reads it] At last it's official! [shows the front page of the newspaper, the headline reading "TWIN NUCLEAR TESTS CONFIRMED".] Thanks to the generous help of the United States government, we are about to be involved in the greatest real estate swindle of all time!
Lex, what is this obsession with real estate? All the time-land, land, land.
Miss Teschmacher, when I was six years old, my father said to me...
"Get out!"
Nope. Before that...He said, "Son...Stocks may rise and fall, utilities and transportation systems may collapse, people are no damn good, but they will always need land, and they will pay through the nose to get it. Remember", my father said...
Land.
Right. It's a pity he didn't live long enough to see how, from such humble beginnings, I've created this empire.
An empire? This?
Miss Teschmacher, how many other girls do you know who are lucky enough to have a Park Avenue address like this one?
Park Avenue address? 200 feet below?
Do you realize what they're all paying per square foot up there for a few miserable rooms off a common elevator? [in unison with Otis] What more could anyone ask?
How about...sunshine. A night on the town instead of under it.
