Chapter 4: “The Pokémon Professor’s Peril”
I took the metro back near the Marianas, disembarking a few stops away and strolling through the dim-lit neighborhoods in a senseless circuit to filter out anyone who may have tailed me from the funeral home. After determining a clear coast I turned onto the proper street.
Before I entered the hotel, I looked up and down the empty street and scanned the windows of the buildings on the other side. The hotel wasn’t the best known spot in Saffron, nor the cleanest, but the owner knew how to keep hush about his customers. That personality trait seemed a rare candy anymore.
I nodded to the owner, who lived in the hotel, and he nodded to me, signifying that no one suspicious had entered my room in my absence. I asked him, “The dame I came in with, is she up there?”
He nodded as he sprinkled bits of food into the goldeen tank on the counter.
“Thanks Yerska,” I said, handing him a twenty. My loose grip on dough stemmed from the $650 weekly salary Jenny had promised me. If I could coerce that much out of the precinct’s pocket for just three more weeks I’d have enough cash to get my Toyota out of the city pound.
I took the lift up to the fourth floor, then made my way down the hallway to our room. I wondered if Misty would be on the other side of that door wearing nothing but my t-shirt and ready for another night like the last. Instead, after pushing open the door, I found the room dark and cool. Slanted bars of moonlight cut through the venetian blinds and sprawled across the hotel room like pale scars, and brisk winds whistled through the open window carrying with them the stench of the nearby paper plant.
I removed my piece from its holster and followed it into the shadows. I whispered, “Misty?” A shred of yellow light came from the crack beneath the bathroom door. The bathroom faucet came on and ran for three seconds, then the toilet flushed. I knocked on the door; it creaked open. Misty’s face appeared in the narrow opening.
“You’re late,” she said. “I thought you were dead.”
“I bought you a present,” I said. I pushed on the door, she pushed back.
“Give me a few minutes,” she said. “Girl business.”
I noticed then a glimmer in her eyes I’d seen countless times in the distorted faces of street punks and dimmer thugs in the precinct hallways. On Misty’s innocent little mug it seemed out of place but even an angel’s face can deceive. I shouldered my way into the bathroom and Misty fell back, surprised, almost stumbling into the bathtub. A small transparent bag of pink and blue pills sat at the edge of the sink. Desire.
“Where’d you get these?” I asked, snatching it. She darted out of the bathroom for the hallway and I took chase, catching her by the elbow before she reached the door and causing her to swing down and against the wall. She grabbed her gut and keeled over. I knelt beside her. “I know you have no cash, Misty. Where did you get these?” That bag represented a couple grand’s worth of D if not more.
I grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her. “Give me a name, Misty.” Whatever the name, I’d decided, its owner would lose his teeth. She cried but I shook harder because if there’s one thing I hate more than watching an innocent dame cry, it’s the man who’d hand her a means to destroy herself. I took my hands off her, and stood. She looked up to me and wiped her eyes.
“Spit the name,” I said, “or take a bus back home.”
“He said it would help me relax,” she said. “I have a problem. Problems. He didn’t know I meant to quit. He thought I was still on the stuff. You don’t know what it takes to clear a system after years of, after years…”
“Of what?”
As she told me her story, the films started rolling in my head. After the Act, she told me, the Cerulean gym shut down and shortly after the aquatic theater followed suit. The family finances took a dive so they turned to the next best thing by turning the gym into a creep joint. Business went on as usual. Her sisters put her back to work. She wanted to break out of that hell but couldn’t. The debt piled up. She wanted to start a new life, to find me…
I interrupted, having never been one for sob stories. “That when you took the razor to your wrists?”
“Scissors,” she said. “And you never said you loved me, Ash. That’s why I left you after Indigo.”
“We were just kids, then,” I said.
“Then say it now.”
“Get up,” I said. I set out my hand for her and she hesitated before taking it and allowing me to help her to her feet. I walked her to the bed and sat her down, then I moved to the door and closed it before joining her.
“If you’re with me on this, if we’re going to find Brock’s killer,” I said, “I need it all. Brock was into this shit before he croaked, and this drug is the only lead we’ve got since the cops can’t identify the assassin. Who gave you the dope, Misty?”
I expected what followed but needed to hear it from the angel’s lips. “Giovanni,” she said. “He gave it to me at the funeral home, as a gift from one retired gym leader to another. I wanted to say no but I couldn’t. I’ve wanted to get clean for awhile but, it’s so hard. He said it would help me cope with Brock’s death.”
At that moment I imagined Giovanni, the black widow, lurking at the top of his spider web in the shadows as helpless flies collected for his consumption. I’d sleep the same if, in my pursuit of Bridgett’s killer, I say accidentally put a dent or two in Team Rocket and gave them something to fear. My mind went cooking about ways to kill both birds with a single pistol whip and I knew the key to unraveling the whole stinking sweater sat in a bag on the bathroom sink. Jenny wouldn’t help. She wanted the glory of the Desire case for herself to aid her bid for mayor, whereas I wanted only the certain satisfaction that comes from spilling criminal blood. I’d start at tile one and work my way across the board. Watch me get there faster than her. Watch me.
“I need your word you won’t touch this shit anymore,” I said. “If we’re together, I need you clean. I already went fifteen years without you, Misty. Don’t make it longer.”
“Then say you love me,” she said.
“I will,” I promised. “But first, we’re going to Pallet Town. I have an idea who killed Brock, but if we’re going to find her before she finds us, we need to start at the source.”
“Who is it?”
“I’ll tell you when I’m sure,” I said. “Pack your shit.”
Yerska the hotel owner loaned me his beater after I slipped him a fifty and the promise of a full tank of gas. I liked Yerska. He never asked questions and the only language he spoke was the color green. Misty and I left that same night and made the four-hour drive in three, arriving in Viridian Town with the rising sun. There we fueled Yerska’s Ford and had breakfast at a small diner next to what used to be the pokémon gym. I phoned Professor Oak and told him we were about to hit Route 1. He laughed delightedly. He hadn’t seen me in years and asked me how my mother was doing. My mother disappeared five years ago.
I told him she was doing well. Never better. I told him she made him brownies but Misty and I got hungry and we ate them all during the trip. He had always been something like a substitute father and I hated breaking the news about mom every time we spoke, so anymore, I just lied.
We pulled onto the dirt road leading into Pallet Town around eight in the morning. I noticed that as we moved further from the city and nearer the country, Misty smiled more and more, as cleaner memories crept into her mind. She had her hand out the window and her hair whipped about as the Ford clunked along Route 1. She looked up as a cloud of pidgeys broke from the treetops and disappeared into the sun.
I told her that one day we’d live out here. I think I meant it.
On the way to Oak’s lab we drove by my old house. No one had moved in since my mother disappeared. I’d sold half of all I owned to fund my investigation and, after four months of asking all the wrong questions and curb stomping lowlifes, all signs pointed to Team Rocket, though I couldn’t prove it. The case ended when I drove a flaming school bus into the fire station, but not through the garage door. Jenny had locked me in the cooler for three weeks and made me promise to put it in the past. Like it’s ever that easy.
We pulled onto the gravel driveway of the pokémon lab and I immediately noticed a few additions to the building, including a three-car garage and solar panel roofing. Misty said, “I haven’t seen Professor Oak since… I don’t even remember.”
“Speaking of remembering,” I said, “the Professor has a problem in that department. Since they removed the tumor from his head he can’t store new memories. He’ll remember you, though.”
“Are you sure?”
I looked her over. Pure beauty. “Yeah,” I said. “I’m sure.”
We got out of the beater and approached the front steps. Professor Oak opened the door and greeted us with a grin. A black wooden cane with a charizard skull intricately carved onto the head supported his right side and a brown mop covered his balding globe.
“Ash Ketchum and the lovely Misty,” he said. We nodded, exchanged hugs, then he led us inside the dim-lit corridor. The air smelled of antiseptic and cough medicine. As we ascended the stairs to the lab on the second floor, Oak asked, “How is your pokédex? Is it near completion?”
“It’s still coming along,” I said.
“Yeah, yeah,” he said, unlocking the door. “I would like to complete the database before the end of this year. My grandson G-g-g-“ Come on, Professor, say your only remaining family member’s name. “My g-g-grandson hasn’t sent me any data in quite awhile, so I’m depending on you. Take a seat in the lab and I’ll make us pancakes.”
Misty and I followed him into the laboratory, she holding my hand. Equipment in various stages of disuse and decay lined the walls and sheets of paper were scattered across the floor. I got the bag of D out of my jacket pocket and said, “If it’s all the same, Professor, I’d like to get this pill under the microscope right away.”
“Of course, of course,” he said, frowning. He took the bag from me and carried it to a workstation. Two large windows overlooked the front lawn and the nearby ocean. Looking far into the sea, I could just make out the rugged outline of Cinnabar Island where I captured two extinct pokémon and taught pikachu how to use the metronome attack. Misty glided her fingers across some dusty equipment and perused some notes tacked onto control panels while I stared out at the distant long grass of the sea and remembered riding the lapras and feeling the surf splash against my face. It really was a different scene from Saffron City, and I remembered about my fatherless childhood too much for my own good.
“I’ll run all the tests but it’ll take some time for conclusive results,” said Professor Oak after he cracked open the bag and spread the pills over his desk. He plucked one out and examined it with a pocket glass. “It would take half as long if I could wire this to a colleague of mine up at Kanto State, one Masaki Sonezaki. His equipment is far superior and contains much less dust particulates.”
“Masaki Sonezaki, why does that name sound familiar?”
“He’s quite well-renowned in his field.”
“Better keep this between us,” I said. “You ain’t exactly holding Viagra there, Prof.”
“I’d stake my life on Masaki’s integrity as a pokémon researcher,” he said. “Unless you want to wait weeks for results from my old machines, I must consult him. By evening, with his assistance, I will have prepared for you a list of ingredients and possible sources. I hope you don’t mind spending some time with an old man.”
“We’ll get by,” I said.
“Speaking of which,” Oak said, “was there not three of you last time we met like this? Where is my dear friend Brock? Has he fulfilled his dream and become a leader in the field of pokémon breeding?”
“Yeah,” I said. Misty looked to me. “He couldn’t fit it in his schedule to come down here at such short notice, but he wanted us to wish you good fortune in your own studies.”
“A dear soul, that Brock,” he said. He continued to examine the pill, even going so far as to lick the capsule with the tip of his tongue. “It tastes quite vile if you ask me.”
“We wouldn’t know,” I said, looking to Misty.
The day passed slowly, the way days pass only in the country, far and far away from the sound of tractor pulls and gunshots and the humming neon signs of strip joints. Oak was on the phone with his friend when I caught Misty staring out the kitchen window at the setting sun. I realized that what felt out of place about Misty wasn’t anything about Misty herself, but the context in which Misty exists. She’d always pretended to be a cosmopolitan kind of girl but where she truly felt at home was in the space of pure blue and crystal clear water. I hadn’t been able to put a bead on what was wrong until just now, because she’d never looked as at home and content as she did now.
She caught me looking at her.
“It feels so clean out here,” she said. “The kind of place where you go to be reborn from the ashes.”
“Or from the ocean,” I said. “We’ve been in my hometown for a good eight hours and we haven’t even been to the beach.”
Professor Oak entered the kitchen, still on the phone. “Did I hear someone mention the beach? It’s quite lovely this time of year if I do say so myself. Oh, I think I just did.”
“Want to?” I asked her.
“Yeah,” she said.
On our stroll to the beach, we passed again my old home and I saw the ghost of my mother outside on the porch, sitting on her swinging chair and reading a book. Mr. Mime, her last companion in this life since I left home so many years ago, swept the porch stairs happily. But he, too, was just a ghost. The memories stifled me and I hastened, Misty in hand, to the pier where I completed my circuitous adventure around the Kanto region. I’d started here, where I was born, and worked my way around what I believed was the entire world at the time. It was my grand tour that took me from my little roots with pikachu to the highest mountains to the darkest caves. And after it was all done and I’d earned my badges through tears and bloodshed alone, I ended up back home, as if reborn into the body of an older, wiser man. I pitied the children born after the Spassek Act who couldn’t embark on their own adventures, who couldn’t grow up and learn life’s lessons the way I did. If the war all those decades ago had been meant to teach us anything, it was that boys without fathers should – must – embark on adventures to complete their growth. Spassek deserved what he got when my old friend Ritchie put a bullet through his spine before putting one into his own skull.
“Ash,” Misty said, pulling me back to the present, “it’s beautiful, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” I said. We stopped at the edge of the pier. The gentle roar of the ocean lapping on the shore and against the wooden pillars helped me forget but the niggling memories were always there. Only when Misty dove head-first into the sea did I fully re-associate myself with the current world. Her clothes sat on a pile on the edge of the dock. She disappeared beneath the waves and I looked for her head to reemerge but it didn’t, and after waiting a good minute I jumped in after her.
The black, cold sea engulfed me and stiffened my bones and I regretted immediately my decision to plunge right in. I felt my arms cramp and my muscles tense against the bitter frost of the late evening sea. I pushed to the top, unaware of how deep I’d already allowed myself to sink. And then I panicked. Because if I died now, this way, and not guns blazing trying to pry open the mysteries I’d left behind, then my life and everything I’d learned will have amounted to nothing. Pikachu, Brock, my mother, Ritchie, even, all will have died in vain not once but twice, because I couldn’t save them and I couldn’t solve the puzzles they left for me and me alone.
But then I felt the arms of a mermaid around my back and the warm lips against my mouth as air entered my lungs. Her bare feet brushed against my legs as she carried me up to the astral heavens and I believed just for a moment, if this is what happens when you die, then it’s all right. Mother would forgive me, so would Brock, so would Misty. Because if this is death than what’s so good about life that we should cling to it so much? When my head broke the top of the water and the cold air hit my face I knew I wasn’t dead after all, that the mermaid wasn’t a pelagic angel at all but rather Misty. Sweet Misty who I had to save and to protect, as she’d done me so many times before not including this one.
“You weren’t supposed to come in after me,” she said. “What the hell were you thinking?”
We kicked our feet to stay afloat.
“I thought you were in trouble.”
“I told you the water was too violent for you but you weren’t paying attention to anything I was saying, obviously,” she said. She had to shout to be heard over the waves. “This is my world, Ash. The fish are my only true friends. When I’m here, you don’t have to save me. Your world is out there, in the streets, with people. Don’t you understand?”
“Yes.”
“When you’re here, I’ll protect you,” she continued, “but when we’re out there, I need you to protect me. Don’t throw away your life for stupid memories, let alone bad ones. Ash?”
“I won’t!”
“Do you promise?”
“I promise!” I shouted. “Can we get out of here now?”
“Say you love me.”
“I love you,” I said. “I do.”
“I believe you.”
She carried me to the shore and we lay on the beach like dead fish for almost an hour, drying in the wind and holding each other close each for the heat of the other’s flesh.
Finally, I opened my eyes and said, “Masaki Sonezaki.”
“What?”
“Oak’s friend,” I said. “I remember where I saw that name before.”
“Where?”
“When I was investigating my mother’s disappearance, Gary loaned me his police database account to look at records and acquaintances of Team Rocket members. Sonezaki was one of the two specialists that worked with Giovanni after he had his first brain stroke.”
“That means…”
“Prepare for trouble,” I said. We scrambled to our feet. While Misty threw her clothes back on I was already starting back for the lab, with only the moon and the stars to illuminate my way.
“She’s not going to be happy about this,” the one man said to the other.
“We got the nosy professor, what else could she want?”
“She didn’t want the professor, dummy,” he snapped back. “She wanted the guy and his gal that was with the professor. They obviously got wind of us and bailed.”
“That’s not my fault.”
“It is your fault.”
“Besides, why do you care so much what she wants? It’s not her game as far as I’m concerned. Giovanni’s still top chef and he specifically told us not to touch the boy.”
I held my breath and crawled slowly closer. The long grass in Oak’s backyard provided cover enough; I was thankful he hadn’t mowed his lawn in years. I’d left Misty in the trees behind some shrubs and given her my backup piece, while I kept my PPK close at hand.
“You’re not playing this very smart,” the conversation continued. “Giovanni doesn’t have much time left and when he’s ghosted who do you think will take over? You? Me? If you ask me, you’re playing the wrong side.”
“I’ll be faithful to Giovanni ’til the end,” the other said. “Without him, there would be no Team Rocket.”
“And without her, Giovanni would have lost control years ago. You remember that when she takes over, for your own good. I’m going back to base. You wait here for the night to see if they come back. If you see them, kill them. Both of them. Forget what Giovanni said. If you want a future in this organization, pal, you’ll follow orders from the right people.”
“Fine,” he said.
I stayed low in the grass while the one goon started his black jeep and drove off in the direction of Route 1, and I waited a further twenty minutes to make sure that me and Giovanni’s faithful were absolutely alone. I knew Samuel Oak was dead; there was no getting around that fact. But I had to get back into the lab to retrieve my evidence and wipe our fingerprints from the scene of the crime, should Jenny choose to get involved.
After the man disappeared into the house I signaled for Misty to continue to wait. I approached the backdoor with my PPK in front of me and, to my relief, I found the door left slightly ajar. My rod led the way into the dark kitchen and I caught glimpse of a light in the room. In all the years since I’d been associated with Team Rocket, they’d not gotten any smarter. The goon stood in front of the light of the open refrigerator door, pushing aside containers and bottles of prune juice. He pulled a wrapped-up hamburger out from the middle shelf, peeled it open and gasped in disgust before throwing it back into the fridge. With all the noise he was making he didn’t hear me creep up behind him, nor did he hear me tapping on the counter to get his attention. His quest for food trumped all. Finally I grew impatient and said, “The mustard’s in the door.”
He jumped two feet into the air and backed away from the fridge, reaching for his piece.
“Don’t do it,” I said.
“Please don’t kill me.”
“Give me a reason.”
“I’m unarmed.”
“You killed my oldest friend.”
“I didn’t kill him, I swear,” he said. “I was watching the front door. It was Zed that killed the professor. You have to believe me.” He grabbed at his heart. “Wait a minute. You’re Ash Ketchum, aren’t you?”
“That’s me.”
“Giovanni told us not to harm you.”
“I heard.”
“I can help you.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “You will. Slowly take your piece out of your jacket and drop it on the floor. Try anything funny and you’ll be fishing with the seakings and magikarp.”
He did what I told him.
“Upstairs, to the lab,” I said. “We’re going to have ourselves a little Q and A session.”
We moved slowly up the creaky old stairs to the lab and he pushed open the door. I jabbed him in the back of the ribs with my elbow and shoved him to the floor. I saw only Oak’s brown shoes from behind his desk, and a pool of blood that glowed white in the light from the moon.
“You didn’t do him in?”
“I swear it,” he said, still on the floor. “I didn’t even know why we were coming here. I got the call at five and showed up to work, that’s all. I’m just doing my job.”
“You work for a bad man.”
“But I’m not a bad man,” he cried. “You have to understand. I was just like you, once. After we lost our rights to battle and train I had nothing else to do but work for Rocket.”
“Get up.”
He did, and I moved around the desk to confirm that Oak was dead. The tiny bullet had entered his forehead neatly enough. It was no wonder I hadn’t heard the gunshot over the crashing waves of Route 21.
“What’s your name?” I said, building a rapport. I had already gotten the feeling that this man would drop to his knees and blow me if I’d asked him to. He was butter in my hands.
“Hiker,” he said.
“You say you were like me before the Act?”
“I was training a geodude and a machop.”
“I believe you,” I said. “Now I’m going to ask you one question and one question only. Then you can go back to your boss. But don’t tell him what you told me or else he’ll kill you. Tell him I roughed you up but you kept your mouth shut like a good little soldier.”
“I’ll tell you anything.”
“My friend was killed a couple days ago, by a woman,” I said. “A woman dressed as a ninja. This woman also targeted another friend of mine. And I think she targeted me as well.”
“She shouldn’t have targeted you, Mr. Ketchum,” Hiker said. “Giovanni very explicitly forbade any of us from that. It’s been a standing order for as long as I’ve been a member that under no circumstances are we to harm you. And even she wouldn’t disobey a direct order. Didn’t you hear Giovanni’s offer?”
“Yes, your friend seemed so confident in my survival,” I said. “But I’m the one asking questions. Now tell me, who is this ninja?”
“She’s going to take over when Giovanni dies,” he said. “You should know her quite well, I should think.”
“The name, Hiker.”
“Why… it’s–”
The gunshot and the sound of his body crumbling to the floor seemed to exist at the same time, it happened so fast. I’d put my guard down, something I rarely ever did. Hiker had tricked me, subconsciously he’d tricked me into lowering my guard so his friend could come back and put bullets in both our heads.
“Drop your weapon,” he said.
I did.
“You think you’re hot shit, don’t you?” the man said. “Just because Giovanni wants you kept alive doesn’t mean you deserve it. You’re not talented, you’ve got no skill. I could’ve done the same job you were supposed to do and won, hands down. Besides, you don’t even have any pokémon anymore, do you? I’ve got plenty.” He opened his jacket to reveal the six Poké balls attached to the lining.
“Then let’s duel.”
He laughed. “You’ve got nothing to duel with.”
“My name’s Ash Ketchum and I’m from Pallet Town and I promise to be the number one pokémon trainer in the whole world,” I said, smiling.
“You’re nothing!”
A second gunshot dropped Mr. Hotshot to the floor. Three of his Poké balls popped out from under him and rolled across the laboratory, coming to a rest at the opposite wall, near Oak’s corpse. I held my breath in anticipation. The coding on the balls had never been perfected, and them hitting the wall like that, in older models especially, could’ve been interpreted as a summoning and thus lead to the molecular reinflation of the creatures inside. Whatever he had trained and stored in those balls, there was no telling how they would react upon seeing their master’s dead body.
Misty entered the room with the little smoking peashooter still trained on the trainer. She, too, held her breath. As we waited for the balls to come to a complete settling, she saw Oak’s feet and whimpered quietly.
The balls didn’t pop.
I moved to Misty and gently removed my gun from her grips. She fell to the floor against the wall and stared forward, her face a blank expression of hopelessness.
“I almost had her name,” I said.
“You already know who it is,” she said coldly.
“It can’t be.”
“Just say it.”
“… Jessie.”
“Blasting off at the speed of light,” Misty said.
“It makes sense,” I said. “Only she would hate us enough to try to kill us, still after so many years. She must still blame us for what happened to James.”
“It doesn’t bring us any closer to ending all this,” Misty said. “Besides, you heard what the man said. Giovanni wants you alive. Even though Brock is dead, even if I die, you’ll still be alive. He has a purpose for you.”
“I’m not doing shit for Giovanni,” I said. “And I won’t let him touch you. We’ll get to the bottom of this. Now help me look. Oak must have left something for us… he was in the lab all day, on the phone, doing work. There has to be something…”
“Ash! We can’t bring down Team Rocket. We tried for years. They’re going to kill me, no matter what evidence we have against them.”
“Now hold on, Misty,” I said, sitting on Oak’s desk. “Team Rocket is still taking orders from Giovanni, as far as I can tell, and there’s no reason why the old man would want us dead. He respects you as a gym leader and me as a trainer, and as fucked up as he is in the head, his code of honor remains intact. All we have to do is find Jessie before she finds us.”
“I don’t know.”
“Misty, when we were in the water, you told me that we each had our own domains. When I’m drowning in the ocean, you save me. But this is my world. I’ve been a private eye since they passed the Act and took away my livelihood. This is my world and I need you to trust me. Will you?”
She hesitated, looked at the two dead men on the floor, at Oak, who should’ve died years ago but had somehow managed to fight cancer and live to eat a nameless thug’s bullet. She wiped away her tears and nodded. “Yeah.”
“Then help me look… Wait a minute.”
I noticed the piece of paper in Oak’s hand, partly saturated in blood after sitting in the pool of it so long. I knelt beside him and gently tugged at the paper until it pulled free. Misty joined me at the desk as I unfolded it and spread it out to read the text it contained.
It was a computer printout:
CHEMICAL CONTENTS OF SPECIMAN A (“DESIRE”): - 66% LYSERGIC ACID DIETHYLAMIDE - 23% TETRAHYDROCANNABINOL - 9% VILEPLUME [RAFFLESIA] SLEEP POWDER - 2% JYNX [ROUGELA] LOVE POWDER AVAILABLE SOURCES OF VILEPLUME (KANTO REGION): 1. CAN ONLY BE OBTAINED BY APPLYING LEAF STONE TO GLOOM, FOUND ON ROUTES 12-15 OR EVOLVED FROM GLOOM AT EVOLUTIONARY LEVEL 21 AVAILABLE SOURCES OF JYNX (KANTO REGION): THERE ARE ONLY 2 JYNXS REGISTERED IN KANTO 1. HOUSE NEXT TO POKÉMON CENTER, CERULEAN CITY OWNER WILL TRADE POLIWHIRL FOR JYNX 2. TOM YUM GOONG OTOB RESTAURANT, VERMILLION CITY OWNER IS CHEF JOHNNY KHAM
“So?” Misty said. “Where to next, captain?”
“First,” I said, “we need to wipe our prints off of everything we touched in this house, especially in the lab. The fuzz could be here any minute.”
“And then?”
“We’re going to Vermillion,” I told her. “And make sure you’re still hungry when we get there. I think I want some Thai food. You like Thai?”
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