Chapter 6: “The Route of All Evil”
Some time passed and I stopped dreaming. After the canaries flew off from around my braincase, the first thing I peeped was Misty’s emerald green eyes staring into mine. I thought I’d croaked and gone to heaven and that she was wearing angel’s wings but the smoke-smell of the hotel room snuffed out that illusion quick. Yerska stood by the window, sucking on a stogie, his head shrouded in a cloud of smoke. He watched the street through a thin opening in the tattered curtains. I felt like I’d been through the wringer but the only thing I could remember was black water filling my lungs like oil and some bee stings in my back which turned out to be slugs that Misty had dug out herself. It was Misty, I’d learned, who’d dove into the water and saved my life, despite the rain of bullets the restaurant’s guards were still slinging my way. She called Yerska and he called his brother-in-law, Uri, a former loan shark living in Vermillion who despised the Rockets for driving him out of his racket and into a 9-to-5 job at a slaughterhouse. Uri drove us back up to Saffron and we reached Yerska’s hotel just before the break of dawn. Now I tried to sit up on the bed but a pain in my ankle shot up through my spine.
“Son of a ninetails!”
“Relax, Ash,” said Misty. “You broke your ankle. Our new friend Uri helped me fix it up as best we could. We figured we were better off not going to the hospital.”
“You figured right,” I said. “That’s the first place they’d look for me after last night. I owe you one, Uri.”
He grunted, closed the curtain, put out his cigar.
“What about me?” Misty said.
“Come on, Misty,” I said. “I owe you so many I’d need an abacus and to know how to use one just to keep track of it all.”
She smiled. “Don’t forget it.”
“You’d never let me.”
“No tail,” Uri grunted. “Clean blood off brother’s carpet before you check out, yes?”
Uri gone, Misty looked at me, her eyes starting to water, as if the hard act she’d been putting on was for the stranger’s benefit. I shook my head. “Not right now,” I said. “Let’s not do this right now.”
“I thought I’d lost you again,” she said, wiping her eyes. “Don’t be an asshole about it.”
“But this is what I do, sweetheart,” I said. “I swap bullets with bad guys and sometimes I borrow lead, but I always come out on top. Always. And if we’re going to finish this together, I need you to keep your cool when I fall out of the frying pan, because, kiddo, it happens an awful lot, and the fire is nothing new to me anymore.”
She pressed against my leg to stand up from the floor. I swore and fell over sideways. She dropped onto the couch, pouting, as the echo of pain reverberated through my bones. Just like her. “You’re so stupid,” she said.
“Don’t we have any painkillers?”
“I can hit you on the head with a hammer if you like.”
I swung my leg round so I could sit up. I’d send her to the drug store to get some supplies so I could cast up my ankle and get back to work but first I had to think, think god damn it. I’d been given a shot at Jessie using the jynx lead we’d picked up in Pallet Town – Professor Oak’s last gift to us before he bought the big pokémon ranch in the sky – and now I knew that Team Rocket was localizing Desire production, probably in Saffron, and, to make matters worse, that Jessie was moving chess pieces around to take Giovanni’s place in the king’s castle, which would be bad news for all parties and also nullify any chance I had at stuffing her in a body bag before she could do the same to me and Misty. Now I just had to decide whether or not to get Chief Jenny involved. And that voice I’d heard on the S.S. Anne, who was that? Was there another person in the room whom I hadn’t seen enter?
“I almost fucking had her,” I groaned.
“Yeah, but she got you instead.”
“Next time I’ll be more prepared.”
Misty moved back toward the bed and kneeled down beside it. She looked up at me with wide eyes. “Let’s just blow, Ash. We can settle down in Hoenn, in Johto even, just anywhere but here. What’s left for us in Kanto? I mean, all our friends are dead and the only people we know anymore, the only people we know on a first name god damn basis, want to kill us.”
“We still know Gary, at least.”
“But all I want is you,” she said. “Let’s go somewhere and start over before you find yourself swimming with the magikarp with rocks tied to your kickers.”
“Misty,” I said, “if Jessie runs the Rockets after Giovanni croaks, we may as well hand over all the civilized world to her on a silver platter. Gio’s evil, but he’s a leashed evil. Jessie is the devil incarnate, and as long as she’s got a pulse we’ll never get out from under the axe.”
Misty sighed. “I guess I’ll just sit at the sideline with bandages then, since you’ll need someone to patch you up every time you fall off the bike. What’s your plan, hitmonchan?”
I thought about it for a moment.
“Red light district,” I said.
Red light district. It was all I had to go on anymore. Starting from the bottom meant finding out who Bridgett’s pusher was, then using him to move up the chain and get back into the same room as Jessie and her hatchetmen, and hopefully gain the drop on them all. It was better than the other plan I had in mind, which had the two of us standing out in the middle of Main Street with a sign that said, “Here We Are, Ash and Misty, in the Flesh,” to await a sniper’s bullet. Bait plans were the worst, yet I had to use Misty regardless – not to lure in Jessie’s sword, but to attract a dealer’s perverted eye. Most the people in the red light district knew me by name, some because I’d turned rat on them, others because I was a regular customer. But they all knew me by trade: private dick. No one would barber on Desire with me while privy to my trade, so I had to send Misty out amongst the wolves showing just enough flesh to entice a dealer out of his dark place and into my sight line.
The caterpie necklace she wore was a bug in a literal fashion. I could hear her and what everything someone standing next to her said, but she couldn’t hear me, so I stayed close by but in the background, the rim of my trainer cap low to cover my face from passersby.
“What are you looking for, little vulpix?” the voice said. I perked up and looked over my shoulder at the sack of shit that had braved up enough to approach my girl.
“Nothing,” Misty said, all innocent like she was good at.
“No one comes to this hood looking for nothing, kitty cat.”
“Well,” she said, “maybe I am looking for something and I just don’t think you’re the guy who can help me.”
This made the man laugh.
“Maybe you don’t know me, and for that I don’t blame you,” he said. “You don’t look like you’re from around here.”
“I know a lot of people worth knowing,” she said, “even from around here, but I don’t know you.”
“What do you need, then? I’ll make me worth knowing.”
Come out and say it, I thought. Enough flirting.
“A bit of D,” she said. “I’m looking for a good time.”
Perfect. Set.
“D? That’s some heavy stuff. You sure you don’t want to start with morphine, or vileplume powder? How about a couple capsules of acid. I know a place nearby we can party.”
“I didn’t think you were the right guy to talk to. Kick rocks, pal.” She started to walk away. I grinned. She was a natural. I could’ve used a talent like hers during a few choice cases in my past.
“Hey, wait,” he said, grabbing her by the elbow. “You want D, I’m the guy. I’m the only guy, as a matter of fact, which makes it a seller’s market. Desire isn’t cheap, pretty eyes, that’s why I was recommending something a little less pricey.”
“Money isn’t a problem.”
Flash the cash, flash the cash. (A bunch of one’s rolled up in a hundred-credit bill.)
“Let’s go someplace quiet to talk then,” the man said.
She didn’t flash the cash.
“Okay, but not too quiet. You’re not exactly the trustworthy, gentlemanly type.”
Good thinking. Probably better not to flash a wad of cash in the middle of crime alley. That’s why she’s out there and I’m sitting under the canopy of a sushi stand trying to look inconspicuous, smelling the most rotten karp meat I’ve ever whiffed. The sushi man offered me a sample. I told him I wouldn’t feed it to my growlithe if it was the last bit of chow on earth and if I had a growlithe.
The dealer led Misty around the corner and into a jazz club. I followed them inside. They sat at a table in the back. The table to either side was occupied so I dropped my bottom on a barstool and ordered a chocolate shake.
“Just vanilla,” the keep said.
“Red wine then.”
“Just beer.”
“A fucking beer then.”
He brought me a beer. As I sipped the piss water I listened to their conversation. The dealer’s name was Sako. He pulled a small plastic bag out of his pocket and showed it to her.
“Here’s four drops,” he said. “Fifty bucks a pop. Are we dealing here or what?”
“Four drops? If I wanted to play around I would’ve talked to the little biker kid selling rocks in front of the gas station down the block.” She reached into her purse and showed him the bag that Giovanni had given her days ago.
“You’re a dealer, too?” he asked, his eyes growing wide at the sight of what must’ve been a couple grand worth of D.
“I’m from Cerulean, where the well’s gone dry.”
Just like planned…
“This is the last of my stock,” she went on. “When this runs out I’m dead in the water. I thought I’d come out to Saffron where money talks and get some to take back home, but if four pills is all you’re holding, then I’m sitting in the wrong jazz club across the table from the wrong lowlife.”
She got up to leave again. Playing it a little loose, aren’t we? I thought. Sako snatched her wrist and pulled her back toward the table. Keep that up little man, I might break off that hand for you. Misty sat back down.
“Look, lady,” he said, “I don’t know who you are, and that means you ain’t got any reputation around here. How do I know you’re not a cop or a shylock?”
Misty reached into her personal bag and pulled out a pill. Don’t do that. Not part of the plan. Misty. Wait. She swallowed one, then showed him her teeth and smiled.
“Would a cop drop a tab?”
“A crooked cop, yeah.”
“Then whether I’m a cop or not, I’m at least crooked,” she said. “So are we onto the part where I offer you a slice of cheddar and you offer me D?”
“How much?”
“I don’t want to have to come back out here for awhile so I want half a pound to take back to Cerulean.”
“Half a pound, Christ. Is this a fucking joke?”
Now she flashed the cash.
“No. I’ve got a briefcase of this stuff.” She put the cash back in her purse. “If you can’t get me half a pound of tabs, tell me who can, and I’ll make him rich instead.”
“Gimme ‘til Friday morning,” he said. “I’ll get in touch with my guy and we’ll get you your D.”
“Friday morning it is.”
“Meet me at the old gym at six and bring the cheese,” he said. “Lots and lots of cheese, like it’s a rattata orgy.”
“You wouldn’t mind if I brought a friend for protection, would you? I’m a naïve girl in the big city, after all.”
“You’re no dummy, are you, pretty eyes? Limit one friend to the party, and no tricky business.”
The next day, the blower in the hotel room rang. I almost fell out of the bed when it did. Who was calling us? Who knew we were here except Yerska? Misty was in the shower and I wanted to be in there with her except for my damn cast. I limped over toward the phone and popped it off the cradle.
“Squirtle Squad Cleaning Company,” I said, “Would you like to make an appointment?”
“Don’t be cute, Ash.” It was Gary.
“Hinky,” I said. “How’d you find me?”
“Tailed you from the red light district.”
“I didn’t see a tail.”
“I wouldn’t be very good at my job if you had seen me.”
“What is it then?”
“Jenny wants a face-to-face with you,” he said. “We can do this the hard way or the easy way. I know where you are and I know you’ve got a bum leg, so I can either arrest you and take you down to the precinct in the back of my squad car, or you can come in of your own accord.”
“She on the warpath again?”
“No,” he said. “Would I lie to you?”
He lied to me. As soon as I limped into Chief Jenny’s office a potted flower flew in my direction and exploded against the wall, dirt and petals and bits of ceramic flying all over. I shielded myself.
“I gave you one task,” she shouted as I closed the door. “I told you not to interfere with the Desire case.”
“I rather think your case interfered with me,” I remarked.
The next potted plant hit me square in the chest. I fell back into a chair, wiped the moist soil off my jacket.
“I’ve had Sako under surveillance for three months now,” Jenny said. She sat in her chair and took a deep breath. “My UCs have been burning through our resources buying dope from him so he’d lead us up the chain and to Giovanni. So tell me why your girlfriend and the target of my investigation are comingling, when I specifically asked you not to get involved?”
“If I come clean and give you what I got, will you promise not to throw anymore things in my direction?”
“You have five minutes of immunity if I like what I hear.”
“Okay,” I said, straightening up in the chair. “First of all, I don’t care about Desire. That’s your angle and I’m perfectly fine with that, even though I think you’ll get elected regardless since you’re just so charming.”
“I’m this close to taking down Giovanni, Ketchum,” she said. “This isn’t about my run for mayor next year. This is the culmination of decades of hard work from my organized crime division and yours truly.”
“Decades, exactly,” I said. “Chief, you’re squad is moving at a slowpoke’s pace. Misty and I got done in one night what it took your boys months to do. Tomorrow we’re going to meet Sako’s commander, and from there it’ll be a matter of time before I’m in the same room as Jessi–.” Shit, too soon.
“Jessie?”
“I meant—“
“Jessie of Team Rocket? Jessie’s been locked up in a triple max slam on Cinnabar ever since you put her and James away ten years ago. How’s she involved with any of this?”
“I suspect that if you rang up that slam, you’d find they’re short one customer. She’s come back to Saffron and gone fucking section eight on us, and for the past couple months she’s been trying to bop Misty and me. She’s also the dame who killed Brock and the owner of that jawbone I blew off.”
Jenny was already on the phone with the prison warden before I’d even finished my sentence. She nodded gravely, then put the phone back on the cradle.
I said, “So?”
“Six months ago, a gang of Neonazis gave James a bit of the old in-out in the prison shower room, real horrorshow. By the time the guards got there, he was half-dead and bleeding out of six different holes in his body and his face looked like it’d been smashed in with a meat tenderizer. Two days later they found the poor bastard in his cell hanging dead from a bed sheet noose. After that they transferred Jessie to the banana clinic in Lavender Town for suicide watch. She escaped about eighteen minutes after she got there. This changes things, Ketchum.”
“It doesn’t change a goddamn thing,” I said. “If I don’t find her before she finds me, Misty and I will be taking permanent vacations in a couple of pine crates.”
“You’re in over your head,” she said, her face turning grave. She drummed her fingers against the edge of her desk. “I’m taking you off the case. My boys’ll put you and Misty in protective custody until I can get a judge to sign off on a witness relocation program.”
I pushed myself up from the chair. “Your boys couldn’t find their dicks in a room full of digletts.” I turned to limp out of her office, but Gary was standing in the doorway, a pair of steel bracelets dangling from his fingertips.
“Easy way or hard way, Ketchum,” she said. “You may have grown up into a little piece of shit but you’re still my piece of shit and I’m not going to let the Rockets take you out like yesterday’s trash.”
“You’re making a big mistake,” I said, as Gary escorted me out into the hall in cuffs.
“Let’s go buddy,” he said, pushing me forward. “Time to make up for all those missed Battlers Anonymous meetings.”
He led me outside to the alley behind the station, where his partner, Phil, was waiting. Their squad car was parked and running at the end of the alley. Gary stopped me and shut the door behind us.
“Okay,” he said, “I know you already picked the cuffs, so just take them off and let’s get this over with.”
I took the cuffs off and dropped them at Phil’s feet.
“Hard way?” I said.
“Not with your bum leg,” Gary said. “Just get in the car. We’ll pick up Misty and the four of us will find a nice safe house in the country to lay low until this all blows over.”
“It won’t blow over,” I said. “Jessie wants to make a play for Giovanni’s throne and when she gets settled in, you won’t be able to touch Team Rocket with a thirty foot stick. You know damn well I’m the only one who can fix this before it gets bad.”
“I know,” Gary said, “but I’ve got orders from the top. This is my job we’re talking about. You gonna pay my bills?”
“I can protect you both.”
“How?”
I swung my fist ‘round and popped Phil on the side of the head. He crumpled up like a rag doll against the brick wall. The rookies always drop easy, but blows like the one I just delivered are how they get toughened up, at least, that’s what I told myself to justify it.
Right away Gary pulled his heater and created some distance between us. “Don’t do it,” he said.
I leaned down and pulled Phil’s 9mm from its holster.
“Don’t you fucking pick up that gun,” Gary said.
I aimed it at Gary.
“I will shoot you,” he cried.
“No, you won’t,” I said. “But I’ll shoot you.”
I shot him in the leg. He dropped his gun and fell over.
“You mother fucker!” he screamed.
“Now you’ve got my protection,” I said, kneeling down in front of my oldest rival and friend. I took both his hands and pressed them against the hole in his leg to stop the juice flowing out.
“I hate you so fucking much,” he said, leaning into me. I put my hand around the back of his neck and touched my forehead to his. He was starting to cry. I almost felt bad. I did feel bad. But I didn’t hit any arteries or bones. It was clean.
“Tell Jenny that I popped Phil, got his gun, then put one in your leg,” I said. “It’s not a lie, and it gets you off the hook for letting me go.”
“You’re such an asshole.”
“I’ve got to end this,” I said, “once and for all. Once and for all. You know me, Gary. You know me.”
“Get the hell out of here.”
“Keep pressure on that.”
“Fuck you,” he said.
The Saffron City gym was a run-down memorial to a time when people like me, a skinny ten-year-old runt from a backwater town, could rise up from obscurity and become the heroes of their generation. After battling became illegal, there were no more heroes, and I, Ash Ketchum, became a nobody almost overnight. Those who couldn’t let go of the past either bopped themselves or ended up in the big house after getting caught in the underground doing what they’ve only known and felt natural with for their whole miserable lives.
Misty led the way up the stairs with me in tow. Each step sent a shockwave of hurt up my leg but I swallowed the pain. We found the front doors opened. Sako and his buddy, a man in blue jeans and a trench coat hiding a lump that was probably a Tommy gun, stood in the middle of the lobby, a giant canvas bag between the two of them.
“Where’s the cabbage?”
“It’s nearby,” Misty said. “Are those the pills?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Who’s this cat?”
“This is—“
Trench coat spoke: “He wasn’t asking you, broad.”
“I’m Tom,” I said. “Tom Ato.”
“Yeah, and I’m Ceasar Salad,” Sako said. “Give me a break. Who are you, really? Why do you look so familiar?”
“Maybe you’ve seen my mugshot.”
“Yeah, I know someone who knows all about mugshots.”
With that, the front doors burst open. Jessie, still dressed up like a ninja out of some 1980s cartoon, stormed into the gym, followed by a couple of Rocket grunts. She pointed at me, then at Misty, and I immediately went for my piece but it was too late. A pokémon materialized from out the side pocket of the grunt at Jessie’s right, and the vines of the bulbasaur that materialized shot toward me like whips and wrapped me up in a veggie cocoon before lifting me up toward the ceiling and flipping me upside down. “Bulba,” it said. Misty screamed. Another pokémon materialized shortly after, this time a jigglypuff. Jessie, Sako, and the other three Rockets each put on bulky headphones that’d been clipped to their belt buckles as the little ball of pink puffy fur burst into its signature tune. I couldn’t block my own ears as the bulbasaur’s vines held my arms to my side. Misty fell asleep immediately. I noticed that the bulbasaur’s own ears were unprotected, too, so if I could… just stay awake longer than… him he’ll loosen his grip and… drop me and… I’ll get my… gat… and…
When I awoke, I was tied up to the base of a thin tree trunk on some unrecognizable route along the city’s outskirts, in a dirt field surrounded by tall grass. I felt Misty’s hand in mind. She was tied to the other side, not moving.
“You with me, babe?” I managed.
She groaned.
Jessie was busy in the trunk of her car. I watched her. The others had all gone off. I started work on the rope binding my hands. It was tight. Too tight for me to move.
“Don’t bother,” came a voice from out of nowhere. It wasn’t Jessie’s. It was that voice I’d heard back on the S.S. Anne.
Jessie pulled a red can of gasoline out from the trunk and hauled it over to us. She set it on my lap and threw a pack of matches at my feet. I got the message.
“Let me see them.”
Jessie shook her head.
“Please, Jessie,” the voice said. “I want to look into his eyes before we light him on fire.”
The voice was coming from somewhere nearby. Jessie removed the glove on her right hand. I looked up at what she meant to show me, the sunlight glaring in my eyes. She crouched before me and held out the palm of her hand, inside which was grafted a single red lens that moved around, and a black, silky drum that started to vibrate, a vibration which was accompanied with a familiar laugh. It was the vibrations of the drum in her palm that created the emulation of his voice…
“Are you… James?” I said, feeling not a little ridiculous talking into someone’s hand.
“Surprised to see me?” the voice went on. “I guess you could say that Jess and I are truly inseparable now.”
“But how—“
Jessie was about to slip James back into her glove but the hand seemed to jerk itself in the opposite direction. Jessie growled and balled her other gloved hand into a fist as though ready to throw a punch at herself.
“Come on, Jess! We’re about to realize our life’s work, why can’t we talk for just a little while?”
She removed her mask to reveal the mess I’d left of her face. The bottom-left half of her jaw was missing thanks to my lucky shot into the shadows, and the regenerating skin hanging from the metal reconstructive frame glistened in the sunlight like so much gristle hanging off a steak.
“I see your girlfriend’s even less pretty than you are now,” I said. She slapped me hard with the non-freak hand. My tongue pushed against a loose tooth. I spat blood at her feet. “How’d you get turned into a goddamn hand, Jim?”
James always loved the sound of his own voice. They both did, except that Jessie couldn’t talk anymore, or wouldn’t, for which I was thankful. I was just buying time because every minute not on fire was another minute during which time the seesaw of fate could tip in my favor.
“After I died,” the hand said, “our brightest scientists used a Silph scope to find my lost soul wandering around Cinnabar Island. They used a gengar to possess me and capture me, and then it took only a few more genius leaps of innovation to implant me into a biotic vessel, which turned out to be Jessie’s beautiful hand.”
“Well,” I said, “I guess this should make the sex a little more interesting.” Jessie flipped the cap off the gasoline can and stood, blocking the sunlight from my face and providing me a brief moment of solace.
“You’ve always got jokes,” James said. “But here’s one for you. How does a washed-out pokémon trainer meet his end? He gets burned to ash.”
“Never heard that one.”
The gasoline doused my hair, my shirt, crawling down my back and my chest. She poured half the can on me then walked around to the other side of the tree and poured the other half on Misty, who was still too drowsy to put up any kind of a fight. I struggled against the rope but for nothing. The packet of matches lay at my feet still. I used my boot to pull it toward me and sat on top of it. When Jessie came back round, she swung the can against the side of my head, then threw it into the tall grass. She reached down for the matches but they were gone. She snarled.
Now she went back to her car, tore through the glove box, and found a cigarette lighter.
James said, “Ignition in three, two…”
I felt the heat against my face and waited for the scorching fireball that I’d become in a matter of seconds. And then nothing. I opened my eyes just in time to see Jessie disintegrate into a transparent red silhouette of herself, which then shrunk rapidly into a singularity of energy which was then sucked into a Poké ball like it was a vacuum. The ball rocked back and forth a few times, then the light died, and the ball was still. Humans in Poké balls? Impossible…
A black Escalade had pulled up beside Jessie’s car. Giovanni stepped out from the back seat. Mr. Esteban, who’d been driving, was smiling as the Poké ball containing Jessie returned to his hand like a yo-yo with an invisible string. I stared on in disbelief as he pocketed the small ball. He then sauntered over in my direction with a pocket knife out. He knelt before me and reached around with the cutter to break my ropes. After determining that he wasn’t going to slit my throat next, I crawled around to the other side of the tree and shook Misty until she opened her eyes. “Where am I?” she said.
“Not on fire,” I said. “That’s the silver lining.”
I stood and then helped Misty to her feet. She leaned against me, still dizzy and unsure of anything that was going on around her. I stood between her and Giovanni, who limped toward us with his wooden cane. He held in his hand the Poké ball pendant that usually was hanging from around his neck.
“What did you do to Jessie?” I asked.
“Jessie will be punished accordingly for her crimes against you and yours. I know she killed our friend Brock and, if I had been only a few moments later, she would’ve completed her trifecta of vengeance. Despite these facts, Ash, I can’t have you killing my top agents. An eye for an eye leaves everybody blind, don’t you know? Now, come with me. It’s time to talk.”
Mr. Esteban moved behind me. I had no defense, and no will to fight even if I could. I was sore, tired, and soaked with gasoline. The black sack came over my head and tightened around my throat. Misty screamed. She was getting the same treatment, I surmised. We were pushed toward the car and thrown into the backseat, and all the while I could hear Giovanni coughing and taking for-fucking-ever to just die.
is not an exit 
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