"Um… Mister Rhodes? Miss Lambeth? You should take a look at this."
Rebecca fed Snakebite the last strip of raw meat and looked up. One of the accountants poked her head into Roy's office; not the stuffy staff accountant who had spent the last week trying to kiss Roy's boots, but Mandy, the pretty girl who had been a Team Rocket corporate controller before Roy had presented a better option.
"Aright, come on in," said Roy, from behind his desk.
Rebecca had a hard time wrapping her head around finance and payroll, but she stayed put in her chair as Mandy tiptoed into the room.
"Oh. Um… you have your Arbok out," said the accountant, glancing nervously at Snakebite.
"I just fed him," said Rebecca. "He'll probably lie down for a nap pretty soon… isn't that right?"
She scratched Snakebite under his chin and he hissed, his forked tongue tasting the air. Mandy jumped at the sound and danced closer to Roy's desk…
Roy, for his part, grinned at her visible discomfort.
"Mandy, relax. Rebecca just said he isn't hungry. We're building our whole team on that Arbok's back, so you'd better get used to him hanging around."
"Right, well… about that. Building the team, I mean. I just finished my latest financial forecast," said Mandy.
"And?" said Roy. He arched an eyebrow.
Rebecca didn't have much taste for finance, but she knew Roy hated that side of the business.
"We're in trouble, Boss," said Marcy. "Thanks to all the raises and the overhead to run the club, we haven't turned enough of a profit the last two weeks to break even. Look, you can see for yourself."
The accountant eagerly bent a little too far over the desk to show Roy the tablet in her hand, and Rebecca watched his eyes; Mandy was wearing a tiny little crop top and a grey pleated skirt, and she was clearly braless.
But Roy, for his part, was professional; he leaned back in his chair and looked right into Mandy's eyes.
"If I read that correctly, it looks like we're going to run out of cash in a month."
The accountant straightened up and took a step backward to include Rebecca in the conversation once again.
"That's right. And a month is generous… that's assuming we stay as busy as we have been, even though we're already beating last quarter's sales volume by about ten percent."
Roy smoothed back his hair.
"What gives? We handed out a few bonuses so people would stay and work for us, but our headcount is less than what we were running with under Club Stardust. And… I'm also not stealing money anymore. So where are we going wrong?"
"We have a couple of different issues. We have too many people on the payroll, for starters. In addition to the bartenders and the custodial crew, and, um, the finance team, Team Lambeth is paying ten Pokémon Trainers' salaries to… hang around." Mandy adjusted her top a little awkwardly.
"They aren't just here to 'hang around,' but I take your point," said Roy.
"Team Rocket wasn't financing such an inflated payroll with profits from the Club alone," said Mandy. "Their, um, other enterprises were doing a lot to keep us in the black."
"You mean the Pokémon trafficking," said Rebecca.
Mandy's face turned red, and Roy shook his head.
"We're not going to get involved with Pokémon trafficking," he said, emphatically. "But Team Rocket was also up to a whole lot of extortion, right?"
Mandy nodded, and she glanced at Rebecca.
"I… don't really have a problem with extortion," said Rebecca, and she shrugged.
"Well there you have it. Mandy, what I need you to do is to get me a report of exactly how much extra capital we need to close this gap. I want to keep Club Arbok running, and I want to double our headcount, with a little extra budget for training. Can you do that?"
"Of course I can," said Mandy. "I'll get on it right away. Oh! And, um, maybe after that we can talk about my compensation?"
"I'll tell you what. Save me enough money and you can have as much of a raise as you want," said Roy.
The accountant bounced excitedly and spun to leave the office, and when she was out of earshot Roy raised an eyebrow at Rebecca.
"She seems good at her job," said Rebecca, brushing a speck of dirt off of Snakebite's scaly hide.
"She's a striver," said Roy. "Ambitious. Hungry. Those are the kinds of people we need."
"Yeah, I guess so."
"Yours are better, by the way," said Roy, his smile turning smug.
Rebecca sniffed and pointedly looked up at the ceiling.
Out in the barroom, Marcus's Poliwrath stood in the ring and wrestled with Roy's Pinsir. The two Pokémon had been at it for over an hour, and it seemed to Rebecca like they actually enjoyed training together.
Two other members of Team Lambeth stood outside the arena and watched, one with a Golbat and one with a Doduo. People were taking the initiative to train; Rebecca liked what she saw.
"So that's the story," said Roy. "Basically, we're up a creek if we don't come up with an, ah, alternative stream of income."
Rebecca sat at a table with Roy and Marcus MacAlpine, drinking her first beer of the afternoon. Marcus had put down his book to listen to the story, and he nodded his head in agreement.
"It makes sense. What do you suggest?"
"Well, Club Stardust went down as easily as I thought it would. Not a single person in here was a match for Rebecca," said Roy. "But it isn't enough. I'm thinking it's time to make another statement."
Marcus grinned, and he thumped a fist on the table. His enthusiasm was contagious; Rebecca eased back in her chair.
"I'm in. Tell me what I should do next," she said.
Roy reached over and touched her arm.
"Well, I have c couple ideas. But let's hear it from the Rapidash's mouth. Marcus, what can you tell me about Team Rocket's position?"
Marcus called a Team Lambeth grunt over, a sharp-eyed man by the name of Hector. Hector ran and retrieved a pen and a sheet of paper, and Marcus quickly sketched out a rough diagram of Kanto.
"Pop quiz time," said Marcus. "Rebecca, what do you consider to be the heart of the Kanto region?"
"Um. Is that a trick question? Celadon City," said Rebecca. "I think."
Marcus nodded.
"Perhaps. Team Rocket does most of its business out of Celadon City. That Game Corner funds a lot of their operations."
He turned to Roy.
"I don't disagree… but my answer would be the Silph HQ, right downtown" said Roy.
Marcus smiled.
"Spoken like a true hometown boy. But… it's true. Kanto has a reputation for technological advancement, and Silph Co. is the clear leader. And, unsurprisingly, Team Rocket has a big stake in Silph as well. That is, if you consider extortion to be a stake."
"Funny you should ask," said Roy. "We were just talking about extortion."
Marcus laughed.
"Silph is central to a lot of Rocket's day-to-day operations. But… allow me to toss one other point out for your consideration. All the energy in Northern Kanto flows through Mt. Moon. There's a reason Team Rocket has been spending time up there. Moon Stones, fossils… not to mention the only good route from Pewter City to Cerulean City."
"Yeah… it's all coming together. Saffron City in the east, Celadon City in the west. Mt. Moon to the north… and let's throw in Vermillion City to the south, just because of all the shipping traffic." Roy smoothed back his hair, thinking hard.
Marcus nodded.
"Lieutenant Surge runs a tight ship down in Vermillion. Team Rocket hasn't dared to horn in on his city yet," he said.
"Well… it doesn't matter," said Roy. "The answer starts at home."
"You mean... Silph?" said Rebecca.
Roy nodded, and he hopped to his feet. He took another look down at Marcus's crude map, then he squeezed his eyes shut, and then he nodded, to himself more than anything.
"Marcus, fill Rebecca in with whatever info you can about Trainer counts, Pokémon levels… opposition. I have to go make a couple calls."
Roy walked back into the office, a man on a mission, and he pulled the curtain closed – Rebecca hadn't gotten a good answer out of him about what had actually happened to the door, but as far as she could tell his meeting with Derek Merribit, the old boss of Club Stardust, had gotten… heated. They hadn't gotten around to replacing the door; bigger Magikarp to fry, so to speak.
Rebecca sat and chatted with Marcus for a while. He told her a few stories about his time in Team Rocket, and he described his general sense of Team Rocket's numbers.
The fact of the matter? The average Team Rocket grunt simply wasn't that threatening to a competent Pokémon Trainer, much less to somebody with as many battles under her belt as Rebecca Lambeth.
The reason Team Rocket had found so much success was their numbers, and the intimidation tactics they used… and it didn't help that they had a number of Kanto's most prominent figures in their pocket. There were plenty of rumors that Giovanni was not the only Gym Leader affiliated with the criminal underworld… although Marcus was unable to verify the rumors.
At last, Roy emerged from the office, with a spring in his step and a fire in his eyes.
"Rebecca, are you busy?" he said.
"Right now? No. What's up?"
Roy scratched his head.
"I need a suit. Do you want to come help me pick one out?"