Watching her go, Vance came down off the field as well.
He looked round, and found there were more eyes on him than before.
Which was natural enough. What he had shown was worth their notice.
He did not go back to his old seat, but came over and sat down beside Ambrose and Emery.
"Ha ha ha, you beat a little girl until she cried and never once thought to go easy on her."
Ambrose said it with a laugh.
Vance waved a hand and did not answer, and Ambrose went on.
"Look at the state of her — a pretty one, too. Go a bit easy on her and there might have been a story in it, heh heh. That's how a new attachment gets started."
"If you're so good, why don't you go up yourself?"
Vance said.
"Heh heh, it's only that I haven't the strength for it. Go up there and I'd be making up the numbers."
Vance paid him no more attention, but looked over at Emery.
"Emery, look over that way. See those three?"
Emery looked where Vance was pointing him and saw Kai Farrow and the two with him.
"I see them. What about them?"
"Find out who they are."
"Right."
Emery nodded to show that he had it.
"Good. Thank you."
Vance inclined his head. Small matters like this could be left to Emery; with him handling them Vance could be easy in his mind.
Looking into those men was a matter of getting ahead of the rain. He had felt the look in their eyes earlier — rich idlers, plainly — and they might well turn their anger over the business with Cerise on him.
He would have to be ready. If they really did come at him, he would act as the case called for.
"Peanuts, melon seeds, snacks — would the customers care for any?"
"Meow, meow, a few snacks? They're delicious, meow. Popcorn goes ever so much better with a good match."
The trio, some carrying, some pushing a cart, came along the aisle crying their snacks and reached the three of them.
"Congratulations on another win, Brother Vance. Take these — call it a celebration."
And with that they pressed snacks into the hands of all three.
"That's it then, bye-bye. May Brother Vance win every fight he takes."
Having handed them over, the trio did not wait for Vance or the others to say a word, but bustled off in a rush.
"Honestly. Always in such a hurry."
Vance said it reprovingly, picked up a packet of crisps, opened it and tried one. Not bad at all.
No wonder their business did well.
"They're like that."
Out in the arena the matches went on, and one fine Trainer after another appeared, each a pleasure to watch.
Several Gym-class Trainers came to light as well.
Towards evening it came round to Vance again.
The opponent this time was a more ordinary one, weaker in real terms than either of the last two, with only Elite-class fighting strength to show.
It was settled in short order.
Again it was the Haunter that went out, and again it swept the team, with no strain about it at all; he went through without trouble.
"Extraordinary. Three Pokémon, every one of them fighting above its class, and every one of them sweeping the team. That man is worth watching."
"Formidable. He must be one of the contenders to win the whole thing."
"If his Sandslash, his Kirlia and his Haunter are all like that, what are the rest of his Pokémon like? A man of that sort can't have only three, surely?"
Vance's run of wins, and how well he had shown, were bound to be noted.
Vance himself did not care one way or the other. He had the ability, and that was enough.
Sure enough, when Vance got back to the villa that evening, Nolan came to him with a sheaf of freshly printed material.
He had been put among the top ten favourites for the title, and stood fifth at present.
These were put out by the betting outfits, of course, and how much of it was true remained to be seen.
Vance leafed through it. They were all people who had shown well in today's first three rounds, and he found Cerise on it too.
She had been placed on the list of likely winners, a long way below him.
"What do you think? Their information isn't bad. Putting you fifth, though — I still call that too low."
Nolan said it cheerfully; he had not the least doubt about his friend's strength.
"Is that so. You think that highly of me..."
Vance did not answer it head-on, only nodded.
"You'd better put your back into it. I've staked close to half of everything I own on you, betting you take the title. Placed now, the last sixteen pays 1.5 to 1, the last eight 2 to 1, the last four 3 to 1, the semi-final 4 to 1, the final 5 to 1."
Nolan brought up another matter besides, to do with the betting on the tournament.
"Which did you buy, then? So I can throw a match early and lose you that half of everything you own."
Vance said it as a joke.
"Ha ha, I bought you for the last four. No greed in it. And if you really do throw a match, then that half of everything I own is lost and there's an end of it."
Nolan said it grandly. He did not care about any of it.
Every year the League tournament threw up a whole chain of betting like this. The League officially did not forbid it; some bodies under the League even took part in it themselves.
Putting money on a Trainer you fancied was a matter of having an eye for these things.
Every year there were always some who made money out of it.
The odds were adjusted as the matches went on, too.
Ambrose, eating fruit beside them, heard all this, picked up his phone, stood and went outside.
He meant to take the chance and make a killing of his own.
He knew well enough what his boss could do, so he put the greater part of everything he owned on Vance winning the title.
After thinking it over, Ambrose made up his mind and set it on Vance taking the championship — the whole lot, all in.
He did not so much as look at the rest.
Deep in the night, two furtive figures appeared near the villa where Vance was staying.
They went carefully round the surveillance equipment; plainly the pair of them knew the monitoring system there very well.
These two were the very men who had been at Kai Farrow's side that day.
"Here, here — aren't we taking too much of a risk, coming here to do murder?"
The shorter of the two said it in a hoarse voice.
"It's a bit of a risk, yes, but high risk, high return. The reward when we get back will be handsome enough. Once it's done we leave at once and get well away from the Indigo Plateau, and they'll never trace us. Besides, even if it comes out, the Pokémon isn't ours — the Farrow family will wipe up after us. We only have to do as we're told."
"All right, all right. Let's get it over with."
"Come on, come on."
Avoiding the detection equipment about them and using the pitch-black night, the two came to the wall outside Vance's villa.
"This is the place, isn't it."
"It is."
"Then in we go."
The two of them sprang up and came over the wall.
"Tap—"
They landed lightly on the lawn, and found nothing in front of them but darkness.
Then lights came up in that darkness, one pair after another, with no goodwill in them, and moving besides. Those were unmistakably the eyes of Pokémon.
As the place grew a little brighter, Gyarados, Onix, Slaking and the rest had the two of them surrounded, and the overwhelming presence coming off them had the pair fixed where they stood.
"This is bad!"
The two were appalled, their hearts in their throats. They had walked into it! They had jumped straight inside the other side's ambush.
Danger!
In the mind of each of them a single enormous word rose up: *Danger*.