The Case of the Mad Scientist

Chapter 14: Practice Makes Perfect

“Here are the addresses of all kore ya mama Pharmaceutics properties. Fortunately they have only one main manufacturing plant. The headquarters are not far off. Their research labs are in the same building as the headquarters offices.”

“Koriyama,” Stella said, correcting the pronunciation.

Blaze looked proud of herself as she placed the list of addresses on a coffee table.

“I have been told,” she went on, “that it is more likely Sorren would be using the research facilities. So I think that is where we should check first.”

Sounded good to me, so I didn’t say anything.

“Stella is still putting the finishing touches on her show, so I guess it’s up to you and me, Sled.”

“Sure, babe.”

I might have been a little more certain if my head didn’t feel like a whole platoon of soldiers were marching around inside it. That sack-key stuff is stronger than it looks. Still, a Private Dick’s gotta do what a Private Dick’s gotta do. I pushed my porkpie hat back an inch and told her, “When do we go?”

“Now. It will take us about two hours to travel to kor aye amma.”

“Koriyama,” said Stella, again.

We can look around, and later tonight, after

and Tara also. I was happy at the prospect of some action. Sitting around eating funny food is not the lifestyle for

Blaze and I alone

said. I liked the way she frowned when she tried to pronounce

time for anything but a good, old-fashioned “quickie”, but I didn’t know Blaze well enough to suggest that. Too bad. She did have a nice body and a face that made men’s heads turn every time she walked by. Well, maybe the body did it more,

“we’ll stay in a hotel there and return here tomorrow

told her I would meet her in the lobby, and went back to my

a

to clean Wilma and make sure she was loaded for bear. Fifteen minutes later I was in the lobby,

the driver was a teenage girl who looked as if she should be in high school instead of driving people around. I felt like asking if she really had a driver’s license.

main part of Tokyo the roads became much less crowded. The first thing that surprised me was that there were signs on the freeway much like in California: big green signs

told by our teenager driver that Koriyama was in the Fukushima Prefecture and was a central business city for the area. To the north were the Adatara Mountains (which didn’t look all that big to me, having seen the Sierra Nevada Mountains), Lake Inawashiro to the west (I wondered

had notice that they don’t make their buildings very tall in Japan. Maybe that had something to do with the earthquakes. We had felt several since we arrived, and were told that they were aftershocks from the big one a few months before. Stella also mentioned that they have almost daily small earthquakes in Japan anyway. It’s a way of life here, she

at home, being from Los

old and had only one sign announcing who lived there. And that wasn’t a very big one. We circled it a couple times before making off to the Comfort Hotel. Since it was only a few

when the desk clerk handed me only one key. On the way up, Blaze took my arm and whispered, “We’re married.” Then she explained that the CIA was short of budget and wanted agents to share rooms. Which was fine with me. I could hardly wait to see what the sleeping