"Hello? I've finished collecting information on Vermouth's behavior at the memorial, but if you're gathering information this urgently, there's probably no way to keep that woman from noticing."
Bourbon actually knew some deeper secrets about Vermouth, but he did not bring them up over the phone. They had absolutely nothing to do with the subject at hand.
He wore a smile that Gin would have hated to see, though the other man could not see it over the phone. "Is that really okay? The boss thinks very highly of her, you know. Besides, Pisco was already marked for execution, wasn't he?"
Gin gripped a steering wheel he had not touched in quite a while. "Keep your useless nonsense to yourself."
"She didn't come alone. She brought along her little follower, Calvados, but I doubt I need to bother you with details that minor. Almost everyone at the scene saw Vermouth expose Pisco. Also..."
Bourbon hesitated, considering how to ask in a joking tone that still sounded deliberately detached. "You've been acting kind of strange lately. You're not planning to betray the Organization, are you?"
Back when Gin handled work for the Organization, he had never left this many loose ends. The more carefully Bourbon investigated, the more clues he found.
That was because Sleeping Kogoro during the Beika City fire had behaved exactly like Gin had that day, yet Gin himself did not seem to have considered the connection at all. Bourbon found that rather difficult to understand. Logically, Gin should have noticed.
Then again, Gin's habit of killing his own underlings was an ironclad fact, and just now, through Public Security, Bourbon had also heard...
In short, Bourbon now had absolutely no idea what Gin was trying to do.
"What are you referring to?" Gin instead asked a question Bourbon had not expected.
"Nothing. I just think you've been pretty righteous lately." For the moment, Bourbon gave an ambiguous response in a sarcastic tone.
Of course, if Akai Shuichi had been the one causing trouble, Bourbon would have revealed every last thing he knew to Gin without the slightest hesitation.
Gin looked at the old brick phone in his hand and frowned slightly.
Had Bourbon noticed the abnormalities after his personality switched?
* * *
"Beika Hotel. Downstairs. Someone with a gun. Already tied up."
"Wait, who exactly are you—"
Beep. Beep...
The call disconnected. Such terse phrasing was not Yimi's usual way of speaking, but this was far from the first call she had made tonight, and she could no longer be bothered to say much.
She had already returned the bowtie to Conan, but the voice-changing devices Professor Agasa had invented were not limited to the bowtie.
Compared with the bowtie, however, a mask that gradually became damp from breathing and speaking was obviously not something easy to use over and over.
Yimi had traded the Professor the research rights to her game console in exchange for it. Since she had no anesthetic needles anymore and could at most play a few pranks, the Professor had agreed. Apparently, even with Conan's warning, he did not think this little thing was particularly dangerous.
Yimi had her Stand leave the phone booth. Things this high-tech were getting harder and harder to find lately. At this rate, she would have no choice but to use an outdated cellphone.
Stepping over an ordinary armed resident of Beika who had been tied up to one side, Famine carried her in another direction. Once they reached an empty road, she summoned the horse and quickly rode out toward the edge of the city.
It was not that the next target was especially close. She simply wanted to catch the one who could run away first.
Calvados was infatuated with Vermouth. He was a sniper in the Organization, and as a helper, nobody could have been more loyal to her.
He had set up his sniper rifle and was waiting for Vermouth to pass this place with the prey, just as they had agreed. If he saw cops, he would provide long-range support immediately.
Throughout the process, his attention stayed fixed on the view through his scope, but that did not mean he would ignore the sound of footsteps approaching him.
"Who's there?!"
Calvados nervously drew his backup handgun and aimed it toward the sound, only to hear a cold voice speak from that direction. "Are you a police officer?"
That voice—Gin?
A large part of Bourbon's confusion over Gin's recent behavior, and his suspicion that someone might be impersonating Gin, came from exactly this. When Yimi fiddled with the mask to adjust the voice, she had happened to land on Gin's voice.
In other words, she had been using Gin's voice all night to call the police and report criminals illegally carrying firearms.
Anyone would grow impatient after repeating the same thing too many times, let alone a small child. So when Bourbon, an undercover Public Security officer, happened to learn about this and became very interested in seeing what was going on, he happened to hear Gin's voice impatiently say, "Someone here has a gun. Get over here."
"Police? That's not funny at all, Gin." Calvados stared into the darkness at the figure whose face he could not see. He could just barely make out something in the figure's hand that looked like a weapon—the scales.
"Then I can only take you out." Yimi had meant to say "arrest you," but for a moment she could not remember the word.
Take him out?
"When I heard there was something wrong with you, I didn't believe a single word of it—" Calvados raised his handgun and fired several shots.
Instead, two bursts of blood erupted from his body.
Damn it! As expected of Gin. His reactions and marksmanship were both incredible!
Yimi ignored him. While Calvados was not paying attention, she used her superpower to pull his sniper rifle over, then touched it curiously with one paw. Every gun she had seen before had been a handgun. She had hardly ever seen one like this, and it even came with a telescope.
"Gin, who the hell are you working for?" Calvados shouted angrily.
Yimi was not going to answer him. Yimi did not even know who Gin was.
She had barely touched the sniper rifle a couple of times when her ears suddenly pricked up.
Her hearing, combined with her sense of smell, told her that three armed people were approaching. The one farthest away was right beside a familiar scent.
The kitten, more concerned about the familiar scent, immediately abandoned the man in front of her. He was already injured anyway. She could call the police and have them take him away later. Completing the mission came first.
Seeing the figure retreat into the darkness, Calvados remained unable to calm down for a long time.
He stood there stunned, thinking about whether the person he had just encountered really was Gin. If it had been Gin, there was no way Gin would have spared his life, and throughout the entire encounter Calvados had never seen the person's face.
With no bandages available, Calvados only then noticed that his sniper rifle had disappeared at some point. For an instant, another absurd thought crossed his mind—had Gin, or perhaps somebody else, come here specifically to steal his sniper rifle?
But Yimi had not taken the rifle away. Calvados soon spotted it and hurriedly crawled over.
For a sniper, that rifle was the most important thing he owned. Or rather...
Calvados's expression froze when he realized the scope had been removed.
Yimi had no interest in the gun, but she was interested in the telescope attached to it.
Calvados's skyrocketing blood pressure nearly drove him insane.