So, it's back to the restaurant with Emerson, who continues to bitch that he cannot find any kind of card room in the whole place. Chuck gives a little history lesson on the measures gamblers used to take during Prohibition. You know, speakeasies, secret passages, etc. "You used to have to know the password," she rambles. "Like 'Antwerp' or 'fiddlesticks!'" Ned chuckles and she asks him what's so funny. "I was just expecting Emerson to say something snarky," he says. Turning to see how this didn't happen, they find Emerson gone. In fact, he has slunk to a nearby curtain and is poorly concealing himself behind it as they speak. They join him on his spy mission, forming the three-head totem pole of all great detective stories and Scooby Doo episodes to look out from behind the curtain at a large table full of people apparently enjoying their dim sum. In fact, one of these diners is Simone. "The dog lady you dated?" Ned asks in wonder. "Is that why we're hiding?" Emerson: "We ain't hiding, and we didn't date." Chuck wonders why they didn't date, seeing that Simone is quite beautiful. "There are complicated issues in this situation," he says, tersely, as they continue to spy, "that you don't need to know nothin' about, except that their complexities are so complex, it makes this shallow conversation absurd." Ned: "Strange." Emerson is offended. "You calling my romantic life 'strange?'" he asks, amazed. No, Ned says, that's not what's strange. What's strange is that he's noticed that none of the people at the table they're watching -- the people who are passing food around in large quantities -- are eating. In swift unison, they realize: all the plates at the table were covered with lids. Before serving, the waitress would spin the dishes on a lazy Susan. Each diner would take five plates, look at their contents, and then place a number of soybeans in a center dish before revealing their dinner choices to all. Aha! "These folks," Ned says in shock, "are playing poker with food!"

Later in his office, Emerson must muster his steeliest reserve to interrogate the toughest of the card sharks: Simone (accompanied by Bubblegum). "Aggression is a sign of fear, Mr. Cod," she snaps after he (aggressively) accuses her of frequenting the dim sum poker game. Emerson: "Sometimes aggression is just a sign of being aggressive, which I will be until I find out who killed Bao Ting." He makes her explain the poker game, which follows standard rules, except that you know, you can eat your cards. "Which is what you do," Simone says, "when the police show up." Bubblegum, incidentally, thinks this is all bullshit. Emerson asks if Simone knew Bao Ting. "His steamed buns blurred the line between eating and sex," Simone sighs, "but we were not acquainted." He also has her run down the other players of the game, including Shrimpboy, the gangster in charge of the game, responsible for paying off the dim sum manager, plus various thugs, criminals and um, one plumber. "They all take the game seriously," she says, "and they're all dangerous. Any of them could have done it." Emerson: "Well, what about you?" Simone cocks an incredulous eyebrow, but he cocks a bigger one right back, adding on a "pfft, please" at her attempt to act surprised that she's a suspect. In fact, though, she has an alibi -- she was at a dog show that night. With that, she leaves with her head high, only turning at the door to remind Emerson that she's made a career out of training animals to overcome their instincts. "That being said, without raw instinct," she goes on, "life is nothing but a series of empty tricks. You, pretending this is all business between us... seems like an empty trick." Emerson clears his throat. What he's learned, he says, approaching her at the door, is that the more he's into someone, the more he begins to feel... Simone: "Inadequate?" Emerson: "Never." Simone: "Tongue-tied?" Emerson: "No." Simone: "Aroused?" Emerson: "Yyyea... I'm just saying." Heh. What he's saying is, the more he's into someone, the more badly he feels it will end. And based on that, Simone asks, how does he think they'd end up? Emerson leans in: "Extremely badly." But, naw, Simone has got her own plans. She plants an aggressive smooch on him right there. Emerson: "You ain't hear what I just said?" Clearly not, Jim Dale tells us, as Simone brandishes her clicker: "This was the first time the private investigator had ever been ordered to... CLICK! Simone: "...Come." DAAAAAAANG, show! I have to tell you, I didn't think you'd ever top dental dams. What's next week? Olive gets a side job as a bubble dancer down at the Booby Trap? Anyway, Emerson can't resist the click, or Simone, and as Bubblegum barks in embarrassment, he sweeps her off her feet -- no, really, to the point where they both fall over.