Choppity chop, goes the axe in the woods.

You got to meet me by the fall-down tree.

Shovel of dirt upon the coffin-lid.

And I know they'll come looking for me, boy.

I know they'll come a-looking for me.


He was awake five minutes before the alarm clock. Las Vegas shone through a crack in the blinds. His tongue was stuck to the roof of his mouth, and he was still wearing his bowtie. Two quick sniffs and unfamiliar perfume flooded his nostrils. Something warm and soft pressed against his thigh.

The silk sheets whispered a good-morning as he propped himself up.

That sash of sunrise cut a golden line from the crescent-shaped birthmark above her hip-bone to her burnished tuft of pubic hair. Her chest rose and fell evenly. Her mouth was open, her legs still spread.

He sat and blinked until a name could be attached.

Angela: the Keno girl from downstairs, grew up in South Dakota. She was amiable and easy on the eyes, but she didn't know anything about anything.

His feet tangled around her uniform as he tiptoed toward the washroom. Shame that they wouldn't have a second date.


He straightened a lapel as the elevator hurried him earthward. The overbright sun flashed and flared through the glass in even rhythm. Ten beats per minute, he had his squints timed perfectly. Eyes closed, yellow flash, eyes open, grey cinderblock. The steadfast pattern was the only thing that could be counted on with absolute certainty in this building, and he greeted the two minute ride—or four minute, depending on the number of passengers—as his sacrament to Las Vegas existence.

The double-doors would ping open in fifteen seconds, and so he offered himself a last check in the mirror. He had an image to uphold, after all. Even off-duty, Wesker would expect him to look the part and play his piece. Belt buckle centered, collars covering Angela's scratch marks, he was a fine example of the gentlemanly facade of Wesker's big black tower, and so when the doors whispered into the walls, Leon Kennedy stepped into the austere lobby with a proud back and a confident grin.

Black granite clicked under his wingtips. The Umbrella was an anomaly on The Strip, eschewing both the western motif of the older gambling halls and the false Floridian sheen of the newer joints. No, The Umbrella was something else: sleek and spare and ruthless, much like the man who captained her. The glass doors flooded the entrance with honey-yellow. It was a tiny island of warmth in the grey and black room: a warm intruder tolerated nowhere else then in the periphery.

"Good morning, Mister Kennedy."

Leon took an inward cringe at his greeter's fey lilt before affixing The Winning Smile and turning.

"Mister Ashford. How shines it?"

Ashford started. His eyes crested to the doors, narrowed to Leon, and then back to the foreign sunlight. The man was the paradigm of good English breeding to guests and superiors, and he was a sullen tyrant to his underlings. Leon was stuck in managerial Limbo between staff and guests, and poor Ashford never quite knew how to act.

"It shines well, I suppose." He offered himself an affirmative nod. His cornflower eyes interchanged between contempt and accommodation. "I must warn you, it's quite cold outside. It's a rather early start for you."

Leon caught a whiff of suspicion in Ashford's words. Wesker chose his management staff carefully. Even this pigeon-chested limey would be a valuable set of eyes to that Sphinx.

"Tell me about it. I left the bathroom window open last night." Never make excuses. Dismissal was the way to go. "You'd have sworn there were icicles from the shower head when I woke up."

Ashford stiffened.

"Don't worry. No frozen pipes." He offered The Winning Smile. "Nice hot shower warmed everything up."

"Would you care for us to freshen your room while you're away?" asked with humble eyes and the ghost of a scowl on his lips. "Is your room currently, ah, unoccupied?"

Leon glanced to the chandelier and thought of Angela. "I have a guest at the moment."

Ashford's cheeks matched his beefsteak-red blazer.

"You can send her up the Regent Breakfast in half an hour, and have room service go through at eleven. Give her a pair of tickets for the Saturday show as well."

Ashford forced his upper lip straight. "Of course, Mister Kennedy. Shall I have Carlos bring your vehicle?" He was gauging Leon's reaction, plotting.

Well, it could have been worse. Ashford was a dunce. Marcus was the one to watch for, but the old man only showed up at nine. "No need, Alfred. Have a good day."

"You as well…sir."

He turned from the little queer and made a deliberately slow amble to the exit, threw a wink at an older gal with an incredible beehive and held the door for her.

Alfred was puffy and officious, but he could be counted on for an accurate weather report. For a city of sin, Las Vegas could be mighty cold.


Leon shifted away from the cab's window and its associated draft. These Nevada winters were a special kind of awful: thin and severe, like a flick-knife between the ribs. A sprinkling of tiny gray snowflakes churned along with the litter as if they were ashamed of themselves. It was nothing like the massive snowsqualls back home: flakes the size of silver dollars that fell straight in luxurious blankets, indulgently sticky stuff that hung to eaves and sagged trucksprings.

The wind whistled through the Studebaker. Leon shifted farther over, managing even distance between the draft, and a smear of what was either phlegm or cum midway down the bench seat.

"Hey, I thought I recognised you." The hack had an Oklahoma drawl and a sharecropper's brown skin. This was no surprise. No one was native to Las Vegas. The city was the last of the Hoovervilles. Itinerants from all corners wheeled into the place, chasing their fortunes of folly. "You're that singer at the Flamingo. Kennedy, right?"

"No, I just look like him."

"My hat you just look like him. You're Kennedy, alright." Tom Joad laughed. His Okie teeth flashed yellow as his cab. "Don't fret. I ain't a fan."

"Well, I guess you won't be getting a tip then."

Tom Joad chuckled. "That's fine. Just don't make a mess back there and I'm happy as a lark."

He frowned at the gob. It was probably just phlegm. "You don't have to worry about me."

"All righty." He disappeared behind his seat and came back with a plug of tobacco pinched between his chompers. "Anyhow, my sister in-law wouldn't stop talking about you when she came to visit. Drove me nuts."

"You didn't come to the show?"

"No offense, but your stuff ain't exactly my type. I'd rather catch that three-piece at the Golden Nugget."

"I'm not surprised." He shivered and flipped the lapels on his jacket. "Hey, forget what I said. I'll give you two bucks if you turn the heat up."

Tom smiled and hawked into a paper cup. "Much as I'd like your money, there's no heater core in this girl. But that jacket ought to hold you through nicely. What squadron were you with?"

Leon raised his eyebrows. "Squadron?"

"Oh, sorry. I see a bomber jacket and right then assume the boy wearin' it was Air Force."

"No, never served. I was a cop for about a month."

"A month? Decided bein' some Nancy Boy singer was better?"

"Something like that." He smiled. "You served?"

Tom Joad nodded. "Was a gunner on a B-29 with the Double-X. Trained outta Nellis. Came back to Nevada after getting deactivated."

Leon shifted forward. Perhaps the engine would throw some radiant heat. "You're from Oklahoma, I'm guessing."

"You'd guess right."

"Why not go back home?"

Tom Joad laughed and spat into his cup. "You ever been to Oklahoma?"

"Good point."

He settled into the seat and pressed his arm against the draft. They passed a peppermint-green highway marker. 'Welcome to Henderson: Born in America's Defence.' Smoke billowed from the magnesium plant and glowed pink in the sun.

"So, you never said where you wanted me to let you off."

"The Union Pacific station is fine, Tom."

The hack narrowed his eyes in the rearview. "How'd you know my name was Tom?"

"I'm a really good guesser."


He kept his hands crammed against the bottom of his pockets. Loose pennies danced in the bowl between his fingers and palms. The sun was beginning to bake away the frost, and his shoes were lost in the fog. He was in a full shiver once he rounded onto Second Street West, lapels flipped and chin tucked, teeth chattering like a roulette ball.

Ah, the great gamble of life, roll high and you parch in the sun; roll low and you freeze solid. It only made sense then that America's heart of high-stakes living had such wild extremes in weather. No one was meant to survive here. Once your winning streak ended on The Strip, the desert would finish you for good.

But not today, he still had a few pennies left, and warmth waited a half-block up, tucked behind a Mayberryesque picket fence. Middle-America drew its idyllic breath out here as well. Complete with mowed grass, trees and freckled redheads on Schwinns: tiny atolls of sensibility bivouacked among the wretches and thieves.

He swung the gate, took wide steps up the paving-stones and clomped down the patio. Hunnigan had the door open before he could knock.

"Morning," He chattered and stamped his feet.

"You're earl-" Her eyes went wide behind the cat's-eye glasses. "Oh my goodness, your lips are blue."

"It's cold today."

"Come in, for goodness sakes." She stepped aside and gave the door a good slam. "Where did you walk from?"

"Union Station, but my cab didn't have heat." He weaved his way through Hunnigan's incongruously cluttered living room, toward the Formica table in the kitchen: the table where the secrets and false faces were laid aside.

"You should have had him drop you off closer."

"Can't be too safe." He slid a ream of newspapers off a chair and cleared enough space on the table to rest his elbows.

"I suppose. Here, this will help you warm up." She handed him a steaming cup, black and aromatic ambrosia inside.

He took a sniff. "I thought Joseph Smith frowned on this stuff?"

She regarded him over her cup. Her penciled eyebrows rose. "And I thought the Vatican frowned on fornication." She took a dainty sip. "It's been three months, how have things been?"

"Ninety-six days." He wiped a lipstick mark off the rim and took a healthy gulp. "Been keeping myself busy, eyes open and all that. Councilman Boyette lost two-thousand dollars at the Craps table last weekend."

"Anything on the Palentino angle?"

He reached into his jacket and held out a well-rumpled manila envelope. "How's this?"

Her long fingers flashed like tanned lightning. She quickly had a dozen autographed Leon S. Kennedy headshots smiling at her from the tabletop.

Her forehead creased. "Is this a joke?"

"No joke." He drained his cup with a single gulp. "Flip them over. One has a surprise."

Hunnigan complied. She paused midway through, and cracked a porcelain grin. The photo shook in her hand, and a blush crawled down her face, racing to her librarian's collar.

Still she smiled. There was a tiny fold between her upper lip and nose, as if the skin was unused to being bent in that position. "Is that?..."

"Alfie Palentino and Ironsides Davis."

"Oh, wow!"

He chuckled. "So much for Senator Davis' tough stance on organised crime, huh?"

"Oh, wow." She shook her head, adjusted her glasses and bent closer to the photo. "Who's the blond beside Senator Davis?"

"That's The Umbrella's owner."

She held the photo three inches from her face. "Wesker."

"Yeah, that's him."

"Does he always wear sunglasses indoors?"

"Only when he has to lie."

She seemed unwilling to let go of the picture. "How did you take this?"

"I was Missus Palentino's escort for the evening. She wanted a picture of herself and one of Wesker's statues, Hermes I think." He laughed. "I'm a terrible photographer. Didn't even get her in the shot."

Hunnigan cracked her boomerang-shaped grin again. "Well done, Agent Kennedy."

He matched her smile and upped her a chuckle. Agent Kennedy had a musical sound to it.

"It's all in a day's work."

And with cardsharp speed, Hunnigan's smile was gone, replaced with her owlish cunning. "Wesker is looking at the camera. He's looking at you."

"He doesn't suspect anything."

"How can you be sure?"

"Because I'm still alive. This was taken a month ago."

Hunnigan seemed to be weighing this. She wasn't officially FBI —J. Fucking Edward would never let a skirt into his club— but she had a razor hone all the same. "I still don't like it, Leon. It was too risky."

"It was easy."

She sipped her coffee. "Even so, we're going to shift focus for a while. What do you know about The Star?"

He shrugged. "That's the old El Dorado, right? Way down on the far end of Freemont? They're building a new tower."

"That's the place. The owner's name is Chris Redfield."

"Redfield… never heard of him."

"No one has." She rose, smoothed the single crease from her skirt and turned to rummage through a dented cookie-tin. Papers were unceremoniously dumped to the floor, until a weathered newspaper clipping was pushed toward him. A blurry head was circled in red ballpoint.

"That's him. All we know is that he grew up in Gary Indiana. He was stationed in Italy in forty-four and stayed overseas after his discharge. He's only been in-country for two years, and he's got very deep pockets."

He took a good look at the newsprint. Redfield had too much muscle and carried himself like a prize fighter. A man like that grew up fighting, and a man like that grew up poor.

Hunnigan got to her tiptoes —giving her chaste, but quite lovely, body an opportunity for appraisal— reached above her cabinets and came down with another handful of paper. "Ah, here it is. We managed to get a copy of his military service records."

He took the dossier and flipped it open. Nineteen year-old Christopher Alan Redfield, Flight Officer with the Ninety-Fourth Pursuit Squadron, glared at him from the official photograph. Redfield had a scrape on his chin, and one eye was slightly swollen. The thug's expression didn't match the boyish roundness of the face to which it was married, and the boyish face didn't match the officer's forage cap cocked above it. Everything about the man looked stitched together, as if he was assembled from whatever parts were unclaimed.

"…Flew thirty-seven escort sorties with C-Flight… no confirmed kills." He glanced at Hunnigan. "So at least we don't have to worry about him shooting anyone." He leafed through the decidedly lacklustre specifics of Redfield's combat record. "Oh hey, that's fun. He spent six months in the stockade for assaulting a superior officer. They took away his commission. Hello, dishonourable discharge."

"We've decided that Mister Redfield isn't the type who can afford a casino on his own," Hunnigan said.

"So, you want me to sniff around a bit, find out who's bankrolling him."

"We can't think of anyone better suited for the job."

"Well thanks." He handed her back the clipping. "Anything else I should know?"

Hunnigan straightened in her chair. "He has a sister."

Leon raised an eyebrow.


The ride home proved much more comfortable. The cab was newer, cleaner and had heat. The hack —a jumpy little Mexican with jumpy little eyes— took no interest in him, and there was good music on the radio.

And yet he was anything but comfortable. He felt like ten year-old Leon Scott, fidgeting in catechism while the fleeting Chicago summer bloomed outside. He knew he should take the cab back to The Umbrella. He should put on his fresh suit and pound a few Rusty Nails with the afternoon fossils at the lounge. He should eat a T-Bone, have Carlos fetch the Jaguar and do a reconnaissance of Chris Redfield's fine establishment. He definitely should introduce himself to a certain Claire Marie Redfield.

He knew these things, just as he knew that The Lord was in heaven, tallying every transgression, itemising every vice. And in typical Leon Kennedy form, he would ignore these axioms and resign himself to his base urge.

That ivory-skinned masturbation. Every word a lie. Every bone, sinew, and fibre was borne of deceit.

The cab passed a street vendor selling frostbitten flowers in cellophane placentas. Front and center among the sagging roses and chrysanthemums was a newer batch of Asiatic Lilies.

And he knew just where his Asiatic Lily was waiting. Le Papillion lingered on the other side of city limits, just outside of Paradise, peddling her supple narcotic.

"Hey, Champ." Leon tapped the hack's shoulder.

The hack's eyes pinballed to the rearview.

"Change of plans. Drop me off at the corner of Tropicana and Audrie.

The hack threw him a knowing smile before turning the cab southbound.