Mondays is for drinking to the seldom seen kid...
April 28th, 1959
California was supposed to be the greener side of the fence, but it seemed like as far as the eye could see, it was gold spat valleys and an endless covering of dust.
The Infamous Mojave Desert.
Across this last stretch of sand, the modern oasis of Las Vegas.
Jack leaned against the hood of the coupe, a cigarette halfway to his lips.
He never imagined he'd be spending his evenings watching the sun scald scrubland under the shade of some whistle-stop.
"Oi, got er' all filled up."
Jack rubbed his shoulder, kicked sand off the cracked blacktop, "Thanks."
The squat man stumbled up to him, waited "Where're you going?"
It was always the scar that made them ask, that caul of dead tissue covering his left side.
He looked like a monster man, and it always made them ask.
"Las Vegas."
The man whistled through his snaggle-teeth.
"Friend went there once, lost everything."
Jack stamped out the cigarette, rubbed it into the sand, "Looking for my woman "
"Oh-ho-ho- you and everybody else."
Nice guy.
Jack kicked the car door open, struck another match, lit another cigarette.
The desert burned with it.
"Good look finding your lady-friend."
He shrugged and blew a tail of smoke at the blazing sun, "Thanks. Think I'll need it, too."
The man laughed, wiped his sweaty brow with his stained sleeves.
Jack looked ahead: endless seas of sand and cracked roads.
"She's harder to catch than smoke with yer' bare hands."
He followed the road with half a heart and a smoke-stained tongue.
Las Vegas 30 miles.
I've been working on a cocktail called Grounds For Divorce.
Polishing a compass that I hold in my sleeve.
April 30th, 1959
It was a convoluted night ruled by cash and chips already. Vegas was bustling, swollen. Her streets were fat with the poor souls she feasted on, her children dancing high above concrete walkways in black shoes: daughters of the devil's design.
Ada knew them by name, most of them, her flock of wayward miscreants, her protégé and business.
She was 'Madame Vegas' to the underworld, impartial catering to every erotic fantasy imaginable.
Were you rich, poor, a brute or a fey? She didn't discriminate if you had the cash.
Money spoke verity, and people lied.
Les affairs sont les affairs.
The streets were the most disgusting and beautiful from the view of his room, the palatial complex of the nouveaux riche. She was lying on his expensive leather couch like a prize, leaning on her palm.
He let her in regularly. They spoke of business, shuffled cards over entrepreneurship.
A friendship, a competition.
A game that sometimes lead past the threshold of his room and buried them in the sheets.
He seemed to like that kind of game. He was a rather fun lay too.
But as hard as he tried, her mind wouldn't quit her, so it was just fun and nothing more, nothing less.
Wesker perched upon his chair, one leg crossed over his knee, top shirt buttons undone.
Sitting like he owned the world- a god of his own design. He painted the city a new shade of sanguine red.
She quite enjoyed his confidence.
"You let him in." she said, shuffling cards, musing.
"He pays." So blasé, an afterthought. "Spectacularly."
He plucked a small vine of grapes from a bowl dissecting each one individually.
She watched his tongue, thought about the expensive words he knew how to use and did not in her case. He wasn't interested in the issue- though with two of his precious words he could have done something about it.
He could've gotten rid of Jack.
"Like everyone else?" She said, waving an accusatory finger, manicured to perfection.
She put the cards on the glass table for him to take, to inspect. She had deft fingers for the best eye, cheated much easier.
He took the cards, shuffled them himself twice, attention never swayed, eyes on her always.
"Naturally."
She rolled onto her back, hands behind her head.
His apathy was a problem. He had promised her she would never again see that man.
It would gnaw at her in time, she was well aware of that. "Perhaps it would be easier to off him myself?"
It was a half joke: a teasing little tidbit to sample.
He regarded her with a look and a smile.
"Absolutely" he said between the plastic sounds of a hand being dealt to her, "Not."
'Don't you dare.'
Ada sat up, the folds of her dress sticking to the upholstery, cards at her fingertips, resting there.
"Oh come, Albert. I'm only playing."
She didn't even try to lie.
Down comes him on sticks but then he kicks like a horse...
April 28th, 1959, 10:00 PM
The city was a nightmare and a half compared to the desert.
He gave the keys to the valet only after the man insisted twice that no harm would come to his car, and yes, this was normal procedure.
The urge to set the beanpole of a man straight was overwhelming, but he stuffed his hands in the pockets of his old BDU jacket and planted another smoke between his teeth.
After all, he had to keep a relative calm in the shadow of The Umbrella.
There was a crumpled paper in his hand, newsprint caked in dust.
He may have been chasing a shadow, a coincidence.
No such thing as a coincidence when your wife was in the headlines, leaning on the arm of an old friend.
'The Umbrella- King of Casinos'
Ada Wong and Albert Wesker.
Ada Wong.
The woman in the picture, she was thinner and tight around her neck, with wicked swooping lips.
She looked like she had cheated the world and won.
Different name, but the same face, the same elegant face.
Jack walked the steps to the gargantuan glass doors.
It should have had a shadow, the Umbrella, but instead she bathed the stairs in light and neon.
It seemed like witchcraft, all of it.
There's a Chinese Cigarette Case,
And the rest you can keep...
May 2nd, 1959 4:00 AM
She took a final surveillance of the room, tapping the pen against her thigh.
It looked a bit like the end result of a wild herd set loose in the luxury suite, but the one-woman stampede was out of commission for the moment, so she could breathe a little easier.
"Well," she said, naked ankle grazing the corpse of a pillow, "at least it wasn't the window this time, Doll."
Ada switched legs, uncrossed and re-crossed and smeared the floral stationary over her knee in an effort to make a smoother surface.
'Dear Albert…'
She paused as the ink bloomed at the cusps of her letters.
Excella sniffled in her sleep, twitched and sent a mass of pillow down to the carpet.
What a mess…
He was probably parading about again.
The First Woman Dealer on the Strip, the headlines loved it with a snap of her simple magnetic smile.
A sort of Mona Lisa for the common man.
He would be blinding her with lights and kissing the soul right out of her. That Valentine girl would join the stars for just a moment under his tongue.
It almost made her kind of miss pretending.
Almost but not quite.
Being stuck in a room with this sorry, stupid creature for hours on end was working on her nerves- and after that spectacular show of how few good nerves she could hit, the bad ones were positively fuming.
She chewed her lip, mourned the loss of her traditional coat of lipstick (Her fancy of the month, Crushed Rose Scarlet) and added that on her list of things she shouldbe compensated for.
Ada tossed the pen and paper back on the nightstand. Written word was unnecessary.
Her leaving was enough to make a statement to the boss, a rather blatant "sleep with your own problems".
She slipped her dress back on, tied the halter and grieved the rips in the hem.
This act felt too cheap, and was as depressing as it was annoying.
She hated the reminder that she was, in essence, a glorified whore, and heknew this.
Not even a prostitute- her darlings were paid.
She looked between the unconscious girl on the bed, poor little fool, and the scattered possessions about, decided that it was quite unfair to be entertaining Albert's guest without benefit.
Ada kicked through scattered feathers and smashed complementary chocolates, dug out the survivor and admired it.
Of course Excella would bring something so posh- Dyed Russian Sable. Black chic fur with hanging sleeves and stone gray trim.
The price tag on this had to have been a good forty grand.
"Spoiled brat."
She slid the coat over her back and sunk into the folds, regaining a sliver of her pride in that moment. The trim kissed her shoulders, felt cleaner than her skin did.
This was payment enough.
There's a hole in my neighborhood
Down which of late I cannot help but fall..
April 28th, 1959
They leaned over the balcony and watched the masses below, draped like tapestries.
"Are you coming tonight?"
"Not tonight."
He kissed her shoulder and she chuckled, "Still no."
The casino below was bustling, and there were a slew of things to be done and said. It was such a beautiful night...
Leon straightened up, cocked his hat back a fraction and sighed through his teeth. The music started again, floating through the room.
Ada smiled, closed her eyes, captured that moment when the jazz and the energy seemed to collide.
"Mm…"
Her smile was infectious "Thinking something?"
Always. She was a dreamer in the perfect dream, lights and sound and carpets painted with chips and pennies.
"It's a fabulous night, handsome."
She smirked, pointed at a couple wandering through the crowd.
"You see them?"
"Who?"
"The ones in brown- ooh, seems like they're lost again. Some people just can't ever find their way."
He strained his eyes; "No, what're you talking about?" pulled the brim of his hat up.
She turned his chin, pointed again, "The one with the horrible hat and the short broad."
"I still don't see them."
She rolled her eyes, "Well that makes one of us luckier than the other."
"How come?"
"He's a horrible bedfellow, just as bad as he looks."
He grimaced, "Well I see him now."
She started laughing into her hand, a giddy trill "You'd believe me for anything, wouldn't you?"
Leon huffed, blew the bangs out of his eyes.
"You're a horrible woman."
She laughed some more, fingers walking the railing up his arm.
"Don't you have somewhere to be?" she asked, sliding the hat off his head.
"Hey- "
She popped the fedora on and it drooped, casting her face in shadow "I like your hat."
He snatched it back, twirled it in his fingers and she smiled at the trick.
"Audience loves the hat" He said, cocking it to the side.
"Skeddaddle, rascal. The boss won't like you late. Go- shoo."
He sighed, pulled her in for a kiss and everything was perfect. She couldn't stop grinning as the ol' crazy fingers in the lounge spilled another round of keys and the two-bit gamblers damned everything to Hell again and again. Sore losers and priceless expressions all around.
She couldn't stop that pleasured smirk of hers, all lips, no teeth.
"Ada, wait, I'll see you later?"
She felt sorry for him, the man with pretty blue eyes and that damned black hat. He liked to hold his tongue behind his teeth and frame it with Nail after Nail, that clever boy.
Not a gangster's slur about him, but the good boys and girls of Sin City loved this man.
The kiss lingered, sweet mix of alcohol and lips, and it was perfect for the moment.
"Not tonight. Go already! Vite, vite!"
She pushed him off, shooed him, and laughed like a mockingbird, turned her back to watch the daily unfolding of the Umbrella.
There's a hole in my neighborhood
Down which of late I cannot help but fall.
It didn't take long to notice the woman after she wandered in.
A curious thing with a walk about her- and Ada swore she saw her before.
She saw this woman somewhere on the print of a paper, sandwiched between the headlines, a black and white photo... a somebody.
There were a lot of somebodies in Vegas- but not quite this kind of somebody.
A somebody who didn't want to be seen by anybody, by the looks of it.
But the Umbrella was alive.
It had eyes and ears and the poor girl couldn't hide if she tried.
Ada squeezed the balcony railing as this mysterious somebody looked up at her.
A face from the newspapers was staring at her, startled.How darling.
A fresh face, fresh lipstick- big beautiful blue eyes.
Red hair and fair skin- the pictures couldn't live up to something this colorful and exciting. She had seen that face before...
A hot off the press star in the spotlight. A singer? A dancer?
'Who are you, sweetheart?'
She smiled back and waved, elegant gesture-please cast the bright lights upon this fair lady...
Claire Redfield looked away, startled, and when she dared to look back..
There wasn't a soul there.
Mondays is for drinking to the seldom seen kid.
Jack wasn't sure if it was the smell or the clusters of people pulsing about tables over and over again, but he was sure he had dreams that made more sense than this did.
And his dreams were mostly nightmares.
What was he expecting... following some month old headline and a photograph?
A miracle, maybe.
A miracle sounded beautiful right about now.
The crowd undulated, people stared and moved on, some too drunk to care about the brute man, but most too preoccupied with winning or losing.
He tipped his head back, looked over the throng.
He wasn't sure what he was looking for, what he expected.
But what he got was an eyeful.
A woman was perched on a gold-railing, her body wrapped in folds of red and satin.
A woman he knew- he didn't think he'd see.
His body felt numbed. He wondered if she saw him- a gaping man staring skyward.
He wasn't sure what he expected.
She turned from her perch, a desert mirage.
He had to follow.
Even if it wasn't her; but it was!
The woman with devil's eyes.
There's this whispering of jokers doing flesh by the pound
To a chorus of supposes from the little town whores.
There'll be twisted karaoke at the Aniseed Lounge...
Things were sprightly, and pockets were slit by the hundreds. Everyone seemed in the mood to bet it all.
"I usually know everyone around, you know?"
The woman looked up from her drink, pulled from isolation.
She was a picture come to life with rose-tinted cheeks.
Ada smiled again, slithered over the chair beside her "What's your name, Doll?"
Big blue eyes went to her drink, returned to the woman spilled like red paint beside her.
"Claire... Claire... er... yeah, just Claire."
'Claire' took to her drink like there was no other place she'd rather be. The name sounded familiar and fake all the same.
"Just Claire. Clear, light. What a lovely name."
It fit those eyes. Like illuminated windows, staring at her again.
"...Thanks. And who are you if you know everybody?"
Ada's fingers strung like spider legs, toying with Claire's bangs, invasive.
Claire looked like a petrified little rabbit clinging to some pungent poison in a cup.
"Well, I am..."
She stopped before she started.
Something caught her tongue like a snare and she froze.
"- Unfortunately I have to go."
Claire's knuckles were white around her glass, "Wait, what?"
"Deep apologies, Doll", she said, taking her hand as she stood and giving her knuckles a quick, sticky peck, "seems like I'm caught."
Claire jumped like it burned, "What?"
Ada moved like a red shadow over water.
One sift of the crowd and her color was swallowed up, she disappeared in the lights.
And I'll bring you further roses
But it does you no good.
He went after her, down the street around the block.
Warped shadow puncturing the floods of lights until there wasn't a street to see.
"Wait."
She was halfway down the alley, like some terrible creature draped in red and shadows.
But she paused in step, a final click from the scarlet talons peeping out from her skirt.
"What-," he started, but how could he finish? What could he say.
She turned her head, her slender jaw tensed.
"What are you doing here...? Why are you here?"
She said nothing in return, muted.
"Answer me!"
His voice was saturated with sandpaper and the kisses of hundreds of cigarettes.
"I'm going home. You should do the same, Jack."
Her tone made his head throb.
Dear God it was her.
"Go home?"
At a loss, he strung air with his fingers.
"It's not safe at night, you really should go."
"Years-! All this time!"
She sighed, velvet and sin, "You should go home Jack."
He called her name, barked it down the alley.
She didn't respond.
And it does me no good
She fled to the crossroads, her niche with rose-painted glass and illicit children.
He was still wearing his ring, her ring.
Their ring, fused to his mutilated hand like some lonely little trophy.
The air felt heavier, harder to breathe.
Her feet were sore as she crossed the threshold into Le Paplion.
"Madame! Madame- … are you okay?"
Rebecca came flying down the hall, lovely little Rebecca, flustered and red in the face and practically tripping over her own gangly legs.
Ada pressed her hand to her chest to stop the racing there.
Don't think about it, not now.
"Yes, sweetheart?"
Pitch perfect paramour ready to call the troops back to order.
Rebecca looked worried.
"I'm alright."
"You're shivering..."
"Oh? Oh, I am. It must be cold."
She slid behind the counter, room keys, pricing, documents.
"Are you sure-"
The Madame waved her off, "Go, darling. Tonight is a busy night. I'm here now."
Rebecca stood there, awkward and shy to the matron, the queen.
She didn't look well, their Madame.
"Go, sweetheart, I'm fine."
Ada folded her hands, her claws as she left back into place and held them.
She was shaking.
A nightmare man from seemingly nowhere- one eye milky and blind the other just as listless.
What a horrible image.
The door slid open, the scent of perfume seeped out.
Clients.
Don't think about it, not now.
She spread her lips in that toothless red smile and balanced on her heels.
"Why hello there."
There was much to do, and the night was young.
And it does you no good
May 2nd, 1959, Midnight
It took a minute to pour out rich man's drug on a reflective serving tray, and about thirty seconds to cut it into a long thin line with the edge of Excella's beret.
She wasn't offered any, and she didn't ask.
In thirty seconds she ended up cradling the woman's head in her lap as the floodgates intensified into a half mad ramble complete with the foreign language narrative.
It was a pity it wasn't complete with subtitles.
Ada continued to run her fingers through the woman's matted hair, dissecting the bits and pieces of Italian and English she sputtered out. The bed was covered in discarded jewelry and a puddle of Excella.
"Did I cut you too much... Hmm..."
Excella may or may not have processed the sentence, but she laughed like a loon into the dress against her cheek, grabbed fistfuls of it.
"You're in the papers." she said, giddy.
Hysterical.
Ada combed through her hair, untangled knots. She had such gorgeous features and not any a single idea how to use them.
She smelled like luxury and naivety, vanilla and some foreign perfume- a bit disappointing really.
"If they're lucky enough to catch me, yes."
Ada wondered, looking at her now- what her skin smelled like under the bleary red eyes and bleeding makeup.
Excella rolled on her back, stretched her legs and her arms.
She was showing off, down to the gloss swerve of her lip.
"What are you going to do?"
"About what, Doll?"
Excella was smiling, her eyes were wide and red.A big smear of wax and powder clinging to her.
She smirked and leaned up, kissed the Madame on the cheek.
Ada set her jaw.
The lipstick stains were dirty marks.
"Albert. You're old," she laughed like it was the finest humor "and he needs me."
It took the poise of her persona not to stand and let the crooked girl drop right back into her own pity party. Smashed expensive objects and thousands of dollars of penthouse trauma.
"Oh hush, that's so rude of you, you creature."
She said it as sweetly as she could, sans a kick to the face and with a playful little toss of her hair.
Excella kissed her other cheek, left a mark this time, "You aren't as pretty."
"As you, belle donna? Is that how you say it?"
Another fit of giggles and the remark that she should stick to her own language.
Excella's nails went through her dress, she laughed and laughed.
"He'll put that whore in your house after."
Ada scoffed "I certainly hope not. She's hardly charming. Won't even give me the time of day."
"Maybe he can build another dirty place for the slut?"
Ada tapped her nails against the chair arm "well I always did say a doghouse would be perfect in the back. It'll add such a je ne sais quoi!"
More giddy, loonish laughter. Her accent spilled so heavily over her words it was hard to understand.
Another kiss, next to her mouth.
One of those nights.
"Not here! Tu sei stupido!"
Ada rolled her eyes "I am, I am. The bottom of the sea, then?"
The kiss was on her lips, annoyingly sticky.
"Just down the road. It's perfect. He's buying it anyways, for me. I'll build a brand new house for all of you. He is mine."
Ada pulled back, sighed. She was too tired for this.
To her chagrin, the woman wasn't.
Another kiss and Ada damned the man who wasn't there at the cab hours ago.
The man who was playing in the streets with some blonde cardshark- a dime a dozen.
The absent man who convinced his mistress that she was property.
There's a hole in my neighborhood
Down which of late I cannot help but fall.
The watercolor sky was gray and black, a day gone by and an entire cycle had slipped through her fingers.
Vegas had lived and died again, and she wasn't there to do the same.
She wanted to turn the clock back, see the play by play; scene by scene that she missed on account of something that cost more to maintain than she felt necessary.
It was not her job to be the babysitter of Wesker's leftovers.
She shouldn't have to be walking down the street and loathing the migraine behind her eyes and the indent of someone's sticky teeth on her thigh.
In retrospect, perhaps she should have divided that stuff a little more carefully….
She smirked.
'Clumsy me.'
And the long road home didn't seem half as bad anymore when she was laughing alone at her little joke.
There's a hole in my neighborhood
Down which of late I cannot help but fall.
Despite the exhaustion, she kept walking, down for a drink in the thick rich coat- where no one would see her take a slip of something potent to kick her eyelids shut and chase the worries away.
It wasn't quite proper for her; she did have an image to uphold.
The Sahara after human hours still drew handfuls of eager wanderers.
Ada pulled the ruffled collar closer to her neck, slipped through the lit porte-cochere arch with a group of eager tourists.
The music was slow and sultry, hanging on the air.
People were jabbering on as if the hour wasn't of consequence.
"-I think she was great."
"You think everyone with a pair of tits is great."
"Redfield though, she's got some talent."
"Seems like she's losing it though."
Ada listened, tagging along behind a jovial bunch of misfits and drunkards.
Redfield, now that was a name worth noting.
She filtered through a crowd and a half, to the Kasbah Lounge and the song of an old brittle pianist on platform stage.
It seemed like a funeral drone, tables and chairs a mockery of a graveyard, so few occupied tonight.
A dollar drink and a quiet lounge, it was the slow side of the city that was never seen in advertisement.
This was Las Vegas flavored peace as she leaned over the mini-bar counter, pinched an Atomic Cocktail by the glass neck, and settled into a chair.
Hail the coming of yet another day and sleepless night with the rest of the Vegas owls.
An old ragged man in the corner, beaten down by the night, a pair of foolish lovers clinging to their drinks, her, and a sputter of green in the corner.
A sputter of green with red hair.
Ada stood the moment she saw it, weaved between empty chairs to the table.
"Hey, Doll."
Claire jumped.
Her face was streaked, tired and worn, a bottle at her table and a well-used glass.
Poor thing was trapped in a tight emerald mermaid dress, hair a veil for her face.
Ada slid onto the seat, took a long look. "Rough night?"
Claire crossed her arms and pouted, flushed and sad- indigent, "No."
An employee interrupted, asked "Miss Redfield" if she wanted another.
Ada answered for her.
"Two."
Claire glared.
"What do you want?"
Redfield, now that's a name to remember…
"You look sad, Darling. Seemed like you needed another."
Claire huffed and downed the rest of her glass, lips pale and swollen. She drank the gloss right off her lips.
"I don't even know you."
"Does that matter? It's Vegas, Claire, baby."
Claire shrugged, waved at whoever set a glass in front of her nose and relished in the pause.
Ada looked at the stage, sunk into the furs and sipped the new poison.
"You sing?" she asked.
Claire shook her head, "Yeah", stared at the table.
She looked like she wanted to cry, massive blue eyes, beautiful lips.
Singing the blues all day without one word.
"Hey… want to come with me? Up to the lively side of the world, sweetheart?"
"Just leave me alone."
Ada leaned forward, took her thin fingers and kissed her palm. She was drunk enough for it to work.
Claire Redfield, her face from the papers. A somebody.
"Come on, honey. No more drinks- just Vegas and us. It'll be better than this gloomy old dive…" She smiled, no teeth, exhausted. "No silly men around to bother you."
Claire snorted.
"They must be crawling all over you all the time, you poor thing."
She got a smile out of her and a drunken little giggle.
"…Alright."
Wesker would want her to squeeze the woman dry.
Claire Redfield, sister of Chris Redfield.
Ada took her hand, helped her to her feet, and held her like a trump card.
Claire buried her face in the fur coat as if it would help her walk.
There's a hole in my neighborhood
Down which of late I cannot help but fall.
Fate, luck, or karmic intervention, that was Vegas, and Lady Luck was with her at the sunrise.
As they walked for a cab, it seemed like forever and she swore Claire was leading them wrong on purpose, the road gave way.
It was a big empty lot, sanctioned off with wire fence, and she wouldn't have noticed it.
Claire was losing every inch of coordination.
"Everybody says they're gonna build here" she slurred.
'Just down the road. It's perfect.'
Ada paused in step, morning fog hanging on her feet.
The sun was peaking over the desert, catching the world on fire.
She threaded her fingers through the links of the fence, stared, Claire stumbling after her.
"What is it?"
"…It's brilliant." Ada said, her words floating.
"What's brilliant?"
She could see something there, a mirage of the desert, a dream, a hope.
A land on fire kissing a shadow city- god it was beautiful.
She needed to ask, to know and learn for sure- but there was something there.
"What are you doing?"
Ada took her by the shoulders. The world was waves of Vegas, Vegas…
Another game was afoot.
She brought her close and kissed her.
Albert would've wanted her to bring her back- to play her dry.
Ada decided, lips locked with a Redfield, that he'd only get what she allowed him to get.
And she was going to take what she wanted if he wanted it.
If he wasn't interested in holding his promises, neither was she.
Ada pulled away, lips drenched in her kiss.
She felt light-headed and faint, in love all over again, sick and alive all at once.
Claire gasped, fell against her, hopelessly lost, holding a devil.
And the devil along with Vegas, held her up as the world lit up all over again.
Someday we'll be drinking with the seldom seen kid.