Disclaimer: I don't own legal rights to any of the copyrighted Resident Evil stuff in this story.


Samuel "Dash Punch" Jordan was a very young man who moved like a very old one, thanks to the injuries he'd sustained in the ring, putting an early end to what had been a promising boxing career. But Jordan had at least been smart enough to hang on to his winnings long enough to fulfill his dream of buying his favorite neighborhood bar, putting a fresh coat of paint on everything and staving off its being shuttered. Only barely making enough income to stave it off, though, with the bar still limping on one leg towards certain ruin, even with the local celebrity name now attached.

Samuel was limping himself, hobnobbing with his patrons, still holding on to his Tinseltown worthy good looks, even if his fists of iron weren't quite what they used to be.

Leon was limping, too, as he stumbled into the bar. He clutched his head as he dropped on to the stool next to Ben Bertolucci, barely even looking at him.

"Where's your whistle blower, Kennedy?" Bertolucci asked. "Where's that scoop you promised me?"

Leon ignored the reporter and waved the bartender over instead.

"Whiskey. Rocks. Telephone. Now!"

The bartender was obviously shaken by Leon's tone. They pulled the phone out from behind the bar and propped it in front of Leon before turning around to pour his drink.

"Get me the police… Hello? I'd like to report a homicide… Body in an alleyway about a block away from Dash Punch. Missing a head… Maybe I am pulling your leg, but maybe you should send an officer by to at least check?… Just a concerned citizen."

Leon hung up before the dispatcher could finish their next question and took a sip of his whiskey. Bertolucci was looking at him eagerly, pen and paper in hand.

"How's that for your big scoop?" Leon asked.

"He's on my tab," Bertolucci told the bartender, rising from his stool and looking at the door.

"Just remember you didn't hear it from me."

The reporter sprinted out the door, and Leon slowly sipped his whiskey, mentally getting his story straight for when the cops showed up.

A shiver went down Leon's spine as he felt someone's glare. He turned his head to see a man at a table on the other side of the bar staring blades at him. A man about his height, with pale skin, a cruel face, and an overpriced suit. He had a beautiful woman on either side of him, though neither looked like they enjoyed being there, and a man sitting across from him who was counting out cash and sliding it across the table.

Leon beckoned to the bar's proprietor.

"Hey, Sam! You know who that is?"

"Yeah, I know who that is," Samuel said. "Ricardo Irving. Low level enforcer for the Gionne crime family."

"So you just let any two bit hood push dope in your place?"

Samuel did his best to avoid looking directly at Irving.

"I don't care what people do here," he said. "As long as they keep quiet about it and keep buying drinks. But I don't want any trouble here, and there's about to be trouble if you keep looking at him like that."

"He was looking at me like that first," Leon said.

"Well, I'm not going to kick him out just for looking at you mean," Samuel said. "If I bounced everyone who looked mean, I'd never turn a profit."

Samuel walked away so he was no longer standing between Leon and Irving. The pale man got up from his chair, stepping away from the others at the table and closer to Leon with a snarl on his lips and a sadistic glint in his eyes.

He stopped when the door opened and a plain clothes detective walked in with a uniformed officer at his side.

"Leon. I mighta known it was you. What's this about a decapitated body in the alley?"

Lieutenant Parker Luciani of the homicide department was a heavyset, friendly looking sort in a rumpled tan raincoat, with messy brown hair starting to go gray at the temples and heavily lidded eyes. As he came closer to Leon, his footsteps clumsy and unsteady, Irving retreated to his table, but sat at the opposite side now, keeping his back to the police.

"Not decapitated," Leon said. "That would imply the head was cleanly separated from the body. And it wasn't so much separated as it was, well…"

"Let's talk outside," Parker said.

The tip of his nose and his cheeks were rosy, and his breath smelled of too much red wine.

Leon finished his drink in one swallow and he and Parker both stumbled on unsure legs out of the bar and into the alley where Leon had left John Clemens. Yellow tape ran between the buildings on either side of the alleyway. A tarp covered what was left of the body. Several uniformed police officers swarmed the alley, marking anything that looked like potential evidence and keeping an eye on the empty street in case onlookers appeared for them to shoo away. But the only onlooker around was Ben Bertolucci, who'd already been dragged out of the alleyway and was observing from just a few feet down the road, smoking a cigarette and cleaning his spectacles with his necktie. Just far enough away from the scene of the crime that no one could deny his right to stand there and enjoy his smoke.

Over the body stood Parker's partner, Sgt. Raymond Vester, a beady eyed ginger as thin as Parker was heavy and who looked as sour as Parker looked friendly.

"Never seen anything like it," Vester said. "I've seen my share of blunt force trauma victims. But somebody did a real number on this one. Keep looking around for a brick or hunk of concrete or something, but no sign of the murder weapon yet. Must have been heavy, and the killer must have taken it off with him anyway."

"No weapon," Leon said. "Killer used his bare hands."

One of Parker's narrow eyes seemed to widen as he chomped down on a cheap cigar and struck a match to light it.

"Spill it, Leon."

"Okay. From the top. He called me up. Sounded real rattled. Says someone's trying to kill him. Won't tell me who or why or barely even who he is. Not a damned thing. Just says his name's John Clemens. Sounds paranoid, but I need the dough. He hires me to pick him up a train ticket and babysit him on the way to the station."

Leon left out the part about Clemens having a story he wanted to tell to a reporter. He trusted Bertolucci was smart enough to keep that to himself, too.

"Anyways, we're walking to the station, when some lug in a dark raincoat hits me with a right hook that would make Sam jealous. I see him put his hands around Clemens' head and squeeze. That's when I blacked out. Guy that popped him was big as a barn. Had to be at least seven and a half, maybe even eight, feet tall. No exaggeration. Brute like that's gotta stand out in a crowd."

"You took money from this sap to be his bodyguard, and now he doesn't have a head," Vester said, gently kicking the tarp.

Parker raised an eyebrow and took a soft tug on his cigar.

"So?" Leon said. "He said himself the money was no good to him dead. Besides, I'm practically giving you his killer on a silver platter. Which his hat was as big as, by the way. Jacket as long as he's tall. Didn't get that at any five-and-dime. Had to be custom jobs. Do you need me to do your whole job for you?"

"Eight feet tall, huh?" Vester said.

Leon took a moment to study the detectives' faces.

"You don't believe me?"

"Leon," Parker said. "You're drunk."

"Usually," Leon admitted. "But then again, so are you."

Parker grimaced.

"And you've probably got a concussion."

"I know what I saw," Leon insisted.

"Maybe you had a little too much to drink," Parker said. "Maybe you tripped over your own feet and fell face first into the asphalt. That would explain the…"

He gestured to his own face to suggest Leon's bruises.

"You think I hallucinated this?" Leon said. "Or do you think I just made it all up? You don't think I had anything to do with…?"

He pointed at the body.

"No one's saying that," Parker said.

"But you are currently the only suspect," Vester said.

Parker took a puff of his cigar and blew a smoke ring.

"Let's say it all happened like you say. You're walking along with the vic' when this big guy, this… Let's call him 'Mr. X.' He gets the drop on you, punches you, and you see him bash this guy's head in right before your lights go out. You took the hit pretty hard. You were stunned. It's dark here. Your eyes played tricks on you."

"Clemens is over six feet if he's over an inch, and Mr. X picked him up like a ragdoll."

"You notice anything else about the killer? Anything besides his size?"

"Yeah. His scent. He smelled like a rotting carcass."

Vester rolled his eyes and scoffed.

"Great. First cannibal murders. Now this."

"Cannibal murders?" Leon said, taking his turn raising an incredulous eyebrow.

"Bodies found in the woods near the mountains," Parker said out one corner of his mouth while still chomping on the cigar with the other. "Not much left to them. Looked like something ate them."

"Wild animal?"

"That's what we're all saying. But Doc Birkin got really insulted by that. Swears he can tell the difference between human bites and animal bites when he sees them."

"We'll be getting tips about werewolves howling at the moon next," Vester said and rolled his eyes.

A black and white squad car pulled up, red light flashing and siren blaring, and parked by the alley.

The wiry figure of Albert Wesker emerged from the driver's seat.

"Messy business, huh?" he said, his eyes locked on Leon. "And it looks like we have a witness. Ready to come downtown and answer some questions?"

"I already told Luciani and Vester everything."

"All the same, I'd like us to have a chat at the station," Wesker said. "You can get in the car yourself, or I can handcuff you and stick you in the cooler for obstructing justice. Choice is yours, gumshoe."

With a reluctant shrug, Leon climbed into Wesker's passenger seat while the Captain got back behind the wheel.


Leon was practically asleep at the interrogation room table when Wesker came back in. At his side was police Chief Brian Irons, a diminutive man who'd still look short even standing next to Ashley Graham, with a veiny, bulbous nose and a snowy white walrus mustache. He was as wide as he was short, and none of it muscle. Years of desk-jockeying had made him physically soft. His face was red with rage, in stark contrast to Wesker's usual placid expression.

"I'm sick and tired of you interfering in police business!" Chief Irons hollered, spittle spraying from his lips.

"Luciani and Vester give you my story?" Leon asked.

"Maybe," Wesker purred. "We'd like to hear it from you."

Leon's eyes darted back and forth between the two of them. Maybe it was some kind of trap. But if they were looking for inconsistencies in his story, they wouldn't hear any from him.

"Guy calls me up, real rattled," he said. "Says he needs a train ticket and someone to escort him to the station. We're practically there when a big guy punches my lights out, then grabs my client and pops his head like a pimple. Real big guy. Seven and a half, maybe eight feet tall. Almost three hundred pounds, pure muscle."

"Some imagination on this kid, huh?" Wesker said. He leaned in closer to Leon. "We need you to tell us more about this client of yours."

"I'll tell you everything I know about him," Leon said, putting his hands on the back of his head. "Which is scratch."

"What?" Irons demanded, spraying Leon with spit.

"Scratch. Bupkis. Zilch."

Wesker punched Leon hard in the face, knocking him from the wooden chair to the floor.

"He said his name was John Clemens," Leon said. "And I don't even know if that's his real name. He paid in cash and I never asked to see any ID."

"He didn't say anything about who he worked for?" Irons screamed down at him. "Or why he needed a bodyguard?"

"He didn't even want to give me his name or address," Leon said. "It was like pulling teeth. All I know is he was in a big hurry to get out of Raccoon."

He was up on his hands and knees when Wesker's foot in his stomach put him back flat on his face.

Wesker's lips almost resembled an apologetic smile. He shrugged.

"I tried to give you a friendly warning, kid," he said. "They only get unfriendlier from here."

Irons kicked Leon hard in the ribs, and then Wesker kicked his stomach again, then Irons kicked his face.

Leon grunted in pain.

"Keep your nose out of our business," Irons yelled. "We've got enough on our plate without you gumming us up."

He stomped a foot down on Leon's back.

"This is the last time we ask nicely," Wesker said, stomping down on Leon as well.

Irons' shoe connected with Leon's side, into an old injury, and the pain was unbearable. Tears streamed from Leon's eyes, mingling with blood, and he felt darkness rising to envelop him again.

Irons squatted down, grabbed Leon by the hair, and pulled his head back.

"Keep your nose out of our business," he thundered again. "Do you understand?"

Leon responded by spitting blood in the police chief's face.

The police chief responded by slamming Leon's face in to the floor. Then he and Wesker grabbed a woozy Leon and dragged him to his feet, out of the interrogation room, and through the bull pen towards the station's back entrance.

"Nothing to see here," Wesker called out as all eyes turned to them. "Just taking out some trash."

He opened the door and then Irons let go and Wesker threw Leon across the alley. The light from the station narrowed as Wesker slammed the door behind him. Then Leon was in darkness, lying in garbage, much like his client had spent his final moments.