"Uh, can I help you with something?"
Liz stopped posing and looked at Will. "Just teaching the folks from Vogue how to Vogue. I couldn't resist. The irony. Skinny jeans are out, fringe is in and ponchos are forever. Make a note of it. C'mon Ad's."
Adonis walked along the event with Liz and both were at utter awe of the idea of just attending the show. It was like they were dreaming. Adonis didn't stick very long to see the models walk down the runway as she had seen March from the corner of her eye. Picking her clutch from the bar she followed the man to his suite. The girl laid down on the bed and inhaled the white drugs that were handed to her on a silver platter. The intoxicating drug coursed through her body giving her an orgasmic rush. Hearing the door open the woman quickly shoved the platter under a pillow. Just as the person came into view Adonis let out a gasp.
"Buttercup?"
The man smirked and picked the girl up before bringing her down in the bed. She couldn't believe it he was here and he was very much alive. Running her hand over his face before kissing him. And again and again. March somewhat grew jealous over the fact that Adonis was performing perverted acts on his bed with a man whom he did not know.
"Stop before you make me stop you."
Getting off of the man, she looked over at March with anger. The man snorted the powder that was offered by Adonis before glancing over at the man.
"Call the cops, man. I don't give a shit. I'm coming out in a Lars Von Trier movie next year."
Adonis looked down at Tristian and laughed at him.
"Really you? God they just hire anyone for movies these days. Buttercup, his movies are a joke. Try Tarantino or Spielberg. It's not that hard, I made it and somehow managed to win an oscar."
James let out an angered groan and smoked from his cigarette. "Please Ms. Bellamy I'm trying to speak to the man. I've made a rule to stay away from junkies, but I'm gonna make an exception with this man. Ms. Bellamy will you please excuse us. You may take whatever you want. But do make yourself aware that I will expect more of you for our weekly rendezvous that I enjoy."
Adonis got dressed and gave Tristian a kiss goodbye and March his drugs back before leaving the room of horrors.
After her intoxicating high from the drugs the pale woman decided to sit at the bar and have a drink. As she sat on the bar she couldn't help but overhear the story Iris had told John.
"Well, if you want to know what this place is about, you have to know about the man who built it-- James Patrick March. He put every atom of evil in his being into building this hotel. March was a self-made man-- oil, coal. But he was new money, shunned by the elites of East Coast society. So he came west, to a land where pedigree meant little if you had a lot of dough. Here he would build a monument to excess and opulence, where he could satisfy his own peculiar appetites. He was a design freak-- art deco, self-taught. He tried to get Julia Morgan to come out and build a place for him, but she demanded that he pay his workers fair wages, so he told her to stuff it. He wasn't just building the finest Hotel Los Angeles had ever seen." Her head lolled off to the side. The older woman looked at Adonis who was slowly dozing off. If I ever want her to shut up I can just tell this story.
"It was a perfectly designed torture chamber. An engineered alibi. Secret chutes and rooms to hide and dispose of the bodies. Hallways with no exits. Walls were lined with asbestos so they could mute the screams. People walked in, just vanished. "No body, no crime," he would say."
Adonis shook the sleep off her and walked behind the counter and made herself a drink before joining Iris with the story. "He had a wife. They say he forced her to watch the torture. No one knows how many died. Rumor has it he averaged three a week. A lot more if he went on a bender. His loyal minion. Ms. Evers, the laundress. She said she could get a stain out of anything for Mr. March using a secret ingredient-- love. That's bullshit though, it's really just bleach and baking soda. He was sloppy with his wet work out in the world. They say somebody turned him in. No one knows who, but I'm betting on the wife. With him gone, she got everything. All those millions. She's a lucky sly bitch. Of course because she's the wife of March she thinks she's think she shit. She's not. She couldn't make me shiver in my pumps. And those outfits? Nobody wears that anymore. She says it's couture but I know that no couture would ever look like that."
John chuckled and took a swig from his glass staring at Adonis and Iris who blankly stared back. "You're in the wrong profession. You should be writing for the movies."
If only it were that easy.
Iris huffed and drank from her glass. While Adonis simply made herself another drink. "Ain't a movie. This place is the real deal. If you want to know what's really going on here, you're gonna have to expand your thinking a bit." He shook his head and began to rise up from his seat. "Well, I've worked every kind of crime-- robbery, homicide, assault. Not one of them were committed by a ghoul or a ghost. People do enough damage without help from the afterlife. Put it on her tab."
If only you knew.
Adonis lifted her eyebrows at John and shrugged her shoulders before taking in a long drag from her cigarette. She called after John as he walked away. "Really? No afterlife. Your gonna be invited to something I got you in baby. Then you'll start believing in ghost stories John. Remember that."
John stopped and went to sit on the stool again. Adonis bit her lip. Iris shakes her head and chuckles along with Adonis. "That was his office. The room you're staying in, If this building has a heart, it's black as the ace of spades, and you're sleeping in it."
Adonis fixed her makeup and gave a wink at the man before lighting another cigarette and walking towards him with an envelope.
"I'll see you on Devil's Night John. I already got your outfit picked out too. Hope you like the color red. You'll be seeing it a lot."
