Imagine a realm of darkness all the time, where vision is always illusory, and the ground doesn’t stop to move. Where pain is one’s highest goal, masked as novel sensation, and suffering is ever abound. There, on stone pillars, stand little princes torturing their “toys”—bending and contorting themselves in an excess of human impulse–personified in a primordial urge to desire beyond. This semblance of a “persona” whose weight they bare on their strained backs, is a false image. And the princes are its slaves—chasing until they lack substance, and always in misery of self-destruction. Never satisfied, though sheltered in their own little worlds on their own little islands, where they are lonely masters.
Now imagine a woman ecstatic and filled with joyful exuberance—former self: ____ _____—crying with blissful laughter in celebration. Possibly the best introduction to the eternal chapter. And then—out go the lights. Submerged in a pulsing thump in darkness that feels, sees, and hears it all. The thumping pulse firing a subtlety chaotic and complex rhythm unfathomable to the human mind. The body can be a strange prison. Blood flowing over the walls of words written in the pink coral sand betwixt the flickering of a steady flame.
The cube is spinning on its vertex wondering how’d we break and how will we return from the darkest night and through, until the Light. We know the next life must be greater, because the one we see before our eyes looks like it deserves a good finale…
Sunday evening (Boris Baldwin)
Gina had become bored with it all—and so all that was left were passing scents and people she was afraid of losing, but whom she struggled to live for without any cynicism—and others still who gave up, and whom she never really needed. She knew she wanted to smell something still sweet, which she had previously known and had forgotten about. She ponders as she stares deeply into a flame that lights a cigarette on the corner in the greasy feeling, bustling, breadwinner neighborhood of Midtown Goethals, on the West Side—eight blocks north-west of the theater district. As usual, business is in session.
It’s early evening and the weather’s fine. People pass by in a rush in their own worlds. Gina Corso, PI, inhales that autumn air smell mixed with smoke and lamb shawarma as she stares up at a great, ten-story, neoclassical combination of gothic revival and twelfth century romanesque estate. It’s known as The Baldwin Museum of Things—a jewel of “post-modern” Midtown. She stands in the last of daylight in a one-piece, mid-cut, black dress-skirt over long black stockings. On her feet, she wears reddish-brown combat boots to match her puffy-armed red dress-shirt, with its light, black sweater-vest and a light-weight, red leather trench-coat over that. She wears light-framed transitional lensed eyeglasses, and a small, stylish black book bag, large enough to carry a small assortment of “city-travel necessities”—a mask, a phone connected to the wireless headphones in her ears, hand-sanitizer, tic-tacs and an extra pair of eye-glasses. She’s pretty in the face, five-foot six and thin, though well-shaped, with distinct cheek-bones, a clear, olive to light-beige complexion, curly dark-brown hair, and light-brown eyes with a hint of orangey-yellow. Her lips are full and pink, and her skin is bare of make-up.
Boris Baldwin has summoned her services, and so Gina is allowed to take the service elevator–right past the doorman and all the way up. The building feels like a castle for Gina—Boris being a member of the reputable Baldwin Family—one of the five families who run Goethals City. Boris’ palace sits above the first five floors of the museum of art and culture and a floor above the sixth floor for administration. Gina is on her way to the fourth floor of Baldwin’s home, which is the top floor of the building and his office space. She’s listening to the latter portion of The Good, The Bad and the Leftover Crack by none other than the Leftovercrack—all the way up to the reggae-dub outro, and when the bell ‘dings’ the doors open. Gina takes off her book bag and places the headphones in the same compartment with the cellphone she’s streaming from. She now finds herself somewhere in the midst of Flower Duet From Lakme as performed by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. Boris greets her at the door, “I’ve been waiting. Please, come in. Time is of the essence,” he insists. The middle-aged, gray-haired man dons a dark-gray suit with a black sweater beneath the jacket, and his tan is leaning toward palish. He’s over six-feet and has a thick, handlebar mustache which comes to a point on either side. “You’re privileged Miss Corso,” he assures Gina in his deep, mildly rasped, snobby tone, as he turns and leads her beyond the waiting room hall into a wide open space where he keeps his private collection of worldly artifacts and rare books in a giant glass case. “Very few people have ever set foot in here,” he informs her as she proceeds to the glass doorway.
“No offense,” she responds in her subtle Goethals City accent though stressing the er, “but I’m not much of an antique-er myself.” She turns and walks to the window wall to look down at the busy traffic and the lights of the city night all around. She marvels at the skyscrapers above the hustle and bustle all in silence through glass. “Kind of a late call. Figured it must be urgent right?” She turns back to Boris.
“You don’t like me do you?” asks Boris.
“I mean, do I really have to?” she replies, “You’re a client and you pay well.”
“Well, there’s nothing more reliable than a woman who’s loyalty can be bought for cold hard cash. Come. Allow me to debrief you about this urgent matter,” he insists as he types the key code on the little, beeping steel panel mounted to the glass floor pillar beside the collection case. It’s chiseled to resemble a natural stone formation. The glass doors part like elevator doors and Gina follows behind Boris to the prize of his trophies. In the middle of the glass corridor, between some African and Asian tribal dolls and ancient swords looted by colonizers, is an artfully designed, shiny, lacquered, gold on brown painted box. It sits on its vertex atop a slowly spinning, gold-colored, cone shaped display made of glass and ceramic, and it’s small enough to fit in Gina’s palm.
“What’s this, a prehistoric Rubik’s cube?” Gina flippantly queries.
“This my sarcastic little detective, is the Asmodeus Cube. Or at least its likeness”.
“It’s a fake?”
“Precisely.”
“Why would you keep a fake?” she wonders.
“Well, it’s an exact replica. Virtually identical in appearance, but fake none the less. It’s still extremely rare and old. Few have even seen one in person.”
“May I?” she asks with her hands out toward the box.
“Be gentle,” he replies as Flower Duet suddenly ends and there’s silence.
Gina picks up the cube to examine it. Each of its six sides is dressed with a carefully etched symbol, which at first appear to be but abstract shapes. But upon closer inspection, she comes to recognize objects from the world she’s in: a tree with many branches, some sort of fruit with five stems, a human heart, a human hand grasping a lightning bolt, a flower with three sepals and three petals, and an ankh. “It’s made of wood,” she remarks.
“And lacquer,” he adds, “The real one, according to legend, was made from human fat and bone, and some third mysterious material from another dimension. A realm of smokeless fire. Powered by magic.”
Gina briefly glances over at Boris with a roll of the eyes. He’s staring down at the box as if it were the most beautiful thing he’d ever laid eyes on. “Are you familiar with the occult?” he asks.
“The dark arts. Of course. I’m a level thirty battle mage in Elder Scrolls Online,” she replies with a smirk.
“Well this is a different kind of game. The original was created by Eighteenth-Century French elites. Servants of the deity Asmodeus. Legend has it they use to make regular ritual contact with the demon via human sacrifice. Then they created the cube as a key to his dimension, stream-lining the ritual.”
Boris pauses as he noticed Gina is preoccupied. Gina finally figures out how to press the center button to twist and reform the box into new and interesting shapes. “Ah, a puzzle. Cool,” she remarks.
“Solve the puzzle and gain a wish from the genie. They say the demon can offer you your wildest dreams and most carnal desires. Power, sensation, knowledge—the world in the palm of your hand.”
“Where’d ya get it?” she asks.
“I acquired this piece from the likes of Antoine Jourdain.”
“The celebrity chef?”
“Correct. He was an avid collector aside from his culinary interests. He sold me this piece only a week before he was found dead in his apartment in Bucharest. Suicide.”
“So I heard,” Gina replies with a pause as she turns to Boris. Then turning back to the cube she says “Good timing.”
“He claimed it had been passed down from his ancestors, whom he believed had made it. He tracked it down himself as it had been lost to his family for generations. It appears however that what he sold me was only an artfully crafted replica, while the real thing remains at large. Do you believe in the supernatural Miss Corso?”
“I believe in my percentage,” she replies as she turns her attention back from the cube to Boris. She then turns to the spinning funnel display to put it back, but Boris insists she “Keep it.” She turns back to Boris and asks, “What is it you want from me Baldwin?”
“I want you to find the real thing. Trace Jourdain’s last steps. I believe you’ll find it somewhere in Bucharest if you leave soon.”
“Sounds like an expensive trip.”
Boris turns to exit the glass case without saying a word. Gina turns briefly back to the display before placing the cube into her bag. She then turns and follows Boris out. He makes a right toward a desk he set up by the window wall. And from the desk, he picks up a manila envelope and turns to hand it to Gina. “I believe this should cover your hotel and per diem for the next week,” Boris explains as Gina opens the envelope, “An international cell-phone and a fifty-percent advance.”
Gina pulls out the check and takes a brief look before placing it back in the envelope. “Why don’t you just hire someone in Europe?” she asks.
“I need someone I can trust,” Baldwin reflects as he begins making his way back toward the elevator, “and you’re amongst the best in your profession—unnerved and willing to go that extra distance. Plus, we have history.”
“Yeah, blackmailers and unfaithful lovers. This sounds a bit more—technical. Maybe even dangerous,” she remarks as she follows behind him.
“You like danger. It’s part of the fun isn’t it?”
She nods her head to the right in semi-agreement as she muses “The cube seems real enough to me. How do you even know it’s fake? Looks—old like you said. Good quality wood…” she reflects as Boris abruptly halts in his path to swiftly spin around to Gina and interject “But something’s wrong.”
Gina is startled by the sudden stall, but as she returns his glance, she smirks and replies “You mean the devil won’t show up?”
Boris stares back unamused as he responds “If there isn’t another, and the story turns out to be bogus, I’ll pay you the other half and your work will be done. If however you find it, I need you to get it for me at any cost. Never-mind how.”
“Ooo—Never-mind how sounds illegal,” replies Gina—now looking up at Boris and straight in the eye.
“I’m sure it wouldn’t be your first time doing something illegal now would it?”
“Not that illegal,” she responds.
“Hence the size of the check. I’ve already had my assistant arrange for you to meet Jourdain’s wife tomorrow afternoon. Find out what you can.”
“The movie-star?”
“Aria Vittoria Nicoletta Rossi. Born and raised Valentina Russo in the Italian city of Scafati, Provincia di Salerno.”
“So you’ve been doing your own detective work.”
“She thinks Antoine was killed. She’s been ranting about it all over the papers. She doesn’t know who employed you, and I expect you’ll keep it that way. She’ll be happy to find someone looking into the tragedy, so don’t mention the box unless she does. Understood?” Gina nods as Boris presses the elevator button. He turns to Gina and remarks, “I have the utmost faith in you Gina. I expect your work will be satisfying as usual.” The elevator doors open and Gina steps aboard looking Boris in the eye one more time as the doors close goodnight.
