Giust (Act I)

He’s stepping out of the elevator before the doors have fully opened, ducking his white-hatted head and lifting a white and ivory brogue over the inner doors opening vertically, swinging his shoulders draped in a long white coat to sweep through the outer doors opening side to side. Behind him a big guy and a little guy in black suits and skinny black ties, the little guy on his heels, thinned hair vainly trying to launch a curl between his brow and the top of his skull, a fiendish little basket-box in his hands carved from a single chunk of dark red wood. The big guy gives the chain that opens the doors one last tug and follows them. His beard’s the color of mahogany and bushy enough to bury the knot of his tie.

The floor about them wide open and dark, plastic sheeting hung here and there lofting and popping in occasional gusts of wind. Bright light from caged lamps leaves deep pools of shadow in corners and along the white-patched drywall. On a folding chair sits a man in a soft blue suit his arms folded, his white hair touched with gold in dreadlocks hanging down about his face, brushing his shoulders, “Leir,” he says.

“Viscount Pinabel,” says Mr. Leir, doffing his hat. His face quite young beneath all that white unruly hair. “I hope the season finds you well? Above us ascends a woman of good face and habit; two men strike at her, and their blows bring about comeliness, beauty, but also all manner of strife and treachery, deceit, detractation, and perdition.”

“Charles. Wentworth. Leir,” says Agravante, and plastic sheeting rustles in a sudden gust.