Red and Black Syndrome

RED AND BLACK SYNDROME (SYNOPSIS) By Daniel Dembrosky Copyright – All Rights Reserved The sensuous Lena and her man-boy gambling partner, Diego, have been on the Mediterranean Riviera for over a month, pecking away winnings from the roulette tables at the Regal Casino in Monte Carlo. Tonight, their plan is to literally take the casino to the cleaners. Diego has the ability to foresee which numbers the roulette ‘pill’ will land in, and with each play hauls in a mountain of five-hundred EURO note chips. At the end of this evening, one could only call it a money massacre. Lena and Diego’s take is well over three-quarters of a million EUROs, or over $600,00. The casino managers scratched their heads as to how this odd pair put such a hole in their coffers. They found no cheating on their security cameras, so they simply shrugged it off as a visit from ‘Lena Lady Luck’. To the side, Lena keeps warning Diego of the inevitable. “The demon is coming to collect his dues tonight. Remember? The reckoning? You know I have the means to protect you.” The dullard Diego replies in his usual narcissistic manner, “It’s my luck that brings in the money. You don’t expect me to believe that possession crap anyway, do ya? Besides, I ain’t afraid of nothin’.” Lena tries to lure Diego to the location of the demon’s reckoning with the suggestion of sex, but the disbelieving Diego can’t even get that right. The demon, Asmodeus, does show up and without Lena’s intervention collects his horrified prize-Diego’s soul. Without a sure-lock gambling partner, Lena packs up after wire-transferring her money home and flies to the New Jersey waterfront where she grew up and lives. She first visits her mother in the intensive care unit of Jersey City Medical Center. The frail woman in bed, hooked to monitors and life-support tubes, lies comatose from a severe beating she took during a brutal street mugging two years before. This is where Lena’s winnings have been going – into round-the-clock medical care. She gazes at the life-support tubes and also sees them as life-draining hoses that have been sucking her own life away. Her rage, frustration, prayers, anxieties, disgust, cynicism and loving tenderness are just a few of the emotions that race through Lena while she helps bathe her practically lifeless mother. Lena’s next stop is to her sister’s mansion on a secluded cul-de-sac in Coventry Woods. She tries to enlist, again, some financial support from her wealthy sister, Lotti, and her husband, Ray. Lena is dismayed over her sister’s disinterest in their mother’s well being. After Lotti politely closes the door behind her, Lena is compelled to handle her mother’s care alone. She visits Ian, the branch manager, at the local bank to discuss her finances, accounting and the payback of unsecured loans he had made for her in the past. “The money wire-transfers came through this morning,” he breathes with relief. “The loans are all satisfied. You’re in the pink! With much to spare no less.” Somewhat relieved for the moment, Lena longs for the romantic nights she spent with Ian not too long ago and is disappointed to learn he is engaged to be married. “I got lonely waiting for you,” he admits. Despite this set-back, Lena leaves knowing that she’s got a great ally in Ian. “I wish you happiness, Ian.” Lena then drops in on an old family friend, the psychic Almaria. The Hungarian gypsy woman is a sorceress who reluctantly bestowed the powerful secrets of Asmodeus and the talisman to Lena when hearing of Lena’s need for money because of her mother. From Almaria’s kitchen, Lena hears the tail end of a palm reading session that Almaria is doing for one of her regulars, the twenty-year old Latino street- scamp, Cid. “Money and success are coming to you head-on,” the Hungarian gypsy woman assures Cid, “but a dark aura – something very dangerous – doesn’t want you to succeed.” As he departs, Cid throws his chest out with false br