Say the Word

by Julie Johnson

  The valet, a huge man clothed in a familiar black t-shirt with scrawling green print, led me around the front of the hood and handed me off to Sebastian, who was standing at the curb waiting for me. I slid my hand into the crook of his extended arm and smoothed my face into a mask of serenity. Summoning an air of confidence I certainly didn’t feel, I matched Bash stride for stride as we made our way up the elaborate marble stairway outside the towering four-story building. It looked imperial — like some odd mix between a traditional English estate and a gothic French cathedral leftover from ancient times. Not wanting to seem like a naive, wide-eyed tourist, I only allowed myself a quick glance upward, but it was enough to note that there were several turrets and multi-tiered gables ornamenting the stone-shingled roof. I even thought I spotted a baleful gargoyle or two, but was forced to look away before I could make out a clear image. The only flaws in the building’s elegant, old-fashioned veneer were the security cameras — sleek, black electronic eyes trained on the stairwell and valet entrance, no doubt there to alert anyone inside about approaching visitors.

  The ornate gilded doors loomed before us, at least fifteen feet tall. We reached the top step and waited for several seconds. When nothing happened, Bash shrugged and extended his hand to take hold of the right door handle. Freezing in simultaneous alarm, we shared a quick glance as the sound of lock-bars unbolting and the loud creak of grating hinges rang out in the night. The doors swung inward, revealing a well-adorned atrium of priceless antique furniture pieces and elaborate wall sconces. At the far side of the hall, a huge grand staircase — at least twenty feet across, and solid marble from the looks of it — dominated the wall space and presumably led up to the second floor, though at the moment it was cordoned off with red velvet ropes. A resplendent chandelier in tiers of gold, glass, and light hung from the ceiling, its statement unmissable: this place we’d come to was a haven for the truly wealthy.

  We stepped inside hesitantly, unsure how to proceed. My grip tightened on Sebastian’s arm as my eyes swept the hall, searching for any living beings and finding none. The click of my heels against the gold-veined marble was the only noise to be heard in the hushed hall, until the delicate clearing of a throat sounded several feet to our left.

  Standing in the shadows, so still I’d missed him in my initial scan of the hall, was a well-dressed, diminutive man in a tuxedo. He stepped fully forward into the light, and bowed — yes, bowed — slightly at the waist.

  “Mr. Covington,” he greeted, turning his head from Sebastian to me. “Mademoiselle.”

  “Hello,” I stammered nervously. Bash pressed his hip firmly against mine in a warning gesture that told me I’d already broken one of his rules by speaking and that he was in no way pleased by it. I cringed internally — I knew I’d messed up. But I challenge anyone to remain calm and collected when a 5’2” butler wearing an ultra-sleek, near-invisible electronic earpiece like he’s in the CIA or something bows to you as if you’re the freaking Duchess of Cambridge.

  “It’s our pleasure to receive you, sir. My name is Charles, one of the concierge’s at your service here.”

  I looked at Bash, wondering if he’d called ahead to inform them of our visit, but his face showed nothing but surprise. I’m not sure which alternative was more disturbing — the idea that they’d known we were coming or the thought that they’d recognized Sebastian on sight as soon as we’d exited his car.

  “It’s your first time here, correct?” Charles asked.

  Bash nodded.

  “Wonderful, sir.” Charles raised an open-palmed hand and gestured toward a set of doors on the left side of the atrium. “If you’ll follow me, I will gladly show you and your guest to the East Parlor. You are, of course, free to explore the first floor at your leisure, but I’ve found the parlor to be a preferred starting point for many of our newer members.”

  I felt my brows shoot up on my forehead involuntarily and had to make a conscious effort to lower them back down to their normal heights. It seemed we hadn’t just crossed a threshold — we’d been transported into an entirely new world of impeccable manners, spotless clothing, and seamless servitude. A place where servants bowed and used titles, avoided eye contact and catered to your every wish.

  I wanted instantly to leave.

  Bash caught my eye as we crossed the room, following Charles to the parlor. He nodded slightly in reassurance, reaching up to squeeze my hand where it lay on his arm. Relax, he mouthed at me. Breathe.

  I smiled weakly at him and turned my face forward.

  When we reached the doors, Charles ushered us into a sedate room decorated entirely in green hues. The carpets were the deepest shade of emerald, the silk curtains and brocade couches stitched with fabrics of jade and cream. Even the wall tapestries and various gold-framed art pieces — one of which looked suspiciously like a Picasso — had been carefully selected to complement the room’s viridescent theme. Each detail — from the small reading lamps illuminating the space by each plush chair to the vast, ornamental bookcase that took up the entire far wall, filled with more tomes than one could read in a lifetime — had been carefully planned and meticulously looked after to create an environment fit for kings.

  “The door to your right leads to the Billiard Room and connects through to the rest of the first floor chambers. On your left, you’ll find a small sitting room with light refreshments and desserts. Many of our members congregate there in the earlier evening hours, as we have a full dining service until eight o’clock.” Charles glanced at his watch. “You’ve just missed that, I’m afraid. Though there are fresh hors d’oeuvres served hourly until midnight.”

  “And the upper floors?” Bash asked.

  Charles’ composure didn’t falter, though the skin around his eyes tightened in the tiniest show of tension when he heard Bash’s question. “Ah, I’m afraid they’re undergoing some renovation. At present, they must remain out of bounds while you are exploring. I do hope you understand, sir.”

  “Of course,” Bash agreed readily. I felt my heart rate begin to quicken.

  “Should you need anything at all, please simply press the blue button on the panel by the door. Each room is equipped with a similar one,” Charles said, executing yet another perfect bow before backing out of the room and closing the doors behind him as he went.

  “Think he’ll bring us a map if we ask real nice?” I whispered as the doors clicked closed. This place was huge — we’d never find what we were looking for in one night’s visit.

  “Doubt it.” Bash grabbed me by the hand and pulled me toward the door on our right. “Let’s check this place out.”

  We wound our way through room after room, each with its own color palette and distinct furnishing theme. We soon found that Labyrinth was not nearly as big as it appeared from the outside — there were perhaps ten rooms, forming a U-shaped ring around the atrium. The entry hall, with its vaulted ceiling, grand staircase, and grandiose atmosphere, took up a vast amount of space. Most of the sitting rooms we encountered were either entirely empty or nearly so. A few white-haired, male members were scattered amongst the plush chairs of a garish red-toned sitting room with mahogany-paneled walls — they were clustered by a stone fireplace, enveloped by a noxious cloud of cigar smoke as they puffed away, discussing some kind of business deal involving Iranian fossil fuels. When we entered, they nodded in greeting but their murmured conversation came to a swift halt and did not resume until we’d moved on to the adjacent room.

  A similar group of female patrons was gathered on the lounges of a pale blue room, sipping tea and discussing the latest society scandals while bestowing disingenuous compliments on each other’s dresses and jewelry. They eyed my attire with hyper-critical stares as we passed through.

  Within an hour’s time, we’d traversed the entire bottom floor and encountered absolutely nothing of note. Mostly, Labyrinth seemed like a terribly obnoxious though perfectly innocuous millionaires’ club — a watering hole for the über elite.
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br />   “We need to get onto the second floor,” I hissed. “There’s nothing down here and you know Charles’ line about ‘renovations’ was utter bullshit.”

  “How do you suggest we do that, genius?” Bash muttered back at me. “Do you have powers of invisibility I don’t know about?”

  I thought for a moment. “We haven’t checked the sitting room Charles told us about. It’s the only room left.”

  “What, are you suddenly craving some ‘light refreshments’?” Bash snorted.

  “Something like that,” I mumbled, leading him through a set of doors back out into the atrium. Heading for the entry Charles had led us through on the opposite side of the hall, my mind raced. If there were hors d’oeuvres served hourly in the sitting room, maybe there was a kitchen or back room attached to it.

  We nodded to an elderly couple in matching mink-cuffed coats in the atrium, before stepping into the small sitting room. It was dimly lit, with several intimate, two-person tables scattered across the gleaming hardwood floors. Along one wall, a banquet table was laid out with multiple shining silver platters, an array of still-warm appetizers and fine desserts on display. My eyes scanned the walls and I felt a flare of hope when I spotted it — a recessed door set into the wall on the right, so finely crafted it was barely discernible from the cream-papered walls around it.

  “Come on,” I whispered to Bash, thanking my stars that the room was abandoned and hoping whatever lay beyond that door would be as well. I made my way over to the entryway, tracing my fingertips along the seam as I searched for a way to open it. There was no visible knob, no switch or electronic panel that might open the door from this side. I felt the hope begin to deflate in my chest.

  Before I could wilt entirely, Bash reached over my shoulder, placed his palm flat against the door, and pushed inward. To my surprise, the door was spring-loaded — it popped open easily at his touch, two narrow inches of space appearing between the wood panel and its frame. I turned to him with wide eyes.

  “Nice work, Mr. Bond.”

  “The basement door in my parents’ house opened like that,” Bash said, his eyes distant with memories. “My mother always hated the look of knobs on closets. She said it created ‘unnecessary eye clutter’ and ruined a room’s aesthetic.”

  I rolled my eyes and pulled the door slightly more ajar, peering through the crack to see the connecting room. It was dark but as my eyes adjusted, I saw something that made me want to high five myself for this stroke of intuition: a stainless steel refrigerator, a small range, a long prep table, a china cabinet, a fully-stocked liquor bar, and, tucked into a far corner, the most thrilling object of all — a small, spiral staircase leading to the upper and lower floors.

  “Bingo,” I whispered.

  “Servants staircase,” Bash noted, his voice full of admiration. “Good thinking.”

  I edged into the room and Bash followed, shutting the door behind him. Once inside, he grabbed my hand and shifted my body behind his as we made our way over to the staircase.

  “I go first,” he ordered, his tone booking no room for argument.

  I nodded.

  “Follow me, stay silent, and if we’re caught try to play it off. We’re new, we’re lost — you wanted to see the chandelier up close.” He stared at me intently. “Got it?”

  “Got it,” I echoed.

  The journey up the dark stairs was painstakingly slow — each step Bash took on the creaking steps made me flinch in horror, sure we’d be detected if we so much as breathed too loudly in the confined space. My heart pounded so fast I was sure its beat was audible from at least two floors away. I was thankful I’d never suffered from claustrophobia, as the walls seemed to press in closer the higher we rose. We passed the second floor, then the third, but Bash continued to ascend, evidently convinced that anything illegal would be as far from detection as possible — on the highest floor, in the most closely guarded room.

  I didn’t disagree.

  Eventually, we reached the top of the flight, stepping out into a space nearly identical to the kitchen prep room on the first floor, but with no signs of habitation. No lights were left illuminated to aid still-working kitchen staff. There were no utensils lying about, no food remnants of recently-prepared appetizers scattered about the counters — the stainless steel tables were immaculate and not a single tool was out of place.

  I held my breath as we crossed to the door, wondering what we might find on the other side. Had this all been for nothing — a misadventure, born of misguided hopes and ill-founded wishes to find Vera? Had I been connecting invisible dots? Seeing illusory correlations between completely unrelated people and places?

  Was Labyrinth even connected to my investigation? Because, so far, nothing here suggested anything remotely associated with human trafficking.

  Short on the heels of that thought came another — one so paralyzing I felt my throat begin to constrict at just the possibility it might be true. I began to wonder if I really was crazy, after all. Maybe my conspiracy-theory wall mosaic was just that — a conspiracy, feigned and fabricated by a sad, foolish girl who couldn’t cope with the truth. Maybe, without ever noticing, I’d slipped off the ledge of sanity and fallen so far into lunacy I couldn’t even see it anymore.

  Or, maybe not.

  Because, when Sebastian opened that door, when we saw what lay in the empty space beyond, when I felt the air disappear from my lungs and the saliva evaporate from my tongue as my mouth went dry with dread… there was little room left for doubt.

  I wasn’t crazy — but that was little validation when the truth was so repugnant.

  Horrifyingly, cruelly, abominably… I’d been right all along.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Now

  Chains hold better than rope, I suppose. They were a good choice — sturdy, of course, but also perfectly suited to the archaic nature of Labyrinth on the whole.

  Why they needed to restrain the girls when they had plenty of sedation drugs at their disposal, I had no idea. Perhaps drugged girls were less attractive than those who could stand on their own two feet. Perhaps there was something thrilling to the men watching from their dark little booths about a small, defenseless girl, bound in heavy, inescapable chains.

  I didn’t know. I didn’t want to ever know.

  But as I stood on the threshold of the empty room, I was certain that the small round platform at the center of the space, with its set of carefully coiled ankle chains, served only one purpose: to display property on sale.

  This wasn’t a brothel as, in the dark corners of my mind, I’d allowed myself to prepare for during the past few weeks. It wasn’t a safe haven for sexual predators, or den of depravity, where the wealthy could come to indulge in erotic favors from underage immigrant girls at no personal risk to their careers or reputations.

  No. This was something far more odious.

  It was an auction block.

  The private, dark booths lining the walls were the biggest indication. There were ten booths, arranged in a circle around the platform. To offer a semblance of privacy, each booth was cordoned off on either side with curtains and enclosed behind a wall of tinted glass, facing the small platform at the center of the room. A closer look inside the booth nearest to us revealed an electronic panel with buttons used for placing anonymous bets.

  Those partaking in the auction could participate without ever revealing their identities.

  I heard Bash swear under his breath as he slipped one hand into his jacket pocket and removed a tiny point-and-shoot camera. As he snapped photo after photo, I realized in a detached way that I was in shock, but couldn’t quite muster the energy to do anything about it.

  I saw it play out in my mind in startling clarity — the whole organization, clicking into place like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle snapping together.

  They scouted girls — young, pretty, poor, and preferably undocumented — on the streets of the city. Watched for opportunities to snatch them away from their fa
milies and took them somewhere they could be contained for a while: the brewery in Red Hook, most likely. There, the girls were given GHB, sedated past the point of ever putting up a fight or escaping, and held, like livestock in a pen awaiting their slaughter. Thugs like Smash Nose and the Neanderthal watched them for a time — days, weeks, maybe even months — until the rich men arrived at Labyrinth to examine the newly stocked wares and compete for their pretty new possessions. Just as Officer Monroe had witnessed in the back alley all those years ago, the girls were transported here, to this very room, and put on display.

  And for a price — likely an extremely steep one — they could be purchased.

  I pictured Vera on that stage, ten pairs of lewd eyes glued to her chained body as money changed hands, and had to turn away.

  The room began to shake, as though an earthquake was rumbling the entire city and disturbing the building’s foundations. I pressed a hand to my stomach, hoping I wouldn’t wretch on the lushly carpeted floor. Belatedly, I realized the trembling wasn’t the room — it was me. I’d begun to shudder violently, and no amount of deep breathing would soothe me this time.

  It was too much. All of it.

  “Come on, I have enough.” Bash grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me lightly. “Lux, we have to go. Pull it together.”

  I knew I was spiraling quickly into panic, and would soon be of no use to anyone. Looking up into Sebastian’s eyes, I tried to ground myself. The steadiness in their depths lent me strength enough to snap myself out of it.

  “I’m fine.” I swallowed roughly. “Let’s go.”

  He laced his fingers through mine and pulled me back toward the kitchen door. We flew down the pitch-black stairwell as fast my heeled feet would allow, emerging into the downstairs prep room breathless and fraught with tension. When Bash opened the door to the sitting room, we rushed inside so quickly we nearly plowed straight into the small man standing a few feet away, seemingly waiting for us.