The Golden Sparrow

by Samantha Latshaw

  Inside the room sat a man tied to a chair. I didn’t recognize him, but that didn’t bother me too much. His ash-blond curly hair was damp with perspiration and though he clearly looked unconscious with his chin resting on his chest, the rapid rise and fall of his chest betrayed the truth.

  Basso came to a stop before the man, his back rigid.

  I had only just sank down onto the sofa when Basso suddenly turned back to me, hand outstretched expectantly.

  “Come, Hazel.”

  Puzzled, I took his hand and came up alongside Basso, fixing him with a curious expression.

  “Hold out your hand,” he ordered and I promptly obeyed without a second thought.

  Robert slapped a knife into my hand and Basso gave me a tiny shove forward.

  “We’ve been questioning this man for a while,” Basso informed me as I stared down at the man, my breath coming in short, sharp, painful gasps now as the horrible realization of what he was asking me to do slammed into me. “He hasn’t yielded any answers yet.”

  Cautiously, I moved to stand directly in front of the man, taking in the dark shadows on his skin that I know knew to be bruises. Cuts on his face and hands bled weakly, telling me that he had been tortured hours before. It repulsed me to my core that I could now when exactly someone had been tortured.

  “So what do you want me to do?” I was suddenly very aware of everyone’s eyes on me and the hand that was curled around the knife began to tremble violently. I lifted my gaze pleadingly to Basso’s.

  His permanent smirk widened into a smile. “You know what to do, Hazel. Now do it.”

  When I didn’t immediately begin, Basso, his voice deadly soft, added, “Or I’ll get rid of you.”

  I was trembling all over now, my stomach roiling with nausea and fear. Sweat dampened my palms, making my grip on the knife slick. I felt a bead of sweat roll down my back as I stepped up to the man.

  Oh God oh God oh God oh God...

  But still, I couldn’t do it. It didn’t seem to matter that Basso was standing inches away, threatening to kill me if I didn’t torture information out of someone. I couldn’t torture someone. I couldn’t. I wouldn’t.

  “I told you she didn’t have the stomach for it,” Al snickered.

  “Hazel,” Basso said softly.

  But irritation had filled me at Al’s words.

  I wasn’t sure why it mattered that Al didn’t think I could torture someone, but it did. So I stuck the point of the knife into the flesh at the top of the man’s arm, breathed, “Forgive me”, then dragged the knife slowly down towards his wrist.

  Chapter 17

  Basso held me close to him as Al finished the man off before untying him from the chair. I was still shaking, unable to believe what I had just done.

  “You did well.” Basso kissed the top of my head and I felt my stomach churn dangerously. If he was praising me, then I knew I could never be redeemed.

  I had just taken a knife and mutilated someone’s flesh until he told Basso everything he knew. And now that same man was being wrapped up in a sheet, his blood staining it crimson. I tore my eyes away, fixing them on Judd instead, who was standing stoically by the door. The expression in his dark eyes was unreadable, but I could sense the disapproval all the same.

  “I want to take you somewhere,” Basso announced when Al and Ralph left the room, the wrapped body balanced with ease between them. Some small part of me wondered just how many people they had carried out of the club in the same fashion, but then another part of me knew it was better to never know.

  “Clyde, I want you to take Al’s place and have Al come see me before we leave,” Basso said and Clyde nodded.

  He had a face like a rat’s, his grey eyes watery as he scanned the room before leaving.

  I made to step towards the door, but Basso stopped me, pulling me off to the side and saying, “We need to get you cleaned up first. We can’t let anyone see you like that.”

  I looked down at my hands and tried to imagine that it was paint staining my hands, not blood.

  He led me over to the pitcher and wash basin and I let him wash the blood off my hands as if I were a child with mud caked on their hands. I was mesmerized by the way the blood swirled in the water and turned it pink.

  When my hands were clean and dried off, Basso guided me through the club, which was still filled to bursting with the music pounding painfully in my ears as Frankie sang melodiously on stage.

  What had I done? What had I done? What had Basso done to me? I was now a torturer, someone who mutilated bodies without batting an eye. I would add that to the new list of words I had to describe myself.

  Flapper, liar, lover, spy. Now I was a torturer. How much longer before he made me become a murderer?

  Don’t forget what he is.

  It was true. I had forgotten who he was. For the briefest time, I had forgotten that I had been brought in by the police to bring him down. He was dangerous and didn’t have any problems murdering or torturing anyone. I couldn’t forget that again.

  Once we were in Basso’s car, it took a great deal of effort not to push him away. But when his arms encircled me, pulling me close, I decided not to shove off the comfort I knew I so desperately needed, even if it was coming from the man who had put me in a position of needing comforting in the first place. It was unhealthy, but at that very moment, it was all I had. It would simply have to do until I was free of him.

  It took me a while to realize that Judd had driven us out of the city, not to my home. There were no lights around us at all and only a few cars passed us. I spied lights glowing from a house a little ways back from the road and when we passed it, I saw an elderly woman shuffling past the window.

  Would I get to be that age? I found myself wondering. I desperately hoped so.

  Basso was rubbing his hand up and down my arm but his attention was on the darkness enveloping the car.

  How long we drove, I did not know, but I felt myself eventually doze off.

  When I woke up, the car was stopped and Judd was getting out to open the door for me and Basso.

  “Don’t go home tonight,” I heard Basso say as my groggy brain struggled to put one foot in front of the other. “Stay in the chauffeur’s cottage.”

  “Yes, Mr. Basso.” Judd shut the car door behind me and got back into the front.

  With Basso leading the way, we started up a set of wide, stone steps. My head lifted and I was greeted by the sight of an impressive stone building emerging from the night before me. Lights occasionally lit the path to the front door, allowing me to see the steps beneath me so that I didn’t stumble and fall.

  “What is this place?” I asked, wonder coloring my voice as Basso stepped up to the double doors.

  He knocked once and the doors swung open to reveal a reedy man dressed in a pristine suit waiting for us.

  “Welcome to my home,” Basso said, stepping aside to let me enter into the hallway that was bathed in warm light.

  “You live here?” I breathed, spinning on the spot to take it all in.

  The walls were covered in a blue silk brocade wallpaper that I thought belonged to a bygone era of finery and were adorned with a mixture of lavish landscapes and portraits and some of the finest taxidermy I had ever seen. Cherry furnishings in the hall made it look homey and when I peered curiously into what I could only assume was the sitting room, I saw similar furnishings inside with photographs of unfamiliar people on the walls, much like how the walls at the Golden Sparrow were decorated.

  “Goodness,” I said, stunned at the beauty and luxury surrounding me. It managed to put my own home to shame. Basso hadn’t been joking at all when he had said he was richer than me. I spun slowly round to face him again. “And you live here all alone?”

  He shrugged carelessly. “I usually stay in an apartment in the Upper West Side, but I thought tonight would be a good time to show you my house.”

  “How could you possibly want to live anywhere else?” I wondered as I move
d from the sitting room to the wide, sweeping staircase. I held on to the balustrade and peered upwards towards the upper floors. “This place is amazing!”

  “Mr. Lucas, have some cocktails made for myself and Miss MacClare,” Basso ordered the butler, who had been lurking by the door. “Bring them to my room.”

  How many women had he seen Basso bring here?

  Unable to keep the question to myself, I timidly asked Basso and was genuinely surprised by his answer.

  “There was only one other,” he admitted as he guided me up the stairs. “That was years ago, now, right around the time when I started expanding my business.”

  We came to a stop on the second floor before a closed door just a few feet away from the stairs.

  “What was her name?” I asked, thinking only of Mimi. It was a shame that she hadn’t been able to see the house. She would have loved it.

  “Never mind,” Basso said shortly before opening the door.

  I looked at him curiously, but shook it off as I trailed into the room after him, closing the door behind me.

  The room was lit only by a fire and one single light on the other side of the bed. I thought it was odd that there was a fire, given that it was June, but I shrugged it off. Perhaps the house stayed cool, even in summer.

  Lying across the bed was a pink silk and lace dressing gown. I eyed it cautiously and made to step closer to it, but Basso’s arms wound around my waist, keeping me in place and he buried his face in my neck.

  A quick rap on the door signaled the arrival of our drinks and Basso released me to get them from the butler, Mr. Lucas.

  I didn’t turn around, so when the door closed with a snap, I jumped at the sudden sound, which made Basso laugh.

  His arms closed around me again and his mouth found my shoulder.

  So that was what the dressing gown was for, I thought dazedly before I allowed myself to be guided to the bed.

  Sunlight streamed brightly across the bed, pulling me from a sleep riddled with nightmarish images of mutilated bodies lying in pools of blood and men with gaping holes in their heads pleading with me to save them.

  I rolled over onto my back, luxuriating in the softness of the bed. And then my eyes snapped open as I remembered the night before and where I was.

  Shooting up in bed, pulling the covers up to my best, I looked around anxiously for my dress, but could not find it. Basso, too, was missing, but I had more pressing matters to deal with.

  Opting instead for the dressing gown that had gotten pushed to the floor the night before, I hastily pulled it on and darted for the bedroom door just as the doorknob turned.

  Basso had only pajama bottoms on as he stepped into the room and seemed surprised to find me awake and alert.

  “Where is my dress?” I wanted to know as Basso moved over to a wardrobe I only just noticed. I hadn’t been paying much attention to anything when I arrived last night, I reminded myself.

  The room was cozy and lived in. There were more photographs here, some with faces I recognized as actors and actresses, others I didn’t know at all. It was a smaller room, too, and the bed seemed to take up most of the space. The walls were painted a plain white, but he had more beautiful paintings covering the walls.

  Basso opened the doors to his wardrobe and stared at its contents for a long time before pulling out a green sweater and brown trousers.

  He looked extremely odd being dressed so casually. I was used to him wearing suits only. Even his black hair, which was normally slicked back, was falling loosely around his face. I had never seen him look so comfortable and relaxed before.

  Something in me seemed to soften when I saw him like that and I didn’t bother to remind myself that even Lucifer himself had been the most beautiful of God’s angels.

  “You know, my mother is most likely worried sick about me?” I said irritably as he settled down in a chair by the cold fire, wordlessly changing from his dressing slippers into gleaming black shoes. “I do still live with her, you know.”

  He finally looked up at me, clearly amused at my fretting.

  “This isn’t funny, Walt,” I said angrily. “She could really disown me! Especially if she finds out about us.”

  Basso’s smile was wide now, but he stayed silent as he finished putting on his shoes before getting to his feet.

  “Let’s have breakfast,” he suggested, still ignoring me, but I stood steadfast by the bed, the dressing gown pulled tight across my body in case he had a different idea of what breakfast was.

  “No,” I said firmly. “I need my dress so I can go home.”

  He reached for me, but I leaned away.

  Basso was still smirking as he said, “I have it on good authority that your mother left early morning, not even aware that you weren’t home. I also happen to know that she’s going to be out for quite some time. She might not even make it back for dinner.”

  I eyed him suspiciously, still not moving.

  “How do you know this?” I demanded.

  “The telephone told me,” he said, his hand still outstretched towards me. “And maybe one day, I’ll tell you all my little secrets. But for now, let’s just have breakfast and then you may go home. It’s a long drive and you’ll be starving when you get home if you don’t eat now.”

  It was nearly eleven by the time Basso and I finally got into his car and lunchtime had passed us by before Basso dropped me off at home.

  “Tomorrow night,” he said, looking stern. “Not tonight.”

  Torturing another woman? I wanted to ask, but I held my tongue and obliged him with a swift kiss before letting myself out.

  Darting up the stairs to the house, I paused at the door to wave briefly to him then let myself inside.

  Caution had me tiptoeing through the foyer and out to the stairs. When no one accosted me on my whereabouts, I hurried up the stairs to my room where I found Danielle sitting on my bed, my note about where I had been held loosely in her hands.

  Her eyes were glazed over slightly, but when I walked in, she launched herself immediately to her feet, an indignant expression on her face and fury rolling off her in thick waves.

  “If my mother doesn’t care, Danielle, neither should you,” I said without preamble as I shed my dress. “But I desperately need a bath, so if you don’t mind...”

  Danielle stowed the note inside the pocket of her skirts and silently drew me up a bath, filling with the sent of rose.

  When I was inside the deliciously warm scented water and was scrubbing off the previous evening’s events off of me, Danielle stepped into the room, hands planted on her hips, and glared down at me.

  “Never mind that I’m indecent,” I said with great agitation as I slid the bar of soap over my skin. I glanced up at her then back to the bar of soap slick in my hands. “What is the matter?”

  “You stayed out all night, Miss Hazel,” Danielle said, sounding scandalized. “An’ I gather ye were wi’ a man?”

  I looked up at her, took in her round, flushed cheeks and wide eyes, and went back to cleaning myself.

  “Goodness, Miss Hazel!” Danielle leaned heavily against the door frame, looking faint. “What will yer mother say when she kens what ye’ve done?”

  “She won’t say anything,” I said simply, “because I won’t be telling her.” I rinsed off the soap then sank a little lower in the water, my hands grasping the cold edges of the porcelain tub as I gazed innocently up at her. “And neither will you.”

  Danielle was gaping at me and I stood up, water cascading off of me as I reached for a towel.

  When it was wrapped securely around me, I stepped out onto the cool tile floor and into my bedroom, Danielle trailing mutely behind me.

  “I know you seem to think we’re still in the time of your youth,” I said as I pulled out a mint colored silk teddy and a dark blue skirt and gray blouse from my wardrobe. I stepped into the teddy, eyes still on Danielle, who was staring fixedly at my forehead. “But we aren’t. This is the twenties, Danielle.
It’s time to get used to how life will be from now on.”

  “You are unmarried!” Danielle hissed suddenly, drawing my attention back to her as I paused in the action of getting my skirt on. It didn’t matter that Danielle wasn’t helping me. I couldn’t even remember the last time she had helped me get dressed.

  “And plenty of women weren’t virgins when they got married,” I replied coolly. I buttoned up my blouse, grateful that I hadn’t chosen something with buttons in the back or else I would have had to have asked for Danielle’s help and I was certain she would rather toss me from a ten story building than help me dress at that very moment. “I’m not a child anymore, Danielle.”

  “Yer only eighteen,” Danielle reminded me sternly. “Ye aren’t an adult, either.”

  “I’m somewhere in-between?” I guessed with a half-grin and Danielle scowled at me.

  “If ye were twenty-five, I might be able tae find this easier tae deal wi’,” Danielle told me and I stepped around her to get to my vanity. I sat down and began brushing out my damp hair, eyes on her in the mirror. “But yer scarcely older than a child. Ye are far too young tae be... tae have...”

  She trailed off and some newly warped part of me enjoyed watching her squirm with discomfort.

  “Sex,” I offered and Danielle let out a tiny squeak of terror at the word.

  I often forgot how old Danielle really was. Her ageless face often made me think she was only in her mid-thirties, but in truth, she had been my age in the Victorian age. She was nearing fifty with every passing day.

  “The world is moving fast,” I said as I held her gaze in the mirror, “and getting faster every day.”

  “Perhaps,” Danielle begrudgingly agreed. “But not fast enough for ye, Miss Hazel.”

  When my hair was finished, adorned with a simple dark blue ribbon, I headed downstairs and decided to telephone Mrs. Roberts. If I had all of today and most of tomorrow to myself then I could, at the very least, get the dress done for Mama’s wedding in time for her ceremony that was in two weeks. It was the least I could do, after all.