Chapter 4 - The Harness Room and the Red Velvet
The room above the west harness shop was small, rectangular, and built out of dark pine planks that had turned the color of dried molasses over eighty years of smoke and weather.
It had two low windows that looked out over the salt-marshes toward the lake, a iron frame bed with a thick straw mattress, a round pine table, and a small cast-iron stove that crackled happily with dry hickory split by the yard boy that afternoon.
By six o'clock in the evening, Clara had moved her single wooden trunk from the cold, five-bed attic in the east wing.
Her trunk contained very little: three cotton dresses, two pairs of wool stockings, a small wooden comb her father had carved out of walnut, and a small silver-plated locket containing a lock of her mother’s dark hair.
Bruno was lying on a massive horse-blanket of coarse gray wool that Clara had folded three times and placed near the iron stove.
His wet coat had dried completely, turning into a rich, deep black that looked like velvet under the yellow glow of the kerosene lamp. He had eaten two pounds of raw beef mixed with cooked oats and the anti-inflammatory powder Dr. Hale had left behind.
A knock came at the low wooden door.
It wasn't the slow, light tap of a housemaid or the rough rattle of Keller the groomer. It was three hard, rhythmic cracks from a iron ring.
Clara opened the door.
Bianca Russo stood in the narrow wooden hallway.
She had taken off her white mink coat, wearing now a fitted dress of deep red silk that rustled like dry leaves every time she moved. Her blonde hair was piled high on her head, held by two diamond pins that sparkled in the dim light of the hall lamp. Behind her stood Luca, his heavy frame filling the stairwell, his hands tucked behind his back.
Bianca looked around the small pine room with an expression of sharp, aesthetic disgust.
“How unpleasant,” Bianca said, stepping inside without an invitation, her high red heels clicking loudly on the bare pine floor. “It smells of horse liniment and cheap lard.”
Bruno’s head rose from the gray blanket.
His ears didn't pin back, but his yellow eyes followed Bianca’s red hem with a slow, calculating intensity that made Luca take one half-step into the room.
“Miss Russo,” Clara said, staying by the open door. “It’s late.”
Bianca turned around, her red lips curved into a small, sharp smile that didn't reach her green eyes. She looked at the iron bed, the wooden trunk, and then down at Clara’s clean wool dress.
“Matteo is very generous with his charity,” Bianca said, her voice dropping into a light, casual tone that sounded like glass tapping against porcelain. “First your brother’s debts in Peoria, and now a private room above the stables. One would think you had accomplished something extraordinary today instead of merely spilling water over a dirty hound.”
Clara didn't move. “Mr. Moretti gave me a job.”
“Mr. Moretti gives jobs to many people,” Bianca said, stepping closer to the iron stove, her eyes flicking over the small silver locket sitting on the pine table. “He gives jobs to men who clean his cars, men who carry his packages, and men who bury the things he doesn't want found. Do not confuse his practical management with personal interest, little girl.”
She reached out one long, red-nailed finger and tapped the silver locket on the table.
“Your father is a drunk,” Bianca added softly. “Your brother is a small-time card-sharp who owes money to three different crews in the South Side. If Matteo decides next week that Bruno is too much trouble to keep, your family’s debt will be called in within twenty-four hours.”
She leaned in, her expensive perfume—jasmine and heavy musk—smothering the clean smell of the pine fire.
“He doesn't care about the dog, Clara. And he certainly doesn't care about you. He is testing me.”
Clara looked at Bianca’s smooth, painted face.
“Testing you?” Clara asked quietly.
“To see if I will object to his small amusements,” Bianca said, her smile broadening slightly. “My father controls six wards in the city council, Clara. Matteo needs those wards for his new shipping docks on the river. Next month, we will be engaged. And when I am mistress of this house, the first thing I will do is sell that black beast to a guard firm in Gary and send you back to your mother’s kitchen in Beloit.”
Bruno let out a single, low woof—not a bark, but a dry, hollow cough of air that made Bianca step back two inches.
Clara looked down at the dog, then back at Bianca.
“If you try to put him in a truck for Gary,” Clara said, her voice completely free of anger or fear, “you’d better bring more than Luca and six city councilmen, Miss Russo. He doesn't like red dresses.”
Bianca’s green eyes flashed with a sudden, ugly heat.
She raised her hand—not to strike Clara, but to snatch the small silver locket off the table.
Before her fingers could touch the silver, a massive black head moved between her hand and the wood.
Bruno didn't bite. He simply opened his jaws four inches from Bianca’s manicured wrist and let out a growl that shook the glass chimney of the oil lamp.
Bianca shrieked, snatching her hand back against her red dress as if she had touched a hot iron.
Luca lunged forward, his right hand disappearing under his coat. “Miss Russo!”
“Don't!” Clara shouted, stepping between Luca and the dog.
The small pine room was suddenly suffocatingly full—Luca’s massive body pressing against Clara, Bruno standing shoulder-to-shoulder with her, his black gums bared, his yellow eyes fixed on Luca’s coat pocket.
“Stop!” a voice called from the doorway.
Matteo Moretti stood in the dark frame of the hall.
He was wearing his black trousers and a plain white shirt, open at the collar, with no jacket. His face was entirely dark, his eyes turning into two black slits under the low ceiling.
“Luca,” Matteo said. “Get out.”
Luca froze. Slowly, his hand came out from his coat—empty. He bowed his head two inches and backed out into the narrow hall.
Matteo walked into the room. He didn't look at Clara. He looked at Bianca, whose face was red and blotchy beneath her expensive powder.
“What are you doing in the service wing, Bianca?” Matteo asked. His voice was lower than it had been in the library—so low it sounded like a heavy chain being dragged across stone.
“I came to... I wanted to see where she was keeping the dog,” Bianca stammered, her fingers clutching the silk of her dress. “She was insolent, Matteo! She threatened me! And that... that monster tried to snap at my hand!”
Matteo looked down at Bruno.
The dog was standing directly beside Clara’s knee, his shoulder pressed firmly against her leg, his yellow eyes watching Matteo with a calm, steady light.
“The monster,” Matteo said, “was lying on his blanket until you touched her things.”
Bianca’s eyes went wide. “Matteo!”
“Go back to the main house,” Matteo said. He didn't raise his voice, but the order had the absolute weight of an iron latch falling into place. “I have a meeting with your father at nine o'clock tomorrow morning. You may wait for him in the east salon.”
Bianca looked at Clara, her green eyes filled with a sudden, desperate hatred that made her lips tremble. Then she turned on her high red heels and hurried out of the room, her silk dress rustling angrily down the dark stairs.
Matteo remained in the doorway.
The iron stove crackled. Outside, the wind off the lake whipped against the small window panes, dropping fresh snow onto the dark roof.
“She was right about one thing,” Clara said quietly into the silence.
Matteo looked at her. “Which thing?”
“My brother is a card-sharp,” Clara said, looking down at her scraped palms. “And my father does drink too much.”
Matteo walked two steps into the room. He reached out with his right hand—his long, pale fingers—and picked up the silver locket from the pine table. He held it between his thumb and forefinger, looking at the crude, worn engraving of a wild rose on the back.
“My father,” Matteo said softly, “was a butcher in San Giuseppe. He killed three men before I was ten years old, and he died in a cellar in Brooklyn with six police bullets in his chest.”
He laid the silver locket back down on the wooden table, exactly where it had been.
“We do not pick our fathers, Clara,” Matteo said, his pale blue eyes meeting hers in the yellow light of the lamp. “We only pick what we do with the things they leave behind.”
He turned toward the door.
“Lock your door at night,” he added without looking back. “Not because of Bruno. Because of the men who come to see me.”
“Mr. Moretti?” Clara called out.
He stopped in the doorway.
“Thank you,” she said. “For the stove.”
May you like
Matteo didn't answer. He stepped out into the dark hallway, closing the wooden door behind him with a soft, clean thud.
Bruno gave one long, heavy sigh, walked back to his gray wool horse-blanket, and laid his broad chin down on his paws, his tail thumping once against the pine floor before he went back to sleep.
