Lev Rosen - Depth

SHE WAS AN IDIOT. This was a truth which she could no longer call crystal clear, because it had been crystal clear from the start, but over the past few hours of drinking, that crystal had faded, so there was nothing left between Simone and the truth. She didn’t see it, she breathed it. She lived it. She was an idiot.

Trust. That’s not what it was, of course. She hadn’t trusted deCostas. But she’d trusted herself—her judgment of him as ambitious but harmless. She’d even liked him a little—enough that she’d sought him out when she needed distraction, or comfort maybe. And he was just another pawn of The Blonde. Maybe Caroline hadn’t been used in quite the way Simone had thought, but you didn’t have to know you were being used to be someone else’s piece on the board. The Blonde had a web around Simone, had wrapped it up quietly and tight, and Simone hadn’t seen it coming because she’d been too distracted by a nice ass. She wondered if The Blonde had somehow been responsible for sending deCostas to Simone. Perhaps she told him to go to Caroline, knowing she’d send him to Simone. Maybe Caroline was in on the plan from the beginning.

She swayed slightly as she walked down the hall to her home. She’d drunk a lot. The smell of tobacco—real tobacco—hit her like a bullet. A cigarette. That’s what she needed.

Lou Freth was leaning against the wall outside her office, smoking. The smoke hung in the air, thick under the yellow lights. It seemed to form eyes, looking at her.

“What are you doing here?” Simone asked. Lou held out the pack of cigarettes, and Simone took one. She was suspicious but wouldn’t turn down real tobacco.

“I wanted to see you,” Lou said.

“You could’ve waited inside, you know,” Simone said, opening the door to the outer office. She stuck the cigarette in her mouth and fumbled through her pockets for a lighter. She lit the cigarette and inhaled deeply. Lou walked past her into the still-dark office, right up to the windows, and looked out.

“I don’t like invading people’s homes without their permission.”

Simone smirked. “How’d you know my apartment and office were connected?”

“I didn’t. I just assumed you lived in your office.” She glanced back over her shoulder. “I can’t be the first to think so.”

Simone lay down on one of the sofas near Lou, stretching her legs out. “I used to have a separate apartment. It was where I grew up. My dad and I lived there, and my mom, too, before she bailed. But I sold it.” Simone took a deep breath. She must be really drunk if she was talking about her parents, she thought.

“Why?” Lou asked. Simone took a long drag on her cigarette. There was the sound of a motorboat going by outside, the waves it left in its wake rising up and falling in whispers.

“Why are you here?”

“I wanted to see how the case was going.” Lou turned around and sat down on the sofa diagonal from Simone’s. She tapped her cigarette over the glass ashtray on the table between them.

Simone turned her eyes to Lou, studying her. “Did that blonde woman send you? Marina?”

“That photo you showed me? I don’t know her. I told you that.” Simone studied her but was too drunk to tell if she was lying. She turned back towards the ceiling.

“You’re probably lying. Everyone knows her.” She stuck the cigarette in her mouth and lifted her leg, bending it towards her and gripping it with one hand. With the other hand, she took out her gun and laid it on the table, next to the ashtray.

“Is that supposed to be threatening?”

“Not really.”

“I don’t mind dying, you know.” Lou crossed her legs. She wore knee-high black boots over gray slacks, and the movement was like the wince of a bruised eye. “My husband is dead, and the only thing I have left of him is our home. Henry is dead, and all I have left of him is the business. Did you ever find Linnea?”

“No. But her body hasn’t turned up either.”

“I’ll pay you to find her. I feel like I should do that. No one is paying you anymore, and you’re still investigating. Why?”

“Because people keep telling me not to, I guess. Because there’s a chance the chief of police will try to frame me for Henry’s murder if she gets bored trying to solve it for real. Because I probably just lost my only friend over it, so I better see it through, otherwise what has all this…” Simone gestured at the room, and then let her hand fall. Her cigarette was almost gone. She sucked down the last of it and stubbed it out in the ashtray. Lou was still smoking hers. Simone didn’t know how Lou did it so leisurely, how she could let the inhale linger and not just keep trying to get all of it inside her. “You got another?” Lou wordlessly took the pack out of her pocket and laid it on the table next to the gun. Simone sat up, fished out another and lit it, then lay back again.

Outside, another boat went past—this one quieter, but its light shone directly into the window, through the venetian blinds, lighting Lou from behind, so she was only a dark silhouette, and making lines of shadow over Simone’s face and the smoke that was now circling her. It started to rain, drops tapping on the glass like musical notes.

“How’d you lose your friend?” Lou asked quietly.

“I should’ve just asked her…” Simone started. “I don’t trust people. Or I didn’t, but now I do, but it’s the wrong ones.”

“Most people betray you at some point.” Lou took a drag on her cigarette and let it out slowly, smoke covering her face. “Maybe it’s something stupid, they don’t realize what they’re doing, but they do it, and it hurts because you thought they knew you, thought they knew better and would somehow know that doing whatever it was they did… but no one is a mind reader.” Lou lifted her hand up as if to take another drag of her cigarette, but let it fall back down before it reached her face. Her shoulders slumped backwards like old buildings, worn away and finally falling.

“My dad was,” Simone laughed, then coughed. “He could read guilt on a perp from a mile away.”

“No one ever betrayed him?”

Simone was quiet.

“Everyone gets betrayed at some point,” Lou said. “And we respond… well, we don’t always think. So we ask forgiveness. That’s all we can do.”

“Yeah,” Simone said.

“I didn’t know how these sorts of things were done,” Lou said, reaching into her purse, “so I got cash. It was hard to come by, so I hope it’s something you can use.” She took out and laid a stack of bills on the table. “That should cover it. Find Linnea. Find who killed Henry.” Lou stood up and straightened out her clothes.

“I’ll do what I can,” Simone said, without looking at her.

“Do the best you can,” Lou corrected. She didn’t look at Simone. She looked at the door and, without a goodbye, began to walk towards it, dignified, and Simone was suddenly struck by the memory of an old movie she’d seen with her parents, and a scene where a woman marched to the firing squad, blindfolded, proud, and not afraid.

“It’s raining,” Simone said, sitting up. “I can call you a cab.” But Lou was already gone, the door closed behind her, the room dark.

Simone finished her cigarette in the dark, the only sound her own breath and the rain on the window, like something trying to get in.

“YOU HAVE TO LEARN how to swim, Simone,” her mom said. “Especially out here.” Her mom gestured around them—but they were on a cruise liner with tall railings, and the ocean could be heard, but not seen. She was five and was sitting on the edge of the pool her mother was in, wearing floaties on her arms. Her mom stood in the shallow end, water up to her knees, red hair streaming out in the breeze. She had on a floppy sun hat and huge sunglasses. She’d brought Simone to this public pool to teach her to swim, but Simone didn’t like the look of the water.