Lev Rosen - Depth

“That’s what I thought. This whole thing makes no sense.”

“Sorry I couldn’t be more help.”

“That’s fine. Thanks for the cigarette. I gotta get to an art history lesson.”

Lou snorted a laugh. “And I was just starting to like you.” Lou headed back towards the crates, not turning back around. Simone looked after her, wanting to bum another cigarette for later, but instead turned around and left. It was almost five.

ONE WALL STREET HAD an edge of anticipation about it early in the evening, especially on an overcast one like this. The lights were on, glowing an angry yellow through the windows and fog, and people milled around nearby, waiting for the doors to open but trying to look like they weren’t. They cast occasional glances at the door and then at each other. Their faces varied from angry to ashamed, but none of them looked friendly. Simone could feel their stares as she walked down the bridge to the door and pressed the buzzer.

Ms. Antiphates opened the door quickly and, seeing Simone, stepped aside. Once Simone was inside, she slammed the door closed.

“Mr. Ryan is waiting on the twenty-fifth floor,” Ms. Antiphates said, walking down the hall to the main room. Inside, the room was midway transformed: merchants’ stalls, only halfway set up, looked like skeletons, just metal poles suggesting frames. Soon there would be walls made of curtains, draped over and around, and signs listing vendor names and available goods. Most of the merchandise was still in locked trunks, though a few merchants were laying things out in clear cases. Simone saw guns and jewelry, exotic spices and foods, and plenty of alcohol. Some of what was sold there was legal in the mainland but taxed to the point where it was only affordable to the obscenely rich; the jewelry especially—the “vanity tax,” they called it. Women couldn’t wear pants without getting fined, but they were allowed to wear jewelry, if they could afford it.

“This way,” Ms. Antiphates said, summoning an elevator. Simone turned away from the stalls and followed her into the elevator. Simone had only been to the upper floors of One Wall Street once before, for her initial interview with Mr. Ryan when he was deciding if he could hire her for anything. It hadn’t just been her, then. It was her father, too. She was the junior, the apprentice, but Ryan had interviewed them both as though they were partners, and Simone’s dad didn’t correct him. Simone felt tougher after that. Today she didn’t feel tougher. The elevator moved quickly, and for a few seconds she felt seasick.

The doors opened onto a hallway lined in red-and-gold mosaics. Standing in the center of the hall, waiting as though the walls were spreading out from him like fiery wings, was Mr. Ryan, in a navy suit and red tie, holding a walking cane.

“The last time you were here was with your father, wasn’t it?” Mr. Ryan asked before she could even step out.

“Yeah. I was just remembering that, too,” Simone said, stepping into the hallway.

“I’m sorry if the memory is unpleasant,” he said. “I only just remembered when the door opened. I had a memory of a young woman—you were what, eighteen?” Simone nodded. “Eighteen and already a detective. Your father was nervous, I remember, but you just stared at me with that quiet smile you have, like you were never going to be defeated. You didn’t wear a hat back then. Your hair blended with the walls…” Mr. Ryan motioned at them with his walking cane. “They were originally on the first floor, these mosaics. They were removed when the waters rose. It took me nearly a year to get them back once I’d bought the place, and more than a little finger-breaking.” Simone said nothing, the flickering shadow of her father at the edges of her vision. He was tall back then—not like when she found his body. He seemed so small then. “Well, come along. Let’s get to your lesson.”

Mr. Ryan nodded once at Ms. Antiphates, who disappeared behind the closing elevator doors. He turned and walked down the hall, and Simone followed.

“Thank you for doing this,” she said. “I know it’s short notice and an odd request.”

“Ms. Pierce,” Mr. Ryan said without turning around, “I am happy to tell you all I know about Paul Reinel. But I suspect you’re here because you want to know about a specific piece of his, yes?”

“Yes,” Simone admitted.

“Do you in fact represent Ms. St. Michel, and has she sent you here to ask me to auction off the piece in my little market?”

Simone considered lying but knew it would be a stupid lie, the kind that was sure to get her in trouble and lose her a regular client.

“No,” she said. “I’m here because I know that it’s a Reinel now, but I don’t know what would make a Reinel important, or worth killing for. And I need to figure it out, because right now I’m suspect number one.” And Caroline is suspect number two, Simone thought, with half the city lining up to join her. Ryan opened a door and led Simone into a white room with a white bar, white sofas, and a white carpet. The glasses on the bar were white, the table was white. It was all a canvas, a display for the one thing in the room that wasn’t white: a large sculpture in the center of the table. It was a deep, dried-blood red, and had a texture that looked like thousands of tubes facing out, packed so closely together that it seemed soft. The sculpture was of a naked woman reclining on a low table. Her legs were stretched out to the side, bent, and a robe or shawl was draped loosely around her. In one hand, she held what looked like a branch, and around her were animals—pigs, goats, and a cat. They all looked at her, pleadingly, but she looked straight ahead, her expression an invitation.

“ Circe ,” Mr. Ryan said. “One of Reinel’s earlier coral pieces. The only one I have. It’s made from pipe-organ coral, which was unusual. Most of the coral sculptors used something less fussy, like fan or lettuce coral—the sort of thing people expected. This is his only piece in the pipe organ. I love the texture of it and, of course, that color.” Simone approached the statue, wanting to touch it. Circe’s gaze was magnetic. “Would you like something to drink?” Mr. Ryan asked, going behind the bar. “I’m going to have a glass of the white Bordeaux.”

“Sure, thanks,” Simone said, still staring at Circe. She was beautiful, but beautiful enough to kill for? And how was it more than just a sculpture? Dash had said he thought it was like a chocolate egg, but Simone couldn’t picture anything inside the coral. Mr. Ryan handed her a glass of wine and sat on the sofa in front of the sculpture. Simone sat next to him.

“So you want to know what makes a Reinel worth killing for. Does seeing one answer your question?”

“No,” Simone shook her head. “It’s beautiful, Mr. Ryan, but… to kill for? I expected something people could say is worth something, something concrete.”

“You don’t think people would kill to possess something beautiful?”

Simone was silent. She took a long drink of her wine. It tasted expensive and heavy.

“Maybe,” she finally conceded. “But I’ve been told it’s not the art that’s worth killing over. It’s something in the art. Or maybe about the art. And unless you can crack this open—and I don’t think anyone would do that—I don’t see what it could be.”

She still had one more stop before her meeting with Sorenson. She didn’t have more time for art appreciation. She had thought that with Reinel’s name she would be closer to solving this, to getting herself out of Kluren’s gold spotlights, to getting rid of The Blonde, and to getting her friendship with Caroline fixed. But she didn’t feel closer to any of those things. She felt like she was in a white room, drinking wine, and staring at a bloodstain shaped like a person.