Lev Rosen - Depth

“She really got to you when she pointed the gun at you, didn’t she?” Caroline asked in a low voice. Simone shook her head, then nodded at room 3003. Caroline held her fist up as if to knock, then looked at Simone. Simone leaned against the wall next to the door and nodded. Caroline knocked.

The door swung open. Simone couldn’t see Marina, but she could hear her.

“Caroline! Hey! You should have called, I would have put on some nice clothes.” Her voice was perky, but with an edge of anxiety Simone enjoyed hearing. “What’s up? Is this about the painting, ’cause I promise, I will get it to you, it’s just a little complicated because the sellers—” Simone stepped out from the side of the door, right behind Caroline. “Oh.” The false cheerfulness slipped off Marina’s face like silk lingerie. She stared at them both and sighed, half resigned to her fate, half bored. She turned around and walked back into the room. Caroline and Simone followed, closing the door behind them. Marina sat down on the bed and crossed her legs. She was in one of the hotel robes and nothing else. Her hair was wet and pulled back from her face, making her seem more exposed than Simone had ever seen her. She looked up at both of them. “I knew about your relationship, of course,” she said. “But everyone said how professional you were,” she was staring at Simone now, “how you never betrayed your client’s trust. I guess they were wrong about that. People have been wrong about a lot lately. Fuck people.” She leaned back, stretching her arms behind her to hold herself up and arching her chest slightly.

“Where’s the painting?” Simone asked.

“You know I don’t have it.”

“But you know who does.”

Marina sighed again and stood up. She walked over to the desk in the room. It was a large room, with a balcony. There were a few room service trays on the desk. She was probably afraid to leave too often. Afraid she’d be the next Linnea. Simone tracked her. There was no gun in sight. Marina picked up a pack of cigarettes from the desk and lit one.

“You don’t mind, right?” she asked.

“The forger, Marina?” Simone asked. “That’s who has the painting, right?”

“Figured it all out, did you?” Marina asked, exhaling smoke. “Yeah. The forger has it, I think. But I don’t know where the forger is. Or who.”

“You don’t know who the forger is?” Simone rolled her eyes.

“Don’t roll your eyes at me. I’m just the saleswoman. I didn’t do the hiring or even come up with the idea.” Marina turned and looked out the window, away from them, one arm holding the elbow of the other. She brought the cigarette to her lips and inhaled again. She exhaled slowly, so the smoke was like a thin sheet rising from her lips.

“Caroline here is deputy mayor,” Simone said, gesturing with her thumb. “You’re the last known person left in an art forgery con. Caroline, can you tell Marina what she’s won for that?”

“Forgery could be a good decade below deck,” Caroline said matter-of-factly. “The con will probably bring it to twenty-five.”

“Bring in someone like deCostas,” Simone said, “some poor innocent grad student you scammed… maybe even higher. If you’re really lucky, eighteen years with good behavior.” She glanced at Caroline, who nodded authoritatively.

“I’m always on my best behavior,” Marina said without turning away from the window. “And deCostas isn’t poor. He’s being funded by three or four governments. That’s why I went to him. Don’t you research your clients?”

Simone shook her head. “Why would governments fund him? It’s a fool’s errand.”

“Who are we to know that? We may think it’s bullshit. I do, you do—even Caroline here does, and she paid a lot of money for it. But what do we know? Have we researched it like he has? No. All I know is that that painting, even a copy of it, is worth a lot to a lot of people, even if we all know it’s just a bunch of salt.” She smiled, apparently thinking of how much money she almost had. But then her smile faded and she sucked at her cigarette again, almost desperately. “But it doesn’t matter. I don’t know the forger. He’s someone Linnea brought in. Knew him from Europe, I guess. She had a stupid nickname for him. I think she was trying to make Henry jealous.”

Simone stared Marina in the eyes, and Marina stared right back, her cigarette held at her mouth, one arm crossed across her robe. Marina was the sort you could never actually trust, but Simone didn’t think she was playing a game.

“What was the nickname?” Simone asked.

“She kept saying My Little le furgay , or something like that. My Little Forger, My Little le furgee . In a silly voice, too. She had that heavy accent. I assumed it meant forger in Swedish or whatever.” She shrugged and leaned against the desk.

“That’s not Swedish for forger,” Caroline said. “That’s not Swedish for anything.”

“Well, sorry,” Marina said sarcastically, “I only speak Japanese, Chinese, Spanish, French, and Italian. Never took Swedish. Or Dutch, or wherever in the EU Linnea was from.”

“It doesn’t mean forger in anything,” Caroline said.

Simone looked over at her. “You sure?”

“Yes,” Caroline said, clearly offended at being asked. If it wasn’t a pet name, it was another sort of name. And Simone had a first name that needed a last.

“I’m going to step into the hall to make a call,” Simone said. “Keep an eye on her.” Simone walked out into the hall, activated her earpiece, and told it to call Danny. Inside the hotel room she heard a noise like a loud slap and furniture moving.

“I’m about to see a client,” Danny said. “What’s up?”

“I need an address: Misty LeFurgay. She’s somewhere in the city. Maybe a hotel.”

“How do you spell that?”

“However. But I need it now, if you can.”

“Okay…” Danny’s voice trailed off. Inside the hotel room there was the sound of furniture falling and metal clattering. “M. LeFurgey. That’s F-U-R-G-E-Y, by the way. She’s not in a good part of town.”

He gave her the address, and she thanked him before hanging up and going back into the room. The desk was on its side, room service trays spilled all over the rug. Marina was slumped against the wall where the desk used to be, still smoking, gazing up at the window, a large red mark on her face. Simone barely glanced at her.

“I got it,” she said to Caroline. “Want to come?”

Caroline turned to look at her, a big smile on her face. “Sure. Nothing left to do here.” She turned back to Marina, still smiling. “I expect my money back tomorrow. Early.” She left without waiting for a reply.

“Now would be a good time to leave town,” Simone said. Marina looked up at her wearily.

“I never really liked New York, anyway,” she said. She looked as if she might smile but instead brought the cigarette to her lips. Simone left her there.

“So where are we going?” Caroline asked.

“West Side. Sort of between where Linnea was seen buying drugs and where Henry was killed. Not a nice neighborhood. Lot of MouthFoamers. You might want to hide your wristpiece.”

“You have a gun,” Caroline said. “Why don’t you just display that?”

“I will.”

CAROLINE PAID FOR A CAB, and Simone had it drop them a few bridges away, where it wasn’t too seedy. It was midafternoon, and the sun pressed down, simmering the garbage that floated between the buildings and sending up a dirt and shit smell. Flies buzzed just over the waves, their paranoid hum rising up whenever the sound of the waves faded. Simone shaded her eyes with her hands and looked for the building Danny had directed her to. It was a short walk, over bridges littered with sleeping bodies and people in salt-stained clothes, their mouths white, their eyes glazed. Behind the buildings, off on the horizon, there was a massive storm cloud heading their way. They’d have to be fast.