“If the opportunity presents itself.”
“Okay. But it’s going to take more than this and some straws.”
“Can I swing by your office? We’ll head over together?”
“Sure. I want to hear all about this case, though. Every tiny detail.”
“I will. I trust you.”
“No you don’t.”
“I’m trying.”
“Try harder.”
DANNY WAS IN COSTUME by the time she got back to his place.
“Thanks for letting me crash here,” Simone said.
“Going somewhere?” Danny asked, adjusting his turban.
“I got a lead. Caroline and I are going to check it out.”
“Caroline?”
“Yeah, and if you say the word trust I’m going to hit you.” Simone checked her pockets and under the sofa, making sure she had everything. “Caroline is still pissed, but I got my foot in the door, and I’m going to fix this. And solve my case.”
“Busy morning,” Danny said, sounding impressed. “Weren’t you going to tell me what this case is about?”
“Rain check—later, with beer or whatever.” She stood and turned back to look at Danny in his ridiculous pajamas. The feather in his turban bobbed like a buoy. “I promise. Thanks again. I’ll let you know how it turns out.”
“Call me if you need me.” Simone dashed out the door, her coat tight around her, and headed for City Hall.
THE FLOATING PLAZA AROUND City Hall was busier during the day: tourists from the mainland shooting photos, people on smoke breaks by the fountain, and a row of black yachts docked across from the plaza, their bows dipping like praying monks, with a line of drivers standing in front of them like guards. She walked past them into the building, flashed her IRID at the guards, and headed up. She wasn’t a familiar enough face that guards and secretaries stopped to chat with her, but she visited often enough that they knew who she was and that she was allowed in the building.
Caroline’s senior secretary glanced up at Simone when she stepped out of the elevator, then back down at her touchdesk, her mouth a thin line of worry at the prospect of an unscheduled appointment. “I don’t have you on the calendar, but I’ll let Ms. Khan know you’re here. She’ll be out soon, I’m sure.” She picked up the phone and told Caroline that Simone was waiting, then nodded and hung up. “She’s just finishing up a conference call with the mainland.” The secretary leaned forward conspiratorially, clearly excited to have someone new to gossip with. “Some big project they want to do, all very secret. Do you have any guesses?” Simone raised her eyebrows, which the secretary took as a cue to continue. “I think maybe they want to start a whale farm out here. Just think how great that would be.” This was more insight into the mind of Caroline’s secretary than Simone wanted. Thankfully, at that moment, the office door sprang open, and Caroline beckoned wordlessly from inside. Simone shrugged at the secretary and followed Caroline into her office, closing the door behind her.
“So, before we head over to the Four Seasons, you’re going to tell me everything,” Caroline said, leaning back on her desk and closing her arms. She was wearing a gray suit with a white collared shirt. Her mood wasn’t as good as Simone had hoped. She had thought—optimistically, apparently—that by telling Caroline about Danny’s gaffe, they’d be on the road to reconciliation. She wasn’t so sure now.
“Okay,” Simone said. “Can I sit?”
Caroline nodded at one of the chairs in front of her desk. “And if you leave anything out or lie, I will know, and that will be it. I am offering you a do-over. I’m letting you talk to me like you should have talked to me from day one.”
“Okay,” Simone said again, sitting gingerly.
“And you should say ‘thank you’ for that.”
“Thanks,” Simone said, somewhat flatly. Caroline raised her eyebrows, then spun around and went to sit behind her desk.
“From the beginning.”
Simone told her everything, from the case Linnea had hired her for, to the first murder, to Linnea’s body showing up in her office. She found it was easy once she got started—easier than her usual routine of glossing over the truths of her work, withholding information. Caroline watched and listened, her feet up on the desk, her face rarely betraying anything besides interest.
“A map.” Caroline said when Simone had finished. She stood and looked out her window. “I thought it was just some art for the foundation. I didn’t know . . . My parents are nuts, you know that, right?” She turned back and looked at Simone, and for a moment, Simone felt hopeful—Caroline was talking to her. Was complaining about her parents, like she used to. But then Caroline seemed to realize this too, and her mouth became a straight line again. She sat back down at her desk, her back straight, her movements all mathematical, hard geometry. “Why stay on the case?” Caroline asked, after a moment. “When Kluren told you to quit and your client disappeared? Why keep digging?”
“Kluren was fitting me for a prison jumpsuit.”
“Bullshit. Kluren may not like you, but she’s a good cop, religiously by the book, and you know it. She wouldn’t have locked you up without cause. Why did you keep digging?”
Simone looked down, and her hat fell off her head onto the floor. She stared at it a minute, her now loose hair partially obscuring her vision.
“You were involved,” she said after a minute.
“I was involved? So what, you wanted to make sure I wasn’t secretly a criminal mastermind?”
“I wanted to make sure you were okay.” The hat had fallen at an angle, but with the rim up, so she could look into the hat and its black lining, where a few of her hairs had curled like red ink, words in calligraphy so fancy she couldn’t read it. She heard Caroline get up from behind her desk, and looked up at her. Caroline was looking out the window.
“Okay then,” Caroline said. “Let’s go see Marina. You can tell me your theory on the way.”
FOURTEEN
* * *
FORGERY. THAT WAS SIMONE’S theory. That, and Henry and Linnea were so busy looking at each other, expecting betrayal, they never counted on someone coming for the painting without paying. They’d been in over their heads before they even finished conceiving the plan.
“It’s the Mona Lisa con,” Simone explained as they stopped for pretzels. “They find a lost painting, maybe stolen, something, but they know it’s valuable. So instead of auctioning it off to just one buyer, they get greedy: forge a whole bunch of them and sell them to all the buyers.”
“Wouldn’t their buyers find out, eventually?” Caroline asked. Simone bit into her pretzel and started walking towards the Four Seasons, Caroline keeping pace beside her.
“That’s why you do this with a stolen painting,” Simone said between bites. “No one catches on because no one wants to admit they bought a painting they know was stolen. In this case, though, people aren’t really interested in the painting. They’re interested in the information contained in the painting. So when they sell the painting—no one admits to buying it, because then people will try to find out where the painting is and steal it, or at least the information. Everyone keeps the painting secret.”
“But won’t they all just end up meeting at the location on the painting?”
“I imagine Marina and the St. Michels were betting that the location is a dud.” Simone took another bite of her pretzel and swallowed before continuing. “Just some random apartment building, nothing special. That’s what I’d bet on.”
“So people buy the forgeries, check out the location, see it’s nothing, and then go back to their lives, having lost however much money they were willing to spend.”
“Which is why they hired Marina. She works people—she got you to pay exactly your maximum for the painting, didn’t she?”
“The maximum my parents told me to pay, but yeah.” Caroline rubbed the space betwee
n her eyebrows. “I can’t believe they got me mixed up in this.”
“Everyone knows the painting could be fool’s gold, your parents included. Everyone has a set amount they’re willing to risk and have it turn out to be worthless. And Marina works people to get to that price. It’s a great scheme. No one gives a fuck about the painting once they realize it hasn’t led them anywhere. And if they do find out someone else bought it, well, the St. Michels and Marina—and their forger, whoever he is—are long gone by then. Plus no one wants to admit they bought a treasure map that didn’t lead anywhere.” Simone swallowed the last bite of her pretzel and licked the salt from her hand.
“So who killed Henry? Was it Linnea?”
“No. Henry and Linnea were going to turn on each other, and each knew it—that’s why Linnea hired me in the first place. But neither was going to try that till after the paintings were sold. For them, it was about the money. Linnea was killed by Dash, I’m almost positive. Someone hired him to get the painting. But she didn’t have it, or wouldn’t give it up.” Simone put her hands in her pockets, remembering Linnea. “Probably wouldn’t give it up. I’d say Marina has it, but then she would’ve just given it to the highest bidder, given everyone else their money back, and acted as though it were a normal job. It wouldn’t have been as big a payday, but she wouldn’t have had to split it.”
“So who’s left?”
“The forger.”
“And who’s the forger?”
“That’s what we’re about to ask Marina.”
Simone stopped and stared up at the Four Seasons. They’d arrived, and she needed to prepare herself for what she had to do. She wasn’t going to torture Marina, the way Dash had done to Linnea, but she wasn’t above punching her in the jaw, either. Marina was smart, though, and her primary instinct would be survival. With Caroline there, Simone could make a compelling case for pinning the whole thing on Marina and sending her off to prison. Hopefully, Marina would talk to avoid that.
“Let me do most of the talking,” Simone said as they walked up to the door. “I’m going to use you—your position—to intimidate her. Make it seem the law has her and she’s about to get locked in the hull of some prison ship for the rest of her life if she doesn’t cooperate. Bring out the legalese to back me up, if you need to; otherwise, stay quiet and look angry.”
“I thought you said I could hit her.”
“If the opportunity presents itself.”
“Okay, but my interpretation of ‘presents itself’ may be looser than yours.” Caroline walked into the elevator and hit 30. “She’s in room 3003.”
“You should knock. That’ll be better,” Simone said. She took her gun out of her boot, checked it was loaded, and put it back while Caroline watched in silence. The elevator rang, and the door opened. Caroline led the way down the hall.
“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.
&
nbsp; 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.”
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