“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.
She led the way, flashing her gun when any of the MouthFoamers glanced up at them. Caroline walked just behind her, eyes straight ahead, fearless. They wove around poorly finished bridges and, at one point, climbed up to the top of a building to get to a bridge that was higher up. The building they finally came to was gray stone, one of the Glassteel test cases. It was covered with the stuff so thickly it actually looked laminated, cheap and tacky, like a building made of wax paper. The door was open, so they walked in and up a few flights. Danny had homed in on this location from server and cloud usage, but he couldn’t find an apartment number; the closest he could get was that she was probably in the top northwest corner of the building.
The stairwells were metal things, crusted with salt and smelling of plastic and decay. Simone knocked on a few doors as she approached the northwest part of the top floor. No one answered any of them until they reached apartment G. There, the door flew open as though someone was expecting them.
The woman who opened the door was young and wore only a blue dressing gown tied loosely around her. She didn’t even look at Simone and Caroline but walked away from the door as soon as she’d opened it. The apartment was a large flat, empty of all furniture save an unmade bed, a dresser, an old leather sofa that was also being used as a bed, and a wooden chair in front of a small table. An easel stood by one of the large frosted windows that let in a cold, gray light. A few other windows were open, and wind blew around the room, wet with the ocean. The woman sat down on the wooden chair and crossed her legs, apparently waiting for Simone and Caroline. Simone saw nowhere else to sit, so she stood across from the small table, eyeing the woman. The woman stared directly ahead of her, not looking up. She was pale, and her skin seemed loose on her pointed features. Her hair was ash blonde and fell in long, frizzy waves in all directions. Her lips were dry, and the cracks in them were white—she was clearly a longtime MouthFoamer. She reached forward, took a pack of cigarettes and a lighter off the table, and lit one. The smoke from the cigarette floated around her, blending with her hair, fanning out around her like a nebula. Her eyes were the palest blue and didn’t seem to see anything.
“You’re Misty?” Simone asked. Caroline hung back as Simone walked forward. The woman looked up at Simone’s face as though she were trying to remember it. Suddenly, her eyes focused for a moment, and she saw Simone. Finding nothing familiar there, she just sighed and let her head drop back down, her eyes unfocused.