A Heist Story

by Ellen Simpson

“What?” Marcey asked.

  “Your sparring ability, Ms. Daniels,” Kat Barber answered. She bent to pick up Marcey’s bag and slung it over her shoulder. Marcey swallowed, feeling herself start to relax just a little. She took Kat’s arm when it was offered. “If you’re going to get into this line of work,” Kat continued, “you’re going to need to know how to murder someone with words alone.”

  “Is it okay to call you Kat?”

  Kat didn’t look at her, eyes trained on the city as it flew by them outside the car window. Kat had a driver. Or at least had thought to hire a car service for this trip. “Most people do. Kathryn’s a mouthful and I’m not eighty-five.” Kat rested a finger on her chin and hummed, pensive. “Who were you talking to, earlier? I can’t imagine you thought to buy yourself a SIM card. Must have been expensive.”

  It was a foolish thing, to want to trust someone like Kat Barber, and all Marcey’s better angels were against the truth. It tumbled out of Marcey’s lips like a benediction. “A friend.”

  Kat sat back. “Tell me about your friend?”

  Marcey shook her head. “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I’m not here to make nice. You had me arrested.”

  Wordlessly, Kat leaned over and raised the privacy screen to cut the driver off from eavesdropping. When it was raised fully, she spoke in carefully measured words. “You don’t want to make small talk with me, Marcey?”

  The contempt in Kat’s voice was enough to make Marcey want to lash out. Her fingers twisted around the hem of her oversized sweater, her attention on the traffic outside. The annoyance at Darius came creeping back, dark and oil-like in her mind’s eye. Her attraction to Kat, the thrill of this game, everything seemed to fall away. This place was backward— everything about this was backward. She’d gone about this all wrong. Shelly was right about that. Shelly was right about a lot of things, and Marcey felt like she was drowning in Kat’s expectant stare.

  “No, I don’t,” Marcey answered.

  “Why be so standoffish?” Kat asked. “You want to know about me, I want to know about you. You didn’t strike me as the type to have many friends.” She turned to look at Marcey. Her eyes were warm and the bright green of the wide-open spaces Marcey had longed for as a child growing up in a concrete jungle. “Maybe I could be one.”

  “I have friends,” she clarified. Pride was a foolish thing. So much time was wasted on feeling frustrated, annoyed by the limitations of communication between two people who had never spent any amount of time together. “Friends who are honest enough to tell me the full details of their plans before someone ends up in jail.”

  “What’s done is done, Marcey. I can no more change the past then I can predict the future. It was an unfortunate, but necessary thing.” Kat smiled wanly. “Could we perhaps start anew, try and see if a friendship can be forged between us?”

  To have a beautiful, terrifying woman propose such a thing was too much. Marcey shifted, uncomfortable in Kat’s scrutiny. What did she want from Kat Barber? A line from an old movie about people much like themselves came to mind. “First, we should try it before we can come to trust each other.”

  “Been watching old Connery movies, have you?”

  “I wasn’t watching for him.” Marcey grimaced.

  The coded conversation there, the implication of it, lingered. Kat’s lips turned upward into a slow smile. They were kindred spirits in that regard at least. The city fell in beside them, rows of houses slotting into buildings crowding out the sky. Marcey relaxed as they loomed higher and higher overhead. It felt like home.

  “I’m sorry, for what happened.” Kat picked at a speck of invisible lint on her jacket. “It was not my intention to see you in distress, but the time wasn’t right. I couldn’t have you—”

  “The time wasn’t right?” Marcey retorted. “You told me where the painting was, you told me to impress you. What the hell was I supposed to take that as, if not an invitation to try and steal it?”

  “I would have hoped,” Kat said forcefully. “That your association with Shelly Orietti would have made you more cautious.”

  “How did you—”

  “You met her at Charlie’s storage unit, didn’t you? Don’t give me that look—people in these circles talk. Even if they don’t particularly care for each other. Word gets around quick. A fresh face and a good liar helping Shelly out on a con? That’s news, especially when she was using Charlie’s trick cards.”

  Feigning ignorance was never Marcey’s style. Still, she frowned. “They were trick?” She tried to keep her voice full of the wonder that she felt it would be deemed appropriate for such a revelation. It felt hollow, but it did the job.

  “How else do you think she won so easily?” Kat sat back in the car seat, her attention no longer fully focused on Marcey. “You’ll want to be more observant.”

  Marcey sat back, staring up at the roof of the car. She was observant, thank you very much. The dome light was chipped and the covering was drooping in places. “You know Charlie left me the whole plan, right?”

  “Did he now?”

  “He did. Told me everything there was to know about that painting, and about where it’s supposed to be kept, too. It being at the Perôt was merely for its appraisal, wasn’t it? It wasn’t meant to be there.”

  Kat’s lips pursed into a thin line. Marcey watched her face, watched the way the muscles in her neck moved as she swallowed and then focused herself once more. “You should tread carefully, Marcey Daniels.”

  “I don’t think I need to be careful. I think I need to follow Charlie’s plan—”

  “My plan.”

  “Sorry?”

  Marcey turned to look at Kat as she spoke, taking in how she sat sprawled back on her seat, a queen looking down upon her worshipful subjects. She looked at Marcey as though she were the most fascinating person on the planet. “It’s my plan. My way of making up to Charlie for Rio.”

  “From what I heard you sold him out.”

  “Shelly would say that, yes.” Something flashed, resentful and dangerous, in Kat’s eyes.

  “Is that not what really happened?”

  “There’s more to every story, Marcey. I’m sure you’ve learned this by now. These things come not in the black and white of American justice, but in shades of gray. I was in a difficult position, yes, but Rio went sideways because of LePage and Gwen’s breakup, nothing more.”

  “Wait…LePage? The guy who arrested me LePage?”

  “I’m afraid they’re one and the same.” Kat didn’t sound particularly troubled. “People talk, Marcey, in these circles. You need to be more careful.”

  “If people are talking, then I want to know why they’re talking. I want to know why you couldn’t just tell me all of this over the phone. I want to know why you made me fly halfway around the goddamn world to have a conversation with you. Skype is a thing.”

  “You were a bit put out when you called me. Perhaps I merely wanted to make it up to you. I did, after all, put you through an awful ordeal.”

  “Don’t pretend you know me.”

  “I think you’ll find that I do know you. Girls like you are common as muck. Your friend on the phone is the one you got locked up, the one whose freedom is being threatened by that witch you Americans like to call an Assistant District Attorney. You feel guilty over his imprisonment and more so now that it’s campaign season and Linda Johnson has eyes larger than her station. You want to do something about that, don’t you? You want her crushed, her reputation squandered, for what she did to your friend.” Kat’s gaze hardened. “Am I close, Ms. Daniels?”

  Marcey glared at Kat. Who the hell was she to think she knew Marcey? She was right though. Right about all of it. And the shame burned Marcey’s cheeks. She looked away, to the pulling fabric of her leggings. “That is…a good summation of things, but…” Marcey reached into her bag and rifled through her paperwork until she found a crumpled “Johnson for DA” poster. She’d torn it off
a wall in a subway station on her way to the airport. “You’re forgetting the most important piece.” She passed the paper on to Kat. “From what I’ve been able to surmise, the group funding this isn’t connected to Johnson, but she’s consulted on the messaging. That’s me, if you couldn’t guess.”

  “Awful likeness.” Kat held up the paper, her expression thoughtful. “Doesn’t really capture you at all.”

  “It’s supposed to be an artist’s rendering of a ‘generic criminal’ but to me it looks as though they ran it through a Photoshop filter and called it a day.”

  “I would assume there is legal recourse for something like this?”

  “There is, if it’s Johnson who’s behind it. But I’m pretty sure it’s not her camp putting these out. It’s some law and order parent watchgroup against drugs in schools.” She couldn’t mention the other angle. She didn’t want to have to explain Rebecca to Kat Barber of all damn people.

  “Ah.” Kat folded the poster and tucked it away in her jacket pocket. “You’d know all about that, wouldn’t you?”

  “Don’t pretend to know me, Kat,” Marcey repeated.

  “Don’t push me away then. I want to know you, Marcey. You’re interesting.” Her face was perfectly still, a wispy strand of hair falling into her eyes. There was nothing to betray what she was thinking. “If you’re still talking to the friend you got locked away, you’re better than most in this line of work.” She raised an eyebrow. “Get caught, get dropped.” Her accent grew more pronounced, crasser as she spoke. “You can’t afford a slip-up like what happened to him again, can you?”

  Marcey shook her head. “I can’t. No one can.” Kat’s lips twisted up, the barest hint of a smile. It was all teeth and insincerity. “So then you know what I want.”

  “I do.” Outside, a car sped past, weaving in and out of traffic at breakneck speed. Marcey recoiled, almost on instinct. Kat’s hand moved, coming to rest on hers, lying almost forgotten on the seat between them. “I think we may be able to help each other.”

  “I’m glad you think so.” Marcey should’ve put it together that this was how the conversation was going to go between herself and Kat. This black cloud of a woman was looming on the horizon, just waiting to strike. Shelly’d seen it. Why hadn’t Marcey? “I want her ruined for what she did to Darius. What she’s trying to do to me now. She’s getting her petty revenge. I want mine.” Kat’s hand was so warm. Marcey wondered how she could be so furnace-like, her skin burning Marcey’s fingers. And there, Kat’s long nails, capped with painted tips of a green that matched Kat’s eyes, lingered. But there was other paint, not polish, around the edges of Kat’s nails, bright yellows and dull ochre browns.

  “That’s his name? Darius?” His name on Kat’s lips felt like a betrayal.

  “Yeah.”

  They lapsed into silence.

  Kat lived outside of London. Her address in Charlie’s book was listed as way out in the countryside, in a tiny little village that housed about three hundred people. Marcey had spent a good hour plugging it into Google Maps on the plane, tracking the roads in and out, making sure that there was a good route out if things went south with Kat. It had been worth the twenty bucks she’d spent on Wi-Fi for that alone.

  “Where are we going?” Marcey asked. “Charlie’s book said…” She stopped herself before she spoke further. The driver turned off the main road and was now driving through bustling city streets, taking them into the heart of the city. The car finally stopped down a quiet street, already cloaked in the gloom of twilight, coming to rest before a nondescript building. Marcey swallowed nervously.

  “Charlie’s book says many things,” Kat answered. “Not all of them paint a full picture.” She moved to get out of the car, motioning for Marcey to do the same. Marcey grabbed her bag. Kat’s eyes were on her through the back dash of the car.

  Kat stood on the curb, speaking to the driver through his window for a moment before straightening up. When he pulled away, Kat headed up a short flight of stairs to a set of double doors. Marcey followed her, curious. From her pocket, Kat produced a ring of keys, one of which was large and iron, old fashioned. She slipped it into the lock and turned it, then leaned over and punched a code into a keypad half-hidden by the ornate molding framing the doorway. She glanced over her shoulder, her crooked smile broadening. She pushed the door open and stepped aside, allowing Marcey passage into the building.

  The foyer inside had high, arching ceilings that went up three stories and were lined with windows. The entire space was lit in a strange blue light, the color of twilight filtering in from the wide, multi-paned industrial windows half cast in shadow as the sun set behind the swirling mass of gray clouds overhead.

  An ancient-looking elevator, cast in copper and steel, dominated the far wall. A staircase spiraled around it. Marcey was grateful when Kat headed for the elevator, pulling open the cage and not so much as blinking when the entire thing groaned and creaked.

  “What is this place?” Marcey asked. The floor fell away beneath them as the elevator creaked its way upward, pipes hissing and groaning as it rose through the floors of the old building.

  Kat turned to regard Marcey, her expression solemn. “Studio space. It doubles as a city residence when I need to be in town for business.” She tapped Marcey’s bag, slung over Marcey’s shoulder. “I’d thought we could stay here, to save us the drive from the country in the morning.”

  “That seems wise,” Marcey answered. “Are you sure you’re okay with my staying here? I’m really okay to get a hotel if you’d rather me not be in your hair.”

  When she’d told Shelly that she was going to see Kat, Shelly hadn’t been particularly surprised. She’d warned caution, as she had before, but told Marcey to go if that was what she wanted. “Just be careful,” Shelly had urged. “Find out what game she’s playing with Johnson before you drag both of us in so far that we can’t get out.” It was a good warning, one Marcey could take to heart.

  Kat’s eyes were on her, a panther on the prowl. Marcey shifted uncomfortably, moving ever so slightly away from Kat. She was drawn to Kat. Kat’s personality filled up all the empty places Marcey tried to ignore within herself. Being drawn to Kat wasn’t a good idea.

  The elevator ground to a halt. Marcey shifted, uncomfortable in her oversized sweater and leggings next to the sleek lines of Kat Barber and her very ornate, if rickety, elevator. This was Kat’s domain. And she was willingly walking into it.

  “Come in, come in,” said the spider to the fly.

  CHAPTER 12

  Kat, Storytelling

  “You haven’t answered my question,” Marcey said. “I really can stay somewhere else. It’s no trouble.”

  Following a complete stranger, never mind one she knew to be dangerous, to a foreign country was not Marcey’s brightest move. She didn’t think that Kat Barber wanted to hurt her, but the there was so much tucked away into the pretty little rich girl façade that didn’t break the surface of calm that Kat clearly worked so hard to put on.

  Kat Barber leaned in close enough for Marcey to catch a whiff of her perfume and the scent of something fruity in her hair. Marcey couldn’t breathe, her mind completely taken up by the image of this beautiful, charming woman. She swallowed once, and then again, as Kat spoke. “Why on earth would I ever send you away, Marcey Daniels?”

  The silence between them was heavy. Kat was standing far too close to Marcey, the air full of things left unsaid. Implication was everywhere, and Kat’s intentions could not have been clearer. Marcey swallowed, looking down at her feet. She had to look anywhere but Kat, or else she would be ensnared.

  She’s involved with someone else, Marcey reminded herself. She still inhaled deeply; she still took in the scent of Kat’s perfume and committed the spicy, floral scent to memory. She couldn’t help herself.

  “This place has plenty room for two,” Kat added, turning and walking away into the great open space before Marcey could think of anything to say. They were on th
e top floor. The great spiraling staircase narrowed into a thin line, but the ceilings remained far higher than Marcey would have ever expected.

  “I’ll say,” Marcey muttered. The room had an open floorplan, cast in the same gray light as the foyer below. There was a kind of sadness clinging to these walls, but it was a sadness that Marcey found oddly welcoming. A melancholy—a lack of understanding with pure-white walls and large windows.

  Marcey turned and pulled the elevator gate shut. She followed Kat and the click, click, click of her spiked heels across the hardwood floor. They were venturing further into the flat, into the great belly of the beast that was Kat Barber.

  “How did you end up with a place like this?” Marcey asked.

  Kat gestured airily. “Oh, I own the building. Or my father does. An investment, if you will.”

  The apartment spoke nothing of this wealth. It was a Spartan space, all raw wood in the eaves. The floors were the color of warm mud, scrubbed bare and varnished to a dull, scuffed sheen. A few rugs decorated the floor, threadbare in places, as though they were cast-offs from a household long in the habit of acquiring new things when the old ones no longer looked the part. They had once been beautiful marvels of work and patterning, all in black and white faded to gray with time and use.

  A kitchen lined one wall, against a bank of windows. The stove and refrigerator were enclosed by a half-wall that gave the illusion of a separate room. Marcey was drawn to the windows. Outside, telephone lines reached out from above the corner window like strands of a great spider’s web. A flock of small black birds were perched on the wires, their cries silent through the cool glass. Marcey rested her fingers on the windowpane.

  She was walking in a dream. This place, this city, it was shrouded in a thick fog as twilight fell. Marcey’s head felt fuzzy with the jet lag and the late-earliness of the hour. It was early evening yet to her mind it was only lunchtime. Her focus was elusive, slipping like smoke through her fingers. All she saw was Kat’s bewitching smile. It was enough to make her lose herself, to drive her to utter distraction.