Kim by Robert Colby

Author:Robert Colby [Colby, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781440539244
Publisher: Prologue Books
Published: 2012-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

Thirteen

Markos was staying at a hotel on Miami Beach, one of those colossal dreams of stone and glass which can be found in few other sections of the country.

We pulled up to the door and a parking attendant took the Lincoln. But not before Markos had opened the trunk and removed a brief case. I made special note of that case because I had an idea it was going to interest me.

In the vast lobby with its fountain behind glass and its tile mosaics, Markos sought the bell captain and gave him a list of items to be sent to the room.

“How soon do you want this delivered, sir?” said the captain.

“Ten minutes ago,” said Markos. And gave him a ten-dollar bill which he peeled from a roll that would embarrass a bookie.

We stepped into an elevator and climbed until I thought we must have run out of floors, riding into space the way they do in those animated cartoons. Then we walked down a hall of mauve carpets and up a few steps to a vermilion door with a small gold crown in bas-ralief. There wasn’t another door like it on the floor.

Markos produced a key and we entered an enormous living room done lavishly in Chinese modern and practically ringed with floor-to-ceiling glass. In one corner of the room there was even an ebony grand piano.

“Penthouse,” Markos announced. “Nothing to beat it in the whole goddamn town. You like it?”

“It’s gorgeous,” I said, and it was.

“Bill and a half a day,” said Markos. “C’mon, I’ll show you the layout.”

There were two great bedrooms, each aimed at the sea, one of them containing a king-sized bed. In this room Markos placed his gray felt hat on top of a dresser and tucked the brief case in one of its drawers.

The rest was a small kitchen and a dressing room set with mirrors. There were two baths. A walled balcony encompassed the entire apartment, although the balcony was sectioned so that each room had a separate area.

Markos took me to the section which fronted the living room and we stood there looking out and down upon the glazed multicolor of lights west and the giant formless shadow of the ocean east. Directly below was the cement court with its scatter of tables, a tiny bar beside an Olympic-sized swimming pool. The pool was lighted and the water had a look of azure purity. Even at this hour a few late swimmers splashed and dived.

Markos bent his head and said, “It’s along ways down, eh?”

He said so little. And somehow when he did speak, the simplest statement seemed to carry undercurrents of meaning. So I looked at him from the corner of my eye, but there was nothing in his face. He simply stared below.

I followed his gaze down the long sweep of the building to the far distant pavement. I am not overly afraid of height. But at times it has an odd effect upon me. I feel as if the ground has a magnetism which attracts me towards it in some insidious way.

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