"Kit Reed - Unlimited" - читать интересную книгу автора (Reed Kit)

UNLIMITED
By Kit Reed

NOT EVERYBODY KNOWS IT yet, but sooner or later everybody needs our
services. That is, everybody who matters. Sooner or later they come to us.

We are the best at what we do. R [6 Star] Unlimited, a subsidiary of Velvet
Martinet Enterprises. My company. But you know this, or you would not be here.

We take only A list clients and we get top dollar. You can read this in the hang
of our cool suits тАФ laid-back ensembles in pewter and silver, the walking yearтАЩs
wages that we go out in when we do business. Think relaxed cut, think designer
items several notches up the food chain from Armani. Top of the line RayBans. The
boots alone! Every hair shining. It doesnтАЩt matter what youтАЩre doing as long as you
look drop-dead gorgeous doing it.

Take the lobby here in R [6 Star] Unlimited. Elegant. Gleaming. Testimony to
our success. Success pays the rent and I can tell you, we have a one hundred
percent success rate.

See the malachite reception desk and the glistening parquet of our outer lobby,
the silk Persian rugs with a corner flipped back so you can count the
thousand-knots-per-inch until one of our assistants bothers to come and take your
history. Get a load of our carpeted walls and the tinted one-way glass that juts over
Wilshire Boulevard and Little Santa Monica. The glass for obvious reasons, the
carpeting to muffle the screaming, something we never discuss at these preliminary
meetings. We are at the apex here! Note the Brancusi fountain and the malachite
steps you mount to remind our receptionist that you are still waiting.

Once you have cleared the outer lobby, observe the lush kidskin sofa in the
Gauguin room where you sit and stew, waiting for me to clear ten minutes for this
interview.

Success? You bet. Our assistants alone! Quick and clever in their chic black
dresses, the best they can manage on what we pay them. Phi Betes from the Ivies,
these girls killed and died to get here and theyтАЩre every one of them a size six, okay?
And if the pay scale seems mean to you and fourteen-hour days excessive,
remember that every one of them aims through craft and diligence to become one of
us.

The upper echelon. Note that we are all women here. ItтАЩs a policy decision.
Tact and efficiency. Finesse.

Further signs: my office! Instead of a desk, we face each other over my
bronze coffee table. Chinese, dug out of some tomb in the year one thousand, donтАЩt
ask. Then thereтАЩs the art: Naum Gabo, a treasure in plexi and monofilament. A tiny
Rothko. A Bacon, and if the torn jaws gape as if the victim is being flayed alive and
screaming as we sit hereтАФ well, weтАЩll get to that. A Pollock. A Degas.
Double-rubbed black lacquer on the walls and silver floors; see our logo inlaid in
gold, which is why you are wearing complimentary terrycloth booties over your