The Trophy Wine
The Pan-Pac 'Special' Suite

She drove to the underground car-park of the city’s Pan Pacific – and if that isn’t giving something away, well, I dunno what is – and had me follow her to the private elevator and up to a floor quite high up, I’m not even really sure which one because there was no lit-up sign inside there like most elevators have.

Typical.

Government thing, not anything ‘woo-woo.’ Just plain old ‘ordinary’ vaguely clandestine stuff.

When we got out of the elevator, there was a very small vestibule, I guess, not a hallway or anything for the public at all – which I suppose meant the elevator itself was monitored and sequestered with electronics and pass-keys and whatnot.

And there was a door. Big, wooden framed, dark wood – highly polished.

Seemed to be unlocked because she just turned the knob and walked right in.

“You stay here tonight. I’ll come and get you sometime past midnight, maybe two or three o’clock. Everything has been set up here for you to use. Don’t call out for anything. Don’t call anyone.”

“How about clothes?” I asked. “Will I need some new clothes?”

I set down my sling-bag just right there onto the thick-pile carpeted floor.

“There’s everything laid out for you in the bedroom suite.” She said curtly. And then she turned around and basically just walked out. Not saying a word further. And leaving me alone.

Literally the very first thing that ran through my mind was – ‘Bet the door is locked.’

So I went back up to it and tried the handle. Sure enough, was completely locked tight as a drum cartridge magazine on a German-made WWII machine pistol.

Huh.

There was a scent in here. Leather, wax, lanolin, and newness, but not plastic newness.

There was not much inside the living room area – a low, also dark polished wood coffee table. A woollen fabric-covered couch, two matching chairs, a simulated full-spectrum light light-bulb fitted into a standing lamp next to one of the chairs. One slimline cabinet against a wall. Carafe of water. Freshly filled, it looked like. Silver tray underneath. Tumbler glasses.

To the rear of the main living room area where the back wall and the large windows were there was another space where there was a six-seater dining table.

Heavy drapes. Big windows. You could see out pretty good all right from those. City lights. Cars down below. You couldn’t see the homeless living in the streets from up here but they were there. There were not that many in this city but there were enough all the same.

‘The poor you will have with you always.’

Really.

Hmm.

Pretty much a fact there as all the centuries have unfurled over much time now.

God I felt tired though.