Death by the Book

by Lenny Bartulin

  He smiled back, whispering through his teeth: ‘Fuck you, Geoff.’

  Lunchtime in Double Bay. The sun was sharp and the cold air whipped canvas awnings in violent gusts. Traffic lights shook like TV antennas. Jack got off the bus and cut through Knox Street on the way to Cumberland Gardens, feeling the blood turn blue in his veins. Nobody braved the outside tables: inside, old ladies with grey bouffant hairdos and their forty-five-year-old daughters with not much to do complained and wondered if the council could do something about the wind.

  Apart from that, the place was empty. Jack walked briskly. He turned down Bay Street and wondered if Annabelle would be at the house.

  In his bag were the Kass books he had been able to find since delivering the first lot exactly a week ago. Jack was still in two minds about whether he should hand them over. A lot had happened in the last seven days. The books might be his only bargaining power: though for what, he had no idea. It would all depend on what Kasprowicz had to say for himself.

  The long green gate was open. Jack walked through, noticing again how shabby the front yard looked. Annabelle’s Audi was parked in the carport. He went up the three front steps to the house, crossed the verandah and knocked.

  After a few moments, she opened it, trailing a white cloth napkin in her hand. ‘Well, Mr Susko. This is a surprise. Are you collecting for a charity?’

  Jack smiled. She was dressed in an oversized black jumper stretching down to her thighs and light grey tights: on her feet, thick white socks. She looked warm and very comfortable. Her hair was loose and tucked in behind her ears. No jewellery, no make-up, clear skin, smooth complexion: the effect was almost rude. The kind of woman who started wars and religious cults.

  ‘Nice beanie,’ she said. ‘Did your mother knit it?’

  ‘In case of Sydney blizzards.’

  She looked Jack up and down, grinned. ‘Yes, I can see it now. Bit of a mummy’s boy.’

  ‘I visit every Christmas.’

  ‘What else could a mother want?’ Annabelle stepped aside. ‘Come in. You’ve just caught me having my lunch.’

  Pity it wasn’t a bath. Jack walked through. He waited for her to close the door and then followed her down the hall, into the kitchen.

  ‘Your father not here?’ he asked, watching her walk and listening to the soft, padded sound of her feet on the hall runner.

  ‘No. Did you want to see him?’

  ‘We had an appointment for one o’clock.’

  ‘He’s in Hong Kong on business. Don’t think he’ll get here in time.’

  ‘Right.’ Jack thought about getting angry, but the feeling had nothing to grab. Other feelings were grabbing hold of other things.

  Annabelle dropped her napkin onto the kitchen table. ‘Are you hungry?’ she said, turning to Jack. ‘I made too much.’

  Jack noticed a bottle of Semillon, about one-third full, standing guard beside a green salad. Looked like Annabelle had opened her innings already.

  ‘Thanks, I’m fine. Don’t let me stop you.’

  ‘I’ve had enough. Wine? Or Scotch, maybe? It’s after twelve.’

  ‘I’ll have what you’re having.’

  ‘Easy.’ She reached up to a cupboard, opened it and removed a bottle of Scotch and two glasses. Jack watched her pour generous portions. He put his bag down beside a chair and then removed his beanie, coat and scarf.

  ‘So, more developments?’ she said, turning around with the glasses. She walked over, handed one to Jack. ‘I suppose you’ve been talking to Celia again?’

  He noticed the edge in her tone. ‘This afternoon, actually. I’m meeting her father, too. Hopefully he’ll be there.’

  ‘Ah, the dark poet.’

  Jack smiled. He leaned back against one of the dining chairs. ‘So what’s big Hammond got against him?’

  ‘What hasn’t he got against him.’ Annabelle sipped her drink. She tilted her head slightly to the side and gave Jack a questioning look. ‘Do you mind if I ask what happened to your face?’

  ‘I was hoping your old man might be able to tell me.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Jack knew the concern on Annabelle’s face was not for him. But the chance that it was, even just a little, nudged him in the ribs. He wanted to tell her what had happened. Even as he told himself to be wary, to read and consider the situation, the angles, he knew he would tell her. Given the chance, Jack realised he would always want to tell her, anything and everything.

  ‘Somebody broke into my shop. They were trying to burn a couple of uncle Edward’s books.’

  ‘I don’t understand. In your shop?’

  ‘In my rubbish bin. Set-up job gone wrong. I turned up when I wasn’t supposed to.’

  Annabelle Kasprowicz looked out through the glass doors into the rear yard and frowned. Outside, the wind had tipped over a striped deckchair. ‘You think my father had something to do with it?’

  ‘Maybe.’ Jack looked down and swirled the glass in his hands. ‘He denied it on the phone.’

  ‘That’s why you wanted to speak with him?’

  ‘Yes. Nice of him to tell me about Hong Kong.’

  ‘It was out of the blue. I made the appointment for him.’ Annabelle ran a hand through her hair, thinking. Her eyes darted along the grooves between the terracotta tiles on the floor. Jack was disappointed she had lost interest in his face. ‘Couldn’t be helped,’ she said, more to herself.

  ‘So you earn your keep then?’

  Annabelle reached for a packet of cigarettes, lit up, tossed a cheap blue lighter onto the bench. She scratched the corner of her mouth with her little finger, pensive. ‘Why would he try to set you up? He’d only be setting himself up, wouldn’t he?’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Jack. He had already thought of that and knew deep down that Kasprowicz probably had nothing to do with it. But the break-in was connected to something: to Hammond Kasprowicz, to this family. And now to Jack. A knife in the guts made him practically a relation.

  ‘Why does he want them in the first place?’ he asked, firmly, remembering his anger. ‘Why would he be burning them and sending them to his brother?’

  Annabelle gave Jack a startled look. ‘You don’t know that for certain.’

  ‘I’ve seen the note.’

  ‘So what? That’s not proof. And those ashes could be burnt newspapers for all you know.’ She moved to the other side of the island bench, away from Jack. ‘I told you not to believe anything Celia Mitten said.’

  ‘You believed it the other night.’

  Annabelle looked away.

  ‘Why don’t you give me something then?’ asked Jack, with more force than he had intended. ‘One little idea. Preferably true.’

  Annabelle dragged on her cigarette, blew out a quick blue breath. ‘I would if I had one.’

  ‘Tell me what happened between your father and Kass. Why did he take all the money?’

  ‘Because.’

  Jack waited for an answer.

  Annabelle poured more Scotch into her glass. With her back to him, she said: ‘Edward Kass had an affair with my mother.’

  One of the halogen lights in the ceiling died, softly, like a candle being snuffed out. Annabelle turned around and stared meaningfully at Jack. ‘That enough?’

  He had suspected the possibility, but hearing it surprised him. Now that it was clear, all of his assumptions shifted around a little, suddenly uncomfortable and awkward, like distant relatives at a wake. Durst flashed in his mind like a hazard light.

  ‘Runs in the family, then?’ said Jack.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Playing around. Six-figure imaginations and you guys still go for the one-dollar thrills.’

  ‘Excuse me?’ Annabelle straightened up.

  A little blood rushed to Jack’s head. Who was he getting angry at? He looked at Annabelle, tried to see what her face revealed, but could not afford the entrance ticket. Truth was, Jack was the only one-dollar thrill round at Cumberland Gardens.


  ‘Celia must be a chip off the old block,’ he said, fiddling with the lighter in his pocket. ‘I saw your ex-husband leaving the sparkle shop the other day. Or are they just good friends?’

  Annabelle opened her mouth, but nothing came out. She stood frozen, her lips slightly parted, soft and full. Jack almost went over and laid one on her. But as her face darkened, he realised now was probably not a good time.

  ‘I’ve got to send some faxes,’ she said. She crushed her half-smoked cigarette in an ashtray. Glass in hand, she walked out of the kitchen.

  Jack looked around. The house was silent. A strange feeling overcame him: it was as if he were looking at himself through the window. Standing there, in somebody’s house, somebody he did not know. As though he had broken in, but now had no idea what he wanted.

  He walked out into another hallway. From a nearby room on his left he could hear the beeping of office equipment. The door to the room was open. He went over and stood at the entrance. Annabelle was flicking through a small pile of paper.

  Kasprowicz’s study: a warm cocoon of timber, leather and books. A gas heater burnt red through fake logs. There was a chess board set up on a small table in front of it, a couple of deep sofa chairs on either side, perfectly aligned. Jack scanned the bookshelves, thick with brown, black and maroon spines, all carefully lined up, every edge flush with its neighbour. He wondered if they had ever been taken down. White lace curtains filtered damp light in through a tall bay window, just behind a dark-stained desk that looked big enough to live in.

  Annabelle sat behind the desk in her father’s thickly padded, green leather chair. She was turned to her left, feeding a page through the fax machine. Her eyes were wet but her expression gave nothing away.

  ‘Kass went to hospital the other night,’ said Jack. ‘After getting more ashes in the mail. Thought he was having a heart attack.’ He walked into the study, half-closing the door behind him.

  ‘We’ve all got to go sometime.’

  ‘True. But we don’t need help to get there.’

  ‘Everybody needs help.’

  Annabelle stood up. As she reached for her glass of Scotch, Jack grabbed her wrist and drew her to him. She did not resist.

  13

  JACK SUSKO HAD NEVER FUCKED in a four-thousand-dollar leather chair before. Not with the wind whipping cold rain against the window outside and the mid-afternoon light discreet and a fake-log fireplace keeping his kidneys warm. He guessed it was just one of those days and decided not to think about it too much. Better to wallow in the after-glow. To think was to let the future in and Jack was in no hurry to get there any time soon.

  So he went through everything again in his mind, tried to separate events into distinct moments: stretch them out, prolong the pleasure. They had kissed hungrily. They had ripped each other’s clothing off. Jack had even forgotten about his ten-odd stitches, until he lifted his arms as Annabelle pulled off his shirt and felt a hot tightness there and groaned with the pain. She had kissed around the wound, her warm hands against his hips. ‘You’d better sit back,’ she had said. ‘Let me take care of everything.’

  Jack turned and watched a naked Annabelle Kasprowicz walk back into her father’s study, a bottle of Scotch in one hand and a pack of cigarettes in the other. He made a mental note to sacrifice a small animal to the God of Afternoon Delight when he got home. Maybe Lois could nab him something suitable out in the rear yard.

  He sat in one of the sofa chairs beside the small chess table, directly in front of the gas heater, warming his feet. He was wearing his jeans now, unbuttoned over the knife-cut, but nothing else. Annabelle poured some drinks: he stretched his legs before him and sank deeper into the plush velour padding of the chair. She handed him a Scotch and then searched around the floor for her clothes.

  ‘Oh, it’s cold now!’ She found her tights, socks and jumper and quickly dragged them on. She did not bother with her bra. ‘What’s the time?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Jack, giving a moment’s thought to his business empire: but some things were better than money. Sometimes. ‘Who cares?’

  ‘My daughter might, that’s all.’

  Jack drank. As much as he wanted the afternoon to last, the world was already slipping in under the door like a draught. He stared at the perfect, neatly piled fake logs covering the gas flame of the heater, and drank some more.

  Annabelle sat down on the edge of the chess table in front of him and lit a cigarette. Her cheeks were flushed. She smiled at him briefly, poured something warm from her eyes into Jack’s own: but it only lasted a second or two. He reached out and put his hand on her leg, squeezed, remembered. She put her hand on his, without looking at him, squeezed back and then stood up. She turned her butt to the heater.

  ‘What time is she due?’ asked Jack.

  ‘Four.’

  ‘Her father dropping her off?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Jack reached for the cigarette pack. They were back in the real world again and it was overrated. He slid out a smoke, dropped the pack and then reached for one of the huge chess pieces on the board in front of him: the white knight. It looked hand-carved, all strong edges and rough broad planes, and felt as heavy as a brick.

  ‘Do you think he’s having an affair with Celia?’

  ‘Probably. He can’t help himself.’

  Outside the rain was heavier and the wind blew it against the window. Jack sat forward in his chair and lit his cigarette. He was starting to feel a little colder now, too.

  ‘Must be hard, sharing a daughter,’ he said, sympathetically. ‘Always seeing him.’

  ‘Ever been to hell?’

  Jack wanted to ask her what she had seen in him in the first place. Dicks like Durst were so obvious. He was an affront to average intelligence. That Annabelle might actually have loved him once …

  ‘Jack, I —’

  ‘What?’

  She covered her face with her hands. The cigarette burnt between her fingers. Jack stood up, took the cigarette and put his arms around her. It was then that he noticed the typewriter in the opposite corner, sitting on a small table tucked into an alcove between a bookshelf and the door. It looked like a restored antique, glossy black and immaculate. He remembered the note Celia had shown him.

  Annabelle put her hands on Jack’s chest. She pushed away from him. Her eyes were porcelain. ‘You don’t understand,’ she said. ‘He’s destroying my life. He won’t leave me alone, he rings me ten times a day. Two o’clock, three o’clock in the morning!’

  ‘Is he threatening you?’

  She looked away. ‘No. Not directly.’

  ‘What does he want?’ Jack let her go.

  She sat down in one of the sofa chairs and stared into the fake logs of the heater. ‘He says we have to get back together, because of Louisa. That if I don’t it’ll ruin her life and it’ll be my fault. And that he’ll take her away.’ She looked up at Jack. ‘But it’s just about the money. That’s all he really wants.’ Her eyes went through him, through the wall of the study, too, outside into the wind and rain. ‘It’s all anyone wants in this fucking family.’

  ‘Celia, too?’ Jack smoked, tapped the cigarette in an ashtray.

  ‘Of course, Celia! What do you think?’

  Jack was thinking a lot of things. All at once. It was like keeping track of white paper blowing around in a snowstorm.

  ‘Who knows what she’s up to with Ian,’ said Annabelle, reaching for her Scotch.

  For a moment Jack had to remember Ian was Durst. ‘Does he have any claim on your money?’

  ‘Not all of it. A lot is tied up in trusts through my father’s business. But it’s guaranteed he’ll contest the outcome of the divorce. And he’ll use Louisa against me, just like he’s already using her. I know he’ll drag all our shit out into the open, make me look like a terrible mother.’ Annabelle stared into her drink. ‘I don’t want to lose my daughter.’

  Silence, except for the rain against the window and the faint hi
ss of the gas heater. Jack scanned the floor for his clothes, saw his crisp black shirt, now crumpled on the floor near the desk.

  ‘You said you were seeing Celia this afternoon?’ said Annabelle.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Can you … find out … what she’s up to with Ian?’

  ‘I can try.’

  For a moment Annabelle stared at the chess pieces before her. She let out a breath through her nostrils, almost a huff. A sliver of light glinted in her eyes, then she blinked and the sparks died. Something else was on her mind, too.

  ‘Don’t believe anything Edward Kass tells you, either,’ she said.

  There was probably more family love in a wasp’s nest than around these people. ‘When did the affair happen?’

  A pause. ‘First time was in the sixties.’ Annabelle almost sounded relieved to say it. ‘Mum actually left Dad and went to live with Edward. I’m not sure of the details. I hadn’t been born. She came back, of course, but then it happened again later.’

  ‘About the time your father took Kass to court.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That was a while ago now. Why all the sudden interest?’ Jack glanced at the typewriter in the corner.

  ‘I don’t know!’ said Annabelle, looking up at him with cool brown eyes. ‘I don’t know what’s going on. My father hardly ever speaks to me anymore.’

  Hammond Kasprowicz had probably never been up for Father of the Year. ‘When was the last time you saw Kass?’

  Annabelle sighed. ‘Probably on my eighteenth birthday. He gave me a poem. I still remember. It was called In Demons Land.’

  ‘Nice,’ said Jack. ‘Just what every eighteen-year-old girl would want.’

  ‘My father bought me a car.’

  Jack was surprised it was not a pony. He went and picked up his shirt and returned to stand in front of the heater as he put it on.

  ‘Thank you, Jack.’ She stood up. ‘There’s nobody else I can talk to about all this.’ She put a hand on his chest. Then she held a finger to his lips. Jack bit it, lightly. She pressed herself against him, unbuttoning the one button he had managed to do up.