Lenny Bartulin - Death by the Book

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 hiss 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.

“When can I see you again?” she asked.

“My wife’s out tonight. Tango lessons. Any time after seven is clear.”

She smiled. Slipped a hand down Jack’s back, slowly. Parted her lips and tilted her head and kissed him.