Lenny Bartulin - Death by the Book

Just then his daughter appeared in a doorway behind him. “Where’s Louisa?” she asked. A cigarette burnt in her right hand. Her tone held the fresh menace of a first-round jab.

Kasprowicz stiffened. “Her father came for her.”

“Fuck,” she whispered, and left.

The old man looked at Jack. “Have you met my daughter, Annabelle? Wonderful girl.” He went back to the books on his lap. “You’ve done well, Mr Susko. Three hundred dollars.”

“Plus delivery.”

The old man screwed up his face, like he had stepped on a snail. His eyes narrowed and pushed out his awful eyebrows. “Would you be interested in more work?”

“Sure. Depends what it is.”

“I wouldn’t offer you anything too complicated. I’d just like you to find as many Edward Kass books for me as you possibly can.” He clasped his ugly fingers over the books in his lap.

“How many are there?”

“Only the four titles I’ve requested. He was not prolific.”

“No, I mean how many are there in the world?”

“Not as many as you might think. You should know editions of poetry are never very large. But it would add up for you. I’m sure you need the money.”

Jack smiled and removed his scarf. He leaned forward and held it between his legs. “The world’s a big place, Mr Kasprowicz. Who knows where they’ve all ended up.” But Jack was doing the sums in his head.

“I doubt the world has seen them.” Kasprowicz sat up and put the books and wrapping paper on a glass table beside him. “I’ve got all the publishing details, how many books were printed, where, when, all that. From memory, it’s only about four thousand copies.”

“And you want all of them?” asked Jack, raising an eyebrow. He was going to ask if the old man expected him to steal copies from the library.

Kasprowicz frowned. “Isn’t fifty dollars a copy worth it, Mr Susko? I can always find someone else, if you prefer.”

“No, it’s worth it.”

“Good. Cash okay?” The old man gave a wry grin.

“Eight days a week.”

Kasprowicz grabbed the arms of the chair and hauled himself up. A phone began to ring on a small desk. “Let’s do an advance,” he said over the ringing. “To inspire application . I already owe you three-fifty so … let’s say a nice clean thousand to start.” He walked over to the phone. “Cash.” Hammond Kasprowicz smiled and put the receiver to his ear. “Hello?”

A thousand bucks. Not bad for a Wednesday afternoon. Jack was starting to like the old guy.

Kasprowicz raised his voice into the telephone. “Tony, we can’t have this. No. No … Oh, come on … That’s not a reason … I’m putting the phone down, Tony … Listen to me, Tony, I’m going to put the phone down …”

Annabelle walked in. She stood in a thin shaft of light from one of the windows. Jack could see dust somersault through the air around her, full of glee.

“Would you like a drink, Mr Susko? My father has worked hard over the years to forget his manners.”

Kasprowicz slammed the receiver down, making Jack jump. The old man ignored his daughter as he walked past and out of the room. He paid even less attention to Jack.

Annabelle glared at her father. Jack heard a few knives whisper death through the air. Then she turned and smiled.

“Scotch? Gin? I think I might have a G & T.”

“Scotch, thanks. Neat.”

Annabelle made her way to a small metal-and-glass drinks stand and began pouring the drinks.

Jack got up and walked to the piano. “Do you play?” he asked.

“God, no. It’s just for show. Do you?”

Jack tinkled the keys. “I fantasise.” He played a couple of the opening chords to Duke Ellington’s “Take the A Train”. On top of the piano he noticed two silver-framed photographs. One was of a cat, a copper-coloured Abyssinian with a white chin; the other, a grainy black-and-white of a sour-looking woman in her fifties. She wore a pearl necklace with a diamond pendant and matching earrings. The photographer had set her up in a movie-star pose. But Ava Gardner she was not: the face Jack looked at in the photograph knew it, too.

“Nice cat.”

“My mother’s favourite. Jordan. She paid for a funeral when it died.” Kasprowicz’s daughter brought Jack’s drink over and passed it to him. “I’m Annabelle,” she said.

“Your father told me.”

“Did he say what a pain in his arse I was?”

Jack grinned. “No, he didn’t mention it.”

She shrugged and sat down on one of the couches, crossing her long legs and slipping a hand between her thighs. “That’s my mother in the other photo. Her dying wish was that the cat’s collar be buried with her.”

Jack picked up the photograph for a closer look. There was a resemblance between mother and daughter, but not much. The eyes that stared back at him were like ball-bearings. The lips were thin and the chin a little pointed. He had seen this type of woman before. He knew the corners of her mouth stayed turned down even when she smiled. The victim. Jack put the photograph back.

“Her greatest disappointment in life was that nobody was as interested in her as she was.”

“Aren’t we all like that?”

“She was an expert. The best there ever was.” Annabelle sipped her drink. “Do you smoke? I’ve just run out of cigarettes.”

Jack pulled out his pack and offered her one.

“Oh. These are strong, aren’t they?”

“Just have half.”

He leaned over and lit the cigarette for her. Annabelle blew smoke and said: “All this is my mother’s, everything you see, the house, too. She was English, if you hadn’t guessed.”

Jack sat down opposite Annabelle and snapped the lighter to his own cigarette. He noticed there were no rings on her long fingers, just a fine gold bracelet that slid down her wrist and hung on the cuff of her leather jacket as she held her cigarette in the air above her shoulder. There was a small, four-leafed clover attached to it.

“So what do you do, Mr Susko? What has my father got you in for?”

“Call me Jack. I’m a second-hand bookseller.”

Annabelle looked surprised. Then disappointed. “Really. You must read a lot.”

“When it’s slow.”

“And is it slow often?”

“Only Mondays to Fridays. And Saturdays.”

She tapped her cigarette into an ashtray on the table beside her. “Oh, well.” She noticed the package of books her father had placed there. Her eyes narrowed as she read the title of the topmost book.

“So a bit of work on the side with my father?” she said, her voice rising in pitch. “To make ends meet?”

“My ends never meet,” said Jack. “They dislike each other too much.”

She managed to smile for two seconds. It exposed a slight dimple in her right cheek. She uncrossed and then crossed her legs again. She pushed herself back into the chair. The leather couch groaned beneath her like a dirty old man.

“What rare edition is he after this time?”

“Mr Susko doesn’t deal with that kind of thing,” said Kasprowicz from the doorway. He walked back into the room like a bear. “I doubt his business would have seen too much of any great value.”

Jack let it slide. There was a grand coming his way.

Annabelle got up and placed her drink on the coffee table. “I’ll leave you to your business.” Even through the tobacco smoke her perfume wafted over Jack. It smelt like five hundred dollars.

“Nice to meet you,” he said, as she left.

“Yes,” she replied, without looking at him.

Kasprowicz walked around and stood behind Jack. “Here you are, Mr Susko.”

Jack extinguished his cigarette in the cut-glass ashtray before him and stood up.

Kasprowicz handed him a small white envelope. “Maybe you could let me know in a week or two how it’s all going.”