Death by the Book - Lenny Bartulin [2]
Unlike a lot of second-hand bookshops, Susko Books was an alphabetised affair. There were two copies of The Cull in the poetry section. After checking through a few boxes of the latest, unsorted stock, Jack made some calls. He managed to locate one more copy of The Cull and two copies of Entropy House. But it was late and most places around town were already closed. The next day he went to King Street in Newtown and scoured second-hand bookshops for an hour or two. That was all he could handle amid the mess and choked shelves and the floor littered with old orange Penguins, fallen like ticket stubs at the races. It was nauseating, like walking around in somebody else’s headache. No copies of Simply Even that he could see, just one of The Machine, missing a few pages, but that was not his problem. Three hundred dollars plus another fifty dollars delivery. It did not happen every day. It had never happened before.
The poet was Edward Kass: the serious kind, treated to a capital P. Numerous awards, commendations, even a mention in the Queen’s birthday honours list for 1981. The biographical details went on to say that his critically acclaimed work was: innovative, dark, enigmatic and entertainingly idiosyncratic. Jack had heard of him but not had the pleasure. He read a few poems on the bus and decided the style was overwrought; Edward Kass would probably have seen death in a bowl of cornflakes. Jack still could not help wondering why Kasprowicz was willing to pay so much for them. The editions themselves were nothing special — the usual pretentious covers and cheap paper, a few big publishers, a few small, a couple of overseas imprints. Nobody famous had signed or dedicated them to anyone. Fifty bucks? To Jack they were just another pile of forgotten books that nobody had the heart to send to the crematorium. He called them in-between books, the kind the second-hand dealer liked least: not classics and not recent releases. Sometimes the second-hand bookshop was like an old people’s home.
Kasprowicz had said 2.30 p.m. Jack was going to be right on time. He turned into another street and admired the houses, the cars and the front gardens. As he picked his favourites, a couple of joggers thumped towards him: a bald middle-aged man wearing all the gear and breathing like a broken hand-pump, and a fat girl in her late twenties who would have looked uncomfortable walking. Approaching, they straightened up for Jack’s benefit. Twenty metres down the road they slumped forward again, as though they were running through mud. So money could not buy everything after all.
From the street, 32 Cumberland Gardens was not much to look at, unless you had a thing for high sandstone walls and even higher pine trees. Jack stood and admired the barrier: thirty metres of it, simple and impenetrable like a cliff. You would not want to lock yourself out. The sandstone sat heavy and contented and did not reveal anything, except that here were people who liked privacy and could afford it. He pressed the buzzer on an intercom set between a door and a solid timber gate. After a while, a voice finally crackled back at him.
‘Yes?’
‘My name’s Susko. I’ve got a delivery for a Mr Kasprowicz.’
There was no reply, just the click of a button being released. Then the door buzzed and Jack pushed it. As he walked through, he slipped the package under his arm and pulled at the cuffs of his cream shirt. He adjusted his chocolate-brown mohair scarf and re-buttoned his tan jacket. Ran a hand through his dark hair. He was looking good. Just then the gate behind him began to open. It shuddered as it slid along the length of the sandstone wall. Jack watched a metallic blue Audi A6 drive through. The windows were tinted blue-black and reflected his face. More privacy. He followed the car into the Kasprowicz property.
Surprisingly, the front yard was shabby and in need of a trim. Maybe the gardener was on holidays. Tufts of green weeds grew between the hexagonal blocks of the driveway.