Death by the Book - Lenny Bartulin [36]
‘I have an appointment,’ she said.
‘What about tomorrow?’ he said, in a warmer voice. ‘I’m keen to hear what your father has to say.’
Celia found her keys. Then she pulled out a mobile phone and zipped up the handbag. ‘Tomorrow?’ She stared at the screen of the mobile, pushing a few buttons with her thumb. Then she looked up and sighed through a begrudging smile. ‘Yes, okay, Mr Susko, I think that should be fine. You could meet me here.’
‘Four or five?’
‘I close at five, Mr Susko.’ She picked up her things. ‘Please don’t think me rude.’
Jack gave her a half-dejected face. ‘And to think I stayed open for you.’
Celia ignored him and walked to the front door, slipping on her coat. Jack followed and she let him out. As she secured the lock he glanced up the street: Durst’s car was still there.
Celia turned, hooking the handbag over her shoulder. ‘So you asked him then?’ she said. ‘Kasprowicz?’
Jack nodded.
Celia sighed at the traffic over his shoulder. ‘Well. Tomorrow then. And you can ask my father, too. Maybe you’ll change your mind about things.’ She gave him a weak smile and began walking away.
The air was icy and the sun had nothing left in it this late in the day. Jack crossed Macleay Street. There was a café just up the road. He sat down at an outside table and pulled out his cigarettes. He watched Celia Mitten walk by the plane trees. He noticed her glance over her shoulder. A waiter came over with pad and pen. ‘Short black, thanks.’
He saw Celia stop beside Durst’s BMW. She looked back along the street and then climbed into the passenger side. Jack blew some smoke and nodded to himself. Anybody watching might have said he looked like a man who knew what was going on. They would have been wrong.
12
FOR A WINDY WEDNESDAY MORNING, Susko Books was doing all right. It was only 11.15 and already about a dozen people had been through. Three were browsing now. Maybe today was International Day of Second-hand Books. Or the stars were aligned just so. Any other time it might have put Jack on the road to a good mood. But a few bruises, some stitches and a busted door ensured Mr Positive was only peeking through the venetian blinds.
A customer approached the counter. She handed Jack ten dollars and a faded, hardback copy of The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying.
‘The butler did it,’ said Jack. The woman gave him a puzzled look. Small, dull metal rings pierced her nose, bottom lip and left eyebrow. She had the kind of face that did not need all the extra attention. White-wired miniature headphones were packed tightly into her ears: music buzzed faintly from them. She took her book, turned and walked out.
Jack slipped the ten dollars into the cash draw. Beside it on the counter was a scrap of paper with a few numbers and sums written on it. Chester Sinclair had accepted Jack’s offer of twenty dollars per book. Minus Sinclair’s twenty, and the four books he still needed for the advance Kasprowicz had paid him, Jack was left with an extra one hundred and thirty dollars. If he could squeeze a delivery fee out of the old guy, that made one hundred and eighty.
Jack stared at the figure he had written down. A shitty one eighty. It looked a little thin. In the orbit of embarrassing. Replacing the rear door would be twice that, if not more. And what about the cost of being knifed? Maybe Jack had taken his quality customer service a little too far.
He picked up a dictionary on the counter that a customer had finally decided not to buy. It was the Concise Oxford, tenth edition, minus dust jacket. Jack closed his eyes and thought: Money. He pressed a finger firmly on the page. He opened his eyes.
doldrums/ • pl. n. (the doldrums) 1 a state of stagnation or depression. 2 an equatorial region of the Atlantic Ocean with calms, sudden storms, and light unpredictable winds.
‘What are you looking up, Jack? Prior record?’ Detective Peterson slapped the edge of the counter with his fingertips. He grinned, pleased with himself