Death by the Book - Lenny Bartulin [72]
Peterson stopped staring at the ceiling, levelled a hard, dirty look at Jack. Durst glanced at the cigarette in his hand and dropped it to the carpet, extinguished it with his foot. Nobody said a word. The roof creaked.
‘It’s a good plan,’ said Jack, as though he meant it. ‘Kasprowicz kills his brother and does a runner. That’s what you said, wasn’t it, Detective? But instead of Hong Kong he’s in ten metres of concrete foundations, under twenty-five floors of first-home buyers being smart with their money. Gone for a hundred years.’
‘You read too many books, Susko.’ Peterson stood up, slipped his hands into his pockets and assumed his natural arrogance. ‘Made your brain soft.’ He turned his back on Jack and walked over by the front window. Durst remained in front of the chair, arms stiff by his sides.
‘What did Kasprowicz do to Ziggy?’ said Jack. ‘Shaft him on a deal? Or just beat him on the richest one hundred list?’
‘You can ask Mr Brandt yourself, soon,’ said Peterson.
‘That was a handy little family feud, the two famous brothers hating each other. Was Kasprowicz really burning those books and sending them? Wonderful touch if he wasn’t. Adds a nice bit of psychological complexity.’
Peterson smiled, flattered. ‘It was perfect. The sick bastard had been collecting the books for years. Who wouldn’t believe he’d put a match to them?’
‘What about my shop?’
‘Not quite pulled off.’
Jack spoke almost to himself. ‘Kasprowicz didn’t want to kill his brother.’
‘Not in one go. Just wipe him off the face of the earth, slowly. Book by book. The prick.’ Peterson screwed up his mouth in distaste, as though trying an oyster for the first time in his life.
‘Just because Kass did his wife?’
‘More than that, Jackie boy. More than that.’ Whatever the more was, Peterson was not saying.
Jack sorted events in his head. ‘Who came up with the idea of setting me up?’ He nodded at Durst. ‘Einstein over here? ’Cause it’s all a bit on the vague side, don’t you think? After what, twenty, thirty years, why would Kasprowicz suddenly decide to take his brother out by hiring me to do the job? The details seem a little rushed. Not thought out.’ Jack rubbed the side of his jaw. ‘And I can get character witnesses, you know. I’ve been a model citizen lately.’
‘It ain’t about details.’ Peterson’s voice was level, businesslike and cool. He knew what he was talking about. ‘It’s about confusion. Leaving a mess. Nobody likes cleaning up a mess.’
‘Except lawyers.’
The detective managed a grin.
Jack smiled up at Durst. ‘And you got all the dirty work. The most talented ex-gynaecologist in the universe with an IQ of three.’
The punch was not as hard as it could have been. Durst’s fist slipped across Jack’s cheek. He should have stepped into it: instead he had to reach and over-balanced slightly. Jack put his free arm across his face, expecting more. He watched Durst’s nostrils flare as they juiced the stale air in the room for oxygen. It was another one of those times in Jack’s life when he should have kept his mouth shut. But his mouth never listened.
‘When you get done for all this,’ said Jack, ‘You can tell your daughter you’re going to be the new butt boy in section D.’
Durst cocked his arm. Jack flinched, turned his head away. The punch did not come. He turned back to see Durst laughing, silently. Then he stopped laughing: his face snapped instantly into an angry, twisted mask. This time Durst stepped into the punch. Jack’s bottom lip swelled up like a rubber dinghy.
‘Enough of that shit.’ Peterson walked over and pulled Durst away by the arm. ‘You need to get out of here.’
‘Just one more time.’
Jack swallowed a little blood. He ran his tongue over his teeth, checking for anything loose. They all appeared to be in place.
‘Make you feel like a man, Durst?’ he said. It hurt to talk.