Death by the Book

Author:Lenny Bartulin
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Mystery & Detective, General, Mystery fiction, Women Sleuths, Fiction, Booksellers and bookselling
ISBN: 9780312559724
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 2010-01-19T03:47:44.825071+00:00

13

JACK SUSKO HAD NEVER FUCKED in a four-thousand-dollar leather chair before. Not with the wind whipping cold rain against the window outside and the mid-afternoon light discreet and a fake-log fireplace keeping his kidneys warm. He guessed it was just one of those days and decided not to think about it too much. Better to wallow in the after-glow. To think was to let the future in and Jack was in no hurry to get there any time soon.

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

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