De Luxe Read online

  Scribe Publications Pty Ltd

  PO Box 523

  Carlton North, Victoria, Australia 3054

  Email: [email protected]

  First published by Scribe 2011

  Copyright © Lenny Bartulin 2011

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publisher of this book.

  Epigraph from Djibouti by Elmore Leonard, copyright © 2010, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, a division of the Orion Publishing Group, London. Quote on p. 1 from The Book of Psychic Knowledge by Herbert B. Greenhouse, copyright © 1975, Transworld, London. Quotes on pp. 51–52, 60, 97 and 229 from Caravanning by John Vincent Brittain, copyright © 1961, Arco Publications, London. Quote on p. 123 from Hoyle’s Rules of Games by Albert H. Morehead and Geoffrey Mott-Smith copyright 1946, 1949 © 1954, 1958, 1963 by New American Library, copyright © 1983, 2001 by Philip D. Morehead and Andrew T. Morehead. Used by permission of Dutton Signet, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. ‘Make It Good to Me’, words and music by Bosco Mann, copyright © 2001, Boscosound Music (BMI), lyrics reprinted on p. 191 with kind permission of Gabriel Roth.

  The author and publisher gratefully acknowledge the permission granted to reproduce the copyright material in this book. Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders and to obtain their permission for the use of copyright material. The publisher apologises for any errors or omissions in the above list and would be grateful if notified of any corrections that should be incorporated in future reprints or editions of this book.

  National Library of Australia

  Cataloguing-in-Publication data

  Bartulin, Lenny.

  De Luxe: a Jack Susko mystery.

  9781921942082 (e-book.)

  Bookstores–Fiction.

  A823.4

  www.scribepublications.com.au

  To Mum and Dad

  I’ll tell you for a fact, it’s good to have the means.

  — Elmore Leonard, Djibouti

  Jack Susko lay flat on his stomach in the aisle of a second-hand bookshop just off Glebe Point Road, thinking: It’s gonna be okay. Why not? It was only two gorgeous lesbians and a couple of corrupt property developers exchanging gunfire, that was all — and here, just shot down from a shelf, was a Corgi paperback titled The Book Of Psychic Knowledge, written by one Herbert B. Greenhouse and subtitled All Your Questions Answered. He was trying to come up with a beauty for Herb but was having trouble with all the distraction. A pink, bullet-singed psychedelic eye gazed out knowingly from the cover. Waiting. Jack tried to hurry his brain along. Right now might well be the last time he ever got to ask.

  Shouts and bullets pinged through the cold interior of the bookshop. He picked up the small paperback, closed his eyes and flipped it open randomly. Finger down. Page 97.

  He dreamed about a mental hospital, people drinking water, doctors and psychiatrists, a female patient running down the corridor and …

  ‘Jack!’

  Shit. He knew he should have asked something specific. Too late now. Another secret of the universe, slipped through his fingers.

  ‘Jack … please —’

  He dropped the book and looked up, saw two entwined bodies backing out down a book-stuffed aisle, one holding a gun to the head of the other. Legs shuffling and stumbling. He got into a crouch and watched them disappear behind the next line of shelves. He tried to remember where the rear doors to the bookshop were and spun around and low-dashed to the end of the aisle: turned into the next one and pressed himself up against the bookshelf, feeling his heart pump. Light-headed, he ran for the back wall, hoping to block their escape with the old Nazi Luger in his right hand. It had already taken a man’s life this morning and seemed to thrum still. Jack was not looking to add to its tally — but neither was he going to let anything happen to the girl.

  ‘Jack! Help me!’

  They appeared before him again, about ten metres down the aisle. The Luger was at his hip, pointing in the right direction but aimed only generally. Not worth the risk of a shot.

  ‘Get out of the way, Susko!’

  Silence: or rather something like a pause filling rapidly with water, as though the room was drowning. Things getting heavier.

  ‘Let her go.’ Jack’s voice came out scratchy and thin, nowhere near the full Lee Marvin he had hoped for.

  ‘Get out of the goddamn way!’ They began to stagger-walk towards him. ‘Move!’

  Before Jack could respond, a whisper, somewhere behind him: ‘Jack.’ The voice was cool and level. ‘Keep him there.’ He heard faint footsteps on the other side of the bookcase, then nothing.

  Terrific. Jack spread his legs a little wider and bent his knees, holding his ground, committing to it even as he thought in the same split-second that he was only making a bigger target of himself. He hoped that he at least looked good: if it all came crashing down in the other guy’s favour, better some shallow heroics than blubbering fear. The girl was watching — and, if Jack was willing to admit it, she might be the only one who remembered him after he hit the deck. What would happen if he saved her, on the other hand, was completely a question for Herbert B. Greenhouse.

  The gun pressed to her head came out and leered at him now. It seemed to put the whole question of saving anybody to rest.

  ‘Okay. One last time, Susko. Get out of the fucking way.’

  The heaviness filling the bookshop had reached Jack’s bottom lip. It was probably better if he did not speak. But hell, every hero needed a great last line. He just had to think of one …

  1

  No good trying to light a log with a match.

  The first line of Harry Goldman’s 1957 bestseller Let the Dice Roll was as far as Jack got when somebody knocked on the front door. It was early, a winter Friday morning, and the place was warm and smelt like fresh coffee. Outside, it was raining. His cat Lois was curled up on a cushion, dreaming about fish in a barrel. The knock came again. He stood up, dropped the book onto the couch and went to the door.

  Behind it, a tall, dark, handsome stranger. Not the usual Friday-morning view. She was wearing tight black leather pants and boots, and a tight black leather jacket with wide lapels, the left one with a Rolling Stones lapping-tongue badge attached. Shiny dark-brown hair escaped from a peaked chauffeur’s hat and flowed over her shoulders. She had a serious look on her face, though it was no flaw. She was not a cop, but Jack hoped he was in some kind of trouble.

  ‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘I’ll come quietly.’

  Leather creaked softly as she shifted her weight from one long slim leg to the other. ‘From Mr Brandt,’ she said and held up an envelope.

  Her voice was sultry and a touch rough-edged: the sound of it occupied Jack’s attention for a moment. Two seconds later the words Mr Brandt passed through his brain and registered in the Department of Bad News. Everybody who worked there suddenly went home sick. Jack stood barefoot in his grey cotton long-johns and listened to the doors slam.

  The woman fanned herself with the envelope and grinned. Glossy natural lips and a sensuous mouth with a slight cross-bite. Intelligent hazel eyes and fleshy-lobed ears that seemed naked with the hair tucked behind and no earrings. She looked about thirty and like she did not take any crap. A hand went to her tilted hip and she lifted her chin. ‘You’re out of here, baby.’

  Jack took the envelope. A grim feeling spread through him like an oil spil
l. He pointed at her get-up. ‘Nice uniform. Ziggy got a private army now?’

  ‘Uh-huh,’ she said. ‘And I’m the tank driver.’

  ‘Get a park out there all right?’

  ‘I just go over the top.’

  ‘That’s handy.’ Jack forced a finger into the envelope and tore it open. A single sheet of paper, folded perfectly longways, twice.

  Sullivan & Day Pty Ltd

  (a member of the Brandt Group)

  Level 7 / 37 Walker Street • North Sydney NSW 2060

  15 July 2011

  Jack Susko

  2/11 Leinster Street

  Paddington NSW 2021

  Dear Mr Susko

  Re: NOTICE OF LEASE TERMINATION

  Prop: 2/11 Leinster Street, Paddington NSW 2021

  With regards to the abovementioned property, we wish to advise that the owner requires the property for their own use. As such we are required to serve you with a notice to vacate the property.

  Therefore, find enclosed a NOTICE OF TERMINATION giving you the required notice to vacate the property within 60 days of the abovementioned date.

  We can however assist you to find another suitable rental property. If you have any queries, please contact our office.

  Thank you for your cooperation in this matter.

  Yours faithfully

  Giles Everington

  Property Manager

  SULLIVAN & DAY Pty Ltd

  (a member of the Brandt Group)

  Jack replaced the letter in the envelope. ‘So I’ve been renting from Brandt the whole time and didn’t even know it.’

  The woman shrugged.

  ‘You visiting everyone in the building or am I the only personal delivery?’

  ‘Oh, you’re the special one, Jack. Mr Brandt said to give it to you direct. For old times’ sake.’

  ‘Nothing like knowing the wrong people.’

  She narrowed her eyes and looked him over. Jack heard the leather creak a little more. ‘You’re not what I expected,’ she said.

  ‘Better or worse?’

  ‘I wouldn’t like to say.’

  ‘Now you’re just teasing.’

  ‘Enjoying yourself?’

  Jack waved the letter. ‘Not anymore.’

  ‘Mr Brandt said to tell you not to worry. He can take care of things. If you like.’

  ‘Things?’

  ‘Yeah. Like where you’re going to live now.’

  Jack felt the cold air of the hallway start to bite his toes. ‘Maybe I could move in with you.’

  She ignored him and pulled the peak of her chauffeur’s hat down tighter over her eyes. ‘He’d like to speak to you, Jack.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘He likes you.’ She smiled. ‘When would suit? I can deliver you.’

  ‘Dead or alive, that it?’

  ‘Whatever you prefer.’

  ‘There’s a slot next year,’ said Jack. ‘Late August. He can have the morning or the afternoon.’

  ‘I don’t think you’ve got that long.’

  He wanted a cigarette. And a calming shot of the homebrew grappa that his neighbour Mario had just given him for the winter. Maybe two.

  ‘You don’t want me to tell him no, do you, Jack?’

  He looked into her eyes. Tried to see past the glistening brown and the come-on and the slick confidence and smooth moves, but it was too dark now in the hallway at Leinster Street. Home. The place Jack was politely being asked to leave. The only thing to wait for now was the or else.

  ‘So what’s he going to do with it?’

  The woman sighed as though bored. ‘The usual. Knock it down. Build something bigger.’

  ‘Hasn’t changed, then.’ It was Ziggy Brandt’s particular disease: control. An always-expanding occupation. And if you ever came into his orbit, it was exactly what you eventually relinquished. And here was Jack thinking that he might have got it back at last.

  She noticed his face. ‘It’s just a building.’

  ‘Sure.’ Jack tried to remember exactly how long he had been there. Over three years now, approaching four. Not that long, really: but in Jack’s life it qualified as almost half-settled. But then, what the hell did that mean when you paid rent? His entire existence was rented, from the business of Susko Books to the mobile phone on the coffee table behind him. It was true he owned a few things, but not so much that a three-tonne truck could not handle them all in one go. He scratched an eyebrow. Life was a fleeting thing, mainly. Jack had the uneasy feeling that maybe he should have thrown a few more anchors down along the way.

  ‘Good luck,’ she said.

  ‘You don’t mean it.’

  ‘No? That’s a bit harsh.’

  Jack shook his head. ‘What’s a nice dominatrix like you doing working for Brandt?’

  ‘Who said I was nice?’ She blinked at him, almost in slow motion. Jack felt a moment of intimacy, as though he had glimpsed her asleep. Then she said: ‘He’ll be in touch.’

  ‘What about you?’

  She removed the hat, tilted her head back and shook her hair out over her shoulders. It was tinted a dark shade of red. She replaced the hat, precisely. Combed behind her ears with long fingers. ‘Bye, Jack.’

  ‘Got a name?’

  She thought about it for a moment, eyes on him but shadowed. ‘Maybe later.’ Then she turned down the hallway. Her stride was confident and her body swivelled. The sound of flesh firming against the black sheen of her leather outfit sparked the weary physics of the dank, worn corridor. He watched her walk through the front doors of the building and vanish into the dull morning.

  He stepped back into the apartment, closed the door. Lois lifted her head in front of the heater. Jack gave her a scratch behind the ear. ‘What do you reckon? Maybe we can find somewhere new with a fireplace, huh?’

  Lois miaowed and lay down again. Sure, she seemed to say. Just tell me when we get there.

  Jack sprawled along the length of the couch, feeling his gravity against the cushions. Reached for his cigarettes on the coffee table. Blew a slow lungful up at the ceiling and thought about that hot shot of homemade grappa.

  Shit. Things had only just started to turn for the better. Straight lines at last and a clear view up ahead: the second-hand book business blooming with a little flower on the usual weed; debts, if not dying, at least drying out on the sunny days. Vinyl collection growing. He had almost been thinking about buying a car, though not quite. Definitely not now, anyway. Ziggy Brandt was back, throwing hard corners at him. No point getting wheels if they were only going to slide out wide on the icy hairpins.

  Jack remembered Brandt’s talent for eviction: loopholes, regulations and council by-laws, no problem. Even the Tenancy Act was his to manipulate, influence or simply ignore. No way anything human was coming between him and redevelopment. Fifty families in a run-down block in Redfern with nowhere else to go? Not his concern. Just get them out of there, now.

  ‘People have been sweeping people all over the planet for millennia, Jack,’ Ziggy said to him once, back in the day. Suited and serious in the rear seat while Jack steered his German iron around town. It was the fourth time that morning he had used his new favourite word. ‘Fucking millennia. All this bullshit about economics and population and statistics. Crap! It’s the big boys, Jack. Alexander, Napoleon, Genghis fucking Khan. They said, These people need to get out of the way. I got new people coming through. Move it, or lose it. And around and around it goes, Jackie-O. Move move move. For millennia. Nothing in the universe I ever heard of sits still. You?’

  Ziggy Brandt was a keen student of the big boys of history. As they drove down Broadway into the city, past the grimy prison block that was the UTS building, he turned to the passenger side window and glared at the university students mil
ling around, backpacks bulging on their shoulders, faces smug with knowledge. ‘Nothing sits still, boys and girls,’ he repeated. ‘Stick that in your pee-aitch-fucking-deez and smoke it.’

  Jack had half grinned, glancing up into the rear-view mirror at his boss. Brandt was already on to the next thing, mobile to his ear, chasing something up or somebody down. After all this time, it looked like now was finally Jack’s turn in the firing line.

  2

  Two shots of grappa put the colour back into Jack’s cheeks but did nothing to dispel Ziggy Brandt’s ghostly presence in the apartment. He wondered how many it would take. After a third, he decided it was probably best to get some fresh air. Maybe go to the auction his friend Ray Campbell had told him about. The weather had stalled him earlier, but now his blood was hot and Jack felt the need for distraction.

  He showered, dressed, grabbed his coat and shoved a scarf into the pocket. Picked out an umbrella from the growing collection that had been left behind at Susko Books. A couple of deceased-estate auctions were up that morning, including the contents of extensive personal libraries. ‘Some nice stuff there, my boy,’ Ray had said over the phone. ‘Just what you need to spruce up Susko Books. Get a little quality in there.’

  ‘No need to be rude.’ Ray Campbell Art + Books + Catalogues out in Darlinghurst was a slightly more elevated operation than Jack’s.

  ‘Both families were friends of my father,’ said Ray. ‘Extremely wealthy and in possession of exquisite taste. Oh, and in equal parts bloody awful people.’

  ‘Why aren’t you bidding?’

  ‘Currently the second part of my buy-and-sell equation needs more attention. Don’t worry, you’ll love it. Dust and leather and maybe some first editions. Most probably.’

  ‘As long as I can afford it.’

  ‘The sons and daughters have taken to their inheritances like termites on speed. They’re desperate. Shouldn’t be out of your realm.’

  ‘Since when have I been able to afford realms, Ray?’