A Death in Pilsen

Chapter 18

I left for Pilsen early because I wanted to take a detour before hitting Horvath’s. I turned down a quiet block of 19th Street and cruised by the building where I was born. I hadn’t seen the place in the half-dozen years since my parents had died within a few months of each other, and I was curious as to how it looked.

Everything looked the same — why wouldn’t it — except that whoever lived there now had a different lamp in the living room window, an ornate gold thing with an oversized shade that filled the window. I preferred my mother’s red-and-blue Tiffany, which my sister Marcia had now. Marcia lived in a bungalow in Downers Grove with her husband, an auto mechanic named Matt, who was a decent sort, if a little on the dull side. They had two kids, Betsy and Matt Jr., both of whom were in high school.

I hadn’t seen much of Marcia and her family since the folks died — no particular reason — but since we’d been married, Catherine thought we should get together with them occasionally, like on holidays. So we had begun to, which was all right, I guess.

It was raining when I drew the coupe to the curb on the side street off of 18th that ran next to Horvath’s. The joint was less crowded than I’d seen it before, so there were plenty of open stools.

“How long you gonna keep coming in here?” Maury said in a tired voice after I sat down.

“There you go again, not being as hospitable as you should,” I chided. “You are the host in here, the face of this establishment. How in the world do you expect to get new business with that kind of attitude?”

“There’s some business I can very nicely do without, thanks.”

“Well, I guess I’ve been told. But I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that comment and request a Schlitz.”

As Maury shuffled off, I looked along the bar, but found no one who looked like Marge’s description of Sulski. Karl Voyczek, who sat several seats from me engrossed in reading a copy of the evening tabloid, The Times, was the only familiar face present.

I nursed my beer for more than a half hour and contemplated ordering another when the door swung open and a blocky, light-haired specimen in a black coat and a pugnacious expression walked in. This had to be Sulski.

“Hey, Johnny,” a guy halfway along the bar called out, “how’s it going, big guy?”

Sulski grunted his reply and made for a barstool two removed from me, with no one between us. He dropped onto the seat like he planned to stay awhile.

“Evening,” I said, hoisting my glass in his direction. I received the second grunt he’d uttered since entering.

“Still raining?” I persisted. His third grunt sounded like it could have been a yes.

“Have the usual, Johnny?” Maury said, getting a nod in answer. He put a highball in front of Sulski that looked to be scotch and soda.

I ordered a second beer and turned toward my neighbor. “I’d like to talk to you about Edwina Malek,” I told him.

He spun toward me, light blue eyes blazing. “So you’re the one, huh? The snoopy type who’s been nosing around here lately. I heard about you last night. Just what’s your story?”

“Edwina was married to my cousin,” I told him, “and I know he couldn’t—”

“Yeah, yeah, I heard that part, too, from Maury. Well, goddammit, I hope your miserable cousin fries.”

I glared back at him. “Even if he didn’t kill her?”

“Oh, don’t give us that horseshit in here, Mac. Who the hell else would have done it?”

“Maybe somebody who knew her and, shall we say, got his advances rebuffed.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Sulski snarled, flexing his fists.

“Just what I said, Mac. Story is there are a lot of joes who hang out in here that were plenty interested in Edwina. Guys who get interested in women sometimes do strange and violent things.”

“I ought to knock you right through the door and into the middle of next week!”

“Strikes me, Mr. Sulski, that you’re reacting strangely for a man who claims that somebody else killed Edwina. Like maybe you’re using your anger as a sort of cover for... well, for a guilty conscience.”

“Shit, that does it!” he raged, getting up and kicking over the stool that was between us. “I’m going to—”

“Take it easy, Johnny,” the bartender urged, leaning across the bar and placing a hand on his bicep. “We haven’t ever had any fighting in here as long as I’ve run the place, and we’re not going to start now.”

“Well, get him the hell out of here, Maury,” Sulski yelled, “or honest to God, I’ll kill him! I will — I’ll kill him!”

“Interesting word coming from you, kill,” I said. Sulski was now being held back by two other men who had jumped off their stools.

“It’s really time for you to leave,” Maury said, his voice quavering. “Please take your business elsewhere. And there’s no charge for your beers.”

“No, I insist,” I retorted, pulling out my wallet and placing two dollars on the bar — more than I owed. “And, Mr. Sulski, a word of advice: Be careful how you throw around that word ‘kill.’ Good night.” I left with all the dignity that I could muster. I felt that every eye in the place was on me as I pushed the door open and walked out.

But I didn’t get far. I was halfway across the side street toward my car when Sulski came barreling after me like a runaway locomotive.

“You son-of-a-bitch,” he yelled, throwing a roundhouse right that glanced off my cheek as I ducked. His second punch caught me in the gut and doubled me over against the side of the coupe.

I could feel the nausea rising within me, but I stifled it and caught him with a left to his Adam’s apple. He started to gag and I hit him with a right, this time to his own gut, but he took that punch better than I had, making a puffing sound and counterpunching to my face, once, twice.

I wasn’t much of a fighter. What little I had learned about defending myself early on came in this very neighborhood. A chunky Polish kid who I only ever knew as ‘Stosh’ had tried to keep me from walking down a block of 19th Place, claiming it was ‘his street.’

Stosh had pushed me in the chest and I’d shoved him back. Pretty soon we were swinging at each other, with maybe half the punches connecting. I lost the fight that day and ended up with a bloody nose, but I came back a week later and knocked him down about three times after I figured out that he couldn’t block rights to his stomach.

I realized that Sulski reminded me of Stosh as I gave him a couple of jabs in the side, one of which spun him around. Before he could react, I got him again with an uppercut to the solar plexus that caused him to retch and double over with a groan.

At this point, I was bleeding over one eye and felt dizzy. I leaned against the coupe, watching him hold his belly and trying to figure out whether I had the strength — or the inclination — to hit him again.

By this time, half a dozen of the Horvath stalwarts had tumbled out onto the street and were trying to wedge their way between us. “That’s enough, fellas,” Big Ben Barnstable drawled as he pushed his way in and put a large, vise-like hand on each of our shoulders.

“Good thing I came out jest now, in time to stop this here bout, boys. Now I can’t say much good about your form, either one of you,” he said good-naturedly, “but if you’d like to take lessons, we’ve got us this fine gym not too far away where I earn my keep. We’ve also got us a real good instructor, a former middleweight named Haas. He can work with you, make you look like you know what you’re doing with your fists.”

That brought a laugh, albeit a nervous one, from the onlookers and effectively sucked the tension out of the moment. Sulski and I glared at each other, but it was clear that glaring was all we were going to do now, especially with the big former boxer standing between us like a brick wall.

The crowd, if you could term it that, all turned and headed back into the bar, including Sulski. I obviously was the odd man out, so I climbed into the Ford, mopped the blood off my eyebrow with a handkerchief, and drove home, frustrated and just plain mad.