"He married?"
"Divorced, far as I know. Comes in here three, maybe four times a week. He's not here now, though."
"And that other joe you mentioned?"
Maury went away to pour another drink, this one for Rollins, and came back to the quieter end of the room. "Johnny Sulski? He was here earlier, just for one beer. Said he had to be someplace else."
"And he's a regular?"
"'Bout as much as anybody. He's here most nights."
"And he liked Edwina?"
"A lot, I would say. He's the most tight-lipped one of the bunch, even more than Rollins down there," he said, motioning his head toward the other end of the bar. "But like with the others, that Edwina, she had a way of amusing Johnny. She could make him laugh, loosen him up."
"What's Sulski's story?"
Maury clearly was uncomfortable with the grilling I was giving him, but he took a deep breath and went on. "Really can't tell you much about him at all. Couldn't even say if he's married, but if I was to guess, I'd say no. I know he does some kind of construction work, but that's about all I can tell you. Like I said, he pretty much keeps to himself."
"And you really don't know this Marge's last name?"He wrinkled up his already lined face again, which didn't flatter him. "I know she said one time awhile ago that, after her husband got killed, she took back her maiden name. It was another one of those there Czech names, or maybe Polish–begins with a 'B.'" He gave a sudden start and nodded toward the door. "There she is now. Why don't you ask her yourself?"
CHAPTER 8
The woman who walked in seemed almost to be in a trance. I wouldn't have called her beautiful in any sort of traditional way, but she had an ineffable dignity. I pegged her age at about twenty-six. She was somewhere between a brunette and a redhead–her shoulder-length hair was parted in the center, framing an oval face and almond-shaped blue eyes that recently had shed tears.
The men hunkered along the bar rotated in unison on their stools, several greeting her in subdued, respectful tones. The room grew quiet, the tune on the jukebox having just ended.
"Hey, Marge, terrible about Edwina, wasn't it?" one said. Another mumbled something similar. She nodded to them, biting her lower lip, and headed for an empty seat near me at the bar.
"Hello, Maury," she said to the bartender in a throaty voice barely above a whisper. "Can I have a bourbon highball, please?"
"For you, it's on the house, Marge."
I turned toward her as she eased onto a stool. "No, I'd like it to be on me," I told the bartender. "Give me a Schlitz on draught while you're at it."
"I don't believe I know you," she responded without emotion.
"You don't, but I'd like to change that. My name is Steve Malek. Edwina was my cousin's wife."
"Really?" She raised her eyebrows, her face finally showing a hint of animation. "I'm Marge, Marge Blazek. Charlie, he's your cousin?"
I nodded as Maury set the drinks in front of us.
"How…how is he?"
"Charlie? About like you'd expect under the circumstances–depressed, scared, in mourning, the whole works. "
She moved over to the stool next to mine, fixing me with those light blue eyes that didn't seem to go with her chestnut hair. I had to admit, however, that the overall effect was by no means displeasing.
"He just could not have done it. Never," she said with quiet conviction, balling up small fists and pounding them on her knees.
"You know him well?" I asked, lighting the cigarette she had pulled from her purse.
She shrugged. "Enough to know that he wouldn't have killed her."
"But they were having some problems, right?" I asked, of course knowing the answer but wanting to hear her thoughts.
"Well…yes, so I heard. But after all, so do lots of couples."
"Edwina ever talk to you about her marriage and her home life?"
Marge sucked on her lower lip and took a sip of the highball. "Sometimes. She got awfully lonesome in the apartment because Charlie worked so much overtime. He usually didn't get home before 9:00 or 10:00, she said."
"Uh-huh. And I understand she was pretty popular with a number of the men who hang out in the bar."
"Well, there are some guys in here who…enjoyed her company. You have to understand, she was very lively, very animated, and she could be really funny, too. An English sense of humor, I guess. Strange that you should turn up. I was going to talk to the police tomorrow."
"Really? About what? Or who?"
She looked around the room furtively and lowered her voice, even though with the music playing on the jukebox again, I could barely hear her from two feet away. "Somehow, I feel like I can trust you."
"Try me."
She dipped her head, as if that would make her voice even harder to overhear.
"Ever since…ever since what happened, I've been trying to remember everything from in here."
"Meaning what?"
"All the things that were said between Edwina and the guys at the bar. And all the things that were said about her when she wasn't here. I don't think I got even an hour's sleep last night."
"What did you come up with?"
She finished her drink and sighed. "Four of them who came in here a lot were especially interested in her, and I think at least two had been with her away from Horvath's, although I wouldn't ever swear to that. She didn't talk much to me about that part of her life. It was as if she didn't want anybody–even me, maybe her closest friend around here–to know that she was…well, she was seeing people, people besides Charlie."
I figured that the four names were the same ones Maury had reluctantly coughed up, but I wanted to hear them from Marge Blazek's very own cerise lips. "So, who are they?" I prodded.
She looked around again, as if surrounded by people leaning in with ears cupped, hanging on her every word. "There's Sulski, of course. Johnny Sulski."
"Why do you say 'of course'? What's the dope on him?"
"Well, it seems like he's always around, except he's not here tonight. He was pretty sweet on Eddie. Always tried to make sure he sat next to her at the bar. Always whispering things to her, and then she would blush or laugh, or both."
"Did it bother him that she was married?"
Marge eyed a cobweb on the ceiling, then turned back to face me. "Guy like Johnny, you could never tell what he was thinking. Doesn't say much most of the time. Kind of a loner. I been coming in here longer than Eddie, and before she started showing up, I hardly ever knew Johnny to talk to anybody. He would just sit at one end of the bar nursing beers and not saying a word, like he didn't want company or conversation or anything like that.
"I think Eddie saw him as a challenge," Marge went on. "She teased him and started asking him stuff about himself."
"And she finally got him loosened up, is that it?"
"Right. Pretty soon, it got so that when he came in, usually around 5:30 or so, he'd make sure nobody sat at the stool next to him. That was reserved for Eddie."
"Does this Sulski have a wife?"
"Funny thing is, I don't know for sure. I don't even know exactly what kind of work he does. I think maybe he's a plasterer or a stonemason, and if Eddie knew, she never told me."
"Were the two of them having a fling?"
"I'd guess not, but I honestly don't know. For all that Eddie and I joked around here in the bar, we really didn't discuss our personal lives hardly at all. We didn't really see each other except in here."
I ordered her another highball and lit up a Lucky. "What about your own personal life, Marge?" I asked with a smile, trying to keep the question casual.
"Not much to say about it these days," she answered somberly, contemplating the new drink. "I was married, but my husband, Dave was his name, got killed in the D-Day invasion. We were only married for a few months. Since then…oh, I come in here and joke with the guys a lot, have a few drinks and all, but I don't go out much. On dates, I mean."
"I'm sorry to hear about Dave,
" I told her, meaning it. "What do you do when you're not in here?"
"I work in a women's dress shop a few blocks west along
18th Street. And I live in the same apartment I grew up in right near there. My parents are both gone now." "Mine too, and I grew up just a few blocks from here, too, although I've lived elsewhere for a long time. Back to Edwina. What about the others who come in here and who showed some interest in her?"
"Well, there's Len Rollins, he's down there at the end of the bar, wearing a flat cap, leaning on his elbows," she said, still in a lower-than-necessary voice. "About as quiet as Johnny but, like with Johnny, Eddie got him to loosen up and laugh. She could really bring people out of their shell."
"I'll ask the same question as with Sulski: Do you think they had something going outside of this place?"
"I dunno. S'pose anything's possible," she murmured with a shrug, looking toward Rollins as if he might somehow be able to hear her over the din.
"Tell you what," I said, "why don't we take our drinks over to a table, where there's a little more privacy."
Marge nodded, and we walked across the creaky wooden floor to one of the booths. Two or three of the stool denizens turned to take note, then swiveled back to their drinks.
"This'll give 'em something to talk about," she chuckled. "You're married, right?" Her eyes were on the band on my left-hand ring finger.
"Right. For the record, my wife knows I'm here."
"Hey, sorry, I didn't mean to be nosy. No offense meant."
"None taken. So, we've got Johnny Sulski and Len Rollins showing some degree of interest in Edwina. The others?"
"Well, there's Karl–I don't know his last name. Comes in often, but he's not here now."
"Tell me about him."
"Oh, he's really not a bad guy, although he puts on this grumpy act, see. At least I think it's an act. He's always complaining about something. The weather's too cold, or too rainy, or not rainy enough, or he's mad at his boss over at Western Electric, or his neighbor's dog is barking at night. You might call him a Gloomy Gus."
"Married?"
"That's another thing! He's always mad about something that he says his wife did, the poor woman. She can't possibly be as bad as he says."
"You know her?"
"Oh, no. It's just that it sounds like she has to put up with a lot from Karl."
"The guy doesn't sound like he's easy to like. What was the situation with him and Edwina?"
"He could walk in here crabbing about Lord knows what, and within five minutes Eddie would have him laughing and grinning and even buying a round for everyone in the place. It was amazing the effect that she had on him."
"So, here's the same question as with the others. Were–"
Marge smiled for the first time since walking in. "I know, I know, were they having an affair?" The smile faded. "It's a possibility, I guess. Hell, the way Karl would look at Eddie like a lovesick puppy, and the way he would glare at Johnny Sulski, who was always trying to keep her to himself. I always thought the two of them might start slugging it out over her sometime, but they never did."
"That leaves one other name."
She nodded. "Yeah, and that's the one guy who could really have done some slugging if he'd wanted to, although he's a very gentle type. Former boxer named Ben Barnstable."
"I remember him. Even saw him fight once, years ago."
"Sure, lots of people did, so I've been told, although I don't know anything at all about boxing. Meeting him, it's hard to believe he ever pounded on people with his fists. Probably the most good-natured regular this joint has."
"But he's not here tonight?"
"No. You'd know right away if he was around. Booming voice, laughs a lot. Loves to tell stories about his days as a fighter. He works with young boxers someplace in town now, helping 'em develop. And I'll beat you to the punch. Get it–the punch? Like in boxing? Anyway, before you ask, I can't tell you for sure what, if anything, was going on between Ben and Eddie. I do know that he liked her a lot–that was easy for anyone to see. And she loved to hear the stories about his fighting career. She would ask him all sorts of questions just to keep him spinning yarns. You could tell it got both Karl and Johnny riled up."
"Is Barnstable married?"
"Divorced. The only reason I know is that he mentioned it once or twice. The way Ben told stories, it didn't take long to learn pretty much his whole life history, but he wasn't boring about it. Not at all. He wasn't a bragger, because he told a lot of stories on himself, actually made fun of himself. He really, truly, has had a colorful life, far more interesting than anybody else's background in here."
"But you wouldn't want to guess if anything was going on between him and Edwina?"
She ground out her cigarette in the metal Pabst Blue Ribbon ashtray. "Well, this much I can say. Another woman who drops by here occasionally, name's Doris, came in late one night awhile back and mentioned to me that she'd seen Ben and Eddie walking on the other side of the street from here, a few blocks south of 18th. They were under a streetlight, and they were arm in arm. But that doesn't really mean all that much, does it?"
"Maybe, maybe not. I'm interested in something you said right after we started talking."
She cocked her head. "Yeah?"
"Something about your wanting to go to the police. What for?"
"I just know that somebody other than Charlie must have killed her."
"You got a better candidate?"
She took a deep breath, then another. "It had to be somebody from in here."
I lit another cigarette for her. "You've got my full attention."
"These guys, the four we talked about–every one was absolutely crazy over her."
"Hardly a reason for murder. Men have been crazy over dames ever since that poor schnook Samson let one of them cut off his hair and rob him of his strength."
"Yeah, but I think that each of these four was truly enchanted by Eddie. And they all heard her complain enough about Charlie that they felt she was looking for…well, I guess you could call it some sort of comforting. And, as I think you can tell from what I've been saying, she could be something of a flirt."
"So I'm beginning to learn. I only saw her cranky, nagging side when she and Charlie had dinner at our place a couple of times. So, what did you plan to tell the police?"
She sampled her second drink, which gave her time to choose her words. "I wasn't exactly sure, except to mention that those four all seemed almost bewitched by her. I heard that they, the cops, had been in here asking questions, but they were just going through the motions, according to Maury. He said they didn't seem too interested in this joint or any of the people who hang out here."
"Maury's right," I told her. "They figured they already had their man. They really were just going through the motions. Probably some neighbor of Charlie and Edwina told the cops she hung out in here. While we're on the subject of these four men, is there one above the others that you'd finger as the killer if you had to make a choice?"
More sipping of her drink. "It's hard to believe somebody you know might be a…murderer," she murmured.
"Yeah, but just a minute ago, you said you thought it had to be one of them. You can't have it both ways. You got a favorite?"
"Well, yes." She looked around again for those nonexistent eavesdroppers. Everybody sitting at the bar had their backs to us. "I think it's Johnny Sulski."
"Interesting. Any particular reason?"
"Well, of all of them, he was the most jealous and the most…I guess you'd say…intense. And he has a temper. I saw an example of it in here once, long before Eddie started hanging out. Some fellow I'd never seen came in, sat at the bar, and made some half-joking comment to Maury about how lazy construction workers are. Johnny blew his stack, called the guy all kinds of names–some of which I'd never even heard before–and invited him outside into the alley."
"Did they end up slugging it out?"
She shook her head. "Un-uh. The new guy,
he wasn't about to fight. He just told Sulski he didn't mean anything by what he said, and walked out. Far as I know, he's never been back."
"Probably the smartest thing he could have done, from the way you describe Sulski. So, if it was really Sulski who killed her, what do you think happened with him and Edwina that night?" I asked as I lit another cigarette for Marge.
"I'd be guessing."
"Go ahead and guess. There's absolutely no charge for it."
"I think Johnny went over to her flat–hers and Charlie's–and made some moves toward her. She resisted and somehow she ended up getting stabbed. Maybe she got the knife from someplace, probably the kitchen, and was trying to use it to protect herself from Johnny and they wrestled with it. It was probably an accident."
"If it really was Sulski, the guy took quite a chance by showing up at the apartment. He and Charlie probably came within just minutes of running into each other."
"Really?" she said, startled. "I thought Eddie was killed early in the evening, and Charlie always works late."
"You're right, that's usually the case, but that night there was no overtime. That's also why he's in the soup now; he's got no alibi. There's nobody to say he was anyplace except in their apartment. If he had worked overtime, he would have had his fellow workers to vouch for him."
She put a hand to her mouth in shock. "I really gotta talk to the police and tell them what I think happened," she gasped.
"Let me handle this," I said, holding up a hand." I've got some connections."
Her eyes widened. "You a cop?" she asked breathlessly.
"Let's just say that I spend a lot of time around cops and leave it at that."
"Are you some kind of private detective?"
"Sort of, I guess. I'm a police reporter for the Tribune. But I'd appreciate it if you kept that to yourself."
A Death in Pilsen (A Snap Malek Mystery) Page 6
