Sugartown Read Online Free PDF

work for the city. Just like the judge we took the complaint to in the first place. My grandfather would of been better off keeping the family in Poland.”
    “I thought it was a federal judge the property owners went to,” I said.
    “What’s the difference? His office is in Detroit.”
    “Funny, all those vandals popping out of nowhere,” Mayk said.
    Stanislaus said, “You don’t hear me laughing.”
    “Who was it, Thad? Oh.”
    We were standing in a small square living room with flocked wallpaper and a rug that was starting to show some wear and pink slipcovers on the chairs and sofa. A young brown-haired woman with tight birdlike features, wearing a pullover and stretch slacks that showed off her slight paunch, had come in from another room and backed up a step when she saw Mayk and me. I took off my hat.
    “Just some men who want a look at the place,” Stanislaus explained.
    “From the city?”
    “No, it’s about the Evanceks.”
    “I hope you told them that was long before we came.”
    “They know that.”
    “We wouldn’t have bought the place if we knew there was a murder in it. They didn’t tell us that when we bought it.”
    “They wanted to sell it,” said Mayk.
    She looked at him. “Isn’t there a law or something that says they have to tell you about that kind of thing before you buy?”
    “They’re supposed to mention bad pipes and a leaky furnace. I don’t think they have to tell you someone got whacked there unless you ask.”
    “Who would think to ask?”
    Mayk shrugged. Stanislaus said, “It’s been a good place to live. You talk like there’s flies in the sewing room or something.”
    “I’ll just be glad to be out of here.” She went back into the other room, rubbing a hand up and down one arm as if she were chilled. A television set was playing in there. A cop show, from the sirens and gunplay.
    “I got a thousand knocked off the asking price on account of the murder,” Stanislaus told us in a low voice. “Don’t tell her.”
    Mayk asked him if we could look around.
    He jerked a thumb in the direction his wife had gone. “You ain’t going to have to go in there, are you? We built that on ourselves. Call it a rumpus room. We don’t hardly use this one anymore. My boys are in there.”
    “It’s just the old part we’re interested in.” Mayk waited. When Stanislaus made no move to go, he said: “We’ll try not to steal anything valuable.”
    The homeowner showed white teeth behind his moustache. “You find anything like that here, be sure and tell me and we’ll split it.” He picked up his gun and went into the addition.
    “You know how many Polacks it takes to fire an automatic?” Mayk asked me.
    I stared at him.
    He made that dismissing gesture with one of his big hands. “Skip it. I know lots more funnier ones. I went through the academy course in Detroit and you get to be a connoisseur.”
    “This where you found Jeanine Evancek and little Carla?’ I asked.
    “This is it. Looks different.”
    “New wallpaper, I guess.”
    “New everything. But a room with a stiff in it looks and feels different. It’s bad enough in a funeral home when they’re all scrubbed and dressed and made up like a whore on Cass. When they’re spread all over the walls like —”
    “Red cabbage,” I said. “I know.”
    He paced off a quick twelve feet from the front door. “They were about here, the little girl laying next to her mother, like she was standing over her when she bought her own load square in the face. They both got it in the face, the M.E. said. Bill thought it—”
    He stopped talking. With his back to the room’s only lamp, his own face was a blank slab of shadow. “Funny what you remember when you come back to a place,” he said then.
    “That being?”
    “Well, like I said, I wouldn’t trust a setup where everything clicked. The parents’ bedroom was down there, next to one the girl and boy shared with a partition between them.” He tipped his