Chapter 9

There is no real Left Bank in Hollywood, but in the soft glow of a full moon, the visitor can think of Santa Monica Boulevard as the closest approach to Montparnasse. In daylight, it is a depressing thoroughfare where the grimy facades of two-bit cafes, junk shops, strip joints and gas stations succeed one another with the sameness of toothpaste being squeezed from an endless tube.

At night it can be quite different. The glow of the green and red neon signs, the knots of cars around the little theaters, the French language movie houses and the sight of hyper-thyroid youths, zigzagging, in beards and sandals, to the fashionable coffeehouses, can make the visitor think that he is driving along the Boulevard Montparnasse.

The Acme Art Center occupied the lower half of a dirty-red brick building near Fairfax Avenue. The dusty sign outside announced classes for beginners and advanced students in painting, sculpture and mosaics.

The school itself consisted of a large store front and a huge cellar. The store front resembled the waiting room of a prosperous fortune-teller. All it lacked was a crystal ball. Thick crimson carpets covered the floors, several barely visible paintings in a Cubist vein hung on the dark, shadowy walls; in the center stood a big, forbidding piece of sculpture which looked like a guided missile. It was labeled: Sensual Love 1959.

Mike Bishop and Al Trask moved aside the heavy black drapes which screened the room from the street and blinked their eyes in the sickly orange light streaming from an overhead lamp. The shadows in the room made it seem full of unseen animals. Bishop stared around him for a long moment.

"Place looks like the Egyptian Department of the Brooklyn Museum," he said finally. "It smells like it, too."

"Somebody's been eating Limburger and onions," Trask said, sniffing the air cautiously.

They approached the walls and peered at the pictures. "What the hell is that?" Trask asked, pointing to a huge portrait of several guitars and mandolins mixed in a kind of musical fruit salad.

Bishop stared at it. "Where the hell is everybody?"

"Beats me," Trask said. "This is the address all right."

The two men put their big drawing tablets on the long table.

"Maybe Sally gave us a bum steer," Bishop said. "Maybe they don't meet Friday nights." He yanked the cellophane wrapper from one of the short, stubby cigars he smoked. "If that dame lied to us, I'll-"

"Why should she?" Trask asked. "Sit down, Mike. Could be we're early."

Suddenly they heard a sound behind them. As they turned, the thick drapes moved to admit a thin dark-haired girl. She wore a skintight leotard with a bright gold belt around her waist and sandals. The tightness of the garment emphasized her long, tapering legs and thighs and her firm, pointed breasts. Her long dark hair was uncombed. She smiled in a friendly way. "Are you waiting for someone?" she asked pleasantly. "Or just lost?"

"We're looking for the Acme Art Center," Trask said. "Is this it?"

The girl's eyes widened. "You're art students?"

"Yeah," Bishop said truculently. "Why?"

"Nothing," she grinned. "You just didn't look the type."

"We're the type," Bishop said, chewing his cigar. "Where is it? Is there a secret panel in the wall or what?"

"No. It's in the rear. Back of that little door is a stairway and that leads to the basement. You can follow me. I'm going there."

"Are you a student?" Trask asked, grinning.

The girl seemed amused. "Not exactly. I'm the model."

"The model?" Trask's eyes widened. "Really?"

"Really. Look, I'm a little late. So if you'll excuse me-" She nodded and moved gingerly toward the back. The two men watched the trim figure of the girl appreciatively.

"Say, what the hell are you complaining about?" Trask said, laughing. "I'm beginning to enjoy this case."

Bishop grinned sheepishly. "Yeah. This is one detail I'll have to keep from my wife. I always tell her you have to chase criminals through sewers like in Les Miserables."

As they descended the stairway, they could hear faint laughter. They opened a door at the bottom and entered a large, brilliantly lighted room full of smoke, noise, people and the smell of beer. The studio was much larger than the upstairs store front and much cooler. Only the center was being used by the art class.

On the sides, deep, shadowy alcoves held finished statues, canvases, and other paraphernalia. A large bulletin board near the door exhibited dozens of pictures of students in various stages of undress and was headlined Halloween 1959.

Bishop blinked his eyes and looked about the room. Nearly a hundred people were busy working at clay models or paintings. Many of them had open beer cans on their stands or on the floor, and were smoking. The women were dressed for the most part in shorts and halters or tight-fitting capri pants. The men in old slacks and sport shirts. A few seconds after they entered, they saw the model come out from behind a Chinese screen and take her place on a dais in the center of the studio. This time she was nude.

Several eyes glanced at them with mild interest as they came in the doorway until Dino Pucci, the tall, heavily-moustached owner of the Acme Art Center, rose and shook hands with them.

"Good evening," he said. "My name's Pucci. I own the school."

"I didn't want to disturb the class," Bishop said. "All we want to do is look around."

Pucci winked. "Miss Rosson tipped me off you were coming. But don't worry. Your secret's safe with me. Anything special you want to know about the school?"

"Yeah," Bishop said. "Do you have any queer ducks here, anybody who might have a police record? For any reason?"

Dino shook his head. "We've got some characters but no criminals."

"What kind of characters?" Trask said.

The Italian shrugged. "Characters. Like Brendt there-he's an actor. There's a girl who does ballet. Another guy does nothing all night but miniatures of the model-about two-feet-high paintings, and a guy who spends most of his time photographing the model with a midget camera. When I say characters, I mean they're not run-of-the-mill art students."

"What about Tom Swaller?" Bishop asked softly.

"What about him, Lieutenant?"

"Give us a run-down on him."

Pucci looked at him blankly.

"Look, Pucci," Bishop said softly. "Don't horse with me. There's a guy here who killed a couple students of yours and failed to kill another today. Tomorrow he may go back and finish the job."

The art instructor sparred. "What makes you so sure it's anyone here?"

Bishop rose annoyedly. "Look, I don't have to explain myself to you. I'm a police officer and I'm investigating a murder. Now either talk or I'll ask you to come down to my office to answer questions I want answered. What is it you're so reluctant to spill?"

Pucci squirmed under the little-detective's eyes. He clenched his fists and stared at the big Irishman next to him. "What makes you think the prowler's here?" he asked.

"The. lieutenant asked you a question," Trask reminded him.

Pucci sighed. "Jesus, a guy just starts a place with every lousy buck he has and, boom, something comes along to screw it. What the hell did I do? Nobody'll come near the joint when this gets into the papers."

"Pucci!" Bishop said warningly. "I'm waiting. What do you know?"

"All right, all right," the Italian said, chewing his rum-soaked cigar. "The thing is all these places with live models get a few crackpots-you know, guys who are oversexed and come down just to see some flesh. But I seem to draw the worst kind."

"What do you mean?" Bishop said. "The worst kind. What does that mean?"

"Well, there are a few guys who bother the girls-doesn't matter whether they're married or not. One guy got a girl's husband so riled up he beat the bejesus out of him."

"Ever give any parties?" Trask asked.

Pucci shrugged again. "Parties, that's all. I give one every few weeks. All the students come. Sometimes it's a costume ball. Sometimes it's come as you are."

"From the pictures on that bulletin board," Bishop said, "a lot of them come in damned little."

"These parties get pretty wild? A lot of drinking?" Trask asked.

Pucci shook his head quickly. "Any marihuana smoked?" Trask asked. "I should drop dead on the spot if there is," Pucci said indignantly.

"What about the husband who beat up a student? What was that about?" Bishop asked suddenly.

The Italian reddened. "Well, that happened at a party. The guy got fresh with her. I didn't know anything about it until after it happened."

"Who was the girl?" Bishop said.

Pucci hesitated. "Donna Tyler."

The New Yorker's eyes widened. "The girl who was killed?"

"Yeah. Tom Swaller was pretty drunk and he started making passes at her. He maneuvered her into a dark corner while he was dancing. About ten minutes later she started yelling. Claimed he was trying to pull off her clothes so he could sketch her."

"You mean he was trying to rape her?" Trask said.

"No," Pucci said. "No offense to the dead, but Donna was kind of a tease. She had a jugful and liked everybody to notice it. She might have led him on."

"Jugful?" Bishop asked bewildered. "You mean she was drunk?"

"No, man." Pucci looked at him as if he were joking. "A big bust. She was stacked. Always teasing the boys by wearing narrow halters and all that jazz."

"Get back to the incident with Swaller," Bishop said.

"Well, like I said, Swaller was trying to make a pass. Her halter was untied. All of a sudden she started yelling he was trying to rape her. Naturally Swaller denied the whole thing."

"Did Swaller ever get mixed up in anything else? Try anything with any of the other girls?" Bishop asked.

Pucci thought for a moment. "Well, he dates a lot of girls. Offers to take them home or take them out for coffee after class. We usually go to a little coffeehouse up on Melrose Avenue when we break up around 10:30 here. A place called Gogo's. We have a couple of drinks and we get kind of chummy. Sometimes some of the guys pair off with the girls. It's none of my business what they do after class. Well, Swaller's been trying to make nearly all of them."

"Anybody else complain?"

"No," Pucci said, "not to me anyhow. Look, can I go back to the class now? I'm supposed to be teaching them."

"In a minute," Bishop answered. "We got a few more questions. Are there any other guys you can tell us anything about?"

Pucci gave a weak laugh. "Well, Jesus, Lieutenant, nearly everybody in the class has looked at a girl now and then. I don't know if that makes him a sex fiend."

"I didn't say it made him anything," Bishop said. "I just want to know if any of them did anything odd. What about this guy with the camera?"

Pucci smiled. "Jim Steiner? Jim is harmless. He does a little sculpturing now and then, but his real interest is photography. He's always submitting a nude to those contests in New York or Chicago. He only comes in once in a while. Jim is a little weak upstairs, you know. I know he's tried to date several of the prettier students, but they sort of laugh at him just like they laugh at Sy Brendt."

"Has Brendt been in any trouble?"

The instructor laughed. "Hell, no. He pinches a few of the girls now and then when we have a party, or tries to cop a feel, but he wouldn't try anything serious. The guy's scared of his shadow. That's why he admires Swaller so much. He's always sucking around the guy, trying to find out how he does it. Look, Lieutenant, let me get back there, huh?"

"Okay," Bishop said. "Point this Steiner out to us when he gets here."