“Will do,” Boone said happily.
They were silent awhile, working on their dripping hotdogs. When they used up the paper napkins, both used their handkerchiefs to wipe their smeared faces and fingers.
“Well, let’s go brace Jack Dukker,” Delaney said. “We can walk over …”
The building, tall, narrow, sooty, was one of the oldest on Central Park South. It had been designed for artists’ studios, for painters, sculptors, musicians, singers. Ceilings were high, rooms spacious, walls thick. Floor-to-ceiling windows provided a steady north light and afforded a fine view of Central Park, an English farm set down in the middle of the steel and concrete city.
Jake Dukker occupied a duplex on the fourth and fifth floors. The lower level had been converted to a reception area, working studio, models’ dressing room, a photographic darkroom, prop room and storage area, a lavatory, and a tiny kitchenette with refrigerator, sink, stove and a small machine that did nothing but produce ice cubes, chuckling at intervals as cubes spilled into a storage tray.
The studio was all efficiency: rolls of seamless paper and canvas, a battery of flood- and spotlights with high-voltage cables, a stage, posing dais, overhead illumination of a theatrical design, mirrors, sets, stainless-steel and white-cloth reflectors, easels, a working table littered with paints, palettes, mixing pots … The walls were covered with framed paintings, prints, etchings, lithographs, drawings. Most of them signed.
The fifth floor, reached by an interior spiral staircase, provided living quarters for the artist: one enormous chamber with enough sofas, chairs, and floor pillows to accommodate an interdenominational orgy. Two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a spacious, well-equipped kitchen—copper-bottomed pans and pots hanging from the walls, a gargantuan spice rack—and a dining area with a glass-topped table long enough to seat twelve.
The living quarters were jangling with color, a surprisingly comfortable and attractive mix of the owner’s short-lived enthusiasms: Bauhaus, Swedish Modern, Art Deco, New York Victorian, Art Nouveau, and such soupy examples of modern furnishings as iron tractor seats on pedestals and rough wooden cocktail tables that were originally the reels for telephone cable.
The owner of this hodgepodge was also a jumble of trendy fashions. He wore faded blue jeans cinched with a wide leather belt and tarnished brass buckle inscribed with the Wells Fargo insignia. Negating these symbols of rugged masculinity were the soft, black ballet slippers he wore on his long, slender feet. His overblouse was Indian tissue cotton, cut to the pipik, embroidered across the shoulders with garlands of roses, and boasting loose sleeves full enough to inspire a gypsy to make his violin cry. In the cleavage of this transparent shirt, a sunburst medallion swung from a clunky gold chain.
The man himself was tall and lanky, his slender grace somewhat marred by a well-fed paunch, half a bowling ball that strained the leather belt and threatened to eclipse Wells Fargo. He didn’t move so much as strike a quick succession of poses, feet turned so, arms akimbo, head tilted, shoulder thrust, knee bent artfully. He was a stop-motion film, click, click, click, each shutter advance showing a different arrangement of features and limbs. But there was no flow.
The nubile receptionist told the officers to go into the studio. As Jake Dukker came forward to meet them, two cameras hanging from leather thongs about his neck, the first things Chief Delaney saw were the Stalin mustache, a bushy, bristly growth, and the glowering eyes, swimming and seemingly unfocussed. The nose was a sharp beak, the teeth as square and chiseled as small tombstones, faintly stained. The caved cheeks were pitted and shadowed; he had not shaved well. Black hair, cut in Mod style, full, brushed, and sprayed, covered his ears. Like Saul Geltman, he wore a gold bracelet. Unlike Geltman, there was nothing spruce, neat, or particularly clean about his person. But that, Delaney charitably decided, might have been due to the hot studio lights.
After the introductions, Dukker said, “Just finishing up. A few more shots. Take a look around. Don’t trip on the cables.”
At the center of the raised stage, posed against a roll of seamless purple paper, a young model with a teenager’s body stood with her back to the lights and reflectors manned by Dukker’s two assistants. She wore the bottom half of a bright red bikini; her upper back was bare. Atop her head was an enormously wide-brimmed white straw hat with a violet ribbon band. She assumed a hip-sprung pose, both arms to one side, hands perched on the handle of a closed pink parasol.
Jake Dukker lifted one of his cameras, a Nikon, and moved into position, crouching …
“More ass, honey,” he called. “Magnificent. Lean onto the umbrella. Sensational. Profile to me. That’s it. Sexy smile. Wonderful. Weight on that leg. More ass. Beautiful. Here we go …”
The girl held her pose, and Dukker was up, down, leaning, stretching, moving forward, moving back, clicking, winding. He switched quickly from one camera to another, adjusted his setting, continued his gymnastics with hardly a pause, snap, snap, snap, until finally he straightened up, arched his shoulders back, lifted his chin high to stretch his neck.
“That’s it,” he called to his assistants. “Kill it.”
All the burning lights went off. One of the assistants came forward to take the cameras from Dukker. The model relaxed, took off her hat, shook her blonde hair free. She turned to face forward, showing little breasts with surprisingly large brown aureoles.
“Okay, Jake?” she asked.
“Incredible, honey,” he said. “Sexy but pure. Gretchen will have your check.”
“Anything coming up?” she asked.
“Me,” he said, showing his teeth. “Cover up; it’s the cops. Don’t call us, sweetie, we’ll call you. And stop eating. Five more pounds and you’re dead.”
He turned to Delaney and Boone, his pitted face glistening with sweat.
“A paperback cover,” he explained. “No tits, but it’s okay to titillate.”
He grabbed up a soiled towel and wiped his face and hands.
“The place is air conditioned,” he said, “but you’d never know it when the lights are on.”
“You work hard, Mr. Dukker,” Delaney said.
“The name of the game,” Dukker said. “I do everything; fashion, book covers, record slips, paintings, magazine illustrations, posters, ads. You name it; I do it. A guy called me this morning and wants me to do a pack of playing cards. Can you believe it?”
“Pornographic?” Chief Delaney asked.
Dukker was startled.
“Close,” he said, trying to smile. “Mighty close. I turned him down. Want to look around? Before we go upstairs?”
“Just for a minute,” Delaney said, moving to inspect the framed art on the walls. “You have some beautiful things here. You know all these artists?”
“All of them,” Dukker said. “Lousy friends and rotten enemies. Take a look at that one. The drawing over by the window, the one in the thin gold frame. That should interest you.”
Obediently, Delaney and Boone found the sketch and stood before it. It had been torn twice, the four pieces patched with transparent tape and pressed behind glass. In the corner, a scrawled but legible signature: Victor Maitland.
“An original Maitland,” Delaney said.
It was a hard, quick sketch of a running woman. In profile. Bulge of naked breast and ass caught in one fast S-stroke, a single charcoal line. A suggestion of high-stepping knees, hair flaming, the whole bursting with life, motion, young charm, vigor, a bright gaiety.
“No, sir,” Jake Dukker said. They turned to look at him. “A signed Maitland. An original Dukker!” Then when he saw their expressions, he showed his teeth again, a pirate. “Come over here,” he commanded. “I’ll explain.”
They followed him to a corner of the studio, a three-sided closure lined with pegboard. Pinned to the walls were photographic prints and contact sheets, sketches, clippings from newspapers and magazines, sheets of type fonts, illustrations of photo distortions, and color samples of paper and fabric. The small room wa
s dominated by a tilt-top drawing table with a long T-square, jars of pens, pencils, chalks, pastels, plastic triangles and French curves, liquid-cement pot, a battered watercolor tin, and overflowing ashtrays everywhere.
Behind the drawing table, facing a window, was a sturdy workbench. Clamped to the bench was a curious device, a prism at the end of a jointed chrome arm. It was positioned between a vertical and a horizontal drawing board.
“See that?” Dukker said. “It’s called a camera lucida. Commonly known as a ‘luci.’ A kind of visual pantograph. Suppose you want to do a drawing of a nude. So you photograph a nude, the body and pose you want. Make an eight-by-ten print. Pin the print on the vertical board. Put your drawing paper flat on the horizontal board. Then you look through that prism at the end of the jointed arm. You see the photo image and at the same time you see the flat drawing paper. You can trace the photo with pen, pencil, chalk, charcoal, pastel stick, whatever. Absolute, realistic likeness.”
They looked at him, and he laughed.
“Don’t knock it,” he said. “Takes too much time and work to do it the old-fashioned way, with sittings and all. Even if the artist or illustrator had the talent to do it. And most of them don’t. Anyway, one night I was tracing a photo of a family group on my luci when Maitland shows up drunk as a skunk. He starts giving me a hard time about what a mechanic I am. I’m not an artist. I can’t draw my way out of a wet paper bag. I’m a disgrace. And so forth and so on. Really laying it on me.”
Dukker stopped suddenly, staring at the empty drawing board. His eyes squinched up, as if he was staring at something pinned there. Then he sighed and continued …
“Finally I got fed up, and I said, ‘You son of a bitch, I’ve had all the horseshit I’m going to take from you. I’m twice the draftsman you’ll ever be, and to prove it, I’m going to do an original Victor Maitland that any art expert in the world will swear is genuine.’ He laughed, but I grabbed a pad, a charcoal stick, and I knocked out that sketch you see there, the nude running. Victor was a fast worker, but I’m faster. I’m the best. It took me less than three minutes. Then I showed it to him. He looked at it, and I thought he was going to kill me. I really was scared. His face got pale as hell, and his hands started shaking. I really thought he was going to get physical; it never did take much to set him off. I started looking around for something to hit him with. I’d never go up against that crazy bastard with my bare fists; he’d cream me.”
Dukker paused to scratch at the tight denim across his crotch, looking up thoughtfully at the ceiling.
“Then he tore my drawing in four pieces and threw them at me. Then I put some more booze into him, and later that night we patched my drawing together with tape, and he signed it. Then he thought it was a big joke. It really is my drawing, but he admitted he wasn’t ashamed to put his name to it. Shit, it’s better than a lot of things he did. And I didn’t trace a photograph either. I just knocked it off. He wasn’t so great. I could have been … Everyone thinks … Well, let’s go upstairs and relax. I got another shooting in an hour or so. Got to keep going. Can’t stop.”
Before he led them up the spiral staircase, he grabbed up a maroon beret from the littered work table and jammed it rakishly over one eye. They watched him put it on, but said nothing. They were cops; human nuttiness didn’t faze them.
Upstairs, he asked if they’d like a drink. When they declined, he insisted on making a fresh pot of coffee for them. He made it in an unusual glass container with a plunger arrangement that shoved a strainer of ground coffee down through hot water.
“You’ll love this,” he assured them. “Better than drip. And the coffee is my own blend of mocha, Java, and Columbian that I buy in the bean at this marvelous little place on the Lower East Side. I grind it fresh every morning. Full-bodied, with a subtle bouquet.”
Chief Delaney thought it was possibly the worst cup of coffee he had ever drunk. And he could tell from Boone’s expression that his opinion was shared. But they sipped politely.
They were seated somewhat nervously on a short crimson velvet couch shaped like human lips. Jake Dukker slouched opposite them in a soft leather chair shaped like a baseball mitt.
“So …” he said. “What can I do for you?”
They took out their notebooks. Chief Delaney reviewed the record of the artist’s activities on the Friday that Victor Maitland had been killed. Dukker’s receptionist and assistants had come to work around 9:00 A.M. They had set up for the fashion assignment. The models appeared around 10:00, and shooting commenced about thirty minutes later. Belle Sarazen showed up around 11:30. At noon, she and Jake Dukker had come upstairs for lunch.
“A divine omelet,” Dukker interjected.
They had gone back downstairs around 1:30, and Belle Sarazen left the studio about an hour later, maybe a little less. Shooting was completed slightly before 3:00 P.M., and the models departed. Dukker remained in his apartment until seven that evening, when he went to a dinner party with friends in Riverdale, driving up.
“Your own car?” Delaney asked.
Dukker nodded. “A waste of money really. I usually take cabs. Trying to park in midtown Manhattan is murder. Most of the time I keep it garaged. On West Fifty-eighth Street. Want the name and address of the garage?”
“No, thank you, Mr. Dukker,” Delaney said. “We have that information. What about Belle Sarazen?”
“What about her?”
“Were you intimate with her?”
Dukker took a long swallow of his coffee and grimaced.
“Oh God, yes,” he said. “Like half of New York. Belle distributes her favors regardless of race, creed, color, or national origin.”
“She says you hated Victor Maitland,” Delaney said tonelessly.
Dukker jerked erect, some of his drink slopping over onto his jeans.
“She said that?” he said. “I don’t believe it.”
“Oh yes,” Delaney nodded. He looked down at his notebook. “Said you hated him because you envied Maitland’s integrity. Her word—‘integrity’—not mine.”
“The bitch,” Dukker said, relaxing back into the baseball mitt. “Envied maybe. Yes, I suppose I did. Hated? I don’t think so. Certainly not enough to kill him. I cried when I heard he was dead. I didn’t want him dead. You can believe that or not, but I really took it hard.”
“Well, that’s something different,” Delaney said. “You’re the first person we’ve talked to who was close to Maitland who’s expressed any kind of sorrow. Except possibly his agent, Saul Geltman.”
“His agent?” Dukker said. Unexpectedly he laughed. “Is that what you call him?”
“He was Maitland’s agent, wasn’t he?”
“Well … yes, I suppose so,” Dukker said, still smiling. “But they don’t like to be called ‘agents.’ ‘Art dealer’ is the term they prefer.”
“We had a long discussion with Geltman about art agents,” Delaney said stubbornly. “How much they make, their duties and responsibilities, and so forth. Never once did Geltman object to being called Maitland’s agent.”
“Maybe he didn’t want to rub you the wrong way,” Dukker shrugged. “But I assure you that art dealer is what they want to be called. Like a garbageman likes the title of sanitation engineer.”
“Do you have an agent, Mr. Dukker?” Sergeant Boone asked. “Or an art dealer?”
“Hell, no,” Dukker said promptly. “What for? I sell directly. People come to me; I don’t have to look for customers. Why should I pay thirty percent of my gross to some leech who can’t do anything for me I can’t do myself? Listen, my stuff sells itself. I’m the best.”
“So you told us,” Delaney murmured. “To get back to Belle Sarazen, can you tell us anything about her relationship with Victor Maitland?”
“Hated him,” Dukker said immediately. He put his drink aside, half-finished. He slumped lower in his leather baseball mitt, laced his fingers across his pot belly. “Hated his guts. Vic hated phonies, you see. Hated sham and hyp
ocrisy in any way, shape or form. And Belle is the biggest phony going.”
“Is she?” Delaney said.
“You bet your sweet ass,” Dukker said enthusiastically, nibbing his bristly jaw. “Listen, Vic Maitland was a rough guy. I mean, if he thought you were talking shit, he’d tell you so. Right out. No matter who was listening. I remember once Belle had a big party at her place. A lot of important people. Maitland showed up late. Maybe he hadn’t been invited. Probably not. But he’d hear about parties and come anyway. He didn’t care. He knew they really didn’t want him there because he got into trouble all the time. I told you, he’d get physical. He’d deck art critics and throw things. Food. Drinks at people he didn’t like. Stuff like that. Anyway, Belle was having this fancy party, and Vic showed up. Drunk, as usual. But keeping his mouth shut. Just glaring at all the beautiful people. Then Belle started talking about what a big shot she had been in Washington. You know, entertaining the President and dancing with ambassadors and playing tennis with Senators and teaching yoga to Congressmen’s wives. All that crap. Everyone was listening to Belle brag, not wanting to interrupt. After all, she swings a lot of clout. Then Maitland broke in. In a loud voice. Everyone heard him. He called Belle the World’s Greatest Blower. He said she had blown off her husband’s head, had blown a fortune in Europe, and had ended up blowing the Supreme Court.”
Delaney and Boone smiled down at their notebooks.
He broke up the place,” Dukker grinned, remembering. “We couldn’t stop laughing. He was such a foul-mouthed bastard, really dirty, but at the same time he was funny. Outrageous. Sometimes.”
“How did Belle Sarazen take this?” Delaney asked.
“Tried to laugh it off,” Dukker shrugged. “What else could she do? But she was burning, I could see. Hated him right then. Could have killed him. I knew she’d never forget it.”
“Why did Maitland do it? Say those things?”
“Why? I told you why. Because he couldn’t stand phonies. Couldn’t stand sham and hypocrisy.”
Second Deadly Sin Page 13