“That’s outrageous,” Professor Angeli seethed. “How dare you speak to professionals in that tone of voice. We’ve put up with your superior attitude in no small measure. And the foolish examples of humanity you’ve given us to work from…”
“Let’s hear it for paunchy Maurice.” Nathan flung a drawing pad into the air. “And the overabundant Pauline!”
Mr. Wilde clattered his watercolor brush on his easel as the rest of the class joined in the bedlam.
David Parkerson waded into the center of his rebellious students, smartly slapping his hand against easels and rapping drawing pads for attention. “I am your instructor! You will not question my motives and my expertise.”
He spun on Nathan. “If you are so feeble as to not be able to draw without proper inspiration, then go to the posing area and we’ll draw you!” He shoved the compact young man roughly in the direction of the platform.
Amanda gasped. The entire scene had become surreal. She couldn’t believe serious artists were allowing themselves to become drawn into the mob mentality.
“You gave us a great model and you’ve taken him away”, someone in the class called out.
“We have every right to be angry,” another voice added.
Nathan whirled and shoved the large teacher back. “Keep your untalented hands off me, buddy. The Met may think you’re hot stuff but we’re the ones who do the work here.”
“Stop that!”
“Slug him, Nathan!”
“Serves the stuck-up bastard right…!”
A cacophony of violent voices rose in harsh agitation.
Christine waded in. “Don’t you touch Nathan!” She swung at Parkerson who backed into an easel, sending the flimsy wooden contraption clattering to the floor followed by drawing papers, pencils and crayons.
Chaos broke out. Pushing, shoving, shouting. Frustration burst forth, unleashed from all sides. Above it all Mr. Wilde bellowed for civility and calm.
Amanda hovered against a back wall with several other students, shocked and frozen into inaction.
Marc! Dear God, Marc, where are you?
THE PRIVATE investigator’s head swam. He couldn’t believe he had been so lax as to allow himself to be mugged in his own apartment.Man, this being in love stuff can get a guy killed.
Being in love?Yeah, he had to admit to himself, he was bonkers for the babe.Okay, let’s see if I can salvage any of this battered body with which to tempt my lady love.
He shook his head hard to snap away the excruciating pain. He could still see and focus, though it was a little fuzzy, so there appeared to be no major neural damage. He reached to feel if blood flowed and felt his hand sharply grabbed, pulled back, and roughly held against his other.
A large menacing shape loomed behind him, wrapping his wrists in tape. Marc slowly revolved his head to see his tormentor, incrementally realizing the rest of his body was also constrained. His ankles were taped to the legs of one of the dining chairs.
“Okay, pretty boy, where’s the other bozo? The Italian job. You’re teaching him that art stuff, right? Damn, how many of you are involved in this mess? I want some answers and I want ‘em fast. Where are the new drawings? Answer me!” A large ski-masked shape heaved itself into his field of vision.
There was a crack and Marc’s slapped face snapped around. Good. Woke him up, sharpened his senses and got his adrenaline boiling. David’s apartment… right. He had let himself in, humming happily, pretty good spirits, thoughts of Ace dancing through his bed- head!
Then everything went the proverbial black, preceded by the not-so-proverbial splitting pain in his head that remained with him still.
It was the big guy they had caught rifling Amanda’s apartment, Cissy’s unexpected guest. His head now covered with a ski-mask and he was making an effort to disguise his voice, but Marc would know his violent presence anywhere.
Another sharp slap stung the side of Marc’s head. The private investigator’s senses sharpened to a razor’s edge even as his body contracted in a counterfeit cringe from the onslaught.
“Answer me, fruit! What the hell is going on with the Italian guy and you? Parkerson set you up? You know where the new drawings are, don’t you? Damn creepy Angeli, doesn’t know shit! Talk to me!”
The man grabbed a nearby large bookend and drew his thick arm back. Marc ducked his head and flung himself forward, butting into the large barrel chest.
With a searing tear at his wrists, one arm swung free.
What an idiot. Binding me with low-tack masking tape from David’s drawing supplies.
With a bellow, the struck body fell backwards, clattering into an end table as Marc toppled to the floor. A dislodged lamp smashed near his head.
Pivoting himself on his free arm, Marc used his body as a fulcrum and swung the chair still attached to his lower body against his attacker, who was scrambling to right himself. The furious man threw himself at the retaliating private eye as Marc’s other hand came free. Bracing himself on the floor, Marc cocked his legs back and shot them forward driving the attached chair into his attacker’s chest like a desperate lion tamer.
The dining room chair splintered in stabbing shards against the barrel chest, one leg catching the howling man over an eye. He screamed in agony, clutching at his head as Marc hunched his body and jack-knifed himself upright and staggered for the door, pieces of the attached chair clattering after him.
“I’ll kill you, by God!” Marc heard the furious roar behind him as his mind raced to place the accent his assailant had ceased to attempt to suppress. Irish? Cockney?
Marc tried to wrench the door open. Maybe the man had snatched the mask off his wounded head. Marc glanced back to make a positive identification.
His assailant was indeed bareheaded, but with the tangle of dislodged dark hair, a beefy hand clutching at a slash of red, and the infuriated distortion of his features as he shrieked at his retreating victim, Marc caught nothing but a general impression of the large man flailing among the clattering utensils on the kitchen island.
He did somewhat resemble the elegant, large Mr. Wilde in the life class. That put that bit of misinformation to rest.
The life class…What must be happening there?
How much time had passed since he had been knocked out? Amanda must be worried sick. As he clawed at the bolts of the door, out of the corner of his eye he caught sight of one of David’s prize copper-bottomed frying pans sailing toward his head.
Amanda isn’t the only one who’s gonna be worried sick.
A flash of incandescence and he dropped like a stone.
Chapter 10
AMANDA watched with a mixture of horror and amazement as the life class of the world-famous Art Students League disintegrated into chaos. David Parkerson’s screaming face was a mask of fear as he flailed ineffectively at his students, trying to restore order.
Half the participants had succumbed to the bloodlust of the mob, a vicious game of who would wrest power from whom. Others were indignant and furious at weeks of being treated so cavalierly and were determined to voice their repressed anger. Nathan, though in the midst of the shouting battle, was oddly silent, his ferret eyes fastening on one anger distorted face and then another, almost frighteningly concentrated on some inner directive. He worried Amanda most.
Parkerson stumbled backward through shoving students, in retreat from a gesticulating, chastising Christine and Mr. Wilde who was waving his arms and bellowing for calm as he swam through the sea of angry bodies toward the beleaguered instructor. At the forefront was a red-faced Professor Angeli, screaming invectives.