Stone Cold Blonde by Lawrence Lariar

Author:Lawrence Lariar
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: MysteriousPress.com/Open Road
Published: 2018-11-29T14:03:28+00:00

CHAPTER 13

Two o’clock.

A melodic timepiece from somewhere inside Chet Cutler’s flat chimed the hour as I closed the door behind me. The small hallway in which I stood was illuminated by the thin flame from my cigarette lighter as I searched for the wall switch. I lit the lights and the place came into focus. There was a large room straight ahead of me, cluttered with a hundred samples of the ceramic art, a show-place for the handiwork of Cutler. A long table sat against the wall, on which a galaxy of ashtrays, pots, vases, plaques and gewgaws was displayed, the bright colors startling against the background of dull gray wall. On the floor, in odd places, other samples of his talent spread around as though the moving men had set them down only a little while ago.

There was a wall full of good pictures at the other end of the studio, some of them distinctive abstractions, signed with a spidery signature: C. Cutler. To the rear, against the studio window, there was an oversized easel and the added equipment of the working artist: tabouret and large vases for brushes. The smell of turpentine, not fresh, but cloying, mingled with the dank odor of neglect. I walked to the tabouret and lifted the palette, fingering the paint and finding it crusted and ancient. The paint rag, too, had not been used for many a week. Chet Cutler would be a sloppy artist, the type with temperament. There was a charcoal sketch of a girl’s head on the canvas, but Cutler had rendered it worthless by running hard black lines, in a crazy-quilt pattern, over the original sketch, so that the original drawing was hidden forever under the welter of scrawls and scratches.

The apartment was a duplicate of Leo’s, upstairs. I walked through the bathroom and into the kitchen. Here was chaos. The sink was loaded with dishes, pots, pans and cutlery, all unwashed and setting up a dank and putrid stench. Along the wooden work-shelf an array of glasses and cups added to the confusion, surrounded by fizz bottles and a half dozen dead soldiers from the liquor battalions. Under the sink I searched and groped for something of importance, any small lead, a crumb of direction amid the debris. I found nothing. I opened the garbage can and held my breath against the upsurge of stink that tore into my nostrils.

I plucked the cans out and examined them, one by one. Somebody had eaten well, recently. The labels told me a story of their own. Whoever emptied these cans had the taste of a gourmet, had dined on an assortment of delicate concoctions—the sort of food usually found in the specialty shops: mushroomed spaghetti, truffles, trout, and a variety of Italian antipasto and spiced niceties. I kicked the garbage can over and studied the mess, observing the abundance of cigarette butts, all of them reddened with lipstick. I poked deeper into the filth, turning up the unsavory litter. There were a few mangled cigar ends, with bands that sported two bit brand names.

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