Postcard killers

Chapter 108

Los Angeles,

USA

UCLA was as big as a decent-size town in California. More than thirty thousand students, some two hundred buildings, more than fifty thousand applicants to be freshmen every year.

Jacob had punched Charles E. Young Drive into the GPS, an address that was supposed to be in the university's northern campus, where the School of the Arts and Architecture was based.

His contact, Nicky Everett, was waiting for him outside room 140, on the first floor of the building. The young man was wearing chinos, a golfing shirt, boat shoes, and frameless glasses. Jacob had never met anyone studying for a PhD in conceptual art, but he'd been expecting something more bearded and absentminded.

"Thanks for taking the time to see me," Jacob said.

"I believe in art that communicates," Nicky Everett said seriously, looking at him through the sparkling clean lenses.

"Er…," Jacob said, "you knew Malcolm and Sylvia Rudolph?"

"I wouldn't use the past tense," Everett said. "Even if we no longer have a physical relationship, there are other forms of contact, correct?"

Jacob nodded. Okay.

"Could we sit down outside perhaps?" he said, gesturing toward some benches just outside the main entrance.

They went out and sat in the shade of a few spindly trees.

"If I've understood this right, you studied here at the same time as the Rudolph twins – until they left – correct?"

"Absolutely," Everett said. "Sylvia and Mac were leaders in their field."

"Which was?"

"Let me quote Sol LeWitt: 'In conceptual art the idea or concept is the most important aspect of the work. The idea becomes a machine that makes the art.'"

Jacob made an effort to understand, and also to keep his emotions in check. "So an event, or a series of events, can be a work of art?" he asked.

"Of course. Both Mac and Sylvia were determined to take their work to its ultimate limits."

Jacob remembered Dessie's stories of the art student who faked a psychotic attack for her examination piece, and the guy who smashed up a car on the subway and cal ed his artwork Territorial Pissing. He described these cases to Everett.

"Could the Rudolphs ever do anything like that?"

Nicky Everett pressed his glasses firmly onto his nose. "The Rudolphs were more meticulous in their expression. That al sounds rather superficial.

'Territorial Pissing'?"

Jacob ran his fingers through his hair. "So," he said, "explain it to me: 144 how can that be art? I want to hear this and understand it as best I can."

The student looked at him with complete indifference in his face.

"You think a work of art should be hung on a wal and sold on the commercial market?"

Jacob realized the futility of going any further down this road and changed the subject. "They started an art group, the Society of Limitless Art…"

"It was more of a web project. I don't think anything ever came of it."

"What was their social life like otherwise? Family, friends, boyfriends, girlfriends."

Nicky Everett seemed not to understand, as though the very idea that he might possess such insignificant facts was completely ridiculous.

"Do you know if they were upset when their guardian died here in L.A.?"

"Their what?"

Jacob gave up.

"Okay, I think we're good," he said, standing up. "It's a shame the Rudolphs couldn't afford to stay on here. Imagine al the incredible art they could have created…"

He turned to go back to his car.

Nicky Everett had also stood up, and for the first time, a genuine expression showed on his face. "'Couldn't afford to stay on here'? Sylvia and Mac were exceptional talents. They both had scholarships. There was no problem with fees."

Jacob stopped short.

"No problem? So why did they leave, then?"

Everett blinked a few times, a sure sign that he was agitated.

"They created the work Taboo and were expel ed. They showed up the bourgeois limitations and the hypocrisy of our society, and of this institution, of course."

Jacob stared at the student.

"What did they do? What was Taboo? What was it that got them expel ed?"

Nicky Everett's mouth curved into a smile.

"They committed an act that was entirely relevant within the frame of their art. They had intercourse in a case in the exhibition hal."