The Pot Thief Who Studied Einstein Page 11

  I didn’t even bother to towel off. I just wrapped myself in my robe, filled a mug with hot black coffee, and staggered out to my patio. My fuzzy-brained plan had been to sit in the warm morning sun and sip coffee until the headache went away.

  What I had forgotten was that there was another headache in the patio by the name of Geronimo. It was bad enough that he tried to lick me to death, but did you ever hear of a dog who drank hot coffee?

  I had to get a fresh cup – who wants to drink after a dog? – and then I had to stand up to keep it out of his reach. I was in the midst of cursing him for interfering with my hangover recovery when I realized it had gone away.

  The hangover, not the dog.

  So I stood there feeling the warm morning sun as it peeked over the east side of my patio wall.

  And realized Susannah was right. Cantú’s house was not where I had appraised the pots. When she and I had gone there, me blindfolded in her Crown Vic, I had been convinced it was the right house. It was Cantú’s address as listed in the phone book. The location seemed right, about the same amount of time and number of turns as my first blindfolded ride. The size of the house seemed right. The back window was in the right place. The door was the right distance from the curb. I was positive it was the place. But you may remember me mentioning a nagging feeling in the back of my mind that some small detail was wrong. Now I knew what that detail was.

  I felt like an idiot for not thinking of it sooner, but I felt great that I knew it now because for the first time since my twenty-five hundred dollars disappeared, I could see how I might be able to get it back. And maybe a lot more.

  I shaved, brushed, flossed, and gave myself a few spritzes of piñon cologne. The shop that sells it also offers desert jasmine, cactus flower, desert mistletoe, yucca, and midnight cereus.

  Ah yes, midnight cereus. A flower of legend. It’s a cactus, and for 364 days a year (365 in leap years) it does its imitation of a dead stick. But on one night each year, it blooms. And what a bloom it is – full, white and spiky. Resembling a water lily, it releases its intoxicating scent then closes forever with the rising sun.

  Because I often dig for pots at night, I’ve seen the bloom on several occasions. It is spectacular. But like other plants, it also has a root, not nearly as interesting to look at but much tastier than the flower. Some Native Americans eat the root, and some wacko ecologists want to make eating it illegal because they claim the plant is endangered. I don’t know if the plant is endangered or not, but if it is, it’s because it’s difficult for a plant to propagate when its flower has only a few hours a year to be pollinated and this occurs when most insects are asleep.

  My hunch is that the cologne called midnight cereus is not made from the actual flower. But piñon is common enough and smells clean and sweet, so I adopted it many years ago as my signature scent.

  I looked good, smelled good, and felt good.

  I went outside to take in the morning desert air and leaned against my new Cadillac convertible. Well, not mine exactly. But Susannah had rigged up a switch so that I could start it and drive it whenever I wanted to.

  I was feeling great.

  Fate must have directed me to groom myself so meticulously that morning because as I stood on the sidewalk in front of my shop taking in the clear crisp air and the clean scent of piñon, I got just the faintest whiff of another scent, a tropical citrusy scent, a scent that set my heart to pounding.

  I turned to face upwind and she was there, striding towards me with that easy, self-assured gait, like a fashion model on a runway except without that look of insouciance. Instead of the aloof expression of models, a laughing smile playing across her sensual lips, and her long hair frolicked in the morning breeze.

  Her stride was confident and natural. A song played in my head.

  Tall and tan and young and lovely

  The girl from Ipanema goes walking

  And when she passes

  Each one she passes goes aaah

  When she walks it’s like a samba

  That sways so sweet and swings so gently

  That when she passes

  Each one she passes goes aaah

  Except she wasn’t from Ipanema. She was from the city of Tenochtitlan on the island in Lake Texcoco. Long limbed and lean. Sinewy and sexy. Also known as Izuanita.

  “Hi, Hubert.”

  Be calm, I told myself. Be cool.

  “Hi,” I answered.

  So far, so good.

  “That car is so cool. Don’t tell me it’s yours.”

  “I won’t tell you that because it isn’t. I’m just keeping it for somebody.”

  She put one of those long lean hands lightly on my forearm, a casual unthinking gesture to her, but it set my pulse racing. “Can we go for a ride in it?”

  “Just what I was thinking,” I said. At least I didn’t offer to give her the car. But I did remember what Susannah had told me about girls and dogs, so I said, “Would you mind if my dog came along? He loves to go for rides.”

  “I love dogs.”

  I went inside and out to the patio where I put Geronimo’s new lead on his new collar. On the way back to the front, I said to him, “Don’t blow this if you know what’s good for you.”

  He stood up when he saw her, placing his front paws on her chest – sly dog – and she hugged him and then started rubbing his ears. When she stopped and he calmed down a little, I pulled him back.

  When all four paws were back on the ground, she said, “Maybe you should take that bandana off. It makes his neck seem sort of long.”

  After I had removed the bandana, she stared at Geronimo for a moment.

  “Now it seems even longer.” She looked at me and smiled. “Maybe you should put it back.”

  I did and then opened the door for Izuanita. Geronimo weaseled in before she did – no manners at all – and went straight to the driver’s seat. I held the door for Izuanita and then went around to the driver’s side. I pushed Geronimo into the back seat and slid behind the wheel, wondering how I would explain the jerry-rigged switch. But she didn’t ask about the switch.

  Instead she asked, “Can we put the top down?”

  Sure, I thought to myself. If I can figure out how to do it.

  “Like I said,” I explained, “I’m just keeping it for someone else. I not sure I know how to— ”

  Whereupon she reached up to the top of the windshield, threw back a couple of lever-looking devices and then leaned across me and threw a switch that was on the left side of the dashboard next to the light switch.

  I briefly reflected on the fact that both Susannah and Izuanita knew more about cars than I did, but my primary thought arose from the “leaning across me” part of what happened. She was so natural, so comfortable, so at ease in herself that I thought she truly did not recognize how sexy she was.

  The good news was that the effort to reach a knob on the far left of the dashboard resulted in her being very close to me, and she stayed there even though her assistance in lowering the top was no longer needed.

  Geronimo took advantage of the situation to jump into the front seat and ride shotgun. I didn’t care. As long as he didn’t try to take the middle between Izuanita and me, he could sit wherever he pleased.

  “How about some music?” she asked as we turned onto Central.

  “I don’t even know if the radio works,” I admitted.

  “Let’s play a tape,” she said. Then she opened the glove compartment and rummaged through some old cassettes until she found one she liked. It must have been one of those collections they sell on television because it had a bit of everything on it.

  The ones I recognized were You’ve Made Me So Very Happy by Blood Sweat & Tears, Down On The Corner by Credence Clearwater Revival, Put A Little Love In Your Heart by Jackie DeShannon, Sweet Caroline by Neil Diamond, Lay Lady Lay by Bob Dylan, Aquarius by The Fifth Dimension, and Someday We’ll Be Together by The Supremes. None of them my kind of music – I’m more into Ella F
itzgerald than Diana Ross – but all of them tunes I’d heard because they’re still on the play lists of some radio stations in Albuquerque.

  The only radio I listen to these days comes to me from a satellite, but you can’t escape other people’s radios when you walk or ride anywhere these days, so you hear them whether you like it or not. It’s usually not, but I have to admit it was fun listening to these goldie oldies. Of course doing so while driving in a 1969 Cadillac convertible with a beautiful woman by my side probably added to the festive youthful feeling that washed over me.

  If you’re paying attention, you noticed that I remembered seven of the songs on the tape Izuanita popped into the cassette slot of the radio. There were a lot more I didn’t recognize, so if you do the math, you might think we went a long ways. In fact, we took a short drive over to the Hurricane Drive-In on Lomas, but we let the music play while we ate.

  The Hurricane was Izuanita’s suggestion. I hadn’t eaten anything since lunch the previous day (not counting chips and salsa) so The Hurricane sounded just right. The place has a red and white metal sign with incandescent light bulbs so you know it must have been erected in the fifties, and I don’t think anyone has touched it since. If you looked only at the sign, you’d assume the place was out of business, but if you look at the drive-in spaces next to the menus and the speakers, there are always cars.

  Albuquerqueans ignore the beat up sign and crowded conditions because sometimes we hanker for a simpler time when cholesterol and carbohydrates were words know only to chemists. The most popular dish is called the Disaster Burrito, a god-awful concoction. It begins as a flour tortilla rolled up and stuffed with beef and beans. Then it’s covered with curly French fries smothered in a combination of cheddar and Monterrey jack cheeses. The behemoth is then covered with lettuce and tomatoes in a futile attempt to introduce a salad-healthy touch to this calorie bomb. It’s so big most people order the one-quarter size. It’s disgusting when you think about it. And irresistible.

  When I told her I was starving, Izuanita bet me she could eat as much as I could, so we ordered a whole one and split it fifty-fifty.

  When the last of the Disaster Burrito had disappeared, she said, “I told you I could finish my half.”

  “You cheated,” I protested, “You gave some to Geronimo.”

  “How could I resist those sad eyes?”

  “He’s a shameless beggar; you shouldn’t encourage him. Where to now?”

  “Home, James.”

  “Your home or mine?” I asked.

  “Isn’t that line supposed to be ‘Your place or mine’?”

  She laughed and I laughed. Then she made a trip to the ladies room and returned with fresh lipstick and the shiniest red nails ever seen.

  “Good thing the top’s down,” she said, “I can dry my nails.”

  She hadn’t answered my question about which home she was to be taken to, and since I didn’t know where hers was, I drove back to mine. She turned the volume up and sat close to me. She put her arm around my back, and it was so long that her hand extended beyond the door. I didn’t know whether the object was to dry the nail polish or have her arm around me, although I suspected it was the former. Her right arm was extended in the opposite direction past Geronimo whose long neck was craned out to take in as much air as possible, and I suppose his coat was also being whipped by the wind, but thankfully none of it was lashing my face.

  I had a new car, a new dog, and a new girlfriend. The world was a perfect place.

  Of course the dog was a misshapen mutt, the car was – let’s be honest here – stolen, and Izuanita being my girlfriend was more wish than fact.

  When I pulled up in front of my shop, Geronimo jumped into the back seat and hunkered down as low as he could against the floor, obviously hoping the ride was not over and his time in the Caddy not at an end.

  Izuanita, unfortunately, did not share his hesitancy to abandon ship. When I opened the door, she stepped out and said, “Why did you name him Geronimo?”

  “Because Geronimo was a fearless warrior.”

  She laughed and hugged me with those long luscious arms. “I love your sense of humor,” she said.

  Then she thanked me for the ride and the food and walked away. I guess I could have asked her to stay or yelled for her to come back.

  But I didn’t. I just stood there watching her disappear around the corner. There was something about her self-assurance that brooked no resistance when she decided to leave. I got the feeling she would come and go as she pleased, and I didn’t mind. In fact, I liked it. It was who she was. If a female Quetzalcoatl deigns to fly into your life, you don’t try to cage her.

  You do hope you’ll see it again.

  Just before she reached the corner, a handsome young fellow came around it in my direction and nodded to Izuanita as they passed. Then he walked up to me and said, “I assert with surety that you are Mr. Hubert Schuze.”

  You know who it was.

  “You must be Chris,” I replied.

  “This makes a large indention in me. How did this knowledge coalesce?”

  I smiled at him as I remembered how Susannah had managed to translate by asking questions. “I think maybe the word you want is ‘impression’ rather than ‘indention’,” I said.

  After Susannah cajoled me into meeting with Chris, I had given some thought to the approach I would take. I decided that since I had no relationship with him to worry about, I would point out his unidiomatic language right from the start and try to correct him. If he responded positively to that, then the problem would eventually be solved. If he was offended, then he could choose not to meet with me again. I didn’t know which one I hoped for.

  “‘Indention’ and ‘impression’ are coextensive, are they not?”

  “They are not.”

  “Forgive the refutation, but the dictionary pleads that ‘impression’ is ‘a mark produced on a surface by pressure’, and ‘indention’ is offered as ‘the condition of being indented’ or ‘a dent’.”

  “Perhaps. But an indention is always physical. They only way I could make an indention on you would be to hit you with a hammer.”

  He smiled at that.

  “But an impression,” I continued, “can be either physical or mental. So I impressed you by recognizing you. I didn’t indent you.”

  “This is animating. Perhaps please you can convalesce my English?”

  It was going to be a long afternoon.

  24

  “The problem,” I told her, “is that he learned English from a dictionary. That and his eidetic memory.”

  “What’s an eidetic memory?”

  “A photographic memory.”

  “Why not just say so? Or did Chris arouse your male competitiveness, and you’re trying to prove you know as many weird words as he does?”

  “You know I’m not competitive, and anyway, I’d lose that one. He uses words I’ve never heard. I told you he saw Izuanita on the sidewalk? Well, he described her as a modigliani woman. I looked it up in my dictionary but couldn’t find it.”

  Susannah started laughing.

  “Of course,” I said, slapping myself on the forehead, “it’s Italian. I should have picked up on that from the sound of it.”

  “It’s Italian all right, but it’s not a word. It’s a name. He was an artist, Hubie. I can’t believe you never heard of him.”

  “Did he paint anything famous?”

  “He painted a lot of women.”

  “Well that narrows it down. Any famous paintings of women like Mona Lisa or Whistler’s Mother?”

  “There’s no painting called Whistler’s Mother. It’s called Arrangement in Grey and Black.”

  “I’m glad we cleared that up. What about Modigliani?”

  “There’s no single painting he’s known by. You didn’t by any chance rip Izuanita’s bodice did you, because Modigliani painted a lot of nudes.”

  “I resisted the temptation.”

  “There’s
another thing he’s famous for. His women often had distorted faces like the way you described Izuanita to me.”

  I was shocked. “I did not say her face is distorted,” I replied rather more forcefully than I meant to. “It’s just not perfectly symmetrical, and that only adds to the exotic—“

  “Yeah, I know, she looks like an Aztecan Goddess.”

  “She looked even better in the Cadillac.”

  “Where did you take her?”

  “The Hurricane.”

  She plopped her margarita onto the table. “That must have impressed her.”

  “It was her idea.”

  “Did she order a Disaster Burrito?”

  “She said she could eat as much as I could, so we ordered one and split it fifty-fifty. She ate her half, but I actually won because she gave part of hers to Geronimo and I ate my half all by myself.”

  “This from a man who’s not competitive. Was I right about the dog?”

  “Yeah, she loves him. I’m not sure how she feels about me.”

  I told her everything about my morning with Izuanita.

  Then I told her she was right about Cantú’s house.

  “I was there in the evening, and even though no lights were on, I was able to examine the pots easily because of the bright sunlight streaming through the window. When you drove me there, we saw what I thought was that window when we went around to the back of the place. But we were driving south and the window was on our left.”

  “So?”

  “So the window faces east. There couldn’t have been any bright evening sun coming through it.”

  “How do you know we were driving south?”

  “Because the Sandias were on our left.”

  “I’ll take your word for that.”

  “And that means you were right,” I admitted. “It must be a different house in Casitas del Bosque.”

  “On the opposite side of the street.”