The Pot Thief Who Studied Einstein Read online

  “Exactly.”

  She gave me that mischievous smile. “So all you have to do is break in to every house on the opposite side of the street until you find the one with the pots.”

  “There’s an easier way. I’ll just get the address from Whit.”

  “Which he’ll give you because he wants you to steal some of the pots.”

  “The way he sees it,” I corrected her, “is that no one knows how many pots were in that collection, so what difference does it make if we take a few and sell them.”

  “And how do you see it?”

  I shrugged and said, “Depends on whether the dead guy has heirs. If he does, then taking the pots would definitely be stealing.”

  “And you won’t do that.”

  I shook my head. “But I might take back my copies.”

  “Why? He paid for them, didn’t he?”

  “It sure looks that way. I know Cantú was the one who handed me the money, but it appears you were right that he was just the errand boy, so the collector was the one who had them copied. Then the collector sold the originals because he needed money, and he kept the copies so his collection appeared to remain intact.”

  “That was your original theory.”

  “And still the best,” I boasted. “So here’s my issue. What’s going to happen to the collection? Suppose he had heirs and they want the cash instead of the pots.”

  “Who wouldn’t choose a million bucks over a bunch of old cracked pots.”

  “Me,” I said.

  “Yeah, but you’re sort of a cracked pot yourself.”

  She said it with a smile and I didn’t argue the point. “So they auction off the pots. The person or persons who bought the three originals would likely be interested, and when they see the pots they think they bought are still in the collection—“

  “They’ll think they’ve been swindled!”

  “Exactly. They won’t be able to tell the fakes from the originals, so they’ll assume the collector sold them fakes.”

  “Can’t they run lab tests or something?”

  “Sure. But before they reach that point there’s going to be a lot of confusion, accusation, and argument. And guess whose name is going to be dragged in?”

  “So what’s your plan?”

  “If I take the fakes, then the person or persons who own the originals won’t have to fight over what they have and whether it’s genuine. I won’t have to get involved with the police, the probate court, the heirs, the collectors, or anyone else. The heirs will have the original pots they inherited and the collectors will have the three pots they bought.”

  “And you’ll have your copies.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Which you already got paid for.”

  “Yeah, and now I can get paid for them again. The guy who bought them still owes me an appraisal fee. The only thing that’s changed is the fee just got a lot higher.”

  She held her glass up and I clinked mine against it.

  “What about the Cadillac?” she asked.

  “I’ll drive it back to 183 Titanium Trail and leave it in the garage.”

  “Won’t Izuanita be disappointed when she finds out you don’t own a Cadillac convertible?”

  “She already knows that. I told her I was keeping it for someone.”

  Susannah dredged a large chip through the salsa and popped it into her mouth. She chewed and ruminated.

  “If Izuanita lives around here, how come you’ve never seen her before?”

  “What makes you think she lives around here?”

  “Because both times you’ve seen her, she was on foot.”

  “Most people in Old Town are on foot. She probably parked in the lot around the corner on Central.”

  She shook her head. “You told me this morning she came walking down the sidewalk from Alfredo’s Coffee House. But when she left, she walked in the opposite direction towards La Placita and passed Chris just as she turned the corner to the parking lot.”

  “Maybe she lives miles from here and just loves to walk.”

  “Perfect. Maybe the two of you can take long walks through the woods.”

  “First we’d have to go somewhere where there are woods.”

  “But you don’t travel.”

  “For Izuanita, I’d go to the ends of the earth.”

  “Geez,” she moaned and took a drink of her margarita. “Tell me more about your English lesson with Chris.”

  “It wasn’t an English lesson, and I hope you didn’t tell him it was.”

  She shook her head.

  “You were right about him being handsome,” I said. “He looks like he could be a model for a really upscale men’s clothing catalog.”

  “I know,” she said dreamily, “and he has great manners. You don’t see that much these days.”

  “Except he sort of invades your space,” I said.

  “That’s not bad manners, Hubie. That’s just Europe, especially Italy.”

  “So I’ve heard. Anyway, he’s a good conversationalist except for his odd word choices.”

  “And you helped with that, right?”

  “I tried to. He didn’t seem the least offended by my constantly correcting him. And he did something I really liked. After I told him the correct usage of a word, he would work that word into the conversation a few minutes later. I think that shows he wants to improve.”

  “What did you talk about.”

  “Etruscan pottery.”

  “Why am I not surprised?”

  “Chris liked the pots in my shop. He said they reminded him in some ways of ancient Etruscan pots. He’s from Florence, and I guess that’s in the area where the ancient Etruscans lived. He said their pots used black, red, and sienna shades and geometric patterns, and I told him they seemed similar to some work from the pueblos along the —“

  “Hubie?”

  “Yes?”

  “Can we get another round?”

  “Sure.”

  “And another topic.”

  “Sure.”

  25

  I drove slowly along Titanium Trail and looked at the houses with even numbers. They looked just like the ones with odd numbers – the same clusters of six, the same wrought iron numbers on the same plank doors, the same fake buttresses that had nothing to buttress, and the same ugly stucco, especially the mustard color.

  The only difference was that the odd-numbered houses faced east, and that meant their rear windows faced west, and that meant...well, I already explained that.

  I was in the Bronco because I figured everyone on the street would recognize Cantú’s Cadillac, and on top of that the Cadillac was no longer at my disposal because I had driven it nine miles away and parked it in a location where no state trooper or Albuquerque policeman would ever spot it.

  Tristan’s garage opening gadget was on the passenger seat, and my old plastic warranty card was in my shirt pocket, the same one that had once briefly held twenty-five crisp hundred dollar bills. Geronimo was in the back seat.

  The first house was number 700. I parked on the street, connected the leash to Geronimo’s collar, led him up to the door, and told him to ring the doorbell.

  He didn’t understand, so I pointed to the button and made encouraging remarks like,“Get it, boy,” and “Come on, up you go.” His primitive canine brain sensed I wanted him to do something, but all he did was just sway from side to side, which made his neck look floppy. Finally, he got the general idea and jumped up against the wall. When his paw failed to hit the button after several attempts, I lost patience and was reaching to ring it myself when the door flew open and a big hairy guy with no shirt and a gut hanging over his buckle said, “What the hell’s going on?”

  “This dog is lost, and I’m trying to return him to his owner.”

  He had a tattoo of a naked woman on his forearm but with all his body hair she looked more like a female orangutan with unusually large breasts. He looked at his door.

  “The dog scratched
my door.”

  “Uh, yeah. That’s why I thought he might belong here. He wanted to get in.”

  He took a half step towards me. “I should make you repaint it.”

  “Actually, I’m just a volunteer working for the animal shelter, but if you call them, I’m sure they’ll send someone out to fix the door,” I said as I backed away.

  “Yeah? What’s your name so I can tell them who was here.”

  “Just tell them Chris. They’ll know who I am.”

  I decided to wait on 702 until the ape in 700 had calmed down, gone back to sleep, or had just forgotten about me. He didn’t look like a guy with a good memory.

  The last house was number 742, and I did it second. I shortened Geronimo’s leash and rang the bell myself. A smiling woman with ample lips and dimpled cheeks answered the door and smiled at me. I gave her my story about the lost dog, and she bent down and rubbed Geronimo behind the ears.

  “He’s adorable,” she said, and you could tell he understood what she was saying about him. “He’s not mine,” she said, “I don’t own a pet. But if you can’t find his owner, I might be interested in adopting him.”

  “Thanks, I’ll keep you in mind,” I said and started to leave.

  “Wait, don’t you want to take my name and number just in case? Or maybe you have a form from the shelter I can fill out?”

  “I forgot to bring any forms, but I’ll bring one back to you.”

  “Won’t you need my address to do that?”

  I glanced at the number on her door.

  Her eyes followed mine, and she said, “How stupid of me. You already know it.”

  Having sized her up as not the brightest candelaria on the paseo, I told her the dog’s tag had a picture of Indian pottery on it when we found him and did she know anyone in the neighborhood who collected Indian pots. She said she didn’t. She also said the only person she knew in the neighborhood who owned a dog was Darryl Brumby two doors down at number 738 who had a Rottweiler. I thanked her, made a mental note to skip 738, and went to 740.

  No one was home. Same at 736.

  The door at 734 was answered by a teenage girl who told me her mother was at work. I told her I was trying to find the owner of a lost dog. She asked me what the dog looked like. “Like this,” I said, pointing at Geronimo.

  “Exactly like that?”

  “Pretty much,” I said.

  “I don’t think I’ve seen another dog like that.”

  I didn’t bother asking her whether she knew if any of her neighbors collected pottery because I didn’t want to explain to her what pottery is.

  I had covered the six houses in the cluster at the end of the street. Or Trail. The two I’d seen into looked pretty much like Cantú’s place except the furniture was different. The pleasant lady at 742 had books on her shelves. The house with the teenager had an assortment of tchotchkes. I didn’t get a look into the two where no one was home, and I skipped the one with the Rottweiler because I had seen no evidence of a dog when I did the appraisal.

  O.K., the real reason I skipped it was because I’m afraid of Rottweilers.

  I drove around to the service drive to examine the two houses where no one had answered the door. The shade on the rear window at 740 was partway up. I peeked through at the shelves. A fish tank and a few odds and ends.

  The shade was down at 736. I peeked in the garage; it was empty. I used Tristan’s device to open the garage door. Then I waited for several minutes in the Bronco with the engine running. The garage door was noisy as it went up, and if anyone was home and came to investigate, I wanted to make a quick getaway.

  When no one came, I used my warranty card to loid the back door, doing so as quietly as possible. I stood silently behind the door and listened for any noise from within. Hearing none, I stepped inside, opened the swinging door, and looked at the shelves. Cabbage Patch dolls.

  I closed the back door, closed the garage door, and drove home. I had used up my supply of nerve. The next cluster would have to wait for another day.

  26

  I was recharging my nerves that evening in Dos Hermanas and telling Susannah about my initial attempt to determine where the reclusive collector lived.

  “She actually bought the story that his tags had a picture of an Indian pot?” She asked.

  “I was just a friendly volunteer from the animal shelter. Why would I lie to her?”

  “You need a better cover story. The rest of the residents of Titanium Trail may not be so gullible.”

  “Any suggestions?”

  “You could be a door-to-door salesman.”

  “I don’t think I’d make a good salesman.”

  “You run a store, Hubert.”

  “Yeah, but I don’t sell things. I mean, I have things for sale, and if people buy them, that’s good, but I don’t actually try to sell things.”

  “A retail shop run by a guy who doesn’t like to sell things. I have to admit that’s a novel business plan.”

  “It’s a lot better than going door to door and trying to talk someone into buying a...What would I be selling?”

  “You wouldn’t be selling anything. It’s just a cover story.”

  “But I’d have to be selling something. I can’t just say, ‘Hi, I’m a door-to-door salesman. Any of your neighbors collect Indian pottery?’”

  “You could sell pots! No one’s going to buy one of course, but it would give them the chance to tell you if there’s a collector in the neighborhood.”

  “I think I’ll stick with the lost dog story.”

  “Why do you need any kind of story to begin with? I thought you were going to get the address from Whit.”

  “He wouldn’t give it to me.”

  “How can you steal the pots for him if he won’t tell you where they are?”

  “He thinks I already know where they are. When I asked him for the address, he said, ‘You already know the address. And I’m going to give you some unofficial advice that you never heard from me. Don’t go back there.’ Then he hung up.”

  She stared at me while the wheels turned. “Have you figured out why he said that?”

  I shook my head and waved for Angie.

  “It doesn’t sound good,” she ventured.

  “Yeah. That’s why I hid the Cadillac. It’s also why I went looking for my copies. I have a really bad premonition about this whole thing.”

  “Why didn’t you just take the Cadillac back and park it in Cantú’s garage like you said you were going to do?”

  “Because I’m trying to extricate myself from this affair, and it’s obvious the car’s been hotwired.”

  “So it’s been hotwired. The cops would never connect you with something technical like that.”

  “I know that, but your fingerprints are probably all over the car, and if they discover that, they’ll know I’m involved.”

  “They won’t need fingerprints to know you had the car. It sat around your shop for several days, and Izuanita will tell them you took her for a ride in it.”

  “I don’t even know her last name, and the cops have no reason to know she exists. And if they don’t get suspicious about the car to begin with, they won’t go asking people if they’ve seen it near my shop.”

  “I can see you’ve been thinking about this. What’s our plan?”

  “Can you take out the switch you installed and unhotwire the thing?”

  “Sure. The switch is just hanging from the ignition wires; it’s not like I drilled a hole in the dash. I’ll just remove the switch and splice the wires back together.”

  “And they won’t be able to tell it’s been hotwired?”

  “Not unless they look under the dash at the wires, and why would they do that if they had no reason to?”

  I began to relax a little after Susannah explained the hotwire repair. We could return the car to the garage, wipe off the whole thing to remove any fingerprints, and the car couldn’t connect me to Cantú or the dead collector. Then I could retriev
e my three copies so they couldn’t connect me either, and I’d be home free. I’d even be ahead eventually because after the collection had been sorted out by the police, the probate court, or whatever, I could quietly sell the copies.

  I don’t know why I suddenly had such a strong urge to disentangle myself. After all, I had invested a lot of time and effort, recreating my blindfolded ride, staking out Cantú’s place, pretending to be a volunteer from the animal shelter, and even taking a car for ransom. During all that time I had seen it as an effort to recover my appraisal fee and, with Whit’s help, maybe get a large supplement to that fee. But now I was sitting there looking at Susannah across the table and wishing I’d never gotten involved.

  Maybe it was Whit thinking I knew the collector’s address and warning me not to go there. Maybe it was just nerves from playing the role of a shelter volunteer and loiding my way into someone else’s house. I hate doing that. My stomach was knotted up like macramé. Or maybe it was just a premonition.

  27

  The premonition followed me home and spent the night with me.

  Even though weekends are normally Big Breakfast Days for me, I didn’t feel like making the effort, so the next morning I hit the brew switch on the coffeemaker and walked down to Alfredo’s where I bought some churros.

  I was sitting in the patio eating the churros, drinking hot black Bustelo coffee, and reflecting on how Alfredo’s was always crowded on Saturday mornings when the obvious finally hit me—most people don’t work on Saturdays.

  I packed a picnic lunch and put it, Tristan’s magic garage opener, and Martin’s book on Einstein in the Bronco and drove to Casitas del Bosque. I took Geronimo along, but this time he wasn’t part of my disguise.

  I nudged the Bronco slowly over the curb and parked up against the bank of the irrigation canal that ran parallel to Platinum Place just where it intersected Titanium Trail. A large catalpa shaded the area, and that’s where I set up my lawn chair and tied Geronimo to the tree.

  It was a hot summer day, but the dry desert air was cool under the tree, and I had a good view of the entire street. I spent about an hour drinking coffee from a thermos and reading about the uncertainty principle. Then Geronimo and I went behind a willow thicket to do what a dog does on three legs and a man on two.