The Pot Thief Who Studied Ptolemy (The Pot Thier) Page 13

  “I’m Susannah Inchaustigui, and this is Hubert Schuze.”

  “I’m sure you are,” said Bertha. ‘Sure’ came out as ‘sur’. “Freddie is getting drinks for the others – but I already said that, I think. Let me guess what you’ll be drinking.” She leaned back and studied us with a cocked eye. “Champagne I should think.”

  “That’s exactly what we want,” I said. “How did you guess?”

  “You’re an awful liar. I think I’m going to like you.”

  She went to get our drinks and a man to my right said, “Pay her no mind. She’s drunk.”

  “But charming.”

  “No,” he said, “not charming, just drunk.”

  I shrugged.

  “I didn’t get your name,” he said.

  “That’s because I didn’t give it to you.” I had taken an instant dislike to him.

  “You’re not charming either.”

  “I am when I want to be.”

  Susannah was tugging at my sleeve. “Come on, Hubie, let’s go say hello to our host.”

  The fellow next to me grabbed my arm. “I know you.”

  “I don’t think so,” I responded, and started to leave, but Bertha showed up with our champagne in tall elegant flutes.

  “I see you’ve met Horace, our official curmudgeon. Horace Arthur, this is Ms. Susannah Inchaustigui and Mr. Hubert Schuze.” She turned to me with a broad smile. “You’re surprised a drunk could remember two such unusual names, are you not?”

  “I are not,” I said. “Nothing you could do would surprise me.”

  “But who I did it with might,” she said and laughed roundly.

  “You are not charming,” Horace said to her, “and neither are you funny.”

  Bertha said, “See if you can do anything with him, Hubert. I certainly can’t.” She took Susannah’s arm and walked away.

  “You seem to be stuck with me,” Horace said.

  His Mexican wedding shirt topped khakis and Birkenstocks. He was a couple of inches taller than me but his slouch put his eyes at the level of mine. Mine are an intriguing shade of brown. His were the color of caked mustard and surrounded by turquoise glasses.

  “Hubert Schuze!” he cried out too loudly. “Of course! I knew I recognized your name. You’re the pot thief.”

  “Pot merchant.”

  “Thief, merchant. It comes to the same thing, doesn’t it.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Well it does. Of course a thief steals from you directly. A merchant’s just the middleman. But you both profit from someone else’s labor.”

  I smiled disarmingly. “Are you always so disagreeable?”

  “He is,” said Frederick Blass who had walked up without me noticing. “He is also frequently tenebrous, but he is seldom boring.”

  “Freddie uses words like ‘tenebrous’ only around English faculty,” Horace said flatly. “Around the art faculty he merely grunts.”

  Blass turned to me. “I overheard what Horace said. So you’re Hubert Schuze. It’s grand to meet you.”

  “Don’t fawn, Freddie. He’s a pot thief.”

  “Exactly. That makes him an art hero in my book.” He waved a hand expansively. “Should all the museums of the world return their Matisses to France? Send back their Vermeers to Holland? Of course not. Look around this room. If I had to repatriate everything you see to the ethnic group it came from, we’d be sitting on bare floors.” He glanced at my drink. “And we’d be drinking water in plastic. The champagne is from France and the flute from Poland.”

  “Maybe Schuze could play Chopin on it,” said Horace. Freddie and I both ignored him.

  I was tempted to tell Freddie the champagne was inferior to New Mexico’s Gruet but resisted.

  I could see why his guests, Horace excluded, dressed flamboyantly. They needed to keep up with Freddie. He wore a blousy powder blue shirt made of a shiny fabric like silk or satin with concealed buttons and drawstring wrists. Under the loose-fitting shirt was a pair of tight-fitting black slacks and high heel ankle boots with silver toe plates. I half expected him to break into a flamenco.

  His place looked like the main hall in a major gallery. Blass owned two units and had removed the wall between them and all the partitions in the second unit. He had even removed the second kitchen in order to have a large space to entertain and display.

  Unlike Gerstner’s and Stella’s units, this one looked like a loft. The suspended ceiling had been removed and the ducts and wires painted black and left exposed. Industrial track lighting illuminated the paintings and sculptures.

  In addition to the Persian carpet, there were African masks, a carved Japanese screen, a batik from China that looked antique, a low chaise upholstered in a Marimekko print from Finland, and several dozen pieces on the walls, including a series of nude Barbie dolls mounted on a canvas and painted in various colors with headings scribbled around them in differing alphabets.

  “Maybe the Barbies could stay,” I said. “They look American.”

  Blass laughed loudly. “That’s the only piece that’s mine. Can you believe it took first prize at the Western States Biennale? The judges said it captured America’s commercialization of the female form and how we export this twisted view of women to other cultures. Quite a load of bullshit, wouldn’t you say? But one collector actually offered me ten thousand for it. Life is good when you’re an artist. But poor old Arthur here is a writer and can’t get a word published, can you Horace?”

  Horace looked at me with his turmeric eyes. “It’s true. My work is crap like Freddie’s. The difference is no one wants to buy it.”

  Blass had a triangular face with a sharp nose above the thin moustache. His high forehead was topped with prematurely gray hair combed casually back without a part. He had intelligent eyes, a great voice, and very good posture. His outfit was more costume than clothes, but he actually looked good in it.

  He offered to get me a second glass of champagne and Horace Arthur a single malt scotch if he would leave me alone. Horace agreed and he and Blass went to the bar. Freddie returned with my champagne, and I noticed it was in a freshly chilled flute. He flung his arm around my shoulder and said, “Let me show you around.”

  He did, and I was happy to confirm that Gerstner was not among the guests. Neither was Stella, but all the other beautiful people were, most of them dressed with élan if not flamboyance. Still, I could not bring myself to put the ascot back on.

  The Frederick Blass Collection was not confined to his expansive living area. The bedrooms were packed with paintings, sculptures, photographs, and collectibles ranging from antique dueling pistols to a working renaissance clavichord. Even the bathrooms had art. One had what appeared to my untrained eye to be a genuine Degas – a nude in a bath, appropriately enough.

  After the tour, Freddie guided me up to Susannah.

  “I think you know this stunning beauty,” he said and excused himself to see to his other guests.

  Susannah usually looks like the girl next door with her brown hair in a ponytail and dressed in her waitress’ uniform of black slacks, a man’s shirt, and sensible shoes. For Blass’ party, she wore a swishy emerald-green dress with spaghetti straps and her hair up to reveal shoulders that deserved the description as stunning.

  “Well, Hubie, what do you think?”

  “I think he’s right. You look fantastic.”

  “Thanks, but what I meant is what do you think of Blass?”

  “I like him. He’s affable, bright, and a great host.”

  “Yeah, he’s quite a charmer.”

  I pulled her aside. “Listen, Suze, it’s time for me to take that little stroll we talked about.”

  33

  Susannah retrieved her cell phone from her purse and called a number she had called shortly before we arrived. She listened to ten rings then hung up.

  I slipped out to the hall and then in to the stairwell. I didn’t want to risk meeting anyone in the elevator. I climbed one flight and
was happy to find the clay plug still in the bolthole. Happy but not surprised. After all, the doors opened from the floors as they always had, and no one was likely to discover that they now also opened from the stairwell side because the residents who used the stairs wouldn’t try to open a door back onto a floor other than the ground floor or the basement.

  I eased the door open and saw no one in the hall, so I walked directly to Gerstner’s door and loided his lock.

  I closed the door behind me and stood listening for any human sound. I heard none. I walked through the apartment and verified it was empty. Of course that had also been true the first time I was there, and the fear of having someone walk in on me again propelled me into action. But before I did what I came to do, I opened the door on the hutch and discovered the pot I had seen was gone.

  Depressing.

  I removed my coat and hung it over the arm of the couch. I pressed down on the parsons table behind the couch firmly with both hands. It seemed sturdy enough for my one hundred and forty pounds, so I climbed onto it. I reached up and pushed a ceiling tile up out of its tracks. The parsons table was the height of the couch back – perhaps three feet – and when added to my five feet and six inches, it put my eyes an inch above the suspended ceiling. I rose up on tippy toes and shone a small flashlight around the area above the tiles. You see, I had decided after the first visit to the apartment that the only place the rest of the missing pots could be was above the suspended ceiling.

  And what did I see when I looked up there? Wires, ducts, pipes, and cobwebs. No pots.

  I had left the pot in the hutch the first time because I had been interrupted. I’m not sure I would have taken it at any rate. I didn’t want anyone to know I had been there. I wanted to get all the pots, not just one of them. Now I was muttering about birds and hands and bushes and wishing to hell I’d taken the pot when I had the chance.

  Resting on the ceiling tile next to me was a canister for a recessed light. I could see the edge of something behind it, so I reached around to see if I could tell what it was. Just as I touched it, a piercing metallic boom assailed my ears, and I feared I had set off an explosion by touching it. Both my feet left the table but only one returned to it, and I crashed awkwardly to the floor.

  A quick scan of the room from my position on the floor told me no one had walked in on me. I looked up at the ceiling and saw a sprinkler head next to the recessed light. That’s what I had touched from the other side. It was not sprinkling, so I hadn’t set it off.

  I stood up warily and nothing gave way or hurt. Evidently, I hadn’t broken anything, although I did have a scratch on my right arm under a tear in my shirt.

  I climbed back onto the table. The tracks of the suspended ceiling hung from wire threaded through holes and cut with snips. My right arm had dragged across one as I fell.

  I replaced the ceiling tile and dismounted somewhat less awkwardly than I had a minute earlier. I collected my coat and exited Gerstner’s residence. I carried the coat because I didn’t want to get blood on the inside of its sleeve.

  When I arrived back at 1009, I tried the door and found it locked. Loiding it seemed like a bad idea since I knew not only that the owner was home, but also that he had several dozen guests. Anyway, Susannah and I had anticipated this possibility. I tapped on the door lightly and she let me in.

  I was happy to see her. I was not happy to see Horace Arthur standing next to her.

  “Where did you go?” he asked me.

  I had opened my mouth to tell him it was none of his business when it occurred to me that being defensive would call more attention to my little sojourn than I wanted it to have, so I said, “I stepped outside for a smoke.”

  “Disgusting habit.”

  “I agree. I’m trying to quit by smoking two fewer cigarettes each week.”

  “I don’t smell any tobacco.”

  I gave him what I hoped was another disarming smile. “See. It must be working.”

  “What happened to your arm?”

  “I think I brushed against a nail on my way back here.”

  “Where were you smoking?” The guy was totally devoid of social grace.

  Susannah grabbed my hand. “Come on, Hubie, buy me a drink,” and she led me towards the bar.

  “Bring me a scotch,” Horace said.

  “What happened?” Susannah whispered to me as we approached the bar.

  “I fell off a table.”

  “Did you land on a drum? That was a really loud boom.”

  “You heard it down here?”

  “Yes. I have to say, though, you don’t look bad for someone who took such a loud fall.”

  “That wasn’t me falling – that was what made me fall. The sound startled me and I jumped.”

  “Off a table?”

  “Not exactly. I jumped straight up, but only one foot landed on the table when I came down, so I fell.”

  “You didn’t break anything?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “What was that noise?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. It didn’t come from Gerstner’s apartment. I thought maybe it came from down here.”

  She said it didn’t. She had been by the door with a good view of the entire place and saw nothing. Since the sound seemed to come from the wall opposite the door, she speculated it came from outside.

  I told her to order me another champagne, and I found Blass’ bathroom. I washed the blood off my arm and covered the scratch with a Band-Aid I found in his medicine cabinet. I put my blazer back on and examined myself in the mirror. Then I took the ascot out and tried it on again. I felt a little like David Niven playing a cat burglar. “What the hell,” I said aloud and walked back into the party.

  34

  Susannah smiled when she saw the ascot and handed me a fresh champagne which no one could deny I had earned. Then she went to deliver another scotch to Horace while I went to mingle.

  I introduced myself to a man in a black silk jogging suit and metallic silver running shoes who was looking at a large R. C. Gorman painting of an Indian woman on her haunches. He said his name was Jack W-i-e-z-g-a. That’s how he said it.

  “You’re wearing the state flag around your neck. Is that a protest of sorts?”

  “What would I be protesting?”

  “The treatment of the prisoners at Cerrillos? The lack of affordable housing in Santa Fe? How the hell should I know? It’s your protest.” He laughed and slapped me on my back. He had huge hands. His thinning silver hair was tucked behind his ears and was just long enough to curl up slightly in the back. He had a broad sloping forehead and a big square jaw.

  “It’s not a protest. It’s just a piece of clothing.”

  “Sometimes a pipe is just a pipe,” he said knowingly.

  “Hmm.”

  “You a collector or a producer?” he inquired.

  “Both I guess.”

  “Well, you’re lucky. Most artists can’t afford to be collectors. Look at this Gorman. The man’s a genius. He drew those simple stylized curves, put sketchy feet on them, and they caught on like the flu. Man’s a millionaire, but look at this piece. Dated. Completely passé. The trick is not to produce great art. The trick is to produce it at the right time. Timing is everything. If Andy Warhol had done the soup can ten years earlier or later, he wouldn’t have enjoyed even his own fifteen minutes of fame.”

  “I see what you mean,” I said, although I didn’t.

  “What’s your medium?”

  “Clay.”

  “Dated. Completely passé. I do colossal oils, also dated and completely passé. But what can you do? You have to follow your own artistic drive. You can’t control timing. And you need good representation, but art dealers are all assholes.”

  “Hmm.”

  “Where do you display?”

  “Uh, well I—”

  “Nowhere. Just what I thought. Nobody shows clay these days. Dated. Completely—”

  Passé, I said under my breath as
he said it out loud.

  “Maybe you could show here,” I ventured.

  “With Freddie? You must be joking.”

  “You have to admit the place looks better than most galleries.”

  “Sure it does. He charges a fortune.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “You think all this stuff is his? It’s on consignment. Not the Gormans, O’Keeffees, and all that middleclass pablum, but all the works by people you’ve never heard of, poor slobs hoping to become the Next Big Thing.”

  “You mean this really is a gallery?”

  “More of a fencing operation with the cut he takes. Why do you think he invites the rich and famous to the parties? He hopes to sell them something, that’s why.”

  “But some of this work looks quite good.”

  “Like what?” he challenged.

  “I understand the Barbie doll thing won a prize.”

  “The Western States Biennale? What a farce. I think Blass started it along with a few other wheeler-dealers hoping to play off the real Biennale. If he won a prize, it’s probably because he was the judge.”