The Pot Thief Who Studied Pythagoras Read online

  “Sorry, mate. We’ve got reservations at Zia, and they hold a table for no one.”

  Mate? I told myself again to be nice. They said their goodbyes and left, which was just as well, because even though I was telling myself to be nice, I don’t think I was listening. I didn’t like him calling me Hubie when we had just met. Then I felt guilty for being so churlish and asked myself whether I was jealous. And of course I was. I was jealous because my friend was with someone else, and I was alone at Dos Hermanas when I should have been enjoying her company.

  Rather than sit there feeling sad and small, I decided to work. Susannah is right; when I start a project, I become a dog with a bone. Or a cat with a ball of string. Or a Guinea pig with a wheel. Or...

  There are many varieties of ancient southwestern pottery, and almost everything we know about the people who made it is guesswork. Archaeologists find some pots with handles in one site and some pots without handles from the same era but at another site, and they assume they are dealing with two different groups. But for all we know, they could have been relatives who sat around the fire arguing about whether it was worthwhile to put handles on pots. Or they may have been enemies with different languages and cultures. We use the meager evidence we have to construct a theory, and then we adjust as new evidence becomes available.

  The pot I was working on had a curved handle on one side that ran from the lip to the broadest part of the body of the pot. The shape was like the pitcher you see on Kool-Aid ads. Instead of the smiley face, however, my pot was decorated with the geometric patterns of the Mogollon. Some people believe these patterns were chosen simply as decoration. After reading about Pythagoras, I have come to think these designs probably had significance for the potters. Pythagoras was assigning meaning to numbers fifteen hundred years earlier, so I think it’s a natural assumption that the Mogollon might have done something similar with shapes. Maybe the sides of a triangle represented earth, fire, and wind. Or man, woman, and child. Who knows?

  The early potters didn’t have pottery wheels; they built their pots from sheets and strips of clay. I did the same. I have a theory about their method, and it’s the one I use when making replicas, also known as fakes. I build the basic shape by weaving the thinnest willow branches I can find. Then I cover the shape with damp cottonwood leaves, tearing them to shape so that the irregularities of the willow frame are smoothed out. I then roll out sheets of clay and form them around the mold. The key to success is keeping the clay at the right level of moisture and plasticity. Get it too wet and it slumps. Let it get too dry and the sheets won’t adhere to each other. Stretch the clay too far and you get a hole you can’t fix. Stretch it too little and you have thick walls that won’t contour properly. It’s not an art; it’s a skill acquired through practice.

  When the pot is dried, I fill it with leaves and set them on fire. This burns away the willow mould and gives the inside of the pot the black tint typical of Mogollon pottery. Then I decorate the outside of the pot. The designs are not painted; they are done with slip, thin clay with pigment in it. Slip decorating techniques have existed almost as long as ceramics. Modern glazes may shift and move in the firing, but a slip becomes part of the claybody and stays where you put it.

  I worked hard on the pot because it had to fool someone who, although not an expert in pots, certainly had a trained eye. The hardest part was incorporating the shard from Gran Quivera at just the right place. When the pot was completely finished, I did something I normally don’t do; I broke it. Just a small chip off the rim. I etched a line around the area I wanted to break off and then held my breath as I tapped it with a mallet. The piece came away exactly as planned, exposing only the edge of the embedded v-shaped shard.

  I breathed a sigh of relief, then examined the pot again. Like Andy Warhol’s soup can, it may have been better than the original.

  34

  The next morning dawned clear, crisp, and still. I dressed in a pair of dark gray cotton trousers, a light blue oxford cloth shirt, grey brushed-leather walking shoes, and a black windbreaker. I placed the nasal spray bottle in the right front pocket of my jacket, a set of charcoals in the left front pocket, a large handkerchief in my back right pocket, and a sketchpad in my right hand. I rolled up one cellophane glove and placed it in the cuff of my trousers, then I set off for the University.

  I arrived at the Museum thirty minutes after it opened and found the usual collection of staff gathered at the front: one ticket seller, two guards, and a fourth person whose duties were unknown to me. There were no patrons present. I purchased a ticket and stepped up to the metal detector where the guard asked me to empty everything in my pockets into a plastic bowl. I did so. I thought he examined everything more closely than usual, but maybe that was just mild paranoia. He asked for the sketchpad, and he examined it and placed it on the table past the detector next to the plastic bowl. I passed through without setting off the buzzer and retrieved my belongings.

  The second guard followed me into the room where the target pot was located. I had prepared for this contingency. I walked around slowly examining each piece of art on the walls. I selected one that looked interesting, an acrylic of a tree which had bicycles hanging from it where fruit might have been. I think that qualifies as surrealism. I sat on the bench nearest my mark, opened my sketchpad, took out my charcoals, and started a rendering of the picture. After a while, the guard approached close enough to see my work. I could feel him staring although I couldn’t see his face. I imagined him frowning.

  I would have been; my drawing was awful. He eventually got bored and went to seek the companionship of his colleagues.

  I got up and went to another bench and started another drawing. A few moments later, the guard returned, noted my changed location, and then left again. I guess he didn’t want to see my second sketch. It was nothing but an oblong ring with some shading.

  My third move took me up to the ropes around the pot. I stood there to see if the guard would return, but he did not. He probably figured I was making my way around the room sketching each piece, and he didn’t have any interest in watching me do so.

  I stepped quickly up to the pot and ran my hand around the inside. I found what I was looking for and removed it to my left front pocket. I removed my handkerchief and tented it over the opening of the pot. I retrieved the cellophane glove from my cuff and put it on my left hand. I took the spray bottle and held it inside the pot and began to pump, moving the bottle at every angle and height I could manage. It seemed to be taking an eternity, but probably took less time to do than to describe.

  I removed the spray bottle and put it back in my pocket. I left the handkerchief in place while the mist settled inside the pot. I rolled the glove off from the wrist down so that it came off inside out, and I stuck it in my back pocket. When I thought the mist was completely settled, I lifted the handkerchief and put it back in my other back pocket. Then, standing on my tippy-toes, I peered into the pot. The entire surface was coated.

  “Sir, what are you doing?”

  I turned to see the guard approaching.

  I lifted my sketchpad so he could see the ring I had drawn. “I’m trying to sketch this pot from a bird’s-eye view,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady.

  “You can’t go inside the ropes.”

  “But how can I see what the thing looks like on top.”

  “I guess you’ll just have to settle for the side view. Now please step back.”

  I did, and he replaced the rope and glared at me. I sat down on a bench and begin to sketch the pot.

  The guard stayed with me for a few minutes, and then said, “Do not approach any artwork closer than indicated by the ropes.”

  “Sure,” I said, “no problem.”

  He left but came back several times. I continued to sketch until I had what might pass for a completed rendering. I put the thing I had taken out of the pot into the spray bottle. I put the sketchpad under my arm open so that the sketch of the pot was show
ing, and then I went to the entrance.

  As I approached the metal detector, I fished out the spray bottle and handed it to the guard. While he was looking at it perplexedly, I went through the detector. I held out my hand, he handed me the spray bottle, and I left.

  35

  The preparations were complete, the trap set. Now it just needed springing.

  But would it work? There had been no doubt in my mind, no hesitation in my step as I had peeled off the inventory tag and sprayed henna inside the pot in the Museum. Anxiety, yes. Even fear. But my faith in the plan went unquestioned.

  I felt the same way while fabricating the fake. It could fool anyone. I even imagined the original potter would think it was hers.

  But now that the time had come to take the final step, my mind was awash in doubt. The scheme that had seemed so perfect in its simplicity struck me now as childish, a plan for a prank, not a serious heist. Make a copy, embed an old shard in it, put the real inventory tag on it, and tell the museum director he had a fake and you had the genuine Mogollon.

  The plan wasn’t simple; it was naive. It would never work.

  But Like Columbus in the Sargasso Sea, I’d gone too far to turn back. I had to find land or fall off the edge of the world.

  So I picked up the phone and called the museum director.

  Brandon Doak had been a member of the art history faculty before, as rumor had it, they made him director of the Valle del Rio Museum to get him out of the classroom where he made a habit of groping coeds. He knows who I am, and he almost hung up on me before I could tell him I had one of his art works.

  “Which one?”

  “It’s the Mogollon Pot.”

  “Assuming this is true, how did you get it out of the Museum?”

  “What are you talking about? Someone came to my shop and offered to sell it to me. I recognized it immediately, so I bought it.”

  “And you expect me to believe this?”

  “What choice do you have; I have the pot.”

  “Assuming again that you do, why call me? You expect a ransom?”

  “No. I’m sure I could sell it for more than any ransom you could muster, and to be truthful, I gave that some thought. But I decided receiving and selling stolen merchandise wouldn’t do my business any good, so I’ve decided to return the pot to its rightful owner.”

  “So now you’ve reformed?”

  “I don’t have anything to reform from. The pots I sell are either bought by me from their owners or dug up by me. I don’t run a fencing operation. I’m ready to give you the pot.”

  “And you’re doing this out of the goodness of your heart; you don’t expect anything for it?”

  “I didn’t say that. I said I didn’t want a ransom. But there are two things I do want. First, I paid the seller a thousand dollars for the pot. I’d like to be reimbursed. Second, whoever stole the pot left a fake in its place. As soon as I bought the real one, I went to the Museum expecting to see an empty pedestal, but there was the pot. I made a sketch of it. Only it isn’t the pot. It’s a fake, and a very good one.”

  “You would know.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment. The second thing I want is the fake. I can sell it for a good price.”

  “I won’t be a party to you selling counterfeit pottery.”

  “You won’t be a party to it. We’re making a trade. You get the real pot; I get the copy. Quite a deal for you. I’ll even help you avoid future embarrassment. It’s obvious this was an inside job. Someone must have paid one of your employees to switch the pots during the night. If you say anything to your employees now, the guilty one will be put on guard, and you’ll never discover who did it. But I can help you trap whoever did this.”

  “This entire conversation is preposterous.”

  “Stop emoting and start thinking. I have a reputation. I could approach your employees obliquely and see who takes the bait. But that’s for later. The first thing you have to do is get the real pot in there without telling your employees that you knew it was missing.”

  “How do I know you have the real one?”

  “You come examine it tonight.”

  “Impossible.”

  “Listen to me, Doak. I’ve scheduled a news conference for in the morning. I plan to put the stolen pot in front of the media for them to examine and photograph, and I’ll tell them I bought the pot knowing full well that it was stolen. I’ll say I hated to buy stolen property, but I was afraid if I didn’t, the seller would leave my shop and the pot would never be seen again. I can just imagine the story line: ‘Expelled student becomes university benefactor’. After the story becomes public, I’m sure there will be calls for an investigation into how the Museum could allow such a valuable piece to be taken. It should be an interesting challenge for you.”

  “Schuze, this is blackmail.”

  “Oh come on, Doak. Get off your high horse and start thinking. I’m offering to return a piece of your collection and no one will ever know it was gone. Come by my shop at eight tonight and examine the pot. Otherwise, ‘film at 11:00’.”

  36

  I actually had two customers late that afternoon although neither made a purchase, perhaps because I was too distracted to make a convincing sales pitch.

  Tristan showed up after the second customer departed empty-handed. I needed the camera moved temporarily so it would face my back door. I had someone coming to see me and I wanted a record of the visitor’s entrance.

  I thanked Tristan for coming and told him I wouldn’t have sought his help on such short notice except for the fact that I couldn’t do it myself.

  “Actually, you probably could,” he said. “It’s simple; you just bring the camera in here and plug it in.”

  “I think even I could do that, but wouldn’t I have to move the laser thing too?”

  “Not to get one shot; that’s way too much trouble.”

  “But how will it know when to take the picture?”

  “You’ll tell it.”

  He extracted a small box from his jacket pocket. It wasn’t much larger than a package of dental floss, and it had a normal pair of electric plug prongs on one side and a normal electric receptacle on the opposite side. I guess you could say it was an electric hermaphrodite. He plugged the prong side into a wall outlet with the receptacle side facing out into the room. The net result was that I lost the use of one receptacle flush with the wall and gained the use of a new one that stuck an inch into the room. I couldn’t see what good this plug extender did and said so.

  “It’s not a plug extender, Uncle Hubert. Inside the box is a little radio receiver and a printed circuit. Right now the current from the wall plug is not flowing into the new receptacle. You could stick a paper clip in there and not shock yourself.”

  “I’ll take your word for it.”

  “When the receiver picks up a signal of the right frequency, it activates a resistor that opens a gate in the printed circuit and connects the new outlet to the old one.”

  “And the leg bone is connected to the thigh bone, but why are you telling me all this?”

  He handed me an even smaller box with a button; it looked like a doorbell that had been removed from its jamb. “When you push that button, it sends a radio signal and the new outlet is activated. The camera is plugged into it, so current goes to the camera and it takes a picture.”

  “So it’s a sort of remote control?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Why didn’t you just say so?”

  He shrugged. “You asked what good plugging the new receptacle into the old one did, so I told you. Anyway, when you push the button again, it turns the outlet off.”

  I pushed the button and looked on the computer and, sure enough, there was a picture of my kitchen door. Then I pushed it again. There was no clicking sound, but Tristan assured me the circuit was now dead. I didn’t stick a paperclip in there to find out.

  Then he went over the operation of the bug detector with me and left, a riche
r man but not necessarily any wiser.

  I sat at my kitchen table with a beer in my hand. I was sipping slowly; I wanted to have all my wits about me when Doak showed up. He did so exactly at eight at the back alley entrance and let himself in as I had instructed.

  I pushed the button as he entered; I wanted his mugshot on my computer in case he later tried to deny he had made the exchange.

  The bug detector was in my pants pocket. I heard the click of the camera and then felt a buzzing against my leg and thought for a moment the camera remote was somehow electrocuting me. I twitched and tossed the thing aside, and Doak gave me a patronizing smile as if the sight of him had frightened me.

  But his expression changed when I held up a card I had printed up in advance which read, “You are wearing a recording device. Say nothing. Take the device off, place it on the table, and turn it off.”

  His lips parted and I placed a finger across mine. He remained silent. I bent down and picked up the pot and placed it on the kitchen table. The blood seemed to drain out of his face. He reached under his coat and brought out a small recorder and a mike that looked like a tie clasp. He sat it on the table. I dropped it in my glass of beer.

  “How did you know?” he asked.

  I held up the bug detector Tristan had given me.

  “I told that idiot Sanchez this was a bad idea. Campus security fancy themselves as the FBI.”

  “You tell anyone else?”

  “Of course not. If I told my dean or anyone else it would get out. I only told Sanchez because I hoped to protect myself in case this was some sort of trap.”

  “You need to be more trusting, Doak.”

  “Let’s get this over with,” he said.

  He turned the pot around slowly and examined it in great detail. Then he reached inside the pot and brought out the inventory tag, a rectangular piece of metal with a number and ‘Valle del Rio Museum’ inscribed on it.

  He sat down at the table and stared at the tag.

  “What’s that,” I asked innocently.

  “It’s our inventory tag.” He shook his head. “I went over to the Museum after you called and looked at the pot that was there. Of course there was no inventory tag, but what really gave it away was the inside of the pot. Whoever made it tried to fake the right tone using something that looks like henna. I knew immediately it was a fake. But I kept hoping until I saw this. I can’t believe this is happening. This could ruin me.”