The Pot Thief Who Studied Pythagoras Read online

  53

  The theme was ‘rodeo chic.’ The ballroom of the Club was festooned with saddle-shaped foil cutouts hanging from the ceiling. The tablecloths were in a pinto pony print and the centerpieces on the tables were constructed from spurs. Thankfully, the light was low.

  Susannah was refulgent in a pink satin strapless evening gown and rhinestone boots. I was decked out in a gray morning coat with tails, a turquoise velvet vest and a bolo tie, the last two items being suggested by Susannah.

  Mariella wore a gold sequined tube top and a shimmering silver see-through skirt that looked like it was woven from angel hair. Underneath it were pearlescent chaps. As hard as it may be to believe, it actually looked classy. She asked me for the first dance, and I noticed that all eyes were on us. Good thing my mother made me take dancing lessons all those years ago.

  I assumed the eyes were meant for her, but a few minutes into the dance, an older lady cut in, and whirled me across the floor.

  “I must say, Mr. Schuze, you are terribly handsome in tails.”

  Only her lips moved. I think the rest of her face had been botoxed. She was at least fifteen years my senior, but her skin was tight, her figure taut, and her make-up expertly applied. She held me rather closer than I would have liked.

  She put her cheek next to mine and I feared sweet nothings were forthcoming. “You mustn’t let the press get you down. Everyone knows how classless they are, one step above carnival people. I can assure you that everyone here admires you. Why, I can’t imagine anyone more…”

  At this point another older lady cut in and said, “It’s sooo exciting to be dancing with a celebrity.”

  I just smiled.

  “I don’t think you killed that awful Guvelly person,” she confided, “but if you did, I’m sure you had a good reason for doing so.”

  I smiled again.

  My next partner was a buxom, silver-haired Hispanic lady with a perfume that clung to me even more tightly than she did. “My husband is a major advertiser in that paper, and I told him he has to speak to them about the way they treated you in that article. They made it sound like you were already guilty. And what if you were? Did they even mention extenuating circumstances?”

  I finally realized she was waiting for an answer. “No,” I said, “they didn’t.” And then just to keep up my end of the conversation, I added, “They didn’t think about self-defense either, did they?”

  She let out a slight moan of titillation and held me even closer.

  And so the evening went. The good news was that almost everyone I danced with was shorter than me, perhaps because of osteoporosis, but it felt great. It seems that the club set love mixing with dangerous felons so long as they are properly attired.

  When the orchestra took a break, I headed for the bar for some liquid courage in case the next round of dancing was like the first. I was momentarily disappointed that the champagne on offer was not Dom Perignon. Perhaps that was expecting too much even for this crowd. But when I saw they were serving Gruet, my disappointment evaporated like mist on a desert morn. I asked the bartender for two glasses, and turned to leave with one in each hand. Plan A was to find Susannah and offer her a glass. Plan B, in case she was nowhere to be found, was to drink both glasses. Both plans were temporarily stymied by Sven Nordquist.

  He wore a traditional tuxedo but had done nothing to acknowledge the theme of the event. He could at least have worn his turquoise bracelet. The tux emphasized his height, and the cummerbund his rigid torso, a fixed point about which his arms seem to flail like streamer flags on a metal pole.

  His berry scent preceded him to the bar and his bottomless blue eyes glinted with disdain. “Look at you, Hubert, the perfect picture of the bourgeoisie, a glass of champagne in each hand.”

  I was in a charitable mood. “Would you like one,” I said, extending a glass.

  “I don’t drink alcohol,” he said.

  “Can’t handle the firewater?”

  “That’s racially insensitive, Hubert, and not funny.”

  “Well,” I said, “if you’re not drinking, what are you doing at the bar?”

  “I was discussing a donation with one of the patrons.”

  “It’s a fundraiser for the Foundation, Sven. Are you going to insult their hospitality by trying to siphon off money for ARRIS?”

  “The Foundation is a bastion of colonialism. I merely offer them a chance to set right some of the wrongs they have done.”

  One of my many faults is that I rarely give up on people; maybe I’m a slow learner. “Sven,” I said, “do you ever listen to yourself? Nobody takes that sort of rhetoric seriously anymore. Maybe no one ever did. Can’t you try to help the Indians without making it a cosmic struggle?”

  He tossed his hair and walked away. I shrugged. Why let him spoil an otherwise exciting evening? And, anyway, I was glad he hadn’t accepted

  the proffered glass of Gruet.

  Layton appeared next to me and asked, “Who is that person, Hubert?”

  “Sven Nordquist,” I told him, “the executive director of ARRIS.”

  “Sounds like a deodorant. He’s been pestering our guests, and that is unsupportable. I can’t imagine how he was admitted.”

  Then he looked at me. “Not me,” I said. “He’s the last person I would bring.”

  “I’ll speak to security,” he said.

  I found Susannah and gave her the glass of champagne. She needed it since she was steaming.

  “Geez, Hubert, I’ve been drug across the floor and mauled by a dozen men, none of whom was young enough to be my grandfather. Where the hell have you been?”

  “Dancing with their wives.”

  We were silenced by the start of the auction. The items on offer ran the gamut from a lacquered tortoise shell the size of a Volkswagen to a chaise fashioned entirely from elkhorn and leather. A UNM sweatshirt from the fifties brought five thousand dollars. But the big event of the evening was Mariella’s donated pot. It was not the Anasazi pot she had originally meant to donate. It was the Mogollon water jug from the Valle del Rio Museum. The President of the University was the celebrity auctioneer, and he started, as presidents always do, with a speech.

  “Ladies and gentlemen. You will read in the press tomorrow that the director of our Valle del Rio Museum has resigned. We have recently discovered that one of our prize holdings, a Mogollon water jug, was actually a fake. I assure you that this discovery has nothing to do with the resignation of the director.” Then he paused for effect. “I also assure you that our football team will be undefeated next year.” The audience broke into excited laughter. Even though I try to pay no attention to such things, it’s impossible to grow up in Albuquerque without knowing that the Lobos have a history of futility when it comes to football, so the president’s irony was not lost on anyone, even me.

  He held up has hand to ask for quiet. “Fortunately, the original has been recovered by Mr. Hubert Schuze, one of our graduates. Please stand up and take a bow, Hubert.”

  After I did that, the President invited Mariella to the podium. “I believe you all know this lovely lady.” Of course there was thunderous applause. “She and her husband—I can’t recall his name but I believe he practices law.” He left the laughter continue, basking in it until he finally held his hand aloft. “Mariella and that lawyer husband of hers commissioned Mr.

  Schuze to recover this pot, and they are now generously offering it at auction. They will match whatever price is bid, and the total of the bid and their match will endow a scholarship at the University. There is one small proviso. The high bidder will not get to keep the pot; it will be returned to the University. However, you will have a plaque by the pot with your name on it. Would it be crass for me to mention that the size of the plaque will be proportionate to the size of… of course it would, so I won’t mention it.” More applause and even greater laughter.

  The pot sold for a hundred thousand dollars.

  54

  “I can’t
believe you did that, Hubie.”

  “He caught me off guard. He asked me to take a bow, so I took one.”

  “I’m not talking about the bow, Hubie; I’m talking about that Nixonesque wave to the crowd.”

  “Well,” I pointed out, “I’m short. If I just bowed, they wouldn’t see me, so I waved.”

  “You looked like you were running for something.”

  “If it was for director of the commission on aging, I’d be a shoo-in after last night.”

  “Also,” she continued, “I can’t believe he called you a graduate. They ignored you for years, and now that Layton Kent makes you out to be some kind of a hero, the University is anxious to claim you. You’ll probably get a letter from the development office soliciting a donation.”

  “Oh, I get those every year. Just because they kick you out doesn’t mean they don’t want your money. And anyway, I am a graduate, remember? I have a business degree.”

  “Yeah, but just remember what you told me your father said about that when you went back to college the second time and ended up in archaeology.”

  I smiled at the memory of my father. He had said that first I got a business degree and then I went back to get an education.

  I had slept most of the day. I don’t know what had exhausted me most, all the dancing or all the constant attention. I was rested enough to keep my standing five o’clock appointment at Dos Hermanas, and Susannah and I

  were drinking pisco sours.

  “These aren’t bad.” I said. “What are they made from?”

  “Don’t ask.”

  “Can you at least tell me what pisco is?”

  ”It’s a distilled wine made in Chile from a special sort of grape.”

  “How do you know all this stuff, Suze?”

  “I’m a waitress, Hubie. We also take drink orders.”

  “Well, you may have missed your calling. Maybe you should drop out of university and go to bar tending school.”

  “At least then I might have some chance to graduate.”

  “You’ll graduate from UNM eventually, but so what. Bartenders make more than most college graduates.”

  I waved to Angie for a second round of piscos.

  “Susannah, I want to thank you for saving me the other night. I really panicked when I tripped over Guvelly in my shop, but you were a rock.”

  “Thanks, Hubie. You may have been panicky at first, but you certainly got your brain in gear at the end when you figured out what happened.”

  “We make a great team, Suze.”

  “I’ll drink to that,” she said. “It’s funny, isn’t it, Hubie; the pot that was auctioned off has made a round trip—from the Museum to you and back to the Museum.”

  “Seems like a lot of wasted effort,” I observed.

  “Not really. The University now has another two hundred thousand in the scholarship fund, and that will help many students, and you got your legal bill erased.”

  “Yes, but I wouldn’t have had a legal bill except for this whole episode, so you can’t count that as a gain.”

  “Did you get anything else for the pot?”

  “No money, but I did get Layton and Mariella’s goodwill.”

  “Why are you smiling like that, Hubie?”

  “I also got my fake back.”

  “So both pots came full circle. What will you do with the fake, Hubie? You can’t very well sell it after all the publicity surrounding you and the Valle del Rio Museum.”

  “I wouldn’t be so certain about that. I’ve often sold fake pots to people who thought they were genuine, but this is a chance to sell a fake pot as a fake.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “Well, thanks to all the publicity, the UNM Mogollon water jug is enjoying its fifteen minutes of fame. People buy prints and reproductions of originals all the time. So I’m thinking of putting an ad in the paper with a picture of the reproduction I made. Even though it’s a reproduction, it’s still one of a kind. I think it would bring a few thousand.”

  “So you’re moving from fakes to reproductions.”

  “The only difference between a fake and reproduction is in the mind of the buyer.”

  “And what about the other pot?”

  “The one from Bandelier?”

  “Yeah. What will you do with that one?”

  “Fletcher’s going to turn it in for the finder’s fee, which is five thousand.”

  “So you’ll get twenty-five hundred for your share of the finder’s fee and maybe the same amount for the fake. That’s a total of five thousand, only ten percent of what the two pots were worth when you had them both.”

  “Right,” I said. “Hardly worth worrying about, right?”

  “I know that sly look. What are you getting at Hubie?”

  “I’m not keeping the five thousand. After all, I had the sale of the Maria and that paid most of my tax bill. And I don’t want to spoil the IRS by paying everything on time. So I’m using all the Mogollon-related money to start a scholarship called the Guvelly award for the top student each year from Martin Seepu’s pueblo.”

  I thought her eyes became moist. “Hubie, I think I’ll buy you a drink.”

  “Susannah, I think I’ll drink it.”

  55

  In order to explain what happened the next evening at five, I need to describe Susannah to you, which is more difficult than it sounds because when I look at her I see her personality, and I’m sure that influences what I see.

  The thing that makes Susannah Inchaustigui the best friend I’ve ever had is her total lack of guile. She’s an ingénue in the best sense of that word. But how do I describe her? She’s a couple of inches taller than I am. She has that healthy rancher look, like she can ride, rope, and wrestle steers. She’s not fat, she’s not even plump, but you wouldn’t call her thin either. She has curves in all the places girls should have curves and like she herself said, she does look great in an evening dress, I guess because she is tall enough and large enough to qualify for that word people use for such women, striking. But in her normal casual clothes at Dos Hermanas, she just looks like the girl next door, with her thick brown hair held back in a ponytail, and her large honey-colored eyes taking in the world like she was born just yesterday.

  But when I saw her the next night, her eyes were larger than normal and bright red. Her nose was also glowing pink and running, and her hair was a tangle of clumps and strands. She gave me a brave smile as I approached the table and then broke into tears.

  “Shit! I said I wasn’t going to cry in front of you, and I couldn’t even control it for five seconds.” Then she really let loose.

  I scooted my chair over next to hers and she put her arms around me and cried on my shoulder. I had never seen her cry like that, but like everything else she does, she did it with gusto. After a minute or two my whole shoulder was wet.

  I wanted to say something but didn’t know what to say. Men are clueless in such situations, and I’m worse than most. So I just held her and let her cry. After what seemed a long time but was probably only five minutes, she lifted her head, took a paper napkin out of the dispenser and blew her nose.

  “God, that was gross,” she said.

  “Nothing like a good cry to clear the sinuses.”

  “I didn’t need my sinuses cleared, Hubie. God, I must look awful.”

  I decided not to comment on that. “You want to tell me why you’re crying?”

  She threw her head down on the table and started again. After a moment I heard her mutter something.

  “I’m sorry, Susie; I couldn’t hear you.”

  She lifted her head slightly and said, “He’s married.”

  Then she put her head back down, but she didn’t cry. She just stayed there with her arms crossed on the table and her head buried in her arms. Then she looked up and said, “Shit! I don’t need this; he’s not worth it. No man is worth it. You’re all a bunch of shits, you know that, Hubie?”

  “So I’ve been told.” />
  “Of course you are less of a shit than any other man I know.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Let’s get drunk.”

  She ordered margaritas. I guess every cloud does have a silver lining.

  Although she said we weren’t going to talk about Kauffmann, we did anyway. Actually, she talked and I listened. The initial stream of invective was bitter and loud, but she eventually ran out of steam. Or maybe the tequila took the steam out of her. When she was well past merely tipsy, she looked at me and said, “Do you think I’m attractive, Hubert?”

  “I would guess almost all men would find you attractive.”

  She started sobbing again. “That’s a tricky answer, Hubert.”

  “I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to be tricky.”

  “I asked you if you thought I was attractive, and you didn’t answer me.”

  “You’re my friend, Susannah. My best friend. I thought you were asking about your attractiveness to men in general.”

  “I don’t know what you’re saying, Hubie. Anyway, I don’t remember the question. What did you ask me?”

  “I didn’t ask you anything, Suze. You asked me something.”

  “What did I ask you, Hubie.”

  “You asked me if you could go to sleep.”

  “Right,” she said, “that’s what I want to do, go to sleep.”

  I managed to half-walk and half-drag her across the plaza to my shop. I took us in the alley entrance to avoid all the locking and unlocking of doors, and I pushed her into the bathroom. When she staggered out, I took her over to my bed, pulled off the covers and helped her lay down. While I was taking off her shoes, she said “I can sleep on the floor, Hubie. I can’t take your bed.”

  “Beds are not like other possessions, Suze; they belong to whomever is sleeping in them.”

  She started to say she didn’t know that but fell asleep before the sentence was finished.

  56

  I climbed out of my hammock the next morning with a stiff back, but it loosened up after a hot shower. I decided Susannah didn’t need my coffee on top of a hangover, so I went across the street and ordered two large lattes which did major damage to a ten dollar bill.