The Pot Thief Who Studied Einstein Read online

  How did I know the design on the back had that little miscue? Because I had put it there. The pot on the top shelf to the right of the fireplace was one of my copies.

  4

  Segundo Cantú had walked into my shop shortly after Christmas carrying a large cardboard box. The box didn’t sport wrapping paper or ribbon, and Cantú definitely didn’t look like Santa Claus.

  “I hear you can make copies of pots.”

  I took an immediate dislike to him, perhaps because he had dispensed with any greeting or perhaps because there was something in his tone that implied I was a Xerox machine that did pots.

  “Good afternoon,” I said.

  “Well,” he said impatiently, “can you?”

  “I can when I want to.”

  “Good,” he said, “I want an exact copy of this one.”

  He evidently did not hear the “when I want to” part of my answer.

  Cantú was tall and slant-shouldered with long arms. His hatchet face was dominated by a long thin nose, a high forehead, and eyes that constantly darted.

  He opened the box and placed the pot on my counter.

  It almost took my breath away. Because of the passage of ARPA, there are very few ancient pots being dug up these days, and even without legal restraints, there wouldn’t be many because the things are damned hard to find. I have a knack for knowing where to look honed by years of walking the desert and graduate work in archaeology, but I’m lucky if one in a hundred of my illegal digs turns up anything even close to the pot that Cantú had placed on my counter.

  The pots that were dug up when it was legal to do so are all in museums, private collections, or the inventory of a few lucky merchants like myself. Of course, there’s no way to know when a pot was unearthed, so when I do get lucky, I put my find in one of my display cases with a discreet little tented card on which is written a small price. Small in font size, not small in the quantity of dollars.

  If someone questions the provenance of the pot, I tell them I dug it up when it was legal to do so. I suppose some people would see that as lying. I see it as an elliptical way of saying that as far as I’m concerned, it still is and always will be legal to dig up old pots. It’s no different from digging for gold. Except gold is easier to find.

  You can see ancient pots in museums or in my shop, but you certainly don’t expect a guy like Segundo Cantú to be carrying one around in a cardboard box.

  It was an odd shape, about fifty percent wider than it was tall with a narrow opening. It had two fiddlehead designs one hundred and eighty degrees apart, one slightly irregular, but you already know about that.

  “How much do you want for it?” I asked.

  “I want you to make a copy of it,” he said, his long arms flopping around nervously.

  “You already told me what you want. Now I’m telling you what I want. I want to buy it.”

  “It’s not for sale.”

  Then why do you want to copy it, I thought to myself. Maybe he wanted to put the original in a vault to keep it safe and put the copy on display. I’ve heard of women with big diamonds who have zirconium copies made because they don’t want to risk wearing the ten carat original in public.

  Or maybe he already had a buyer for the original and wanted a copy to remember it by. It didn’t really matter why he wanted a copy. If he wouldn’t sell it to me, I could either make a copy or not. But I hadn’t yet given up on buying it.

  “I’ll give you twenty thousand dollars for it.”

  He didn’t blink and he didn’t hesitate. “I told you it’s not for sale. You gonna copy it for me or what?”

  I quoted him a price of five thousand dollars, a little on the high side because I didn’t like him, but not so high – I hoped – as to make him change his mind. I could use the money. He tried to bargain with me, but I told him the price was firm. He finally agreed. I gave him a receipt acknowledging that he’d left the pot with me and a date a couple of weeks ahead when he could return for the copy, and he walked out.

  He returned in February with another pot in what appeared to be the same cardboard box. I copied it for him. Then he brought me a third one in early April. All three of those copies I made for Cantú turned out to be in the collection I appraised.

  I remembered Cantú’s last visit was in April because I was working on my income tax return. I also remembered that he paid me five thousand in cash for each copy.

  Even though it was cash, I reported the income on my tax return, maybe because I was abiding the law or maybe because I was afraid Cantú might deduct it as an expense on his tax return and some sharp-penciled IRS agent would see a payment to Hubert Schuze on Cantú’s return and then look up my return to see if there was a corresponding income entry. What a racket income tax is. Cantú gets a deduction. I get higher taxes.

  Each time Cantú left a pot to be copied, I had the pleasure of admiring it, going over every inch of it as I created its twin. Seeing the flaw in the first one – the one with the fiddle head design – made me think about the woman who made it.

  My business has a logo displayed in gold leaf on the windows. The logo – initially foisted off on me by Susannah and some art student friends of hers – turned out to be spectacular. Two stylized hands. One reaches up, the other down. Together they form the double-helix shape of a pot, the hand below the soil surrendering it to the hand above. But something more is passing between those hands. I named my shop Spirits in Clay.

  I know it sounds new-age and corny, but I couldn’t think of anything better at the time. Looking at Cantú’s first pot made me feel better about the name. There is a spiritual connection between the ancient potter and the modern one who finds her work. Of course I didn’t find this one. It came into my shop in a cardboard box. I didn’t own it and probably never would, alas.

  As I studied that pot, a thought popped into my mind. I could make two copies and keep one for myself! Or make three – one for Cantú, one to keep, and one to sell. Then I realized that I couldn’t do that with a clear conscience without getting Cantú’s permission, and I was certain he wouldn’t grant it.

  My code of ethics again.

  I reconciled myself to the fact I’d never own that piece by focusing on the bright side. I’d get to study it, handle it, and copy it. I might have lived my entire life without seeing it, but now it would be in my possession for fourteen days.

  In that regard, it was similar to my love life. I’ve been fortunate to be involved with a few women whose allure was even greater than ancient pottery, and I never got to keep one of them either.

  I wondered briefly if it was sexist to draw an analogy between a woman and an inanimate object. I decided it wasn’t because I didn’t mean it that way and went back to looking at the pot and thinking about its maker.

  The connection between the ancient potter and the contemporary one has nothing to do with tribe or ethnicity. We are not our bones, our flesh color, or our eye shape. We are what we do. Culture is behavioral, not biological. One good example is the anthropologist who “goes native,” who gets so wrapped up in the culture he’s studying that he actually becomes part of it. Permanently. Marries into it, adopts its language, dress, and customs. Burns his trousers and takes to wearing turtle shells on his knees.

  I have a list of beliefs I call Schuze’ Anthropological Premises, abbreviated SAP, which is what some of my cynical friends say you have to be to believe them. SAP number 1 is that any human being can practice any culture. If a Norwegian newborn were adopted by a couple in the Acoma Pueblo, that child would grow up to be exactly like all other Acoma children. He would look a bit out of place, but everything about him other than his blue eyes and fair skin would be pure Native American. He would not someday suddenly long for herring. He would not dream of being a ski jumper in the Olympics.

  He might someday wonder why he looked different. If his adoptive parents told him about his origins, it is possible that curiosity might drive him to Norway to learn about his ‘roots’. H
e might even decide to become Norwegian, to give up the culture of his upbringing and learn the culture of his biological parents. He could do that. Remember that SAP 1 says any human being can practice any culture. But he would have to learn to be Norwegian. It wouldn’t just spring forth from his DNA. It would be as difficult for him to learn to speak Norwegian as it would be for you to learn to speak it.

  Many people today don’t understand this. They adopt babies from China, bring them to the United States, put them in our public schools, and raise them like you would raise any other child in America. All well and good. Then they decide to give them Chinese lessons. Now learning another language is always a good thing. But why Chinese? Spanish would be more helpful here in America. Arabic is growing in importance. Italian is beautiful. Just because a child is of Chinese ethnicity does not mean she has to learn Chinese. Your culture and your language are determined by who raises you and where they do it, not by your genes.

  In the interest of full disclosure, I should mention that several years after I earned my business degree, I was kicked out of the anthropology graduate program at the University of New Mexico. You may want to take my opinions with several grains of salt. If you suffer from hypertension, I recommend a salt substitute.

  5

  After I surprised Susannah by telling her I knew the address where I’d appraised the pots, she decided the explanation of that would probably take us through another round of drinks, so she had summoned Angie for refills.

  After delivery, I took a sip to make sure they were as good as the last ones. They were.

  “I discovered something surprising during my appraisal. Three of the pots in that collection are copies I made.”

  “You sold the collector three copies? How come you didn’t recognize him?”

  “I don’t think the guy I saw there was the collector.”

  “Then who was he?”

  “I have no idea, but I think the collection actually belongs to a guy named Segundo Cantú.”

  “What kind of name is Segundo?”

  “It’s the kind that comes after Primero and before Tercero.”

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  “No. I’ll admit it’s not too common these days, but some Hispanic families used to name their male children after the order of their birth.”

  “What, they couldn’t think of any names so they just went with numbers?”

  “Ordinal numbers.”

  “Huh?”

  “When people say numbers, they normally mean cardinal numbers – one, two, three, like that. I was just pointing out that the names are ordinal numbers – first, second, third.”

  She gave me that impatient look she always gives me when I say anything about math. “What difference does it make what sort of numbers they are? It’s still weird.”

  “I don’t know. Look at all the kings and queens with numbers. Elizabeth the First, Henry the Eighth—”

  “I rest my case. No one is weirder than the royals.”

  “Good point,” I replied and hesitated. “I’ve forgotten what we were talking about.”

  “Segundo Cantú.”

  “Oh, right. Well, he brought me a pot last December and paid me five thousand dollars to make a copy of it.”

  “Why would he want a copy of his own pot?”

  “Let’s come back to that. He came back again in February with a second pot he wanted copied. Then he brought a third one in April.”

  Susannah recited the order of months out loud while sticking up a finger for each one. “December, January, February, March, April.” She studied her fingers. “He was bringing you a pot every other month.” She paused briefly to think then said, “You should get the fourth one this month.”

  “Somehow I don’t think I will. So let’s get back to your question of why he was having me copy his pots. Here’s my theory. He had decided to sell his collection. But before he sold a pot, he wanted a copy of it. So he sold the first pot in December, telling the buyer he could take delivery in a few weeks. Meanwhile, he has me copy it. After he gets the copy, he gives the original to the buyer and collects his money, let’s say fifty thousand.”

  “So he pays five thousand for the copy and sells the original for fifty? He’s coming out way ahead.”

  “Right. Then in two months, he sells another one, and we go through the same rigmarole. Same again two months after that. But then some buyer – maybe one of the first three, maybe someone new – offers to buy the whole collection. Cantú agrees, so I’m not going to get any more copying business from him”

  “Why not? If he wanted copies when he was selling them one at a time, why wouldn’t he still want copies when he’s selling them all at once?”

  “My guess is the buyer isn’t willing to wait that long. It takes me at least two weeks to make a good copy. Multiply that times the twenty-two remaining originals, and you get forty-four weeks.”

  “That’s almost a year,” she commented.

  “Yeah, but I can’t work at that pace for that long. Making copies is painstaking work. I would need breaks. I don’t think I could do it in less than two years.”

  “I guess it would be hard to ask a buyer to wait two years.”

  “My experience with collectors is they like owning things, not waiting for things.”

  “So I guess your copying income has dried up.”

  “It looks that way. And if I can’t get more money for copying Cantú’s pots, I at least want to get my twenty-five hundred for the appraisal.”

  “You still haven’t told me why Cantú would want copies of the pots he was selling.”

  “I don’t know. Maybe he needed money but hated the idea of losing his collection so he had copies made as a compromise.”

  I scooped some salsa onto a chip and ate it. What could be better than Dos Hermanas on a hot summer day, the cool breeze from the evaporative cooler, the soothing sounds of Spanish from the kitchen, the fresh salsa with its jalapeño snap, perfect margaritas, and the best friend a guy ever had sitting across the table.

  Frowning. “There’s another possibility,” she said, her big eyes narrowing in suspicion. “Maybe Cantú was selling the copies and keeping the originals.”

  “He couldn’t have sold the copies. They’re still in the collection.”

  “How do you know they’re the copies and not the originals?”

  “A fair question. No matter how carefully you copy, there are always little differences. Suppose the original had a black band around it and the band on the copy was slightly wider. Well, that wouldn’t mean anything to the casual observer because no two old pots are ever the same. The Anasazi weren’t working at Royal Doulton with production lines and quality control. Each pot was a fresh creation. They might use the same design, but they had no way of making two pots identical, so the black band could be wide on one pot and narrower on the next. But the person who makes a copy knows when he doesn’t get it quite right, and he knows how he erred. So if the copier made the band slightly wider and he’s looking at the copy and the original next to each other, he knows that the wide-banded one is his copy. But no one else could know that because the copier could have just as easily have made the band narrower.”

  “O.K., that makes sense, but how do you know the collection you appraised belongs to Cantú? Maybe Cantú was just an errand boy for the collector.”

  Her suggestion made sense, so I asked myself why I hadn’t thought of it. When I answered my own question, I explained it to her.

  “I guess it’s possible,” I admitted, “but it seems unlikely. Ancient pots are fragile. I can’t see a collector letting some errand boy walk around with one in a cardboard box.”

  “Then who was the guy there when you did the appraisal?”

  “Maybe he was a friend Cantú asked to stand in for him because he didn’t want to be there when I came for the appraisal.”

  “Why wouldn’t he want to be there?” she persisted.

  I shrugged. “He’s a weird
guy. Maybe he didn’t want me asking why my copies were in the collection and the originals were gone. Maybe he thought I might get angry that he was planning to sell my copies as part of the collection. Maybe he had a doctor’s appointment.”

  “At five o’clock in the evening?” She got that excited look she gets when she tries to morph reality into a murder mystery. “Maybe it was Cantú in disguise!”

  I started laughing. I explained that the guy at the appraisal was older and shorter than Cantú.

  “But you said he was stooped over. It could have been Cantú just pretending to be a hunchback.”

  “What about the older part?”

  “Makeup.”

  “I don’t know, Suze. That sounds like a lot of work for nothing. Instead of disguising himself and walking around bent over, why not just get a friend to deal with me?” And then I joked, “If Cantú was going to put on theater makeup, why not take the opportunity to make himself better looking?”

  “Good point. From your description, he sounds like the sort of guy I always get on blind dates.”

  “You don’t go on blind dates.”

  “Now you know why,” she quipped. Then she hesitated for a minute and said, “Although I did go on one last night. Well, it wasn’t really a blind date, more like an arranged meeting disguised to look like a chance encounter.”

  “Huh?”

  “Some of the students wanted to grab a bite after class, and they asked me to go. I said I was too tired, but they insisted. When we got to the café, there was a guy who seemed to be waiting for us, an international student. He was by himself and there were five of us, two couples and me. They all quickly grabbed seats in such a way that the only empty one was next to Chris. So I figure it was a set-up. But no one had said anything to me, and I get the impression they hadn’t said anything to him either, so neither one of us had that awful feeling of being on a blind date.”