The Pot Thief Who Studied Pythagoras (25 page)

“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.

When I walked out of Columbia Coffee Company, it had started to drizzle. I scooted across the street and transferred the coffees from the paper cups to mugs and placed them in a warm oven. Then I prepared everything for huevos rancheros, including some Gruet, and sat back to wait for Susannah to wake up.

I passed the time by reading another article from the Pythagoras anthology.

Susannah awoke with a hangover. Aspirin, hot coffee, a hot shower, and a hearty desayuno of huevos rancheros got her going.

I was hoping to keep the conversation on something other than Kauffmann’s treachery, but I didn’t have to do anything to bring that about. Susannah saw the book on Pythagoras and asked me, somewhat tongue-incheek I think, what new and exciting things I had learned while reading it.

“Pythagoras was introduced to philosophy by Thales.”

“I remember Thales from my philosophy course,” she said, “but the only thing I can remember is that he was the first philosopher.”

“Apparently, that’s all there is to remember. Only one sentence of his writing remains: ‘Everything is water’.”

“I guess he’d never been to New Mexico.”

I was glad to see her sense of humor was intact. “We know a lot more about Pythagoras,” I volunteered. “He traveled to Egypt in search of knowledge, but the schools there wouldn’t admit him until he went though forty days of fasting and deep breathing to achieve the proper discipline. Pythagoras said to them, ‘I have come for knowledge, not for discipline’.”

“Better than today’s students, Hubie; most of them don’t have discipline or knowledge.”

“And don’t seem to want either,” I added. “Pythagoras also traveled to India where it’s rumored he met Gautama the Buddha. After accumulating wisdom in all these travels, he founded a school where he taught his own philosophy of life.”

“What was his philosophy of life?”

“Part of it was avoidance of beans.”

“You’re joking.”

“I’m not. In fact, his death is reputed to have come when he was fleeing from rebels. He ran up to a beanfield and refused to cross, whereupon he was captured and killed. But here’s something about his school that I really like. When a student was expelled, a tomb bearing his name was erected in the garden. Pythagoras taught that such a student was dead and would proclaim, ‘His body appears among men, but his soul is dead. Let us weep for it!’.”

“You know, Hubie, I was thinking about you being expelled. Now that the president of UNM has publicly praised you and described you as one of their graduates, I wonder if you should petition to have the record of your dismissal expunged.”

“I don’t think so; it would be like acknowledging it was valid to begin with. On top of that, if I keep my dismissal status, the University might someday erect a tomb on campus with my name on it.”

She laughed—it was good to hear—took another sip of coffee and then looked pensive. I thought she was going to say something about Kauffmann, but instead she said, “Hubie, Kaylee wants to get married.”

“What! Does she have anyone in mind as a groom?”

She nodded. “Arturo, her fellow pot scrubber.”

“How did that happen? Or do I want to know?”

“Tristan brought her to the restaurant and I introduced her to my boss. She agreed to take the job, and then the boss had Arturo show her the ropes because he’s the only one back there who speaks English.”

“Did showing her the ropes get her pregnant?”

“Hubie! Just listen, O.K.?”

“O.K.”

“I asked the boss, like you had suggested, if he had any idea where she could stay temporarily. He said Arturo’s parents were always just scraping by and could use a little rent. He talked to them, and they agreed to rent her a spare room. The boss is paying them twenty-five dollars a week, and Kaylee is able to get back and forth to work with Arturo. So in the course of working together, living in the same house, and commuting to work together, I guess they fell in love.”

I had a cynical remark in mind, but kept silent since I’d already been admonished once.

“It’s kind of romantic, Hubie. A confused runaway girl and a hardworking pot scrubber without much chance to attract a girlfriend find each other and fall in love.”

Considering what had happened to Susannah, I didn’t think it was a good time for her to be talking about people falling in love, but I didn’t see any way to change the subject, so I asked her to tell me about Arturo.

“He’s a sweetheart, Hubie. Works hard, always polite to everyone. He smiles a lot, too.”

“They haven’t known each other very long.”

“No, but true love isn’t a matter of time.”

“So when’s the date?”

“They haven’t set it yet. There’s something they have to do first.”

“Get a blood test?”

She sighed. “You don’t need blood tests to get married these days, Hubert. Arturo has to ask for her hand in marriage.”

“That’s very traditional of him, Suze, but who’s he going to ask?” I really didn’t see this coming, but I should have known from the sneaky smile on Susannah’s face.

“You, Hubert. Kaylee asked him to ask you.”

57

It was time to make the trip I had hoped not to have to make. I chose a weekday because I figured the house I would be visiting was more likely to be empty.

I set my alarm for the second time in a month—abnormal for me—and got up in time to make the 6:50 flight to LAX. The flight was packed with business people getting a jump on the competition. Owing to the miracle of the jet engine and the change of time zone, we arrived at the exact time we had departed.

That set the surreal tone for what I found in Los Angeles.

I took a shuttle to the car rental company and picked up a car I ended up spending more time in than I had on the plane. There was a long line at the on-ramp to the freeway, and the scene once you did get on looked like a Hollywood chase sequence, so I consulted the map the young lady at the rental counter had given me—she said she was just there temporarily because she had already done several screen tests—and took Sepulveda north from the airport.

It was slow going with heavy traffic and lots of lights, but it was better than the freeway. At least I could see what I was passing, so I was able to spot a store I would need to visit. It took almost an hour to reach Sunset, but it didn’t matter because I wanted to arrive after everyone who was going out of the house would have already done so. Even then, I was a little early, so I found a Carl’s Jr. and had a breakfast sandwich and a cup of coffee. Carl or his Jr. had an old-fashioned payphone—not the sort Superman could change clothes in. It was a black boxy phone mounted to the wall. I made a call and let it ring until a machine answered, then I hung up.

I turned east on Sunset and then right again after less than a mile up a steeply winding road lined by attractively designed homes surrounded by eucalyptus, Lombardi poplars, palo verdes, and some other trees I couldn’t name. Unlike what I expected in southern California, the homes were neither large nor ostentatious. They looked like they had been designed by skilled architects, people who designed houses to live in rather than to show off. That boded well for me since it meant they would likely have sturdy doors, something true break-in artists would avoid but which I was counting on.

I had never done this before, but I had a plan.

After a few turns I came to the house I was looking for and pulled into the driveway. The drive curved around the side of the house, so I couldn’t see the garage if there was one. I parked in front and walked up to the front door. It was solid wood with a dark stain and looked to have been custom made. The doorknob was bronze and when I got down and looked at it closely, I saw the brand name etched under the knob. I got out a sketchpad and did a quick rendering of the device.

It was a quiet enclave with only a hint of traffic noise in the distance. Mainly what I heard were birds chirping and leaves rustling in a gentle breeze. Despite the serene setting, I was nervous. I could feel the paperboy or milkman standing behind me, and I almost couldn’t resist the temptation to look over my shoulder. If I looked once, I would look again, and then I’d lose what little nerve I had mustered up for the occasion.