The Pot Thief Who Studied Pythagoras

by J. Michael Orenduff

  “People usually rent a place before they start screwing in it. I should call the police.”

  “No,” I said, “don’t do that. I was going to rent it, but I didn’t think you’d be open for business this late at night, so I just sort of figured…” Once again my voice trailed off for lack of anything to say.

  “If you’re going to rent it, I need a deposit now. Otherwise, I’m calling the cops.”

  “How much is the deposit?”

  “Two hundred dollars.”

  I looked in my wallet and found a hundred and seventy dollars. Susannah was able to muster up twenty-three.

  “Will you take one ninety three?”

  He shook his head but held out his hand anyway, and we gave him the money.

  “Here’s the key. I’ll need a month’s rent in advance before you can move in. But considering your situation, you can stay here tonight.”

  He left and since there was no longer any reason to hide our presence, I turned on the heat.

  Susannah sat on the side of the bed and gave me a coquettish look. “Looks like we’ve got the place all to ourselves, sailor.”

  47

  Later as we were driving back to Albuquerque, Susannah said, “I can’t

  believe you touched that thing.”

  “Well, you propositioned me.”

  “It’s a good thing I wasn’t serious; pulling that thing out of the drawer would have been a complete turnoff.”

  “Geez, Susannah, it wasn’t used or anything.”

  “All the same, I want you to wash your hands when we get back.”

  “I already washed them in Berdal’s apartment.”

  “That doesn’t count; it was his thingy. You need to wash them again on neutral ground.”

  We were following Highway 4 west. The road turns south at Valle Grande, then passes through Jemez Springs where’s there’s a retreat for wayward priests, then the Jemez Pueblo, and meets U.S. 550 at San Ysidro. From there it’s about an hour back to Albuquerque. If you turn east at the pueblo, you can follow a minor road to Ponderosa where some enterprising individual has planted a vineyard and started a winery.

  The vineyard that supplies the grapes for Gruet champagne is in the sandy soil of the southern part of the state. It’s near a town that used to be called Hot Springs but changed its name in the fifties to Truth or Consequences because a game show by the that name promised to give the town publicity and send winners there as a prize. I don’t think any game show winners go there now, but the hot dry climate is like Bordeaux, perfect for growing grapes. Ponderosa, on the other hand, has the perfect weather for growing pine trees, which explains why I haven’t tried their wine yet. That and the fact I don’t drink wine without bubbles.

  “Well, Hubie, you finally did it. You are now officially a burglar.”

  “Me? You’re the one who kicked the door open. I just followed you in.”

  “I only kicked it in because your stuffed clay trick wasn’t working.”

  “How was I supposed to know the spring would be strong enough to push the bolt that far into the clay?”

  “Maybe you should have tested it on your own lock.”

  “Mine are deadbolts; they don’t have springs, but you’re right; it wasn’t a very effective technique.”

  “Well, it doesn’t matter because we got what we came for.” She hesitated for a minute and then added, “What did we come for, Hubie?

  “Remember I told you about the picture of Berdal and a pickup truck?”

  “Yeah, I saw it when we were in there.”

  “Well, there were also two expired plates with ‘truck’ on them, so I figured he must be a serious pickup guy. He had a small rented apartment and a pickup. The pot he stole was not in the apartment, so…”

  Susannah finished my thought. “It must be in the pickup.”

  “Exactly. Now all we have to do is find the truck.”

  “Wouldn’t the police have impounded it or something?”

  “They probably would have if it had been at the Hyatt, but it wasn’t. I asked Whit how Berdal got there, and he said they didn’t know. After they found the body, one of the investigating team went to the garage and the streets around the hotel and copied down every license plate. Apparently they checked them all out, and none of them was registered to Berdal.”

  “But wait a minute, Hubie. Maybe the pot isn’t in his truck. Maybe he took it with him to the Hyatt to sell to Guvelly or exchange for a fee or something.”

  “You’re forgetting that I have a computerized snapshot of Guvelly entering my shop after Berdal went to the Hyatt, so Guvelly obviously didn’t have the pot.”

  “Oh, right. So how did Berdal get to the Hyatt? And why didn’t he take his truck?”

  “I don’t know how he got to the Hyatt. But I do know why he didn’t drive there in his truck.”

  I handed her the paper I had taken from under Berdal’s lamp.

  She examined it for a minute. “It’s a work order from Pajarito Machine Shop for a valve job on a 1997 Dodge Pickup and it has Berdal’s name as the customer.”

  “Exactly. And look at the ‘date promised’ entry.”

  “May 27th. That’s Tuesday,” she noted.

  “Three days from now. Hugo didn’t drive to the Hyatt because his truck was in the shop.”

  Susannah smiled. “And Tuesday we’re going to reclaim the truck.”

  48

  “What’s a valve job, Hubie?”

  Susannah and I were returning to Los Alamos. “I don’t know. It sounds like some kind of heart operation.”

  “You think they’ll give us the truck?”

  “I don’t know why not; we have the repair slip.”

  “But you don’t look like Berdal; I saw his picture in the apartment.”

  “As I said, we have the repair slip. Even better, we have money. I suspect they’d give the truck to Martin Seepu if he produced the cash, and he looks even less like Berdal than I do. What I’m really hoping is that I won’t have to pay anything.”

  “What if the pot’s not in the truck?”

  “Then I may be out the cost of a valve job.”

  “This is getting expensive for you, isn’t it Hubie.”

  “It is. I have at least a hundred dollars invested in the fake pot. I have a hundred and ninety-three dollar deposit on an apartment I’ll never rent. I have…”

  “Twenty three of that is mine.”

  “As I was saying, I have a hundred and seventy in the deposit. I had a thousand, retail value, in the pot that firstNAtions destroyed. I owe a legal fee to Layton that will cost me another pot. I tell you, Suze, it’s really true what they say; crime doesn’t pay.”

  “But you also have the pot from UNM that’s worth twenty-five thousand.”

  “Only if I have a buyer, which evidently I don’t. I can’t very well advertise it for sale with the fake sitting in the Museum. Everyone would think the one I made is real because it’s in the Valle del Rio Museum and the one I have is fake because even though it’s not in the Museum, it used to be but no one knows that, and I can’t prove it without incriminating myself. Did I say that right?”

  “I have no idea. If we get the Bandelier pot, then you’ll have two pots worth what?”

  “At least fifty thousand in theory. Maybe more because I will have cornered the market in Mogollon water jugs. But again, they’re not worth

  anything unless you can sell them.”

  “There it is on the right.”

  We had entered Los Alamos, and the Pajarito Machine Shop was on the first corner. It was a metal building with sloping walls and a sign depicting a brightly colored bird, maybe a scarlet tanager, holding a tool of some sort in its wing.

  The Dodge pickup was parked out front. I was glad to see it had a metal toolbox attached to the front of the bed, the sort with dual tops hinged at the center so that they look like gull wings when they’re open. If the pot was in there, I wouldn’t have to pay the repair bill.
<
br />   I showed the repair ticket to the person who greeted me, and he handed me a bill for $731.82.

  “Can I start it up, see how it runs?”

  “Suit yourself,” he said and handed me the keys.

  I started it up and it seemed to run fine. Of course I didn’t know what the valves did, so I wasn’t the best person to judge whether the repair had been successful. I sat in the cab for a long while pretending to listen to the engine while occupying my fingers surreptitiously under the dash while Susannah stared at me with an impatient look. Then I turned it off and got out.

  “Sounds good,” I told the attendant. “I don’t have enough money, so I’ll have to go to the bank.”

  He held out his hand for the keys, I passed them back to him, and he walked back into the shop without comment.

  I told Susannah we needed to stay the day, and I took her to lunch and explained the program.

  After lunch we went to an Ace hardware store and bought two dozen key blanks and a variety of files. We drove to a city park and sat at a bench under a ponderosa. I took out several plugs of clay with key impressions I had made in them while sitting in Berdal’s truck.

  “How do you know which one is to the toolbox?”

  “I don’t. I assume it’s this small one, but I’m going to make copies of them all just in case.”

  “I hope this works better than your last clay trick, Hubie.”

  “So do I.”

  Most keys have two features that define their shape. Slots run lengthwise down keys, and because we had the imprints of both sides, it had been fairly simple to select blanks with the appropriate slots. The second feature is the jagged edge. Hence the files. Well, I couldn’t very well hand the clay impressions to a clerk and ask him to copy them, could I?

  Using the clay impressions, I filed the metal key blanks to match the originals. The blanks were made of soft metal, probably an aluminum alloy, so the files ground them into shape rather easily. I used a rough file for the initial grinding and then a finer one to achieve a shape as close as possible to the clay imprint of the originals. I held the newly minted keys up to the clay imprints and their little peaks and valleys matched perfectly. Then we waited until it got dark.

  We drove to the Pajarito Machine Shop and sat in the parking lot for perhaps ten minutes. When no one arrived to challenge our right to be there, I got out and tried the keys in the toolbox. The very first one slid in perfectly. I turned it and the padlock sprung open.

  “Clay conquers all,” I whispered to Susannah.

  “One out of two,” she replied.

  The toolbox held an assortment of tools and other objects I couldn’t identify but which were clearly not Native American relics. There were also two large boxes. I put them both in the Bronco, re-locked the toolbox on Berdal’s pickup, and drove out of the lot.

  I had gone several blocks when I realized I was holding my breath. I let the air out of my lungs and started to inhale again.

  “Why did you take both boxes, Hubie?”

  “Don’t tell me I’m a burglar again, Suze. I took both boxes because the more time we spent in that parking lot, the greater the risk that someone would notice.”

  “And you didn’t want to keep tickling the tail of the dragon.”

  “Nicely put,” I said.

  “And since both boxes are big enough to hold the missing pot, you figured take them both and find out which one has it when we are somewhere safer.”

  “Exactly.”

  “And where would that be, Hubie?”

  “Back in Albuquerque?”

  “Oh, come on. Now that we got away, no one can possibly know we were there. Let’s look now.” She sounded like a little girl at Christmas. How could I refuse?

  I turned onto the next dirt trail and went far enough into the woods so that we couldn’t be seen from the highway. Susannah and I each carried a box around to the front of the Bronco and opened it in the glow of the headlights. Hers contained the stolen pot packed in wadded up old newspapers.

  Opening mine seemed anticlimactic until a withered arm flopped out of it. It looked dead, deformed, withered with decay, but shiny at the same time. I tried to turn the box into the headlights for a better view and caught a glimpse of a head with hair that seemed pasted to the scalp. An entire human torso was somehow crammed into that box. I thought I was going to be sick. Susannah had backed away and her labored breathing sounded like rolling thunder.

  I grew faint and dropped the box, and when I did the entire human form fell out and then straightened into its full length.

  Susannah’s scream would have curdled magma, not to mention blood. Mine started out just as loud and then dissolved into laughter. For what we had laid out before was not a desiccated corpse; it was a partially deflated blow-up sweetie.

  “Geez, Hubie, that scared the shit out of me. What kind of a creep was Berdal? You think he was using that condom on this blow-up?”

  “Maybe. She doesn’t appear to be pregnant.”

  “Not funny, Hubie. Get rid of that thing, will you.”

  “I think I need to dispose of it where no one will find it and it won’t come back on us as a piece of evidence.”

  I shoved it back in the box and threw the box in the back of the Bronco, and we drove back to Albuquerque.

  49

  Like my shop and most of the other businesses in Old Town, Dos Hermanas is in an old adobe house with brown stucco walls, ancient vigas, and a flat roof. When you step through the door, all vestiges of domesticity disappear.

  The pine vigas ran clearspan from the front of the house to the back, so the internal walls were not structural; they were dismantled and discarded. A concrete slab was poured over the original floor of packed dirt, and a commercial kitchen and small steam plant were installed. The production area took about three fourths of the floor space. In the front were a counter where you ordered and paid and a small area where you stood around waiting for your order to be filled.

  Business was always brisk and the waiting area was crowded. Somewhere along the way, one of the sisters hit on the idea of selling beer and margaritas to the customers who were waiting in line. The bar side of the business became so popular that a veranda was added to the front of the house. In the winter, the waiting line is relegated to the veranda and the bar patrons are seated in what used to be the waiting area. In the summer, the chairs and tables are moved and the roles of the two spaces reversed. When the drinkers began staying after their orders were filled and eating them with their beers and margaritas, the sisters gave in to the inevitable and began running the place as a restaurant, albeit with a limited menu. To accommodate the growing demand, they added another veranda on the south side and built an addition onto the back. All available space is now taken, and their expansion days are over.

  Which suits me fine. The place is crowded enough as it is. They’ve managed to avoid the fate of most successful restaurants; namely, the quality of the food being inversely proportional to the growth in seating space, but who knows how long they could keep their original recipes and cooking methods if they began to approach mass production levels.

  Even though it was May, the tables were still inside. The air was crisp and the waiting line had migrated out from the veranda onto the street to take advantage of the last few minutes of sunshine. Susannah and I had our favorite table against the north wall. Angie brought us a second round and I tasted it to be certain it was as good as the first. It was not.

  Susannah saw me turn up my nose. “What’s wrong, Hubie?”

  “Taste your margarita.”

  She took a sip. “Ugh. Tastes artificial.”

  “Like a mix.”

  I got Angie’s attention.

  “What’s wrong, Mr. Schuze?”

  “These margaritas aren’t up to your usual lofty standards.”

  She bit her lip and shot a nasty glance over her shoulder towards the bar. “Just a minute,” she said and walked away.

  There wa
s an animated discussion at the bar, and then she returned.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Schuze, but we used the last of our triple sec on your first drink. I didn’t know it, but the bartender used simple syrup and the lime flavoring we use when we make punch for catering. Can I bring you something else? On the house.”

  “Give us a minute, Angie,” said Susannah. Then she turned to me after Angie left. “Mr. Schuze? How long have you been coming here, Hubie?”

  “I know what you’re thinking; long enough for her to call me Hubie, but the whole family is very traditional. If I asked her to call me Hubie, she would probably do it, but she would feel awkward.”

  “Don’t you feel awkward being called Mr. Schuze?”

  “A little.”

  “But you’d rather feel awkward than make Angie feel awkward.”

  I shrugged.

  “Hubie,” she announced, changing the subject, “we’ve been in a rut. It’s time to add a little variety to our cocktail hour.”

  “I don’t think of it as a rut; I think of it as a tradition.”

  “Come on, Hubie. A tradition is something people who’ve been dead a hundred years did when they were alive, like eating sweet tamales with raisins on Christmas Eve. We’ve only been drinking here for a couple of years.”

  “Well, traditions have to start somewhere. Maybe a hundred years after we’re dead, our descendents will be calling this the Hubert and Susannah cocktail hour.”

  “You know, Hubie, Kauffmann is great, but he’s made no mention of matters domestic, and I can’t even remember the last time you had a date, unless you count Kaylee, so the way things are going, neither one of us is going to have any descendents.”

  “I may be past the age for fathering children anyway.”

  “Don’t be silly. Lots of men older than you father children.”

  “Yeah, but I really don’t want some teacher saying to me, ‘Oh, Mr. Schuze, it’s so nice to meet Timmy’s grandfather’.”

  “Forget that,” she said. “Come on, Hubie, what would you drink if margaritas were outlawed?”