AHMM, May 2007

by Dell Magazine Authors

  I was deep in the ABZ case the following day when Edith interrupted me.

  "Phone call,” she said. “Mr. Bwodkona, of the Wazeer Ministry of Education, Anthropology, Artifacts and Art, at the Wazeer Consulate in New York. Who,” she asked pointedly, “is he? I never heard of him."

  "A good question,” I said. I hadn't dealt with Bwodkona either. “Hello?” I said, picking up the phone.

  "We wish to take every single step to get our pots,” said Mr. Bwodkona.

  "I can't do anything till October,” I said, explaining.

  In that case, Bwodkona said, he wanted to see me in New York the following week. “Unless you meet me or until we get the pots,” he said, “you will not be paid."

  I cringed.

  "I can't—” I began. “I guess I'll think over that invitation,” I concluded. “Good-bye."

  It was lunchtime. I opened my desk drawer and paused. What day had Bwodkona mentioned?

  I munched meaningfully.

  After a while, I called out the door to Edith. “Do you have enough cat food if I bring Athena back here for a few days?” I asked.

  She came in looking horrified. She had heard the whole thing.

  "Don't go to New York,” she instructed, “until he's paid you. Bentley will have a cow!"

  This time, I took a plane.

  * * * *

  In New York, I attended a bar association seminar on claims by Italy and Greece to get back stolen antiquities in U.S. museums. Practically everyone involved in the yam pots controversy was in attendance. Kent Cluckhorn, the Daily Citizen reporter, introduced himself to me, dragging along Tom Tomlinson, the lawyer who had just edited his indispensable textbook Art Law: Staying out of prison.

  "How did the archaeologists get in here?” Cluckhorn asked. “I thought they weren't on speaking terms with museum lawyers over this case."

  "Archaeologists squeeze into the tightest places. That's Sidney Sappleworth,” Tomlinson said, nodding, “who led the dig of Upper Egypt in the 1970s. He then led the charge against museums buying Egyptian artifacts because his museum, the Culridge Fine Arts, already had cases full of the stuff. A little hypocritical, don't you think? He now lectures nationwide about giving the ancient Elgin Marbles back to Greece. There was talk, years ago, of whether he was involved in the death of an Egyptian man on his dig. It was never resolved."

  Cluckhorn intently jotted down notes. “Unresolved? How was he linked to it? Is he violent?"

  "I shouldn't think so. He's too busy publishing scholarly archaeology articles. Probably just food poisoning in a hot climate."

  The debate got speedily underway. Should U.S. museums, the panel was asking, give their artifacts back to the nations they came from?

  "It is compellingly important,” said an archaeologist, “to enforce foreign laws that protect artifacts from being dug up and smuggled away."

  "Museums don't buy smuggled pots,” shot back a museum lawyer. “And foreign nations can't rob us of the mummies and vases we bought. We hold our exhibits for the public. We're not handing over ancient pots claimed without proof by puny nations” (I choked) “such as Wazeer."

  They argued. Emotions flared. At the wine and cheese reception afterward, Justin Docker, the donor who gave the New York Museum the Wazeer pots in 1972 and wrote the famous articles documenting the yam culture, was in visible distress.

  "So terrible. And Clement was an excellent lawyer,” I sympathized. “You haven't lost those pots yet,” I bantered. I tried to calm him, even though he was my opponent in the case. A lawyer had to be gracious, and I had met Docker at his deposition. He was a fast thinker, clearly knowledgeable about Wazeerian art. “As you know, the court has rescheduled for October, and some equally good attorney will put me to the test."

  "There is no one equal to Fosbroke,” he said. “And if we haven't lost the pots yet, you haven't got them,” he snapped.

  "I am sure,” I said, “the right party will prevail.” How overly long his gray hair was for a middle-aged man—how expensive his hand-stitched suit, probably European. He was, after all, heir to some industrial fortune or other, which was why Justin Docker could take a few months off here and there to travel the world scooping up yam pots.

  The guests soon began discussing Fosbroke.

  "He shouldn't have taken the museum's side,” charged an archaeologist.

  "He was a top-notch attorney,” shot back a lawyer from the Contemporary Art Museum, “who was going to win because he was right!"

  "What do you know, from the Contemporary Art Museum,” muttered an archaeologist who specialized in Aztec ruins. “Give me a museum with pots stolen from Mexico, so I can twist the curator with my bare hands!"

  I was standing next to Sappleworth. He had a remarkably determined expression, with deep creases hardening in his cheeks as he flashed a smile. He wore wire-rimmed glasses, the right side tilting higher than the left.

  "Pleased to meet you, Tilbury,” he said. “Good job at court.” Then, coolly, he added, “Your delivery broke down at the end, however."

  "The—er—Fosbroke disturbance—” I said.

  "And I wanted to point out,” he added, “an error in your legal brief. Several, actually. Argument Four, that bit about the stolen clams case subsequent to the McClain decision—you cite it incorrectly, on page seven—"

  But he interrupted himself. The lawyers were still discussing Fosbroke. To my astonishment, Sappleworth scrambled up on a chair, revealing battered sneakers under his tweed suit.

  "I,” he declared, “would have personally terminated Clement Fosbroke for trying to keep Wazeer's pots if he hadn't been powdered to death!"

  There was a hiss. There were boos.

  "Born-again archaeologist!” shouted a museum lawyer.

  "How dare you speak that way about Fosbroke!” booed another.

  "At the Bar Association!” echoed the chairman.

  I made a quick decision to exit and found Tomlinson also hastening out the door. “Are archaeologists and museum lawyers,” I asked, “always this pleasant to each other?"

  "You wouldn't want to see them,” he said, “abandoned together in an archaeological pit with sharp instruments."

  Later that night in the budget room at Bentley's Ivy League college club, where he insisted that all Phinney & Broome lawyers stay when in New York, noises from pipes vibrating in the walls kept me nervous and awake.

  Ta-bing-tee-dum! came the sounds. Feverishly I tossed, again unable to sleep. The thought of poison vapor made me shiver. The archaeologists were impassioned to the hilt. Ta-bing! I thought of Wazeer's pots. Let me tell you, those were five fantastical pots. More like giant black face masks, really, created to contain yams and be banged on in fertility rituals, producing a ping sound. Ping-tee-tum! I quaked in my bed. The pot faces had huge white painted eyes, dried palm hemp for hair, and noses carved with crosshatching, like pineapples. And their expressions! Like Docker, the grinning donor, surrounded by reporters on the Supreme Court steps. I slept poorly and, rousing myself in the morning, still shuddered in the hot bath I drew in the club's old-fashioned white tub.

  I dreaded breakfast, where reporter Cluckhorn would be my highly alert guest. I dragged myself to the meal, exhausted.

  * * * *

  The club dining room was dotted with businessmen in somber suits. Cluckhorn and I took a table, where a waiter poured coffee from an enormous height out of a gleaming chrome pot. I ordered the Manhattan Power Platter, an arsenal of sausages, eggs, tomatoes, potatoes, and onion on a New York bagel. In heady anticipation, I lifted my coffee cup, the aroma stimulating my sagging brain. But before I could take a sip, Cluckhorn pushed back his chair and insisted I follow him. “I say,” I began. “why are we—?"

  At a nearby table, three men were gesturing toward me: attorneys from Nutchett, Fosbroke's firm. I dutifully approached, Cluckhorn ahead, pad and pen in his hand. I swiftly expressed my sympathies to the lawyers.

  "Tilbury, good to see you,” said one of them
, wearing a deep black suit, clasping my hand.

  "Terribly sorry about this Fosbroke mess,” I said. “Can it really be what everyone says, murder?"

  "Hard to understand,” murmured the second attorney, in charcoal pinstripes. “The firm of Nutchett will carry on anything that Fosbroke did, and of course at top quality."

  Cluckhorn wrote it all down.

  "Exactly,” said the third, dressed in gray. “We see no motive for murdering Fosbroke. New York has seen few lawyers as clean."

  I almost wept as they described all Fosbroke's meritorious deeds, which the reporter dutifully transcribed. Pro bono work for death row inmates and the homeless, lawsuits against monopolies, defense of the needy, and a gift of a new lion cage at the zoo, funds to hold up the Statue of Liberty when its torch was falling down. After a chorus of parting lawyerly pleasantries, I made my excuses and this time almost pushed Cluckhorn back to our table, practically shedding a tear over the loss of Fosbroke while gasping for caffeine. But I couldn't find our table. Someone was sitting at it.

  Eating my Platter.

  Drat! That Cluckhorn. Why had he dragged me away just as coffee was poured?

  "Pardon,” I said, “this is my table. That's my coffee you're drinking."

  "I beg your pardon,” the interloper fumed. “This is my seat."

  "But I left that seat only to talk to some idiotic lawyers,” I fumed. “Don't write that down!” I told Cluckhorn, as he scribbled.

  The man was several hundred pounds. He calmly swigged the caffeine. A waiter rushed over.

  "Sir, you have clearly come to the wrong table,” he murmured, as if I were a misinformed fledgling bird who had just arrived at the wrong birdfeeder.

  "I did not come to the wrong table,” I said. “He did!"

  The maitre d’ strode over. “Please! Our members are holding important conversations. Sit somewhere else. Coffee for the gentlemen—"

  We meekly took another table.

  "How very interesting,” said Cluckhorn, watching the intruding member across the room. “He's drinking the coffee intended for you."

  "I know,” I said. How stupid did he think I was?

  "I was in the courtroom,” he commented, “as early as you were last week. You and I were practically the first ones there."

  I clattered my cup. “I didn't snooze very long—” I began.

  "Do you think someone actually intended to kill Fosbroke?” he interrupted.

  "Do you realize,” I said, annoyed, “we now have to order breakfast all over again!"

  "What I mean is, do you think the poison was left at Fosbroke's table?” he asked.

  "Of course it was!"

  "What a shame,” he replied, “that that man is eating the sausages intended for you."

  Our waiter arrived. What Cluckhorn said sank in. I swallowed.

  I began to feel a prickly sensation.

  "You saw me snoozing in court,” I said. “And Fosbroke trying to change places!"

  He shrugged. “The editor won't print my theory,” he said, “because he says readers won't be interested if the intended victim was a pipsqueak lawyer from Boston instead of Fosbroke. Fosbroke stays the victim, or our story dies."

  "Are you saying the killer thought I would be sitting at Fosbroke's table?” I asked.

  "Well,” Cluckhorn said, “many in the art world were worried you'd win. You were the one trying to make new law. Fosbroke was trying to keep the law as it is. So why would anyone kill him?"

  The waiter poured new coffee. He beamed benevolently to take our breakfast orders.

  "Power Platter?"

  "No,” I said, queasily. “Do you have any plum jam?"

  "Of course."

  "With toast,” I requested briskly. “Why,” I asked, “wouldn't the killer want to kill the United States prosecutor, Ben Hoyt, instead?"

  "I've got that all worked out,” said Cluckhorn, ordering his own Power Platter. “The Supreme Court needs you to explain the law of Wazeer."

  "What,” I yelped, “am I to do?"

  "Find out who did it,” Cluckhorn said.

  * * * *

  In the club lounge, I spotted the Wazeerian official right away. Mr. Bwodkona sat on a blue leather couch, wearing what must have been native dress: a long, loose, rust-red robe that draped over his feet, and an elaborate headdress that covered his head, with beads and shells. It was very impressive. He wore glasses above a feathery mustache. Why, I was honored to receive him!

  "How do you do,” I sweated, awkwardly extending my hand. “Which, er, what consulate department did you say you were with? I don't recall your name from my Wazeer file. Yet you look—familiar. Have we met?"

  "This is my first trip to America,” he said with a Polynesian accent. Yet he spoke perfect English. His face had determined creases. “My consular department is Antiquity, Anthropology, Artifacts, Art."

  "Ahh,” I nodded, but the moment I sat on the couch, I was distracted. Who could be after me? This was a fretful time to be meeting about yam pots.

  "There are absolutely no other antiquities anywhere in the world,” Bwodkona was saying, tugging here and there at his loose robe, “from the yam fertility culture, which is why we must have the five pots back."

  "Yes,” I muttered, barely following the conversation.

  "Now that it is after ten o'clock,” Bwodkona said, “I would like us to go to the museum to see the pots."

  I just about fell off my seat. See the pots! “Whatever for?” I asked. “At the museum?” It was enemy territory! I had work to do. Lawyers don't look at pots! Let alone yam pots. What would Bentley say? It was bad enough that this entire trip was generating no legal billables for the firm. I stared at the man. “If you think—” I began.

  But Bwodkona became highly agitated, attracting stares from the guests wearing normal business suits, saying loudly that he would “take care of the problem himself” if I didn't go, and suggesting he might provoke some conflict with museum officials. He seemed headstrong as a rabbit and as quick to change course. Which he could apparently do with the white sneakers poking out from under his robe.

  "You might have mentioned you wanted to go to the museum,” I sputtered, trailing after him as he strode across the room, “and I could have arranged to meet you there.” Rather than chase you flapping across Midtown in that strange dress, I thought. He charged down the ornate staircase to the street.

  Where the client goes, there go I.

  * * * *

  The Micronesian Gallery—how lavishly appointed! The muted lights, the hushed whir of the temperature-control system, the apricot carpet and walls were arranged to best show off the Wazeerian pots, housed in a tall glass case at the center of the room. I put on my reading glasses to examine the labels. The yam pots, two of them rather large, leered behind the glass, taking on menacing expressions under tiny spotlights. Shadows flickered off the strange shapes.

  Bwodkona became increasingly animated, tugging his mustache. He tugged at the beads of the headdress that fully covered his hair, exposing only his face.

  "I say,” I said. He was hopping, making clucking noises like a cat about to lunge through a window at a bird. “Calm down!"

  Visitors studied the pots. A high school class came in.

  "You will now each recite,” the teacher said, “your prepared reports on the Wazeer yam culture. Rodney?"

  Bwodkona smiled. Again his face seemed strangely familiar. But from where?

  The boy named Rodney, thin and lanky, lethargically took his place in front of the pots, with a posture that was not entirely respectful. He consulted a crumpled page of notes.

  "According to the article on the museum Web site by the so-called ‘famed’ donor, Justin Docker, who gave the museum the pots, the yam culture of Wazeer reigned around the time of 2000 B.C. Yams were the center of Wazeer's religious life and many rituals surrounded these pots. They danced with the pots and used them for drums. Uh, Miss Kramer? I have a Q. Who cares about yam pots? Why are t
hese people, like, talking in hushed tones when they enter this room just because this stuff is in a fancy case with expensive lights?"

  "This is fine art, Rodney Finklestein!"

  "My little sister could do better than that."

  It happened again.

  I collapsed in hysterical laughter.

  Yam pots. The kid was right. Who cared?

  "Yams,” I burbled, with the cockeyed perspective that comes from lying awake all night while a ping-tee-tum sound pops from the walls.

  "Class!” warned Miss Kramer, as the teens sniggered.

  "Yams!” I guffawed, collapsing at the base of the glass museum case.

  The security alarm sounded.

  I'd done it again. Tilbury, get a grip! Leave! Guards bolted into the room. For the second time in two weeks my career was finished. What would the law firm say?

  But they weren't rushing at me. No—Bwodkona. He'd taken a hatchet from his robe, smashed the case, and taken all five pots.

  He stuffed them in a black canvas bag and ran.

  "Stop!” I called. “You can't take those pots!"

  Guards raced past, walkie-talkies buzzing. But Bwodkona had vanished.

  "So,” said Edith. “Police custody again?"

  I explained.

  "Write something down, Edith,” I interrupted, “and stick it on a note on my desk: ‘Who cares about yam pots?’”

  "Jam pots?"

  "Yam pots!"

  "How,” she asked, “do I explain to Bentley that you went to New York at all?"

  "Tell him,” I said, “that I was seeking new business for Phinney & Broome at an important bar association meeting, attended by numerous archaeologists who want to send many antique pots in U.S. museums back to their native lands and will need a lawyer to do so."

  "Oh,” said Edith.

  "The note,” I reminded her. “'Who cares about yam pots?’”

  * * * *

  "How,” said Bentley, at his sleek teak desk devoid of actual law work, “do you retain a client who won't pay you?"

  He waved the unpaid invoice in his chubby hand.

  "Moreover, who steals five yam pots from New York's leading museum?” He puffed his unlit cigar. “On the other hand,” he considered, “if they get criminally charged in New York for stealing the pots, that means more legal fees for us!"