I was flabbergasted. “How did you know I saw you?”
“I also saw you,” he said as if it were obvious.
“But the place was dark, and you never looked at me.”
He smiled. “I’m a trained observer. I don’t need to look at you to see you.”
I felt silly and embarrassed about hiding behind my work table now that I knew he knew I was there all along.
“I saw someone else in the restaurant late one night.” I hated to rat on Arliss, but I figured Webbe needed to know.
“Arliss Mansfield,” he said.
Sees all, knows all, I thought. “What was he doing there?”
He told me. I felt gloomy.
“How did you get in Molinero’s office, anyway?” I asked him.
He gave me a cold stare. “If I told you, I’d have to kill you.”
Then he laughed. He had an easy laugh.
“Why didn’t you say something when you saw me?”
“I didn’t want to blow my cover. Anyway, I figured you’d think I was trying to steal something, and that was fine. Just as long as you didn’t know I was looking for evidence.”
I nodded.
He smiled broadly. “You probably felt bad about labeling a black man a thief.”
“I did.”
“Well, don’t be too hard on yourself. If I see someone in an office in a closed and dark building, I assume he’s a burglar. The color of his skin doesn’t matter.”
I refilled his cup and he accepted another cuerno de azucar.
“So Arliss wasn’t the accomplice and neither were you. Can you tell me who it was?”
“Bonnie Miller, but you know her as Wallace Voile.”
“So Wallace was an alias. And… Wait, Miller? As in James Miller? Macklin Masoot told me she was Molinero’s paramour, but I didn’t believe him.”
“You were right not to believe him.”
“She wasn’t his paramour?”
He shook his head. “Jim Miller wasn’t her lover. He was her father.”
I drank some coffee while that sunk in. I had disliked her from the moment we met, but now I saw her not as the icy beauty but as the girl whose father had been killed.
“Why did you pose as a dishwasher?”
“I couldn’t pose as a chef. I can’t cook. And a black man applying for a dishwashing job doesn’t raise anyone’s suspicion.”
“That’s a sad commentary.”
“Won’t always be that way,” he said. His tone reflected both realism and confidence. Maybe those are the ingredients of wisdom, I thought.
“How’d you come up with the name M’Lanta?”
He laughed. “You like it?”
“Not really. But I guess it worked.”
“I was trying to find a name when I saw a bottle of the stuff, and I liked the absurdity of it so much, I couldn’t resist.”
“When I told a friend of mine your name was M’Lanta, she said, ‘No wonder he’s a potscrubber’. I told her some people might consider that a racist remark.”
“Some might. Not me. It’s a classist remark. A black man named R’nandle is at a disadvantage in life. But so is a white man named Jethro. It’s harder for the black man because he already has a steeper hill to climb, but names do make a difference.”
“R’nandle?”
“Just made it up. Maybe I should have used that rather than M’Lanta.”
“Charles Webbe has a nice ring to it,” I said.
“It was the name of the best man I ever knew,” he said, “my father.”
And the name of the man who saved my life, I thought to myself.
58
Susannah said, “I can’t believe you tried to crack the safe.”
I shook my head at my own folly. “If I’d had the sense not to try, I would’ve been out of there before Molinero showed up. I wouldn’t have been shot at and almost killed.”
“What I don’t understand is why you went there to begin with. Why not just tell the police your suspicion about Molinero and let them handle it?”
“I thought about doing that. I wanted to do that. Skulking around empty buildings goes against my nature. But I kept thinking about that saying that the wheels of justice grind slowly.”
“Everyone knows that, Hubie. As sayings go, it’s just run of the mill.”
“Hey, I’m the one who makes puns,” I complained after I laughed.
“Yeah, but sometimes a girl needs revenge.”
“So I knew if I turned it over to the police, it would eventually work out. But in the meantime, someone else might get killed.”
“Because someone else might recognize Miller and become a threat to him like Barry did?”
“Right. Or he might try to kill Alain or another worker to put Chile Schnitzel out of business.”
“So you decided to play hero and do it yourself.”
“You know I lack the hero gene. All I had to do was find a second set of books and take them away. I didn’t think it would be dangerous.”
“But you made it dangerous. You prolonged your stay by carefully cutting out the window and then trying to crack the safe. Why not just smash the window, rifle through the desk and be gone?”
“A guy could get hurt with broken glass flying everywhere. And I don’t like making a mess.”
“Jeez.”
The little pun devil spoke to me. “Besides, my solution was paneless.”
“Double jeez. Why did you think Molinero had an accomplice?”
“I just thought that dragging a dead body through a parking garage and hoisting it into the back of my Bronco was too much for one person. Even if Molinero could lift the body, he’d need a lookout at the very least. And Scruggs seemed the likeliest accomplice because I had seen him in Molinero’s office.”
“You also saw Arliss in the restaurant late at night.”
“And I put him on the list of possible accomplices, but it turns out he was there for another reason.”
“Which was?”
I sighed. “He was taking food.”
“Arliss Mansfield is a thief?”
“It wasn’t like Escoffier. He wasn’t sending it to a second family or selling it for profit. The poor guy is broke. He didn’t even have enough money to buy food. So he took some.”
“Why didn’t he just ask?”
“Maybe he was too proud. Maybe he planned to reimburse the restaurant once he got paid. I don’t know what he was thinking.”
“So it wasn’t Scruggs – Webbe – and it wasn’t Arliss. Who was it?”
“You picked Wallace Voile as the murderess. You almost had it. She was the accomplice.”
“I knew she was something,” she said excitedly. “The first clue was using an alias. I was right, wasn’t I? Wallace is an alias.”
“Yes. And so is Voile.”
“What’s her real name?”
“Bonnie Miller.”
She inhaled audibly. “Miller’s wife?”
“His daughter.”
“God. Now I feel awful.”
We sat in silence for a while.
“Tell me something happy,” said Susannah.
“M’Lanta Scruggs cleaned up well.”
“He looked like a thug,” she said. “I was kind of afraid of him.”
“You should have seen him this morning. He was immaculate in a business suit, white shirt and rep tie. His head was shaved and shiny, like a bowling ball.”
“That’s not a correct thing to say, Hubert.”
“You’re right. Bowling balls come in all sorts of colors now. I should have said, ‘a black bowling ball’.”
She shook her head and signaled for Angie.
I took a sip of the fresh margarita just to make sure it was as good as the first one. It was.
“I’ll tell you something else happy. Trying to crack that safe made me think of the famous safe cracker, Jimmy Valentine. As fate would have it, he fell in love with the daughter of a banker. The banker had some sort of r
eception at the bank one night and Valentine was invited. Two young girls were playing near the safe. One of them ran into the safe and the other one playfully pushed the door shut. But it had a time-lock and would not open for twenty four hours. By then, the little girl would have suffocated. There was panic among the guests, especially the mother of the little girl in the safe. Valentine stepped to the safe and turned the tumblers. He felt the clicks that revealed the combination because he sandpapered his fingers to make them sensitive. He opened the safe and the child was saved.”
“That’s a nice story, Hubie.”
“Wait. It gets better. A policeman was among the attendees at the party. When he saw the man open the safe, he knew it must be Jimmy Valentine. Valentine recognized the policemen. Knowing he had blown his cover, he walked up to the officer and held out his hands for the cuffs, saying, ‘You saw it all. Now you must do your duty.’ But the detective said, ‘I thought you were someone I’m after, but I see I was mistaken. You are a better man than the one I seek’. M’Lanta Scruggs seemed to be a potscrubber with attitude, but he, too, was a better man than I realized.”
“Is that really a true story?”
I smiled at her. “Sure. He saved my life.”
She rolled her eyes. “The story about Jimmy Valentine. Is that true?”
“I doubt it. It was written by William Sydney Porter, another person who used an alias.”
“What was his alias?”
“O. Henry.”
59
I made my final trip to Santa Fe the next morning to meet with a forensic accountant from the FBI.
When he suggested we work in Molinero’s office, I told him there was no way I was going into the kitchen, much less the office. I was adamant about not returning to the scene of the shoot out.
We sat in my previous work space – the private dining room – and went through the documents.
What a mess. Unpaid invoices included the heavy wood entry doors, the clay and glazing supplies, and a ticket for Kuchen from Albuquerque back to Vienna. There was a change of planes in New York, of course. Most of the flights from Albuquerque’s Sunport are provided by Southwest Airlines. I don’t think they fly to Vienna.
I turned over all my records and explained what I knew about the operations of Schnitzel and Chile Schnitzel. As I walked away, it felt like those records must have weighed a hundred pounds. But when I reached the door, I couldn’t leave.
I remembered that first day when the staff had performed their pantomime for Kuchen. I pictured Juan the bacon chopper whose family name I never knew, Barry and Santiago – or Jim – both dead. I thought of Arliss, Jürgen, Helen, Alain, Machlin, Maria and Raoul, out of work. I wondered if Bonnie was headed for prison. It was a bizarre chapter of my life. I needed to turn the page.
I walked to Maria’s apartment.
“Hubie, I’m surprised to see you here.” She smiled as she stood in the doorway, but she did not invite me in.
“I’m surprised to be here,” I responded. “I had to meet with someone from the FBI, so I figured as long as I was in Santa Fe—”
“You’d stop by for a nap on my love seat?”
Our laughter was hollow.
“No, just to apologize.”
“No apology necessary.”
I didn’t know what else to say. Then a voice I recognized said from inside the apartment, “You’re letting all the heat out.”
“Guess I better get back inside,” she said.
“Right. Goodbye, Maria.”
“Bye, Hubie”
60
I went by Feats of Clay on my way home to cancel the plate project only to find they had completed it.
I came home with a hundred plates, each sporting my red and green chile design. After explaining my predicament, they had agreed to charge me only ten dollars a plate for the firing. Of course the clay and glazing material had never been paid for, but the FBI would have to sort out the finances of Schnitzel and Santiago Molinero/James Miller.
I opened for business and put one of the plates on the counter. I went to the kitchen and started stacking the other ninety-nine plates under my sink next to the Ajax and the Windex. The bong signaled the arrival of a customer. I continued stacking, figuring the customer would browse.
A combination of weariness with stacking and concern about shoplifting eventually drove me to the front. The customer was holding the plate. “How much is this?” she asked.
“One hundred dollars,” I said. “And it’s hand made.”
“By you?”
“I designed it. Someone else fired it.”
“Would you sign it for me?”
“Sure.”
While she signed a check, I signed the bottom of the plate with an Axner overglaze pen.
“You can have the plate fired again if you want the signature to become part of the glaze.”
“I just plan to keep my fresh chilies on it. And maybe use it as a centerpiece from time to time. Will the signature last without firing if I use it that way?”
I told her it would and wrapped the plate.
I chuckled when she left, recalling my words to Molinero: “I’m like the artisans I represent,” I had told him, “I do only traditional work.”
If I had stuck to my principles, the nightmare at Schnitzel never would have happened. Maybe there was a lesson there. I called Dolly and invited her for dinner.
The sale of a second plate shortly before closing buoyed my spirits. If I eventually sold all one hundred, I’d gross ten thousand dollars. I had paid a thousand for the glazing, so I would net nine thousand. I could use four thousand to pay off my hotel bill, and still have five thousand left over to use for… what?
The Barry Stiles Scholarship Fund for someone from Martin’s pueblo who wanted to attend culinary school.
61
Martin and I showed up at Dos Hermanas to find Susannah already there. Two margaritas and a Tecate were waiting.
Well, one margarita was waiting. The other one had started without us. Susannah was not her bubbly self.
“Rafael called me today and cancelled the date we had tonight. I didn’t take it well, guys.”
“You say something you regret?” asked Martin.
“It was the third time he’s cancelled on me. What I said to him was, ‘Don’t bother calling again.’ It felt good at the time, but now I’m beginning to regret it.”
“Don’t,” I said.
“Why?”
“I went by Maria’s apartment today to apologize.”
“And you regret it?”
“No, I needed to do it. But while I was standing on her porch, I heard a man’s voice coming from inside the apartment.”
She put her elbow on the table and her chin in her hand. She looked at Martin and then back at me. “Rafael?”
I nodded.
She lifted her chin off her hand and exhaled. She took a big swig of her drink. “I’m getting better at this,” she said.
Neither Martin nor I said anything.
“I used to rush in, fall too hard, but I guess I’ve become more wary. I wish girls didn’t have to be wary. That would be a better world.”
Martin and I continued to remain silent.
“There was a lot to like about Rafael,” she said. “He’s handsome and has a good sense of humor. But there was something else.”
“The way he looked at other girls?” I asked.
“You noticed that, too?”
“Sort of obvious.”
“Well, it’s no big deal. We only had three dates. It’s not like I was in love with him. But still…”
“You want a hug?” Martin asked.
She nodded, and he stood up and opened his arms. She stepped into them and he embraced her.
When she sat back down, he looked at me. “How about you, kemo sabe?”
Susannah laughing was contagious. The three of us must have laughed for a full minute.
“So what about you, Hubie?” she asked. “
Are you sorry you fell asleep on Maria’s loveseat?”
“I was the next morning, but now that I see how things have worked out, it was probably for the best. I don’t need to complicate my life. I’m happy with Dolly. We’ll see how things go.”
“What about you, Martin? You going to stay a bachelor like Hubie?”
“Diogenes said, ‘A man who takes a wife and children gives hostages to fate’.”
“That is so pessimistic,” said Susannah.
“I guess that’s why they call him a cynic,” said Martin.
That started another laughing jag.
Susannah suggested we have another round.
While we waited, Susannah said, “Isn’t this a peachy way to spend a Saturday night? A girl who can’t get a guy, a guy who doesn’t want a girl, and a guy who has one but doesn’t know if he wants to trade her in. Sitting in a tortilla factory drinking margaritas.”
“And a Tecate,” added Martin.
“Sounds like my definition of a fun time,” I said.
“Can’t do this on the Rez,” said Martin.
“I guess it’s not that bad a way to spend the evening.”
“Thanks a lot,” Martin and I said in unison.
When our second round came, Susannah lifted her glass. “To the three Musketeers.”
Martin and I glanced at each other and said in unison – “Tous pour un, un pour tous.”
About the Author
On the day Mike Orenduff got his drivers license, his father gave him a 1950 Oldsmobile coupe that stranded him in so many New Mexico towns that he got to know every mechanic south of Truth or Consequences. By the time he entered graduate school at the University of New Mexico, he and his wife Lai were driving a more reliable car – a 1965 Volkswagen Beetle – and they drove the wheels off it exploring exploring the northern half of the state. His love of The Land of Enchantment is evident in his Pot Thief mysteries which have won The New Mexico Book of the Year Award, the national ‘Eppie‘ award for best mystery, The Dark Oak Mystery Award, and Fiction Book of the Year from The Public Safety Writers Association. He enjoys hearing from his readers and can be contacted at [email protected]
The Pot Thief Who Studied Escoffier Page 20
