The Pot Thief Who Studied Einstein by J. Michael Orenduff Read Free Book Online

warn her about Italian men, partly because it was not my place to do so, but mainly because I don’t know anything about Italian men.
    What I did know was that 183 Titanium Trail had to be the house I had done the appraisal in. The location seemed right. The size seemed right. The back window was in the right place. The door was the right distance from the curb. I was positive it was Cantú’s house. I was positive it was Cantú’s collection.
    But I had a nagging feeling in the back of my mind that some small detail was wrong.

7
     
     
    Martin Seepu was standing in front of my shop with a pot in his hand when Susannah dropped me off.
    I said, “I hope your uncle’s not in dire need of money, because I can’t afford to buy that pot right now.”
    “That’s what these tourists have been telling me all afternoon.”
    “They don’t even know your uncle.”
    “I meant the ‘can’t afford to buy that pot’ part.” He shook his head in mock disgust. “There was a time in this country when white people had money.”
    Martin Seepu’s uncle is a gifted potter who occasionally sends Martin to me with a pot he wants to sell. His works are traditional for his pueblo which is why I buy them. I don’t like contemporary adaptations and experiments. New Mexico’s potters are free to use iridescent glazes and decorate their pots with embedded casino chips if they want to, but I don’t have to buy and sell the stuff.
    Another reason I buy Martin’s uncle’s works is they always sell within a few months. Some people know quality when they see it. The only reason his pots don’t bring even more is he isn’t famous. He could be if he promoted himself or allowed an agent to do so. A book about him or a TV special would quadruple what he can get for a pot, but he doesn’t want that. Martin respects that. So do I, but I grimace when someone walks off with one his pots for three or four thousand even after I mark it up.
    “So you’ve been taking advantage of my absence to hawk your wares on my doorstep,” I said.
    “You can see how well that worked. I did get one offer. A fat five-year-old offered to trade his ice cream cone for my pot.”
    “Probably figured he could snooker an Indian.”
    “I have to admit I was tempted. An ice cream would have tasted good on a hot day like this. But he’d already licked it.”
    “I don’t have any ice cream, but I do have some cold beer.”
    “You got Tecate?”
    “You gonna turn me down if I don’t have the right brand?”
    “A man’s got to have standards.”
    We went through the store to my living area in the back. While Martin pulled a couple of Tecates from the fridge along with a bowl of salsa, I looked up Cantú’s number and dialed it. A recorded voice told me the number was no longer in service, as if it had been discharged from the military.
    I dumped chips into a bowl, and we took everything out to my patio, a ten by fifteen space on the east side of my building surrounded by an eight foot adobe wall. The building shades the patio in the afternoon, so the air was already twenty degrees cooler than the noon high of ninety-seven. The twin cottonwoods swayed ever so slightly, their leaves alternating between lime green and silver.
    I tutored Martin in math when he was a kid and I was an undergraduate. I think the aim of the program that oversaw placing university students in the pueblos was for us to function something like the Big Brothers program. Martin already had a big brother and a big sister as well. He also had two parents who provided him all the guidance he needed and more than he wanted. So I taught him math just to feel like I was doing something useful. He evidently harbors no grudge about that because he comes to visit me frequently. He’s always civil, but sometimes you have to work to see it.
    I told Martin about Segundo Cantú. He listened attentively with that blank expression he wears. After I finished, he took another sip of his beer. He likes