The Pot Thief Who Studied Ptolemy [02] by J. Michael Orenduff Read Free Book Online Page B

the elderly ones probably do as well, but they just choose not to.”
    “So you’ll be trying to burgle something you may not even recognize?”
    “I’ll recognize them. I know the size, I know what is probably the dominant color, and I know something else.”
    “What?”
    “Gerstner isn’t a pot collector, so any pot I find in his place will almost certainly be one of the missing Ma pots.”
    “What will you do with them if you find them?”
    I thought it over while I sipped my margarita. Before my trip to San Roque, I would have said I’d sell most of the pots to a discriminating collector and keep one for myself to admire. Now that I knew the history of the pots – or at least part of it – I wasn’t so sure. I felt like I had a duty to return any of the originals I found and sell only the copies. The copies were genuine Ma pots after all, and a collector wouldn’t know or care what the Ma thought about their lack of magic.
    “Maybe the pots will tell me.”
    “I know pots have mouths, but I don’t think they talk. And anyway, they’d probably speak Taos.”
    “Tanoan. Actually, Tanoan is a group of languages, like Slavic or Romance.”
    “Well, I don’t speak any of those, especially Romance.” She hesitated for a moment, and then said, “Are you ready for this, Hubie? I’m thinking of going online.”
    “I thought you were already online. You tell me about emails you receive. Don’t you have to be online to get email?”
    “Hubert, talking to you about computers makes me know how you anthropologists must feel when you stumble across a primitive tribe. I’m not talking about email. I’m talking about an online dating service. See, you post your picture and a little write-up about yourself telling prospective dates what you like and don’t like, and then if someone is interested, they contact you via the dating service site, and the two of you can exchange messages. Then, if you’re both interested, you can make plans to meet.”
    It sounded like the worst idea I’d ever heard, but I tried not to change my expression, and I told myself to keep an open mind. After all, this was the first time I’d ever heard there were online dating services, so I figured I should at least hear more about them before writing them off as one more piece of evidence that civilization as we know it is crumbling.
    I selected the largest tortilla chip in the bowl, loaded it up with salsa and started chewing.
    Susannah looked at me expectantly, but I kept on chewing.
    “Well, are you going to say anything?”
    “Anthropologists don’t ‘stumble across’ primitive peoples. We search them out deliberately.”
    “I knew you’d hate the idea. I don’t know why I told you.”
    “I don’t hate it. I just don’t understand it.”
    “What’s not to understand? It’s just a blind date, except it’s arranged by an online dating service instead of a well-meaning aunt fixing you up with her next door neighbor’s son who’s a brilliant doctor. Except he turns out to be a pathologist with bad teeth and a comb-over, and the only people he deals with all day are dead. At least an online service screens people and you get to see a picture of them.”
    “I understand the blind date part, Suze. What I don’t understand is why you need to do that. You’re attractive, intelligent, and have a good sense of humor. Men should be lining up to date you.”
    “They are, Hubie, but the line-up looks like one you’d see down at the police station. Of the last three guys I’ve dated, one turned out to be married, one had a third-grade vocabulary, and the last one’s idea of an aftershave was something that smelled like Pine-Sol.”
    “Maybe if you didn’t spend so much time with me—”
    “Don’t be ridiculous,” she snapped. “What sort of a date would I meet at five o’clock? If I don’t have a date by five, I’m not likely to meet one during the rush hour.”
    “Well, I guess that makes—”
    “And have I