The Pot Thief Who Studied Ptolemy [02] (17 page)

“Hubert Schuze!” he cried out too loudly. “Of course! I knew I recognized your name. You’re the pot thief.”

“Pot
merchant
.”

“Thief, merchant. It comes to the same thing, doesn’t it.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Well it does. Of course a thief steals from you directly. A merchant’s just the middleman. But you both profit from someone else’s labor.”

“Exactly. That makes him an art hero in my book.” He waved a hand expansively. “Should all the museums of the world return their Matisses to France? Send back their Vermeers to Holland? Of course not. Look around this room. If I had to repatriate everything you see to the ethnic group it came from, we’d be sitting on bare floors.” He glanced at my drink. “And we’d be drinking water in plastic. The champagne is from France and the flute from Poland.”

“Maybe Schuze could play Chopin on it,” said Horace. Freddie and I both ignored him.

I was tempted to tell Freddie the champagne was inferior to New Mexico’s Gruet but resisted.

I could see why his guests, Horace excluded, dressed flamboyantly. They needed to keep up with Freddie. He wore a blousy powder blue shirt made of a shiny fabric like silk or satin with concealed buttons and drawstring wrists. Under the loose-fitting shirt was a pair of tight-fitting black slacks and high heel ankle boots with silver toe plates. I half expected him to break into a flamenco.

His place looked like the main hall in a major gallery. Blass owned two units and had removed the wall between them and all the partitions in the second unit. He had even removed the second kitchen in order to have a large space to entertain and display.

Unlike Gerstner’s and Stella’s units, this one looked like a loft. The suspended ceiling had been removed and the ducts and wires painted black and left exposed. Industrial track lighting illuminated the paintings and sculptures.

In addition to the Persian carpet, there were African masks, a carved Japanese screen, a batik from China that looked antique, a low chaise upholstered in a Marimekko print from Finland, and several dozen pieces on the walls, including a series of nude Barbie dolls mounted on a canvas and painted in various colors with headings scribbled around them in differing alphabets.

“Maybe the Barbies could stay,” I said. “They look American.”

Blass laughed loudly. “That’s the only piece that’s mine. Can you believe it took first prize at the Western States Biennale? The judges said it captured America’s commercialization of the female form and how we export this twisted view of women to other cultures. Quite a load of bullshit, wouldn’t you say? But one collector actually offered me ten thousand for it. Life is good when you’re an artist. But poor old Arthur here is a writer and can’t get a word published, can you Horace?”

Horace looked at me with his turmeric eyes. “It’s true. My work is crap like Freddie’s. The difference is no one wants to buy it.”

Blass had a triangular face with a sharp nose above the thin moustache. His high forehead was topped with prematurely gray hair combed casually back without a part. He had intelligent eyes, a great voice, and very good posture. His outfit was more costume than clothes, but he actually looked good in it.

He offered to get me a second glass of champagne and Horace Arthur a single malt scotch if he would leave me alone. Horace agreed and he and Blass went to the bar. Freddie returned with my champagne, and I noticed it was in a freshly chilled flute. He flung his arm around my shoulder and said, “Let me show you around.”

He did, and I was happy to confirm that Gerstner was not among the guests. Neither was Stella, but all the other beautiful people were, most of them dressed with élan if not flamboyance. Still, I could not bring myself to put the ascot back on.

The Frederick Blass Collection was not confined to his expansive living area. The bedrooms were packed with paintings, sculptures, photographs, and collectibles ranging from antique dueling pistols to a working renaissance clavichord. Even the bathrooms had art. One had what appeared to my untrained eye to be a genuine Degas – a nude in a bath, appropriately enough.

After the tour, Freddie guided me up to Susannah.

“I think you know this stunning beauty,” he said and excused himself to see to his other guests.

Susannah usually looks like the girl next door with her brown hair in a ponytail and dressed in her waitress’ uniform of black slacks, a man’s shirt, and sensible shoes. For Blass’ party, she wore a swishy emerald-green dress with spaghetti straps and her hair up to reveal shoulders that deserved the description as stunning.

33

Susannah retrieved her cell phone from her purse and called a number she had called shortly before we arrived. She listened to ten rings then hung up.

I slipped out to the hall and then in to the stairwell. I didn’t want to risk meeting anyone in the elevator. I climbed one flight and was happy to find the clay plug still in the bolthole. Happy but not surprised. After all, the doors opened from the floors as they always had, and no one was likely to discover that they now also opened from the stairwell side because the residents who used the stairs wouldn’t try to open a door back onto a floor other than the ground floor or the basement.

I eased the door open and saw no one in the hall, so I walked directly to Gerstner’s door and loided his lock.

I closed the door behind me and stood listening for any human sound. I heard none. I walked through the apartment and verified it was empty. Of course that had also been true the first time I was there, and the fear of having someone walk in on me again propelled me into action. But before I did what I came to do, I opened the door on the hutch and discovered the pot I had seen was gone.

Depressing.

I removed my coat and hung it over the arm of the couch. I pressed down on the parsons table behind the couch firmly with both hands. It seemed sturdy enough for my one hundred and forty pounds, so I climbed onto it. I reached up and pushed a ceiling tile up out of its tracks. The parsons table was the height of the couch back – perhaps three feet – and when added to my five feet and six inches, it put my eyes an inch above the suspended ceiling. I rose up on tippy toes and shone a small flashlight around the area above the tiles. You see, I had decided after the first visit to the apartment that the only place the rest of the missing pots could be was above the suspended ceiling.

And what did I see when I looked up there? Wires, ducts, pipes, and cobwebs. No pots.

I had left the pot in the hutch the first time because I had been interrupted. I’m not sure I would have taken it at any rate. I didn’t want anyone to know I had been there. I wanted to get all the pots, not just one of them. Now I was muttering about birds and hands and bushes and wishing to hell I’d taken the pot when I had the chance.

Resting on the ceiling tile next to me was a canister for a recessed light. I could see the edge of something behind it, so I reached around to see if I could tell what it was. Just as I touched it, a piercing metallic boom assailed my ears, and I feared I had set off an explosion by touching it. Both my feet left the table but only one returned to it, and I crashed awkwardly to the floor.

A quick scan of the room from my position on the floor told me no one had walked in on me. I looked up at the ceiling and saw a sprinkler head next to the recessed light. That’s what I had touched from the other side. It was not sprinkling, so I hadn’t set it off.

I stood up warily and nothing gave way or hurt. Evidently, I hadn’t broken anything, although I did have a scratch on my right arm under a tear in my shirt.

I climbed back onto the table. The tracks of the suspended ceiling hung from wire threaded through holes and cut with snips. My right arm had dragged across one as I fell.

I replaced the ceiling tile and dismounted somewhat less awkwardly than I had a minute earlier. I collected my coat and exited Gerstner’s residence. I carried the coat because I didn’t want to get blood on the inside of its sleeve.

When I arrived back at 1009, I tried the door and found it locked. Loiding it seemed like a bad idea since I knew not only that the owner was home, but also that he had several dozen guests. Anyway, Susannah and I had anticipated this possibility. I tapped on the door lightly and she let me in.

I was happy to see her. I was not happy to see Horace Arthur standing next to her.

“Where did you go?” he asked me.

I had opened my mouth to tell him it was none of his business when it occurred to me that being defensive would call more attention to my little sojourn than I wanted it to have, so I said, “I stepped outside for a smoke.”

She said it didn’t. She had been by the door with a good view of the entire place and saw nothing. Since the sound seemed to come from the wall opposite the door, she speculated it came from outside.

I told her to order me another champagne, and I found Blass’ bathroom. I washed the blood off my arm and covered the scratch with a Band-Aid I found in his medicine cabinet. I put my blazer back on and examined myself in the mirror. Then I took the ascot out and tried it on again. I felt a little like David Niven playing a cat burglar. “What the hell,” I said aloud and walked back into the party.

34

Susannah smiled when she saw the ascot and handed me a fresh champagne which no one could deny I had earned. Then she went to deliver another scotch to Horace while I went to mingle.

I introduced myself to a man in a black silk jogging suit and metallic silver running shoes who was looking at a large R. C. Gorman painting of an Indian woman on her haunches. He said his name was Jack W-i-e-z-g-a. That’s how he said it.

“You’re wearing the state flag around your neck. Is that a protest of sorts?”

“What would I be protesting?”

“The treatment of the prisoners at Cerrillos? The lack of affordable housing in Santa Fe? How the hell should I know? It’s your protest.” He laughed and slapped me on my back. He had huge hands. His thinning silver hair was tucked behind his ears and was just long enough to curl up slightly in the back. He had a broad sloping forehead and a big square jaw.

“Well, you’re lucky. Most artists can’t afford to be collectors. Look at this Gorman. The man’s a genius. He drew those simple stylized curves, put sketchy feet on them, and they caught on like the flu. Man’s a millionaire, but look at this piece. Dated. Completely passé. The trick is not to produce great art. The trick is to produce it at the right time. Timing is everything. If Andy Warhol had done the soup can ten years earlier or later, he wouldn’t have enjoyed even his own fifteen minutes of fame.”