The Pot Thief Who Studied Ptolemy [02] (29 page)
Read The Pot Thief Who Studied Ptolemy [02] Online
Authors: J Michael Orenduff
“Which is what, national television?”
“No, but they are initials.” I handed her the paper on which Father Groaz had this: национален цeнтъp възражданєтоо.
She stared at a minute then said, “Natzeonalen tsenter vuzrazhdaneto?”
“Wow, your pronunciation sounds exactly like the way Father Groaz said it. I’m impressed you can read Cyrillic.”
“I can’t really read it. I only know the actual meanings of maybe twenty words, but doing the research on Nesterov had me seeing so much Cyrillic that I decided to memorize the sounds the letters make.”
“Geez, Suze, that sounds like something I would do.”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought as I was doing it. You’re a bad influence on me. Anyway, there are only 30 letters and most of them appear in Nesterov’s three names and the titles of his paintings, so by the time I’d finished the paper, I already knew most of the sounds. I’m guessing the first two words are ‘national center’?”
“Right, and the last one means ‘rebirth’ or ‘renaissance’.”
“So what is it, an arts group of some sort?”
“Hardly. It’s a band of fervent Rusyn nationalists. Evidently, they chose the term ‘renaissance’ because they admired a movement in neighboring Bulgaria that used that phrase. The Bulgarians were under Ottoman rule for five hundred years, and sometime in the eighteenth century they began to assert their national identity which eventually led to their liberation.”
I could see she wasn’t interested in Bulgarian history, so I didn’t add the rest of the story Father Groaz had told me.
She stared back down at the paper and said, “Wouldn’t it be a lot easier if they used the same alphabet as everyone else?”
“Probably. And it would reinforce your theory about country names that start with vowels.”
“Right, because the U thing turns out not to be a vowel.”
“So I guess that’s not the first letter of Ukraine.”
“I told you that already, Hubert. The first letter of Ukraine is a ‘T’ –
The
Ukraine.”
I chuckled and decided not to contest the point. “One of the things I found in Gerstner’s filing cabinet was a copy of a letter he sent to the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington. It wasn’t written in Cyrillic, but the wording was so indirect, it may as well have been. I think what it amounted to was an offer to sell them information about Rusyn activities. I don’t know if they ever responded.”
“So he really was a mole?”
“More of a rat I’d say. But he did have a connection with that famous Rusyn, Andy Warhol.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. His being murdered brought him his fifteen minutes of fame.”
She rolled her eyes and leaned back in her chair.
We sat there for a while listening to the background noise of customers ordering
tamales
and the bartender mixing drinks.
Susannah said, “You remember that Maltese falcon, Hubie? It looked like a big ugly tchotchke your grandmother might have had in her bookcase. But when they scraped the paint off it, it was encrusted with jewels. Are the pots like that?”
“Indeed they are. Except they have gold in them rather than jewels.”
“You didn’t put gold in the copy you made, did you?”
I shook my head.
“What will happen to that copy?”
“Right now it’s evidence, but I doubt it will ever see the inside of a courtroom. Blass will probably plea-bargain.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because he knows he can’t win at trial, and he has something to bargain with – the Ma pots. He can tell the police who he sold them to, and most of them will probably be recovered. That’s an important thing for the Ma, and I think the DA will know that. And Whit told me he also guesses Blass will bargain.”
“So what will happen to him?”
“Fletcher or Blass?”
“Both.”
“Blass will probably get a ten year sentence and serve about half of it.”
“That doesn’t seem like much for killing someone.”
“Yeah. But the justice system is strange, Suze. Did you know that in the penalty phase of a murder trial, they can have witnesses testify about the victim, what a nice person he was, how much he could have done for society if he hadn’t been killed, and things like that.”
“Well, I don’t think anyone would say things like that about Gerstner.”
“That’s why the sentence may not be so long.”
“That’s awful, Hubie. It’s like saying it’s worse to kill a good person than a bad person.”
“It doesn’t seem right, does it? But that’s the way it works. And so far as I know, Gerstner has no family, so no one will protest the light sentence. And then they have to give Blass a break for cooperating, so that’s why I’m guessing ten years, but I could be completely wrong. Maybe they’ll hang him.”
She shuddered. “Don’t even say that. What about Fletcher?”
“He gets to keep the Ma copy I made.”
“How much is it worth?”
“Depends on whether the eventual buyer knows it’s a copy. I would probably ask five thousand for it in my replica shop.”
“Maybe you should ask more, Hubie. It would be your only piece of merchandise.”
“Good point. I need to start making copies again.” Making the Ma copy had been fun, and I was looking forward to doing an entire series. “If the buyer thinks it’s genuine, my Ma copy could bring as much as fifty thousand.”
“Why should that crooked cop get all that money?”
“I know it’s galling, but he did help me clear myself.”
“What about you? Will you get anything out of it?”
“Well, I avoid going to jail for murder, and who can put a price tag on that? I’m going to return the two recovered originals to the Ma, but I’m keeping the genuine Ma copy, and that’s also fifty thousand.”
“Not enough for a kidney transplant, probably.”
“No, but maybe she won’t need it. And if she does, she’s eligible for some funding for indigent patients, and the fifty should cover what the government doesn’t, so I’ll keep it in reserve and see what happens.”
“So you came out O.K.?”
“It looks like it. And with all the publicity, maybe business will pick up. I’m ready to start turning out fakes again.”
“Replicas, Hubie.”
“Right. You know what one of the worst parts of the whole thing was?”
“What?”
“It was being five six and one forty and going in to that sporting goods store and buying all those weights. The whole staff looked at me like I was some kind of nut who thought lifting weights would turn me into Arnold what’s-his-name.”
“Schwarzenegger.”
“Easy for you to say.”
“This is all so amazing.”
“I’m just glad it’s over. You know how you always kid me about being a burglar? Well, I guess I sort of was one there for a while, but I am definitely not cut out for it. I was terrified going in to Blass’ place with him asleep in it.”
She had a sheepish look on her face. “He wasn’t there, Hubie.”
“He wasn’t?”
“No.”
“Where was he?”
She looked down at her empty margarita glass.
“Oh.”
I ordered another round for both of us, and after Angie brought them and went back to the bar, I said, “I’m sorry, Suze. Here I’ve been discussing Blass the murderer and not even thinking about how you must feel. I am like Spock sometimes, I know that. And I feel even worse because if I hadn’t suggested that paragraph for your computer dating thing, he wouldn’t have answered it, and you never would have dated him.”
She looked up with tears in her eyes, but she brushed them away and gave me a really big smile.
“Hey, it’s just another addition to the losers list: the married guy, the third grade vocabulary guy, the Pine-Sol aftershave guy, and now the murderer guy.”
“I must say you’re taking it very well.”
“I had concerns about him all along, but I swept them under the carpet. He was handsome and exciting, so why look a gift horse in the mouth?”
“That’s what the Trojans said.”
“He was too slick. I’m a rancher girl, Hubie. I don’t need glitz. I just want someone honest and fun and, well, if he’s good-looking, that would be all right. Is that too much to ask?”
I shook my head.
She pulled a piece of paper out of her purse. “Let me read you this message I got from the dating site this afternoon. The guy’s name is Bob. That’s a nice solid name, don’t you think? Here’s what he wrote. He said…”
You really can’t keep a good woman down.
60
I had to skip
Dos Hermanas
the next day because I was having cocktails with the Masoirs.
Channel 17 must have felt guilty about how their Roving Reporter had sensationalized the story because their follow-up played up the angle that I was trying to help San Roque recover their pots.
Mrs. Masoir placed brie and water crackers on the coffee table and Professor Masoir mixed a pitcher of gin martinis. I don’t like brie and I really don’t like gin, but I like both the Masoirs, so I nibbled and sipped with them.
The professor asked me what would happen to the pots.
“I have three of them, two from the original set and one from the copy set.”
“My God,” he said. “I know you’re an expert on pots, but how can you tell the originals from the copies? You’d never even seen a Ma pot before.”
I place my martini on the coffee table, happy to talk for a while without sipping. “Well, I owe it all to you for taking me to San Roque. If you hadn’t got me in there, I never would have heard about melting stone.”
“So you figured out what it is?”
“Yes. It’s gold.”
“Gold! They mixed gold dust with their clay?”
“No. They placed large discs of pure gold in the bottom of the pots. They only did that for their ceremonial pots, of course. The idea was to demonstrate their devotion to a certain goddess. I noticed how thick the pot bases were the first time I saw one, but I figured maybe it had something to do with the way they fired their pots.”
“Fascinating. How did you discover the thickness was from a disk of gold? Did Martin’s uncle tell you?”
“Yes,” I said, which was true. But I had figured it out before Martin’s uncle told me. I didn’t tell Professor Masoir I’d figured it out because I had done so while watching the inventory tag melt in the fire, and I didn’t want to explain why I was burning an inventory tag.
“If the gold is sealed inside, how can you know it’s there?”
“I had them x-rayed.”
“Using modern magic to examine ancient magic,” he said and shook his head. “So what happens to the two with gold in them?”
“I’d like you to take them back to San Roque.”
“Isn’t that nice, Walter? I told you he’s such a nice young man.”
“Yes, Mildred, you did and he is. He’s also very generous. How much is that gold worth?”
“Looking at the x-rays, I’d estimate each pot contains a hundred cubic centimeters. I don’t know the price of gold.”
“I don’t know the exact figure, but it’s around $1000 an ounce. That would be,” he did a quick mental calculation, “in the neighborhood of twenty thousand dollars.”
“Not a bad neighborhood, but you wouldn’t want to break open the pot for the gold. Because the pots are so old and rare, I’m sure a collector would pay at least fifty thousand each for them.”
“So you’re giving up over a hundred thousand by returning the two originals.”
“They’re worth a lot more than that to the Ma. And besides, they don’t belong to me.”
A slight smile formed on his face. “I understand you don’t always take that attitude about old pots.”
“Walter!” said Mrs. Masoir.
“It’s O.K.,” I said to her. “He’s right, but that’s because the ancient pots I dig up have no clear link to today’s Indians. The Ma pots were never in the ground.”
“Does the pot the police found in Blass’ apartment contain gold, or is it one of the Ma’s copies?”
“Neither. It’s one of my copies.”
“Ah. And the one you have that’s a real copy – strange phrase, but you know what I mean?”
“You said they didn’t care about those, just the originals which I’m giving back, so I plan to keep the copy unless you advise me to the contrary.”
“I’m certain the Ma will be happy for you to keep the copy. What about all the ones that are missing?”
“Gerstner sold them. Or rather, Blass sold them for Gerstner. I think Blass will cooperate in recovering them to lessen his sentence and the police will be able to track down the pots and get them.”