Read The Pot Thief Who Studied Einstein for Free Online

take the opportunity to make himself better looking?”
    “Good point. From your description, he sounds like the sort of guy I always get on blind dates.”
    “You don’t go on blind dates.”
    “Now you know why,” she quipped. Then she hesitated for a minute and said, “Although I did go on one last night. Well, it wasn’t really a blind date, more like an arranged meeting disguised to look like a chance encounter.”
    “Huh?”
    “Some of the students wanted to grab a bite after class, and they asked me to go. I said I was too tired, but they insisted. When we got to the café, there was a guy who seemed to be waiting for us, an international student. He was by himself and there were five of us, two couples and me. They all quickly grabbed seats in such a way that the only empty one was next to Chris. So I figure it was a set-up. But no one had said anything to me, and I get the impression they hadn’t said anything to him either, so neither one of us had that awful feeling of being on a blind date.”
    “Chris is the name of a foreign student? Where’s he from, Canada?”
    “Italy. His real name is Christoforo Churgelli, but everyone just calls him Chris. Seems like a nice guy, sort of odd, but in a nice way. How did we get on this topic?”
    “I have no idea.”
    She puzzled for a moment. “Oh, right, Cantú not making himself up to be better looking. I still don’t see how you can be certain it’s Cantú’s collection. Maybe he sold the whole thing to the guy you saw, copies and all.”
    “Could be. That would really gall me because that would mean that weasel sold my copies as originals. He may have made ten times more on my copies than I got for making them.”
    “And when you sell a pot that you got for free by digging it up, how much more do you make than the person who made the pot in the first place?”
    “That’s different,” I said, perhaps defensively.
    “How?”
    “The potters who made the pots I sell are dead. I couldn’t give them a commission on the sale even if I wanted to.”
    “Well, Hubie,” she said after draining the last of her margarita, “I know you think the collection belongs to Cantú, but there’s only one way you can be certain about that.”

6
     
     
    Which is why I was riding blindfolded again the next afternoon, this time in the passenger seat of Susannah’s purple 1995 Ford Crown Victoria.
    It didn’t start out purple. The factory color was blue, but too many years under the New Mexico sun oxidized the paint in some peculiar way that made it turn purple. The roof never was blue. It was white vinyl that dried up and flaked off over the course of several years during which the car looked as if it had a bad case of dandruff. But it’s all gone now, and the roof is just tinny-looking metal with streaks where the glue used to be that once held the vinyl in place.
    The Crown Vic came with every electronic gadget available – air, cassette player, power windows, cruise control, power seats, even a power trunk release. None of those things still function. I doubt she misses the cruise control, nobody has any cassettes to play these days, and how difficult is it to open the trunk with a key? But not having air conditioning in Albuquerque is bad. Having inoperable windows is even worse. So when the little motors that operate the windows burned out, Susannah took the inside door panels off and manually lowered the windows. Of course there isn’t a crank, so there’s no way to raise them again.
    No problem. It rarely rains here and no one is going to steal the car.
    I’m still amazed that she knew how to take those panels off. There were no visible screws or latches or anything. She didn’t do quite so well getting them back on because they sort of flop around when you open the door, and if it’s a windy day – which it frequently is in Albuquerque – then you have to hold the panel when you open the door or it’ll fly away.
    I like riding in Susannah’s car