The Pot Thief Who Studied Escoffier

The Pot Thief Who Studied Escoffier

J. Michael Orenduff

Oak Tree Press            Taylorville, IL

THE POT THIEF WHO STUDIED ESCOFFIER, Copyright April 2011, by J. Michael Orenduff, All Rights Reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations used in critical articles and reviews. For information, address Oak Tree Press, 140 E. Palmer St., Taylorville, IL 62568.

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First Edition, April 2011

Cover by MickADesign.com

 Interior Design by L. Rigsbee

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

ISBN 978-1-61009-009-4

LCCN 2010942732  

Ebook Edition May 2011 ISBN 978-1-61009-425-2

To Wayne and Elaine Chew who understand the Santa Fe Restaurant scene and also happen to be a great uncle and great aunt to “Jack”

Acknowledgements

Most of the places mentioned in the Pot Thief books are real. The Gruet Winery, La Placita Restaurant and Treasure House Books in Albuquerque and the La Fonda Hotel, La Casa Sena Restaurant, and Collected Works Bookstore in Santa Fe are just a few examples. I include them for veracity and also because they are some of my favorite places. What would life be without fine bookstores, restaurants, hotels and champagne?

Special thanks go to Linda Aycock – excellent proofreader, good friend, and wife of my high school buddy and still best friend, Jim.

More thanks for Professor Ofélia Nikolova. She kept é and è straight and handled all the other arcane marks over French words.

Among the many persons who read advanced copies of this book, I wish to acknowledge Mary Louise Rogers of Las Cruces who went over every line with great care, Enid Schantz of Lyons, Colorado, Lucinda Surber of Santa Fe, and Kate Feuille of El Paso.

As always, I relied heavily on the support and advice of my daughter, Claire Orenduff Bartos, and my wife and life-long gencon partner, Lai Chew Orenduff.

The recipes in this book – for better or worse – are all real.

1

The sallow-faced man sauntered in to my Old Town pottery shop on a brisk  November day and asked to use my restroom.

I directed him to the public ones around the corner.

“You don’t have any customers,” he said, “so I figured your restroom would be empty.”

I didn’t appreciate his reminder that business was slow, but I held my tongue.

His need was evidently less than urgent because he started walking around the shop examining the merchandise. “These pots are old, right?”

“Some of them are. The old ones have the estimated date and the culture they represent written on the card in front of them. Most of the ones from the last hundred years or so have the potter’s name, the pueblo, and the date.”

“So some of these potters are alive?”

Strangers wanting to use my bathroom annoy me, but this one seemed to be transitioning from irritant to customer. I came out from behind the counter and placed a pot in his hand. “The man who made this is alive and well. He does excellent work, and his pots are bargains because he’s not yet as famous as he will be.”

“How can I contact him?”

“You can’t.”

His yellowish-brown complexion darkened to a strange ochre. At least the part of it I could see. Most of his face was covered by a beard. From the look of him, I guessed he had grown it to hide a weak chin or a cruel mouth or some other facial feature with a personality disorder.

“I’m not trying to cut you out of a sale,” he said. “I want to commission him to make some chargers.”

I pictured a herd of ceramic horses. “Chargers?”

“The decorative plates you see before you when you’re seated at a fine restaurant. They are strictly for show and are taken away when the first course arrives. I’m starting a new restaurant and need some special chargers.”

Why he was telling me this I couldn’t guess. “The potter’s name is Seepu,” I said. “He does only traditional pottery.”

“I’d pay handsomely.”

“Wouldn’t matter. I usually pay him several thousand dollars for a small pot, and even at that price he sells me only two or three a year.”

He placed the pot back on the shelf and picked up one from Zuni. “How about this guy?”

“Mr…”

“Molinero. Santiago Molinero.” He stuck his hand out awkwardly and we shook.

“I’m Hubert,” I told him, “but people generally call me Hubie. I stock only traditional pottery. There is no chance that any of the artisans represented here will make plates for you.”

“Hmm.” He walked around the store and selected another pot. “This looks real old. Why doesn’t it have a date on it? I thought you said the older pots have estimated dates on them.”

It was another of the awkward moments peculiar to people who make forgeries. Or copies, as I prefer to think of them. If someone were to walk into the shop and pay the price on that particular copy, I would take the money, say goodbye to my handiwork and hello to ten thousand dollars. The buyer would think he got a bargain on an Anasazi pot and would enjoy it just as much as the real thing.

But I do have scruples. If someone asks whether a pot is genuine, I tell the truth. If they still want it at full price…Well, that hasn’t happened yet, but a guy can hope. Usually they walk away. Sometimes they bargain. My rule of thumb is that copies should bring fifteen percent of the value of the genuine article. I make a lot of money selling copies, but I make a lot more selling originals that I dig up by the light of the moon.

I’m a pot thief. It’s a harsh phrase and undeserved in my opinion, but that’s what the Feds call me. Of course these are the same people who brought us bailouts for bankers and cash for clunkers. Or was it cash for bankers and bailouts for clunkers? It amounts to pretty much the same thing either way.

When I was a callow youth, I fancied myself a treasure hunter, someone who discovers ancient artifacts, enriching both our knowledge of the past and my bank account of the present. But professional archaeologists pressured Congress to outlaw treasure hunting, and the Archaeological Resources Protection Act (ARPA) put an end to legal pot digging on public land. You can graze cattle on public land. You can cut down trees for lumber. You can dig for gold or drill for oil. Evidently, you can even drill incompetently and recklessly and fill the entire Gulf of Mexico with crude. But if you take a single pot shard, you’re a criminal.

You might be wondering, in light of ARPA, how I can display ancient pottery in my shop. In the first place, it is not illegal to own and sell pots unearthed prior to the passage of ARPA. But since it has now been over two decades since that low point of lawmaking, the “I dug it up when it was legal to do so” excuse becomes less credible with each passing year.

I was in my early twenties when I dug up my first pots legally, and I’ve been digging them illegally for over twenty years. Do the math. I’m over forty five and should repent, but I know I won’t.

It also remains legal to dig on private land so long as it isn’t a gravesite, and what sort of ghoul would do that anyway? I know people who have ancient ruins on their land, but none who will allow me to dig there. Mainly because they are turning the stuff up themselves and making a fortune in the process.

So rich land owners can profit from artifacts, but we average taxpayers can’t dig on public land we all own. I am devoted to righting this injustice.

Of course I didn’t have all these thoughts run through my brain as Molinero stood there with my faux Anasazi in his hand. I hesitated only long enough to ask my conscience whether it would allow me to tell him the pot was original. He was a shifty-looking guy. On top of that, he was insensitive to my lack of customers and wanted to pee in my bathroom. But despite all those flaws, my conscience would not make an exception.

“That’s not a genuine Anasazi,” I admitted. “It’s a copy I made.”

He turned to the light and examined the pot more closely. “Then I’ll commission you to do the chargers,” he announced.

“I’m like the artisans I represent,” I responded. “I do only traditional work.”

“I need 100 chargers. I’ll pay you $250 for each one.”

My resolve to do only traditional work softened as I did the math. “How soon do you need them?”

He smiled, and I felt like I had sold out. “You won’t regret this, Mr. Schuze.”

The words had scarcely passed his lips when I began to think he was wrong.

2

 “The last guy who hired you with a beard got you in big trouble,” said Susannah.

“No one ever hired me with a beard,” I responded snappily. “I’ve always been clean shaven.”

She sighed. “You know what I mean. In fact, Carl Wilkes got you in two fixes.”

“Yeah, but he was at least likeable. Molinero seems shifty.”

“So why did you agree to work for him?”

“He gave me twenty-five thousand good reasons.”

“He paid you in advance?”

I hesitated.

“You just said he was shifty, and you didn’t get an advance?” She was shaking her head slowly.

“He was telling me about all these arrangements he’s going to make, and it was all sort of overwhelming. I just didn’t think to ask about the pay.”

“What sort of arrangements?”

“For starters, he wants me to do the work at the restaurant.”

“Why?”

“He insists I need to be on-site to capture the essence of the place. He doesn’t seem like the psychobabble type, so I suspect the real reason is he wants close oversight. I told him I could work at home and take samples to him, but he was adamant. He’s going to arrange my housing and pay all my living expenses, so I gave in.”