The Pot Thief Who Studied Einstein by J. Michael Orenduff

Author:J. Michael Orenduff [Orenduff, J. Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 1610090012
Amazon: B004MYFU64
Publisher: Oak Tree Press
Published: 2010-11-10T07:00:00+00:00

24

“The problem,” I told her, “is that he learned English from a dictionary. That and his eidetic memory.”

“What’s an eidetic memory?”

“A photographic memory.”

“Why not just say so? Or did Chris arouse your male competitiveness, and you’re trying to prove you know as many weird words as he does?”

“You know I’m not competitive, and anyway, I’d lose that one. He uses words I’ve never heard. I told you he saw Izuanita on the sidewalk? Well, he described her as a modigliani woman. I looked it up in my dictionary but couldn’t find it.”

Susannah started laughing.

“Of course,” I said, slapping myself on the forehead, “it’s Italian. I should have picked up on that from the sound of it.”

“It’s Italian all right, but it’s not a word. It’s a name. He was an artist, Hubie. I can’t believe you never heard of him.”

“Did he paint anything famous?”

“He painted a lot of women.”

“Well that narrows it down. Any famous paintings of women like Mona Lisa or Whistler’s Mother?”

“There’s no painting called Whistler’s Mother. It’s called Arrangement in Grey and Black.”

“I’m glad we cleared that up. What about Modigliani?”

“There’s no single painting he’s known by. You didn’t by any chance rip Izuanita’s bodice did you, because Modigliani painted a lot of nudes.”

“I resisted the temptation.”

“There’s another thing he’s famous for. His women often had distorted faces like the way you described Izuanita to me.”

I was shocked. “I did not say her face is distorted,” I replied rather more forcefully than I meant to. “It’s just not perfectly symmetrical, and that only adds to the exotic—“

“Yeah, I know, she looks like an Aztecan Goddess.”

“She looked even better in the Cadillac.”

“Where did you take her?”

“The Hurricane.”

She plopped her margarita onto the table. “That must have impressed her.”

“It was her idea.”

“Did she order a Disaster Burrito?”

“She said she could eat as much as I could, so we ordered one and split it fifty-fifty. She ate her half, but I actually won because she gave part of hers to Geronimo and I ate my half all by myself.”

“This from a man who’s not competitive. Was I right about the dog?”

“Yeah, she loves him. I’m not sure how she feels about me.”

I told her everything about my morning with Izuanita.

Then I told her she was right about Cantú’s house.

“I was there in the evening, and even though no lights were on, I was able to examine the pots easily because of the bright sunlight streaming through the window. When you drove me there, we saw what I thought was that window when we went around to the back of the place. But we were driving south and the window was on our left.”

“So?”

“So the window faces east. There couldn’t have been any bright evening sun coming through it.”

“How do you know we were driving south?”

“Because the Sandias were on our left.”

“I’ll take your word for that.”

“And that means you were right,” I admitted. “It must be a different house in Casitas del Bosque.”

“On the opposite side of the street.”

“Exactly.”

She gave me that mischievous smile.

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