The Pot Thief Who Studied Ptolemy [02] (4 page)

I took the magazine back to a bus stop bench across from the garage entrance where I pretended to read it while examining the building and thinking about how I might gain entrance.

At least that’s what I started to do. But when I removed the plastic wrapper and opened the magazine, I discovered it was full of exotic motorcycles adorned by even more exotic women in various states of undress. I don’t know what pornography is, but – like Justice Potter Stewart – I know it when I see it.

And this was not it. There is nothing prurient about a woman leaning over a Harley and wearing a tank top that reveals tattoos on her breasts of little spigots that say “chocolate” on the left and “vanilla” on the right. But it did divert my attention momentarily before I returned to the issue at hand.

Namely, how could I get in? Through the roof entrance? There was no exterior staircase or fire escape. Of course I could reach the roof via the interior staircase, but I would already have to be inside to do that, wouldn’t I? Renting a helicopter didn’t merit much consideration. No tall buildings loomed next to Rio Grande Lofts, so I couldn’t leap across from one roof to the other or secure a rope between them or anything of that sort. Even if those things had been possible, I wouldn’t have attempted them. I’m severely acrophobic.

I was checking the roof entrance off the list of possibilities when a woman with a large shopping bag and a small child sat down next to me on the bench. I could see why she preferred riding a bus to walking. She had the physique of the Michelin tire man, but she lacked his pleasant smile. She gasped for breath and yelled for Kyle to, “sit still and stop tormenting me.”

She didn’t look or sound like the sort of mother little Kyle obeyed, and little Kyle didn’t look like he ever sat still, but to my amazement, he suddenly did just that. He sat still and became quiet. He stared in my direction. I followed his line of vision and discovered why. He had zeroed in on
Les Grand Tetons
.

Then the Michelin woman saw what he was looking at. She jerked little Kyle off the bench, slung her shopping bag against me, and huffed away.

I’m five feet, six inches tall and weigh one hundred and forty pounds. Her shopping bag had approximately the same dimensions, and it almost knocked me off the bench.

The magazine fell to the sidewalk and opened to another page with a picture of a motorcycle with huge saddlebags and a zaftig woman astride the seat with equally large appendages. I decided I had seen all I needed to see of Rio Grande Lofts. And of
Chrome Hogs
. I threw the magazine in the trash and continued my analysis on the walk home.

I could drive through the garage entrance if I had a code. I could walk through without a code by following a car, but the driver would surely spot me and call security. I couldn’t linger until the car was out of sight in the garage and then run in. I had been on the bench long enough to see some cars come and go, and the gates on both the entrance and exit operated swiftly and efficiently.

If I ran in through the exit gate when someone drove out, they could still call security, but at least they wouldn’t be in the basement with me. But there was a serious flaw with that option. The idea of running down a narrow concrete canyon while an average American motorist – probably with cell phone to ear – drove up that same ramp had me imagining being crushed between car and concrete.

There might be a way to force open the service entrance from the outside, but the only methods that came to mind (a jackhammer, a cutting torch, dynamite) all failed to meet the condition of a
surreptitious
entry.

The easiest way in was the only one I handn ’t considered – through the front door. I had walked only a block or two, so I turned back to try it. I took up a casual but determined pace, assumed an expression of confidence, and strode through the front door. I got two steps in before a burly doorman in a maroon blazer with a nametag that read ‘Rawlings’ stepped in front of me.

“I’m sure there’s some mistake,” I persisted. “I even have his phone number. Can I use your lobby phone to call him? Maybe he’ll come down and vouch for me.”

“Sir,” he said politely but firmly, “no one enters this building unless a resident is here to receive him. We have no Mr. Oland. I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to leave.”

He had the sort of voice you expect to hear saying, “Step away from the building and keep your hands in plain sight.” Probably a former cop.

So I started home again. If the other doormen were like Rawlings, getting past the front door was unlikely.

6

When I reached my shop, Emilio Sanchez was outside my door. He removed his hat as I approached.

“
Buenos dias, Señor Uberto
.”

“
Buenos dias, amigo,
” I replied, and we shared an
abrazo
.

I asked the question I often ask – “
¿Ingles o español?
”

“That is true. How is
Señora
Sanchez?”

“Consuela continues to have the problems of her kidneys, but she sees the doctor and prays to the Virgin.”

“And she remains strong?”

“Yes,
gracias a Diós
. Of course, I do the cleaning, but she still like to cook.”

“Emilio, Consuela is the best cook in New Mexico. She fed me for eighteen years and you for even longer, and neither one of us grew fat. How do you explain it?”

“It is a miracle, Uberto.”

“I believe it is. And I believe you may have brought some of her food, because a delicious smell is wafting from that bag.”

“
¿Que quiere decir
‘wafting’, Uberto?”

“It means to be carried on the wind, like the scent of flowers or the smell of food.”

“It is a good word, wafting. I will use it when I return to Consuela. ‘
Querida
Consuela,’ I will call to her, ‘your perfume was wafting from the house when I arrive on the bus’.”

“She is a fortunate lady.”

“It is I who am fortunate, my friend. But even so, the doctor, he is very expensive. Every day we give thanks to God for your parents who buy for us the insurance.”

He beamed and opened the bag. Then he unbent tin foil to reveal a mound of roasted
cabrito
.

“My favorite.
Muchisimas gracias
.”

Consuela Saenz (she didn’t become Consuela Sanchez until I was in college) was our housekeeper and cook, but to me she was like a second mother. She joined our household shortly after I did. My parents said she spoke little English. She spoke Spanish to me, so I grew up bilingual. After I started school, I helped her with her English
.

She knew nothing of American food. Oh blessed ignorance! We ate
cabrito,
carne adobo, chiles rellenos, fideos, flautas, posole, tapatias, pollo en mole
, and
sopa de lima
. Until I started school, I assumed these were normal fare. The school cafeteria disabused me of that notion. After the first week, I started carrying a sack lunch.

We would have talked longer but Emilio was anxious to return home to Consuela. I offered to drive him, but as usual he wouldn’t hear of it, so I walked him to the bus stop and waited with him until the bus arrived.

7

The closest bus stop is on Central (aka Route 66) unless you want to get on the silly trolley the city runs through Old Town. In the first place, it’s not a trolley because it doesn’t run on rails. It’s a bus with a trolley-looking body on it. In the second place, it doesn’t go where Albuquerqueans want to go. It’s really just for tourists.

We did have real trolleys once. They were powered by electricity and ran on rails from 1904 to 1927. Well, they didn’t run continuously for 23 years, but they did operate on some sort of schedule during those years. Then they were replaced by buses. The same thing happened in New Orleans. Most of their streetcars were replaced by buses, one of which is called ‘Desire’. Fortunately, there was still a streetcar on Desire Street when Tennessee Williams was writing.

As I walked back from Central, the scent of burning leaves was in the dry, crisp air, and there was a spring in my step and a song in my heart. The tune was
Cow Cow Boogie
being sung by Ella Fitzgerald, and I was humming along. The source of this
joie de vivre
was not only the beautiful New Mexico fall, but also the delicious
cabrito
awaiting me.

Then I turned the corner and saw Miss Gladys Claiborne with a covered dish between her hands and a large canvas picnic bag hanging from her right forearm. In addition to running the eponymous Miss Gladys’ Gift Shop two doors west of the shop I own and one door west of the shop I rent, she has a second career trying to fatten me up and marry me off. I told her Emilio had left me a bag of roasted goat.

“Then it’s a good thing I brought this King Ranch Chicken,” she proclaimed. “Why, just the thought of eating a goat would be enough to put a man off his feed. That Mr. Sanchez seems like such a nice person, but I do declare those Mexicans will eat just about anything. Why, they even put tripe in their stew, and those chile peppers are so hot it’s a wonder they don’t all have ulcers.”

I’ve found it’s better not to argue with Miss Gladys, a name she evidently was known by even during the years of her marriage to the late Mr. Claiborne.

I opened the door, took the dish from her, and placed it on my counter. The picnic bag I recognized from her stock. Fashioned from sturdy canvas with blue check gingham trim, it featured an embroidered picture of the Old Town gazebo on its side. She extracted a placemat, napkin, and three pieces of cutlery wrapped in a strip of the same fabric tied in a bow. Then she pulled out a big yellow dinner plate, a matching salad plate, a large glass tumbler, and a thermos. It was like watching clowns come out of a Volkswagen.

I was admiring the beautiful glaze on the plate when she produced yet another instrument from the bag – a large silver serving spoon – and covered the plate with the casserole. I began to think the name “King Ranch” must derive from the size of the servings. I admit it smelled good, so I took a tentative taste while she told me about it.

“You melt a stick of butter in your frying pan and cook up a couple of diced bell peppers and a couple of diced onions – Vidalia are the best. Then you put in a package of chicken tenders, and when they’ve begun to brown, you pour it all in an ovenproof casserole and add two cans of condensed cream of mushroom soup, two cans of condensed cream of chicken soup, and two cans of Ro-tel tomatoes with green chiles. Use the mild – you don’t want it to burn like Mexican food. Then you tear up a dozen tortillas into bite-sized pieces, stir it all together with three packages of shredded cheddar cheese, and throw it in the oven. Just take it out anytime after it starts bubbling and before the cheese starts to look like leather,” she said and laughed. She went on to emphasize that you must use Ro-tel brand tomatoes and green chiles. Anything else and it wouldn’t be King Ranch.

“Why, it’s easier than falling off a log,” she averred.

Of course it is, I thought to myself. You don’t have to measure since all the ingredients come portioned out in standard quantities such as cans, packages, etc. I did wonder what part of the chicken is its tender. I admit the dish tasted good, although I couldn’t stop thinking of all the salt in those canned soups. Fortunately, the thermos held sweetened tea. I drank three glasses to offset the salt.

As I approached the last of the food on my plate, I became increasingly wary of the empty salad plate. I was pretty sure there would be no salad. Miss Gladys doesn’t hold with the strange notion of the French that salad can be served
after
the entrée. I suspected dessert, and I didn’t think I was up to it. Then she reached in the bag (I looked around to see if perhaps there were two bags and I hadn’t noticed one of them) and came up with a plastic storage container packed with peach cobbler. Everyone in Old Town calls Miss Gladys
Nuestra Senora de los Casseroles
. We say it fondly, but not to her face. If Campbell’s ever goes out of business, Miss Gladys’s cookbook will be rendered useless. But the woman can make cobblers to die for, which was what I feared I might do after I ate the thing.