Stallion Gate by Martin Cruz Smith Page B

aren’t any tourists, just soldiers. Soldiers buy postcards, not pots. Probably by the timeI get back to Los Angeles, half of these will be broken, so I’m paying five dollars for two or three pots.”
    She wrapped the plate and dropped it gently into the bottom of another box, then wrapped the polychrome pot and set it on top of the plate. “I may not be able to sell any of these. The war changed everything. People are coming back from France and Italy, they’ve been all over the world now. They’re going to want fine arts, to collect paintings—Picassos, Monets—not Indian pots.”
    “That sounds tough.”
    “That’s the way of the world, Joe.”
    He couldn’t see her eyes through her dark glasses. Her mouth was a lipsticked oval. He’d grown up with the annual visits of Mrs. Quist, with her annual words of wisdom. He couldn’t remember when there’d been a good year for selling pots.
    “Most traders are only working on consignment now, in fact.” She packed the tall wedding pot with special care. “They wouldn’t give you any money at all, and then you’d have nothing.”
    “Nothing instead of five dollars?”
    Mrs. Quist packed the bowl last, and then she laid and smoothed a dollar bill on the table where each piece had stood. “There.”
    The bills crinkled. One slowly spun.
    “Aren’t you going to pick them up?”
    “Later.”
    The breeze was nothing more than warm air drifting into a cool adobe house. The spinning bill drifted to the table’s edge.
    “Well, it’s your money, you do what you want with it.”
    “Oh, I’m only doing what Dolores would have done if she were here, Mrs Quist. She would have listened to everything you said and she would have taken a dollar a pot. You’re going to make twenty, twenty-five dollars apiece? You’ve always made that kind of money off Dolores. She always knew. I used to tell her, but she was too embarrassed for you to say anything. She was embarrassed for your greed. But she said you could have the pots, so you can. Except this one.” Joe removed the seed pot from the box. “Now, that’s your dollar bill on the floor, and you can pick it up if you want.” He hadn’t meant to frighten her, but Mrs. Quist stepped back as if he were going to hit her. “No? Then let me help you go.”
    He carried the boxes to the Hudson and carefully laid them on the backseat. He held the door for her while she quickly got behind the wheel, put in the ignition key and pressed the starter. Her sunglasses trembled until she caught her breath.
    “Joe, if I were you, I’d pick up all that money and clean up that house before Dolores sees it.”
    “Dolores is dead. Died last year.” Joe pushed the car door shut. “I thought you knew.”
    A Cadillac was squeezing through the alley along the back fence of the Reyeses’ yard, and Joe paid no more attention to Mrs. Quist as she pulled away. The Cadillac was a white coupe with chrome louvers, and it taxied like a fighter plane up to the pump. The driver’s windowrolled down and a thin black arm hung jauntily out. A diamond ring winked from the pinky.
    “Hey, you
are
back home, Joe. I looked for you last night at the Casa and you weren’t there.” Pollack grinned and shook his head, expressing separate emotions at the same time. “Someone said they saw your jeep outside here. That’s good. It’s good to come home.” Pollack had a sly ivory smile, a wide nose and a flat forehead that curved into tight gray hair with blue-black scalp shining through. When he spoke, his hands had the sort of fluttery movements that put Joe in mind of ladies’ fans at gospel meetings. When he got excited, his eyes looked as if they would pop from sheer spirit. He always dressed in a silk shirt during the day and a tuxedo at night. Altogether he gave the impression of an alley cat who had achieved a dignified old age. “It’s good to see you back here.”
    “You drove all the way for the sight?”
    “I was looking for you. You