yellow. 'We just want a little bit of information, and then we'll be gone.'
'Yes,' the man said. His voice was quiet, slow, and sad.
'Jed, downstairs, said you might have saved some personal effects belonging to Ranier Beckmann, who lived here several years back.'
There was a long pause. The yellowed eyes glanced over toward one of the piles. 'In the corner. Second box from the bottom. Beck written on it.'
D'Agosta laboriously made his way to the tottering stack and found the box in question: stained, moldy, and half flattened from the weight of the boxes on top.
'May I take a look?'
The man nodded.
D'Agosta shifted the boxes and retrieved Beckmann's. It was small; inside were a few books and an old cigar box wrapped in rubber bands. Pendergast came up and looked over his shoulder.
'James, Letters from Florence ,' he murmured, glancing at the spines of the books. 'Berenson, Italian Painters of the Renaissance. Vasari, Lives of the Painters. Cellini, Autobiography . I see our Mr. Beckmann was interested in Renaissance art history.'
D'Agosta picked up the cigar box and began to remove the rubber bands, which were so old and rotten they snapped at his touch. He opened the lid. The box exuded a perfume of dust, old cigars, and paper. Inside, he could see a moth-eaten rabbit's foot, a gold cross, a picture of Padre Pio, an old postcard of Moosehead Lake in Maine, a greasy pack of cards, a toy Corgi car, some coins, a couple of matchbooks, and a few other mementos. 'Looks like we found Beckmann's little chest of treasures,' he said.
Pendergast nodded. He reached over and picked up the matchbook. 'Trattoria del Carmine,' he read aloud. His slender white fingers drifted over the coins and other mementos. Next he reached for the books, plucking the Vasari from the box and leafing through it. 'Required reading for anyone wishing to understand the Renaissance,' he said. 'And look at this.'
He handed the book to D'Agosta. Scrawled on the flyleaf was a dedication:
To Ranier, my favorite student,
Charles F. Ponsonby Jr.
D'Agosta took out a book himself. There was no inscription in this one, but as he rifled through it, a photograph dropped from between the pages. He picked it off the floor. It was a faded color snapshot of four youths, all male, arms draped around each other's necks, before what looked like a blurry marble fountain.
D'Agosta heard a sharp intake of breath from Pendergast. 'May I?' the agent asked.
D'Agosta handed him the photograph. He stared at it intently, then handed it back.
'The one on the far right, I believe, is Beckmann. And do you recognize his friends?'
D'Agosta looked. Almost instantly he recognized the massive head and jutting brows of Locke Bullard. The others took a moment longer, but once recognized were unmistakable: Nigel Cutforth and Jeremy Grove.
He glanced over at Pendergast. The man's silvery eyes were positively glittering. 'There it is, Vincent: the connection we've been looking for.'
He turned to the man lying on the bed. D'Agosta had almost forgotten him, he had been so silent. 'John, may we take these items?'
'It's what I've been saving them for.'
'How so?' D'Agosta asked.
'That's what I do. I keep the things they treasured, in trust for their families.'
'Who’s they ?'
'The ones that die.'
'Do the families ever come?'
The question hung in the air. 'Everybody has a family,' John finally said.
It looked to D'Agosta like some of the boxes were so rotten and discolored they'd been sitting around for twenty years. It was a long time to wait for a family member to come calling.
'Did you know Beckmann well?'
The man shook his head. 'He kept to himself.'
'Did he ever have visitors?'
'No.' The man sighed. His hair was brittle and his eyes were watering. It seemed to D'Agosta that he was dying, that he knew it, and that he welcomed it.
Pendergast picked up the small box of memorabilia and tucked it under his arm. 'Is there anything we can do for you, John?' he asked quietly.
The man shook his head and turned to the wall.
They left the room without speaking. At the stoop, they passed the three drunks again.
'Find what you were looking for?' Jed asked.
'Yes,' said D'Agosta. 'Thanks.'
The man touched his brow with his finger. D'Agosta turned. 'What will happen to all the stuff in John's room when he dies?'
The drunk shrugged. 'They'll toss it.'
