She knew estate claims had to be honored. Auction houses often bought in bulk and sometimes there were mistakes—one man’s junk is another’s treasure. As long as ownership was established, and the property returned, there was no problem. All she had to do was retrieve her check and return the portrait. She paper clipped his business card, and a copy of his I.D. to the copies of the wills, and put them in a folder. “I’ll get in touch with him as soon as possible. Do you have a cell number?”
***
She locked up as soon as he left, and headed home. The Lopez’ dog howled her a welcome as she bounded up the stairs, and Mrs. Boyle yelled, “Shut that mutt up!” That’s when the first tear fell. Why? Because the unemployment rate had climbed to eight percent? Because California was in another drought? Hardly. She brought the Gilletto into the living room. She called Trey. She’d meet him at noon and treat him to lunch. Why did she feel she was parting with something priceless? She knew something about art. The dashing pose. The romantic costume. Those dazzling eyes and the wry smile. Still, the painting she slid into the picture case wasn’t worth the twenty-five dollars she paid for it. But the man?
Why did the thought of the young man dancing for money yield such sadness? All fame is fleeting. Perhaps his beauty alone was justification enough for Gilletto’s effort. Perhaps the tears were for her own longing to share what can never be again. She felt the same way about photographs of her grandmother as a sixteen-year-old bride from Omaha. The dead really did live, once. She ached to know them.
“The portrait is particularly important,” Olivad Borghese Casparino told her when she reluctantly handed over the picture. He wrapped it lovingly in blue silk, and reached over the counter to pat her arm. Perhaps he had seen the wistfulness in her eyes because it wasn’t pride that filled his explanation, but solace. “It’s going to Jerusalem. For his bravery in the Warsaw Uprising and his assistance in hunting Nazi war criminals in Argentina, he’s been named one of the Righteous Among the Nations.”