Recalls: asbestos fibers are thinner than human hairs. The cause of deadly cancers of the lungs, blood. Commonplace in buildings of a certain era, of a certain type. Roofing, insulation. Its lethal effects can take decades to emerge.

There’d been massive removals of asbestos-contaminated materials in the city, she recalls. Campaigns to clean up the despoiled environment. Raze the worst of the buildings. Local businesses had resisted initially. There had been litigation. Settlements. Numerous deaths.

On one side of the Durant is an abandoned warehouse; on the other, a rubble-strewn vacant lot.

Inside the Durant is a raw, open space, as if part of the ceiling has been removed; skylights let in glowering-pale light through panes of glass speckled with seeds and other debris. There is a second-floor balcony on which neon-flashing sculptures are displayed.

Interior entrances to the Blue Boar Gallery, the Durant Artists Co-Op, the Detroit Sculptors Coalition, Dequindre Rouge. Smaller galleries that open onto the foyer, exhibiting weavings, pottery, paintings, knitted things. Most of the galleries are closed, darkened. There are virtually no visitors or customers. Their footsteps echo distractingly. Yet, through the doorway of the Blue Boar, L.K. sees a woman—not young, though not exceptionally old—so familiar to her, she stops dead in her tracks, trying to recall the woman’s name …

But she isn’t alive now—is she?

The woman she’d known, the woman whom this woman resembles, had died years ago of breast cancer. L.K. is sure.

No. Whoever she imagines the woman might be, this woman could not possibly be.

And again, as they pass another small gallery in which wheat-colored macramé sculptures are displayed, L.K. glances inside to see a figure—a white-haired woman—from just the back, who seems to her startlingly familiar …

“Is something wrong, dear?”—Vann asks, concerned.

Quickly L.K. tells him no.

“Is she someone you know, dear? Would you like to go inside and say hello to her?”

“N-No. Not now.”

The very prospect frightens her. No!

In this place they are preserved. What is this place!

The Edelstein Gallery is a larger gallery that exhibits more sophisticated art, including even, L.K. sees to her surprise, lithographs and woodcuts by Rockwell Kent, Ben Shahn, Andy Warhol, Louise Nevelson, Philip Guston, Marsden Hartley. Hadn’t the Edelstein Gallery once been located in the old, elegant Fisher Building?

At first it seems that the Edelstein Gallery is darkened, but when she looks through the window, she sees that it is open after all. Indeed, a very thin young woman in stylish black is sitting at a desk speaking on a phone: an old-fashioned rotary phone. She glances up, sees Vann through the window, smiles (slyly?), and waves as Vann (and L.K., whom she ignores) pass by. This face is certainly not familiar to L.K., for the girl is very young, with Asian features and very black sleek hair to her waist.

L.K. feels a stab of jealousy. The way the girl and Vann exchange greetings …