“Yeah. There were a bunch of people sitting around, mostly kids from one of the camps that used to be up the road. He scared the shit out of them.”

“What did he say?”

Dan cocked his head in thought. “It had something to do with singing. Something like, ‘She’s going to sing again and you’ll hear her. Just like me, you’ll hear her.’ Yeah, something like that. It’s been a long time. He had this wild look about him and his voice was cracking. He sounded like static on a bad radio. Two or three of the girls started to cry and I had to hustle him out of the shop, and then I had to tell the kids that he was just a crazy old man who heard voices. But maybe he was right, Bobo. Maybe we’re all just sitting around, waiting for somebody to sing again.”

“Avrum could get that way at times,” I said. “Especially over the last few years. But I think he did things like that just to play the role. People thought he was crazy, so he played crazy.”

Dan reached for the coffee cups on the table. “Maybe so. Maybe so. But I’ve got to tell you, Bobo, I keep listening. I keep listening.”

I left Dan and crossed the street to Sammy’s workshop—to Arch’s—and tried the door, but it was locked. I could hear the ringing of the hammer on the chisel, a true, light ringing, almost as delicate as the pinging of crystal, and I knew that Sammy was chipping carefully at the stone face of Amy Lourie Meyers.

If I take Sammy’s sculpture of Amy with me, can I ever escape her? I wondered.

Carter spoke from an echo: “Your giving up on Amy would be like me giving up on Rene, and I didn’t, if you remember.”

Rene.

The face of Rene Wallace blinked in memory.

What Carter did not know was that, for one night, Rene had given up on him.

It was a night when she and Carter argued bitterly in Arch’s over a guest at the Greenleaf Lodge, where she worked. The man, who was in his early thirties and married, had propositioned Rene and she told Carter about it. Carter did not respond as she wanted him to—with empathy and warm assurances. He became enraged, accusing her of being suggestive around the man. I could not calm him and Amy could not calm him.

“Come on,” Amy finally said to Carter, “you’re going for a walk with me. You need to learn a few things.” She looked at me. “Bobo, walk Rene home.”

Carter slid from the booth and stormed out of Arch’s. Amy followed him.

“Are you all right?” I asked Rene.

She was pale from the argument. She nodded.

“Come on,” I said.