She smiled radiantly and stepped away from me. She looked once around the room and crossed to the door, then she turned back to me.

“I love you, Bobo,” she said tenderly. She opened the door and walked out of the room.

CHAPTER

27
 

WHEN PAIN FIRST STRIKES, THE BODY AND THE SOUL DO NOT ache in the same way.

The body screams, surrenders, begs for injections to kill the agony.

The soul anesthetizes itself, turns itself numb, deceives itself into believing there is no pain. The soul becomes dazed.

I did not remember walking to the window of my room to watch Amy cross the street back to her car. Yet, I watched her. I stood at the window, holding the stone, and I watched her. She did not look back at the Inn.

I went to the telephone and dialed the 800 number for a hotel near the airport at Newburgh and made a reservation, and then I left the Inn and walked to Arch’s, in search of Sammy. He was in his workshop, moving pieces of his battered-rock sculpture from the back of the store to display tables near the front window. He had sold a piece—World in Turmoil—that resembled a basketball marred by a scar like the rip of an earthquake. The buyer was from the Dutch Reformed church, a woman who wanted to celebrate her newfound love for her husband by presenting him with a work of art. To Sammy, it was not the most appropriate of his pieces for such a gift, but the transaction had inspired him to offer a special sale on what he considered his carry-home pieces.

“You know, Bobo, Dan may be right,” Sammy enthused. “I clean the place up a little and put in some good lighting and do the right kind of promoting out on the highway, I think I could move a few pieces. Maybe bring in some arts and crafts from some of those shops up in Fleischmanns and Margaretville. You know what I’m talking about, don’t you? Tie this business and the rooming business together. Maybe specialize in these church marriage-renewal things. I mean, shit, it sounds like they’re talking about renewing a driver’s license to me, but if that’s what works, then have at it. Hell’s bells, I’ll even give away free vitamin E tablets and bring in a strolling accordion player if that helps get the juices flowing. Or maybe I’ll put in some of those closed-circuit porn movies, like they’ve got in some of those motels I’ve been in.”

I knew that Sammy’s blithering was intended, in part, to distract me, to keep me from thinking of Amy. He could not know what had happened in the room, but Lila would have told him of Peter Meyers’s sudden appearance, and I was certain that she had warned him against trying to advise me.