The men left in silence. I watched as each passed the candlesticks and the photograph of Amelita Galli-Curci. I saw their eyes wander across the photograph, as though looking for something they had never before seen.

Sol thanked me for talking to the men—”the ringleaders,” he called them. He assured me that what I had said would be known by everyone in the Home within the hour.

We agreed on a time for the memorial service—eleven o’clock on Thursday morning. “I’ll take care of everything,” promised Sol. “But if you think of anything you need, call me.” He apologized again for the destruction of Avrum’s room.

“You couldn’t help it,” I told him. “In a way, I suppose I understand it.”

“You know what surprised me?” Sol said. “That young woman from the television station. She didn’t shoot anything in the room. And she’s sharp. I could tell that from her questions.”

“I’ve got an appointment with her in a few minutes,” I said.

“Hope it goes well.”

“Me, too.”

On the way out of the Home, I passed Carl Gershon. He was near the front door, leaning on an aluminum cane. He raised his head slowly, as a turtle would. He said, in a strained voice, “Guter morgen, y’all.” And he laughed softly. So did I.

I was surprised when Nora Dowling asked to speak to me on Sunday afternoon, May 28, 1955, my second day of work at the Pine Hill Inn.

“Come in the dining room,” she said in a tired command as she pushed open the door and walked out of the kitchen.

“Yes, ma’am,” I replied, but the door closed on my words.

“Oh, shit,” Carter Fielding whispered. Carter was at the dish rack, depositing a tray of dessert plates. He was a busboy, and the only person in the Inn who had spoken to me. That morning, after breakfast, he had helped me stack the dishes. He had a quick smile and bright eyes and he talked constantly. I did not know it then, but Carter would become the best friend I would ever have.

“Am I in trouble?” I asked.

“Jesus, who knows?” Carter said. He shrugged his shoulders in a thought, then added, “Naw. She’d be yelling. But you’d better get your ass moving. She hates waiting.”

Nora Dowling was in a mellow mood. She told me she had learned of the trick with the garbage cans and that she had discovered it was a conspiracy between Ben Benton and her own busboy, a test to drive me back to the South.

“Ben, I understand,” she sighed. “Ben’s such a man, a bully. But he’s a good man, too. Nobody ever believes it, but he’s on the city council.”