Goldplate posted:

Trying to remember the title of a book from childhood.

The protagonist is a little girl, she might have been homeless but I don't remember her ever having to deal with any real problems of food and shelter. What I do remember is that what made her special. She had the ability to really listen to people and they would talk to her about their problems.

She would never say anything, but just by listening the people felt pressured into saying more and more and eventually they would talk themselves through the problem.

This is the downfall to the bad guy that moves into town and scams people with his smooth businessman manner. When he tries to talk to the little girl she just does her listening thing and the bad guy find himself talking to much and revealing details to his real plan.

There's something to do with the bad guys smoking or the smoke that comes out of his cigars and how they turn people stiff like statues. (Maybe he gets them to sell off their time? I think...) At the end of the book, the little girl is the last one not statued and for some reason there's like a thousand copies of the bad guy chasing her.

She manages to cut the bad guy off from his supply of cigars and so all his copies are fighting each other to get their cigars or busy trying to chase her down. When the cigars die out the bad guy/clone dies as well.