[lug] file system frustration - the file that won't die?

[Ken MacFerrin]

I was trying to recompile my kernel today and the install died with an 
error that it could not delete the following file:
/lib/modules/2.6.16-gentoo-r3/kernel/drivers/block

So I try this:
mm-home1 linux # ls -al /lib/modules/2.6.16-gentoo-r3/kernel/drivers/

And get this in return:
ls: /lib/modules/2.6.16-gentoo-r3/kernel/drivers/block: No such file or 
directory
total 0
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 72 Apr 24 03:53 .
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 72 Apr 24 03:53 ..

Then:
mm-home1 linux # rm -rf /lib/modules/2.6.16-gentoo-r3/kernel/drivers
rm: cannot remove directory 
`/lib/modules/2.6.16-gentoo-r3/kernel/drivers': Directory not empty

Then this again:
mm-home1 linux # ls -al /lib/modules/2.6.16-gentoo-r3/kernel/drivers/
ls: /lib/modules/2.6.16-gentoo-r3/kernel/drivers/block: No such file or 
directory
total 0
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 72 Apr 24 03:53 .
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 72 Apr 24 03:53 ..

Then try this:
mm-home1 linux # file /lib/modules/2.6.16-gentoo-r3/kernel/drivers/block
/lib/modules/2.6.16-gentoo-r3/kernel/drivers/block: cannot open 
`/lib/modules/2.6.16-gentoo-r3/kernel/drivers/block' (No such file or 
directory)

Finally I try this and get nothing in return:
mm-home1 linux # lsof | grep "lib/modules/2.6.16-gentoo-r3/kernel/drivers"

This was all as superuser..  So according to "rm" it can't forcibly 
delete the parent directory because of this "block" file but according 
to "ls" and "file", the "block" file doesn't exist??

lsof doesn't show this directory as being in use and I even tried to 
reboot to see if I could kill whatever was holding on to it, but no 
luck.  Filesystem is ReiserFS under LVM2..

Suggestions??

Thanks,
Ken