Nico left after viewing the body. A line had formed behind him. The Jinx Boys in their best clothes, mothers, fathers, cousins, aunts, uncles. Nico followed the center aisle to the front doors where the man who reminds Nico of sand waited.

The man's name is Levek. He is slightly-built but his head seems large. His hair is yellow like sand reflecting sun, his skin looks rough like sand squeezed and seen close in the hand, and his suit has the color of old, dried-out sand.

The chapel's front steps are cement, the walls are stone, and the doors two slabs of wood lined with iron.

"How did you find me here?" says Nico.

"Obituaries, Nico. I hope I'm not taking you away from the service?"

"No, that's okay. It's been long enough already." He feels hot inside the suit. The sun is high and warm but the stone and steps are cool in shade.

"I assume your problems are taken care of?"

"August was in the way. He wouldn't give in."

"What about your other friends?"

"I won, so now I lead. They're all in line."

"Good." Levek turns and faces the street. Old cars in dull greens and browns line the avenue. "That's very good."

"Emilio, what are you doing?" "Go play with August, Nico, leave me alone." The skin around the teenager's eyes is a soft red like flesh bordering a wound. The girl in the picture rests her chin on her hand, a rose caught between the pleats of her hair. "You're looking at Luisa's picture again." "You don't understand, you're only eight, Nico." "She hates you now, doesn't she? She used to like you, but she hates you." "Get out, you little shit."

When Nico looked down he noticed that the hole in August's forehead had been mended and white powder applied thickly to cover the marks of stitches. Nico stood with his hands folded before him for long enough to indicate contemplation. He thought that the other boys had been standing too far away and only he had seen how clear and dark the blood burst out of the forehead.

"So, they don't know how it happened, huh?" says Levek.

"No. We've made enough enemies. I just named some of them and the cops were happy," says Nico.

"Were the other boys there?"

"They were, but they won't talk. They're mine."

"Good. Mr. Boggs wants to know he can rely on you."

Nico leans back on the cool stone of the chapel wall. "When do I meet him?"

Levek smiles and shakes his head. "You don't meet Mr. Boggs. Everything goes through me. When Mr. Boggs needs you for something, he tells me, I find you and give you instructions as well as your payment. If you have any problems with carrying through on a job, you come talk to me and they will be dealt with."

"What has he done? Oh, my son, my son." "Call an ambulance, hurry." "Mama, what's wrong? "Nico, go back to bed." It is only his own face in the mirror that the child will remember. The eyes wide white eggs staring. Not the mother bunched up on the floor. Not the father moaning an unmanly grief. Not the blood in a color he cannot understand. "Mama, Emilio hurt himself." "Nico, get out, I told you."

When the line to view the body had begun, Nico's mother and August's mother were huddled together in the first pew, the head of one resting on the lap and arms of the other. The one sobbing. A handkerchief gray with tears. The other speaking in her ear, "I know what it's like. I know just what you're feeling." Nico knew that if he didn't make himself hard and solid as stone that the weeping would envelop him with its soft, mysterious flavors, its comfort, its tempting sorrowful language.

"I think we picked a good man when we chose you, Nico," says Levek. "You understand power. And you're young. That's important. The rest of us just keep getting older."

"We'll take care of anything you need, Mr. Levek. You can tell Mr. Boggs that from me personally."

One of the doors swings open. A smell of candles and a sound of mingling and prayer. Nico's mother steps out in her cream-yellow jacket and black hair fixed in a neat bun. A cross, gold and smooth, hangs around her neck.

"Nico, what are you doing out here?" She blinks at the sunlight through small eyes set in cups of wrinkled eyelids.

"I'm talking to a friend, mom."

She looks at Levek, who says nothing. She points through the open doorway. "A friend? The best friend you ever had is lying dead in there and you're not with him."

"The service is almost over, mom."

"Come back inside."

"We're talking business."

Levek smirks in a way that makes Nico think it's easy for a man like him to smirk. "I have to get going anyway, Nico. I'll contact you later." He bows, just slightly, to the mother. "Have a nice day, ma'am." And the man of sand walks away down the steps.

Her eyes are on Nico again. "What's wrong with you, Nico?"

He turns his back on her, watches Levek get into his new gray car. "Nothing, mom."

She takes hold of his elbow. "Come inside with me, now."

His body twists the arm out of her grasp. He steps back to the wall. "August is dead, okay? What do you want me to do about it now?"

Nico is baffled at the hard sharp eyes softening suddenly under a film of tears. She goes back in the chapel and closes the door behind her.

"Nico, come here, I want to talk to you." Father-hand clutching a glass filled with dark rich golden. Father-face black with beard. "Your brother's dead, Nico, I know you know that, you're a smart boy. But I want you to understand something." Father-voice smells sour sounds blurry. "Your brother wasn't strong enough, in here." Father-fist a trap of knuckles rapping on the heart. "He felt so much that his heart fell into pieces. Like some small flower you can just step on and crush. You need to be strong, Nico."

Nico remembers his mother leaning down and whispering in his ear as the priest went on about resurrection and life. "See, Nico, if you look hard enough you can see angels weeping over your brother. See them? Tiny, little wings like white doves. They're here to carry Emilio into the sky."

Nico sat as the priest hugged August's father for a moment, one man nearly collapsing into the other. He heard sobs and he heard prayers. He saw sun come in colored through stained glass windows. He stared at the black smooth panels of wood that comprised August's coffin and the stone gray and big beneath, not for one instant letting himself see angels weep.