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"I was sorry to hear about your mama, boy. " he commiserated, handing Jesus a bottle which the sergeant gratefully accepted. "She was a living saint, and quite a beauty in her time. Awful thing. "

"I know that, Uncle. " DeSantos responded, looking back to where Maria waited by the car. "I'm just sorry that I took so long to get back... "

"She understood, even at the end. " the old man told him. "Of course where the body can't be, the spirit goes. Anna knew your love was with her, as well as Chiros' "

"Thanks, Uncle Joe. " the soldier returned with honest admiration for this gentle old man. 'I just hope I can do right by her now. Maria told me about Father Martinez... "

"Take care about judging him too harshly. " Joe admonished Jesus with a mild reprimand. "Remember that he thinks his way is just as right as yours. "

"I will, Uncle. " Jesus answered, patting the elders left shoulder. "Thanks again for the brew and the advice. "

He crossed back to his impatient cousin, smiling wickedly at her as the army engineer took his suitcase out of the back seat. "Let me dump this stuff inside and we'll get going, alright? "

"Just let's go soon. " she told him worriedly. "I don't like leaving Pablo alone for too long. "

It was sweltering inside, the fans silent as death. Jesus gazed about at the simple decor, plain wood furniture and modest religious icons on the walls. He picked up a picture of the three of them in happier time, Chiro standing over his little brother. The younger sibling sat proudly on a brilliant red tricycle; once broken but made new by the eldest son.

Chiro had worked hard to support his family, after five years of domestic brutality at the hands of an abusive drunken father ended. One day, Papa finally walked out the door, never to return. Neither of his sons knew or cared where the man ended up, happy that their mama could smile again.

Chiro first did odd jobs in a hardware store at sixteen, then; upon seeing how good he was with his hands, the owner recommended the Latino teen to an independent construction contractor. When his boss found work in the mid-west, Chiro went with him.

There was no small irony that his death at the hands of a crazed junkie occurred not in the barrio of East LA but in Chicago.

Jesus sighed deeply, deciding that you could never go home again. This place was just an empty shell with angry memories now that Mama was gone. He threw his things on the table and walked outside to where Maria waiting impatiently.

"I'm ready. " he told her simply.

The couples arrival was welcome relief for the young man, all of seventeen, waiting inside the hardware store on Whittier Ave. The mixed crowd of the curious and the zealots had grown since the night before when Father Martinez began his crusade to save Mama DeSantos soul.

At Marias' insistence, Pablo had helped her get the dead woman into the store where he worked. They sat a restless vigil through the night as the good father shouted threats through the steel security gate. Even as the first faint glimmer of dawn peaked over the skyline, the good padre seemed tireless in his efforts to secure the corpse for his corrupt final sacraments.

The priest and his followers were surprised when Maria pulled her car to a stop in front of the besieged building. Incompetence reigned as readily as fanaticism, the vigilantes missing the young womans' earlier exit out the back alley to met Jesus at the airport.

"Sinner! " shouted an anonymous soul, hidden behind a dozen supporters, as she and Sergeant DeSantos exited the vehicle. Marias' face reddened at the outburst while Jesus quickly took her hand in support. He ignored the voice to focus his attentions on the head of this street congregation.

"You. " he pointed a finger at the short stocky elder in clerics' garb. "I want to talk with you, Father. The rest of you... go home. "

Father Martinez had come up from Mexico City some two years back, just after the rise of the dead had been suppressed. But once he'd begun ministering to the tiny Latino neighborhood, the ambitious little friar quickly became the strict conscience and hard critic to his flock.

But something terrible must have happened to him, no one knew what, this man whom Jesus thought looked like that fat priest from the Robin Hood films. It made him inflexible in manner toward the more Americanized Hispanics.

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