He was sitting low on a mourning stool and Luria, Dworkin, Walinsky, and the rest sat on chairs to make a closed circle. Adam had told Hawkins that they mourned for seven days. For seven days the family of the dead couldn’t sit in chairs, shave, or cut their hair. They couldn’t put on new clothes or greet guests. Hawkins got through the crowd, breached the circle, and knelt at Levy’s feet so his head was almost level with Levy’s.

Without counting, Hawkins knew that there were eight men in the circle; some of them liked him, some didn’t.

Levy grabbed his hands. “You got the killers . . .” he said.

Hawkins didn’t answer.

“Abe said you got my son’s killers.”

“We arrested some boys last night, Jake, but we had to let them go.”

“You let them go. . . .”

“We don’t have enough to hold them yet, but we’ll get it. . . .”

“How?” Luria asked. Hawkins ignored him and talked to Levy.

“We’ll get witnesses, evidence . . . blood on their clothes, knives, we’ll get it.” The men around him were quiet; he kept on talking to Levy. “There’s five of them, Jake. That means we’ve got a chance. We pull ’em in at odd hours when they don’t expect it; we push and keep pushing till we find the weak link . . .”

“Weak link?” That came from Walinsky, who leaned forward facing Hawkins.

“The one most likely to break.” They all leaned forward to listen and for no reason Hawkins wondered which one was the weak link in this circle. Every group had one, no matter how solid it seemed. Dworkin with his warm, brown eyes would be it. But Hawkins didn’t understand why was he thinking about weak links here. These men weren’t his enemies. Levy loved him, he loved Levy, and the others wouldn’t hurt him; some of them didn’t trust him or any black and never would, but they weren’t men to hurt anyone. Except Luria . . . he faced Luria and their eyes met and locked. Luria would hurt him; Levy rubbed Hawkins’s hand. “The weak link,” Levy said, “tell me about the weak link.”

“We . . . work on him; we scare him until he avoids the others. Then we spread rumors that he broke and the others’ll know he’s weak and they’ll believe it. Then they’ll get scared that we’ll make a deal and leave them out.”

“Deal . . .” Luria’s voice was flat, like his eyes. “What deal?”

Hawkins knew he had made a mistake.

“Tell Jacob about the deal,” Luria said.

“What are they talking about?” Levy asked.

This time it was Walinsky who answered.