"You got some weird ways," Gaetano said. "But you're the king. If that's the way you want to play it, okay. Give me the money now."

"It's a dollar and seventy-five cents," I said, tightening my arms around the basket.

"I can count."

"It's way too much to keep in your pocket overnight."

"You're the one who gets robbed, not me."

"Grandinetti could keep it for us," I said.

"We already talked about that," Gaetano growled. "No. Turn it over. Now."

I gave him the money. "Can you spare a penny?"

Gaetano wiped his mouth and looked at me. "If you take a penny, that leaves us a penny short when we go to buy sandwiches tomorrow."

"I mean one of your own pennies. Can you spare one?"

He turned his head away. Then he handed me a penny without even looking at me. "When we split the profits, you owe me." He walked off.

I returned the basket and towel to Grandinetti, checked my shoes into baggage at the train station, and went to Central Park for the night.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

Things Go Wrong.

We'd made a whole dollar and seventy-five cents. It was like the difference between the sun and the moon-as Uncle Aurelio said. Getting rich in America was easy after all. By my calculations, even after setting aside sandwiches for ourselves (including Grandinetti) on Wednesday, we'd still have two dozen to sell. I went to sleep as happy as anyone curled under a bush in Central Park could be.

But at lunchtime Wednesday it poured in a burst. By the time we managed to take cover under an awning, the top layers of sandwiches in our basket were soaked through so bad, the bread was coming apart. The bottom and side sandwiches were a little soggy. Only four sandwiches from the middle were perfect.

We threw away the bread from the soakedsandwiches and ate the insides as breakfast. Gaetano wanted to do the same with the soggy ones, too.

"Sell the soggy ones for ten cents each," said Tin Pan Alley. "The secretaries can buy them. At least we come away with something."

"That's mook thinking," said Gaetano. "If we sell a lousy product, we ruin our reputation."

"You think you sound like some kind of hotshot, talking like that," said Tin Pan Alley.

"Hold on." I turned to Tin Pan Alley. "You were the one who said people have to trust food vendors. They trust us so far. If we sell bad stuff, we lose that."

Tin Pan Alley blinked. "Are you on his side now?"

"All I want is to sell sandwiches. Wet sandwiches won't bring us more customers."

"They're not that wet." Tin Pan Alley spat on the ground. He wouldn't look at us. "Okay, then give them to me."

"Pig," said Gaetano. "We'll split them equally."

"You can each take two-one for lunch and one for dinner. But I get the rest."

Tin Pan Alley was the skinniest of us, but still ... "You're going to get sick," I said.

"I want them."

Gaetano crossed his arms at his chest. "All right. Go puke. But only if we don't have to put money in your cup today."

"Deal," said Tin Pan Alley.

"I'll go patrol," said Gaetano.

"It's okay today. All day long. My padrone went to Staten Island. I overheard him tell someone."

So we sold the four good sandwiches, then left Tin Pan Alley with six soggy ones.

Gaetano and I walked toward Five Points. We had soggy sandwiches in our pockets, and I had the day's earnings in my fist-a whole dollar. Plus the penny I'd already borrowed from Gaetano for baggage check that night. But about halfway to Grandinetti's I stopped.

"You think he'll make eighty cents by the end of today?"

"That's his problem."

"He's our partner. You even said so. So his problems are our problems."

"How do we really know he's our partner?" said Gae-tano. "Maybe he's not going to eat himself sick. Maybe he's selling those sandwiches right now."

"You know he isn't."

Gaetano smirked. "You'll never be a shark, you know that, Dom? You can do the numbers, but you don't have a head for business." He held out his hand with a resigned look on his face.

I gave Gaetano seventy-five cents and the basket to return to Grandinetti. Then I ran back to put twenty-five in Tin Pan Alley's cup.

He wasn't on his corner.

I crossed the street and walked slowly up and down the blocks, listening for his triangle. I never heard him.

When I got to Chatham Square, I saw a boy sitting on a curb ravenously eating a sandwich-one of our soggy ones. He had a small harp wedged under his knees and a tin cup between his feet. He was the boy I'd talked to before, the one with the welts.

I thought of beggar boys all over town eating soggysandwiches and feeling like some spirit had blessed them. Munaciello's good counterpart. Nonna would have loved Tin Pan Alley. Before I could think twice, I dropped the twenty-five cents in the boy's cup. He gaped at me. Then he quick tucked the cup between his belly and his knees and went back to eating.

It felt rotten to go to sleep on Wednesday with less money than the night before. We were going backward fast. A thousand sandwiches. How would we ever sell that many? How would I ever make enough money to get home?

I thought of how Mamma used to stand at the window and wave to me when I'd go somewhere with Uncle Aure-lio. I felt like she was waving to me that night-waving and calling-only I was too far away to see or hear her. I had to fight to get back to her.

Thursday went okay-so okay, in fact, that at the end of the day we each kept a dime for ourselves. Friday was the same. No thieves or rain. No padrone.

The only trouble we had was with the price. Tin Pan Alley would say it clearly. And men who were alone generally paid up, especially if they had suits on. But when there were two men together, or when someone was buying a few sandwiches at once, they gave us a bunch of coins and left fast. The faster they left, the less it turned out they'd paid for each sandwich. And women generally paid less, too, though usually they bargained. That was okay, though. After all, no one but the top guys could really afford twenty-five cents. It was either give a few breaks or lose customers.

Still, by the end of the lunch crowd on Friday, even after putting the money in Tin Pan Alley's cup, we had three dollars and sixty cents.

"Think how many sandwiches we can buy tomorrow," said Gaetano. "It's going to be a good week after all."

"The week is over," I said. "No work on Saturday."

"But Saturday's a workday," Gaetano said. Then he stopped. "I could use a day off."

Tin Pan Alley didn't say anything. I wondered if he ever got a day off.

"A buck a week for a couple of hours' work a day-not bad. Hand over the money," said Gaetano. "I'm about to buy me a steak."

"A buck and twenty cents each," said Tin Pan Alley, putting out his hand, too.

"Hold on." I clamped my hands down on both pockets. "We need something to start next week with."

"A quarter," said Gaetano. "That's what we started this week with."

"Just listen," I said. "If we each take only twenty cents now, we can eat okay Saturday and Sunday, and we'll still have three whole dollars to start Monday with. There's no telling how much money we can make next week if we start with that much." I was already counting the sandwiches we could sell. Why, Monday alone, if luck was on our side, we could eat, and still sell forty-four sandwiches. That couldn't be so. I did the numbers again.

Tin Pan Alley was staring off into the distance. When he turned to me, he nodded and I knew he'd done the numbers, too.

"This is just good business," I said reasonably.

"And you're both out of your minds," said Gaetano. "What's the point of working all the time and never having any fun? Give me my money."

"You'll make a lot more by the end of next week," said Tin Pan Alley almost in a whisper.

"How much more?"

"Tons," I said.

"Aw, come on, guys." Gaetano crossed his arms. "Twenty cents is too little to have any real fun. We have to take at least fifty each." His feet were spread; he was ready for battle.

I thought about it. "Okay, that'll leave us two dollars and ten cents. The extra ten cents won't buy a sandwich. We can put it in Tin Pan Alley's cup."

Tin Pan Alley's eyes shot open wide. "I didn't ask for it."

"You have to work this weekend. We don't."

The first thing I did with my money was pay back Gae-tano the three cents I'd borrowed to check my shoes. Then I set aside seven more cents to pay for my shoes for the next week.

I spent the weekend in Central Park, eating popcorn and meat on sticks. Forty cents went a long way.

Monday we discovered the problem with buying two dollars' worth of sandwiches: once we cut them and wrapped them up nice, the basket couldn't hold them all. So Gaetano carried the basket with most of them, and I carried an armful.

When we got to the bottom of Mulberry Street, I dropped one. Gaetano was already crossing the street, and he didn't see. I could pick it up fast and wipe off the paper and no one would know the difference.

I shifted the others to one arm, reached down with my free hand, and dropped two more. A dog appeared out of nowhere and ran off with one. Then something knockedme from behind, and my chin smacked hard on the sidewalk. I rolled over in time to see the two thieves make off with the rest of my sandwiches.

By the time I caught up to Gaetano, he was halfway down the next block.

"What happened? Where are the sandwiches?"

"A dog got one. And the two thieves got the others. I guess your big brother isn't protecting you anymore."

"Sure he is. He's just not protecting you. You have to stay by my side or they can get you." He cocked his head at me. "Cheer up. We've still got a basketful to sell. Find some paper in that pile of trash and wipe off your chin. No one's going to buy from a bleeding kid."

While Gaetano patrolled the area, Tin Pan Alley and I sold twenty-three sandwiches, clearing four dollars and sixty cents after putting twenty-five in Tin Pan Alley's cup. A great day.

Gaetano put out his hand. "A dollar. Right now."

"We agreed to go another week."

"We doubled our money in one day. I want my dollar."

I threw up my hands and let them slap to my sides. "If everything went just right-if everyone paid us twenty-five cents and if we sold every sandwich-our money wouldn't just double in a day, it would grow by ..." I thought. "Four times!" The numbers were staring me in the face. "We've got to keep the money in there till the end of the week." That was the fastest way to get to a thousand sandwiches.

"Oh, all right." Gaetano crossed his arms. "Give me twenty cents."

On Tuesday we bought sixteen long sandwiches. Pier-ano's eyes practically popped out of his head. He gave mea breakfast pastry, and one for Gaetano, too, who was out on the sidewalk looking in through the window. When I dared to mention we worked with a third guy, Pierano dropped another pastry in the bag.

Once we cut the sandwiches, we were way past what the bushel basket could hold. We begged Grandinetti to lend us his one-wheeled handcart. He wasn't happy about it, but so long as we got it back to him by three o'clock, with the towel, it was okay. And he smiled when we gave him a sandwich.

Gaetano pushed the cart and I walked beside him. The mound of sandwiches under the towel was impressive- more than sixty. I watched it proudly. Mamma, here I come.

At the bottom of Mulberry Street, I was on the lookout for that dog and the two thieves. They weren't around. But four little boys-the oldest couldn't have been more than six-came up begging. They had on nothing but short pants. I tried to shoo them away. Gaetano bumped the cart down the curb and crossed the street as though they weren't there.

As he was maneuvering the cart up the other curb, one of the urchins pulled off the towel and they all grabbed sandwiches with both hands and ran back through the traffic across the street. I raced after them, but they split up. I ran back to Gaetano.

"You didn't catch any of them?" he practically shouted.

"I didn't want to leave you alone, with no one to help you guard the cart."

"Yeah, like you're some big help." Gaetano pushed the cart fast, his bottom lip thrust forward.

"We've still got gobs to sell," I said.

But he fumed all the way to Wall Street.

Tin Pan Alley ate the pastry from Pierano's while Gae-tano went on and on about what a mess I'd made of things, his temples pulsing.

"Why are you so mad?" I finally said. "You didn't act like this when the thieves jumped me yesterday."