Nicky nodded.
“All right,” Frankie said. “End of lecture. You got any plans for tonight?”
“No.”
“We'll go out for a meal, you and me and your grandmother. Tell her I said to be ready about seven, okay? We'll do something nice.”
Nicky had an ordinary day at school. Tommy was absent, again. The tedium was broken slightly in first period, when Frommer asked if anyone happened to know what the expression “pi R squared” meant. Nicky's hand went up before he thought about raising it. Frommer asked him to stand and answer. His face turned red, especially when he realized that Donna Carmenza was looking at him.
Donna came up to him during the morning break. “That was pretty sharp, with that square pie business.”
“It's no big deal,” Nicky said. “We studied it last year in math.”
“It must be nice to be such a brain.”
“I'm not a brain,” Nicky said. “Not compared to some kids. And it's not all that nice, either. You get teased a lot. I'd rather be good at sports.”
“That's stupid,” Donna said. “Anybody can be good at sports. Being smart—that's special. So, are you going to be around for Santo Pietro?”
“What's that?” Nicky asked.
“It's the feast day of Saint Peter. And the church bazaar. It's like a big fair, but with spedini and zeppoli and sausage-and-pepper sandwiches.”
“I'm not sure,” Nicky said. “My parents want me to go back to camp. But I'd rather stay here.”
“Then you should stay,” Donna said, as if that settled it. “If you miss Santo Pietro, you'll miss me running the ringtoss booth. I bet you'd be good at that.”
Nicky sailed through the rest of the day and then sailed home, thinking about playing games and winning prizes for Donna. He'd win her the biggest—
He heard the shouting before he even turned the corner. Mr. Moretti, the drunk who lived in his grandmother's basement apartment, was being attacked by two boys Nicky didn't recognize. Nicky broke into a run. His grandmother appeared on the stoop. He ran faster.
“Get out!” his grandmother was shouting. “Get out or I'll call the cops!”
She had the wooden spoon in her hand and was swinging wildly over the heads of the two boys. She landed a blow on one of them. He yelped, “Hey! Take it easy! He started this!”
The other boy was still pushing old man Moretti and slapping his face. Nicky charged at him and hit him in the chest with his shoulder. They both went down, hitting the sidewalk hard. Nicky felt the skin come off his knuckles.
The boy he'd tackled got to his feet and said, “Get away from me! Are you crazy?”
“Come on!” the other kid yelled.
They turned and ran.
Nicky and his grandmother got Mr. Moretti up off the pavement and led him down the steps into his dark, smelly apartment. Grandma Tutti pushed the old man onto a sofa that was missing most of its cushions and said, “Like I don't have enough trouble with you already, now you're brawling in the street in front of my building!”
“Mrs. Borelli, please! I'm an old man!”
“You're an old fool,” Tutti said. “Next time you fight your own fight. Come, Nicky.”
When they were upstairs, Grandma Tutti said, “It's going to hurt, but I'm getting the Mercurochrome.” She carne back with an old-looking bottle of medicine. “Hold your hand over the sink,” she said, and then dripped orange liquid on his scraped knuckles.
Like fire! Nicky flinched. The sting brought tears to his eyes. His grandmother took his wrist and said, “Hold still, and don't be a baby.” When she was finished, she said, “Come. I've got some of those nice can-noli left.”
Frankie was home by five. He came up to Nicky's room, gave him a hug and said, “Hey, killer. Ma told me you gave a lesson to some hoodlums today.”
“They were bullying Mr. Moretti,” Nicky said. “I knocked one of them down, and they ran away.”
“Good for you,” Frankie said. “Although, the old man brought it on himself. He agreed to buy beer for those two kids. He bought wine for himself instead, and then refused to give the kids their money back. He's done it before.”
Nicky put his face in his hands and said, “Oh, no.”
“Fugheddaboudit,” Frankie said. “You did the right thing. You always gotta stick by your people, no matter what. I'm gonna see if I can find out who the kids were, and go talk to their parents. And return the money. They oughta know their kids are trying to get winos to buy them beer, for one thing. And Moretti oughta know he can't pull a stunt like that, at his age. But you—I'm proud of you. If someone is beating up an old man, you gotta stop that, even if the old man isn't your downstairs neighbor.”
Nicky was ashamed to say it, but he said it anyway: “I was scared.”
“Of course you were scared! Two kids against one! That's scary.”
“I guess that makes me sort of a coward,” Nicky said.
“That makes you brave,” Frankie said. “A guy who isn't scared, and starts fighting, what's brave about that? That's nothing. But a guy who's scared, and stands up for himself anyway? That's brave.”
Nicky grinned and said, “Well, I wasn't completely alone. Grandma Tutti was going after them with her spoon.”
“She's deadly with that thing!” Frankie said. “Listen, you get dressed, and we'll go out for dinner. You like Italian, right? Only kidding.”
Dinner was a huge meal at a neighborhood place called Luigi's. Frankie had the vitello. His mother had the pollo al limone. Nicky ordered meat ravioli, in a meat sauce. It was heaven.
“Ma,” Frankie said. “Look at him. Aren't you feeding the boy?”
“Night and day,” his mother said. “But he's a teenager. You know what that is.”
“I know what hungry is,” Frankie said. “We better order dessert before he eats the tablecloth.”
On the way home, Frankie said, “I remembered something, after the thing with old man Moretti. Me and your dad got jumped one night by these two clowns from another neighborhood. They were bigger than us, and since I was bigger than your dad, they went after me first. The fact is, I was getting beat. Then all of a sudden this one guy screams and jumps up, holding his leg. Then the other guy screams, and he jumps up, too. I look up and see your dad. He's got this piece of pipe, and he's smashing these guys on the backs of their knees.”
“I never heard this story,” Grandma Tutti said. “And I don't like hearing it now!”
“It was unbelievable,” Frankie said. “I don't know why, but a sharp smack in the back of the knee is incredibly painful. The biggest he-man in the world will fall apart. How your father knew that, I don't know. But these guys started crying, and we took off.”
“I can't believe my dad would do that,” Nicky said. “He always told me you should never solve a problem with violence.”
“That's a good rule—unless the problem is violence,” Frankie said. “In that case, sometimes you gotta fight fire with fire. Or get beat up.”
“What did the guys want from you?”
“Who knows?” Frankie said. “But we never saw them again. And your dad was the big hero for a couple of weeks.”
The three of them walked the rest of the way in silence. When they got to the building, Frankie said, “I'll tell you something, Nicky. I miss your dad. I really do. Maybe now that you're visiting … Ah, maybe not. Fugheddaboudit.”
ommy was back at school the following morning. At the break, he said, “Listen. This thing came up yesterday—a little job. A guy needs two kids to deliver some stuff. He'll pay us a hundred bucks.”
“What for?”
“I didn't ask. He just said it was two packages. Take 'em in, drop 'em off, bang, we're done.”
“That's a lot of money for nothing,” Nicky said.
“I told him we'd meet him tonight,” Tommy said. “I'll come to your place at seven.”
In the afternoon Nicky went shopping with his grandmother. She was cooking baked ziti to take to
a sick friend, plus a pot of pasta e fagioli for the house, plus a baked chicken oreganata.
“I need you to carry the chicken,” she said. “There's something wrong with my arm.”
“What's wrong with your arm, Grandma?”
“It's old, is what's wrong with it,” she said. “I can't lift it up. Since yesterday morning.”
“Does it hurt?”
“No. It just doesn't go up. It's tired.”
“From what?”
“From talking! You, with the questions. Let's go to the store.”
When they were back home, his grandmother said, “Here's what I want you to do. Wash the chicken, and pat it dry. Rub it all over with olive oil. Then sprinkle salt and orégano all over the outside of it, and mash two cloves of garlic and put those inside. Capeesh?”
“Capito, norma,” Nicky said.
His grandmother smiled. “Now he speaks Italian! You're a good boy, Nicky. I'm going to lie down for a while.”
Frankie came in an hour later. Nicky had finished with the chicken and was sitting at the kitchen table doing math homework.
“Hey, kid,” Frankie said. “Where's Ma?”
“She's lying down.”
“Lying down what?” Frankie said. “Ma doesn't lie down. I'm going to look in on her.”
When he came back, Nicky said, “What did she say?”
“She said, ‘I'm an old woman. What do you want from me?’ She's gonna finish the ziti for Mrs. Giancola.”
The chicken was unbelievable. Frankie ate four pieces. Nicky ate two. Grandma Tutti said, “Nicky used too much orégano. That's why it tastes so good. I should use more from now on.”
“It's good,” Frankie said. “Yours is good, too.”
“This is better,” she said.
The doorbell rang at seven. Nicky jumped up and said, “That's Tommy. I gotta go.”
He gave his grandmother a kiss. His uncle grabbed him, got a hug and said, “Don't beat up any guys tonight, okay? The neighborhood needs a rest.”
Nicky called out, “Bye!” and was down the stairs and out the door.
Tommy said, “Come on,” and took off at a jog.
“Where are we going ?”
“It's a few blocks,” Tommy said, and kept running.
Around the corner they went, and over three streets, and up four blocks and over three more streets. They were in a neighborhood Nicky didn't know, and Tommy signaled to Nicky to stop running.
Tommy said, “You don't run down a block like this. Someone will think you stole something, and start running after you.”
“What do you mean, ‘a block like this’?” Nicky asked.
“Look. There's no one here.”
It was true. The sidewalk was empty. There were no kids playing slapball, no kids on bikes or skates, no old men sitting on the stoops drinking wine.
Half a block down, they understood why. A grocery store with the windows busted out of it had bright yellow police tape stretched across the front door and the sidewalk.
“Something bad happened here,” Tommy said. “Somebody musta got killed.”
At the end of the next block, they turned left and stopped in front of a dry cleaner. It looked closed. But when Tommy pushed on the glass door, it swung open. The two boys went in.
The shop was dark and empty. A man stepped out from the shadows.
“Whatta you want?” he asked.
“We're here to see Jimmy,” Tommy said.
“In the back,” the man said, and pointed at a door.
Behind the door was an office. A man in a black suit with slicked-back hair was sitting with a phone stuck under his chin. He lifted his head at the boys' entrance and jerked his eyes toward a pair of seats against the wall. Tommy and Nicky sat.
The man said into the phone, “Tell him he's got two days. After that, we make meatballs out of him.” Then he hung up. “Hiya, fellas. You're on time. I like that. You guys work together before?”
“We did a job for a guy passing bad twenties,” Tommy said.
“No kidding,” the man said. “And you're how old?”
“Uh, fourteen,” Tommy said.
“You got a driver's license?”
“No.”
“Too bad. I could use a kid with a driver's license,” the man said. “If this job works out, maybe I can get you one. Here's the deal. I got two small packages I want delivered. But the guy who's getting them, he ain't around yet. They can't be delivered until Sunday. Some people have been snooping around here, asking questions. So I gotta move the stuff today, and get someone to deliver it Sunday. Got that?”
“Sure,” Tommy said. “We hold on to it until then, and hand it over.”
“Right,” the guy said. “How much did I say it was?”
“You said a hundred—each,” Tommy said.
The man in the suit grinned and his eyes lit up. He said, “No. I said a hundred, period. But I didn't know it was going to be two of you. Let's call it eighty—each. Half now, and half next week, after the packages are delivered. How's that?”
Tommy said, “How about all of it, up front?”
The man's smile went away. “Don't hustle me, kid. Half now. Take it or leave it.”
“We'll take it,” Tommy said. “Where's the stuff?”
The man left the room and came back with two small packages wrapped in blue laundry paper and tied with string.
Tommy said, “That's it?”
“That's it, kid.”
“It looks like dry cleaning. What's inside?”
“You don't wanna know. Just make the delivery, and come back for the rest of your dough.”
“Where do we go?”
The man wrote down an address on a piece of paper and handed it to Tommy. “It's Jerry's Fish, on Twentieth Avenue. The guy's name is Dominick. He'll be expecting the package Sunday morning. Don't go near the place before Sunday. And don't hang around after you give him the stuff. Okay?”
“Okay,” Tommy said.
“And don't screw this up,” the man said. “Dominick is a very bad man. You don't want a guy like that mad at you. Or a guy like me, either. Don't forget that.”
When they were on the street again, and off the block, Nicky said, “So whatta you think is in here?”
“The guy said we don't wanna know,” Tommy said. “So I don't wanna know.”
“But don't you want to guess?”
“No,” Tommy said. “If it was nothing, he wouldn't be paying us to deliver it. So I don't wanna know.”
Back at the apartment, Tommy said, “I've been thinking. Maybe you should hold on to these packages.”
“Why me?” Nicky said.
“I don't know where to put them,” Tommy said. “My mom comes in my room all the time.”
Nicky said, “I guess I could put them in my room. I don't think my grandmother comes in there too much.”
“Here,” Tommy said, handing Nicky the packages.
Nicky tucked them under his shirt. “This stuff gives me the creeps.”
“This stuff gives you eighty bucks,” Tommy said. “Think of it that way.”
Nicky let himself in and ran upstairs fast, calling out, “Hi, Grandma,” as he went past the kitchen. He stuck the two packages in a drawer and buried them in T-shirts and underwear.
That night, trying to fall asleep, Nicky couldn't stop thinking about them. He imagined Grandma Tutti going through his drawers. He imagined her opening the packages. Worse, he imagined the police coming to the house. What was in there, anyway? What if it was drugs? He had nightmares about drug dealers and drug-sniffing dogs and policemen. He dreamed the packages got lost. He dreamed that—Bang! He woke with a start. It was time to go to school.
Decorations were already going up for Santo Pietro. Streamers and pendants were being hung across the street that separated the school from the church, where wooden booths were being constructed in rows that made the place look like a carnival midway. Port-O-Sans were parked in a line next to the street.
Somebody was expecting a real crowd.
At the morning break, after math class, Donna found Nicky and took him across the street. Her booth sat below the church bell tower, facing the schoolyard. Nicky listened as Donna explained the complex inner workings of the ringtoss booth.
“Cool,” Nicky said. “What can you win?”
“A bunch of crummy stuff,” Donna said. “But one of the teddy bears is pretty good.”
“That's what I'm going to win, then,” Nicky said.
“I'd like to see that,” a voice behind them said.
Nicky turned. It was Conrad—the kid who'd knocked him over on his first day of school, and who Tommy had said was Donna's old boyfriend.
“Hello, Conrad,” Donna said.
“Hey,” Conrad said. “You running the ringtoss again?”
“That's right.”
“Remember last year? Who got the teddy bear then?”
Donna rolled her eyes. “You did, Conrad.”
“And who'd I give it to?”
Donna rolled her eyes again. “Me.”
“Maybe I'll do that again,” Conrad said, and turned to Nicky. “Unless you've got other plans.”
“I'm going to win it,” Nicky said.
“Bet you won't.”
“Bet I will.”
“I'll see you here,” Conrad said. “Weenie.”
Nicky smiled and said, “Go for it. Take your best shot.” Just like Rocky Balboa.
Tommy grabbed Nicky's arm as he was leaving the schoolyard after school.
“C'mere,” he said, and pulled him around the corner. “Look.”
It was BlackPlanet Two. The billboard had gone up in the night, huge over the top of the Berkeley Linoleum building at the end of the block. A vast black planet was rising, with twin moons orbiting it. Under the planet were the words “Coming in December: Dawn of a New Planet.”
Nicky said, “Awesome.”
Tommy said, “Unbelievable.”
Nicky said, “But not until Christmas.”
Tommy said, “Tell me about it. That stinks.”
Nicky spent the afternoon in the kitchen with his grandmother, slicing garlic and stirring sauce for her famous steak pizzaiola with grilled peppers and onions. Between slicing and stirring, Nicky read the afternoon paper.
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