She nodded. She pressed her lips together hard. Then she held out the paper bag. "Pan dulce. From the bakery on Hoffman. Emi said you'd want the pink ones."
"Emi's a sharp kid."
"Emi," said Emi, "wants to put up the other can."
He held it up. He had lettered the cardboard himself, in marker, in careful square capitals that were not quite steady, copying Lazaro's sign exactly. TAKE ONE. NO QUESTIONS. Under it, smaller, in his own handwriting, he had added: YOU CAN ALSO ASK.
Lazaro looked at that for a long moment.
"That's better than mine," he said.
They wired it up together, at the Lake Street end of the alley this time, right by the sidewalk, where people walking past couldn't miss it, Emi holding the can steady and Lazaro twisting the wire with pliers and Celestina reading the lot number off a case of white boxes that she had picked up herself that Thursday at the health department, after her meeting. When it was done the boy stood back and looked at it with his hands on his hips, the way Mrs. Vuong looked at a clean lint trap.
"Now start the motorcycle," he said.
"It doesn't start."
"You said you fixed it."