"We'll see about that," Gianfranco said. He built toward Vienna, where Carlo had been operating by himself. Even before he got there, Carlo cut shipping rates. Gianfranco cut them even more. If Carlo wanted to keep him out, he would have to start taking a loss in Vienna, too. He tried it. It didn't work- losing money on two major routes, he couldn't make enough on the others to stay in the black. His whole operation started hemorrhaging money. He had to give up the Paris line.

Gianfranco didn't gloat-too much. "I think you got a little too cute," he said.

"Maybe," Carlo said unhappily. "I didn't expect you to get back at me so fast." He tapped the rule book with his forefinger. "I saw this loss leader thing in here, and it looked so cool I had to try it out."

"I've done stuff like that," Gianfranco said. "I think that one can be good, but you pushed it too hard. The game will bite you if you go with any one thing too much. You've got to stay balanced. That's how you make money."

"You old capitalist, you," Carlo said. They both laughed.

Annarita didn't say anything about The Gladiator to Cianlranco at supper or at breakfast the next morning. She didn't feel like getting worried questions from his parents-or from her own. Right now, all she knew about the place was that Marco Furillo thought it was politically unreliable. That didn't prove much.

So she waited till the two of them went down the stairs together and started (or Hoxha Polytechnic before asking, "You've been to The Gladiator, haven't you?"

"Sure!" He sounded enthusiastic.

"What do you do there?" she asked.

"Play games, mostly. I get books sometimes, too." He started talking about a complicated coup he'd pulled off against somebody named Carlo. It didn't make much sense to her. Then he started talking about how railroads really operated in the nineteenth century. Some of that made even less sense, but he knew a lot about it.