Her Birthday Celebration Was My Exit novel · Chapter 20 of 24

Chapter 20: Eighty-Eight Kilos

Lisetta looked down at the box.

Then up at me.

For one second she didn't know what to do with her face.

Then she laughed, and the room laughed with her, a little late.

"Well, go on, then," she said. "You know how. You've done it before."

I opened the box.

I took out the first candle and pushed it into the top tier.

Then the second.

"Do you all want to know what she's really doing here?" Lisetta said to the room.

Third. Fourth.

"She flew a million euros into this country in my luggage. On Remo's plane. That's what the government wants to know about. Not me. Her."

Fifth. Sixth.

"She packed the cases. She did the customs. She did all the paperwork, because she's so good at paperwork." Lisetta turned in a slow circle, playing to every corner. "And now she's here with her little box, pretending she's the victim."

Ten. Eleven. Twelve.

The pinky ring was watching my hands.

The cigar had stopped rolling his cigar.

"Tell them, Remo," Lisetta said, without looking at him. "Tell them she's the one who knew."

Remo didn't move from the wall.

Twenty. Twenty-one.

I took a book of matches out of my pocket and struck one.

I lit the first candle. Then the next.

My hand was steady.

It's always steady.

"Thirty-one," I said, and shook the match out.

The candles burned on the white roses.

Behind us, the ballroom doors opened.

The woman agent walked in.

The man was a step behind her.

Behind them came two more in windbreakers and a hotel manager who looked like he wanted to die.

The music stopped. Somebody had pulled the plug.

The woman agent walked straight across the floor to the cake.

She looked at the candles.

She looked at me.

"I said nothing brave," she said under her breath.

"It's a birthday party. I brought candles."

She turned to Lisetta.

"Lisetta Castiglione."

Lisetta lifted her chin. "This is a private party."

"I know. You paid for it in cash." The agent took a sheet of paper out of a plastic sleeve and held it up so the room could see it. "This is a United States customs declaration, filed in Bangor, Maine, on October third. I'm going to read it out loud."

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