Chapter 13: Forty Seconds Too Early

The film was grey and green, and it began before the girl in the coat ever appeared.

A man in a dark jacket walked up to a wall on a festival street and leaned on it with his back to the camera.

Ilaria was not watching the screen.

She was watching me.

I stood up before the girl on the screen reached the man.

"That's me," I said.

The hall went quiet from the front row to the doors.

"I'm the girl in the green coat. I picked his pocket. I took four hundred euros for my mother's medicine, and I was twenty-two."

Nobody coughed.

On the screen, my own hand slid into the man's pocket and came out with a wallet.

Domenico Montanari shook his head slowly.

"A thief at the Ruffo table," he said. "And the Don's own bride."

"I told you myself," I said. "Ilaria didn't have to show you."

"I wanted the council to see her face when she heard it," said Ilaria.

"She's heard it," said Teresa, from the front row, loudly. "Sit down and look at your own film."

One of the captains by the wall had not taken his eyes off the screen.

"Run it back," he said.

"There's nothing to see," said Ilaria.

"Run it back to the start."

The oldest of the council lifted two fingers.

The clerk at the laptop dragged the line back.

The man in the dark jacket walked up to the wall again.

This time the whole hall saw what his right hand did.

He took the wallet out of his own pocket, looked at it, and pushed it back in so that half of it stuck out.

Then he leaned on the wall, and turned his back to the street, and waited.

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