When a giant corporation closes its shutters and bolts its doors against its own client, its like a reverse prison. I, the client, feel like a tiny, pesky ant searching for a chink in the fortress wall so I can shout in my small voice: “hear me, and respond without boilerplate.” I’m almost deafened by the fortress’s PA system which occasionally blares “NO. JUST NO.”
The fortress does not spend time formulating thoughtful replies or building strong arguments. Those mundane activities are not necessary for fortresses, which have shutters, boltable doors, huge legal departments, and very large boots for squashing pesky ants.
All this over $725.
Come to think of it, $725 is exactly the average fee I’ve paid H&R Block for tax preparation each year for the past ten years. (I don’t have handy our prior twenty years’ fees.)
H&R Block is using bully tactics. Its M.O. is to stand impenetrable and unresponsive while its clients exhaust themselves arguing H&R Block’s arbitrary defenses.
Apologies. I have not allowed this blog to become a platform for personal complaints. But wait a minute. The theme of Thiefhunters in Paradise is thieves, thugs, and gangsters… So this report fits.
Bob and I are thrilled to announce the world premiere of the documentary we shot late last year with National Geographic. Pickpocket King features us, Bob Arno and Bambi Vincent, as “thiefhunters in paradise.” The paradise we chose for the story is the warm and wild city of Naples, Italy, home to the world’s best pickpockets.
National Geographic has just posted a clip. [As of October 9, the clip is no longer available.]
In the film, stage pickpocket Bob Arno faces off against a gang of the world’s best criminal pickpockets. The thieves demonstrate their trickiest (and most lucrative) steals. Bob and Bambi are invited to a splendid dinner with thieves, where lively thefts intersperse the endless courses.
The #1 pickpocket’s conclusion: “Bob. You and I do the same thing, but you make people laugh. I make them cry.”
The documentary’s international premiere begins this month, region by region and week by week. Watch for it in your local listing. I will post schedules as I receive them.
Michael-G created his own black bar to be sure his identity would be hidden.
Hamburg, Germany—Undercover pickpocket cop Michael-G is the first person we’ve met who exceeds our own nutcase-level of fascination with pickpocketry.
The day we spent together a year ago was all nuts-and-bolts info-sharing, technique-talking, statistic-rattling, drollness-swapping, photo-showing, video-viewing…. You know, the usual for pickpocket enthusiasts.
Over the years we’ve come to know a few others with extreme interest or knowledge in street thievery. The first may have been Terry Jones in Barcelona, whom we met exactly ten years ago. His observations of the pickpockets and bag snatchers in his own neighborhood led him to compile a loooong page of local street-theft incidents. On the surfeit of simple, opportunistic pickpockets, he’d already come to the conclusion that “there is little in the way of evolutionary pressure to make them improve their methods. The tourists are too many and too unaware, the police are too few, and the laws are too slack.”
A friend of Michael-G's.
The mysterious Monsieur F in Paris is a passionate pickpocket cop who works as “an invisible man;” his identity cannot even be hinted at. As one might expect of a Frenchman, the guarded Monsieur F shares his emotions freely. He tells us that, although his priority is arresting thieves and keeping the public safe, he “sometimes finds victims unfriendly and pickpockets compelling.” For example, when he “arrests a thief with AIDS who has just stolen a purse with ten euros, it is difficult judge the morality…”
We had the great pleasure of introducing Michael-G to Monsieur F, and then heard from both of their delight in their new friendship and information-exchange.
Last week we spent a relaxing day at Michael-G’s tidy, upscale home in a sleepy Hamburg suburb where, over cappuccinos (he’s a first-rate barrista, too), Michael-G’s obsession with all things pickpocket could not be concealed.
His library is extensive, possibly comprising every book and film on pickpockets in existence (including my own book). A life-sized mannequin stands nearby, fully-suited, seven bells sewn to its pockets. Michael-G uses the mannequin in his lectures, but I suspect there’s a little more to the relationship.
A postcard from Michael-G's collection.
He’s taught himself to do a little stealing—for show, of course—so he can entertain and demonstrate at his police presentations. And he runs a website, http://www.taschendiebstahl.com.
Michael-G admits that he lives, breathes, and dreams pickpockets. Bob and I were most impressed by his pickpocket postcard collection. I didn’t even realize such things existed. They’re beautiful, mostly old, and from the world over.
Are there any pickpocket-obsessed painters or cartoonists out there?
The life of a pickpocket might seem to be an easy one. Want money? Just take it. Need more? Pick a tourist from the endless stream.
It’s not that simple. The ratio of successful attempts to failures depends upon the practitioner, as does the number of butterflies in the stomach. Apprehension is both what he fears and what he feels. Most pickpockets we’ve met have spent years in prison, have paid hefty fines, have been roughed up by victims and police, have quit the business, and have gone back to it.
Many despise what they do and wish to make an honest living. What holds them back? Local unemployment levels. Lack of education. Lack of skills. Criminal records. Illegal residence status. Low earning potential compared to status quo.
The job has redeeming factors, aside from the obvious downside. Work the days and hours you choose. No boss to answer to. (Or you might have one, in an organized crime gang.) Overtime whenever you want it. No taxes to pay.
To like a pickpocket
Strangely, it is possible to like these guys, despite knowing what they do for a living. Despite understanding the damage and upset they cause. Like you and me, there’s more to the pickpocket than his job. Wait! I’m not defending his choice of livelihood! I’m suggesting (as we already know) that there’s more to a man (or woman) than his job. Anyone know a debt collector? An email spammer? A telephone solicitor? A drug dealer? A lobbyist? A billboard doctor?
You might get to know (and like) someone before learning the despicable (in your opinion) job he does. You might get to know and like a person whose job you do find contemptible. We judge the morality and integrity of people around us, of people in the news, and sometimes glimpse more shadiness than in any pickpocket.
At a certain age, usually 45 or so, pickpockets tire of the carousel: the highs of walking away with a wallet, the lows of prison time, the ecstasy of acquiring a thick wad, the anxiety of looking over their shoulders. Their kids growing up without them while they’re on the road following the crowds at big events, or while they’re “in the box.” They want to quit. But they’re at a loss as to what to do. What can they do? Who will hire them?
We (and some big-hearted police officers we know) have tried to assist a few of these guys. We’ve put ourselves on the line for them. spent time, effort, and money trying to get them a jump start on a new life. We’ve believed them. We’ve seen them off on the right track. It never works.
Or it hasn’t so far. But we can’t give up. We get to know another thieving criminal with potential, with desire, with hope and hopelessness, and we’re taken in. Suckers for the con, maybe.
Weird: "Pair bird" is my sister and her boyfriend, who didn't go on the trip. "The patient…"—my sister is a nurse. And she is in the final stages of "building a new house."
4-1/2 hours before Japan’s earthquake: it might have been my sister’s fault. Had she kept the slip of paper her bad fortune was printed on, as was her intention, blame certainly could have been laid. Instead, she folded the paper and impaled it on a tree branch in the ritual manner of rejecting bad fortunes. Surely by doing so she should have prevented the predictions she’d plucked only a few hours before the 9.0 devastation.
“BAD FORTUNE,” warned the English translation on her plucked paper. “Although it seems to be quite safe, everything is full of the coming danger.”
It was 10:15 a.m. on the first day of our family vacation in Japan. In Tokyo’s Asakusa district to visit the the Senso-ji Buddhist temple, all 16 of us were high on togetherness, anticipating the exotic experiences we’d carefully planned.
“You meet so many sadness, to be forced to leave from the people with sympathy.” Karen’s fortune continued. “Wind is so hard and make waves so high.”
“You should make an offering and get rid of it,” our Japanese guide explained. Karen folded the paper and stuck it to a branch.
The accidental celebrity takes a bow.
4 hours before: As we left the temple compound, a mob of Japanese schoolgirls surrounded my blond, blue-eyed, buff nephew, taking turns snapping photos of themselves with him. Nick felt like a celebrity—and acted like one. We were all certain the photo-frenzy would be the highlight of our day.
Relaxed innocence just three hours before the disaster.
3 hours before: Our next stop was the 790-foot-tall Sunshine-60, a skyscraping tower capped by an observatory on its 60th floor. One of the fastest elevators in the world blasted us to the top, from which we looked down on the dense city. Strangely, we watched seal-training on a rooftop below.
Rooftop seal training as seen from 60 floors up.
The earthquake, now less than three hours in the future, would have swayed the observatory to a sickening and terrifying extent. The speedy elevators would have been shut down. Alone but for a few young staff members, we’d have been stuck in the stratosphere for the huge aftershock 30 minutes later, petrified.
1-1/2 hours before: After lunch we visited a house in a residential district for a traditional tea ceremony. First, we were each to be dressed in kimonos—a long, arduous process, we learned, with their many layers, and the tugging and tying of the obi, the wide, extravagant sash tied elaborately in back.
9.0 Earthquake
Earthquake! I was half dressed when the rumbling began. Lamps, scrolls, and empty hangers rattled while the house seemed to be surfing mad waves. At first, we hustled into doorways—many of us had been trained as California school children. Moments later, the staff ushered us under their two large tables. The house also functioned as a cooking school, so the two tables were big enough to shelter all 16 of us.
The staff threw open the doors and windows—as they are trained, I later learned, to enable escape should walls shift and doors jam. Meanwhile, the bumps and jerky rolls continued. For two full, long minutes, we rode the rocking floor bent double under the tables, some of us already bound tightly in traditional Japanese dress.
I’m no stranger to earthquakes. I was in “the big one” in Los Angeles in 1971, and many smaller ones. Most of them last a good 20 seconds or so which, when you’re in one, feels like a long time. This one just wouldn’t quit. Crouched and crowded with my family, I wondered how many floors the tables would support. And how many stories high was the building we were in, anyway? Should we run outside? Why hadn’t I noticed more about the neighborhood?
The second time under the tables. My father snapped a picture from under the dining table.
Some of the staff were kneeling, hands together, praying. One of our children wailed. There was nervous laughter and inappropriate joking. There were tea cups falling in their cabinets and weird, whistling sounds. We all had the same thoughts: how long would this go on? And: this is our whole family. My parents, their four children, some spouses, and five of their seven grandchildren.
4 minutes after: When we emerged, we looked around dazed and confused. There wasn’t much evidence of damage in the house, but cell phone service was down. Without radio, television, or phone, we didn’t know the severity of the quake. The staff looked shaken, but quickly got back to their duties. I was shoed back into the dressing room for obi-tying along with my niece, who was also half-dressed, and my sister, who was photographing. All of us nervously watched the lamp, hangers, and scroll, and noticed that they never totally stopped swaying.
30 minutes after: The first huge aftershock came soon after the earthquake—about 10 minutes after we’d resumed our activities. We dove under the tables again, those of us who appeared calm soothing the ones who let their fear show. We were all scared, floundering, and aware of how helpless we felt.
One of my sisters got news on her Blackberry. The quake was first measured at 8.8—huge. There were no immediate reports of damage. We studied the staff members for signs of fear or distress. To us, they appeared a little distracted, but resolute, ready to push on with their characteristic dignity. A little familiar with the national ethos, this did not necessarily fill me with confidence that all was well.
We soldiered on through kimono-dressing and a somber tea ceremony, only half interested, whispering worries and nervously joking. The Japanese showed no emotion. They maintained perfect grace and extended courteous hospitality. At 5:00, we left the house, only then looking up to see what had been above us.
Kimono-clad and uneasy, an hour after the earthquake.
1 hour and 15 minutes after: By then, traffic was at a standstill. The sidewalks were surging with office workers, many wearing hardhats. Our vehicle had satellite TV tuned to Japanese news. We got our first horrendous images of the raging fires and tsunami damage. On every station, maps of Japan blinked with garishly-colored tsunami warnings. We learned that all trains had stopped running. With traffic jammed, even buses and taxis would not be able to get office workers home, many of whom live an hour or more commute outside of Tokyo. They’d be walking all night.
Ginza, earthquake night. Hardhatted pedestrians behind the traffic.
4 hours and 15 minutes after: The five- or six-mile drive to our hotel, the Peninsula, took three tense hours. The lobby was full of stranded workers. A scribbled signboard promised the hotel would provide food and drinks to all. We worried about our two magnificent guides, who would be as stuck as everyone else in the city. We decided to double up: three sisters and one husband sharing one room, freeing one of our eight rooms for our guides. It took much cajoling before they gratefully accepted our offer.
Superimposed on images of fire, a map of Japan shows tsunami warnings in purple.
Our dinner plans had been scrapped and, with gas stoves shut down, the hotel’s kitchens were only semi-functional. My nephew set out to find groceries, but returned to report that all shelves were bare. We weren’t really hungry anyway.
Lobby of The Peninsula is crowded with stranded workers.
5 hours after: We hunkered together, reluctant to separate from other family members, opened wine, and nibbled mini-bar nuts in front of the news. Hyper-aware of our rooms being on the ninth and 18th floors of a skyscraper, we considered choosing an emergency meeting place. Everything seemed uncertain, though. What would the world look like in an emergency? What’s a good meeting place in a landscape of skyscrapers?
Aftershocks rocked the hotel every ten or fifteen minutes. The highways below were parking lots. I came across a video showing Tokyo’s skyscrapers swaying after the earthquake. It wasn’t until we turned off the television and got into bed that we heard the eerie creaking of the building. Only those who popped pills got any sleep that night.
The Japanese are often characterized as stoic. This trait has been pointed out relentlessly over the following days, and for good reason. Where possible, people carried on as usual. Little emotion was shown. Life goes on, even for survivors in the most devastated areas.
For us, too. We cried for the country we cared enough about to visit. We are heartbroken for the Japanese, for those we know and those we don’t know but know about. Yet, there we were, wondering: what now? What should we do?
1 day after: Glued to the TV, thankful for Blackberry news when away from it, we debated our course of action over and over. Should we leave? Are there flights out? Is it safe to stay? Insensitive? What reports can we trust, anyway? Are the Japanese being forthright? Is CNN dramatizing? BBC overly cautious?
With major changes to our itinerary, we stayed—one day at a time. We were constantly aware of the dichotomy between the massive devastation and our frivolous holiday. It felt strange to continue. Queasy. Callous and selfish.
Each day, we all received concerned but hysterical emails begging us to leave. Fears of a nuclear meltdown and radiation leakage brought new worries. Not for us so much as for our five teenagers. We moved south and west, as planned, first to Hakone, then to Kyoto. Our flights at week’s end were to be out of Tokyo. Would the city be safe then? What if we flew to Tokyo, then couldn’t get out?
Red-labled drinks are hot, blue-labeled cold, from ubiquitous power-sapping vending machines.
3 days after: Rolling blackouts were announced, to save power. We diligently turned off unnecessary lights in our luxurious rooms, irony not escaping us. The papers criticized the power-hogging vending machines that my family had been so entranced with. Each machine serves both hot and cold beverages. You can have a bottle of hot green tea or cold maple-syrup pancake drink on any street corner.
7 days after: We had flights from Osaka to Tokyo, from which we’d all be flying onwards: some were going home, some to Beijing, one to Vietnam, and I was going to Hong Kong. Reactors at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant seemed to be exploding daily. With the situation so unstable, we agonized over returning to Tokyo with our children. In the end we did though, and were treated to one last, large aftershock in the airport, shortly before our flights.
Who needs iodine? A traveler passing through Narita? What about a long layover? Eating in the airport? Eating on a longhaul flight out of Narita? Who knows?
15 days after: Flying through Thailand, I come face to face with a health screening desk for passengers flying to Japan. Free iodine tablets are on offer. I wonder if I should partake. I’m flying through Tokyo again on March 31 and radiation levels are increasing. Even today, just writing this report feels frivolous in the face of headlines.
Our trip was a celebration of my father’s 80th birthday. He and my mother chose Japan because they love the country’s people and its culture. In a world of conflict, I’m sure they also considered it safe for the family. The week became one of conflict anyway: worry and fear and festivity and pleasure. And though we’re all still riveted by the news out of Tokyo, for us it’s over. Not so for our new and old friends in Japan.
4/25/11 edit: While we were blithely dressing in kimonos, the tsunami was rolling in (unbeknownst to us, of course). See this horrifying video to its end.
I guess I spoke too soon and too much about our documentary project. I held back information, but not enough. Our producer has asked me to block access, temporarily. That makes 20 posts that require a password. Sorry for the inconvenience.
It”s ten to one in mothville. Raise your antennas.
Coming down. Feels strange trying to write ordinary blog stuff after all the excitement covered in my previous 22 posts. As Bob and I now tackle the editing of photos and video of our encounters with thieves, we feel as if we’re still living the experience, still in that odd and wonderful unmentionable metropolis, and still among the pickpockets. All we’re missing is the food, though I’m not doing too bad a job myself.
Sound guy/translator Michele stayed another week in the den of thieves to be with his family (who, of course, have nothing to do with the business of thievery!). In an email, Michele mentioned an amusing coincidence (and allowed me to share it):
I took my final bus in Xxxxxx, the one that took me out of the city until next return. At the bus stop of Xxxxxxxxx, I met all our friends …“ Clay, Ed, Marc, Andy, and Frank. They were on duty and we only exchanged looks and small signs. Alone, Frank stopped by to share some last words. He once again complained about society, government, and all the universe for their infamous fate, but then, with a big smile on his face, he joined the others for the next steal. He had a final hello for you before diving deep into his daily routine of damage and bravado.
Life goes on. Nothing this primal will change. Only, we hope, the behavior of travelers, those who venture both near and far. Bob and I know our pickpocket comedy affects many and our lectures touch even more, helping to raise the antennas of wanderers. If our documentary is successful, it will put a little dent in the pockets of Frank and friends, and others like them elsewhere.
Denouement. None of us wanted to leave the park. After the demos, the dinner, and the as-yet-untold experience on the buses, after the conversation, the exchange of trade secrets, the trust, and yes, the new friendships, we sort of bonded. And I mean all of us: the band of thieves, the filmmaking crew, and the Arnos in the middle.
We stand there in the park in two concentric circles. The inner circle is Bob, Michele, Frank, Andy, and Marc. The outer circle is Van with the Red on his shoulder and his assistant holding his shoulders to guide him, director Kun, producer Kath, fixer Rosie, and me. None of us want to say goodbye.
Work finally pulls Marc and Andy away, but Frank remains. And finally, after two complete rounds of hugs and kisses, Frank straddles his bike, snaps on his helmet, and rides away. Van follows him with the camera until he’s out of sight.
We’re all physically and mentally exhausted; spent. I don’t know how the crew kept going; they were up hours before us every day and working for hours after we said goodnight. Yesterday they went nonstop from the market to the thieves’ restaurant to the second restaurant without a break, setting up and taking down equipment repeatedly. They are champions, all of them.
Making this documentary allowed Bob and me to fulfill certain long-held dreams. It allowed us the time in which to develop relationships with our subjects. It allowed us to have top-notch translators, especially my hero Michele. It enabled us to host our gang of thieves at a meal that Bob and I alone would need investors to fund, but which was integral to the building or our relationship, which gave us the ability to dig deeper into the life and times of pickpockets. And lastly, the documentary gives a soapbox to the subjects, a platform for the pickpockets themselves to explain their methods and motivations, their regrets and their desires.
Writing these stories has been difficult for me. The “easy difficulty,” if there is such a thing, has been simply finding the time to write in the midst of our action-packed days, and then finding an internet connection to get them online. But that’s just a technicality. The true difficulties have been several.
First, whitewashing our incredible host city, and by necessity, the characters and true identities of the men in our story. How I had to restrain myself! As a writer, I tend to be of the descriptive sort. I would never say we drank “liqueur!” I want to say what kind, what color, and how lovely the fruit it was made from. I want to tell about the marvelous restaurants we visited and the wonders of the local cuisine. I want to praise our cliffside hotel and describe the view from its terraces, that you can see all the way to …
Sigh.
And—wait a minute! What will this film do to tourism in this mystery town? Will we repel visitors, or intrigue them? Our goal is to balance the stardust with the dirt, to spotlight the unique riches this place has to offer. We hope it comes through in the film. I certainly left it out of these stories.
And there is something of a moral dilemma. In an exchange of thievery techniques, are we teaching known criminals how to steal more and better? We don’t think so, but how do you see it? What about the techniques the general public will learn from watching the film—should we be concerned about how that knowledge may be used? We don’t think so, but we agree that it looks bad—as if we’re teaching how to steal.
I’m afraid of what the public will think of Bob and me in our pursuit of thieves. Will you chastise us for not stopping thefts when we see them? Or will you understand that our method, getting “in” with these criminals, has a greater end? Will you think us awful for liking the pickpockets, despite knowing what havoc they wreak, what distress they cause? In the film, it will be up to Kun to portray us honestly alongside our motives. But here in these writings, it was my responsibility. Do you think it’s all fun and games for us, that we dine with thieves for a lark? Do you understand that as outsiders, allowed into an underground brotherhood of thieves, we are able to gather knowledge for the greater good? Please comment. We need to know if we should hide under a rock when the film comes out.
We are incredibly grateful to film director Kun Chang, who has pushed this project forward for more than four years already. Bob and I have complete faith in him and have no doubt that he’ll put together a documentary that is as beautiful and dramatic as it is fascinating and educational.
While the shooting isn’t over, the exciting part is. What’s left is hard work, mostly by Kun and his editing team. It’s impossible for me to imagine how they’ll make sense of the vast amount of gripping footage we have accumulated. I also recognize that my perception of the experience is not the same as Kun’s. The sterile, stripped-down story I told here, missing highlights (believe it or not), missing local color (of which there’s tons), genericizing everything for the sake of the eventual film, may have little resemblance to Kun’s vision. We will all be surprised at the film: you, readers; and Bob and I.
Bob gets cold feet. Overnight, reality began to percolate and bubble over the exhilaration of yesterday’s thieves’ challenge. By morning it was clear to Bob that stealing from the innocent public requires a set of attributes he lacked. Pickpockets in the U.S. call it heart, but they are referring to a lower part of the anatomy. They mean balls. I call it a criminal core.
Bob will not disappoint our gang of thieves in the park, assuming they show up. We will go to the park to thank them for the good time last evening and for participating in our film, and concede defeat in the great steal-off that never was.
Our director is fine with this decision. Crew and cameras are packed into the van; Bob and I are put in a taxi. We meet in the park. Bob paces, still somewhat conflicted. He wrongly accepted this dare in a feverish party atmosphere; but he is not a man to go back on his word, either. Not even to a band of crooks.
Maybe they won’t show up. Then Bob will be off the hook. Of course they’ll show up. Just like they did for the demo in this same park weeks ago, and yesterday’s dinner party. Bob paces in the shadow of the kiddie rides.
Frank zooms up on his motorcycle, grinning. He doesn’t know if the others will come; Andy’s not too reliable, he says. After a few minutes of chat, Bob swings his leg over the bike, wanting to putt around the park. Frank first pushes his helmet on Bob, and ensures that it’s safely fastened.
By the time Bob returns, Ed, Marc, and Andy have arrived. The regrouping of the party gang revs up the mood a few notches and distorts reality once again. The thieves are eager to pit themselves against the stage professional, and their enthusiasm is contagious. The laughter and excitement rise. Then talk turns to location.
“On the buses, of course,” they say in unison, “that’s where we work!”
“How about the market,” Bob suggests. He’s hoping for an environment in which he’d feel a little more control. A place with a large number of potential victims so he can pick just the right one, in just the right situation.
“No, another group is working there today. We don’t want to ruin their day. The bus!”
Somehow it was agreed. It was also agreed that all items would be returned to their owners. Certainly we could not be involved in stealing things for real; not even in accompanying known thieves while they commit criminal acts. All pickpockets, Bob included, would take, display, and return or replace ill-begotten gains.
Again we are a large group. Four thieves, Bob and I, and a crew of five. The eleven of us cross the park and board the next bus.
What happens next is—is—well, I’m very sorry but I can’t say. I will tell you that it is the climax of the film. It is beyond the dinner with thieves in excitement, fascination, and entertainment value. The added element of danger looms large. The speed in which events occur, the drama, and the revelations to us all combine to create lifetime impressions for all of us. Perhaps for you, too, when you see the film.
I know it’s mean to leave a cliffhanger. I admitted in part one of this narrative that I’d be compelled to leave out much good stuff. I’m sorry. But let’s go on.
Two hours later we regroup in the park. There’s been a little one-upmanship between Frank and Andy, a kind of battle using warmth-charisma-speed-guts-and-raw-skill. No hard feelings—it was all in fun. But which of them will be the pickpocket face of this city?
We’re debriefing now. Interviews in the park with the big Red camera back on its tripod and Michele translating while responsible for impeccable sound.
These men are thieves—criminal scavengers—but they are also poets. On camera Andy says:
“Bob, what we do is the same, but we are different. You make people laugh. I make people cry.”
Dinner with thieves, again. But wait— there’s more! The day isn’t done. And though we want nothing more than to sit and process our dinner with thieves, we have further obligations. Like—another dinner. Yeah, tonight.
“This was the most unbelievable dinner party I’ve had in my life,” Bob said in the taxi on the way back to the hotel. “The mood, the food, the way they let their guard down.” And of course we learned much more about their organization and methods.
Our heads are swimming from the exhilaration of the day, but we have only an hour to change clothes and get ready for the next event. We peel off smoke-soaked clothes and look for fresh outfits. Unlike the earlier dinner, we have not been involved with the planning of this one. We haven’t been told what to expect but we know one thing: we are not hungry!
A taxi comes for us and at 10:15 p.m we’re delivered to a small restaurant. The crew has already been setting up—and setting up surprises for us. We are briefly interviewed at the restaurant’s door. While we’re detained, a pair of men brush past us. We don’t know them, but their moves, their body language, are unmistakable. We don’t know what’s going on. We enter and are led to a cellar table. Three men sit at the table with us, and Michele takes the seat at the head to translate.
One of the men is “Steve,” a former pickpocket, 30ish, with a stellar reputation in his day. After his retirement from crime, he was a pioneer in the failed program that recruited gangsters and thieves to work as tourist guides.
And “Sam,” another former pickpocket, also 30ish, now a bread-baker. As a pickpocket, he was considered the best, bar none, by bosses and police alike. Sam now keeps his hands occupied shaping loaves six and a half days a week. From stealing “bread” to making it.
And “Sid,” a filmmaker who made a short pickpocket movie. All three men have unique stories to tell—stories that will come out in our film.
Turns out that Steve and Sam were supposed to have stolen from Bob as we entered the restaurant. It was our director’s idea, and the two had thought they could pull it off. Who could have predicted that Bob would wear newly purchased slacks and a jacket with all their pockets still sewn shut?
The procession of beautiful dishes is halted when Bob and I beg for mercy. Instead, we move into the dark street—more like an alley—for demonstrations. It’s 80 degrees and three men are knocking into each other with jackets over their arms—tools of the trade. And Steve’s got his floppy messenger bag, under which his fingers used to work. Bob, Steve, and Sam are like three boys out beyond curfew, clandestinely showing off their soccer arsenal, each giddy with friendly conceit.
It’s 1 a.m. by the time we get back to the hotel. It’s been a huge day for us, but there’s more. Lights and cameras are lugged into our room for more interviews, first mine, then Bob’s. What did you think of the day? What did you learn? What about the challenge tomorrow, are you nervous? Do you think you can steal for real?
