Back in the day, I used to be a thief. Yep, that was my job. Slept during the day, worked at night. I’d clean out apartments and, to be honest, I was pretty good at it. My mom, bless her, used to say I had a natural talent for it to try to soften the judges during my first trials when I was just a kid. She thought it might help me avoid a stint at the juvenile detention center, but the court didn’t see it that way.

I remember when I was ten, I helped her get into the house because she’d left the keys inside. From that moment, I never stopped. Small apartments, big ones, with terraces, without, in the poshest neighborhoods where people don’t know what to do with their money and buy all sorts of stuff. Paintings, watches, jewelry. Once, I even took a trash can made of solid gold. It was a pain to sell it to the fence, those bastards.

My technique was always the same. My buddy Stefano worked at a hardware store on Viale Romania, and since you don’t get rich selling screws and bolts, he’d give me some copied keys from the neighborhood. I’d wait a bit, just enough not to raise any suspicions, and then make my night visit.

The best time was during deep sleep, between midnight and three. Scientists call it delta sleep. The doctor at the clinic told me about it when I took my poor grandma there, who’d become an insomniac because of Alzheimer’s. I’d arrive, open the door with the key, and start my round.

At first, partly out of fear and inexperience, I’d spray anesthetic in the rooms. But the mask bothered me, and I’d come home with a terrible headache. So I decided to specialize. I took lessons from an Albanian guy living in San Basilio who taught me how to control my weight, place my feet, and move slowly and steadily. I must say, those two hundred bucks were well spent.

But fate has a way of hiding, waiting for you. And that time, it was hiding really well, behind the bathroom door. The homeowner woke up during delta sleep; I needed to take a leak, and we met there, her sitting in the dark on the toilet and me unzipping my pants. You know how these things go. Screams, chaos, running, sirens, and in the end, you always end up in the same place.

That time, though, it was different. Five years without parole was a long time to pass just playing cards and working out. I needed something else, and fate, the hide-and-seek champion, showed up again. An elderly surveyor ended up in my cell, in jail for a bunch of shady construction deals. He was a stern but kind guy who started telling me about his life on construction sites in Africa, building dams and viaducts, until his career went downhill.

I started getting interested in construction. We spent our days flipping through the few books in the prison library until he convinced me to get a surveyor diploma. I’d never done it before; studying didn’t seem useful in my old line of work, not to mention the courses in San Basilio. But since I had nothing better to do, I went for it.

The warden was really impressed by my choice and immediately offered to help. Also, because there was a Ministry of Justice project on energy savings in prisons, and they were looking for cheap labor to involve. Within a year, I reached a good level and, together with external technicians, we did the survey and energy diagnosis of the prison, which were presented at a public event at the Quirinal Palace. I attended, along with the other inmates who had collaborated. We entered from the back, handcuffed, and sat in the last row with the Carabinieri watching us. At the end of the project, the warden congratulated me and gave me the small thermal camera we used for the surveys. I thanked him.

When I finally got out, the world wasn’t what I had left. And no one, absolutely no one, wanted to give me a job. A newly graduated surveyor at fifty, fresh out of jail. Who would trust me? I wandered for days, looking for a purpose, an opportunity, but nothing. The closed doors were countless, and every “I’m sorry, we have no openings” made my anger rise.

Then, the idea came. One night, looking at the old thermal camera the warden had given me, I had an epiphany. I took it along with my other tools and started roaming the city. No, not to steal, this time it was different! Because, my friends, if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that talent doesn’t go to waste; it reinvents itself.

I began slipping into houses like a ghost, but this time I was there to do good.

I observed, measured, analyzed where the heat was escaping, where the faults were hiding. Silently, I moved through hallways and rooms, looking for weak points, invisible leaks. And then, I’d leave a nice report on the kitchen table. An unexpected gesture, like a pat on the back in the morning.

And you know what’s the cherry on top? Since then, I’ve even started leaving my signature, a stylized “Z,” as if to say: ‘Hey, I was here and made a difference.’ I don’t do it for recognition; I don’t care about medals. I do it because I know I’m doing the right thing.

So, my friends, if one day you find a mysterious report on your table in the morning, don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Z