Lawrence Block - The Thief Who Couldn’t Sleep

“Your terms are satisfactory,” I said.

“You wish payment in Swiss francs?”

“Will the bank accept dollar deposits?”

“Of course.”

“Is it convenient for you to pay in dollars?”

“Of course.”

“I would prefer dollars.”

“Of course.”

The rest was mechanics. I fully expected someone to attempt to cheat me out of the whole bundle, but no one did. We went to the Beirut offices of the Bank Leu. I opened a numbered account and received a very involved explanation of the precise manner in which the numbered accounts operated. No one, I was assured, would ever know of the existence of the account or the balance in it without my express permission. No government on earth could obtain such information. I and only I could make withdrawals from the account. I would, however, be paid no interest. He wanted me to realize that I would be paid no interest.

That, I said, was quite all right with me.

We concluded the transaction. The Chinese merchant took all the gold away-he would eventually realize approximately fifty percent over and above expenses on his investment. I did not begrudge him the profit. The bank would also make out handsomely, carrying a huge account and paying no interest on it. I did not begrudge the bank their gain, either.

I had on deposit precisely $371,520.

I took a hundred dollars of this incredible sum in cash. I went back to my excellent hotel. In the clothing shop downstairs I bought a suit of clothes, a shirt, a suit of underwear, a pair of socks, and a pair of shoes. I added a tie, cuff links, and a belt. I went upstairs and bathed and dressed and had a huge and excellent dinner in the hotel restaurant.

There was only one thing left to do. After dinner, and after I had spent about an hour resting as completely as possible on my most comfortable bed, I left the hotel and took a taxi a few blocks farther down the street. I got out of the cab in front of the American Embassy. It was late in the afternoon, almost time for the Embassy to close for the day.

I walked up the steps. The late afternoon sun was hot. I opened the door and stepped into the utter luxury of genuine American air-conditioning. It made me more honestly homesick than I could have imagined possible.

A young man sat behind a large desk in the hallway. I stood in front of his desk for several minutes before he raised his neat head from the pile of papers in front of him.

He asked if he could help me.

“I hope so,” I said. “You see, I’ve lost my passport.”

“Oh, have you?” He rolled his eyes, signaling his great irritation at stupid tourists who lost their passports.

“I suppose this happens rather often,” I said.

“Too often. Far too often, to be frank. The absolute importance of keeping one’s passport handy…”

I let him go on for quite a while. It was not an unpleasant lecture. I wish I could remember all of it.

Finally he found the appropriate form, poised a pen, and looked up at me.

“I don’t suppose you remember the number?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“No, naturally you don’t. It never occurs to anyone to jot down their passport number. Not sufficiently important.” He sniffed. “Your name?”

I paused, perhaps for dramatic effect.

“Oh, come now,” he said. He was really incredibly snotty. “Now, don’t tell me you’ve forgotten your name as well?”

“My name is Evan Michael Tanner,” I said. “If you’ve forgotten it, I don’t think you have much of a future with the State Department. I suggest you get off your ass and tell your boss the name of the stupid tourist who’s been taking up your time. Evan Michael Tanner. You go tell him Evan Michael Tanner is here, and you see what he says.”

But he remembered the name. It was delicious to watch his face mold itself into one expression after another. He reached for a buzzer and rang for the guards. We waited for them to come for me.

It didn’t get at all rough until they got me back to Washington. The guards kept me under surveillance until the snotty kid could report to someone higher up, and eventually some men more important than he came to interrogate me. They assured themselves that I was really Evan Tanner, found out that I was, and conducted me to a windowless room on the second floor. A guard made sure that I was not carrying a weapon. I was not. Then two of them stood in front of me while I sat in a swivel chair.

“There’s a report that you had the British plans,” one said.

“I do.”

“You have them with you?”

“Yes.”

“At this moment?”

“Yes.”

“Care to turn them over?”

“If you’ll show me CIA identification.”

“I’m not CIA.”

“Then get someone who is.”

They got someone who was, and I solemnly took off my jacket, unbuttoned my shirt, loosened my undershirt, and came up with the packet of papers the tall man had passed on to me in Dublin. The CIA man checked them out.

One of the State Department men asked if everything was there.

“I don’t know,” the CIA man said. “I have to use a phone.”

He went away. I sat with the two men. They offered me cigarettes, and I said I didn’t smoke and finally I remembered to tuck in my shirt and button it up and put the jacket on again.

The CIA man came back and said that as far as he could tell everything was there.

“I don’t know how the guard missed it. He frisked him for a gun.”

“Well, it wasn’t a gun,” the CIA man said.

“Still, he should have found it.”

“Forget it.” The CIA man turned to me. “Of course, those could have been copied,” he said.

“True.”

“Were they?”

“No.”

“Why the hell did you come here, Tanner? I don’t get it. Who are you working for?”

I didn’t say anything.

“What do you expect, a pat on the head and a ticket home? Did you know that you started six international incidents all by yourself?”

“I know.”

“I was just on the phone to Washington. They want you sent there in a private plane under a quadruple guard. Today, they said. We can’t get hold of a private plane today.”

“When, then?”

“Christ, I don’t know. Maybe tonight, maybe tomorrow morning. Who knows? Tanner, you honest to God amaze me, you really do. How in hell did you wind up in Beirut? I wish I knew more about you. I know you’re hotter than a grenade with the pin out and I know part of where you’ve been, but I don’t know the rest of it. Why don’t you tell me about it?”

“No.”

“They’ll ask the same questions in Washington. Make it easy for me. Brighten my day.”

“I can’t.”

“Did you really start a revolution?”

I didn’t answer that or any of the other questions he asked me. The whole business was very frustrating for him. He knew that I would be sent to CIA headquarters in Washington and that he would never find out the answers to any of his questions. The agency might keep him busy, but evidently he didn’t often run into anything as exciting as me and he was all curiosity, and I wasn’t helping him a bit.

They eventually locked me into the room with a double guard. The guards were decent enough fellows. The three of us played hearts. I won about seventy cents, but I refused to take the money. It didn’t seem right, somehow. After a few hours the CIA man came back with a few other men, and they handcuffed me rather elaborately and drove me to the Beirut airport. There was a smallish jet waiting at the runway. They loaded me into it along with four guards and the CIA man, and we took off for Washington.

No one had brought anything to read. Anyway, with the handcuffs on I couldn’t have turned the pages. It was a very boring trip.