Free The Thief Who Couldn't Sleep by Lawrence Block

breathe normally, yawned, stretched, and got up from the mattress.
    I went downstairs. The turf fire still burned in the hearth. I sat in front of it and let myself think of the gold in Balikesir. My mind was clearer now, and I felt a good deal better physically, with the effects of the whiskey almost completely worn off.
    It's difficult to remember what sleep was like or how
    I used to feel upon awakening; sensory memory is surprisingly short-lived. I do not believe, though, that sleep (in the days when I slept) ever left me as refreshed as twenty minutes or an hour of relaxation does now.
    The gold. Obviously I had gone about things the wrong way. It would now be necessary to approach the whole situation through the back door, so to speak. I would stay in Ireland just long enough for the manhunt for the notorious Evan Michael Tanner to cool down a bit. Then I would leave Ireland and work my way through continental Europe and slip into Turkey over the Bulgarian border. I would set up way stations along the route, men I could trust as I had trusted P. P. Dolan.
    Europe was filled with such men. Little men with special schemes and secret dark hungers. And I knew these men. Without asking an eternity of questions, without demanding that I produce a host of documents, they would do what they had to do, slipping me across borders and through cities, easing me into Turkey and out again.
    Was it fantastic? Of course. Was it more fantastic than lying on a mattress between the ceiling and the thatched roof of an Irish cottage? No, not really.
    I was, I thought, rather like a runaway slave bound for Canada, following the drinking gourd north, stopping at the way stations of the Underground Railway. It could be managed, I realized. It needed planning, but it could be managed.
    I was so lost in planning that I barely heard her footsteps on the stairs. I turned to her. She was wearing a white flannel wrapper and had white slippers upon her tiny feet.
    "I knew you were down here," she said. "Is it difficult for you to sleep up there?"
    "I wasn't tired. I hope I didn't wake you?"
    "I could not sleep myself. No, you were quiet, I didn't hear you, but I thought that you were down here. Shall I build the fire up?"
    "Not on my account."
    "Will you have tea? Oh, and are you hungry? Of course you are. What you must think of us, pouring jars of punch into you and giving you nothing to eat. Let me fry you a chop."
    "Oh, don't bother."
    "It's no bother." She made a fresh pot of tea and fried a pair of lean lamb chops and a batch of potatoes. We ate in front of the fire and afterward sat with fresh cups of tea. She asked me what I was going to do. I told her some of the ideas that had been going through my mind, ways of getting back into Turkey.
    "You'll really go, then."
    "Yes."
    "It must be grand to be able to go places, just to go and do things. I was going to take the bus to Dublin last spring, but I never did. It's just stay home and cook for Da and Tom and care for the house. It's only a few hours to Dublin by bus. Can you ever go back to your own country, Evan?"
    "I don't know," I said slowly.
    "For if you're in trouble there—"
    "I hadn't even thought of that. I can't go back now, but when it all blows over—"
    "You could stay in Ireland, though." Her eyes were very serious. "I know you're after getting the gold now, but when you've taken the treasure and escaped with it, why, if you couldn't get back to America, you could always come to Ireland."
    "I don't think the Irish Government cares too much for me just now."
    "Sure, you're a ten-day wonder, but they'll forget you. And anyone can get into Ireland. It's getting out of Ireland that everyone's after, you know. You could come back."
    I realized, suddenly, that she had put on perfume. She had not been wearing any scent earlier in the evening. It was a very innocent sort of perfume, the type a mother might buy her daughter when she wore her first brassiere.
    "Are you a Catholic,