Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, Vol. 8, No. 6, May 1961

Then they packed. At two o’clock of the afternoon of the twenty-sixth day of March they flew north for a short honeymoon in Atlantic City, New Jersey. They checked into the Mayfair Hotel at eight o’clock in the evening of the twenty-sixth day of March. At ten o’clock of the evening of the twenty-seventh day of March, during their short honeymoon in Atlantic City, New Jersey, she was, for the first time, unfaithful to him.

He was sick during that day, the twenty-seventh. Stomach virus, the doctor had said, not unusual when coming from the South to the North. It would pass in a day or two, the doctor said.

She went down to the bar, bought herself a drink, and then was bought a drink by the dark curly-haired man. The dark curly-haired man had a deep voice and an elegant manner. He was a salesman for Rona Plastics which was having their convention tomorrow, but he had arrived a day early. He bought more drinks for her and for himself, told her about his lovely twins aged three, told her about his lovely wife whom he loved dearly, and took her to his room.

She returned to her own room at midnight, cognizant of the fact that she had never learned the name of the salesman from Rona Plastics. She wished his twins well, and his wife, looked down upon Blinney who was snoring peacefully, drank bourbon from the open bottle, undressed, and went to bed.

Blinney recovered nicely.

On the thirtieth day of March he took her home to Mount Vernon. Blinney was sentimental. He asked if he could carry her across the threshhold. She approved. She said she would not go in any other way. He carried her across the threshhold.

Within a month Blinney knew that it would not work. Within a month he knew of his egregious mistake. Within a month he knew that he had set, baited, and snapped a trap upon himself (as which of us has not done sometime during a lifetime)? She was slovenly. She was incapable of caring for a home. She had no interest. She drank at all hours of the day. She lay around in flimsy negligee flipping the pages of picture magazines. She did not prepare meals. She could not cook. They ate in restaurants, or, if they ate at home, Blinney would do the cooking as he had done when he was a bachelor.

There were always dishes in the sink, and the house was dirty. Before he was married, Blinney had had a woman who came in to clean four times a week. After he was married, Blinney discharged her. He was ashamed. His wife drank all day. She was capable of filthy language. She could be uproariously drunk in the afternoon. He could not have a stranger in the house. He was ashamed, and he was fearful of the possibility of gossip in the small town.

She was bored, indifferent, and lazy. She depended solely, as she had always done, upon the snare of her sexual attractiveness. Blinney still required her but panic and revulsion had returned. She neglected the house but she took meticulous care of her body. She lay in scented baths. She preened, creamed, and pomaded. Her chief interests were shopping, the beauty parlor, jazz records which she played interminably, bars and taverns in the afternoon, and nightclubs at night.

The pattern settled into mold, congealed, crystallized, fixed. They were as strangers (or as lovers living in hate). Occasionally they went out together; ate, drank, laughed, and even flirted. He detested her and detested himself when he succumbed to her and learned of the satanic thrill of spasmodic flesh-lust practiced in revulsion, despair, and self-hatred.

Thursdays and Fridays are the busiest days in all banks and The First National Mercantile, at 34th Street and 6th Avenue, was no exception. On Thursdays and Fridays Blinney was about as busy as any man who worked at First National Mercantile.

He had developed time-saving procedures. Each Monday he took home the payroll sheets of the week before, studied them, and had an approximate idea of the amounts which would be required. On Thursday at 9:05 he would call down to the vault for the approximate amount of cash in the approximate denominations customarily requisitioned by his five big Thursday accounts.

By nine-thirty, they would call in the actual amounts needed. Within his cage and behind the shatter-proof window (which he could unlock and raise and lower), he would package the payrolls during the quiet of the early morning and during breaks in the more busy hours when there was usually a long line of customers in front of his window. By twelve-thirty his payroll work was completed and the money lay in his drawer within binder-strips marked $1000, $2000, and $5000.