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

“Well, hurry it up. Because when you drive to work this morning I’m going along. And I’m staying right with you until everyone in your office knows what a cheap, home-wrecking hussy they have working for them.” Emma’s voice droned on like a broken air-raid siren.

Grimly, Richard studied her, silently comparing the chewed-up expression of her harsh-featured face to the scented, fragile memory of Linda Rhodes. It was like weighing an iron frying pan against the moon. Something had to be done quickly.

All during his shave the dull, knotted feeling he’d experienced when Emma had first mentioned Linda’s name stayed with him. Damn his sleep-talking! What a fool he’d been to forget this malady, this albatros that had hung around his neck ever since he could remember. Even as a child, whenever he experienced some unusual, stimulating event such as having a birthday, seeing a circus or engaging in a fight with another kid, he was sure to relive it in his sleep the following night.

Always the pattern was the same. Detail for detail, no matter if it were an act of pain or pleasure, he would broadcast to the world every sensation and thought that had swept through his mind during the actual episode. He was cursed with total recall. On the following morning he could usually count on a member of his family — or a college roommate in later years — to describe verbatim the experience that haunted his dreams.

Marriage had not changed this idiosyncrasy. At first Emma thought it cute to recite to him over breakfast one of his nocturnal adventures, describing with relish some current business problem he had kept from her or a golf-score he was ashamed to acknowledge.

But as his life with her became more routine, more colorless he had stopped conversing in his sleep and she no longer teased him with the dreary exposures of his dreams.

Until Linda, and his most disastrous babblings so far.

He dried his face with a towel, then almost automatically applied shaving lotion, the kind which Linda had romantically assured him made him smell like a swashbuckling sea-captain instead of a stock broker. He smiled in anticipation of the many sweet voyages that lay ahead for both of them.

“Where are you?” screeched Emma from downstairs.

Richard ignored her, his mind refusing to give up its cargo of cozy Linda images. They had been so careful in their meetings, so wary of prying eyes that even after two months no one in his office had any suspicion that they were having an affair.

At first Linda had been frightened, cold, indifferent, but his wooing had been so ardently unswerving that finally, last night, had come the triumph he had hoped for. She had consented to spend the night with him. For Richard, it was the purest, most perfect victory of his life. So perfect that he had been betrayed into reassembling each priceless moment in his dreams.

Thus, in recalling the heights of his ecstasy, he had unwittingly jeopardized all of their plans for the future. Worse, Linda’s whole reputation stood on the brink of humiliation.

“I’m warning you,” threatened Emma from below. “If you’re not down here in five minutes, I’m going to your office by myself.”

He increased the speed of his dressing, knowing full well that unless he stopped Emma before she put a foot out the door everything worthwhile and fresh in his life would be trampled into dust within an hour. Nothing mattered but Linda and himself. Their beautiful, new love had to be preserved at all costs.

Descending the stairs a minute later, he got his answer. The phone began to ring in the living room and he heard Emma hurrying to answer it, all set to play the poor, martyred wife before her bridge-playing, gossipy friends. Richard held his breath.

“Hello. Who? No, he’s not here. He left about twenty minutes ago... How should I know if he’s at his office or not... What’s that? He owes you the money. Why don’t you ask him yourself!” She slammed the receiver down, angry at being cheated out of her gossip and self-pity, and waddled back to the kitchen.

When Richard came in, she was bent over the stove waiting for the coffee to percolate. She was dressed in street clothes, ready for departure.

“Who was that on the phone?” he asked, striving to sound casual.

“The Acme Finance Company,” she barked without turning. “Seems you’re two weeks behind in a loan payment. I was wondering where you got the money for that gold bracelet you gave her last night.”

“Did I mention that too?”

“You talked a blue streak. I have enough on Miss Linda Rhodes to disgrace her from here to China. And that’s just what I intend to do.”

Richard didn’t budge from his position near the pot-rack. He tried to keep his voice steady. “Where did you tell the Acme people I was?”

“You heard me. I couldn’t be bothered. I told them you left twenty minutes ago, and they had my permission to try you at the office.”