“Breakfast Special”: a new story

When I say the story is unbelievable, I use the word not to amaze, as in, “Our new au pair has an unbelievable body,” but to warn the reader that the events depicted may seem like the plot of a bad movie: a black-and-white Forties movie, a definite B picture. And yet, everything noted actually happened to Murray Tempkin, a slim, bespectacled thirty-year-old writer, who on a good hair day resembles a scientist or an intellectual but should the weather turn humid looks more like some kind of meshuggener. Unlike the noir tabloid crime thrillers of yesteryear, with their cheap dames, seedy hotel rooms, and broken, blinking neon signs, this unlikely tale unfolded in living color in one of Manhattan’s toniest zip codes.