Her:

Nadine suddenly had the urge for a cigarette. This would be understandable if she had just quit smoking. But it had been 5 years since she quit cold turkey. She looked around at the strange surroundings. Oh great, my dreams now come with nicotine fits. She noticed the dingy smoke stained room she found herself in had a cheesy curtain for a door. The kind that separates the first class passengers from the riffraff in movie-set airplanes.

The sounds from the other side of the curtain were a far cry from those of pampered passengers using lemon soaked facial towels.

Venturing a peek behind the curtain revealed an attractive man duct-taped to a chair and being questioned by a stocky man, who Nadine had noticed hadn’t shaved in a while. She also noticed the sweat pouring from the unshaven man. Beating a confession out of someone tends to do that. Through the yelling, she managed to catch the words, “My steel briefcase.”

“My god, that poor man is going to die because of me,” she thought.

Him:

He recognized where he was immediately upon entering dreamland. The Eau de Pall-Mall was unmistakable. They didn’t even send a car to pick him up. He just showed up here like a good little victim. Why did he make it so easy for these guys?

He had a lot of material to cover with his therapist when he got back from Vegas.

“I’m asking you nicely,” stated the unshaven pawn shop owner.
What is it with these pawn shop guys and their five o’clock shadows, he thought.  Is it part of the union dress code?

Thwack! A smack upside his head broke him out of his musing.

“Where is my briefcase? More importantly, where is it’s contents?”

“What briefcase? Maybe you could describe it to me. They all look alike to me,” he replied with a slight grin.
Thwack!

Wow, I’ve never heard a thwack before, he thought before surrendering to the pain.

“Stop joking funnyman.”

“Ok, yes that was stupid but in all honesty, I do not know what you’re talking about.”

“This is your final warning,’ uttered sweaty man as he cut the duct-tape to let him go.

“I would kill you right now but I would be out my money and product and then I would be on a very painful hook. You have 24 hours to come up with my briefcase and the product or the briefcase and the profit from the product. While I like the briefcase, returning it by itself will get you killed. You capisce?

“Yes.”  Why in the hell do I even know what that means? Have I been consuming that much terrible pop culture? Wait, is that redundant? Thwack!

A smack upside the head interrupted his thoughts.

“You were inner dialoguing again weren’t you?”

“Uh, yea sorry”

“Not as sorry as you’re going to be if I don’t get my money .”

“Or the product?”

“Yes, you’re starting to get it smart guy.”

And like that the dream had ended.
He awoke with a feeling that there was more to it but try as he might he could not fall asleep again.

Just for the heck of it, he looked under the bed.  Nothing.
No briefcase here, he thought.
The next dream could kill me.