At Coney Island, in the heavy shadow of the new boardwalk, Sally Harris, her hands clasped back of her neck under the sunburst of her permanent-static-charge explosion hairdo, held herself humorously still as Jake Lesher tugged crosswise at the backstrap of her bra through the silky black fabric of her Gimbel’s Scaasi Size 8 frock. “Have a good time,” she said, “but remember we’re seeing the eclipse from the top of the Ten-Stage Rocket. All ten tops.”

“Aw, who wants to gawk at a moon that’s sick, sick, sick,” Jake retorted a bit breathlessly. “Sal, where the hell are the hooks and eyes?”

“In the bottom of your grandmother’s trunk,” she informed him, and ran a silver-nailed thumb and forefinger down the self-sealing, mood-responsive V of her frock. “The magnetic quick-release gear is forward, not aft, you Second Avenue sailor,” she said and gave a deft twist “There! See why it’s called the Vanishing Bra?”

“Christ!” he said, “they’re like hot popovers. Oh, Sal…”

“Amuse yourself,” she told him coolly, her nostrils flaring, “but remember you’re not getting out of taking me for my roller-coaster ride. And kindly handle the bakery goods with reverence.”

Don Guillermo Walker, straining to see, through the dull black Nicaraguan cloud-jungle, the inky gleam of Lake Managua, decided that bombing el presidente’s stronghold in the dark of the eclipse had been a purely theatric idea, a third-act improvisation from desperation, like having Jean wear nothing under her negligee In Algiers Decision, which hadn’t saved that drama from a turkey’s fate.