I figured that Nate had gotten laid in his own mind at least fifty times by the time we finally made it to the lounge.

Nate insisted on sitting at the bar, so I helped him get up on a stool and sat in constant readiness to catch him.

“Mr. Silver,” the bartender said. “The usual?”

The usual?

“And whatever my friend here is having,” Nate said.

“A gin and tonic, please.”

I reached for my wallet but Nate hastily said, “Put it on my tab.”

The bartender set the drinks down and looked expectantly at Nate. Nate took a sip of his vodka collins, leaned over the bar, and asked, “Have you seen Jayne Mansfield’s new shoes?”

The bartender grinned like someone left a twenty-dollar tip and said that he hadn’t.

“Neither has she,” Nate said.

The bartender guffawed, shook his head, and I thought, Jayne Mansfield? I was trying to remember how many decades it had been since Jayne Mansfield died when Nate looked at me and said sadly, “I was with the same woman for fifty years.”

“Wow,” I said. This was about to get pathetic.

“Then my wife found out.”

Nate turned on the stool to get a better view of the women playing the slot machines and damn near fell off trying to get a closer view of the wide albeit heart-shaped rear end of a peroxide blonde who was bending over to collect her quarters. She looked over her shoulder, saw him staring, and gave him a real hard look.

This was trouble.

The woman straightened up and stepped over to the bar. She was about five-ten and wore a tight, white, sequined evening dress with a push-up bra that could only have been designed with Atlas in mind. Her high heels showed off long legs leading to generous hips. I figured her to be somewhere between forty-eight and sixty-eight under the makeup. She had a sweet, pretty face and deep cornflower blue eyes.