An almost naked broad using a euphemism like “you-know-what” was pretty funny.

“I wouldn’t want to ruin your face,” I said.

“Takes more and more work to make it a face,” she said, rueful but good-humored. Her mouth was on, but not as full as before, if just as lushly red. Her whole look had been adjusted to make the switch from the fifties to the sixties, more fashion model than pinup.

At a counter facing the slant board, a heavyset woman in a pale blue smock was mixing body makeup. Then she began applying the goop with a rubber-gloved hand.

“I’m going to be in that chlorinated water a long time,” Marilyn said by way of explanation, batting her mascaraed lashes at me. “This is the mixture Esther Williams used to use. Where’s your son?”

“Out in the car.”

“Leave him there. We’ll let him see the magic. But not how the trick is done… Ooh, this is nasty stuff. Again, you know, it’s because of the water…”

A skinny effeminate man also in a pale blue smock had begun spraying hairspray that turned her platinum locks, already put to the test by God knew how many and what chemicals, into something brittle and stiff.

“Everybody! This is my friend Nate Heller-you know that private eye on TV? Peter Gunn? He’s based on Nate…”

Everybody gave me a fraction-of-a-second glance, and a few even pretended to be impressed. They’d have been more impressed if Peter Gunn hadn’t been canceled recently.

Having tossed me my cookie, she said, “You run along, Nate.”

I ran along.

(By the way, Peter Gunn was not based on me, though I was a paid consultant the first season.)

When I climbed into the Jag, Sam gave me a wide-eyed welcome. It was like looking into the mirror and seeing my fourteen-year-old self look back at me. Horny fourteen-year-old self.

“Was she in there?”

“Yup.”

“Jeez, Pop. What was she wearing!”