Sportswriter Lenny Weinrib and his wife adopt a baby from an anonymous mother. A few years pass, and Lenny starts to wonder about the woman. Curiosity quickly gets the better of him, so he steals files from the adoption agency and sets out to find her. He is eager partly because he wants to reunite mother and son, but mostly because he is neurotically obsessed with Greek tragedy (Is the mom a knockout? Will "Oedipus Rex" relive itself, with Lenny as Oedipus' father?). Of course Lenny is dismayed, maybe even terrified, to find that Linda, the mother, is a beautiful $200-an-hour prostitute. So that he can fashion the proper mother-son reunion and save himself from what Fate seems to have in store, he determines to "reform" Linda.