Let there be you, let there be me
Let there be oysters under the sea
A light breeze blew through the room and Charlie remembered meeting Cole at the 1956 convention for Eisenhower. It was a pleasant memory of a simpler time. But then Cole’s crooning stopped, and there were voices, a conversation. Charlie wiped his face with a towel and walked out to see what Margaret was listening to.
—but it didn’t happen, said one man.
Well, Havana today, said a second. It’s not so simple anymore. It’s Iron Curtain, basically.
Charlie looked at the hi-fi. “Is this the radio?” he asked.
Margaret shook her head and pointed to a record spinning on the turntable. “That’s the LP Sinatra gave you.”
“Is that…Giancana?” Charlie asked.
Margaret nodded, just as puzzled as Charlie.
It’s not for lack of trying, said a third voice.
“Rosselli,” said Margaret.
You made it sound a little simpler in Miami, said Rosselli. Charlie looked at Margaret, who shrugged.
We also didn’t want your money, said Giancana. We wanted to do it for our country.
And we still do, said Rosselli.
“Where did this record come from?” Charlie asked.
They’re really on eggshells now, with the missiles, said the third voice. Don’t do it if there’s even a chance of fingerprints.
Quiet, here comes Frank’s boy, said Giancana, prompting both Charlie and Margaret to cringe. What a horrible guy.
This was followed by the faint voice of George Jacobs: Gentlemen, dinner will be ready in twenty minutes. Is there anything I can get you until then?
Another round, said Rosselli.
I’m not staying for dinner, said the third voice.
Whatever you wish, Mr. Maheu, said Jacobs.
A few seconds later, Giancana said, Fuck it, I’m going to the pool, and the record went silent.
“Maheu,” noted Margaret.
Charlie walked over to the turntable and tried to read the label as it spun. It took him a second to make sense of it: “‘Devil…May…Dance…demo.’”
Margaret shrugged again. “It was in the car with all that stuff I brought up,” she said.
Charlie said, “Frank told me to listen to it, but I forgot.”
“What do you think they were talking about? Some operation in Havana.”
“Who is Maheu?” Charlie asked. He couldn’t shake the idea that he knew him somehow from before this adventure.
“So both the president of the United States and the Mob want Castro dead,” Margaret said.
“You wouldn’t believe the crazy stuff the CIA has proposed to get rid of him,” Charlie said.
“Such as?”
“Honey, you know it’s classified,” he said, thinking of one CIA plan that involved an exploding cigar, another where special salts dusted onto Castro’s boots would cause his iconic beard to fall out. “Crazier than any beach thriller.”
“The-U.S.-government-asks-the-Mob-to-whack-Castro preposterous?” she asked.
Charlie thought about it. “That’s a good question, given Bob’s supposed war on the Mob.”
The record began hissing as the needle hit dead-air grooves. “What’s on the other side?” Charlie asked. He walked over to the phonograph and flipped the LP, then picked up the blank white cardboard sleeve that had held the record. A glimmer of pink caught his eye; he pulled out a piece of notebook paper, clumsily ripped, on which was written in loopy script:
JACK
WH NA8-1414
FE8-2325—Georgetown
Plaza—PL5 7600 EL5-4878
Apt-277 Park
Hyannis—Yachtman hotel Spring 5-4600
Palm Beac TE2-7117 TE3-4622 (Ev. TE3-5761)
EVELYN
1440 Rock Creek Ford Road NW apt 402 TA9-5552
3132 16th st NW #507 AD4-5745 MA4-1011 MA4-9335 HO2-5632
SOB—362 CA7-0064 x3341
Priv RE7-0064
“What the hell is this?” Charlie asked.
Margaret took it from his hand. “A woman’s handwriting,” she observed. “Is Jack who I think it is? Yes! That’s their old Georgetown number!”
There was a low hum as the needle hit the LP and then a conversation that couldn’t have been more different in tone from the previous one.
So when will you be here again, Sam? The weather is so nice. A woman’s voice, intimate and intense.
You could have stopped over on your way to Washington, said the man. Giancana. If it wasn’t for me, your boyfriend wouldn’t even be in the White House.
Oh, Sam, said the woman.
“That’s Judy” Margaret said. “From Vegas!”
“Holy cannoli,” said Charlie.
None of that means I don’t miss you, Judy said with longing in her voice.
“Yikes, is she…sleeping with…the president and a Mob boss?” Margaret asked.
“And maybe Frank too,” Charlie said. “I mean, why was she at the Compound?”
“So the president is having an affair with a woman who is simultaneously having an affair with a Mob boss and a movie star with Mob ties,” Margaret said, “while his brother the attorney general is cracking down on organized crime.”
“Nice work if you can get it,” said Charlie. He pointed to the pink paper. “This must be hers.”
“‘In front of one’s nose,’” Margaret said.
“You think this is what Dad was talking about?” Charlie asked. “Bobby sent us to look into Sinatra and the Mob but that was a decoy? Like the First Army Group? And it was all this other stuff with the Mob that he wanted us to find—that Judy was sleeping with Sinatra, Giancana, and the president? That the CIA contracted the Mob to take out Castro? I mean, it stands to reason that he thought we would discover much more than just Frank slinging highballs with made men.”
“And it makes sense that he wouldn’t trust Hoover’s FBI to tell him what was going on,” Margaret said.
“If the president is sharing a mistress with Giancana, there’s no chance Hoover doesn’t know.”
“And Frank meant to give you this record?”
“Only one way for us to find out,” said Charlie.
Chapter Thirty-TwoRancho Mirage, California
April 1962
There was no answer at Sinatra’s Beverly Hills estate, so Charlie called the Compound in Rancho Mirage. George Jacobs answered and confirmed that his boss was there with some friends but said he couldn’t come to the phone.
“He’s not doing so hot?” Charlie asked.
“Mr. S. went from being the First Friend to just another greaser from Hoboken,” Jacobs said.
“He’s still upset,” Charlie told Margaret after he hung up.
“About losing the Oscar to
