by Tapper, Jake
Charlie turned the key in the lock of his Miramar suite but Detective Meehan opened the door from inside.
“We’ve been waiting for you,” the detective said, an irritated expression on his face. “For a day.”
Charlie entered the room and looked at his watch: 4:33 a.m. “You’ve been waiting for us inside our room since yesterday?” he asked.
“We’ve had a presence in the lobby,” Meehan said, walking back to the living room; Margaret was sitting alone on the couch, having returned from Tarantula’s before her husband, who’d stayed behind to sweep the place of their fingerprints and look for anything that might prove useful. Street had dropped off Sheryl Ann Gold, then Margaret, then returned to his hotel. “After your Irish exit from the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium.”
“We had things to do,” Charlie said.
Meehan rolled his eyes, sat down, and asked them to tell him again what had happened at the Oscars, which they did. It took some time because they had to explain events from the night before—Disneyland and the Hollywood sign—though in Margaret’s telling, Sheryl Ann escaped with her. There was no need to add the body of Joey Tarantula to their long list of offenses.
“All for these documents?” Meehan said, holding them up after Charlie had produced them from his inside jacket pocket and handed them to him. “Suggesting that…let me see if I have this straight—”
“Suggesting that, led by Wolff, the studios have been holding parties for VIPs at which they pimp out underage girls,” Margaret said.
“But why?” Meehan asked. “This town is crawling with young girls with stars in their eyes, eager to make any connection. Why pay for it?”
“The money’s for their silence as much as anything else,” Margaret said.
“And Wolff was filming it all,” Charlie said. “For blackmail.”
“You have proof of any of that?” Meehan asked.
“You do,” Margaret said. “You have the wireless-mike recording of Wolff, the files we just gave you, Charlotte Goode’s murder…”
“We’ve given you more than enough testimony and evidence to begin investigating these sick parties,” Charlie said.
“Did Charlotte ever tell you she’d had any confrontations with anyone?” Meehan asked.
“Like, half the city,” Margaret said. “But you must know that, Detective.”
“I do,” Meehan said. “But Stanley Kubrick didn’t kill her for being rude on a red carpet.”
“No, probably not,” Margaret allowed. “Her coworker, what’s his name—”
“Tarantula?” Charlie asked casually, mispronouncing his name on purpose. “The guy Lawford introduced us to that time?”
“‘Tah-ran-too-lah,’” Meehan corrected him.
“Yeah, him,” Margaret said. “That Tarantula guy was furious at her for that. I was in the bathroom and overheard everything.”
Meehan wrote that down in his little leather-bound notebook. He took a sip from the glass of water Margaret had given him and perused his notes from earlier in their conversation.
“So you had help in this little caper of yours,” he said. “Janet Leigh did spy work for you and John Frankenheimer’s sound guy hooked you up with recording devices.”
“And because of him, as Charlie noted,” Margaret said, “Santa Monica Police have the tape of Les Wolff confessing to having Chris Powell and Lola Bridgewater murdered to hide this pedophile ring.”
Meehan scratched his head. “Where did”—he checked his notes—“where did Charlotte Goode get these documents from anyway?”
“Hollywood Nightlife,” Margaret said, exasperated. Was he really this dumb or was he just pretending?
But Meehan didn’t ask the natural follow-ups: Why didn’t they publish any of it? A huge scandal involving studios, predators, and the wealthy and well-connected—what journalist wouldn’t run with such a story? He turned to another page in his notes.
“And, Congressman Marder, you say Peter Lawford and Sammy Davis Jr. can corroborate this trip to Disneyland? What you say you witnessed there?”
Charlie nodded. “Yes, but please be—”
“Discreet, yes, I know,” Meehan said, writing down the names. “Okay, well, that’s a lot to work on. Thanks for your time.” He nodded, stood, hitched up his pants, and exited the room, joining two uniformed officers waiting for him in the hall.
Charlie and Margaret passed out on the bed, fully clothed, utterly spent. It would be dawn in a few hours.
Charlie woke shortly after ten that morning; Margaret was showered and dressed, and a delicious room-service breakfast was waiting for him. The sight of his beaten-up mug in the mirror was something of a shock, but closer inspection suggested there’d be no permanent scars. The stab wounds in his back were still gruesome, but they were healing acceptably, as was his bruised rib. He began brushing his teeth and grooming himself. As he did, from the combination living room/dining room of their spacious suite, he could hear music from the hi-fi system, the soothing sound of Nat King Cole singing “Let There Be Love”:
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 b
eard 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-Two
Rancho 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 ‘Moon River’?” Margaret asked.
“No, no, about the Kennedys treating him like a vat of bad moonshine,” Charlie said.
Their drive through the unending developments and lush mountains of western Los Angeles, Pomona, Rancho Cucamonga, and San Bernardino took two hours, but they were two hours without mayhem, without interruption, without anyone trying to kill them. The city seemed to stretch beyond any limits other than the mountain ranges, every town blurring into one giant sprawl.
“I’ve noticed you haven’t had a drink,” she said.
“It’s only been a day,” Charlie said, his eyes on the road, though he was happy she’d noticed.
“More than that. The return from Disneyland, the trip to Isaiah’s hotel, Frankenheimer’s, the Oscars, saving Sheryl Ann.” She ticked each one off. “Unless you snuck one when I wasn’t looking?”
“No, ma’am,” he said.
“That’s a lot of stress, to say nothing of how sore your face and back must be,” she said.
Charlie nodded. “And rib,” he added. She reached over, grabbed his right knee, gave it a squeeze.
“You don’t need to hide anything from me,” she said.
“I know,” he said.
“Your drinking—” she began.
“I know,” he said. “I know, but I might need—”
“I’m always here,” she said. “I know you can do it.”
“It’s been one day.”
“And that’s how we will do it,” she said. “One day. Then another. Then another.”
The burden of Charlie’s weaknesses and Margaret’s disapproval didn’t vanish in that moment, but it became a task they would finally tackle together.
Most of their time in the car, however, was spent meticulously analyzing every detail of the information they’d gleaned. By the time they arrived in Rancho Mirage, they felt as though they had a decent theory of the case.
“Enough to bluff our way into the actual facts, at any rate,” Charlie said. Margaret smiled with anticipation.
They got out of their car; Jacobs answered the front door.
“Mr. S. is in the pool,” he said and shook his head. It had not been going well.
Sinatra lay splayed on a raft, his eyes hidden behind gold-accented aviators, his skin a deep bronze. He wore a red short-sleeved shirt, but it was unbuttoned, and his gut protruded over his aqua bathing suit. It was impossible to tell if he was awake.
Charlie and Margaret looked at each other, unsure what to do.
“If he woulda called me to say that it was politically difficult to have me around, I’d’ve understood,” Sinatra suddenly said. “I don’t want to hurt him. But he couldn’t even bother to pick up the phone.”
“Politicians are selfish pricks, Frank,” Margaret said. “Take it from the wife of a four-term congressman.”
Sinatra laughed. “You got a good one here, Charlie,” he said. “Can I get you anything? Coffee? A snack? A drink? It’s five o’clock somewhere.”
Margaret sat on the edge of a chaise while Charlie took off his shoes and socks, rolled up his pant legs, and stuck his feet in the water.
“It’s nice,” he told his wife.
“Not as hot as the Jacuzzi, though, I would assume,” she said. He grimaced and Sinatra winced. “Oh, Charlie, I’m just kidding,” she added. “Frank, Frank—it’s fine. Charlie told me the whole story.”
“So let me ask you kids, speaking of the whole story,” Sinatra said, his face aimed at the beating sun. “What did you tell that little Puritan? Bobby.”
Charlie looked at his wife, then back to his host. Sinatra knew that Charlie was there as a spy for Kennedy? How the hell did he know?
“Oh, don’t be surprised,” Sinatra said. “I put two and two together after your talk with George.”
“I’m sorry,” Charlie said. “They have my dad at Sing Sing.”
“I know,” Sinatra said. “So what did you tell him?”
“That you have friends with rough pasts but we didn’t see any evidence that you were involved in anything illegal,” he said. “And we told him that the presiden
t should stay here,” Charlie lied, because who wanted to deal with the ire?
“I know a lot of people,” Sinatra said. “If the Justice Department were to look into every acquaintance I have who’s got dirt under their fingernails, they’d be pretty busy.”
“So is that why you gave me that recording?” Charlie asked. “And that pink paper?”
“We assumed that was from Judy’s diary,” Margaret said. “With all of the president’s contact information.”
“You were trying to show me that the president’s got some dirty fingernails too?” Charlie asked.
“Ain’t his fingernails that’s the issue,” Sinatra said. “The Kennedys should look in the mirror.”
“And you want Charlie to hold up the mirror?” Margaret asked. Sinatra smiled.
“So clear something up for us: Who is Maheu?” Charlie asked.
“He’s just one of these guys,” Sinatra said. “Go-betweens. Was FBI, did intelligence during the war, makes a lot more dough as a contractor. Works for that nutball Howard Hughes. Does a ton for the CIA. The Agency got him to ask Rosselli to whack Fidel.”
“And you introduced them?” Margaret asked. “You’re quite the yenta.”
“I met Dulles through Jack at a thing a couple years ago,” Sinatra said. “Dulles asked me to introduce Maheu around, I did, and business was done. This was before the Bay of Pigs.”
“But aren’t you worried about getting in trouble with the law?” Margaret asked.
Sinatra raised his head. “Jack is the law,” he said.
“So Jack himself asked the CIA to ask the mobsters to kill Castro?” Charlie asked.
Sinatra lifted up his sunglasses, looked at Charlie, then lowered them again. “I thought you did oversight in the House,” Sinatra said.
“Kennedy would claim he didn’t know about any of this, anyway,” Margaret said. “Plausible deniability.”
“And Bobby wouldn’t necessarily know,” Charlie said. “CIA wouldn’t tell FBI. Competing agencies, plus everyone hates Hoover. Though Bobby would learn enough to wonder.”
“Bingo,” said Sinatra. “You’re getting warmer.”
“So that’s what Bobby actually wanted us to investigate,” Charlie said.
