The attorney general was as ruthless as he was effective. He’d been an aide and loyal friend to Senator Joe McCarthy through the years of McCarthy’s witch hunts right up until the senator was censured. Then it was as if his time as chief Democratic counsel on the McCarthy Committee had never happened. Afterward, as chief counsel of the Senate Labor Rackets Committee in the late 1950s, Kennedy pursued Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa by starting with the suspect and then proceeding to find the crime. Kennedy ran his brother’s 1960 presidential campaign with the same single-mindedness; Democratic primary rival Senator Hubert Humphrey once expressed outrage over “that young, emotional, juvenile Bobby” paying off local West Virginia pols with “wild abandon.” Humphrey was hardly the only suspicious Democrat; the entire civil rights community, including and especially Martin Luther King Jr., eyed the Kennedy brood warily.

Liberal wariness hadn’t slowed the Kennedys’ sprint to power, and they now had the levers of government to use as they saw fit. Charlie had never fully trusted the younger Kennedy, who had Charlie and his dad in his sights.

“We need information,” Kennedy said. He took another bite and this time seemed to chew even more slowly.

Excruciating. And yet Charlie had to remain silent. He hadn’t been aware that his father was in contact with Giancana, though such an allegation was not a surprise; his dad had spent decades overcoming previously insurmountable hurdles. Often that required knowing some unsavory characters. He knew that his father occasionally had to communicate with members of the Five Families, not to have anyone rubbed out but to guarantee the availability of union labor.

“I’m trying to figure out how I can help, but I’m drawing a blank,” Charlie said. “I don’t know anything about my father’s relationship with Giancana. I didn’t even know he had one.” He wondered if the attorney general knew that the Teamsters had also been visiting Charlie in New York, had been leaning on him for almost a year.

“Did you ever hear of a man called Mooney?” Kennedy asked. “Or Momo?”

“No,” said Charlie, thinking about it. “No Mooney. No Momo.” Why did mobsters always have such moronic nicknames? “I’m guessing you’ve seized my dad’s files and haven’t found anything.”

“Nothing yet,” said Kennedy.

“Who’s Momo?” Charlie asked. “Who’s Mooney?”

“Aliases,” Kennedy said. “Giancana.”

“Hail the son of righteousness!” the choir sang. “Light and life to all He brings.” The lyrics were about Jesus; Charlie couldn’t help but wonder if the Kennedy brothers thought of themselves as the sons of righteousness. There was certainly nothing virtuous about their father, the would-be appeaser of Hitler. From the pew behind them, Addington White gave Kennedy a manila envelope. The attorney general opened it and handed some papers to Charlie.

“A transcript from a wiretap this week,” Kennedy explained. “Giancana and Johnny Rosselli, the Mob’s man in Hollywood.”