New York City was full of swanky restaurants with award-winning chefs and gracious service; Toots’s place offered neither. It was a saloon with a pedestrian menu and a fabulous clientele, frequented by the likes of Sinatra, Babe Ruth, Jackie Gleason, Joe DiMaggio—all of whom were forced to wait in line and suffer occasional insults from Shor himself.

The Fifty-Second Street version was almost the same as the Fifty-First Street version, with plank oak floors, pine-paneled walls, and spacious and brightly lit rooms dominated by murals of sporting triumphs. The first and second floors each had an immense circular bar, and each dining room had an enormous fireplace with a bronze hood. The third floor, where Sinatra hosted his party, was accessible by elevator and winding staircase and fit three hundred people, though fewer than a hundred were present tonight.

“It feels like what I imagine a men’s club would be like,” Margaret observed. “Which is saying something, given how much of regular life in America is a men’s club.”

“What do you mean?” Charlie asked.

“You know,” Margaret said, sipping her martini. “We’re dames. Usually off camera. Like the First Lady. Or Juliet Prowse. Or sidekicks like Shirley.”

“You’re no sidekick,” Charlie protested.

“Not to you,” Margaret said. “But to them.” She tilted her head toward Sinatra and his crew. “And then there’s that other role women can fill…” Margaret nodded toward a corner table where Lawford and Giancana chatted with Judy and another young woman, this one in the process of slowly wrapping herself around the Kennedy in-law. Giancana’s face was lit by a wide, lascivious grin, clearly inspired as much by both women’s attention as by Lawford’s conversation. Charlie had long felt a pang of sympathy—or maybe pity was the better word—for Lawford, a showman who hung out with and had married into groups of more compelling performers. He existed alone in his Venn-diagram circle, a tenuous and less respected member of both the Kennedys and the Rat Pack, constantly overcompensating as he flitted among roles as a diplomat, actor, and bon vivant, failing miserably at all but the last.

“What are those women anyway?” Charlie said. “Heiresses and divorcées? Trust-fundees? Something…more commercial?”

“What was it that Lord Beaverbrook said about haggling over the price?” Margaret asked. Charlie knew the answer but didn’t respond.

Several martinis later, Margaret was deep in conversation with Janet Leigh at a two-top. It was that time of the night—or, technically, the morning—when parties take on lives of their own and libations explain almost any detour.

Their conversation had started innocently enough with Margaret reintroducing herself to Leigh at the sinks in the ladies’ room.