“I had plans,” Goode said, and she took another swig from her flask. “I was going to write the next His Girl Friday or Bringing Up Baby. I thought by age fifty I’d have won a screenwriting Oscar or two. Not…this. Maybe Peg Entwistle had the right idea.”

Margaret racked her brain and then recalled the story of the ruined actress who’d dived off the H of the Hollywood sign. Silence filled the room.

“Charlotte, I need your help,” Margaret finally said.

And Lawford needed Charlie’s help. Earlier that day, he’d picked up Charlie in his Ghia, and now they were heading to Rancho Mirage.

“He’s going to blow his stack,” Charlie said. “I’ll be there for moral support, but you have to light the fuse.”

“Thanks,” Lawford said. “That won’t be hard to do.”

Charlie had little confidence in Lawford’s pledge, and the distrust hung in the air awkwardly until Lawford turned on the radio.

…the youngest brother of the president, who is seeking his older brother’s former Senate seat, admitted today that in his freshman year at Harvard he was asked to leave the college after he was caught cheating on an exam—

“Oh, Teddy.” Lawford sighed.

“Lot to live up to in that family,” Charlie said.

“You don’t know the half of it,” Lawford said, a rueful smile on his face. He changed the station.

…twelve hundred defendants, sitting in a basketball court in the Principe Prison, facing Castro government charges that remain secret but clearly relating to the Bay of Pigs fiasco. Cuban defense lawyers say they believe prosecutors will seek various punishments including the death penalty—

Lawford sighed again and punched in another station, this time one that played music, producing a familiar crooning from the man they were about to confront.

…like the love of Ant’ny for Cleo,

When I left my heart down in Rio

What is more sad than a good love gone bad

I was an Aries devoured by a Leo!

Sinatra’s light baritone prompted Lawford to grimace. He changed the station.

In ’43 they put to sea thirteen men and Kennedy

Aboard the PT-109 to fight the brazen enemy…

“PT-109” by Jimmy Dean was climbing to the top of the country chart, but Lawford was clearly not in the mood for the hagiography, and he shut the radio off completely.

The report from Cuba, meanwhile, had prompted Charlie to ruminate about the classified Oversight Committee hearing a week before where a terrified lieutenant had told him and two other House Republicans about Operation Northwoods.