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.”