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?”