Everyone laughed except Sinatra, who stared at Margaret for a moment and then looked down at the card table as he lit a cigarette. “Poor Marilyn,” he said, and shrugged.

The brief acknowledgment of Monroe’s downward spiral reminded Charlie of the way all good people sometimes followed words of sympathy with a shrug. The shrug conveyed a resignation, an understanding that humanity was fragile and life could be brutal. And in Sinatra’s case, Charlie thought, given that he’d treated Monroe as if she were just another piece of leftover cheesecake, perhaps his shrug also suggested that not just life but, yeah, maybe he himself could be brutal.

Sinatra’s blue-eyed stare had not signaled anything so psychologically complicated to Margaret; quite the contrary. His cool look had washed a warm wave over her. Thin and blond with bewitching hazel eyes, Margaret constantly had to fend off the inquiring gazes of congressmen at dinners; lawyers and CEOs at fundraisers; policemen and construction workers and shopkeepers in Manhattan and Washington. She was not one to be easily charmed by power and charisma. When she’d encountered Sinatra on set, he was just a grump, but here he was in his glory, as confident as a matador, and she felt it. In a flash of his eyes, she fancied that she could see his temper and passion and the heart Ava Gardner had broken into a thousand pieces. Margaret found her own heart quickening its pace, and she glanced around the table to make sure no one could tell.

“Tell me, Congressman,” Martin said, looking at his cards, “don’t you have, like, laws and stuff to write? Something to do besides sit around drinking with a couple of crooners and their pals?” He smiled at Charlie, though there was definitely nothing friendly about the question.

“I felt it was my sworn duty to answer the call of your movie studio,” Charlie said. “And anyway, we’re on recess for another month.”

“Politics is just a lot of acting,” Margaret said. “I told Charlie he could learn a thing or two from the best. I’m a big fan of Mr. Sinatra—of all of you, actually—and we needed a little sun.”

“Honestly, Dino, what’s got your shorts in a bunch?” MacLaine asked. “It’s not as if we couldn’t stand to have someone hoist up our average IQ.”

Martin elbowed Sinatra and whispered in his ear. Sinatra turned. In the next room, a tall, handsome man with a jutting jaw and red hair was pressing the flesh like a city council candidate. He was dressed fashionably but obviously without the benefit of a movie star’s salary—thin maroon tie, shiny dark blue suit that didn’t quite fit, shoes that tried too hard. A bargain-basement Rat Packer.

“Detective Ellroy Meehan,” Lawford said to Charlie and Margaret. “He’s like the Showbiz Cop.”

“Here because of Chris Powell?” Margaret asked.