“Sammy was great as Sportin’ Life in Porgy and Bess,” Charlie continued, going around the table. “May, I loved you in The Hunters. Obviously, Shirley was mesmerizing in The Apartment, and I liked Peter best in The Thin Man, but I know that was TV, so he was also stellar in Exodus.”

Charlie waved toward the serious-looking men to his left. “I don’t know who these two gentlemen are but I suspect they don’t care to be captured on film much.”

The men grinned. They sure didn’t.

“As for Mr. Sinatra,” Charlie said, “he’s giving a great performance in The Manchurian Candidate right now, but until that one’s released, I gotta say The Man with the Golden Arm. I know it’s probably trendier in this town to go with the role that won him the Oscar, but Frankie Machine still haunts me.” Charlie took a couple of swigs from his glass of bourbon, finishing it, while everyone stayed quiet. “If I’m still thinking about a performance years after I saw the picture, then the artist did something right.”

“See, politicians know plenty about what we do,” Sinatra said. “When I talk to TP, all he wants to hear is Hollywood gossip.”

“TP?” asked Margaret.

“The president,” Lawford explained.

They drank. And drank. Margaret was increasingly reminded of her 1940s fieldwork observing chimpanzees in the Belgian Congo. The monkeys were tribal, wild, focused on mating and alpha status, and the Rat Packers’ antics increasingly resembled the chimps’ as the night proceeded. Margaret whispered the observation to Charlie, who laughed heartily when Dean Martin coincidentally underlined her point with an operatic solo that recalled nothing so much as a primate’s pant-hoot.

It was maybe an hour later when Britt nudged MacLaine and gestured toward something behind her. MacLaine looked, then turned back to May and mimed sticking her finger down her throat in an exaggerated expression of nausea.

Margaret peered over her shoulder and saw an obese man in his fifties escorting a voluptuous curly-haired blond girl who couldn’t have been out of her teens to a table. His hands slid all over her—hips, legs, abdomen—as soon as they sat down. The room they were in was too dark for Margaret to see the girl’s facial expression.

“Yuck,” said Margaret. Charlie, focused on his cards, looked up at his wife, then back at his three aces.

“That’s Itchy Meyer, with MGM,” MacLaine said. “Total masher.”

“Who’s the skirt?” asked Sinatra.

“Dunno, I can’t really see her face that well,” said Britt.

“DC is a whole town of Itchy Meyers,” said Margaret. “Senator Itchy Meyer, Congressman Itchy Meyer…”

“President Itchy Meyer,” whispered Charlie.

Margaret squinted at the young woman again. “Jesus,” she said under her breath. “Violet,” Margaret said, walking toward her. “Violet!” she shouted.

The young woman looked around to see who was calling her name.

“How does your wife know her name?” Martin asked Charlie.