Charlie and Margaret headed back, and the snatches of conversation soon grew too distant for them to hear. They made their way over the hills on narrow paved roads to the parking lot. Earlier, Margaret, the ever-prepared former Girl Scout, had stashed the small first-aid kit she brought with her on all family excursions in the trunk of their rented white 1962 Impala convertible.

“We’re missing all the fun,” Charlie said as a gunshot followed by the pop of an exploding light bulb cracked in the distance. “I’m really fine, honey.”

“Sure sounds like fun,” Margaret said as she held out her hand for the keys. Charlie reluctantly produced them.

She inserted the key and opened the trunk while Charlie looked to the hills, where the echoes of crooning and guffaws sounded almost like local wildlife. Then Margaret screamed.

From the gauzy illumination of a distant streetlamp, Charlie saw the shape in the trunk, a big shape.

It was a body.

Charlie stepped closer. He recognized the face, as did Margaret, who turned away. He looked with horror at the woman that they’d last seen days before and that he’d seen quite a bit of in the past few weeks.

Her eyes were two bloody caverns; they must have been shot out. There was some brain and bone residue in the trunk but not enough to suggest she had been shot there. Her mouth was agape, her jaw helplessly, horrifically slack.

Charlie and Margaret stood frozen until the sudden arrival of the Rat Pack, who apparently had raced over in response to Margaret’s shriek.

Sinatra looked into the trunk.

“Charlie,” he said. “Just what the hell have you done?”

Chapter Two

New York City

One month earlier—December 1961

The Marders’ phone did not usually ring at five in the morning, but Charlie had been up, staring at the ceiling, so he picked it up right away.

It was his father, Winston Marder. “Call my lawyer, Alistair Crutchfield. Then go to my house, get my diabetes medicine, and bring it to me. I’m in the Tombs.”

“You’re what?”

“It’s a nickname for the federal—”

“I know what the Tombs are!”

“Good, then I don’t need to give you directions.” The line went dead.

Charlie dressed quietly so as not to wake Margaret. She’d gone to sleep before him last night; these days, she regularly turned in before he did. Charlie’s nights were consumed with meetings, fundraisers, drinks with aides and consultants. He’d been in Congress for roughly eight years now, providing constituent services, pressing the flesh at street fairs and parties for local big shots, helping veterans, pushing for the Civil Rights Acts of 1957 and 1960 and, less successfully, the Equal Pay Act for women. Charlie did whatever he could to stay viable as an Eisenhower/Rockefeller Republican in an increasingly Democratic Manhattan.