Charlie raised his eyebrows at Lucy as he got up from his chair. “Be right back, princess.” Lucy returned to her cornflakes and her Casper the Friendly Ghost comic book. Charlie smiled, recalling the time Lucy had asked him if Casper was just Richie Rich after evil cousin Reggie finally murdered him, the natural climax of that dark rivalry for the hand of the fair Gloria. He wasn’t sure if the joke was original or not, but either way, the child had a lovely, dark sense of humor, just like her mom.

He grabbed the phone.

“Charlie, we need to talk,” the Justice Department investigator barked on the other end of the line.

“Merry Christmas to you too, Addison, and thank you, we did have a lovely holiday,” Charlie replied, but Addison was in no mood for pleasantries.

“Meet me at Solly’s at eleven. Bring Margaret.”

Two hours later, with Margaret’s mother, Catherine, back on babysitting duty, they arrived at the narrow, nondescript Eighth Avenue diner. Charlie supposed that White had chosen to meet in person out of an abundance of caution; it was safe to assume Hoover would be listening to their phone calls.

The bell jingled as they walked in to smells of burned toast. The cacophony of short-order cooks yelling in the back mingled with Jimmy Dean on the jukebox:

Kinda broad at the shoulder and narrow at the hip. And everybody knew ya didn’t give no lip to Big John…

In a dingy vinyl booth at the back, White raised an eyebrow in greeting while they hung up their snow-dusted coats and hats.

“Anything good?” Charlie asked.

“On this earth? I am less and less confident of that with each passing day,” said White wearily. “But if you don’t mean existentially, the meat loaf tends to be free of ptomaine.”

“Didn’t know you were such a philosopher,” said Margaret, sitting down. “Kant say I’m particularly surprised.”

“I guess he figured sooner or later we’d Sartre it out,” added Charlie, waving over the waitress.

“Camus order for me, sweetie?” Margaret asked, chuckling.

“You two are a regular Nichols and May,” White said, smiling despite himself.

“Eh,” said Margaret. “Puns are a Nietzsche form of comedy.”

The waitress came—coffee and toast for Charlie, coffee and a short stack for White, just coffee for Margaret, who often skipped meals in a constant and unnecessary attempt to diet.

“So let us move from ‘to do is to be’ to ‘doo be doo be doo,’” Charlie said, grabbing the cream at the edge of the table and passing it to Margaret, who groaned as he attempted a pun too far. “We don’t know yet what the ask was that Giancana made of Sinatra. But we have established that Sinatra is not merely friendly with mobsters, he’s close to them. In just a few short weeks we met Giancana, Rosselli, and some guy named Wassy Handelman.”