“No journalists allowed,” Goode noted.

“Frank does have strong feelings about the press,” said Charlie.

“As does Sam-I-am,” Goode said. “Mr. Davis had my editor kill my piece excoriating him for postponing his wedding just so Frank could kiss Kennedy ass.” She paused to dive into her mashed potatoes, which had arrived along with their steaks. “I wonder if the girls they have with them tonight are actresses or some of Van Heusen’s hires.”

“Pardon?” asked Margaret.

“Jimmy Van Heusen, Frank’s songwriter,” Goode said. “He supplies call girls for the singers who keep him in silk and caviar. Ships ’em in like trays of sturgeons.”

“He does that? The guy who wrote ‘High Hopes’?” Margaret asked, stunned.

“And lots of great romantic ballads,” Goode said. “He’s won three Oscars.”

“Where does he get them from?” Charlie asked. “The girls.”

“The lost and found?” Charlotte shrugged.

Charlie thought about Lola and the other young women at Sinatra’s compound. Were they call girls? They didn’t act like they had much of a say in the matter.

“Why would guys like Frank need to pay women to sleep with them?” Margaret asked.

“They don’t pay them to have sex with them,” Goode said. “They pay them to leave.”

Margaret shook her head and excused herself to the restroom, taking in bits of conversation on her way:

Tracy, Berle, Caesar, Hackett, Jon Winters—it can’t miss!

She’s working on Billy Wilder’s latest.

You don’t remember Joe Sr. and Bobby swooping into town and stopping every issue of Hush-Hush from hitting the stands?

They had to cancel it because of bad weather. It’s supposed to be rainy at Cape Canaveral for a few days.

Elgin Baylor had forty-two points and twenty-two rebounds!

Van Heusen’s extracurriculars stuck in Charlie’s craw. He recalled the time during college when he and two friends had ducked into a dark bar across the bridge, in Brooklyn, that people of negotiable standards were rumored to frequent. As they were sidling up to the bar, Charlie caught a whiff of the cologne his father wore. He turned to survey the room and saw a woman who was decidedly not Charlie’s mother seated on his father’s lap. Charlie had left immediately, his friends on his tail.

Goode looked over her shoulder at Margaret’s retreating figure, then leaned across the table and said in a low voice, “You should know, Congressman, that Hollywood Nightlife recently received some compromising information about you.”

Charlie felt his heartbeat quicken. “What’s that?”

Goode took a bite of her steak. “We were sent,” she said, sporadically pausing to chew, “photographs…of you and a topless young woman in a hot tub.” She took a swig of her wine.