The night proceeded merrily, with a feast and copious carafes of Italian reds and the best stories the Rat Pack could tell with women present. Margaret was certain she was the soberest person at the table, except for maybe Patricia Lawford. None of the women spoke much, so Margaret entertained herself by playing zoologist and assigning hierarchical roles to the participants. Giancana was the apex predator, top of the food chain, no one around to challenge his dominance. Sinatra was the alpha, Martin the beta—his second in command. Davis and Lawford were omega wolves, assuming the court-jester roles, well liked and eager to initiate play but holding no power. She thought about the few species that practiced monogamy; there were no penguins at this table except for Charlie, Margaret, and Patricia Lawford.

Margaret then focused on Patricia, gorgeous and gracious, with the familiar Kennedy jaw and smile. She and Peter had married in 1954, and clearly the bloom was off the rose, if it had ever blossomed at all. Margaret noticed that when he reached for her hand, she flinched. When he put his arm around her, she pulled away from his touch. For his part, Lawford studiously avoided looking too long at any of the young women at the table, but Margaret thought he did so in a suspiciously unnatural way. Charlie had already told her that Lawford’s fellow Rat Packers referred to his Malibu compound as “High-Anus Port,” so dubbed for the wild parties Lawford threw whenever his wife was back east.

Margaret cast a benign smile in Charlie’s direction. He would never engage in anything along those lines. Charlie caught her eye and smiled back at her, and for a moment she felt as if they occupied a bubble of calm floating above the beautiful, troubled occupants of the glamorous restaurant.

Soon Patricia Lawford announced that she was feeling tired; her husband escorted her outside and returned to the table without her. Her exit combined with the copious amounts of alcohol consumed by then seemed to dissolve all remaining inhibitions. The young women with them were manhandled onto laps. Bottle after bottle of wine was emptied. Stories of varying degrees of truthfulness were shared.

“Nothing could be bigger / than to play it with a ni—” Martin sang, to the tune of “Carolina in the Morning,” before Davis interrupted him in the nick of time. “Tut-tut-tut!” Davis urged as Margaret and Charlie recoiled at Martin’s near use of the epithet.

Davis responded by channeling Cole Porter: “He’s a wop! / Records sell like Nestle’s / He’s a wop! / But they don’t top Presley’s.”