Barry Keenan picks up the phone in late October, 1963, and dials the number of his best friend, Dean Torrence. Barry makes the call knowing that (without a doubt) he can count on Dean for the money to finance the little plan he's cooked up. They agree to meet at the statue of Tommy Trojan on the USC campus at noon. Barry brings a three-ring binder containing a very official, titled, indexed proposal extensively outlining his ideas and the need for adequate funding. He calls it the Plan of Operation. Keenan wanted him to put in $5,000, and, in 1963 dollars, that was a lot of money.

Keenan explained that it wasn’t going to be a real kidnapping, that he needed the money to make investments and would pay Sinatra back because that was the only way he could get the sin forgiven in the Catholic church. If Sinatra didn't want the money back they'd ask him what charity he would like it donated to. Keenan made it kind of fun, kind of an elaborate neighborhood prank. Dean said, 'That all sounds great, Barry, very entertaining, but what happens if you get caught?" Keenan said, "Well, Dean, I'm not going to get caught. That's not part of the plan. I will have such an iron-clad alibi.” Dean gave him $500 to try and get his life together, certain that Keenan had cooked the idea up as a preposterous way for me to ask him to borrow some money.

There was no way Keenan was going to carry out the kidnapping accompanied only by his three-ring binder; he needed accomplices. He turned to his high school friend Joe Amsler, who had recently married, and needed cash. Amsler thought the plan was nuts, but agreed to play along for the $100 a week that Keenan offered, then got a diving job and disappeared. The next recruit was stocky, swarthy John Irwin, 42, who had been Keenan's mother's boyfriend. He, too, thought the $100 sounded good. Irwin was a decorated Navy veteran of World War II and was a real tough guy who could talk tough on the phone. You didn't want to have a ransom conversation with Frank Sinatra and not be able to talk tough.

They were originally going to kidnap Jr in Phoenix but made a couple of mistakes in Arizona so the effort there was aborted. Keenan and Irwin returned to L.A., hit up a bemused, reluctant Dean for a few hundred more, and were rejoined by Amsler, who was back from abalone stalking.

Jr had an apartment a few blocks from Dean's home that seemed a perfect place to make the grab. Keenan settled on an ideal date: November 22, 1963. The next day there was a USC-UCLA football game that he would attend and be seen by hundreds that knew him. It would be the perfect alibi. Keenan went to church, lit a few candles to put in the supreme fix. He rented a room at the Farmer's Daughter Motel on Fairfax to use as a headquarters; after the nab, Jr would be hustled down to a house on Mason Street, the lone structure on a secluded five-acre lot in Canoga Park that Keenan had rented under the name Frank A. Long.

That morning, Keenan, Amsler, and Irwin were ensconced in their room at the Farmer's Daughter. Keenan picked up the phone to make a call, got the switchboard operator on the line. She was crying. She managed, between sobs, to inform Keenan that the President had been assassinated. John and Joe loved Kennedy, and were totally broken down. Keenan was obsessed with the kidnapping, and didn't have any feelings on the Kennedy situation, and couldn't understand why they wanted to forget the whole kidnapping thing. The deal was off, as far as they were concerned.

Keenan found out Jr was playing in Nevada and then going to Europe, and would lose him after that so it was Lake Tahoe or bust. He went to Dean, and he said he couldn't give Keenan any more money, but ended up giving him $500, but that was going to be it and told him to get a job.

While Amsler, unemployed, was busy applying at construction offices, Keenan shadowed Jr's movements (without Irwin, who was excluded from the operation) went to his performances, observed his comings and goings from the showroom to the adjacent motel where he was staying and decided the abduction would take place on Sunday. Another factor in helping him pick this crucial date was that they were out of money. They needed to get money from Jr because they didn't have enough gas in the car to get back to L.A.

Keenan went into the intricate final prep mode. Intending to pass as a delivery boy, he got a wine box from a liquor store and filled it with pine cones. Logically, if questioned, he could say he was taking pine cones to Jr's room for holiday decorations.