“Holy crap,” Margaret said as her pulse quickened. As a favor to Margaret, Goode had been trying to track down anyone who might have any details of Lola’s life. They needed to find out what enemies she had, who might have preyed on her.

“I found some stuff on your girl,” Goode reported. “Most of it in Tarantula’s chicken-scratch handwriting, which is almost as repulsive as he is.”

“Are you at the paper right now?”

“No,” Goode said. “I’m home. I can’t risk being caught with these documents. I snuck them out and hid them someplace nobody will ever find them.”

“I don’t understand,” Margaret said. “You’re a journalist. You have files of information, of research. Of dirt. What’s all that research good for if you and your paper don’t use it?”

There was silence on the line. Finally, Goode said: “Leverage.”

“For what?”

“For anything they want,” Goode said. “Money. Sex. Real estate. Power. Favors. Whatever they want.”

“Who’s they?” Margaret asked.

“We can talk about that later,” Goode said. “Let me tell you what I have about your girl.”

“Tell me,” Margaret said. She’d agreed to come back to Los Angeles to help Charlie, to figure out who this Lola was and maybe save her husband’s hide. She’d reached out to Manny Fontaine, to John Frankenheimer, to George Jacobs, but everyone pleaded ignorance about where Lola had come from or who her friends were. Fontaine said he’d seen her at the Daisy and at Puccini, but the maître d’ only faintly recalled her. Her demise seemed to have caused everyone in LA to forget she had existed.

“These girls, they come to town like moths to a flame,” Goode said, “all of them told since they could walk that they oughta be in pictures, they’re as pretty as any movie star.” Margaret heard Goode light a cigarette and take a drag. “They spot ’em at the Greyhound station or at a casting call or walking down Santa Monica Boulevard. Some end up at those parties and become known for providing a good time. Your girl might have a dope habit too, sad to say.”

“She might have—” Margaret was confused. What was with the present tense?

“Yeah, I think I may have an idea of where she’s currently crashing,” Goode said. “You can’t go alone, though, if you try to go. Bring a friend.”

“Wait,” Margaret said. “I thought you were telling me about Lola Bridgewater.”

“No, this is your niece I’m talking about,” Goode said. “Violet.”