They entered the Mexican town square, El Zocolo, where a mariachi band performed “La Bamba” on the Mexican bandstand, and a crowd of men salivated while watching two dark-haired teenage girls dancing some kind of courtship dance. One of the girls was dressed in a formfitting blouse and high-waisted skirt approximating the traditional china poblano; the other was clad as a charro, with an enormous black sombrero. Charlie paused and looked at their cherubic faces, which made him think of a child, of his own daughter, Lucy, though these girls’ outfits were made to convey a sexuality they wouldn’t grow into for years.

“Come on, amigo,” Lawford said, pulling him along, “vámanos.”

A song began blaring from behind them; Charlie turned to see the Golden Horseshoe, an ersatz saloon that was currently serving as a very real one. They walked up the porch and looked inside, where a burlesque singer dressed as a cowgirl regaled the audience with a song.

“A miner from the Klondike came a-strollin’ in the place,” she sang. “With nuggets in his knapsack and whiskers on his face. He said, ‘A kiss I crave,’ and I said, ‘Sir! Not until you shave!’ A lady has to mind her P’s and Q’s!”

The saloon was packed with drunken men and girls who could be their daughters or granddaughters.

“Do you see her?” Lawford asked.

“No,” said Charlie. “Not here.”

They stepped back from the saloon doors.

“We probably shouldn’t act as if we’re looking for someone,” Davis said. “We should blend.”

“If we really want to blend, we need to grab girls,” Lawford said. Seeing Charlie’s and Davis’s alarmed faces, he quickly added: “I don’t mean that literally. I’m just saying, we’re sore thumbs here. Especially Sammy.”

“Hey!” said Davis.

“What’s over there?” Charlie asked, nodding to the river, beyond which sat Tom Sawyer Island, festooned with tiki torches, bubbling with human activity. He walked over and onto the dock, where an immense steamboat sat still in the man-made river, bathed in moonlight. Lawford and Davis joined him. In the distance came the faint deep beating of shamanic drums.

“It sounds like the climax of Sergeants Three over there,” Lawford said.

“The pornographic version, maybe,” Davis said. “Our version doesn’t have full-frontal.”

“The version in my trailer did,” said Lawford. “Firewater, squaw, smoke-um big peace pipe.”

“Different kind of climax, Peter,” Davis said.

Charlie looked back at Tom Sawyer’s Island. He heard a woman’s laugh echoing across the water. He knew exactly why he was there: If he could save Violet, he could redeem himself with Margaret. And then he could quit drinking and get his dad out of jail and be the man Margaret believed he could be. Not this other man, the one he was on his way to becoming.

“We need to get over there,” he said.

Chapter Twenty

Los Angeles, California

April 1962