“But what would read as more, you know, standard for a veteran?”

“I’ve been married to a veteran for sixteen years, since Charlie got back from France, and I’ve met a ton of veterans since then,” Margaret said. “Washington is lined with them. But those are the ones who came back and instead of healing were determined to keep working, keep moving, never stopping, never slowing down, no time to think, no time to let the mind wander. The whole goal is to keep running, to hide it, to pretend there’s nothing wrong.”

Charlie looked at his wife, who returned his gaze with earnestness. Was she talking about him? Of course she was.

“I have yet to see any veterans in DC with the shakes, with outward signs of pain,” Charlie said. “They—we—put one foot in front of the other like everyone else.”

“I agree with that,” Margaret said. “One foot, then one foot, then one foot, never stopping, because were they to stop, they might feel something they couldn’t stand.”

Frankenheimer was listening intently.

“So maybe Marco has the shakes or maybe he drinks a lot more than he knows is healthy, just grabs it and downs it all the time when no one’s looking, but never enough to stumble or embarrass himself. He drinks the perfect amount so he’s somewhere between numb and bumbling, smooth as China silk,” Margaret added, and Charlie knew that she knew.

“Ready?” United Artists PR honcho Manny Fontaine asked Charlie and Margaret.

Margaret nodded and Charlie shrugged and Fontaine knocked briskly on Sinatra’s dressing-room door, then rested an ear against it to detect signs of movement. He grimaced slightly in Charlie’s direction and gaily called out: “Knock-knock!”

Fontaine was slick and handsome and young—late twenties, early thirties—and it would be easy to conclude he was just another mindlessly ambitious studio drone, preternaturally optimistic and cheery. But in the two days since Fontaine had picked them up at Los Angeles International Airport, Charlie and Margaret had come to appreciate the wit he deployed like a surgeon with a scalpel. He was deferential to stars and directors and executives, but it was always with a wink in his inside jacket pocket; he clearly knew how silly it all was. “Just a movie,” he would say under his breath, “just some popcorn.” Fontaine further tried to bond with Charlie as a fellow veteran; he claimed to have served in Korea with the Eighth Army Ranger Company. Charlie knew those Rangers. They were small Special Forces units expert in what was called “irregular warfare”—tough, nasty stuff.

Sinatra’s dressing-room door cracked open to reveal Brownie.