“Um, I’m not sure,” Charlie said.

“We never met him,” Margaret added, put off by Goode changing the subject.

“I know he and Frank almost got into a jam about a broad, but I doubt that had anything to do with this,” Goode said. “Frank doesn’t have rivals killed—he just ruins their careers. Or ices ’em out. Like he did with Lawford after he heard he’d taken Ava to dinner. Then, of course, Lawford married a Kennedy, and Frank forgave him ’cause he loves Jack. And the rest is history.”

“Meehan told me and Lawford that Powell’s eyes had been shot out,” Charlie said. “Some Mob thing so you can’t have an open casket.”

“I mean, over gambling debts?” Goode said. “Kill the golden goose and chop off its head? Doesn’t make sense.”

“None of it makes sense, right?” said Margaret. “Killing Bugsy Siegel—”

“Doesn’t matter anyway,” Goode said. “By the time Detective Meehan is done with it, the whole job will be blamed on a hobo the cops shanghai hopping a freighter in Bakersfield. That’s his job, Meehan, to clean it all up.”

With the famous Hollywood sign looming above them, Goode pulled over to the side of Canyon Lake Drive, essentially deserted at this time of night, and cut the engine.

“Have you ever seen it up close?” she asked, nodding up at the sign. She opened her door and Charlie and Margaret followed her out. Surrounded by mountains, desert, and mansions, they felt like they were in a new world, a place where riches were being amassed and anything was possible. The moon lit the sign better than a Hollywood stage manager could have dreamed, and it was easy to feel the mysterious allure of the city around them as they gazed up at it.

“Ever hear of Peg Entwistle?” Goode asked, taking a deep drag on her Lucky Strike.

“I don’t think so,” Charlie said.

“Broadway actress, came out here in the 1920s,” Goode said. “Gifted. It was said she inspired Bette Davis to go into theater. Costarred with Bogie. Cast in a picture called Thirteen Women. But it did no box office, and RKO and Selznick tossed her. Rumor has it she had to resort to nudie pictures. Anyway, long story long, she took a dive off the H of that sign up there.”

“How terrible,” Margaret said.

Goode’s voice had lost its usual hard-bitten tone, and she almost seemed to be talking to herself. “Left a note. ‘I am afraid. I am a coward. I am sorry for everything. If I had done this a long time ago, it would have saved a lot of pain. P.E.’”