“This one’s sad, and Frank’s mad,” said Giancana. He shook his head, disgusted with both of them, though Charlie wasn’t sure why. In fact, the only thing Charlie knew right then was that soon he and Margaret would be back in New York City with their kids and he knew even less about Sinatra than he’d thought he did, which didn’t bode well for anyone.

Chapter Nine

Los Angeles, California

January 1962

“What sorcery is this?” asked Margaret, leaning over the steering wheel of her rented white Chevy Impala and pointing toward the sky. She and Charlie had just returned to Los Angeles after a month in New York City with Lucy and Dwight, and the last thing she’d expected to see here was snow.

“Holy cannoli,” said her passenger, Sheryl Ann Gold, née Bernstein. A former intern in Charlie’s congressional office, she’d moved to Los Angeles a few years ago and now swore she’d never set foot in DC again as long as she lived. Margaret spared a glance at the younger woman, grateful for an old friend in an unfamiliar city. “It can’t be.”

But it was. For the first time in thirty years, it was snowing in Los Angeles. More precisely, it was snowing, sleeting, hailing, and raining all at once. Bewildered locals stood with their mouths agape, staring at the heavens. Children had begun to dance and run around their front lawns; even some adults got in on the act. Margaret had picked up Sheryl Ann at her Santa Monica apartment, and as they drove east, the snow fell more heavily, covering the city like a thin layer of sea foam. Margaret steered the car cautiously, passing blocks of indistinguishable, recently built one-story homes. Sheryl Ann turned up the radio.

Giesler’s estate is worth eight hundred thousand dollars, most of which will be controlled by his widow in two separate trust funds, his will indicates. The colorful attorney represented a number of clients from the worlds of Hollywood and organized crime, getting both Charlie Chaplin and Errol Flynn acquitted of charges involving minors and representing both Bugsy Siegel and Mickey Cohen. Giesler defended Lana Turner’s daughter in what was ultimately ruled justifiable homicide against her mother’s boyfriend, mobster Johnny Stompanato…

“So his clientele were mobsters and statutory rapists,” Sheryl Ann said.

“Nice work if you can get it,” Margaret responded.

“The stories you hear in this town about young girls,” said Sheryl Ann. “It would curl your hair. It’s sick.”