Charlie’s brain was a bubbling cauldron of concern. He felt guilty that he hadn’t yet been able to rescue his dad, worried about the photos Goode had told him about, anxious about Addington White’s impending arrival in town. He had a nagging suspicion they weren’t going to get off the hook even though he finally had an answer for Kennedy’s question. He also knew there was no way Margaret would leave without finding her niece. Despite calling Lawford several times to follow up on where he’d seen Violet, Charlie hadn’t learned anything. He hadn’t yet shared the news with Margaret. He didn’t want to get her hopes up.

Puccini stayed open long after almost every other diner had left—Sinatra and Lawford owned it, after all—so it wasn’t until roughly three in the morning that Sinatra had the idea they should all head to a cemetery to toast Death and his recent acquisitions. Forest Lawn in Glendale was thirty minutes away, barely a blink for LA, so their nine-car motorcade proceeded like a funeral cortege through the city’s empty, rain-soaked streets.

A right onto South Glendale Avenue followed by another right onto Cathedral Drive, and soon the motorcade came to its end at Forest Lawn. While Charlie parked, Margaret saw Sinatra in the distance, illuminated under a streetlamp, berating the young redhead. As she and Charlie got out of the car, they could hear more of Sinatra’s tantrum.

“—the hell off my hair!” he yelled.

“Uh-oh,” said Davis under his breath as he sidled up to the Marders, walking toward the graves.

“No touch-ay the toupee,” Martin said.

Sinatra continued to berate the redhead, albeit in more hushed tones, so only the occasional word echoed in the graveyard.

“Stupid,” he said, disdain dripping from his voice. “Dumb cooze.”

Margaret shook her head. Sinatra was so mercurial and abusive, she no longer thought his ego was that of the mere superstar; it was something more pathological.