“Some have said it’s your family’s ambition, and not your husband’s, that he run for office. Care to comment on that?” This reporter had finally grown some teeth.

I watched Tana’s face creak under her Botox, but her immaculate smile didn’t flag for a second. “Some,” she said. “Is it good journalistic practice to cite vague, unnamed sources?”

The reporter had the grace to look flustered. “I think your constituents have a right to know.”

“Oh, by all means.” Someone had taken plaster to Tana’s face. She couldn’t stop smiling if she tried. “Go on.”

“Well, there’s the fact that he made the nontraditional move of taking your name upon marriage. Which some have said is to cash in on your family’s legacy and increase voter recognition.”

Tana flicked a hand in front of her face, as if waving away a gnat. “That was all Mitch’s decision. I would say to those unnamed sources, you don’t know my husband. No one can make my Mitch do anything he doesn’t want to do.” There was only a touch of murder in her voice.

The interview switched to a family picture of the wife, the candidate, and a towheaded cherub who was pink all over, like a half-cooked ham. It was unfortunate, the way attractive people never seem to breed well. I studied Carrigan on the screen. Those shoulders had my vote, and probably that was true for a lot of other women in this city.

So he’d taken his wife’s last name. I kicked that one around in my brain for a bit but couldn’t decide what to make of it. It could mean he didn’t have access to the family money. But it could also make him more desperate to protect his reputation. He had a lot more than most men to lose in a divorce.

I stopped the video after a plug for an upcoming campaign fund-raiser, to be held at Olvera Street in a few weeks. “Join us in the heart of Old Los Angeles,” Tana had said, her sunny blonde beauty at odds with her trilling pronunciation of El Pueblo de Los Angeles. I had a hard time believing the Carrigans had any real Californio roots, but if she said it enough times, people wouldn’t care. That was the magic of Los Angeles: over time, the artificial became as historic as the true.