You could step off the studio lot, walk across the street, and find yourself in the Garden of Legends, treading on the final resting places of residents with names almost as well-known as Carrigan, dozing off a lifetime of largesse.

Hollywood Forever wasn’t home to all the departed luminaries of Old Hollywood, but it had more than its share. Jayne Mansfield and her head rested near the lake, richly fertilized by duck shit and pond scum. Virginia Rappe and her cosmically cruel last name nestled underneath a tiny tree that had never taken root. Marion Davies had been entombed in an enormous mausoleum, as befitting the mistress of one of the wealthiest men in the city’s history. The dowager empress of kept women, an inspiration to us all.

I parked near the peacock cages, winding my way through the clutter of graves carved with curvy Armenian glyphs. Out of the car, I could see that many of the headstones featured carved black-and-white photographs of the long-lost departed in their prime. I imagined an old Armenian grandmother flipping through her photo books, picking out the one that would represent her face for eternity. If it were me, I’d have picked a nude. But maybe that task went to the survived-by. It was unnerving, knowing exactly what the pile of dirt and bones underneath my feet looked like.

I crept toward the front of the cemetery, the big eternity pool where mean-as-fuck swans sipped chlorine-green water in front of the everlasting tomb of Douglases Senior and Junior, patron saints of celluloid. My shoes were sticky with champagne and clung to the pebbles underfoot. I stopped every so often to shake one loose, squinting into the darkness for a sign of Ellen and Junior.

Klein Sr. would send her packing as soon as he figured out she was fucking his son—maybe it would even be an easy out for him, a way to rid himself of an annoying mistress without any nasty recriminations. I couldn’t let that happen. I needed to get her out of there before she could make a fool of herself in front of Klein, ruin any chance that he’d speak to her, let alone fuck her, on Thursday.

Far off, voices hooted in harmony, and I wondered if this was what the party was meant to be, a sprawling bacchanal over the bones of Old Hollywood. I followed the screeching until I reached an enormous black valentine that held the framed face of a golden goddess, one I recognized from magazine covers but more specifically as the lead of Ellen’s film, with the words Rest in peace, Tati’s youth! emblazoned across it in silver-tinselly glitter. Beneath that, the dates November 6, 1984—November 6, 2012.

Someone had driven a plastic butter knife through the center of the valentine, spearing the ski slope of the birthday girl’s nose.