“That’s the lore, anyway,” Margaret said. “Couldn’t have been any more of a metaphor if she’d been nailed to the H.”
“How did she get up there?”
Margaret noticed just above her head a white ladder fastened to the back of the letter. At the top, there appeared to be something wedged between the sheet metal and a utility pole.
“Come here,” Margaret said, beckoning to her friend.
Sheryl Ann joined Margaret behind the H.
“I need a boost,” Margaret said. “Clasp your hands.”
She hauled herself up to the ladder and climbed. Each rung made a loud creak. She tried to focus on the inches in front of her and not the broad-view insanity of what she was doing.
Charlie hatched the plan in a panic. “I want to stop him,” he told Lawford and Davis as they approached the wooden steps. He told them what to do and they nodded their assent. The two walked to the front of the fort and whispered to a couple of the guards. Then they strode to the center of the parade ground.
“Hey there, kids!” Lawford said as the loudspeakers blared the zzzzzip of a needle being clumsily removed from the record. Charlie—slowly walking toward the apothecary—was surprised at how his friend’s voice boomed throughout the fort without the aid of a microphone.
“Since this is all entre nous,” Davis said, “we thought you cool cats and chicks might appreciate a song or two.”
“So unless you’re otherwise indisposed, my friends, let’s celebrate!”
The old man with Violet poked his head out of the room and smiled to see the special mini–Rat Pack concert. Violet followed him out, seizing the respite to lean against the wall.
Davis had grabbed a recorder from a girl dressed as a squaw while Lawford beat on tom-toms.
“¡Revolución cubana!” the two men shouted from the center of the parade ground, commencing with a popular one-hit wonder from the mid-1950s, before the Castros and Che landed at Playas de las Coloradas from Mexico.
¡Revolución cubana!
I just fell in love in Havana
She ran for the Puerto
And wished on me muerta
And left me with just my banana!
“¡Olé!” the singers shouted, prompting clueless cries of “¡Olé!” from the crowd. Some of the teenage girls started to dance. Charlie wondered if they were drunk or trying to avoid their “dates” or just having a little harmless fun, the kind kids their age should be having in purer settings.
He looked at Violet; her “date” stood a few feet in front of her. Charlie stared at her; he didn’t want the old man aware of his presence. Finally, sensing the eyes on her, Violet glanced to her left and saw Charlie, who motioned with his head that he wanted her to follow. Violet’s face registered no reaction. Charlie realized that she probably figured he was just another pervert. Then, as if something had snapped in her brain, she looked at him again and her eyes opened in recognition. Uncle Charlie? she mouthed, and he nodded.
¡Cubana revolución!
Batista retribution!
He calls CIA.
And they say come-what-may
No, no, no to wealth redistribution!
Señorita—
Your skin—leche con café
On your Sierra Maestra I want to play
While I attack in the valley beneath Escambray
Charlie put a finger to his lips, then pointed upstairs. Violet understood.
¡Revolución cubana!
Now I’m back in ol’ Indiana
I loved to do pillage
In each sexy village
Every lady like heaven-sent manna!
Charlie casually strode to the stairs, followed by Violet, who seemed nervous and eager to flee. The porch wound around the back of the fort and they ducked into a room, at the far end of which was, luckily, another door to another set of stairs. Beyond the fort lay the banks of the faux Missouri River, on which they were relieved to see a canoe.
Borrowing some of the light cast on the immense H, Margaret held the first document close to her face. It was a bill from a costume designer for seventy-five squaw costumes. The next was a bill from the same costume designer for fifty flapper outfits. That was followed by dozens of other bills for dozens of costumes—leprechauns, witches, plantation, Kentucky Derby, and the like—dating back to 1953.
Margaret looked back at the most recent bill. It was dated two weeks ago.
Sheryl Ann studied a different stack of papers in the light projected onto the giant O. “Here’s a photo of Chris Powell at some film premiere,” she said. She held it up. Powell and his date were smiling.
“That’s Lola,” Margaret said. “The dead girl.”
Sheryl Ann sifted through the stack. “What’s this?” she asked, holding up bookkeeper vouchers, records of debts paid. “Payments from Paramount and Warner Brothers Studios to someone named Marie Antoinette.”
Margaret dug through the file folder she’d found wedged behind the H. “There’s a film reel here too,” she noted, digging into the bottom of the container.
“Does it make any sense that Charlotte died for…this?” Sheryl Ann asked. “What is this? Some bills, bookkeeper vouchers, some photos, and a film reel?”
From above them, at the top of the mountain behind the sign, they heard a car slowly driving over gravel.
“We should get going,” Margaret whispered. The steep canyon wall blocked her view of the car. They heard footsteps and Margaret stuffed everything back in the folder, and the two women began cautiously walking down the mountain.
Some rocks dislodged above them and rolled by. Margaret looked over her shoulder to see the silhouette of a large man determinedly moving down the hill.
“Sheryl Ann!” she cried.
“I see!”
It was difficult to go much faster, given the steep precipice and the dim light; Margaret stumbled on a bush. She recovered, reclaimed the folder, and continued her controlled rush down the mountain. When she found the semblance of a trail they’d used on their way up, she paused and looked back and saw Sheryl Ann fighting off the man. With his free hand, he pulled out a gun, aimed it at Margaret, and fired.
Chapter Twenty-TwoAnaheim, California
April 1962
“Hop in front,” Charlie said as he and Violet scurried to the canoe. He had originally planned for them to swim and couldn’t
