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She has a point.

“How do I stop the ritual?”

“Don’t be so dense, Stark. When we cut Townsend open, what did we take?”

“His heart.”

“Right. Restore the body. Put the heart back where it belongs.”

“And that will kill McCarthy?”

“No. But he’ll be weak enough that he can be destroyed. Of course, you’ll have to go to the Tenebrae to do it.”

“How the hell do I get to the Tenebrae? And more important, how do I get back?”

She picks up her pen.

“I’ve given you enough. You’re on your own from here. Run along, little angel.”

“Where’s the heart?”

“In a canopic jar in the Gruppenführer’s office in the Legion’s warehouse. It’s on a high shelf, next to lovely framed photo of Adolf and Eva and some other party nonsense.”

“Where’s the office?”

“You found the special room upstairs?”

“Unfortunately.”

“Straight through there.”

“Just one more thing: Is Burgess in on this?”

“I have no idea.”

“What about Wormwood?”

“Wormwood Investments? It wouldn’t surprise me. They have their fingers in a lot of interesting pies.”

“What does a bank have to do with Death?”

“Good-­bye, Stark. You know the way out.”

Tykho’s door doesn’t budge when I push it. I have to bang on it a ­couple of times before it swings open. The bruisers crowd the way out, looking over one another’s shoulders, checking on their boss, and keeping an eye on me. As soon as Tykho nods the all clear to them, they do their bulldozer thing again, and shove me out the front door without slowing down. I almost trip on the pavement, Charlie Chaplin with a gun. The meat puppets in line get a nice chuckle out of that.

The guy with payot is still working the door. For a second I’m tempted to go over and tell him who his boss is. But she was right. I might as well say she’s Hello Kitty. He’d believe me about as much.

I get in the Crown Vic and head home.

MY BRAIN SPINS in circles as I drive.

Bugsy Siegel first came to California in ’33, the same year Hitler became chancellor of Germany and William Pelley formed the Silver Legion. When Bugsy settled in Beverly Hills in ’37 he looked up his old pal, movie star George Raft, best known for his roles as gangsters and tough guys. Both men were sharp dressers and there were a lot of arguments around town over whether Bugsy was copying George or it was the other way around.

Hollywood has always loved a good crook and Bugsy palled around with big-­name actors, studio heads, and millionaires. Any L.A. luminary who wanted to get a whiff of the wild side. The closest thing America had left to Wild West outlaws, Jesse James or Cole Younger.

Here’s the funny thing: Bugsy was a hood and a creep, but he hated Nazis. In ’38, the lovely Countess Dorothy Dendice Taylor DiFrasso took him to Europe and introduced him to Göring and Goebbels. Bugsy couldn’t fucking stand them. He even offered to put a hit out on them, but that went nowhere fast.

Which brings me all the way back to Murphy Ranch. If he’d won the war, would Hitler have loved that concrete Eagle’s Nest? And would Hollywood have embraced Europe’s wild man the way they did Bugsy? Der Führer was a vegetarian who loved animals, so two points in his favor right there. And he had a hard-­on for art. He was also a painter, though a lousy one. Of course, that sure never stopped any Hollywood celebrities who liked to dabble in watercolors from getting shows in tony L.A. galleries looking to make a splash off the star’s name. With the right connections, would Hitler have eventually hung next to Hollywood art-­world luminaries like Sylvester Stallone and Stevie Nicks?