The smoking gun is a literary device connoting the final, damning clue that will convict someone. It is “proof that I am not perfect” (8). In Joe’s case, it is the mug that he urinated in while hiding at the Salinger house, prior to Peach’s murder: “If I can’t get that mug of urine then the police will get that mug of urine. If the police run tests on that mug and connect the dots, I will go to prison, and I won’t be able to get back to California and marry Love” (362). Joe correlates the mug with anything he leaves undone.

In a historical literary contrast, it serves a similar, tormenting function to the beating of the old man’s heart in Edgar Allan Poe’s The Tell-Tale Heart. The mug also comes to symbolize Love’s love for Joe. She locks him in the bathroom so that she can retrieve the mug for him. Not only does she not abandon him or call the police, she helps him get rid of evidence that could convict him in the future.

Initially, Joe hates everything about Los Angeles. He views New York as superior, but his disdain for LA only grows the longer he is there.