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been freely using all their lives; that shorthand all extremists employed to create their simpleminded world of segregation and apartheid; of anti-Semitism, sexism and homophobia. Of concentration camps and plantations. Then someone came along and said: you can’t say those words anymore.
    â€˜Tex, I can see I made a big mistake . . . ’
    Fear and anger tremble across his drink-scarred face. ‘So blinded by mirrors, you don’t see what’s staring you right in the face.’
    He says it as though it were verse from Conspiracy Theology: the religion of the post-Atomic Age. In the beginning, the Roswell Saucer crashed. And on the Seventh Day we get the Gemstone Files because, hell, there’s just no time to rest when shape-shifting lizards are sitting in Buckingham Palace. When empty skyscrapers are being destroyed with controlled demolitions. Duck and cover, everybody, and don’t forget to look under the bed when you’re down on the floor—you might find a fake lunar rock.
    Why do so many people believe in Conspiracy? Is it simply easier to think you are being manipulated than to accept that the forty-five years you just put in working at a job you hated to pay off an overpriced mortgage were all wasted, with nothing left to show for your suffering serfdom other than a loveless marriage, ungrateful children, and some loose change?
    Or is it because we have all forsaken God but not our innate need to believe in the unknowable? In the Big Secret hidden behind the curtain. Something awe-inspiring; brighter than the Wizard.
    In this sad world, E. Howard Hunt is the iceberg apparent, the tiny fraction of the massive, submerged enigma; Atlantis, the hidden continent of conspiracy. ‘And what is staring me in the face, Tex?’
    â€˜That Hunt knew about the Bannister kid.’ I hold on to the bar. His smile is a leer of triumph, the facial equivalent of a kick in the balls. ‘You smart-aleck, liberal greenhorn. Snooping around these parts with your nose in the air, and all the time you ain’t got a clue what’s buried under the very earth you’re stomping on. Well, I’ll tell you what’s buried there, tangled up amongst the skeletons and the oil. It’s the Truth, son, just as plain and ugly as a wart on a toad’s ass. So you can wipe that stupid look off your face and buy me another drink, jackass.’

C HAPTER 7
Los Angeles 1963
    R oselli had been quick with the down payment. The money had arrived the day after the meet at the Monogram Ranch. Roselli was trembling at the proximity of such wealth; so many possibilities. Forty Eldorado Biarritz Caddies lined in a row. An eighteen-hole golf course in Key Biscayne. Ten thousand call girls. Except that if Roselli wanted a car, he’d steal it; if he wanted land, he’d kill for it; and if he wanted a girl, he’d rape one. He had absolutely no need for money, which only made him want it all the more.
    Roselli’s eyes entertained betrayal as he whispered instructions to the three bagmen who carried in the loot, concealed inside hefty duffel sacks. There was a moment when Hastings watched Roselli in the reflection of the drinks cabinet, his hand dropping to an ice bucket, where he had camouflaged an S&W .38 nickel-plated revolver. A five-shooter. One for each gangster and one left over, just in case. Hastings could hear the flat, damp roll of Roselli’s brain struggling with a believable story for Momo. Scotch tumbled into heavy crystal. Hastings scooped a fistful of ice, dropped it in a glass, the handle of the piece exposed, Roselli’s greed retreating behind the logic of fear. He wouldn’t have to reach for more ice, he wouldn’t have to kill Roselli. Yet.
    Hastings waited until after they had left, watching the cars retreating down the street. He knew there was a tail out there somewhere. Roselli wasn’t that stupid. One sack on his back, one in each arm. Down the