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cellar. Through the plate in the wall. Along the storm water canal. Up by what passes for a river in LA. He had a ’57 Plymouth inside a rented garage looking on to the canal. The car started up first time. Hastings headed south towards Long Beach.
    He stashed the dough in his safe house in Chula Vista. A Chubb customized anti-blowpipe key and combination double lock hidden inside an underground tank. Chula Vista was his lifeboat in case the good ship SS America hit a reef. Ten minutes’ chase distance to Tijuana. Disappearable. He wanted all options open. Especially flight. He made it back to LA after midnight. Fourteen hours for a 300-mile round trip, half of that making sure no one was tailing him. That there was no surveillance. That’s what being sure does: slows movement down to a molasses creep. Gives you time to see the faces behind the windows, the wires under the car; the glint of gunmetal through the branches of a tree.
    Hastings entered back through the cellar, closing the secret door soundlessly behind him; listening. He waited an hour down there, until he was sure, then came up, checking all the doors and windows for signs of entry. Nothing. He unbolted the front door, so that it was just on its latch, and spread canvas on the floor in front of it. Then he waited in the shadows scoping the street, the jacaranda trees outside trembling with betrayal. Just after three a car pulled up on the far corner. Two men got out, walking hunched away from the streetlights, casing windows for witnesses. There weren’t any. This was a respectable neighbourhood. There was the rasp of the latch being lifted, then they were inside; violent faces masked by darkness. One of them tripped on the canvas and cursed. Maybe he knew at that very moment what was about to happen. Four suppressed shots. The hammer of two falling bodies. Then silence. Hastings sat there, alert, straining for an indication of departure, a spirit shifting away.
    Outside, the street was empty except for a draining moon and the weaving flutter of bats.
    He set to work with towels and tape, staunching the bleeding as he ID’d the goons. Dallas. Joe Civello’s boys. Chicago owned the Midwest, Texas, the West Coast. This was Roselli’s way of trying to recuperate the money via one of the back doors. Roselli would have arranged a cut in exchange for the tip. A nice piece of safe pie with enough deniability to probably get away with it.
    Hastings wrapped them in separate bundles, and hauled them through the house and into the garage one at a time. Getting them into the back of his Mercury Colony Park was hard work. They were both big men, heavy with guilt.
    He drove south down small, modest roads unused to crime, and dropped them into the sea off Bluff Cove. Their bodies hit the water with a light, unlucky slap. He watched the current take them out into the night. He checked the back of the car for evidence, and then headed back north. He would have to lose the car. But before that, he needed to call Roselli, just to let him know he was safe and sound.

C HAPTER 8
Los Angeles 1960
    S chiller is outside, swaying gently as he whistles to himself. A dozen patrolmen are spread out, going through the gardens.
    â€˜Any word on that nanny?’
    â€˜Nothing yet. We checked her room though. Nothing to suggest she was planning on skipping town.’
    If she were planning on skipping town, she wouldn’t exactly leave a sign on the door handle. ‘You find anything out here?’
    Schiller looks up at the rising sun then turns and squints at me, shaking his head. ‘No footprints, tread marks, broken windows, forced entry . . . Nothing to suggest a snatch.’ Schiller toes a flower out of the dew-wet soil. ‘How about you?’
    â€˜There’s no way the kid’s inside. I even checked the bomb shelter.’ There is a shout from one of the patrolmen, standing at the edge of the grove. ‘Captain. Over