He saluted. “Only way I know how.”

Milo didn’t phone after the meeting with the chief and I wondered if it had gone badly.

Probably on his way to Southwest Division. Maybe that rib joint was still operative and he’d dive into seven courses of trans-fat bliss.

He dropped in the following morning, wearing a puce aloha shirt, baggy brown pants, desert boots. I’d been working on custody reports, Blanche curled on my lap.

She bounced off, smiled up at him.

He said, “I gotta bend? Next time get a Great Dane,” but patted her head far longer than mere courtesy called for.

I said, “Vacation or wishful thinking?”

“Two weeks of sun and fun, Rick managed to finagle some time, we’re headed for the Big Island tomorrow morning.”

“Think of me at the luau.”

“What I think of at a luau is more luau.”

He walked to the kitchen, took a half pint of orange juice out of the fridge, put on glasses and read the expiration date. “A week past, I’m doing you a favor.” He upended the carton, guzzled.

Blanche watched, fascinated. His eating habits have never stopped puzzling her.

I said, “Two weeks. No Southwest gig?”

Crushing and tossing the empty carton, he took out a plate of cold roast beef, brought it to the table. “Change of plans.”

“Gunrunners off the radar?”

“Still on the radar but I won’t be watching the screen.”

“Chief’s happy.”

“Not a relevent concept for him. What I did was bring up the fact that I’d closed Backer and Doreen well before his deadline, in addition to preventing a potential arson disaster by nabbing Helga. But that I wasn’t happy, because of two skeletons in a Prius. Yeah, it was Van Nuys’ case but I’d checked and Van Nuys wasn’t working it, no one was, and I thought that was a crying shame. I also informed him that when I drove out to Van Nuys Airport a few nights ago, Hangar 13A was totally cleared. No jet, no cars, no gazillion dollars’ worth of gold and furs and diamonds and art. No accounting of the skeletons ever being taken to the crypt and the FAA had no record of the jet ever taking off. Not to mention the absence of a single letter of press ink. His Exaltedness’s response was his brand of empathy.”

“I know what you’re going through?”