He looked at us, said something to his colleague. Brief chat, then Bow Tie rolled over like a tank on treads.

“I’m afraid you’ll need to move.”

Milo repeated the money-wrapped badge routine. Bow Tie grinned. “Thanks, guys.” Examining the bill, he rolled away.

I said, “What was that?”

“The rhythm of life.”

Forty bucks was enough for the valets to work around us, as we sat for half an hour. Twenty-five minutes in, Frank Gonzales reported more good news: the discovery of John Jensen Williams’s van.

“Right there at the harbor, he didn’t even try to be subtle.”

“Took a while to find it.”

“It’s a big place, he left it out on the north end, near one of the boatyards. No, not the one where Corey stored his tub, that’s still in dry dock. And no one has Williams renting any kind of watercraft.”

“Anything interesting in the van, Frank?”

“Nothing obvious, let’s see what the scrapers pull up. I asked for it to be towed to our lab, Ventura had no problem with that. Anything on your end?”

Milo told him about the woman flirting with Kleffer.

Gonzales said, “Sounds like the one got my rookie’s pulse throbbing. So not Santos?”

“Nope.”

“That could be too bad for her. I’ll keep on the alerts, results are supposed to come straight to my computer, but you know how it is.”

“I do, Frank.”

“Look at us,” said Gonzales. “We can send a man to the moon but we can’t find squat.”

Thirty-four minutes into the surveillance, the head valet began to approach us a second time, smiling hungrily.

All that nothing hadn’t done much for Milo’s mood and the warning look he shot was enough to send the man scampering away.

“Greedy fool,” he said.

I said, “Look.”

Darius Kleffer and the woman in the red top had exited the restaurant and turned left. Toward the cut. Kleffer already had his cigarettes out.

Even with the giant heels on her boots, the woman was petite, not much over five feet tall. That and a tiny, tight waist and first-rate posture made her chest seem even bigger.

She carried a small purse covered in some sort of white-and-black fur. Her gait was pride epitomized, flaring hips rolling as if on ball bearings, each buttock cheek functioning independently.

Great muscle control. Accustomed to flaunting her body.

Maybe a “dancer,” indeed.

Walking next to her, Darius Kleffer’s slouch was sad.

He stopped at the same spot he’d chosen when we’d talked to him, pressing his back to the brick wall and facing the woman. She edged closer.

He offered her a cigarette that she accepted. He lit up both of them.