I set out hoping for endorphin-laced serenity. My brain had other ideas and I wondered about Rand. My body stayed tight and heavy as I huffed and kicked up dust and my brain pulled a split screen: looking out for passing cars on one side, as time flashed back on the other.

When I returned home, I called Milo’s house. No answer. Then, I tried the Westside substation and asked for Lieutenant Sturgis. It took awhile for Milo to come on the line and I was still breathing hard.

“Didn’t know you cared,” he said.

“Ha.”

“What’s up?”

“I’m meeting Allison in New York. Tomorrow.”

He murdered a few bars of “Leaving on a Jet Plane.” “Where you staying?”

“St. Regis.”

“Nice. The last time the department sent me to New Yawk was for that post-911 security seminar, and they vouchered me at a shitty dive in the thirties. While you’re there, get me a Knicks shirt at the NBA store.”

“No prob.”

“I was kidding, Alex. The Knicks?”

“Optimism’s good for the soul,” I said.

“So is logic. Am I correct in assuming that you called for some reason other than to boast about the superiority of your accommodations over mine?”

“You brought that up.”

“If you were really the sensitive guy you claim to be, you would’ve lied.”

I said, “The St. Regis has butler service.”

“I’m weeping into my case stack. Which, currently, is low. Per an interdepartmental memo, we are now experiencing an official drop in crime.”

“Congratulations.”

“Not my doing. Probably karmic crystals or chanting or the moon in scorpio-squatting or the Great Baal of Randomness . . . what’s on your mind?”

I told him.

“That one,” he said. “You didn’t like working it.”

“It wasn’t fun.”

“Duchay give any hint what he wanted?”

“He sounded troubled.”

“He should be troubled. Eight years at the C.Y.A. for murdering a baby?”

“Any professional guesses about why he didn’t show?”

“Changed his mind, couldn’t get it together, who knows? He’s a lowlife, Alex. He was the stupid one, right?”

“Right.”

“So toss in a lousy attention span, or whatever label you guys are putting on it nowadays, in addition to his being a lowlife thrill-killer who’s been thoroughly criminalized after being locked up with gangbangers for eight years. How old is he, now?”

“Twenty-one.”

“Lowlife at the height of his criminal hormone overload,” he said. “I wouldn’t take any bets on his experiencing any serious personality enhancement. I’d also not take his calls, from now on. He’s probably more dangerous than he was eight years ago. Why get involved?”

“Looks like I’m not,” I said. “Though I didn’t pick up any threat or hostility over the phone. More like— ”

“He’s troubled, yeah, yeah. He calls you from Westwood, which isn’t that far from your place. Semi-illiterate but he managed to find your number.”