The sky was azure. Savannah was with me. More than anything, I realized, I was happy.

“You’re ready.”

“For real?”

“For real.”

My one and only student, Eugen Dragomir, was grinning the way I would’ve grinned had Publisher’s Clearing House ever delivered on that million bucks like they’d said they were going to in their letter.

“Four Charlie Lima, cleared for the option,” the tower controller said through our headsets.

“Let’s make this landing a full-stop,” I said to Eugen.

He keyed the radio. “Rancho Bonita Tower, Four Charlie Lima, this one’s a full-stop.”

“Skyhawk Four Charlie Lima, Runway One-Seven left, cleared to land. Wind one-five-zero at six.”

“Cleared to land, One-Seven left. Four Charlie Lima.”

Eugen painted it on. Easily his best landing of the day. After clearing the runway, we taxied over to Larry’s hangar. I told him to keep the engine running.

“Three touch-and-go’s,” I said, taking off my headset and unplugging it from the instrument panel. “Just remember everything we’ve practiced and have fun up there — and don’t forget, do a run-up before you take off, OK?”

“OK!”

Eugen gave me a ridiculously enthusiastic two thumbs-up like he was John Glenn about to blast off into orbit or something. I exited the Ruptured Duck and made sure the copilot’s door was latched, stooping to avoid the wing and turning my head to avoid the prop wash as he taxied back toward the active runway with too much throttle.

“Slow down,” I said under my breath but it was a little too late for that.

Larry walked over, wiping the grime from his hands with a rag.

“Kid’s first solo?”

I nodded.

Larry rubbed his knee. “Humidity’s killing me. Your shoulder must feel like shit.”

Worse than shit, but I kept it to myself. If the FAA found out, they’d probably ground me. Six weeks had passed since the shooting. The money I’d received from Savannah’s father was more than half gone. I needed to continue earning a living.

“The shoulder’s feeling great,” I said.

We watched Eugen in the run-up area. The kid cycled the Duck’s control surfaces to make sure they were all working. Then he advanced the throttle to 1700 rpms, checking that the engine, gauges and instruments all functioned properly. He retarded the throttle and advanced the airplane to the hold-short line for One — Seven left. Though I couldn’t hear him, I knew he’d changed frequencies and contacted the control tower to say he was ready to go.

I held my breath as the airplane rolled down the runway, past us. I always held my breath whenever I soloed a student. But I needn’t have worried about Eugen Dragomir. He lifted off like he’d been flying forever. His pattern work was precise, his touch-and-go’s solid. After he landed, I dumped water on him from a bucket that Larry let me borrow. Dumping water on a pilot after their first solo is one of aviation’s most cherished rituals. Don’t ask me why. An alternative ritual is cutting off the new pilot’s shirttail (another “don’t ask me why”). But, considering that Eugen Dragomir wore only T-shirts with surfboard logos on them, the shirttail option was a no-go. So I doused him but good. He declared it the greatest moment of his life, with the exception of when he lost his virginity.

“Flying all by yourself, just you, up there in a freaking airplane, it’s like sex, but without the sex,” Eugen said. “You know what I mean?”

“Sadly, all too well.”

He said his father was wiring more money so he could continue taking flying lessons. Given that Eugen Dragomir was my only source of income — aside from my government pension check — I said I thought that was an excellent plan.

Kiddiot and I were sharing a studio apartment in lower downtown, close enough to the train tracks that I could look out my bathroom window and observe what the Amtrak passengers were having for breakfast. Neither of us was happy with our new digs. The passing trains kept us up all night and forced me to keep Kiddiot inside all day for fear he might get run over. For this, I was rewarded with mournful yowling that went on sometimes for hours. He was a cat unused to an existence of restriction. He missed hanging out in Mrs. Schmulowitz’s oak tree. I missed her cooking.

A contractor was finalizing plans for rebuilding her firebombed garage. It would be better than ever, “a regular Taj Mahal,” as Mrs. Schmulowitz described it, with a real kitchen and a Jacuzzi tub for me, and some sort of multi-level, super-duper cat jungle gym for Kiddiot. She wanted us to move back in as soon as construction was finished. Given Kiddiot’s dissatisfaction with our current living arrangements, resettlement could not come soon enough.

She insisted I impart my blessings on the blueprints. I did so three days after soloing Eugen Dragomir, and was driving back to my railroad-convenient apartment when I glanced up in the mirror and there was a white Honda. Two door. No front license plate, tinted windows, rear spoiler. It was five lengths behind me.

There are a million white Hondas in America, Czarnek had said. Make that a million and one.

I slowed down to see if this one was following me. The driver backed off. I turned right onto Hendricks Boulevard and headed east. The Honda did as well. I accelerated, changed lanes. So did the Honda, still five car lengths back. He was definitely tailing me.

I reached instinctively for my revolver. Bad habits are hard to break. Then I remembered: the LAPD was still holding the gun as evidence. It would be returned, Czarnek assured me, after such time as the DA’s office concluded officially that no charges were to be filed against me in the death of Lamont Royale.

A lot of good that did me now.

I turned onto the freeway, southbound, doing sixty-five. The Honda did likewise. I didn’t care at that moment that I’d already received a traffic ticket for driving without a hands-free device. I dug out my phone and made a call.

“Rancho Bonita Police Department. How may I direct your call?”

“Detective Ostrow, please.”

“One moment.”

The Honda was now four lengths behind my truck.

“Detective Ostrow. How may I help you?”

“Detective, Cordell Logan. We spoke a few weeks back. You were investigating the firebombing of my garage apartment.”

“Still am. How can I help you, Mr. Logan?”

“I believe the perpetrator may be following me as we speak.”

“Seriously?”

I gave Ostrow my location and a detailed description of the Honda. He put me on hold. My pursuer was now five feet behind me. The driver wanted me to run. I slowed down even more instead. Sixty-five, fifty-five, forty-five, thirty-five. At twenty-five, he laid on his horn and began tapping my bumper like some New York cabbie gone berserk. Someone, I thought, needs to work on their anger management skills.

No more than a minute elapsed before a California Highway Patrol cruiser streaked into view behind me with his emergency lights on. A second CHP unit joined him, followed by three black and whites from the Rancho Bonita PD. I slowed to less than twenty mph as the cops formed a flying wedge of sorts across all three lanes of the freeway. With me leading the way and the police on his rear, the guy was boxed in.

“You, in the white Honda,” an electronically amplified voice boomed from one of the highway patrol cars, “pull over now!”

The driver steered to the right shoulder and stopped. I did, too, careful to stay in front of him so he couldn’t bolt. With pistols and assault rifles drawn, the cops took cover behind their open doors, ignoring traffic that was now stopping on both sides of the freeway.

“Driver, turn off your engine and throw your keys onto the road surface!”

A set of keys flew out from the driver’s window of the Honda.