It took me more than an hour to wipe down the inside of the plane. In a weird way, I didn’t mind; it kept my thoughts from Savannah, if only for a while. I was tempted to give Streeter up in Lake Tahoe a call after I finished, but I knew he would’ve called me if there were any worthwhile developments in his investigation.

I watched a gray Cobra gunship come thundering in to settle gingerly down on the tarmac near the Hippo Grill on the field’s east side, followed seconds later by another Cobra. The two attack helicopters were up from the Marine Corps’ Camp Pendleton, north of San Diego. They flew into Rancho Bonita frequently, ostensibly on training missions that not coincidentally also afforded ample opportunity to flirt with the Hippo’s many comely waitresses.

“Thought you could use a cold drink,” Larry said, walking up from behind me with a Coke in his hand.

I thanked him, opened the can, and sipped. We stood and watched the four marine crewmen in their tailored flight suits and cool-guy sunglasses stroll toward the Hippo.

“Those guys get all the chicks,” Larry said, stroking his Grizzly Adams beard. “Tell ya what. If I dropped a hundred pounds, got Lasik on my eyes and a full Brazilian, I’d give those leathernecks a run for their money.”

“I’m sure you would, Larry.”

He looked over at me, his brow furrowed.

“No witty retort, Logan? No, ‘The day you get girls is the day congress gets anything done?’ ”

“Not today, Larry.”

He nodded like he understood. “I gotta run out for a while. The wife wants me to go carpet shopping. You lemme know if you need anything else.”

“Thanks, buddy.”

I lingered for a few minutes, buffing dead bugs off the leading edges of the Duck’s wings, then gathered up the cleaning supplies, dropped the rags in a covered trash can in Larry’s hangar and walked back to my cramped, depressing, windowless office. The pile of paperwork atop my government surplus desk demanded to be culled and filed, but I couldn’t muster the energy.

I sat down, put my feet up, and stared into space for the better part of an hour. I guess you could call it meditating, though it was really more like trying to put my brain in neutral and not think about anything. After that, I drove home and told my landlady about what had happened. About the wrecked Twin Beech and the dead pilot at the controls. About the young man lying dead beside the wreckage. But mostly about Savannah.

Mrs. Schmulowitz listened with her right hand clasped over her mouth, and wept.

The Giants were playing the Bears that night. Mrs. Schmulowitz served her usual excellent brisket with green beans in cream sauce, which we ate off metal TV trays, while she offered her usual play-by-play commentary on the game, broadcast on her ancient Magnavox console.

“God forbid this guy should actually hold on to the ball,” she complained after the Giant’s tight end muffed an easy pass. “That schmegegge couldn’t catch the common cold if his life depended on it.”

She was garbed in a blue New York Giants hoodie that was about five sizes too big, an oversized Giants baseball cap, a pair of blue Giants sweatpants, and fuzzy pink bedroom slippers that looked like bunnies.

“It’s just a game, Mrs. Schmulowitz.”

“A game? A game?” Sitting beside her on her blue mohair sofa, she looked over at me like it was the craziest thing she’d ever heard. “Football’s not a game, bubby. Football is life.”

I didn’t argue her point. Mrs. Schmulowitz came from gridiron nobility — her late uncle was NFL Hall of Fame quarter-back Sid Luckman. She certainly knew more about football than any old lady I ever met.

“More brisket, bubby?”

“I’m good, thanks.”

“How ’bout beans? I got plenty.”

“Not for me, Mrs. Schmulowitz. I couldn’t eat another bite. It was all delicious. Thank you.” I stood and headed for the kitchen. “Can I get you anything while I’m up?”

“No, nothing, not a thing. I eat one more bite myself, you’ll have to call those cute paramedics to come give me mouth-to-mouth. Come to think of it, maybe I will have more brisket. Then you can give ’em a call for me, OK?”

“Whatever you say, Mrs. Schmulowitz.”

I knew she was kidding about more brisket, trying to cheer me up. I deposited my plate and silverware in the sink without offering to help clean up because I knew she’d only take offense, as she had after previous offers. Back in the living room, the Giants running back got stuffed for a two-yard loss.

Mrs. Schmulowitz threw up her hands in exasperation.

“Can you believe this interior line play? Oy gevalt It’s a horror! Even I can trap block better than that.”

“Just wanted to say good night, and thanks again for dinner.”

She gave me a disconcerted look. “It’s not even the fourth quarter yet.”

“I’m thinking of turning in a little early, doing some reading.”

The old lady’s cataract-clouded eyes pooled with tears. She said she knew what I was going through, and that her heart ached for me. She told me how one of her brothers had joined the army, gone off to fight in North Africa, and been declared missing in action. Nearly a year transpired before the family received a letter via the Red Cross saying he’d been captured and was in a German POW camp, homesick but otherwise well.

“In the words of Tom Petty,” Mrs. Schmulowitz said, “the waiting is the hardest part.”

“How do you know Tom Petty?” I asked her.

“How do I know Tom Petty? I know Tom Petty because he’s older than I am.” She got up and turned off the TV. “Listen, before you go, there’s something I need you to do for me, a big favor.”

“Name it.”

“I need you to come with me to my watercolor class tomorrow.”

“I’m not much of a painter, Mrs. Schmulowitz.”

“Like anybody in the class is a painter? They’re relics, old as dirt, everybody in there. Half the people, their brains have turned to Cream of Wheat. The point’s not to paint, bubby. The point is, I just want you to come with me.”

“Why?”

“Why? It’s a surprise, that’s why.”

“I don’t like surprises, Mrs. Schmulowitz. And I’ve had more than my share recently.”

She put her arms around my waist. I could feel most of the bones in her body.

“You have an obligation to go on living, Cordell. For her. For you. Regardless of where she is right now. The sooner you start doing that, the better off you’ll both be.”

She promised the painting class would do me good.

“I’m an old lady, bubeleh. Humor me.”

Mrs. Schmulowitz was a force of nature. What choice did I have?

Kiddiot slept on his back at the foot of my bed that night with all four paws up and his tongue lolling out the side of his mouth, while I stared at the ceiling, anguishing over the choices I’d made, replaying on a continuous loop the hours leading up to Savannah’s disappearance and my attempts to find her in the hours afterward. What could I have done, short of never spotting that airplane in the first place, that would have let me roll over and find Savannah sleeping contentedly beside me? What clues had I missed? The guilt, incompetence, and helplessness I felt were palpable, weights that pressed like concrete on my heart. I thought I might vomit, but didn’t. I got up, drawing a disapproving sneeze from Kiddiot who didn’t appreciate being disturbed, and went outside.

The night was still. No moon. I gazed up at the southern sky, through the dark, outlying branches of Mrs. Schmulowitz’s oak tree, to the three stars of Orion’s Belt. To their right was a V-shaped pattern of stars — the face of Taurus the Bull — and, slightly beyond the bull’s face, the star cluster known as Seven Sisters.

To the average eye, the Sisters look like a small, blurry cloud of light. But if your vision is keen, you can discern all seven stars. For centuries, Native Americans used the star cluster as an eye test of sorts; only those would-be fighting men with the acuity of vision to see all seven stars were allowed to join the most elite warrior sects. Often, when I was at the academy, I would walk onto the parade grounds at night, lie down and gaze up at the Sisters, if only to reassure myself that I had the right stuff to be a pilot. Inspiration often followed my stargazing. But as I stared into the heavens that night from my landlady’s tidy, postage-stamp backyard, all I felt was lost, adrift amid the cosmos.