Hot Rocks

them glowed. All the display windows in the storefronts were sheer glass. As with Remember When, there were no gates, no security bars.
    Hadn’t anyone ever thrown a brick through one and helped themselves before hotfooting it away? Or kicked in a door for a quick looting party?
    It just didn’t seem right.
    He thought of New York at three twenty-seven A.M. There’d be action, or trouble, if you were inclined for either. There’d be both pedestrian and vehicular traffic and the stores would all be chained down for the night.
    So was there more crime there on a per capita basis just because it was expected?
    It was an interesting theory, and he’d have to give some thought to it when he had a little downtime.
    But for now, alarm and locks dispatched, he eased open the rear door of Remember When.
    In and out in an hour, tops, he promised himself. Then back to the hotel to catch a little sleep. When New York opened, he’d contact his client and report that all evidence pointed to the fact that Laine Tavish was not, knowingly, involved.
    That would clear him, from his point of view, to explain things to her. Once he’d done that, and talked her out of being pissed off, he’d pick her brain. He had a feeling she’d be an excellent source in tracking Big Jack and the diamonds.
    And in collecting his finder’s fee.
    Max shut the door quietly behind him. Reached down to switch on his penlight.
    But instead of the narrow beam coming on, lights exploded inside his head.
     
     
     
    He woke in dead dark with his head banging with all the gusto and violence of his young nephew slamming pot lids together. He managed to roll over to what he thought was his back. The way his head was pounding and spinning, he couldn’t be sure.
    He lifted a hand to check if that head was still face front and felt the warm wet running.
    And that pushed temper through the pain. It was bad enough to get ambushed and knocked out, but it was a hell of another thing if he had to go to the damn ER and get stitches.
    He couldn’t quite clear his brain, but he pushed himself to a sitting position. Since the head he was now reasonably certain was still on the correct way seemed in danger of falling off his shoulders, he lowered it to his hands until he felt more secure.
    He needed to get up, turn on a light. Take stock of himself and what the hell had happened. He wiped at the blood, opened his aching eyes and scowled at the open rear door.
    Whoever’d hit him from behind was long gone. He started to get to his feet with the idea of taking a quick look around the place before following suit.
    And the rear doorway was suddenly filled with cop. Max took a long look at Vince Burger, and at the police-issue pointing in his direction and said, “Well, shit.”
     
     
     
    “Look, you can pop me for the B and E. It’ll sting. I’ll get around it, but it’ll sting. But—”
    “I did pop you for the B and E.” Vince kicked back in his desk chair and smiled humorlessly at Max, who sat cuffed to a visitor’s chair in the office of the station house.
    Didn’t look so big city and cocky now, Vince thought, with the bandage on his temple and the sizable lump on his forehead.
    “Then there’s attempted burglary—”
    “I wasn’t stealing anything, damn it, and you know it.”
    “Oh, so you just break into stores in the middle of the night to browse around. Like window shopping but on the inside.” He lifted an evidence bag, gave it a shake that rattled Max’s burglar tools and personal data assistant. “And you carry these around in case you have to do some small home repairs?”
    “Look—”
    “I can pop you on possession of burglary tools.”
    “That’s a goddamn PDA. Everybody’s got a PDA.”
    “I don’t.”
    “Surprise, surprise,” Max said sourly. “I had reasons for being inside Laine’s shop.”
    “You break into all the shops and homes of women you date?”
    “I never broke into her house, and it’s pretty damn elementary, Watson, that whoever was in the store ahead of me, whoever coldcocked me was the one who did. You’re protective of her, I get that, but—”
    “Damn right.” The good old boy’s eyes went hard as cinders. “She’s a friend of mine. She’s a good friend of mine, and I don’t like some New York asshole messing with my friends.”
    “I’m a Georgia asshole, actually. I just live in New York. I’m conducting an investigation for a client. A private investigation.”
    “So you say, but I