Hot Rocks

particularly interested in maintaining a relationship with the ex, or with a small boy who’d make demands. But he’d keep tabs, you bet your ass. Because one day that boy would grow up, and a man wanted to pass on his legacy to his blood.
    “All right, Judy and little Wes.” Max wiggled his fingers like a pianist about to arpeggiate. “Let’s see where you got to.” He played those fingers over the keyboard and started the search.
     
     
     
    Walking voluntarily into a police station went against the grain. Jack didn’t have anything against cops. They were only doing what they were paid to do, but since they were paid to round up people just like him and put them in small, barred rooms, they were a species he preferred to avoid.
    Still, there were times even the criminal needed a cop.
    Besides, if he couldn’t outwit the locals and wheedle what he needed to know out of some hayseed badge in a little backwater town, he might as well give it up and get a straight job.
    He’d waited until the evening shift. Logically, anyone left in charge after seven was bound to be closer to the bottom of the police feeding chain.
    He’d shoplifted his wardrobe from the mall outside of town with an eye to the personality he wanted to convey. Jack was a firm believer in the clothes making the man whatever the man might elect to be.
    The pin-striped suit was off the rack, and he’d had to run up the hem of the pants himself, but it wasn’t a bad fit. The clown-red bow tie added just the right touch, hinting at harmless.
    He’d lifted the rimless glasses from a Walmart, and wasn’t quite ready to admit they actually sharpened his vision. In his opinion, he was entirely too young and virile to need glasses.
    But the look of them finished off the intellectual-heading-toward-nerd image he wanted to project.
    He had a brown leather briefcase, which he’d taken the time to bang up so it wouldn’t look new, and he’d filled it as meticulously as a man might when traveling to an out-of-town meeting.
    A smart player became the part.
    He’d browsed through Office Depot, helping himself to the pens, notepads, sticky notes and other paraphernalia the administrative assistant of an important man might carry. As usual, such office toys both fascinated and bemused him.
    He’d actually spent an entertaining hour playing with a personal data assistant. He did love technology.
    As he walked down the sidewalk toward the station house, his gait became clipped, and his big shoulders hunched into a slump that looked habitual. He tapped the glasses back up his nose in an absent gesture he’d practiced in the mirror.
    His hair was brutally slicked back, and—courtesy of the dye he’d purloined from a CVS drugstore that afternoon—was a glossy and obviously false shoe-polish black.
    He thought Peter P. Pinkerton, his temporary alter ego, would be vain enough to dye his hair, and oblivious enough to believe it looked natural.
    Though there was no one around to notice, he was already in character. He pulled out his pocketwatch, just the sort of affectation Peter would enjoy, and checked the time with a worried little frown.
    Peter would always be worried about something.
    He climbed the short flight of stairs and walked into the small-town cop shop. As he expected, it boasted a smallish, open waiting area, with a uniformed deputy manning the counter toward the rear.
    There were black plastic chairs, a couple of cheap tables and a few magazines— Field and Stream , Sports Illustrated , People —all months out of date.
    The air smelled like coffee and Lysol.
    Jack, now Peter, tapped his fingers nervously at his tie and nudged up his glasses as he approached the counter.
    “Can I help you?”
    Jack blinked myopically at the deputy, cleared his throat. “I’m not entirely sure, Officer . . . ah, Russ. You see, I was supposed to meet an associate this afternoon. One P.M., at the Wayfarer Hotel dining room. A lunch meeting, you see. But my appointment never arrived and I’ve been unable to reach him. When I inquired at the hotel desk, I was informed he never checked in. I’m quite concerned, really. He was very specific about the time and place, and I’ve come here all the way from Boston for this appointment.”
    “You looking to file a missing persons report on a guy who’s only been gone, what, eight hours?”
    “Yes, but you see, I’ve been unable to reach him, and this was an important appointment. I’m concerned something