Stuart Woods_Stone Barrington 12 by Dark Harbor

you can borrow until you’re equipped.”
    â€œThanks.”
    Their sandwiches arrived, and everybody ate in silence for a while.
    â€œFor what it’s worth, Ed,” Stone said, “Lance didn’t think any of this had spilled over on you.”
    â€œIt’s nice that Lance thinks that,” Rawls said, “but he don’t know everything.”
    â€œWho knows everything?” Mack Morris observed.
    There were affirmative grunts around the table. Then Rawls’s three cohorts began to grill Stone.
    â€œHow come you’re Dick’s first cousin and we never heard of you?” Harley Davis asked.
    â€œThere was a rift in the family,” Stone said. “I spent a summer up here when I was eighteen, and that was about the only contact we had with the Boston branch. I had a great-aunt who lived in New York. She was the only one who was friendly.”
    â€œWhat was the cause of the rift?” Don Brown asked.
    â€œMy father left Yale to become a carpenter in New York. He was also a member of the Communist Party for a little while.” He watched the four men exchange glances.
    â€œHow little a while?” Harley asked.
    â€œA couple of years. His family disowned him, and my mother’s family disowned her for marrying him.”
    â€œShe was a Stone?”
    â€œYes, Matilda.”
    Don looked up from his sandwich. “She a painter?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œMy wife was a painter; she thought your mother was the greatest artist since Rembrandt.”
    â€œMy father thought so, too.”
    â€œWhere’d you go to school?”
    â€œNew York public schools, then NYU, both undergraduate and law.”
    â€œYou ever run into Sam Bernard there?”
    â€œHe taught me constitutional law.”
    Harley looked at Rawls. “I’m surprised Sam didn’t recruit him.”
    â€œHe tried, but Stone preferred the NYPD,” Rawls replied.
    â€œThat was dumb,” Harley said.
    Stone couldn’t help laughing. “It was pretty good, actually, until I took a bullet in the knee.” That wasn’t all of it, but it was as much as he told people.
    â€œI heard that wasn’t all of it,” Mack said.
    Stone suppressed another laugh.
    â€œWe’re careful people,” Rawls said, “by nature and by training. We do our homework.”
    â€œWhat did you hear?” Stone asked.
    â€œI heard you were a pain in the ass to your superiors, particularly on that last homicide you worked, and they took advantage of your injury to bounce you.”
    â€œThat’s a fair description,” Stone said. “Did you also hear I was right about the homicide?”
    â€œI heard you were a little right,” Mack replied, “but that your partner had to save your ass before it was over.”
    â€œThat’s fair, too, I guess,” Stone admitted.
    Mack turned to Rawls. “I guess he’ll do,” he said.
    Stone felt lucky: the approval of the yacht club, the golf club and the Old Farts, all in one day.
    Â 
    THAT NIGHT , he slept with Rawls’s shotgun on the floor next to his bed.

18
    S TONE WAS WORKING on Dick’s estate when the phone rang.
    â€œHello?”
    â€œThis is the Dark Harbor Shop. We have a package for you. Can you come pick it up?”
    So much for overnight delivery, Stone thought. “Sure. Be right over.” What the hell, he had to pick up a newspaper anyway. He drove into the village and to the shop.
    â€œHeavy,” the girl commented, handing the package to him. “You got guns in there?”
    Stone smiled. “Just shoes with shoe trees in them.”
    â€œFeels like guns,” she said, returning to her work at the soda fountain.
    Stone bought a paper and went back to the house. He unwrapped the package, put his golf shoes with his clubs in the garage and the new loafers in his dressing room upstairs. He took a few hundred in cash from the money Joan had sent