Stuart Woods_Stone Barrington 12

door. He had a rush of déjà vu in which he and Dick were sitting in this club at this table when Dick’s brother, Caleb, entered the room. His gut tightened, just as it always had when Caleb was around, teasing and bullying the two younger boys. Now Caleb, aged twenty or so, was back, young again.
    â€œWhat’s wrong?” Rawls asked.
    Stone had trouble speaking. “Who is that?” And as he asked the question, he began to see double.
    â€œOh, those are the Stone twins, Caleb’s boys, Eben and Enos. I can never tell which is which.”
    Stone breathed a little easier. “God, I thought I was going crazy for a moment; they’re both the image of Caleb at that age.”
    â€œI guess they are, at that,” Rawls said.
    The twins were loud, too, just like their father. They approached a table of teenagers, and the noise level went up with their arrival.
    â€œI haven’t seen those boys since they were about twelve,” Rawls said. “I didn’t like them then; they were bullies, always picking on some younger kids. They’d double-team them.”
    â€œThank God there was only one of their father,” Stone muttered. He could not imagine what his summer in Islesboro would have been like if there had been two of Caleb. But now there were, and he didn’t like the idea much. He decided not to go over and introduce himself as Cousin Stone.

13
    D INO BACCHETTI’S UNMARKED CAR pulled up in front of the Palatine mansion in the outer reaches of Brooklyn, the home of his father-in-law, Eduardo Bianchi. “Wait here,” Dino said to his driver. “My guess is, this won’t take long.”
    Dino got out of the car and trudged toward the front door, dreading every step. He had never had lunch alone with Eduardo, and he wasn’t looking forward to it. The meeting with Mary Ann and her lawyer yesterday had been a disaster that had ended in shouting and harsh words, and Dino thought he had probably been summoned here to be disciplined. He was well aware that Eduardo had only to lift an eyebrow and some obedient servant would slip a stiletto between his ribs.
    Dino rang the bell, and the front door was opened by just such a servant, Pietro, a cadaverous sixty-year-old who had once had a fearsome reputation as an assassin. But that was back in the days when Eduardo was still taking an active part in the ruling of his Cosa Nostra family, which ran large parts of Brooklyn and Manhattan.
    Eduardo had since, over the past thirty years, made himself into an elder statesman of everything: the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the New York Public Library and nearly every important charity in the city. His Mafia connections had been mostly forgotten by the very few surviving people who knew anything about them. But Dino knew Eduardo still had the power to deal with people in any way he saw fit.
    Pietro led Dino through the elegantly appointed house into the rear garden, where Eduardo sat at a table set for two. Eduardo rose and offered his hand, a good sign, Dino thought.
    â€œDino, welcome,” the old man said. He carried his eighty-odd years lightly, looking trim, even athletic, and there was only a little gray in his hair. “Please sit down and have some lunch.”
    Dino sat. “Beautiful day,” he said, because he couldn’t think of anything else to say.
    â€œYes, one appreciates good weather as one grows older,” Eduardo replied.
    A waiter came and opened a bottle of Frascati, while another man set before them plates of bruschetta, little slices of bread fried in olive oil, then topped with chopped plum tomatoes, garlic and basil. Dino tried not to eat too greedily, but Eduardo’s younger sister was the best cook he had ever known, and he loved bruschetta.
    â€œI understand things didn’t go well yesterday,” Eduardo said.
    â€œThat’s understating the case,” Dino replied.
    â€œYou know that I disapproved of your marriage to Anna Maria,” the old man said. He refused to refer to her as Mary Ann, as she preferred to be called.
    â€œYes, I knew that.”
    â€œI was, of course, upset that Anna Maria was pregnant, but my principal objection was that you were a policeman.”
    â€œI’ll take that as a compliment,” Dino said.
    â€œHowever, as the years have passed I have come to respect your personal integrity. You would never allow me to use my influence to improve your position in the