Stuart Woods_Stone Barrington 12

Dick,” he said, without preamble. Everybody became very still.
    â€œWe know why?” Davis asked.
    â€œHaven’t gotten that far yet,” Rawls replied.
    Stone spoke up. “My information is a revenge killing, in return for the Agency’s busting up a drug ring in East Germany.”
    â€œ Your information?” Don Brown asked, with laconic incredulity.
    Stone shrugged.
    â€œDetails?” Brown asked.
    â€œI answered Dick’s office phone, and somebody used a code word, Kirov, which turned out to be a warning.”
    â€œOkay,” Brown said.
    â€œProblem is, the caller may have thought I was Dick.”
    â€œSo,” Harley Davis said, “if they think Dick is still alive, somebody may make another house call.”
    Stone nodded. “So I’m told.”
    â€œAre you armed, Stone?” Rawls asked.
    â€œI will be tomorrow.”
    â€œThat may not be soon enough. I’ve got a shotgun in the car 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