Stuart Woods_Stone Barrington 12

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 and put the rest in the safe. She had also sent a light, Italian cotton Windbreaker, which would be useful for covering the gun as well as for the cool Maine days. Trust Joan to think of that.
    He loaded the three magazines she had sent, put two in the little magazine pouch, then slapped one into the beautiful little custom-made Terry Tussey .45, with its Damascus steel slide, black anodized lightweight frame and mother-of-pearl handle. Small guns were a specialty of Terry’s, and this one weighed only twenty-one ounces, tiny for a .45.
    He took off his belt and threaded the two-by-quarter-inch gun belt through his trouser loops, adding the magazine pouch and the gun holster at the appropriate points. With the belt tightened and the gun in its Mitch Rosen holster, everything felt secure, with the gun lying flat against his side and at an angle. When he slipped on the light windbreaker or a sweater, or left his shirttail out, everything would be concealed. He drew the .45, worked the slide, put on the safety and added another round to the magazine. With the pistol loaded, cocked and locked, ready for use, he felt better.
    Stone called Ed Rawls. “My equipment has arrived. May I return your shotgun without getting blown away?”
    â€œCome ahead. Blow the horn three times as you reach the gate, and I probably won’t kill you.”
    Stone followed Rawls’s instructions to the letter and pulled into the clearing before the little house without incident. Rawls came out to meet him, and Stone handed him the shotgun. “There’s still one in the chamber, and the safety’s on,” he said.
    â€œCome on in,” Rawls said. “Coffee?”
    â€œSure.”
    Rawls poured him a cup from a Thermos and handed it to him. “So what are you packing?”
    Stone removed the .45 from its holster, popped out the magazine, ejected the cartridge in the chamber, locked back the slide and handed it to Rawls.
    Rawls thumbed the slide catch, aimed it out the window and squeezed off an imaginary round. “Sweet trigger,” he said. “Who’s Tussey?”
    â€œA guy out in Carson City, Nevada. I saw something of his in a magazine, and we talked on the phone a couple of times. I’ve got a couple more of his guns, too.”
    â€œI never had any need for a gunsmith,” Rawls said. “Tech Services supplied what we needed. It didn’t have pearl grips, but it always worked good.” He handed back Stone’s gun.
    Stone picked up the ejected round, reloaded the pistol, cocked and locked it and returned it to its holster.
    â€œI had a call from Lance a minute ago,” Rawls said. “He tried you first, but I guess you’d already left the house.”
    â€œWhat news?”
    â€œBad news: The two Russians Dick’s source overheard at the poker game are very bad actors named Gorky and Rastropov, former KGB. Like a lot of their colleagues they discovered that there was money to be made when the Soviet Union crumbled, and their training and experience, combined with their sociopathic tendencies, make them very dangerous. The Berlin station is looking for them now, but they’ve gone to ground, and it won’t be easy to find them. The word’s out, though, and you never know. If they buy a pack of cigarettes in the wrong shop, they’re toast.”
    â€œSo what do we do?”
    â€œUse the burglar alarm and sleep lightly,” Rawls replied.
    â€œWill do.”
    â€œYou’ve got a very secure house, you know. Did you ever take a close look at the front door?”
    â€œNo. I’ve noticed it’s heavy.”
    â€œTake a look at mine,” Rawls said, beckoning him to the front door. He opened the door and showed Stone the edge. “It’s two one-inch-thick sheets of mahogany with a half-inch of steel plate sandwiched between. The door frame is steel, too, and it’s bolted to eight-by-eight posts set in concrete. It’s hanging