“Where’d you go to school?”
“New York public schools, then NYU, both undergraduate and law.”
“You ever run into Sam Bernard there?”
“He taught me constitutional law.”
Harley looked at Rawls. “I’m surprised Sam didn’t recruit him.”
“He tried, but Stone preferred the NYPD,” Rawls replied.
“That 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.
“I heard that wasn’t all of it,” Mack said.
Stone suppressed another laugh.
“We’re careful people,” Rawls said, “by nature and by training. We do our homework.”
“What did you hear?” Stone asked.
“I 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.”
“That’s a fair description,” Stone said. “Did you also hear I was right about the homicide?”
“I heard you were a little right,” Mack replied, “but that your partner had to save your ass before it was over.”
“That’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.
THAT NIGHT, he slept with Rawls’s shotgun on the floor next to his bed.
Chapter 18
STONE WAS WORKING on Dick’s estate when the phone rang. “Hello?”
“This 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.
“Heavy,” the girl commented, handing the package to him. “You got guns in there?”
Stone smiled. “Just shoes with shoe trees in them.”
“Feels 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 two-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?”