Free Stuart Woods_Stone Barrington 12 by Dark Harbor

sipping his Coke.
    â€œTell me about it.” He had to replace the loafers, too. It had been an expensive round of golf.
    â€œWhat did you shoot, finally?” Rawls asked.
    â€œDon’t ask.”
    â€œHow’m I going to play you for money, if you won’t tell me your score?”
    â€œAll right, I shot a fifty-two. How about you?”
    â€œForty, a little off my handicap.”
    â€œWhich is…?”
    â€œSix.”
    â€œJesus, Ed, how the hell are you playing to that kind of handicap at your age?”
    â€œI practice a lot. There’s fuck-all else to do around here, if you don’t sail or play tennis. What’s your handicap?”
    â€œI don’t know, probably around twenty-five.”
    â€œYou need to practice more.”
    â€œWell, if I spend enough time up here, I might do that. Golf is tough when you live in the city. I have a place in Connecticut, and I belong to a club there, but I don’t get up there often enough.”
    â€œYou going to be spending any time around here?”
    â€œMaybe. Dick left me his house.”
    â€œNo kidding? That’s a very tidy inheritance. You know what that place is worth?”
    â€œI get to use it, and so do my heirs, but if it’s sold, the proceeds go to the Samuel Bernard Foundation.”
    â€œYou know what that is?”
    â€œYes. Bernard was a mentor of mine in law school.”
    â€œI’m surprised he didn’t recruit you.”
    â€œHe tried to, but I didn’t know it at the time. It was many years later he told me he thought I might not have been suited for the life. Lance signed me as a consultant, though.”
    â€œThat speaks well of you; Lance is a good judge of talent.”
    Stone shrugged.
    â€œWell, if you’re going to be spending some time here, we’d better get you in the yacht club and the golf club. I’ll work with you, and we’ll bring your handicap down.” Rawls raised a hand and waved over two men who were standing in line for hamburgers. He introduced both men.
    â€œI hear you’re Dick Stone’s cousin,” one of them said.
    â€œThat’s right.”
    â€œHow does that work? I thought I knew all of Dick’s family.”
    â€œHis father and my mother were brother and sister. I grew up in New York.”
    â€œThis your first time in Islesboro?” the other asked.
    â€œNo, I spent a summer up here with Dick’s family when I was eighteen.”
    â€œHey, I remember you,” the man said, laughing. “You’re the kid who knocked Caleb Stone on his ass.”
    â€œI remember that, too,” the other man said. “It was the talk of the club for a week. Why did you never come back?”
    â€œCaleb’s mother didn’t take the news as well as everybody else did. After that, I was persona non grata.”
    â€œWelcome back,” the man said, then they excused themselves and went to get their food.
    â€œWell done,” Rawls said.
    â€œWell done what?”
    â€œThe tall guy was the commodore, and the other was the chairman of the membership committee. The commodore is on the golf club board, too. I’ll get forms and propose you today.”
    â€œYou think the business with Caleb will hurt?”
    â€œAre you kidding? Everybody hated that kid; judging from their reaction, you were a hero.”
    Stone glanced toward the door and nearly dropped his Coke. A ghost from his past had just walked in the 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