Dirt (Stone Barrington 2)

Stone sipped his drink and looked idly around the room. He felt that in a couple of minutes he was going to know how to find Dryer, or Bruce. He still thought of him as Dryer.

“How much do you need, honey?” she was asking. “Good God, we sent you down there with enough spending money for the whole semester! You were supposed to discipline your own spending, remember?”

Stone, who had not eaten for five hours. was starting to feel the bourbon.

“Well, if it’s an emergency, I’ll send it, but I am not going down to Western Union; I’ll just mail you a check. And if I have this kind of call again, I’m going to let your father handle it! Now you…” She swore and hung up the phone.

Stone looked over at her, then away.

She came back to the couch, downed the last third of her drink, and went back toward the kitchen. “My daughter,” she said. “She’s in her first year at the University of Virginia. Doesn’t know the meaning of money.” She came back to the sofa carrying a fresh drink. “You have any kids?”

“No, I’m a bachelor.”

“A bachelor,” she said. She allowed her hand to brush the back of his. “An interesting one, too. How is it you never married, Stone?”

Stone shrugged and gave her his stock answer. “Just lucky, I guess.”

She laughed as if this were really funny. “Yes, I’m all alone now, I guess. Husband ran off with a twenty-two-year-old, if you can believe it; daughter in college. It’s just me now.” She waved a hand. “All alone in this big house.”

“I shouldn’t think a woman as attractive as you are would be alone for very long.”

She raised her glass. “Thank you, kind sir. You really know what to say to a girl.”

Stone felt a need to change the subject. “Have you seen either of your brothers lately?”

She set her drink down. “Why don’t we change the subject for a while?”

“What did you have in mind for a subject?” he asked mildly.

“Oh, if you knew what I had in mind,” she said, smiling.

He believed he did know, and he wasn’t sure how he was going to handle it. He certainly didn’t want to annoy her and get thrown out before he had found out what he came for, and she was extremely attractive, except for the booze, and he was feeling just a little boozy himself. What canon of ethics covered this situation? None, he decided; he was on his own. Then he saw her nipples rise under her sweater. He had never seen that happen before. He was lost. “Your nipples are hard,” he said.

“How can you tell?” she asked, “when you haven’t touched them?”

He reached out and rubbed the back of his fingers lightly against her breasts. “Confirmed,” he said.

“Not really,” she said. She pulled her sweater over her head, released her bra from behind, and dropped it on the floor.

“Reconfirmed,” he said, reaching for her.

He got out of the shower and went to find his clothes in the kitchen seating area. Once dressed, he decided to look around. There was a phone book on the kitchen counter, and under “Tommy” was scribbled “Chelsea Hotel.” He wondered how old that address was. He went into the living room and found nothing of interest, then tried the library. On a bookcase were a lot of silver-framed family photographs. One of them had been taken in some tropical place; there were palms and a beach. A man dressed in the uniform of a navy lieutenant was standing next to a handsome blond woman. Arrayed at their feet were two little boys and an older girl of maybe twelve – pretty, straw-haired, smiling.

“Better days,” she said from behind him. She was tying a robe around her.

“I thought you were sound asleep,” he said.

“So you just thought you’d have a look around.”

“Yes, I di

d.”

“Did you find what you were looking for?”

“Beg pardon?”

“Did you find Tommy and Charlie?”