The first book in the Stone Barrington series

Elaine’s, late. The place had exhausted its second wind, and half the customers had gone; otherwise she would not have given Stone Barrington quite so good a table – number 4, along the wall to your right as you enter. Stone knew Elaine, had known her for years, but he was not what you would call a regular – not what Elaine would call a regular, anyway.

He rested his left leg on a chair and unconsciously massaged the knee. Elaine got down from her stool at the cash register, walked over, and pulled up a chair.

“So?”

“Not bad,” he said.

“How about the knee?” Anybody who knew him knew about the knee; it had received a.22-caliber bullet eleven weeks before.

“A lot better. I walked up here from Turtle Bay.”

“When’s the physical?”

“Next week. I’ll tap-dance through it.”

“So what if you fall on your ass, tap dancing?” Elaine knew how to get to the point.

“So, then I’m a retiree.”

“Best thing could happen to you.”

“I can think of better things.”

“Come on, Stone, you’re too good looking to be a cop. Too smart, too. You went to law school, didn’t you?”

“I never took the bar.”

“So take the bar. Make a buck.”

“It’s fifteen years since I graduated.”

“So? Take one of those cram courses.”

“Maybe. You’re coming on kind of motherly, aren’t you?”

“Somebody’s gotta tell you this stuff.”

“I appreciate the thought. Who’s the guy at the bar?” To a cop’s eye the man didn’t fit in somehow. He probably wouldn’t fit anywhere. Male Caucasian, five-six, a hundred and seventy, thinning brown hair, thick, black-rimmed glasses adhesive-taped in the middle.