Dutch Blue Error Read Online Free PDF Page A

businessmen. That’s all.”
    “You’re really into some heavy law, aren’t you?” said Charlie as we arrived at the tenth tee.
    “It’s a living,” I muttered. “It’s your honor, Your Honor.”
    “He’s going to call here again at nine tonight,” said Ollie Weston when I called him from the clubhouse pay phone. “I want you to talk to him.”
    “Can’t I call him?”
    Ollie gave me that deep chuckle of his. “Hardly. He’s very cautious. Wouldn’t tell me anything—no name, no phone number, nothing. Just wanted to negotiate, and when I told him that you’d be doing my negotiating for me, he said he’d call again, and hung up on me. How’d you do, anyway?”
    “How’d I do what?”
    “Golf. How’d you hit?”
    “Erratic. As usual. Okay. I’ll be there by nine.”
    “Come earlier. Have a drink.”
    “Fine. Sometime around eight, then.”
    When I went back to where Charlie and I were having our beers, he had already ordered the second round. “Why don’t you come out to the house and take potluck with us tonight?” he said. “Jenny keeps asking after you. She’s worried you’re not taking good care of yourself, since you and Gloria…”
    “You tell her I’m thriving on Big Macs and frozen pizza and Spaghetti-O’s?”
    “I tell her you’re the envy of all us married guys and probably would hate to sit around the dining room table listening to the kids bicker and Jenny talk about her tennis pro and me complain about the bills.”
    “Well,” I said, “you’re wrong there. There’s nothing I’d like better. But I’ve got an appointment tonight.”
    “Cancel it.”
    “Easy for you to say.”
    “Yeah, I know,” said Charlie. “I don’t have to get up in the morning.”
    Ollie Weston’s big Victorian mansion in Belmont perches high on a hill, far back from the road. The twelve-foot iron fence, fully wired and tied directly into the Belmont Police Station, is screened by hemlocks and giant old rhododendrons. I entered the Weston estate through the tall iron gates, which swung silently open when I spoke into a telephone set in a box in one of the twin stone pillars. The long, peastone driveway terminated under a portico at the front door. I left my BMW beside the Weston Mercedes, climbed the steps onto the L-shaped front porch, and rang the bell. Off to my right, the lights of Cambridge and, beyond, Boston, blinked in the Indian summer dusk. I could distinguish the lights of my tall office building in Copley Square, flanked by the twin landmarks of The Pru and the Hancock Tower.
    “Come right in, sir. Mr. Weston is expecting you.”
    “Jesus, Edwin. You startled me,” I said to Ollie’s man Friday, who has the disconcerting ability of gliding around as silently as if he were on ice skates, which I suppose is a trick of his trade.
    I followed Edwin into the living room where the combination lock hid behind The Road to Serfdom. Standing by the bookshelves was Perry. We exchanged nods. Ollie was seated in a big leather armchair. On the table in front of him stood a chess game waiting to be played. The black men were carved out of a green, translucent stone which looked like jade. The other pieces were milky white. Probably some kind of marble. Or, knowing Ollie, rough-cut diamonds.
    Another table stood by Ollie’s right elbow, where I saw a tray with three brandy snifters and a decanter two-thirds full of the amber liquid, and a black telephone. Ollie’s wheelchair was nowhere in sight.
    “Pull up a chair,” greeted Ollie. “Your move.”
    I waved my hand. “No games tonight, Ollie. Offer me a drink, and let’s talk about how we should handle this.”
    Ollie shrugged his thick shoulders. “Games are hard to avoid, my friend. Let’s have some brandy, Perry.”
    Perry poured drinks for each of us and handed them around. Ollie lifted his glass up in front of his face and swirled the brandy gently, peering through it. Then he held the glass by the bowl, cupped in the palm of