Dutch Blue Error Read Online Free PDF Page B

closed.
    “Huh?”
    “When he calls. Get his name, if you can. I’d like to check up on him.”
    “Okay.” I glanced at my watch. It read 8:58. I looked at the telephone, willing it to ring. When it did, precisely two minutes later, I jumped as if I had been stabbed.
    Ollie picked up the receiver after the third ring, said “Yes?” listened a moment, then said, “I’m putting you on to Mr. Coyne, my attorney.” Then he handed the phone to me.
    “This is Brady Coyne,” I said. “With whom am I speaking?”
    “Never mind that, Mr. Coyne. Are you prepared to do business with me?”
    “Not over the phone I’m not. Would you please identify yourself?”
    “Not yet.” The man’s voice was devoid of inflection, as near as I could tell. It was deep, well modulated, and sounded cultivated. An educated person, I thought, and an older man, nearer Ollie’s age than mine. “You want to meet me, then,” he continued. “All right. Listen carefully. Tomorrow afternoon at three. Do you know the Wursthaus?”
    “In Harvard Square. Yes, I know it.”
    “Awful food, I’m sure you’ll agree. Take a booth by yourself. Order a bottle of Beck’s. Put a briefcase on the table. Wear a red necktie. I’ll find you.”
    “Three o’clock at the Wursthaus. Bottle of Beck’s, brief case on the table, red necktie. Okay,” I said. “Now, may I please know who this is?”
    “In due time, Mr. Coyne,” the voice answered. “And I trust you’re not planning anything fancy.”
    “Fancy?”
    “I intend to be very cautious about this, you see. I hold all the cards, don’t you agree?”
    “Look, mister. I’m an attorney. I’m helping my client consummate a business deal. That’s all. Mr. Weston is an upstanding and honorable…”
    “When there’s a quarter-million dollars at stake, nobody’s upstanding or honorable,” he interrupted. “Tomorrow at three, then.”
    “How will I recognize you?”
    “When I sit down with you, that will be me. If I turn out to be a lady, it’s not me.”
    “May I please have your name?”
    “See you at the Wursthaus.” There was a click at the other end of the line.
    Ollie was staring at me as I hung up the phone. “So what’s his name?”
    “He wouldn’t give it to me.”
    “Jesus, Brady. The one thing I ask you to do is get his name. You should have gotten his name.”
    “Easy for you to say,” I said. “You don’t have to get up in the morning.”
    Ollie said he didn’t get it. Perry, leaning back against the bookshelves, smiled as if he did.

3
    I TOOK THE SUBWAY TO CAMBRIDGE from my office, because I knew I’d never find a parking space in the Square. On the other hand, the ride on the T was no pleasure, either. I vowed that I’d either walk all the way back, or at least walk to my office from the Park Street stop. Boston’s subway lines aren’t really laid out the way the roads are, following the old cow paths from Colonial days. It just seems that way. There is some logic to the relationships among the Green Line and the Orange Line and Park Street Under and the North Station. It just eludes me. I go to New York three or four times a year and have no problem navigating the Manhattan underground. I’ve lived in Boston my whole life, and I still carry a knot of anxiety in my stomach every time I descend into my city’s subterranean labyrinth.
    Zerk tells me that it’s a racist thing. Maybe he’s right. The black kids race through the cars at night in groups of five or six. More often than not, they don’t bother to assault, rob, rape, or stab anybody. On the other hand, sometimes they do. During rush hour I experience what claustrophobics must feel in an elevator. I begin to sweat, my hands tremble, and my knees turn to chocolate mousse. I always keep one hand in my hip pocket to guard my wallet while I stand in the overcrowded cars, propped up by sweaty people on all sides of me.
    Harvard Square seems downright respectable to me nowadays. Fewer glassy-eyed