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  "Pshaw! Dangerous! These managers," the old man uttered the word with genuine contempt, "would know nothing about danger. Too busy pushing paper, fussing over archives, tricking the men out in fancy uniforms ...."

          "Well, they're gonna offer Ryder a pension, whatever you say. I'm not sure he'd accept it. The big thing, though, is the statement absolving him of complicity, as they put it. He'd get a copy, unsigned of course, but with the assurance that the signed copy was in the files. Just a little insurance policy, you might say."

          The old man stared at him. "And you want me to write it."

          "You're the man behind it," the other said. "You're the man behind a lot of things that won't hardly stand the light of day, Mac. About sixty-five years of them, if I read the archives right. Starting with nearly twenty miners hung on your testimony, false testimony, in Eighteen-ninety-- ...."

          "Like Ryder," the visitor interrupted, his face grown hard.

          The old man drew himself up. He seemed schoolmasterish. "I'll not be talked to like this. Please, do not presume to threaten me."

          "You'll sign this damn thing or you'll spend your last few days in prison," the visitor said, firmly. "The Agency has ways of fixing your little wagon, you old sonuvabitch. You think we can't show that you were acting on your own? Without the knowledge or support of the Agency? That we had no idea what schemes you concocted, for money under the table? And don't forget, the Old Man, who might have been in it with you, is dead. We can repudiate him, too."

          The old man was livid. He took a trembling step toward his visitor. "You, you rascal! To think that my years of loyal service --."

          "Aw, screw your loyal service, Mac. You've hung enough men. You've lined your  damn pockets and tightened the noose around too many necks, and all the time telling yourself and anyone who'd listen that you did it for the Agency, for the country. I've heard your damn high-flown speeches to kids like Ryder, your damn self-justifications, your damn hints to Joe Davis. Hell, you preached the same shit to me, you old bastard. Did you think you'd never have to pay? That you were gonna lie down in clover and the angels would sing you into heaven? Why, goddamn your soul!" The visitor laughed, almost hysterically.

          But he regained his control and his voice turned to steel: "You'll damn well sign and be glad to sign, you old bastard. Or else your poor old skinny ass will go up the pipe like Goody's."

          "You stupid fool," the old man said. He came forward with the hammer in his hand.

          The younger man swung the briefcase, knocking the hammer out of the man's hand and striking him on his shoulder, spinning him against the hood of the Packard. The assailant instantly whipped out a pair of standard handcuffs, just like the ones the Agency had used in its great days of spying and running free in the industrial wars. He snapped the cuffs on the old man's skinny wrists, behind him.

          In another moment he had popped open the briefcase and extracted a length of rope, one end already tied into a hangman's noose. He slipped the noose over the old man's bony head, dislodging the glasses and tightened it to cut off the old man's thin shouts. He tossed the other end up over the crossmember of the garage rafters, caught it and yanked it up. The old man was forced to his feet. Still clutching the end, the visitor grabbed the kitchen chair that old man had been working on and dragged it over.

"Get on that!" he demanded.

The old man, his eyes wild, gasped, "Never."

"Have it your own way, Mac."

          The visitor hauled on the rope and hoisted the old man onto his tiptoes. But the old fellow was surprisingly heavy and the rope resisted being dragged over the 2x6 rafter chord.

          "Dammit!" the killer swore. He seized the old man's belt at the back and hefted him up with one hand, ignoring as best he could the furious kicking of the high-top black shoes. As he hoisted with one hand he drew down tightly on the rope with the other. The old man was lifted into the air. The rope stretched, but then held the struggling and kicking figure off the concrete floor.

          The killer backed off then, grimly pulling on the rope. After a few minutes the dangling man lost consciousness, his neck pinched smaller than one would have thought possible. At last it was clear that he was dead. The killer moved closer, hoisted the body higher, high enough that the feet could have been on the chair, then he himself stood on the chair and tied the rope end around an adjoining rafter chord. Then he tumbled the chair on its side, near the dangling feet.

          He saw that he had stepped on the old man's glasses and broken them. That was too bad, but there was nothing for it. He found a broom and swept up the glass and dumped it, along with the bent frames, into his briefcase. Putting away the broom he noticed a thick piece of chalk. He smiled and bent down to scrawl an obscure set of numbers on the floor, then he tossed the chalk back onto the work bench.

          As he'd hoped, the keys were in the Packard's ignition, for when the work on the chair would be finished and the old man would want to move the car back into the garage. The killer started the Packard and drove it into the garage. There was still plenty of room for the hanging body, enough room so that a man bent on suicide but perhaps panicking, would not have been able to scramble onto the hood to save himself. He turned off the engine and closed the garage doors. He closed the backyard door and went off, swinging his empty briefcase.

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