In the Best Families

Roeder had got some papers from his brief-case. One of them fluttered away from him, and I left my chair to retrieve it for him. I believe he did that on purpose. I believe he knew that now that the moment had come every nerve and muscle in me was on a hair trigger, and he was giving me an excuse to loosen them up.

“As I understand it, he said, “we're going to give Rackham a cut, and before I tell him about it I wish you'd take a look at this revised list of percentages.

Yours is of course fixed, and I don't like to reduce mine unless it's absolutely unavoidable…

He had a sheet of paper in his hand. With his brief-case on his lap, and loose papers, it was awkward for him to get up, so I obliged. I reached, and he handed me the paper, and I had to leave my chair to get it to Zeck. On my way I took a glance at the paper because I thought it was in character to do that, and if I ever needed my character to stay put for another four seconds I did right then.

When I extended my hand to Zeck I released the paper an instant too soon and it started to drop. I grabbed at it and missed, and that made me take another step and bend over, which put me in exactly the right position to take him away from there before he could possibly get a toe on one of the buttons under his desk.

Not wanting to knock his chair over, I used my left knee to push him back, chair and all, my right knee to land on his thighs and keep him there, and my hands for his throat.

There was only one thing in my mind at that precise instant, the instant I had him away from the desk, and that was the fear that I would break his neck. Since

I was in front of him I had to make absolutely sure, not only that he didn't yap, but also that he was too uncomfortable to try things like jabbing his thumbs in my eyes, but God knows I didn't want to overdo it, and bones and tendons are by no means all alike. What will be merely an inconvenience for one man will finish another one for good.

His mouth was open wide and his shark eyes were popping. With my knee on him he couldn't kick, and his arms were just flopping around. And Roeder was there by me, with a wadded handkerchief in one hand and a piece of cord in the other. As soon as he had the handkerchief stuffed tight in the open mouth he moved to the rear of the chair, taking Zeck's right hand with him, and reached around for the left hand. It tried to elude him, and I increased the pressure of my fingers a little, and then he got it.