The guy who did the talking took his place under the middle of the rolled-up rug once again, and the three men continued walking up the flight of stairs with their burden. The cripple stood by the open door of his apartment. The three men, all very large and wearing work gloves, walked in. The cripple followed them inside and shut the door. The man who had spoken stepped forward and whacked the cripple across the side of his head at the temple with a blackjack. The eighty-two-year-old cripple crumpled to the floor.

One of the men untied the ropes that bound the rug and spread it across the floor, pushing the furniture out of the way as he did. The men picked up the unconscious cripple, rolled the rug back with the old man inside, and tied the rug in the same three places. They replaced the furniture in its original position, then hefted the rug onto their shoulders and walked out of the apartment. The last man closed the door behind him.

At the foot of the stairs an old biddy made way for the three men and said, “Didn’t know that grumpy old codger had such a nice rug in his apartment. That must have cost him a pretty penny. Having it cleaned, is he?”

None of the men answered her. They just continued walking out of the building and crossed the street. One of the men opened the van’s rear doors with a free hand and all three pushed the rug inside. The speaker locked the back doors, and the three climbed into the van’s front seat. Each one lit a cigarette. After a few minutes the van pulled away from the curb into traffic and slowly disappeared.

Forty minutes later, the dirty gray van with Edward Antoian & Sons Oriental Rug Gallery on its sides drove down the same barren road past the spot where Morris Rothberg and the producer had their business discussion several days before. At a certain distance from the beginning of the road, the van turned left and went exactly two-tenths of a mile and stopped. The driver climbed out of the van and walked to a freshly dug grave six feet long, four feet wide, and eight feet deep. The driver returned to the van and joined his two partners by the rear doors. The three men carried the rug with the old cripple in it and tossed the rug and body into the hole.

The driver returned to the rear of the van and pulled out three long-handled shovels. After the hole was filled, the men lugged sections of pregrown grass from the rear of the van back to the grave. They rolled out the small blocks of grass over the fresh dirt. The three collected twigs and bits of garbage in the area nearby and sprinkled the debris onto the blocks of grass around the grave. The three men walked back and forth across the area several times, pushing and kicking the dirt with their boots. When they finished, the three got into the van and lit cigarettes.