The evil bastard who’d written the editorial was urging Congress to raise the minimum retirement age for federal employees to sixty-five, spouting baseless nonsense as to how this would save the taxpayers big bucks. DeMarco concluded that if he were running things, the first thing to go would be the First Amendment. Before he could work himself into a state of quivering anxiety thinking about the possibility of working for Mahoney until he was sixty-five, the doorbell rang. Opening the door, he discovered one of his neighbors. She had lived in the house on the right side of his for about six months but he couldn’t remember her name. Ellen, Helen, something like that. He said hello to her and her husband when he saw them outside but that was as far as he chose to carry the relationship. She was a plump woman in her early thirties, normally pleasant and cheerful, but today looking as if she had been given a preview of Armageddon. She had a baby in one arm screaming its head off, the baby’s face the color of a tomato.
