"Bayard's got no pins, from the knees down." Nasal spoke in a hushed tone. "You didn't know that, did you? That's why you never seen him walking around on the video; he's always sitting back of a desk.
"There ain't very many people know about that," he added. "Keep it to yourself."
"Cripes," Thin-voice said. His voice was thinner than ever. "Got no legs?"
"That's right. I was with him a year before the landing. I was in his outfit when he got it. Machine gun slug, through both knees. Now forget about it. But maybe now you get the set-up."
"Cripes," Thin-voice said. "Where did they get a guy crazy enough to go into a deal like this?"
"How do I know," the other said. He sounded as though he regretted having told the secret. "These revolutionist types is all nuts anyway."
I stood there feeling sick. My legs tingled. I knew now why nobody mistook me for the dictator, as I walked into a room; and why Spider had been taken in, when he saw me sitting.
I was leaving now. Not tomorrow, not tonight; now. I had no gun, no papers, no map, no plans, but I was leaving.
It was almost dark; I went to the back of the house. Through a window I could see the men in the garden standing under a small cherry tree in the gloom, still talking. I found a door, and examined it in the failing light. It was the type that opens in two sections. The upper one was locked, but the lower half swung silently open—below the line of vision of the men outside. I bent over and stepped through.
A short path led off to the drive beside the house; I ignored it and crept along beside the wall, through weed-grown flower beds.