"Don't be childish."
"I'm not. I'm just pointing out that—potentially—you're valuable. I have no value. You—and the guys like you—can probably figure out the stuff we need to go on fighting for freedom. You can probably lick the new tyranny, and maybe even without carving holes in the country and paying out the best young blood. And then we'll have a chance to go on with the liberty scrap. That's what you can do. It means a lot to guys like me—who never had a chance to draw one free-and-equal breath in his life. Not you as a person. You as ideas. So all right. That's that. Maybe you hate your job. Maybe it's a wrong thing. Maybe all the world has left, for now, is a choice among wrong ways. Personally—if that's so—I take our choice. America's. I'm no Stephen Decatur—but that's how my feelings go."
"If you don't mind," Paul said, "I'd just as soon be spared the patriotic harangue."
"Sure. I'm through. And you're coming in, soon, now." Dave let go of the ledge, pulled back his shirt sleeve, and peered at his wrist watch. "You're coming in—or I'm bailing out. In five minutes, Paul, my son, if you don't get off—I take off."
I was listening to Dave's voice and a terrible fear possessed me. But Paul heard only the shouting of agony within himself. "Wiseguy," he said.
Dave smiled a slow, gentle smile. "Wiseguy? Maybe so. But how long this wiseguy lives—is up to you, now."
"Do you think I believe you? Do you think I'm so stupid?"
"I mean it." Dave looked up from his watch and his eyes fixed on Paul. "I'm not kidding, son."
I could see the color change in Paul's cheeks. He'd been pale. He became ghostly. He locked eyes with Dave Berne.
The slightest stir moved the hot, early-evening air.