O put the papers back in the folder, the folder back in the drawer, and himself back on the radiator.
P said to me, “Well?”
I said, “Well what?”
He said, “Do you still believe these people harmless?”
“Not a bit of it,” I said. “I never thought they were harmless. They’re crazy, and crazy people sometimes do damage. But what you were talking about was this League for New Beginnings, and that’s something else again. You can’t get a bunch of yoyos like that together and get them to do anything. Believe me, I’ve seen these people, this exact same kind of people, and they’re never any good for anything.”
P said, “You’ve seen people like this before?”
“Not violent,” I admitted. “But the same, just the same.”
“I wish you’d explain that,” he said.
I said, “You get a big peace rally, one of the really big ones on something in the headlines, where all the peace groups join in, and you get this kind of nut. All passion and excitement, no brains. You want an orderly march in front of the White House, these kooks want to run in and have a sit-in on the President’s desk. They’ve got no discipline, no head for plans, nothing like that. All they want to do is run, jump, holler, wave signs, make a big noise. These people tonight are the same thing, except they want to hit people, too. But that type is almost impossible to get into any kind of orderly group or plan or anything.”
P said, “Almost impossible, Mr. Raxford?”
“Keeping that kind in line,” I said, “is no picnic, believe me.”
“For Eustaly?” he asked me. “And Ten Eyck? Not to mention Lobo.”
I just shook my head.
P said, “Ten Eyck and Eustaly are no fools, Mr. Raxford, please take my word for that. I will take your word that they have brought together an assembly of fools, but they themselves are anything but foolish. Whatever the membership of the League for New Beginnings may be or think, those who organized it have done so for a specific and logical and realizable purpose.”
“If they can hold that bunch together,” I said.
“Exactly. If they can weld this group into a functioning organization, they’ll have one of the most frightening internal weapons of subversion and sabotage the world has ever seen.”
“If,” I said.
“Will you accept the possibility?” he asked me.
Grudgingly, I nodded. “It’s possible,” I said. “Not probable, but possible.”
He looked hard at me, but hard. “We must stop them, you know,” he said.
I said, “What?” Belatedly, it was occurring to me to wonder why he’d worked so hard to convince me the League might be a menace after all, and now that the horse was gone, I began to look around for a quick way to lock the barn.
“In time of emergency,” he said, still looking at me hard, “it is the duty of every citizen to do his part.”
“I’m a pacifist,” I said. “Let’s not lose sight of that.”
“Under normal circumstances,” he said, “I would have no objection to you or anyone else pursuing the course of the conscientious objector. But this—”
“I’m not a conscientious objector,” I said, “I’m a pacifist There’s a difference. We’re big-endians and they’re little-endians.”
“Little Indians?”
“Oh, never mind,” I said. “The point is, whatever you want me to do I have strong moral, ethical, and personal objections to doing it.”
Beside me, Angela stuck her jaw out and said, “That’s right, Gene. And me, too, that goes for me, too.”
P smiled bleakly. “Mr. Raxford,” he said, “perhaps you haven’t thought this situation through as yet, perhaps there are one or two factors you don’t have a clear sight of.”
“If you think you can force me—”
“Mr. Raxford, co-operation cannot be forced. And even if it could be, I assure you I would not even be tempted to try it.” P’s smile got bleaker and bleaker. “Out there, Mr. Raxford,” he said, with a dramatic gesture toward the airshaft, “is your friend Mortimer Eustaly. Tyrone Ten Eyck is out there, too, Mr. Raxford, and so is Lobo.” He paused for effect, then said, blandly, “And do you know, Mr. Raxford, who they are thinking about right now?”
I said, “Wha? Wha?”
“They’re thinking about you, Mr. Raxford.”
“Now, wait,” I said.
“And do you know,” he continued, despite me, “what they are thinking about you?”
“Uh,” I said.
P smiled with crocodile sadness, shook his head and leaned back in his chair. “Thank you for chatting with us, Mr. Raxford,” he said. “If you have no wish to help us, you may leave now. You’re completely free to go. You won’t be bothered — by us — any more. In fact, the surveillance the FBI has maintained on you will even be lifted. Isn’t that nice?”
“Now, look,” I said.
L came forward, saying, “Any place I can drop you folks?”
I said to P, “You can’t do this, you can’t just send me out there. Eustaly and Ten Eyck, they’ll try to kill me.”
“Mr. Raxford,” he said, “if you think you can force us to protect you...” And he gave me the most obnoxiously smug smile I’ve ever seen in my life.
“Angela,” I said, “cover your ears.”
She touched my arm, saying, “Gene, wait a minute.”
“Cover your ears!”
“No, listen to me. You don’t even know what they want, Gene. Find out what they want first.”
I told her, with barely controlled impatience, “If they wanted anything I’d be willing to go along with, they’d just ask. Doing it this way, it’s got to be something really terrible.”
P said, “Not at all, Mr. Raxford, not at all. We would give you every protection, I assure you.”
I said to Angela, “Hear that? Every protection. You know what that means? They want me to jump off a cliff and carry my own net.”
P said, “We don’t want you to do anything at all. The choice is yours.”
“Some choice,” I said.
“Actually,” he said, “it is a choice. You can choose to meet Eustaly and Ten Eyck again all by yourself, or with us. It’s as simple as that.”
“The question is,” I said, “am I as simple as that.”
P ostentatiously moved papers around on his desk. “I do have other work to get to tonight, Mr. Raxford.”
“I could always hide out,” I said. “Leave New York, disappear until it’s all over.”
“Bon voyage,” he said.
I said to him, “Will you please stop making it so hard for me? Will you just once stop being so smug and happy about yourself, and ask me? You want my help; will you stop black-mailing me for a second and just ask me to help you?”
But he couldn’t do it. A man who’s divided the world into duties and privileges can’t possibly comprehend favors. “In time of emergency,” he started again, “every citizen—”
“What are you?” I asked him. “A recording?”