A cigar came out of Mr. Melchior’s case. He flicked his gold cigarette lighter. “All right,” he said. “Now that we know what they are—how do we find them out in time?”
With a smile, “The FBI would like to know too, Mr. Melchior.”
“Yes, but the FBI isn’t asking you. Anthony Melchior is asking you. I have been very impressed with everything you’ve told us, and I feel quite confident you can do it.”
“Well, thank you very much. But … let me ask you … why are you interested in weeding out only psychopaths? Why not people with other defects—paranoiacs, let’s say?”
His employer seeming somewhat at a loss to answer this, Edward Taylor stepped almost instantly into the breech. “Mr. Melchior feels that men who suffer from more obvious defects are much more likely to be noticed. It is the man who appears to be all right, who seems to function normally, who is actually more in need of being detected. Once found out, our task would naturally be to see that this man is given the proper help. We see it as a three-fold program: discover him—remove him—help him.” He smiled; his smile was rather charming, but it came and went too quickly.
Melchior nodded vigorously; Colles, more slowly. Was it a matter of time? he was asked. A matter of money? Neither factor should dissuade him: Melchior Enterprises would assist him one hundred percent. Dr. Colles smiled, pursed his lips, shook his head. Then he frowned. He rubbed his eyes with his fingers.
“It would be an interesting project,” he said, “it might be a very fruitful one. I could try … I would promise you nothing in the way of results. But I could try—if I were to take on fewer projects with other corporations, perhaps …”
His host’s thin lips stretched in a brief smile. “Good. Very good. And so now, just for a start—” He took out a gold fountain pen and a checkbook. Dr. Colles looked at the moving hand until the last letter of the signature was done; then—missing Mr. Melchior’s upturned glance by a shaved second—he fixed his look on the wall. The check changed hands.
Dr. Colles told his assistant not to make any more appointments for him until further notice. “I’m going to be working on a private research project which will be taking up a great deal of my time,” he explained. “You’ll have to do some legwork for me … I’ll have a list of books for you to get, and quite a number of articles published in professional journals. Then, too, these men are to be phoned—you see: Dr. Sherwind, of the Department of Correction, and so on—and you ask them if you can drop by and pick up case histories for me, as noted here.”
The assistant was an unmarried and intelligent young woman, who had been (and had looked) a good bit younger when she first came to work for Dr. Colles. He had talked at one time about marriage—not during the past few years, however. Why buy milk if you’re friendly with the cow?
“ ‘The Psychopathic Personality Among Prisoners …’ “ she read aloud from the list, pinching her lip: two unlovely habits she’d developed. It occurred to her employer that it would probably be easier (and wiser) to break himself of the habit of her, than to try to break her of any of her own habits.
He hummed a bit when she had gone. After all, the world was full of cows—He took out his bankbook and regarded with favor both the latest entry and the considerable amount in cash folded neatly inside the little book. He had stopped off at the bank directly after leaving Mr. Melchior. The business baron had seemed quite in earnest, but, still, one never knew …
Dr. Colles was a prudent man.
The test had been going on for most of the day. First one section went down to take it, then another. There had been some apprehension at first, but this vanished, by lunchtime, in a rumble of laughter which ran through the whole plant: “So he hands back the papers when he’s finished, and he says to the guy from Personnel, ‘Hey, Mac, how come they wanna know is my sex-life satisfactory: they plannin’ t’ use me f’ stud purposes?’ “
When Joe Clock finally reached the head of the line, the girl there gave him a sheaf of papers and a pencil. “Take any seat at one of the tables and fill these out, please,” she said.
Joe’s eyes traveled from her to the papers and back again. Her hair, it was obvious, was not naturally red, and her expression was discontented. But she was young, and her figure—”If I had a nickel for every one of these I filled out, I’d be rich,” he said.
For a moment their eyes met. “And if I had a nickel for every guy who said that, I’d be rich, too.” Not too bad a beginning. He rapidly calculated his finances, took a breath, and was about to ask her what she was doing that night. But her eyes went past him, she picked up a sheaf of papers and a pencil, handed them to the man behind him. “Take any seat—” she began.
Joe Clock sighed, sat down at the table and took up the pencil. If they wanted to pay him to play school for an hour instead of running the lathe, it was all right with him. And it was easier on the feet. So now let’s see … I like mechanics magazines. Yes. No. What a question to ask a machinist! Sure he liked them. You knew where you were with a mechanics magazine. It showed you what to do and how to do it. No dopey stories to figure out, why the guy acts so dopey trying to get the girl. There’s an obstruction in the pipe, ream it out. Another guy steps out with the girl, kick him in the crotch. Joe circled the Yes. Next. I have a good appetite. Hell, Yes. Then a real stupid one: I would rather collect stamps than go fishing. Joe put a heavy circle around the No. He relaxed. Collect stamps, for crysake! This was going to be easy. Eskimos live in Europe. Joe almost had to laugh at that one, another No; good thing he didn’t have to say where they did live: Aleutia, or some place like that. Well …
A sensible man takes what he can get in this world. Isn’t that the truth, though! Every damn time, and all you can get, too. Hell, yes. Canada belongs to England. That was right. The damn Canadian money has the King of England’s face on it and you got to be careful because once Joe had got stuck with some of that English money from Canada, only he passed it on damn quick, too. It is important to help a friend. What do they mean, “a friend”? He paused, peered at the next one. It is not so important to help a stranger. He hesitantly put Yes for the first, No for the second. It makes good sense to worry about a stranger. He snorted. The hell it does. Catch a stranger worrying about you! A guy that you, like, want to borrow his car, now—but a stranger?
Henry Ford played a major role in developing … Molasses is made from … A sensible man does what he is paid to do. Of course he does. Yes.
I sleep well and wake up fresh and rested. Sure. Yes. A stranger will risk his life to help you. What a laugh. A guy’d have to be crazy! No!
There are lots worse crimes than murder. Probably … Sure. Lots worse. The average person will do anything for money. Absolutely right they would. Why not, if you can get away with it? Sure. And the same way, that’s why you got to watch out for yourself.