"Avram Davidson - No Fire Burns" - читать интересную книгу автора (Davidson Avram)

Dr. Colles tapped his glasses on the tablecloth. He nodded rapidly. "This fellow would seem to be
obviously a psychopath," he said. "An individual with an underdeveloped superego. They don't go around
muttering or bubbling their lips, they don't often run amuck; generally speaking, they are
calmтАФcoolтАФand collected. They simply lack what we are accustomed to call conscience. To your man,
his fellow-worker wasn't a being with equal rights, he was simply an obstacle. The sensible thing was to
remove him."

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 areтАФhow 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 тАж let me ask you тАж why are you interested in weeding out only
psychopaths? Why not people with other defectsтАФparanoiacs, 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 himтАФremove himтАФhelp 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 тАж I would
promise you nothing in the way of results. But I could tryтАФif I were to take on fewer projects with other
corporations, perhaps тАж"

His host's thin lips stretched in a brief smile. "Good. Very good. And so now, just for a startтАФ" 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; thenтАФmissing Mr. Melchior's upturned glance by a shaved secondтАФhe fixed his
look on the wall. The check changed hands.



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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 тАж 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 phonedтАФyou see: Dr.
Sherwind, of the Department of Correction, and so onтАФand you ask them if you can drop by and pick
up case histories for me, as noted here."