Psycho-Paths

by Robert Bloch

  “Perhaps it is,” Pierre mumbled.

  “All these decapitations in the city squares—”

  As they neared the café Arnoux’s one-sided conversation shifted to the condition of the streets. “Look at this rubbish everywhere! There was a boy named Gustave who cleaned up around my place and kept the dogs away, but now he’s gone off somewhere. I haven’t seen him lately.”

  “I saw him,” Pierre said, wetting his lips.

  “What? You?”

  “He left a note for me when he went away.”

  “I didn’t even know he could read and write!”

  “Come to my house and I will show you.”

  Arnoux followed a bit uncertainly. “All right, just for a moment. I have never been to your place, although your sister pointed it out to me once.”

  The old man had trouble with steps, and Pierre knew he could never be persuaded to visit the basement. He got him as far as the kitchen and invited him to have a sip of wine while he located the letter. He got out the wooden club he’d used on the boy and walked around behind Arnoux. The old man never suspected a thing.

  He weighed very little and it was not a difficult task to open the basement door and then drag him across the floor and down the steps. Pierre strapped him to the board in case he should awaken and then positioned the wooden collar about his neck.

  This was the first adult he’d done, and he was surprised that there was so much blood to be cleaned up afterward.

  It was while he was finishing his cleaning chores that he remembered the string. It was no longer across the top step, and he was certain it had been missing when he first dragged old Arnoux down the stairs.

  Rosette told him the news the following morning. “That café owner down the street, Monsieur Arnoux, has disappeared. They say he never came to work last night and hasn’t been home since.”

  Pierre grunted and went on with his breakfast.

  “Did you see him yesterday?”

  “No.”

  “The Ministry of Justice is looking into it. They suspect someone may have killed him for his money.”

  “Oh, no!” Pierre protested. He had visions of Granston on the prowl.

  “That’s what they think.”

  There was something strange in her voice, and he raised his eyes, almost afraid to meet hers. She turned away and went back to frying her breakfast eggs.

  He found excuses to remain in the house until after she’d left for work, then once again placed the loose piece of string on the top step of the basement stairs. The dirt floor was smooth again, but he knew there would be traces of his digging. And of course there was the machine itself, standing there quite openly though covered by the paint-spattered sheet.

  He went out, but could not go to work. Instead he circled the block, actually walking by the café, and climbed in a back window of his house. For a long time he merely stood in the kitchen, listening for the slightest sound.

  After a bit Pierre went down to the basement, and there too he simply waited and listened. His eyes scanned the earthen floor, seeking anything that might be out of place.

  Suddenly the door at the top of the stairs was thrown open.

  He saw the figure outlined against the light, descending toward him. It was Granston, it had to be Granston, come to seal his doom. He moved backward until he came against the basement’s rough stone wall, but still the figure advanced. Now it was reaching out a hand to him.

  “Pierre, what are you doing down here?”

  It was his mother, catching him again on one of his sinful basement visits. It was Granston, come to avenge those he had killed without the revolution’s approval.

  “Pierre, it’s Rosette! What’s the matter with you?”

  His vision cleared and he saw that it was indeed his sister. She was gripping his shoulders and shaking him. “I—I—”

  “Pierre, listen to me! What is this thing you’re hiding down here? I found it yesterday when I was looking for some dust rags. Did you build this yourself?”

  “Yes,” he murmured.

  “It’s just like the real one. The blade is even sharp. What will you use it for?”

  Perhaps she didn’t know. Perhaps he could still fool her.

  “I built it for the revolutionary government. They will transport it around the provinces as a model for the building of more full-sized guillotines.”

  “They are paying you for it?” she asked dubiously.

  “Yes, yes!”

  “Pierre, you’ve never been able to lie to me, any more than you could lie to Mother.”

  “Look,” he said, hurrying to pull the paint-spattered sheet from the machine. “I will show you how well it works.”

  “Pierre—”

  But he was on her in a flash, forcing her to the floor, reaching out for any weapon he could grab. They fought silently, as they had so many times in their youth, when the older and stronger Rosette usually won.

  This time was different.

  When she was too weak to fight any more he lifted her onto the board. She opened her eyes once and looked at him, muttering, “What are you doing to me?” That was all.

  The blade seemed to sing as it dropped, something he’d never noticed before.

  The house was quieter without Rosette, and neighbors immediately wondered what had happened to her. Pierre had a story for everyone who asked, but it was not always the same story. To one woman he said she was ill, being treated at a hospital outside Paris. To another he said she’d run off, possibly with a blacksmith from Versailles. He did not repeat the latter story, realizing himself how unbelievable it sounded.

  A man who sometimes employed Pierre to do carpentry work was the first to comment on the almost simultaneous disappearance of old Arnoux and Rosette. “I’m sure they’ll both return,” Pierre said, trying to make light of it. “When I visit my sister in hospital I will see if Arnoux is hiding under the bed.”

  For a full week he stayed away from the executions, fearful that he might run into Granston again. Finally, though, he could deprive himself no longer. On a day when four were scheduled to die, he walked down to the Place de Grève, where the guillotine was still located. Jacques Granston recognized him and came over to where he stood.

  “You are Pierre Frayer. I have seen you often at the beheadings.”

  “This is my first in more than a week,” Pierre answered defensively. “Others come more often than that.”

  Granston agreed. “I myself am here every day now. There is rarely a day when Madame Guillotine is not in use.”

  The man from the Ministry of justice slipped his hand around Pierre’s shoulder. “Come—I will get us a good view up front.”

  True to his word, he guided Pierre up to the very front ranks, only a few feet from the platform itself. He could study the wicker basket clearly, resting there to receive its offering.

  There was the usual roar as the tumbrel entered the square, this time bearing four victims for the guillotine. They were unloaded virtually in front of Pierre, and as the first one climbed the steps the other three stood with their backs to the machine, facing the crowd. One stood directly in front of Pierre, so close they could have touched if the man’s hands had not been tied behind him. He looked so young, Pierre thought, barely older than the boy Gustave.

  The first roar went up from the crowd, and the young man shuddered. It was quickly apparent that he would be the last to climb the steps, and all color had drained from his face. Come with me, Pierre wanted to cry out. I will hold you as the blade falls. I will comfort you to the last.

  The second roar went up.

  “You see how efficient we are,” Granston commented. “One day recently we had six. That is all the tumbrel can carry, and we will soon be forced to press a second cart into service.”

  Pierre moistened his lips. “What are their crimes?”

  “These four? Murder, high treason, rape and theft. We have abolished torture, you know. This is much more humane.”
/>   The third victim was quickly disposed of, and it was the turn of the young man who stood facing them. The executioner’s assistants came for him, turning him toward the steps.

  I will comfort you, Pierre repeated silently.

  The young man was strapped into position and the wooden collar fitted around his neck. The blade was released as Pierre watched, his breath coming in short, quick gasps.

  He had never seen the blood spurt so far. But the executioner had miscalculated the exact placement of the wicker basket. The head hit the edge of it, bounded off the platform and onto the cobblestone pavement.

  “Disgusting!” Jacques Granston growled. “Must we be subjected to such incompetence?”

  Pierre had hoped that the conclusion of the executions would mean his parting from the Justice Ministry man. But as the crowd in the square broke up, Granston remained close by his side.

  “I saw you walking with Arnoux after the executions one day,” he said. “It might have been the day the old man disappeared.”

  “No, no!” Pierre insisted.

  “Yes, it might have been. Where do you live? Near Arnoux’s café?”

  “Not far from it,” he admitted reluctantly.

  Pierre was silent for the remainder of their walk, although the large man at his side continued chatting. “The revolution will soon touch the lives of everyone in France. Already there are plans for more guillotines to be used in the provinces.”

  “I have something to show you at my house,” Pierre heard himself saying. “It is a model which you may be able to use.”

  “What? What’s that? Speak up, man!”

  “Come into my house. I will show you.”

  Granston looked puzzled but followed him inside. “This kitchen is filthy. Don’t you have a sister who looks after you?”

  “She’s away,” Pierre mumbled. “How did you know about her?”

  “Rosette? I have seen her some nights at the café, selling flowers. Now I wonder what has become of her.”

  “Down here.” Pierre motioned. “The basement.”

  “These are steep stairs. You should be careful of accidents. What is this you have for me here?”

  Pierre reached the bottom and pulled the sheet from his masterpiece. “It is a working model. A fully working model.”

  Granston’s eyes widened. “I had no idea—”

  Pierre smiled as he picked up his wooden club. “Here, let me show you.”

  In the last instant Granston’s hamlike fist came up to smash against his jaw.

  Pierre was smiling as he stepped from the red tumbrel. The roar of the crowd seemed deafening, louder than he’d ever heard before. He was first this day, and he mounted the steps without the help of the executioner’s assistants. He could see Granston standing in the front row, watching him, and perhaps the others were there too—the boy Gustave, and old Arnoux, and even Rosette.

  He stretched out on the wooden plank as they bound him in place, and then felt his neck imprisoned by the wooden collar. His eyes were cast down toward the wicker basket. “A bit to the left with the basket,” he cautioned the executioner. “I saw a head bounce out recently.”

  The executioner moved it an inch to the left, gazing at him in silence.

  Then Pierre was able to relax, to savor this moment he had anticipated for so long. This was the greatest ecstasy of all, greater than watching it done or even doing it himself. This—

  He heard the blade begin to fall as the crowd roared.

  Yes, this!

  Now now now no—

  Kin

  Charles L. Grant

  The thing is, the thing that I do, it’s the kind of thing you can’t plan, you know what I mean? It’s like spontaneous. It happens. Sometimes you don’t even know it until it’s almost over. You think too much about it, it takes all the fun out of it. I remember the time when I was in college and this junior, his name was Gary, he wanted to take some little freshman girl, Esther something, to dinner. So he spends the whole week doing all the conversations in his head, everything from the first phone call asking her out to what he’s gonna say over dessert, to the line he’s gonna use when he gets her back to the dorm. What a joke. By the time the night was over, he was so wrecked from steering things to the way he’d planned it, I think she was ready to kill him.

  Planning is what kills, man, planning.

  What you gotta do is, you gotta let things flow. Like you’re on a river or something, you know what I mean? You keep your eye on the banks, look out for crap popping up outta the water, stuff like that; but as long as you’re going the same way the water is, you’re gonna get where you’re going sooner or later, so why waste sweat?

  Like the woman in St. Louis. Out at the Arch place, that thing they built by the river. We’d sort of met at the park there, and got in line about the same time to take the ride up inside that Arch. No special reason. We just rode up so we could see all to hell and back, she was sighing and hanging on, laughing like a dope. Over at the horizon there was a bunch of clouds, black and gray, if you took a quick look you’d think they were mountains or something. She pointed them out, said she prayed that storm wasn’t coming in our direction, and wondered what would happen if a hurricane came along. Stuff like that. She got herself so spooked, it was easy, you know, to get her to stick close. I played the Big Man.

  “Hey, don’t worry,” I said. “No sweat. A hurricane comes, I’ll just blow it back the other way.”

  She laughed and kissed the back of my hand. No kidding. And I laughed back and said, “So you free for dinner?”

  She gave me the kind of look, you know what it is, it makes you feel like you got your fly open, something like that, and then, seeing that I wasn’t no ax murderer, anything like that, she says, “Sure.”

  “And if a hurricane comes,” I told her on the way back down, “we can hide under the table and eat olives until the Red Cross comes and saves us.”

  Dumb; but she laughed.

  That’s the important thing—she laughed.

  So we found this place on the river, some kind of fish and steak place, and we had a pretty good time. I told her I was a computer guy, the one that makes the machines do fancy pictures and stuff, and she thought that was the greatest thing since sliced bread. Very impressed, if you know what I mean. She didn’t know much about them, the computers, but they had them at her office and she was a little scared of them. So we talked about that for a while, and by the time dessert came, we was pretty good friends.

  She didn’t ask me back to her place.

  I didn’t even hint that I wanted to go.

  Planning, see?

  If I’d planned to go back with her, all them signals she wasn’t sending would’ve blown me right out of the water.

  I’d’ve had to put on the pressure. And pressure’s no good. They get all bent outta shape, you put the pressure on.

  So I didn’t.

  She relaxed.

  I said I was heading west in a couple of days, Colorado, would it be all right if I called her once before I went, maybe have lunch or something. See, no dinner. That’s at night. Night’s spooky too. Daylight, everyone can see everyone else, no pressure, no problem.

  She said sure.

  She died.

  Hell, if I’d planned it that way, it wouldn’t have happened. The poor thing’d still be in St. Louis, married, couple of kids, wondering whatever happened to the nerd that took her out to dinner that time. Sad. Really sad.

  Like Lillie, down in New Orleans. What a case. I was down by the riverfront hotels and that convention center, riding the ferry back and forth across the Mississippi, only a ten-minute trip, something like that, nothing fancy on the boat, but it was warm. Hell, it was hot, and the breeze from that boat was the only good thing going that day. She was at the railing on the top passenger deck, just staring at the water and smoking up a storm. I saw her, knew right away she was going to jump soon as she got the nerve.

  “Got a light?” I asked, no
t too close, but close enough for her to hear over the engines. Woman damn near fell over the side right then, but when she saw this guy, a not-old probably tourist type but without all the cameras and stuff, she kind of shrugged and handed over her lighter. I lit up, handed it back, watched the river and smoked, watched the hotels on the bank get big, and small, and big again, until she turned to me, I swear to God, and she said, “If you jump, you’ll die.”

  “Ain’t gonna jump,” I said without looking at her. “Just watching the water go along, that’s all.”

  “Boring.”

  “Peaceful.” I glanced over, then looked back at the river. “It knows where it’s going, isn’t in no hurry to get there, it’s going to get there anyway, no matter all the damn boats and ships and stuff gets in its way.”

  “Yeah,” she grumbled, “but they keep putting up dams and locks.”

  I pointed at a deep curve in the bank. “They can put up mountains, sooner or later it gets around them. Once in a while, it even knocks them down.”

  She turned and stared at me, kind of with one eye partly closed. “Are you a preacher or something?”

  “No. I work with computers. Not the most exciting job in the world, not like hunting sharks or anything, but they do teach you there’s always a way around if you’re patient enough.” I nodded at the water. “The river’s patient.” I grinned. “And it always gets around.”

  “Are you hungry?”

  I almost said no.

  I didn’t.

  We got off the ferry on the Canal Street side and walked up to the Quarter. I’d been there a few times in the past, and despite all the changes, it never changes. We found this open-air restaurant and had a late lunch. We didn’t talk much, but I knew she was looking at me all the time, trying to figure me out.

  I already had her figured out.

  I could almost see the suckers on her fingers, the scars they’d leave on my arms when they clung there for a while. But she was pleasant enough, we had a few laughs, had a few drinks, joked about the tourists gawking at us as if we were natives.

  They were in too much a hurry, see, to go from one place to another. Time, in New Orleans, ain’t a hurrying thing.