Джозеф Хеллер - Maximum Impact

“Doncha worry, Mista Pace,” Howard was saying. “I’m goin’ fuh help.”

Pace looked up the sloping floor in the direction the two assailants were running. He saw them jump into a light-blue van backed into a space near the top of the incline. He couldn’t see their faces—the world was coming at him in too many waves of sickening blur—but when the truck pulled out onto the ramp, he saw clearly that its right front quarter was crumpled, and he saw what appeared to be slashes of a lighter-colored paint ground into the original blue. He squinted to see the license plate but all he got were dark letters and numbers on a light field. Maybe Maryland. Maybe anywhere.

He gently lowered his head to the cement floor, taking care to keep the side with the deeply-lacerated cheek turned up, and watched the back of the van climb and circle around to the right, out of sight. He realized they’d intended to make him victim number 337 in the Sexton tragedy, and but for Howard’s timely arrival, they would have succeeded.

You bastards. You goddamned bastards!

And then the world winked out.

Chappy Davis hunched over the morning papers spread across a small table at the end of the living room where a four-lamp chandelier, with bulbs designed to look like candle flames, dropped from the ceiling, denoting the space as the dining area of the Maryland townhouse. Under orders, he’d taken the morning off to deal with the men who’d been sent to kill Steve Pace. His eyes played back and forth over the lines of the Times, but the connection to his brain was severed by anxiety and nothing his eyes saw registered with him.

Davis believed they were going too far this time. He believed it the night before, when he received the instructions and argued his position to no avail. He continued to believe it, fervently and fearfully. Pace had to be discouraged from further pursuit of the Sexton case, but you don’t kill a reporter without raising your risks exponentially. The woman and the girl were complicating factors. What if Pace couldn’t be taken alone? The order was to kill Pace on Monday and make the murder look like a mugging. Neither Pace’s girlfriend nor his daughter were to be hurt. But who knew those two psychotics from Baltimore? Was there any restraint in them? They weren’t above kicking in Pace’s apartment door and shooting everybody unlucky enough to be inside.

He hadn’t wanted to be part of this. It made him sick.

He pushed his chair back and went to the refrigerator, pulling out a bottle of orange juice and swigging down three fast gulps. Too much vodka the night before, drunk to blunt the impact of the assassination he’d ordered, had left a thick, thirsty taste in his mouth that only orange juice would cut.

Outside his kitchen window he saw seven little kids too young to be in school playing on the swings in the common area. Their laughs and shrieks of delight reached him, reminding him of the long-ago innocent years of his own life, when the only conspiracy that touched him was his older brother’s to watch a pubescent girl next door undress for bed each night. He smiled at the memory and slipped the bottle of orange juice back into the refrigerator as the telephone rang.

“Yes?”

“We got the mugging part done, but we got interrupted before we could kill him,” the voice said. “We had to get out before we could be identified.” There was no anxiety or regret in the voice at the other end of the line. The tone was as matter-of-fact as if it had been ordering a pizza. Davis, however, felt relieved. He’d had enough death for a while.

“How bad is he hurt?” the Senate aide asked.

“He’ll live. But for a coupla days he’ll regret it. We can try again later.”

Davis had an inspiration. “Maybe you won’t have to,” he said. “There might be another way. I’ll let you know.”

“So maybe you got what you needed after all,” said the voice. “Now we get what’s due us, right? In full.”

“Today?”

“Man, we don’t work on credit.”

They made arrangements for Davis to deliver $15,000 in cash an hour later to a man in a light-blue Ford van that would be parked in front of the south entrance to Woodward & Lothrop’s downtown store. Davis counted out the money from the stash in the false bottom of the fourth drawer of his bedroom wardrobe. He slipped a 150 hundred-dollar bills into a shoulder pouch lying on top of his dresser. Then he peeled off his clothes. He wasn’t dirty, but he stepped into his shower to try to soap away the general feeling that he was unclean.

It wouldn’t wash off. It was a feeling that long ago had penetrated his skin and soiled his soul.

It was hard to see across the riffling water because each disturbance on the surface caught the brilliant morning sunshine and beamed it back, a thousand tiny lasers knifing through his vision. He squinted and tried to make out the huge form on the opposite shore. But for some reason, it was dark on the other side, and he couldn’t distinguish details of the thing over there. Why was he the only one concerned about it? Mike, Kathy, and Sissy were sitting on the big stadium blanket spread out over the table rock above the high-water line, eating sandwiches and fruit. Every time he tried to get their attention, either they didn’t hear him or they laughed and ignored his concern. He saw himself imploring them to put the food back in the picnic hamper and hurry away with him; the thing across the water was coming for them. And it wouldn’t take long for it to get there. After all, the water was… what? A stream, a lake, a river? He wasn’t certain. It looked wide, but he could see all the way across.

He heard the sound of a large object hitting water, and he spun, straining to see what it was. But there was nothing his eyes could make out through the curtain of dancing lasers except the darkness on the distant shore. Or was it on the distant shore? It was moving toward them, a murky blackness creeping across the water in their direction, overtaking and snuffing out the lasers as it progressed, swallowing the beautiful daylight, hiding something hideous and deadly in its shroud. It was coming for them. Hurry, he pleaded with them. Please, get up and let’s get out of here. Leave the food. Get up and run.

Run!

He looked over his shoulder and saw that half the width of the riffling water had been consumed by the darkness and the monster within. But when he turned back, Mike and Kathy and Sissy were pouring lemonade and laughing, and someone new had joined them. Avery was there. It’s all right, Steve, he was saying. There’s nothing out there that’s going to hurt you. We’re all safe on this shore. Relax. Nothing can touch us here. Nothing.

No!

He knew they weren’t safe. He could feel the thing out there touch his mind with its ghastly intent and raise the hairs on the back of his neck in a salute to terror.

Now the blackness was nearing their shore. Without even turning to look into the face of his fear, he could feel it smothering the warmth of the sun and reaching out toward them.

Then Mike was gone. Vanished. He thought he heard a distant scream, the bloodcurdling cry of a wounded animal brought to ground, shrieking with pain and the knowledge of certain death. The dread crawled up his spine and squeezed his heart. He reached for Kathy and Sissy, determined to drag them to safety, but the blackness overtook him a moment before his hands could grasp theirs, walling him away. He felt a hot breath on his back and whirled to confront whatever it was, his arms thrown over his face. At first he could see nothing, but as his eyes became accustomed to the dark, he saw that his enemy was a man, a mere man. It had a man’s face, the face of someone he knew.