Judgement Day

by Andrew Neiderman

  “Oh, I waited.”

  “What?”

  “We thought it was a little too PG-13 for your daughter, so I waited for them to leave.”

  “It’s not PG-13 or R. It’s S, for stupid,” Warner said, now assuming the tone of a trial lawyer pressing home his argument.

  The man shrugged. “Still, you don’t want to miss it,” he said, “and chances are, your wife and daughter will see it from below.”

  Unable not to be curious now, Warner stepped out onto the patio and gazed around at the almost clear New York spring sky. There were just a few clouds that resembled someone’s puffed breath in freezing weather.

  “So? Where do I look?” he asked, not hiding his irritation. He wasn’t in a forgiving mood.

  “Turn right,” the man said.

  Warner turned right but saw nothing unusual, nothing happening. There were just a few more clouds. He shook his head. “Look, I—” He stopped speaking when he suddenly felt the man’s arms around his legs from the knees down. The grasp was steely tight, slapping his legs together so hard and fast his knees stung. “What the hell . . .”

  He was quickly lifted higher than the railing. Besides being embarrassed at how easily he was being lifted, he was absolutely shocked. A fist of panic closed around his heart. He pushed down on the man’s shoulders to break free but to no avail. In fact, his action only helped raise him higher.

  “Let go of me!” he cried, squirming and feeling foolish. The man was handling him as if he was half his weight and had a child’s muscles. Pounding on the man’s head didn’t seem to bother him, either. Warner hit him as hard as he could in the left temple, but it didn’t even make him twitch, and it felt as if he had broken his hand. The panic brought more blood to his face as he was lifted higher and higher. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “Seeing if you can fly,” the man said, and threw him over the railing as easily as tossing a penny.

  1

  John Milton was casually leaning against his black stretch limousine, his arms folded across his chest, looking up at Warner Murphy’s building. He saw him flailing in the air like a wounded bird as he began his rapid descent. With all the traffic and usual noise, no one could hear his screams, no one but John.

  “There’s a fall worse than the descent into hell,” he whispered. His ebony-black eyes turned a shade of ruby as a soft smile rippled across his perfectly shaped, strong lips. His rich, light caramel complexion looked metallic in the late May morning sunshine. Although his hair was thick and richly ebony, it was the shade of burned wood in the sunlight. When he moved into shadows or darkness, his hair became more like his eyes, ruby.

  Warner’s body splattered like an egg on the roof of a parked S-class Mercedes sedan, blowing out some side windows that then exploded on the street and sidewalk. The shards danced like spilled diamonds over the pavement. Ironically, it was the Mercedes that had been hired to take him to the office. Well, maybe not so ironic, John thought.

  People walking on the sidewalk screamed, cowered, or leaped up as if they had stepped onto a bed of fire and then ran, assuming it was some terrorist bombing. The brakes of taxis and other automobiles screeched like a flock of wounded geese peppered with the buckshot of gleeful hunters. Miraculously, there were no accidents, but the subsequent shouting of drivers and pedestrians was like a chorus of psych-ward patients ripped out of the comfort of their own quiet insanity and pushed into one another on a busy New York street.

  John smiled at Charon, his Egyptian driver, when he came out of the coffee shop with two take-out lattes, holding them up as if they were torches for a parade.

  “You missed it,” John told him. Charon handed him his latte.

  They both stood there, gazing at the commotion, the shouts and screams intensifying as usually oblivious New Yorkers were now rushing to get a look and more people realized what had happened. The Mercedes driver had stepped out of the vehicle and was so shocked that he was having trouble keeping his balance. He looked drunk. He was certainly over the limit when it came to distress and fright. It brought a bigger crowd.

  Voyeurism always pleased John Milton. It was like icing on a cake. It forever confirmed for him that evil, destruction, and violence were fascinating to people, something that had long, long ago convinced him that he couldn’t lose. He smiled at Charon.

  Charon was just under six foot five, with wide, firm shoulders that strained the seams of his uniform jacket. He had a face that looked molded out of grayish-brown clay, the face of a golem. He was a soulless shell with lifeless brownish-black eyes. Because of the glow behind them, they resembled two pinholes in the wall of castle Pandemonium inside which flames burned eternally. One look at him, and any observer would conclude that those eyes had never reflected a moment of repentance, an ounce of regret or compassion. They were eyes that had grown accustomed to violence. They were orbs of indifference. Nothing surprised him or upset him. He didn’t even blink.

  “Not bad,” John said after taking a sip of his coffee and holding up the cup. “I’ll have to remember this café.”

  Charon said nothing. He didn’t even nod. He continued to stare at the commotion and drink his latte, whereas John’s face was inflamed with excitement and pleasure. Off to the right, they could hear the mournful scream of a police siren growing louder and then another and another, like a chorus of the sleeping dead jolted into an undesired resurrection. A fire engine jetted out of its garage nearby, moaning like a medieval beast of fantasy abruptly disturbed in its cave. More pedestrians snapped out of their robotic morning trek to work and walked faster now toward the gruesome scene playing out like the final reel of some all-too-familiar movie.

  Death in the city, in all cities, was far more common than in rural and suburban areas. It had the same instantaneous terrifying effect on witnesses as it did elsewhere, but because it was so ordinary here, even a violent death was practically shrugged off moments later. After all, traffic and business demanded attention, and like some impatient and aggravated snake, it twisted and turned until it was back into the flow, the slow-moving vehicles now trickling through the streets like spilled blood.

  John brushed down the front of his navy stretch wool two-button suit jacket and tugged gently on his black tie. His black onyx ring seemed to catch a wandering ray of sunlight and glittered back at the mostly sunny sky as if rejecting it. He looked up, but he didn’t squint. To him, the small puffs of clouds to the east looked as if they had paused in their monotonous journey from one horizon to another so they could look curiously down at the shenanigans of these earthly creatures foolishly set loose on the world.

  “Don’t tell me death has no sting,” John told Charon, and laughed.

  Charon continued to stare ahead and sip some more of his latte silently.

  The deliveryman who had visited Murphy suddenly appeared in front of the building, looked in John’s direction, and then started away. By the time he reached the southwest corner of the block, he had begun to evaporate. Before he turned, he had completely disappeared.

  John sighed. “How wondrous are my works.”

  He looked at Charon, who evinced the first signs of seeing and hearing by nodding slightly.

  “Something like this puts me in the mood to cruise,” John said. “But we have an appointment, do we not? We always have an appointment. Business is brisker than it’s ever been, and I’m including the Middle Ages in my estimation. I’m actually overworked, but whom would I complain to, Charon?”

  Charon nodded again and opened the door for him. Then he got in, put the coffee down in the holder at his side, and started the engine.

  “One more moment,” John commanded, and he gazed out at the first responders moving like ants around a glob of honey. “Death be proud for thou art mighty and dreadful,” he recited, rewriting the famous poem by John Donne. “Okay, Charon. Onward. You just don’t appreciate my sense of humor. I’m wasting my hot breath.”

  The limousine entered the flow of traffic
and turned left at the first traffic light. As they made their way across town, John flicked on the stereo and began to play Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana. He watched the pedestrians and the traffic through his tinted windows.

  When they reached Eighth Avenue, they started downtown. The contrast between the properties here and on the Upper East Side was stark. He looked out his window like a visitor from another planet, amazed at the seemingly aimless movement of some people, the sprawling homeless bubbling in doorways or sprawled on graffiti-scarred benches, the occasional alcoholic clutching his bottle in a paper bag like some Neanderthal grasping precious rocks or bones, and the small knots of unwashed youths unfolding like fists up and down the sidewalks and moving in and out of the crowd, knocking and bumping, resembling explorers searching for some reason to keep traveling.

  Off in the distance, the trail of a military jet cut a seam in the blue sky.

  John saw it through the moon roof and smiled. “I’m back where I belong,” he said. “Thank you for making it all possible.”

  His laughter, much louder now, trailed behind him like smoke and, like smoke, was caught in an uplifting breeze. It rose to the fifth floor of an apartment building, seeped through the opening in a bedroom window, and woke Stoker Martin, who groaned and slapped at the rays of sunlight jetting into his dingy bedroom like sharp darts, stinging his face and bare chest. He sat up quickly, coughed, choking on some sticky phlegm, and looked over at Tanya Green. His ex-wife’s hairdresser was always good for another New Year’s Eve, as he put it. He had a lot to celebrate. It would take him, even with his wasteful ways and off-track betting, a good, long while to spend the money he had earned with two quick movements of his trusty right trigger finger recently.

  He had been suspicious about this particular offer when it came. It sounded too good, nearly double his usual fee. How did this obviously very wealthy client find him? To be more specific, how did he or she find or know Skip, who had brought him the gig? He was always curious about that. How well known was he, and what risks did the information out there bring him? When he had voiced some concern, because the amount of money actually frightened him, Skip came up with what he had to admit was a very clever way of protecting himself.

  “Your employer will be waiting for you when you come out of the building,” he said. “He’s an asshole who wants to be sure you’ve earned your money. You’d think he’d avoid being seen with you.”

  “I don’t like that, Skip. I like being anonymous. That’s why I work with you.”

  “Right, except I came up with something I’ve advised before with some of my other mechanics.”

  “And what’s that?” Stoker asked.

  “When you come out, you give him your pistol.”

  “Huh? Why?”

  “Tell him he has to hold it for you. You wipe it clean, even the bullets. If he doesn’t wipe it afterward, his prints will be on the weapon.”

  “Oh.”

  “And he’ll have it in his possession. If he ever gets picked up or accused and tries to lessen his involvement by fingering you, he’s got a problem. He has the gun, and he was at the scene of the crime.”

  “Not bad, Skip. Thanks. Good thinking.”

  “That’s what I’m paid for, good thinking.”

  Stoker nodded. Everyone was more than a little paranoid and rightly so. Skip was as D-and-D as the next guy. Deaf-and-dumb was as natural as breathing to the gang, as he liked to think of his shadowy friends.

  Relaxing now, he lay back and smiled to himself. It always amazed him how his own thoughts amused him. The gang? How could he call those guys that? When would he stop being a teenager? Never, probably. He recognized that being a loner all his life, he secretly hungered for trustworthy friends, buddies, especially a best friend. He couldn’t even find that in a wife, but realizing that fact convinced him that selfishness was good and morality was an illusion imposed on the stupid.

  When he took the time to really think about it, as he was doing now, he realized that even the legitimate work he had attempted for nearly eight years was lonely. He was naturally drawn to all things desolate and isolated. His one great accomplishment, besides his talent with weapons, was acquiring the skill and the license to drive a gas tanker, but the work meant hours on the road alone and stopping to eat at roadside restaurants, also alone. He was talking aloud to himself all the time, and sometimes, even when he was among other people, he would slip and voice his thoughts aloud. It was pretty damn depressing having only yourself as a real friend, but who else could he trust?

  Tanya groaned. “Pull down the shade,” she muttered. “Shit, Jesus, Stoker, what is it, six or something?”

  He glanced at the clock on his night table. “Nearly nine,” he said.

  She had her head buried under the blanket. Her legs were exposed up to the knees. Why in hell would you tattoo the backs of your calves? Why would you tattoo any part of yourself that you couldn’t see easily yourself? And the tattoos, lizards crawling up. It was creepy. What was worse than looking at the broad you were with the morning after? Mornings were slaps in the face as far as he was concerned. Fantasies, good dreams, and all the hope you had harvested the night before and expected to fulfill the next day popped like an overheated light bulb. Disappointment put the taste of the crust of burned bread in his mouth.

  He tugged roughly on the blanket, exposing Tanya’s naked butt, and then whacked it so hard his palm stung. She cried out, her curses unleashed like dammed-up muddy water breaking free and rushing in every direction.

  He laughed. “I’m getting up,” he said. “I need a shower.”

  “You need more than a shower,” she muttered. “You need sandpaper.”

  “Ha-ha.”

  He scrubbed his cheeks with his palms and walked to the window to look down at the Street of Scum, as he called it. “So why the hell don’t you pick up and move out?” he asked himself in a loud whisper. “To where? Beverly Hills? Worth Avenue? El Paseo?” He knew all the high-priced, upscale, famous streets, but he felt uncomfortable there, felt like a stranger, an illegal immigrant, whenever he walked on any of them.

  He had left home at seventeen and hadn’t spoken to his parents for nearly twenty years. He didn’t even know if either or both of them were alive. From time to time, he wondered about his younger brother, Wade. He’d be twenty-two now. What could have become of him? He wasn’t retarded. They’d called it something else, auto-testic or something. He remembered the way he would look at him sometimes and wonder, Do I have something wrong with me, too? Something not so easily seen?

  Stoker had never had much faith in his genes. His father was always struggling to make ends meet, even as a plumber with all the stories about plumbers getting such high fees. His mother worked at odd jobs, sometimes in the school cafeteria and sometimes in the local diner. Both of them looked shopworn around the dinner table. They were aging so fast that it was frightening. It was like taking a meal with a pair of zombies. In the end, what was he running away from? “Nothing much,” he told himself. He had no regrets. “I have no regrets.”

  “What?” Tanya asked, turning to look at him. She had heard his loud whispers. “What are you mumbling about? You’re always talking to yourself. And why the fuck are you standing there naked by the window? Anyone looking up from the street will see you.”

  “Who gives a shit?” he replied, and went to take his shower.

  In the bathroom, he stood before the mirror for a few moments and looked at himself. His face seemed to metamorphose into the shocked face of the man he had killed a week and a half ago. He saw the whole scene being replayed in his mirror as if it was a TV screen. He had slipped into the building and easily gotten into the apartment. There was his mark, relaxing in his soft easy chair in his plush living room of expensive furniture and carpets, art on the walls that belonged in museums, cabinets of expensive crystal, and one hell of a nice media tower. He was listening to some classical music that to Stoker sounded like one note repeated mo
notonously. Classical music, except for that one with the cannons firing, always annoyed him.

  The man wore a burgundy smoking jacket and had a tumbler of Scotch or something in his hand. His brown and gray hair was stylishly cut, and he seemed to have a perfect tan. It was like destroying a work of art, Stoker vaguely thought. What was he, fifty-five, maybe sixty?

  “What the hell . . .” the soon-to-be-dead rich man said. “Who are you? How did you get in here?”

  “Special delivery,” he replied, sounding serious. He loved it when he could use that line and loved the confusion on their faces. Could it be special delivery?

  “What?”

  There was nothing else to say. He pumped two thirty-eights into the handsome and otherwise contented face and then left the way he had come, touching little even with his gloved hands. And how about those plastic bags over his shoes? Was that a brilliant move or what? He had seen the forensics unit wearing them on a TV show recently.

  He took them off outside the elevator and slipped out of the building through a basement exit. Outside, he came face-to-face with his employer, as previously arranged. The guy looked as if he was going to pass out. His lips were trembling so badly that Stoker thought he was freezing despite the warm temperature. He was dressed in a suit and tie and looked as if he had just come from a business meeting.

  “Mr. Martin? Skip sent me,” he said, as if those were passwords.

  “So?” Stoker said.

  “Is it done?” he asked.

  “I didn’t come here to play bridge. Here,” Stoker said. He was still wearing the gloves.

  The man looked at the weapon. “I don’t understand.”

  “You hold on to this, see. I’ll come by for it in a few weeks.”

  Stoker shoved the gun into his hands. The idiot almost dropped it. “But . . .”

  “Just do what you’re told.”

  “This is the actual gun?”

  “What the fuck do you think, it’s a replica? Be careful with it. It’s got a hair trigger. You’ll shoot off your dick.”