Now You See It by Richard Matheson

blank.
    “What?”
he muttered.
    Abruptly, his legs lost strength and he fell to one knee, pulling loose from Cassandra’s grip. He twitched, looking startled as he wavered to his left.
    “What
is
it?” asked Cassandra.
    “I don’t …” His voice faded as he lost all balance and toppled to one side, crying out in pain as his left elbow banged on the hardwood floor, bearing the brunt of his weight.
    He collapsed onto his back, clutching at his elbow, looking dazed.
    “What’s
happening?”
Cassandra cried.
    She knelt beside him hurriedly and tried to help him up.
    She couldn’t; he had virtually no muscle control remaining. And, newly shocked, I knew exactly what had happened.
    Cassandra sensed it too, because she looked accusingly at Max.
    “What’s happening?” she demanded in a low, trembling voice.
    “Nothing much,” Max answered cheerfully. “He’s dying, that’s all.”
    Oh, Max
, I thought.
Son
.
    Harry was now too groggy to speak. He tried to sit up. It was impossible. His body was a dead weight, uncoordinated.
    “What have you done to him?”
Cassandra shrieked.
    Max smiled.
    “Ah, there’s the lovely irony, you see,” he told her. “I haven’t done a thing.”
    The smile vanished in an instant, leaving his face a mask of implacable venom.
    “You
did,” he said.
    The smile again, now—terribly—accompanied by a chuckle.
    “And he asked you to,”
he finished.
    Her gaze jumped to the empty glass.
    “Right on,” said Max.
    Cassandra strained to pull Harry to his feet. “I’ll get you to a doctor,” she muttered.
    “You’d only be driving a corpse into town,” Max told her.
    She looked at him, appalled. “You bastard,” she said. “You absolute bastard.”
    She saw the impossibility of getting Harry up and, with asudden movement, she pushed to her feet and strode quickly toward the entry hall.
    Max leaned back and reached beneath the desk.
My God, it isn’t over yet!
I thought in dismay. (How little I knew.)
    The door swung shut, slammed hard into its frame, and locked itself.
    Cassandra stopped in front of it. She tried to open it, then turned, a look of fury on her face.
    “And now—” said Max.
    Sliding off the desk, he circled it and moved to the mantelpiece, taking down the African blowgun.
    “—the
coup de main,”
he finished the sentence. “Surprise attack.”
    He lifted the blowgun to his lips and pointed it at Cassandra.
    She shrank back against the door, a look of panic on her face.
    Max blew.
    Cassandra jolted and gasped. (Inside, I did the same.) She looked down at her chest.
    A small feathered dart was protruding from her right breast.
    With a sickened noise, she jerked it out and looked at it in disbelief.
    A sudden numbness struck her and she dropped it, wavered, slumping back against the door.
    Both of them, Max?
I thought in horror across the room. Harry was emitting tiny, breathless sounds.
    Max set the blowgun back in place above the mantelpiece, then looked at Cassandra.
    “I wanted both of you together when I did this,” he told her. “Terrorize Harry first, of course. I needed that for my soul’s sake.
    “But the two of you together for this moment. This most rewarding and fulfilling …”
    His voice trailed off; he didn’t look rewarded
or
fulfilled. He looked completely desolated.
    “… and
tragic
moment,” he finished in a broken voice.
    Cassandra tried to remain erect, but couldn’t.
    As though her limbs had been reduced to jelly, she slid downward on the door and landed in a crumpled heap, eyes staring, mouth ajar; a hideous sight. Despite my feelings toward her, I would never have wished this for her.
    Harry made a gagging noise, and Max and I looked over at him.
    Max walked around the desk and moved to where his agent lay, slowly writhing, eyes—like Cassandra’s—staring glassily, breath a failing sibilance.
    “So, dear friend,” said Max.
    Harry tried to lift his head—could not. He stared up sightlessly.
    Then his head fell