The Takeover by Stephen W. Frey

Author:Stephen W. Frey [Frey, Stephen W.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2020-03-24T00:00:00+00:00

17

Rain, driven by violent gusts of wind, pounded the windows of Falcon’s two-bedroom apartment. He opened the living room window as far as it would go, kneeled on the parquet floor, and pressed his nose against the damp screen. He surveyed 82nd Street from his perch ten stories above it. Far below, people scurried to their jobs. Hunched beneath umbrellas of all sizes and colors, they careened off one another in their mad rush to get to work.

As he peered down at them, Falcon was reminded of those childhood times when he had been condemned to the indoors by his father for a violation of some trivial household rule, forced to watch playmates outdoors from the window of his room. Charlie Richards. His father. Buddy, they called him down at the foundry. Buddy the bastard. Never smiled, never tried to make friends with anyone. Which was why so few people attended his wife’s funeral. Nobody cared.

Falcon swallowed. His mother had been a sweet woman, her main concern the family—Buddy, Andrew, and the little girl, Sara. But Buddy was a tough man. And mean. He had abused her constantly. Perhaps it was better that she had run off the road that night coming back from a visit to her mother’s home in Trenton. Falcon had always wondered whether it had really been an accident. There were no skid marks in front of the tree. But she would have known that she was killing Sara too—and she would never have done that.

Jenny’s mother had died young also, one of the many things that had drawn Andrew to her. They had talked for hours about how it had affected Jenny growing up, making her stronger in some ways, weaker in others. About how she was convinced that someday they would be reunited in the afterlife. And in all that time Falcon had never told Jenny about his mother’s terrible accident. Because he could never allow himself to become that close to anyone.

Falcon focused on one of the figures below him. He was different. He had no umbrella and was in no mad rush to get anywhere. In fact, he lay sprawled atop a blue sedan, arms raised to the heavens, laughing hysterically as the skies poured down on him. He recognized this man. It was West Side Willy, a huge, homeless man who regularly terrorized Upper West Side residents with his demands for cash and his filthy, intimidating appearance. Once a week the police would arrest West Side Willy for disturbing the peace or indecent exposure, but inevitably he’d be back on the street within twenty-four hours because he never committed a serious crime—which was nothing short of rape or murder in New York.

Suddenly, with no warning, the huge man leaped from the hood of the car and, screaming like a maniac, raced crazily at a group of people huddled together awaiting the crosstown bus. The human mass parted as he tore through them, then rehuddled immediately, slightly closer together now, for protection.

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