The Recidivists

by Mark Feggeler

About the Author: Mark Feggeler has written several books over the past decade, including three installments of the self-published Psi Squad series (Amazon). A New York native, he has called North Carolina home for 30 years.

Excerpt

Galine checked the street. No people. No cars. It was a cool, damp morning. She pulled up a frayed collar to shield her face from the weather and waited.

In a shabby apartment in a gray-faced building, Bryan Waller dressed for work. His mother called to wish him a happy birthday. She also thanked him for kicking out his whore of a wife earlier that year. He hadn’t. It was easier to let her think he had. She wasn’t a whore, either, or any of the other choice words his mother called her, but he certainly wasn’t any much the worse for her leaving. 

Forty years old, newly single, no kids, less than twenty thousand to his name and a middling career in a middling civil service job. His one and only leg up in life was the chief of police, an old school playmate lately trying his hand in real estate on the side. He helped get Bryan a spot on the planning and zoning board. It provided a small stipend and allowed Bryan to pull the occasional vote in the chief’s favor in exchange for minimal monetary reward. There was an important vote set for that night’s board meeting. The chief had called twice in recent days just to be sure it would go the way it should. He needn’t have worried. Bryan’s corruptness was the easy going, uninquisitive type. It was only zoning, after all, not anything important. If nothing else, it gave him ready access to a police patrol to run off vagrants from the homeless shelter down the street. 

Story Comments