Spiderman 3 Read Free

seen Harry in the theater. Now he realized why. Peter had naturally assumed that, considering Harry's wealth, he would have obtained the best seats in the house. Instead, as Peter made his way up the aisle, he spotted Harry coming down the stairs that led to the balcony. Harry had obviously wanted to see without being seen.
    Just as Harry reached the bottom of the stairs, some instinct caused him to glance Peter's way. For half a moment they locked eyes, and then Harry pushed his way past several people in front of him. He nearly knocked an old woman off her walker as she was busy extolling the virtues of Cole Porter and wondering loudly why they didn't write tunes like that anymore. When Harry shoved her aside, she surprised Harry, Peter, and the people she was with by snapping out an extremely explicit profanity at him. Harry blinked in surprise and then moved away from her. He was out the door, and Peter found his way blocked by the same elderly people. He looked around desperately, spotted an opening on the upper section of the wall next to them, and prayed no one was watching too closely. With one quick move he jumped six feet in the air, rebounded with his feet off the wall, and landed in front of the slow-moving party. Their heads snapped around in confusion, since Peter had been little more than a blur in the corners of their eyes. By the time they had any real inkling of where he'd been, he was already gone and out the front door of the theater.
    Peter got there just in time to see Harry stepping into the backseat of his town car. The chauffeur was standing there, waiting for Harry, holding the door for him.
    "Harry! Harry, wait!" Peter called as the chauffeur slammed the door closed. Peter looked at Harry's driver, and to his surprise, something akin to sympathy was there. It underscored for Peter that Harry's staff had to be aware of the slow deterioration of their employer's personality. They must have felt, in their own way, as helpless as Peter. Probably worse, since a number of them had served the Osborns for many years and had known Harry since he was very young.
    How many people are you going to hurt, Harry? What's it going to take before you let me in?
    Peter brought his face close to the window as the chauffeur headed for the driver's side. The window was tinted, but Peter could still make out Harry on the inside looking out at him. "Don't keep locking me out. You need to hear the truth."
    Peter couldn't be sure, but he thought that something in Harry's expression just then seemed to be wavering. It was as if he wanted to hear what Peter had to say but couldn't bring himself to do so. Or perhaps there was even more to it than that.
    Then Harry's gaze shifted. It was the strangest thing, but it looked to Peter as if Harry was staring intently at his own reflection. He had no idea why Harry would possibly do that. A change passed over Harry's face then, and whatever curiosity or compassion or consideration might have been in his expression moments earlier was now replaced by distance and harshness. The window rolled down barely half an inch, just enough so that Harry could be sure that his voice would be heard. "Tell it to my father," he said coldly. "Raise him from the dead."
    "I'm your friend," Peter said desperately. "Your father was my friend." That might have seemed insane to say, at least on the surface, but as far as Peter was concerned, it was the truth. Norman Osborn had been helpful and supportive to Peter… sometimes, it seemed, even more than he was with his own son, an inequity that Harry had appeared to take in stride. That was the person whom Peter thought of as Norman Osborn. Not the crazed, cackling, flying demon into which circumstance and accident had transformed him. The real Norman Osborn, Peter's friend and Harry's dad, died the day the Green Goblin was born. Everything else after that had been the unfolding of a Greek tragedy.
    The window slid back up, and seconds later the car pulled