Keith DeCandido: Four Walls

The summer weather had darkened the armpits of Sullivan's white T-shirt with sweat. Sullivan's broad shoulders and well-muscled arms filled the T-shirt well, which made up for his pale baby face and shaggy blond hair. From the neck up, he looked like a twelve-year-old. People still called him "Junior" even if they didn't know that Terry, like Flack, was named for his father.

The two Juniors had spent many of their formative years at each others' homes, as both Donald Flack Sr. and Terry Sullivan Sr. were NYPD. They both came on in 1978 (the year both their sons were born), when then-new mayor Ed Koch was trying to increase police recruitment in the wake of fiscal disaster, the "Son of Sam" murders, and the '77 blackout. Flack remembered lots of shared dinners throughout the eighties with the Sullivans and other cop families, their fathers bitching about Howard Beach and Mayor Koch or singing the praises of the new Springsteen album.

Sullivan and Flack were expected to follow in their daddies' footsteps, but only Flack did at first. He remembered young Terry idolizing his father and talking about becoming a cop just like his old man, right up until Sullivan Sr. asked his wife for a divorce in 1992. After that, Sullivan wanted nothing to do with his father. When Flack was a rookie, Sullivan was working as a bouncer at strip clubs.

Eventually, though, Sullivan grew weary of that life and realized that he still wanted to be a cop. He'd told Flack that he "felt stupid" going to the Academy in his late twenties, so he decided to become a corrections officer instead. Currently, he was assigned to the Richmond Hill Correctional Facility on Staten Island. The diner where they were meeting was right by the Manhattan end of the Staten Island Ferry. After the ferry, Sullivan would take the long ride on the S74 bus to RHCF.

Changing the subject, Flack said, "Don't expect quick service. Took the waitress half an hour to-"

Before he could finish, Doris came over. "Hey, Terry. You know this flatfoot?"

Sullivan grinned. "Yeah, I grew up with this guy."

"Whyn'tcha tell me you were with him?" Doris asked Flack, her voice making his ribs throb more.

"Didn't think I needed to."

Doris shrugged and looked at Terry. "The usual?"

"Yeah, and refill my pal's coffee, will ya?"

"Sure."

After Doris walked off, Flack shook his head and chuckled. "Swear to God, Terry, I been a cop almost ten years, that's the first time I heard anyone use the word flatfoot in real life."

"So you gonna take that pill or what, Donnie?"

Flack gritted his teeth. "Or what."

"C'mon, I can tell you're in pain. It's like that time when you cracked a rib during that basketball game and wouldn't tell anybody."

"We had a game to finish." Flack grinned. "I was the only guy on our team who could play worth a damn, so I had to stay in."

Sullivan laughed, resting his arm along the back of the seat, one meaty hand clamped over the end. "Yeah, we sucked pretty hard, didn't we?"

"What's this 'we' crap? I was fine."

"You still play?"

Flack nodded. "I do some work with the YMCA, helpin' out the kids there."

"And if one of them was on some kind of medication, would you let 'em get away with not taking it?"

Rolling his eyes, Flack said, "You ain't letting this go, are you?"

"Hell no. I wanna see you take that pill. And don't try any tricks-I stand over nurses who give out meds every day to people a lot more devious than your ass, and I know every trick in the book."

Flack raised an eyebrow. "Every trick?" He picked up the coffee and lifted it gingerly toward his lips, trying to ignore the pain in his ribs, finishing off the drink in anticipation of Doris's return with a refill.

"Please, it's like these guys think we're morons. I swear to Christ, every single newbie that comes in tries to hide it under their tongue the first time. And they keep tryin' to palm the things, like we ain't gonna look in their hands. Unbelievable." Sullivan shook his head. "Then again, if they had brains, they probably wouldn't be inside."

"Nah," Flack said, "just means their lawyer couldn't do a decent plea."

Sullivan shrugged. "If you say so."

"Trust me, I seen PDs that couldn't do a deal with Howie freakin' Mandel." Flack sighed. "Anyhow, I don't wanna take the pill, okay? Pain's not that bad," he lied.

Doris came back with a plate holding a slice of toast cut into two triangle-shaped slices, which she managed to hold in the same hand as an empty cup and a saucer. In the other hand, she grasped a round glass pot filled with coffee, steam rising through the brown plastic rim along the top of the pot. She put the plate in front of Sullivan-it made a light clink as the porcelain hit the Formica-and then did likewise with the cup and saucer, pouring Sullivan his coffee, then refilling Flack's. Then she walked off, giving Sullivan a smile and ignoring Flack.

"So," Sullivan said, "I see your boy Taylor got off."

Grateful for the change in subject, Flack said, "Course he got off, he was innocent. Dobson was bad news."

Clay Dobson was an architect who moonlighted as a serial killer. He was caught, arrested, and convicted-and then released a few years later when his arresting officer, Detective Dean Truby, was imprisoned. Truby was a dirty cop, and Flack knew it-in fact, Flack's notes to that effect had helped put Truby away. Mac Taylor had strong-armed Flack into turning over the notes, and Flack still hadn't completely forgiven Mac for forcing him to give up a member like that.

But that was the least of it. Dobson had money, which meant he had one of the good lawyers. Truby's incarceration put the detective's entire arrest record into question, and Dobson's lawyer felt that constituted reasonable doubt. A judge agreed, and Dobson was kicked.

Didn't take Dobson long to go back to his old habits. He killed one woman and had taken another, who was able to ID Dobson as her kidnapper. Mac tracked Dobson down, fought with him, cuffed him-and then, according to Mac, Dobson jumped off the roof, claiming he would take Mac down with him.

It almost worked, too. Mac was the subject of a hearing; it was all over the press. Ironically, it was Truby who saved the day-he had some dirt on Deputy Inspector Gerrard, and Mac used that to make sure he was cleared.

"I got a buddy up in Riker's," Sullivan said, "and he told me about Dobson. There's three types inside. There's the innocent guys who got screwed. There's the guilty guys who feel bad about what they did. Then there's the guilty guys who don't give a rat's ass. That's most of them, really."

"Dobson was one of those?" Flack asked.

Sullivan nodded. "Big-time. Your usual asshole, that's one thing, but my buddy told me when he heard what your boy Taylor said, about how he jumped to get back at Taylor? Said he bought it. Your boy couldn't have done anything different."

Flack said nothing.

He supported Mac. Mac was his friend. The first face Flack saw when he woke up in the hospital after the bombing was Mac's. And Flack knew that Sinclair, the chief of detectives, and Inspector Gerrard were trying to score points with the media and cover their own asses in the Dobson case. And Mac had every reason to be pissed off at Dobson, since it was because of Mac's actions that Dobson was sprung, and Mac felt responsible. Flack doubted he would have done anything differently if their positions were reversed.

But Mac also went after Dobson without telling anyone what he was doing, which was strike one. He didn't call for backup, strike two. And then he and Dobson got into a fistfight, which was strike three, and would've been strikes four, five, and six if they went up that high. You brawl with a suspect, and that's a get-out-of-jail-free card for the bad guy, because nothing you do after that will matter to the DA's office or the perp's lawyer. The cop beats the perp, the perp walks.