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Detective Don Flack stared at the lone pill that rattled around the bottom of the prescription bottle.
A cup of coffee sat on the Formica table in front of him, steam rising toward the ceiling in the air-conditioned diner. It had certainly taken long enough for the coffee to show up. The waitress -- a woman named Doris, according to the nameplate affixed to her bright pink uniform; her face was caked in enough makeup to make her look embalmed, her breath smelled like an ashtray, and her nasal voice threatened to decalcify Flack's spinal column -- had ignored him for quite a while before deigning to take his coffee order.
In theory, he'd wash the pill down with the coffee.
Assuming, of course, he could bring himself to dump that last pill out into his hand.
It had been a year. A year since the explosion that nearly killed him. A year since that idiot with the headphones who didn't hear the fire alarm. Flack ran back for him.
Then the world exploded.
When he was recovering in the hospital, after it was all over, Flack sometimes wondered what would have happened if that jackass hadn't been wearing those big, stupid noise-canceling headphones. Said jackass -- Flack could no longer recall his name, nor did he particularly wish to -- hadn't heard the fire alarm, hadn't heard the screams of panic, hadn't heard two dozen people running for the fire stairs, hadn't heard Flack and Detective Mac Taylor screaming that there was a bomb in the building.
You usually didn't find that level of obliviousness in New Yorkers. Certainly not since 9Ú11.
If not for that guy, Flack might've been in the stairwell. Or at least back with Mac, farther down the hallway. Mac got out of the explosion with only a few scrapes and bruises.
Flack almost died.
But he didn't. A few months in the hospital, and he was fit for duty. He tried to avoid situations where he'd have to take off his shirt in public, as the crisscross of scars wasn't particularly pretty. Stella Bonasera and Lindsay Monroe had both ribbed him about using the explosion to flirt with women, and they hadn't been entirely wrong -- but Flack hadn't shown anyone the scars.
The pain was near constant.
When it got bad, he was supposed to take the pills. But Flack defined bad differently from the docs. He avoided taking the pills. Taking the pills meant admitting to weakness.
But sometimes, Flack was weak.
Now, though, it had been a year, and a prescription bottle that was intended to last him six to eight weeks had finally run out.
When he got up this morning -- earlier than usual, since he was meeting a friend for coffee -- the pain was agonizing. That happened when the weather changed, sometimes. The last few days it had been unseasonably chilly, but this morning it was already eighty-eight degrees, and it was supposed to go up into the high nineties. Flack felt like someone had taken a hot knife and shoved it through his lower back up into his rib cage. (He'd been hanging around with Mac and his crime lab crew for too long -- he could actually picture that happening in gory detail, something he never used to think about before he made detective.)
But there was only one pill left.
If he took the last pill, he'd have to refill the prescription and get more.
Weakness again.
Donald Flack Jr. was the latest in a long line of cops, most recently Donald Flack Sr. Cops didn't admit to weakness. On the street, they can smell that. You don't let the assholes know that there's a single chink in your armor, because they will find it and they will nail you to the wall.
So Flack tried to avoid the pills.
"Y'know, Donnie, it's been my experience that the pills work better if you swallow 'em."
Looking up, Flack saw his breakfast companion approach the table. "Hey, Terry."
Terry Sullivan squeezed his massive frame into the vinyl-covered bench opposite Flack. Sweat beaded on his pale forehead. Indicating the pill bottle with his head, he asked, "That's from the bombing, right? What they gotcha on, Percs?"
Flack nodded, pocketing the bottle in his suit jacket.
"What, you ain't gonna take it?"
"Don't need it." Even as he said the words, Flack winced as he moved his arms.
Sullivan shook his head, his shaggy blond hair flopping around. "You're so full of it, those baby blues of yours're turning brown, Donnie. Take it from the human dispensary, they prescribed them things for a damn good reason. You're in pain -- take the painkillers."
"I'll be all right."
Like Flack, Terence Sullivan Jr. was dressed for work, though unlike Flack, he wasn't wearing his entire uniform. Not that Flack had a uniform per se, just the expected suit and tie. As for Sullivan, he wore clothes that identified him as a corrections officer of the state of New York -- at least, they did to Flack. He wasn't wearing the light-blue shirt that would have completed the outfit, as COs generally didn't wear the full uniform outside of prison walls, but he was wearing the dark blue slacks, black boots, weapon, and belt. Said belt was filled with key clips, pouches, a radio holder (the radio was property of the prison and stayed on-site), and a lot of other stuff that reminded Flack of his days in uniform. There were several reasons why Flack liked being plainclothes, and one of the biggies was not having to carry around half the world on your belt.
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...
