Four Walls

Jay Bolton still hated his job, but for the first time he thought it might actually be useful.

The last week had been pretty miserable. First the two DICs, then the fallout from it. Sure, Jay was one of the COs who gave Washburne a pass on his meds, but what else was he supposed to do? Sergeant Jackson had taken him and a bunch of other guys aside when Washburne first got put in here.

'We're getting a new guy today,' Jackson had said, 'name of Malik Washburne. He used to be a cop, name of Gregory Washburne, before he quit, became a towelhead, and started doing the Al Sharpton thing, only without the hair.' Jay had laughed at that. 'He's one of us, people, and we're gonna do whatever we can to make him as comfy as possible without going overboard. That means we give him a pass on things like meds-the guy's a Muslim, he doesn't do drugs, okay?'

'Why'd he let them give him the scrip, then?' Jay had asked.

'He didn't wanna rock the boat.'

Thinking back on it now, Jay realized that the answer was a stupid one. Washburne could've just refused the prescription, but instead he played the system. Which wouldn't have been so bad if it wasn't for the allergy.

At the time, though, it had seemed reasonable. And Jay went along with it. What the hell else was he supposed to do? The sergeant told him to do it, and nobody told him otherwise. Jay didn't want to get noticed or cause trouble, he just wanted to show up for work, collect a paycheck every two weeks, and go home and write.

Captain Russell and Uncle Cal Ursitti had been crawling up everyone's ass for the past two days, grilling people in the interrogation room the same way that those two NYPD guys had when Washburne and Barker died.

In the end, everyone was getting a letter of reprimand in their personnel file. They couldn't really do much else, since every CO in the place except for Andros was in on it. If they suspended everyone, they'd be screwed. Russell had made noise about staggering the suspensions, but Ursitti apparently convinced him that that was more trouble than it was worth. From what Sullivan told Jay, 'Mostly everyone was just trying to be good to someone who was really trying to reform himself. And he'd done a lotta good in the world 'fore he fell off the wagon.'

Jay had privately wondered if the families of the two people Washburne had killed would agree with that sentiment, but he didn't say that out loud.

Besides, he was grateful. If nothing else came out of this whole stupid thing, he'd finally figured out what his next novel was going to be about. He was going to abandon the current one-it wasn't going anywhere anyhow-and start all over by writing a police procedural. He'd learned a lot watching Taylor and his people work in the yard, and that was probably the way to go.

People loved books about crime solving. That would be cool.

The one person who did get supsended was Ciccone, but that was for letting Mulroney get away with making a shiv. Ciccone was appealing the suspension, though. That promised to make things ugly, because Jay just knew that Uncle Cal was going to make Ciccone's life a living hell for as long as the appeal lasted.

At the end of his shift, Jay went to the locker room along with Sullivan and Gibson. Uncle Cal met them at the door.

'Got news,' he said. 'There's gonna be another ball game.'

'You have got to be kidding me.'

'Yup. It was Dep Michaelson's idea.'

Jay frowned as he entered the locker room, Sullivan, Gibson, and Uncle Cal following. Gordon Michaelson was the deputy superintendent of programs, and he had been the one to call the original ball game between the Muslims and the skinheads 'the dumbest idea since Hitler invaded Russia.' The notion of having it had come in a memo from Albany that strongly suggested that the ball game was a good idea, based on the reports on tensions between the two factions in RHCF. Of course, that tension was only there because some judge let Karl Fischer be moved to medium security during his appeal, but Albany wanted to 'foster a commonality.' Jay had taken an informal poll of both the other COs and the cons, and nobody had a clue what that phrase actually meant. Still, according to Michaelson, it was used four times in the memo.

Uncle Cal said, 'Yeah, but now the dep's sold on the idea. See, he wants to call it the Malik Washburne Memorial Game.'

Jay blinked as he unbuttoned his blue shirt. 'That's actually not a bad idea.'

'Yeah,' Sullivan said. 'Fischer actually admitted out loud to respecting Washburne once. Thought I'd have a heart attack from the shock. Who knows, maybe they'll behave themselves.'

Smiling, Jay said, 'Might even foster a few commonalities.'

Uncle Cal barked a laugh. 'Let's not push it. Anyhow, the game's tomorrow at one, assuming it don't rain. You three are all on it, along with Andros.'

Jay winced. So did Gibson.

Sullivan was more verbal: 'Aw, c'mon, LT, that guy's poison!'

'No, he's not-he's a CO just like us. And if you assholes weren't playing your stupid-ass head games, a good man would still be alive. So live with it.'

With that, Uncle Cal left. Sullivan and Gibson started bitching about Andros and about Ursitti and about any number of other things. Jay didn't participate, but he did listen.

His novel would take place in a prison and involve a DIC. He'd be able to put all kinds of local color in by having the COs actually talk like COs.

It would be the best book ever. This one, he knew, would sell like gangbusters.

23

DETECTIVE DON FLACK WAS looking forward to getting a new prescription bottle.

It had been a couple of days since he took the last pill, the morning after the double at RHCF, and since he dropped the bottle off to be refilled. With everything going on, he hadn't gotten around to picking up the refill. He'd been spending the intervening days dealing with the paperwork on the RHCF killings, and also coordinating with the Department of Homeland Security to organize a drug raid. One of Flack's confidential informants-a reliable one-had said that the Wilder gang had been moving cocaine through a particular warehouse for over a year now, and Flack had spent the past two months setting up the bust. They had to be careful-Gavin Wilder was a slippery bastard, and they couldn't afford any mistakes. The raid was scheduled to go down tomorrow, with a full contingent of NYPD and DHS personnel. Narcotics wasn't Flack's usual bag, but it was his CI who put them onto it, so he got to lead the raid.

And Flack really couldn't afford to screw this up by writhing in agony on the floor.

So he left his apartment on the way to work and stopped at the small family-run drugstore on the corner. He didn't know how they stayed in business. There was a Duane Reade a block away and a CVS around the corner, yet somehow, Alda Pharmacy, which was run by two old brothers named Sal and Carmine and their respective daughters, managed to thrive, despite being smaller and having a less complete selection.

Flack always went there for aspirin and Band-Aids and condoms, only resorting to the chain drugstores when Alda didn't have something. When he got the scrip for the Percs, it wasn't even a choice in his mind: he gave the small piece of paper they'd handed him at the hospital to Sal Alda's cute daughter Vicki.

'Hey,' she had said, 'I heard you're the big hero.'

'I wasn't a hero,' he'd replied. 'Just got caught in the blast. My buddy Mac, he's the one who found the nutjob who planted it.'

'Phooey,' Vicki had said back. 'I saw your picture on the front page of the Daily News. That makes you a hero.'

'Lindsay Lohan's on the front page of the Daily News. That doesn't make her a hero.'

Today, it was Carmine Alda's daughter behind the counter. 'Hello there, Detective Flack.'

'Hiya, Ginny. How's Ty doin'?'

Ty Wheeler was Ginny's boyfriend. As always when Flack asked about him, she rolled her eyes. 'He's