Chapter 13

comes the cavalry

They sat in separate corners of the room, not speaking. Chad sobbed

uncontrollably, his body curled into a fetal position in the corner of the

room. Danny leaned against the wall with his gun still in his hand and Nikki

sat on the remnants of a shattered desk.

Subconsciously they had all turned away from Willie’s body. It was the

ostrich syndrome. If you didn’t see it, maybe it didn’t exist.

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But they all knew.

"So what do we do now?" Nikki whispered.

"We fuckin’ quit and we go home!" Danny whispered back snapping his

gun back in its holster. "You know the big kick in the balls is that we came

here to rescue trapped workers and the fucking place was empty, except for

that asshole!" he said, throwing the leg from a broken chair, striking the

gunman square in the side of the head. "We lost Willie for nothing!

Slowly they both walked over to Chad and reached a hand out to him.

"Come on buddy it’s time to go."

He didn’t even know they were there. He just sat, curled into a ball,

staring at the floor. Danny reached farther down and tapped Chad on the

shoulder. He jumped as if hit by lightning and snapped his gaze toward

Danny.

"No! Leave me the fuck alone!"

"Chad..." Nikki said as she reached toward him.

"I’m not going anywhere! Leave me alone!" he spat out, slapping her

hand away. Chad dug his nose deep into the corner of the room.

Danny and Nikki looked at each other, both of them clueless as to what their

next move should be. Chad just seemed to have shut down. There was no

reaching him now.

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 "This is the National Guard. A state of martial law has been declared."

The sound of a loudspeaker blared. "A nine o’clock curfew for all citizens is

now in effect. Anyone on the street after nine o’clock will be subject to

immediate arrest and prosecution."

Danny looked through the broken window and saw several armored

personnel carriers moving slowly through the parking lot. The sound of

small arms fire echoed through the night. Somewhere law was being laid

down ...far in excess of what Danny had ever known as law. The sound was

sweet. It was the sound of salvation but it came too late for Willie or Chad or

the nameless firefighter.

Danny waved his flashlight in front of the window and shouted.

"Police officers! We’re in here! We have a man down and we need

medical."

The beams of rifle-mounted flashlights pierced the smoke and danced

around the room finally landing on team three thirty two. Danny and Nikki

shielded their eyes from the glare. The other two team members weren’t

seeing any lights. One couldn’t...and one refused to.

"I’m Sergeant Powers. My platoon is here to take you home." said the

soldier with his hand outstretched toward Nikki.

"Bless you, my son." Danny whispered to himself.

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Chapter 14

the Cold light of day

The various skirmishes throughout the night had taken a heavy toll. When

the tally was complete, seven officers and sixty-eight civilians had lost their

lives. Of the sixty-eight civilians, thirty seven had died at the hands of police

or National Guard troops, nineteen at the hands of criminals, the result of

robberies, assaults and other criminal means and the remaining twelve had

perished in traffic accidents in the mad rush to flee the city. Thousands more

were injured and wounded, straggling in small groups to the local hospitals

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for whatever meager care and comfort they could provide.

Far in excess of the human toll, however, was the destruction done to the

city. Three hundred and eighty five houses, twelve apartment buildings and

countless businesses now existed only as smoking heaps of rubble.

Every major utility had been severed. Repair crews scrambled to restore

service to the vital sectors first but the whole endeavor had an air of futility

about it.

Down at City Hall, finger pointing had become the order of the day. The

Mayor blamed the Governor for the slow response of the National Guard.

The Governor blamed the Senator for slashing the budget for military

readiness.

The Police...well hell, everybody blamed the Police. They overreacted,

they under reacted, they were unprepared, they were overzealous, they were

fat and lazy, they were too cockstrong and gung ho, blah, blah, blah.

Danny Sullivan had stopped reading the papers, watching the news,

listening to the citizens, to command, to anybody.

In some ways he felt as closed off from reality as Chad. Life sucked, people

sucked, the world sucked, at least Chad was oblivious to it all.

His partner now spent his days lying on clean white sheets in the psych

ward of St.Thomas. Danny went and visited him two or three times a week,

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keeping him up on all the sports scores, sharing tidbits from the rumor mill

and hoping that just once he would see a glimmer of recognition in Chad’s

eyes. He talked to the endless line of ‘experts’ and ‘specialists’ who, in

Danny’s opinion, knew exactly dick about what Chad was thinking or

feeling.

As for his own life, Officer Sullivan had moved into a new apartment, (his

old one was toast), and his new furniture consisted of milk crates and

beanbag chairs. Danny had been wrangling with his insurance company for

weeks trying to get them to cut a check for all his lost property.

Unfortunately Danny insured his car with the same clowns that insured his

belongings so he was stuck hitching a ride with Tony Vinelli, another

displaced officer that had found refuge in the same apartment complex.

Tony was the brother of Carla Vinelli, one of the officers who had lost her

life in the riot. Tony was a nice enough guy, but like all true Italians he

loved garlic. When the weather got warm the scent oozed from his pores.

Danny wondered sometimes if he didn’t keep a clove or two under his

armpits. As long as he got access to Tony’s television for Monday Night

Football though, Danny didn’t care if he shit garlic!

The whole Flowers riot turned things in the department upside down.

Everybody seemed to forget that Danny was supposed to be recuperating in

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records and he’d be damned if he was going to remind them. He just treated

his wounded arm with a little extra care, scheduling his stitch removal and

therapy sessions during his regular days off so as not to draw attention to his

infirmity. Soon the stiffness was gone and he had almost full range of

motion back.

"Danny, it’s eleven ten. You ready to go?" Tony shouted through the

closed door.

"Yeah I’m coming Vanelli, hold your horses." he replied shutting off the

lights behind him.

The combination of the light traffic and Vinelli’s heavy foot got them to

the station with fifteen minutes to spare. Danny decided to hit the break

room for a soda before reporting for roll call. He rounded the corner to

discover Terrence O’Neil, who worked out of the south precinct, with Dickie

Lawford backed into a corner. Terrence was the golden boy son of Deputy

Chief Levon O’Neil.

"This shit don’t go no farther than this room or I’ll fuck you up

peckerwood! We got an understanding?" Terrence snarled, hoisting Dickie

up by his collar.

"What the fuck is this all about?" Danny said interrupting Terrence’s

threat.

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 "This shit don’t concern you Sullivan. Fuck off!"

Danny crossed his arms and widened his stance.

"Oh, is that what your Daddy told you Clarence?"

Terrence released Dickie from his grip, allowing his feet to touch the floor

again. He then turned his full attention to Danny.

"The name is Terrence shit head, and my daddy don’t tell me nothing!"

Terrence was an impressive six foot four with about three ounces of body

fat covering eighty pounds of muscle. Danny had run up against hundreds of

muscle heads like this in his career and they never failed to underestimate

him because he knew something that they didn’t...Officer Danny Sullivan

didn’t fight fair.

Terrence lurched forward and grabbed Danny by the lapels. Before he

could blink an eye, Danny came straight in with two flat palms against his

delicate ears. There wasn’t a Goliath alive who could build up his eardrums,

no matter how much he could bench press, and Terrence was no exception.

He folded like a cheap card table and went to his knees.

Now for the closer. Danny grabbed the back of Terrence’s shaved head

and pulled it forward to meet his kneecap. There was a sickening squishing

noise as Terrence flew backward, his head connecting with a lunch table on

the way down.

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 "You fucker!" he moaned, his eyes watering and his nose flowing red.

Danny grabbed a napkin, wetted it in the drinking fountain and blotted the

blood from his pants.

"Okay Clarence the ball is in your court. This can end here or you can put

me on paper...but I wouldn't recommend it. Deputy Chief’s son or no when

it gets around that you filed charges against another officer your rep will be

shit! And when I testify that I walked in on you assaulting and hurling racial

epithets against a fellow cop…well, you know how the department frowns

on bigots."

Terrence rolled onto his side to keep the blood from trickling down his

throat.

"This will be handled peckerwood. You can count on that! Only it won’t

be through official channels and you won’t see it coming!"

Danny knelt next to Terrence, getting a few inches away from his ear.

Terrence recoiled in fear.

"Listen douche bag, if you can hear me above the ringing...I ALWAYS

see it coming!"

Danny hustled Dickie from the break room and they headed for roll call.

"You can fill me in on what the hell that was about later, and you owe me

a soda!"

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 As it turned out, he and Dickie would have the whole shift to talk since

they were partnered together that night. Dickie’s regular partner was on light

duty after spraining his ankle yet again in a softball tournament so he found

himself working with whoever was available. Tonight it would be Danny.

Danny wasted no time in trying to get to the bottom of the mess he

seemed to have stepped in.

"So, you want to tell me why Terrence O’Neil was preparing to re-arrange

your anatomy?"

Dickie stared out the window.

"Chad told you about that shit in the holding cell with DC O’Neil, right?"

"Yeah. What do you know about that?"

"Well he told me first, while you were still in the hospital. You gotta

admit that what Chad saw wasn’t right. This whole thing stinks. Everybody

knows it but they don’t want to say anything."

"Well no shit Einstein. I wouldn’t want to be the one fingered as dirtying

the name of our glorious Deputy Chief, would you? Christ you’d end up

shoveling horse shit out of the stables at the Municipal Barn until you

retired."

"Anyway," Dickie continued, "Terrence found out that Chad had confided

in me and I guess he wanted to make sure it didn’t go any further."

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 Danny scratched his chin and turned the wagon up Elm Street toward the

Lunsford Towncenter Plaza.

"I’m surprised Terrence didn’t try to get to me, being Chad’s partner and

all."

"Maybe he knew what would happen if he did!" Dickie chuckled. "I’m

glad you showed up when you did or I might just have had to mess up

Terrence’s nice starched uniform with my blood."

"No problem Dickie. I’m here to protect and serve."

The paddy wagon slowed to a halt in front of the remains of the medical

clinic. Danny had driven there subconsciously, pulled by some unexplained

force to the stage upon which their life changing drama had been played out.

He stared at the shattered front door and felt sick to his stomach as the whole

fucked up ordeal repeated in his mind.

Dickie watched as a visible shiver passed through Danny. Sweat started to

break out in a fine film across his forehead and his shoulder muscles

twitched. His eyes started to tear up.

"Danny, you gonna be all right?"

Danny blinked hard to clear his field of vision and wiped his eyes and

forehead in one pass.

"No…I don’t think so." He said, puffing deep breaths almost on the verge

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of hyperventilation. "Maybe I came back too soon. I thought I’d had all this

shit settled in my mind but…I don’t know."

"Hell Danny, that’s not just something you can put behind you. Damn, I

wasn’t even there and I get shook up just thinking about it. Did you talk to

the Chaplain or somebody in the assistance program?"

Danny closed his eyes and tried to control his breathing.

"No. I thought I could work through it myself. Maybe I’ll talk to

somebody on Monday. I’ve been having nightmares lately…haven’t been

sleeping for shit. I go through five bottles of Nyquil a week."

"You want me to drive?" asked Dickie.

"No, I got it. I think I’m gonna have to bail on you for the rest of the shift

though. I’m no good to either one of us in this condition."

"I understand." Dickie said, patting Danny on the shoulder.

They rode back to the station house in silence. Danny parked the wagon in

the staging area and the two of them walked up the stairs to the Lieutenant’s

office.

Dickie waited at the desk for his new assignment while Danny went into

the office to talk to Lt. Gomez.

Ray Gomez and Danny went back a long way. They both attended the

academy together and shared a locker. Not long after graduation, Ray began

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his rise to the top, making Sergeant within two years and Lieutenant two

years after that. In a way that was a good thing. Having risen that fast in

rank, Ray didn’t have the time to forget where he came from. He always

looked out for his troops, fending off the bullshit that often came down from

on high. It also meant that Danny had at least one close friend in a position

of power.

Ray was engrossed in the schedule for the following day so he didn’t

notice Danny standing behind his cubicle wall. He was close to pulling what

was left of his hair out, having to try to patch a shift together with an ever-

expanding epidemic of blue flu.

"Ray, can I bend your ear a minute?" Danny said, snapping Ray from his

trance.

"Sure Danny, have a seat." he said gesturing toward a chair piled high

with paperwork.

"Nah, this won’t take that long. Look Ray, I need to take the rest of the

night off sick. I can fill the paperwork out now if you want me too."

"What’s the problem Danny?" Ray asked, his expansive brow furrowed

with concern.

"This whole thing with Chad and Willie…it’s really fucking with me. I

think I may need to talk to somebody about it, as much as I hate the thought

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of that. Have you ever dealt with any of the counselors in the employee

assistance program?"

"Yeah. I talked to them a few years ago when Josie and I were going

through our divorce."

"Well you didn’t eat your gun so they obviously did something right."

Ray erupted in a deep guttural laugh.

"I couldn’t if I wanted to. The bitch got custody of my bullets!"

Now Danny joined in the laugh.

"It’s okay though," Ray continued, "I get to see them every other

weekend."

Now Danny was laughing so hard he started to cry. Ray always had a way

of cracking him up even at his lowest moments, and this was one of those.

Ray waved his hand toward the door.

"Get your Mick ass outta here. We’ll take care of the paperwork later.

And by all means, talk to somebody. Your shoulders are broad but they can’t

carry the world."

"Thanks Ray. Gee, now I kinda feel bad about all that shit I wrote about

you on the bathroom wall."

Danny ducked around the doorway just in time to avoid the pencil that

came flying his way.

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