July 1983
“C’MON, C’MON, SOMEONE’S GOTTA KNOW SOMETHING. Everything points to him being there. Somebody’s gotta know what happened to him,” Nick shouted just before closing the office and letting Mitch and Kathy go before Jake’s happy hour ended. They hadn’t managed to track down Jack O’Conner, but it dawned on Nick to let up on what were essentially two college kids: Kathy a final year law student and Mitch a recent law grad awaiting his bar results. And, his other reason for shutting down the office was to have supper at home with Diane, with whom he hadn’t exchanged more than a dozen words since an argument about why she paid for their son Jamie’s Boy Scout trip to Lake George, rather than the electric bill. As tensions thawed over dinner, Nick and Diane watched a segment that Nick had helped the local station put together covering the upcoming trial.
“Well, you’re certainly getting attention,” Diane conceded, as she cleared the remains of a tuna casserole.
“It might just help tie up some loose ends.”
Later, Nick reflected that Diane was right. The case was getting attention and he knew that fact could play for or against him. Reaching down into his desk drawer, he pulled out a dusty glass and a bottle of Glenmorangie single malt he reserved for those times when he was about to don the chainmail and poleaxe of the gladiator. He knew enough about the game to have an idea of how it would play out, but in little more than a week, and for the first time, he’d step into the arena for the other side. In pursuit of what? Truth? Justice? So far it hadn’t felt any different than battling on the side of the king he’d gotten used to in the VA cases.
He had poured his fifth shot of the 25-year-old scotch by the time he thought back to the blindfolded chess tournament his father had taken him to in Brooklyn in the fifties. He remembered the frisson of excitement surrounding the Hungarian mastermind, which had stemmed as much from his ability to keep straight the moves of a dozen ongoing matches, as his being the latest prize in Cold War defections. Nick was thinking through the possible permutations the trial could take when the phone rang. With an unsteady hand he grabbed it before the second ring could wake up Diane.
“Nick, Walter here, from WNVS. Did I wake you?”
“No, it’s okay.”
“I just thought you might like to know we’ve had several calls tonight.”
“Oh?” Nick sat up, alert.
“Lots of the usual stuff, support and thanks for remembering the vets, but you know there’s always a couple of ’em out there with too much time on their hands, real sticklers for getting the details right.”
“Yes?”
“Yeah, this guy must have been out there, too. I’ve got a name. Hold on.”
Nick could hear papers rustling.
“Here it is—name, name, oh yeah, name: Johnny Fitzgerald. Let’s see, he complained about it being the 24th Army Division and not Regiment, he said that O’Conner was on the left, not the right in the photo and goes by the name of Prado, not O’Conner, and, let’s see, that Pyoktong, Korea was 57 kilometers, not—”
“Wait! What?”
“That it was the 24th?”
“No, the O’Conner bit.”
“Oh, that O’Conner was on the lef— ”
“Yeah, yeah—”
“... and goes by the name of Prado and that... ”
Now Nick was fully awake.
“That’s it, Walter. Walter, thank you very much. I owe you one.”
By Tuesday morning Mitch had located a “Jack Prado” on Willa Street, but all attempts at calling him proved fruitless. Later in the week Nick drove over, rang the bell, knocked and peered through the dirty front window. He would have been more surprised had someone answered. Because the trial was about to start, Nick did not have time for cat and mouse games, so he asked Mitch to prepare a subpoena and his secretary Sophie to find a sheriff to park in front of the house to serve him, if he showed-up. All Nick needed was to talk to O’Conner, aka Prado, to see if he had anything useful to say.
***
It was nearly 9:30 when Jack took his last swig from his usual one cup of coffee at the Silver Streak Diner. As he turned the page in the Bridgeport Post, the heavyset waitress whom he had known since high school poured cup number four. “Ya want some breakfast Jack?”
Without taking his eyes off the sports page he answered, “Nah, not today, Mol.”
“Jack, if you get any thinner, you’re gonna blow away.”
“Yeah, just ain’t much hungry these days.” He reached for his cigarettes, pulled one out, put it between his lips.
“It’s not my business, but ya need a good woman.”
Jack grinned, the cigarette butt dangling from the side of his mouth. “Yeah, that’s it, Mol, a good woman. Ya ready?”
“Huh! I wouldn’t have ya... too moody.”
Jack lit the butt, rolled up the half-pack into his tee-shirt sleeve, paid his bill and started back to the house, hearing in the distance the dog across from where he lived barking up a storm. Within fifty feet of his door he saw an older model, black, four-door Ford parked in front. It looked like a retired state police car, the kind people picked up at auctions. On his porch stood a giant of a man in a brown suit. Jack slowed down, put his hands in the back pockets of his Levis, kept his eyes on the man, and within a few feet of the porch, yelled, “Yo, Mack, can I help ya?”
The man turned. He had a flat mug with jowls that made Jack think: St. Bernard. “Yeah, lookin’ for Jack Prado O’Conner, you him?”
“Who wants to know?”
The man stepped toward Jack. “I’m here to hand him something.”
As the man got closer, Jack backed up. He had to be 6’5”, three hundred pounds, probably a football player, he thought.
“You O’Conner?”
“Whatcha got?”
“You O’Conner?” he insisted, stopping within an arm’s length of Jack; too close for comfort.
Jack surveyed the hulk top to bottom. “Yeah, so who wants ta know?”
The man stretched out his arm. “It’s a subpoena. Appear in court tomorrow at ten.”
“What’s this about?” Jack asked, pulling in the envelope.
“It’s all there, much as I know.”
Before he opened it, Jack grumbled, “My goddamn wife again, what the hell’s she want now?” He tore open the envelope, letting it fall to the ground, and read the document, top to bottom. Reflexively he gulped, “Can you tell me why they want me?”
“Can’t tell you much, Mister.”
“Well who wants to talk to me?”
“Can’t say for sure, but probably the lawyer that hired me.”
“What’s his name?”
“Nick, Nick Castalano, over on Main and West.”
The man looked on for a few seconds. “Here’s a buck to make sure you’ve got enough to get ya there,” he said matter-of-fact. He got into his car, drove away, noise from his faulty exhaust swamping-out the dog’s bark. Jack, taken aback by what he had in his hand, ambled to the house in a stupor.