Cynthia

by Howard Fast

  “That’s the name of the Police Commissioner, Lucille,” I explained gently.

  “She knows Goddamn well that it’s the name of the Police Commissioner!” Rothschild exclaimed.

  “I did not say he was the Police Commissioner, Lieutenant, nor did he. He simply told me that he was a police detective, and he gave me a good Irish name and he had an honest face and a fine pair of frank blue eyes, and Cynthia and I were so happy to see him that we practically fell all over him, and of course I wanted to know how poor Harvey was, and he said that he would take us right to poor Harvey. I was delighted with that. Then he took us through the lobby to the front, and this big Fleetwood was parked there, with a uniformed policeman driving it—”

  “Fleetwood! Look around this office, Miss Dempsey! Do we look like the kind of an outfit that drives Fleetwoods?”

  “I had not yet seen your office, Lieutenant. I do think that if you were to take a scrubbing brush and a paint brush to it, a few hours of work might make it both clean and pleasant.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” Rothschild said slowly, and then yelled at the door, “Banniker—get me a glass of milk!” He compressed his lips and nodded for Lucille to continue.

  “Well, the rest is so simple. I told you the plain, unvarnished truth. They drove us to the Museum. There were three plainclothes policemen at the entrance—the side entrance, you know—”

  “They were not policemen,” Rothschild muttered.

  “I know. But we thought they were, and one of them led us into the Museum and upstairs, and then through another room, and then he pointed, and he said that right there in the next room, Harvey and two right-thinking men were waiting for me. I do think the joke was in poor taste. You don’t mock the dead, even if they are killers—don’t you agree? Well, we started to go, but he said to hold up just a moment. Then a man came out of that room, a nice-looking man who was grinning, and he nodded, and the other policeman let go of us, and then we ran into the room, and there was Harvey. And the two dead Texans, of course.”

  “Just like that?”

  “Just like that, Lieutenant.”

  “And Harvey had the gun in his hand?”

  “If you think Harvey killed those two men, Lieutenant, you are a total idiot—”

  “God save me! Harvey, get her the hell out of here! Get both of you the hell out of here. Get out of here and don’t let me lay eyes on either of you again.”

  “You’ll need us for witnesses,” I said unhappily.

  “God help me, I will.” He stood up behind his desk. “Get out!”

  We got out. We walked downstairs, and I said goodnight to Banniker, who was carrying a container of milk upstairs, and to the tired desk sergeant, and then we went out to the street. It was a cool but pleasant evening, and we walked west on 67th Street. I said to Lucille, “Funny, he didn’t scare me so much this time. He could have thrown a murder rap at me.”

  “Harvey, who would ever think that you could kill two Texans?”

  “Maybe someone would. How do you know?”

  “Well, don’t get angry at me just for that, Harvey.”

  “It’s not for that. It’s about Corsica. I hope Rothschild lays hands on him. I hope he rots in jail.”

  “Harvey, he saved your life.”

  “He’s a lousy killer.”

  “Still, he saved your life. And mine. And Cynthia’s. Anyway—what ever happened to Fats Coventry and the other two Texans?”

  “They were taken away. Maybe in the same Fleetwood. Anyway, by the same crowd. Goddamn it, do you know why he was grinning?”

  “I wish you wouldn’t swear so much, Harvey.”

  “Just tell me, do you know why he was grinning?”

  “Who?”

  “The real Valento Corsica, when he told you to go ahead into the Rembrandt Room.”

  “What was he grinning about, Harvey?”

  “Eighty-five thousand dollars. Eighty-five thousand dollars in traveler’s checks—which I gave him as ransom for you and Cynthia.”

  “But we were in the next room, Harvey.”

  “You were indeed. He conned me. Me. Harvey Krim. Born and bred in this city, and a square cons me for eighty-five grand.”

  “Harvey, he was not a square. He’s the head of the Mafia.”

  “Mafia? Weren’t you telling me that there isn’t any Mafia?” I turned left on Park Avenue now.

  “Where are we going? Why don’t we take a cab, Harvey?”

  “It’s right across the street. We’re going to pay a call on Mr. E.C. Brandon.”

  “At this hour. It’s one o’clock.”

  “They won’t be sleeping. Remember, Kelly took her home just a little while ago.”

  “Harvey—are you sure?”

  “I’m sure.”

  We went across Park Avenue and we entered 626 Park, and that same old crumb of a doorman barred my path.

  “Get away,” I said to him, “or I’ll break you in two.”

  “I got to announce you. It’s one in the morning.”

  “So announce up. We’re going up.”

  We walked through to the elevator man, and I flashed my badge and told him we were going up. We went up.

  Lucille whispered, “Harvey, you are wonderful when you act tough.”

  “Nuts.”

  “That’s very good,” she said. “That’s good, solid slang.”

  I rang the bell and then I pounded on the Brandon door. The elevator man waited. “Beat it,” I told him. Jonas Biddle, the butler, opened the door and demanded to know how I dared to make a row like that at one in the morning.

  “Get lost,” I said. “I want to see Brandon. Now.”

  “You can’t see him. He’s with his daughter.”

  “Where?”

  “In the library.”

  “Biddle,” I said, “I am going in there. Don’t try to stop me. Call the cops if you want to, but if you do, you lose a job. Now where is the library?”

  He pointed. I took Lucille by the arm, and we entered. It was a fine, high-class, expensive library, about five thousand dollars worth of leather upholstery and maybe twice as much in leather bindings. There was maybe ten, twelve thousand dollars of oriental rug on the floor, and on the walls, a Cezanne, a Monet, and a Mondrian. He was consistantly high-class about his pictures.

  As we entered, Brandon was laying it on the line to Cynthia. “—and that finishes it,” he was saying. “No more crazy benders, no more ‘love it’s wonderful,’ no more computer dating, no more of those long-haired unwashed you have been seeing. From now on, I call the tune. Not one bloody nickel will you see—” He turned to me and snarled, “And just who the hell do you think you are, coming in here like this?”

  “They’re friends of mine!” Cynthia cried out.

  “My name’s Harvey Krim. This is Miss Lucille Dempsey.”

  “I remember. You’re that insurance investigator. Well, the job’s over. Get out!”

  “No.”

  “Just what do you mean, Krim?”

  “I mean my job’s not over. Not at all.”

  “No?” He fixed his steely gaze on me, squared his already square jaw and said, “I’ve got news for you, Krim. Your job is very much over. Because I intend to see to it that you get fired. Push this one step further, and I will also see to it that you never work in this town again.”

  “Oh?”

  “And people will tell you I am a man of my word, Krim.”

  I walked around the big mahagony desk, sat down in E.C.’s chair, took out my memo pad and wrote, “Fats Coventry told me who his client was. I have it on tape. I paid eight-five grand ransom for your daughter. I want a check for the same. Now.” Then I folded the slip of paper and handed it to him. He started to crumple it, almost as a reflex action.

  “Read it first, E.C.,” I snapped at him.

  He backed away from us, opened the paper and read it. Then he looked at me. Then he looked at Lucille and his daughter. Then he looked at me again. Then
he read the slip of paper again—more slowly now. Then he looked at me a third time, and then he read what I had written for a third time. His face flushed at first; then it turned a shade of purple; then it became white. He was very pale now, and he looked very deadly indeed.

  “Do they know anything about this?” he asked, nodding at his daughter and Lucille.

  “No.”

  “Do you intend to tell them?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “I cultivate my own garden.”

  “Don’t break your word to me, Krim. I’m not soft.”

  “Don’t break your word to me, E.C,”

  “Where did you get it to begin with?” he demanded.

  “From the company.”

  “And where does it go?”

  “Back to them.”

  “My check?”

  “Cash. I cash it first. Tomorrow morning.”

  “How do I know?”

  “You don’t.”

  We examined each other for a moment or two; then I got up and he took my place behind the desk. The girls were across the room. I stood over him and watched him write a check, payable to cash, for eighty-five thousand dollars. He folded it over and gave it to me, and I put it carefully in my wallet.

  “Tell the bank to honor it,” I said. “I’ll cash it at ten tomorrow morning.”

  “Whatever is going on here,” Cynthia said, “I am going with you two tonight.”

  “You don’t have to,” I told her.

  “What do you mean? How do you know? Do you know what it means to live with him?”

  “It’s going to be easy to live with him now,” I said. “Don’t you agree with me, E.C.?”

  He stared at me without replying.

  “How?” Cynthia demanded.

  “Nothing very special, but from now on, Cynthia, you will be a person in your own home. You will come and go as you please, and he will not question your coming and going. He will furnish you with an adequate allowance, and since this is your home, you can bring any friends you wish to bring right here. He will get off your back, once and for all.”

  Both Cynthia and Lucille were staring at me dumbly now.

  “Am I right, E.C.?”

  “You’re doing the talking, Krim.”

  “I want you to say it to her, E.C. ‘Krim is right’—just say that to her.”

  It was a hard one to swallow and regurgitate, but he managed it.

  “Krim is right,” he said.

  “So if it happens otherwise, let me know, Cynthia. Just let me know. I’m in the phone book. Just telephone and let me know.”

  Still Cynthia was speechless.

  “Go to bed now, kid,” I told her.

  She went to the door, paused, turned to us and said, “Good night, Harvey. Good night, Lucille.” Then she stared at her father for a long moment. “Good night,” she said to him. Then she left.

  “Then this is the end of it?” Brandon asked me.

  “I hope so.”

  He still sat behind his desk, staring at me. I glanced at Lucille, caught her eye, and motioned to the door. We went out. The butler let us out of the apartment, and downstairs Clapp said to me, “Make trouble somewhere else, shamus. Leave this house alone for a while.”

  “He called you shamus, Harvey,” Lucille said excitedly as we walked down Park.

  “He watches television.”

  “You were really angry, weren’t you, Harvey?”

  “I have been everyone’s patsy. For a whole week now, I have been everybody’s patsy. I’m tired of it.”

  “Mine, Harvey?”

  “Not yours,” I said.

  “Thank heavens, Harvey. And that check was for eighty-five thousand dollars, wasn’t it?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine.”

  “Oh, Harvey, are you going to keep on talking like a private eye? I’m not sure I could take it for more than a day. And it was eighty-five thousand. That’s terribly exciting, Harvey—but now that dreadful vice-president of your company—Homer Smedly, wasn’t that his name?—well, he won’t read you out of the human race at all because you’ll cash the check in the morning and bring him the cash. That’s terribly clever.”

  I shrugged.

  “But you must have had something awful on E.C. Brandon to make him do it. He’s supposed to be the chintziest man in town. What did you have on him, Harvey?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Harvey, do you know what I think?”

  “I don’t want to know,” I said.

  “Harvey, I think he’s the one who set up the whole thing—the whole crazy idea of stealing the Rembrandt. He’s absolutely crazy, and it’s just the kind of thing he would do. I’m right, aren’t I, Harvey?”

  “You’re wrong and you’re a nut,” I said.

  I got a cab then, and in the cab I kissed her. It was nothing I thought about. It was just something I Wanted to do, and I did it, and then she said plaintively, “I must go back to work tomorrow, Harvey. It’s been such fun.”

  I nodded gratefully.

  “But we could have breakfast?”

  “I got to be at the bank.”

  “Lunch?”

  “All right,” I agreed. “Lunch. At the Gotham. How about that?”

  “Harvey Krim, last of the big spenders,” she sighed sleepily.

  I was half-asleep myself when I entered my apartment, and the telephone was ringing. I picked it up, and Homer Smedly’s nasal voice said.

  “About time you got in, Harvey. I see by the morning papers that you’re a sort of hero. We like that. We like heroes working for the company. But you know what we like better?”

  “Eighty-five grand,” I said.

  “Good thinking, Harvey.”

  “I’ll bring you the cash in the morning.”

  “We’ll take a check, Harvey.”

  “I prefer cash.”

  “Very well. Sleep tight. We’ll be waiting.”

  “Good night,” I said.

  A Biography of Howard Fast

  Howard Fast (1914–2003), one of the most prolific American writers of the twentieth century, was a bestselling author of more than eighty works of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and screenplays. Fast’s commitment to championing social justice in his writing was rivaled only by his deftness as a storyteller and his lively cinematic style.

  Born on November 11, 1914, in New York City, Fast was the son of two immigrants. His mother, Ida, came from a Jewish family in Britain, while his father, Barney, emigrated from the Ukraine, changing his last name to Fast on arrival at Ellis Island. Fast’s mother passed away when he was only eight, and when his father lost steady work in the garment industry, Fast began to take odd jobs to help support the family. One such job was at the New York Public Library, where Fast, surrounded by books, was able to read widely. Among the books that made a mark on him was Jack London’s The Iron Heel, containing prescient warnings against fascism that set his course both as a writer and as an advocate for human rights.

  Fast began his writing career early, leaving high school to finish his first novel, Two Valleys (1933). His next novels, including Conceived in Liberty (1939) and Citizen Tom Paine (1943), explored the American Revolution and the progressive values that Fast saw as essential to the American experiment. In 1943 Fast joined the American Communist Party, an alliance that came to define—and often encumber—much of his career. His novels during this period advocated freedom against tyranny, bigotry, and oppression by exploring essential moments in American history, as in The American (1946). During this time Fast also started a family of his own. He married Bette Cohen in 1937 and the couple had two children.

  Congressional action against the Communist Party began in 1948, and in 1950, Fast, an outspoken opponent of McCarthyism, was called before the House Un-American Activities Committee. Because he refused to provide the names of other members of the Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee, Fast was issued a three-month prison sentence for contempt of Cong
ress. While in prison, he was inspired to write Spartacus (1951), his iconic retelling of a slave revolt during the Roman Empire, and did much of his research for the book during his incarceration. Fast’s appearance before Congress also earned him a blacklisting by all major publishers, so he started his own press, Blue Heron, in order to release Spartacus. Other novels published by Blue Heron, including Silas Timberman (1954), directly addressed the persecution of Communists and others during the ongoing Red Scare. Fast continued to associate with the Communist Party until the horrors of Stalin’s purges of dissidents and political enemies came to light in the mid-1950s. He left the Party in 1956.

  Fast’s career changed course in 1960, when he began publishing suspense-mysteries under the pseudonym E. V. Cunningham. He published nineteen books as Cunningham, including the seven-book Masao Masuto mystery series. Also, Spartacus was made into a major film in 1960, breaking the Hollywood blacklist once and for all. The success of Spartacus inspired large publishers to pay renewed attention to Fast’s books, and in 1961 he published April Morning, a novel about the battle of Lexington and Concord during the American Revolution. The book became a national bestseller and remains a staple of many literature classes. From 1960 onward Fast produced books at an astonishing pace—almost one book per year—while also contributing to screen adaptations of many of his books. His later works included the autobiography Being Red (1990) and the New York Times bestseller The Immigrants (1977).

  Fast died in 2003 at his home in Greenwich, Connecticut.

  Fast on a farm in upstate New York during the summer of 1917. Growing up, Fast often spent the summers in the Catskill Mountains with his aunt and uncle from Hunter, New York. These vacations provided a much-needed escape from the poverty and squalor of the Lower East Side’s Jewish ghetto, as well as the bigotry his family encountered after they eventually relocated to an Irish and Italian neighborhood in upper Manhattan. However, the beauty and tranquility Fast encountered upstate were often marred by the hostility shown toward him by his aunt and uncle. “They treated us the way Oliver Twist was treated in the orphanage,” Fast later recalled. Nevertheless, he “fell in love with the area” and continued to go there until he was in his twenties.