The Assassin Who Gave Up His Gun

by Howard Fast

“Read it.”

  He read on, turning page after page. Patience sat down in a chair, facing him. The room was very silent, very close. Outside the rain still fell.

  Finally Norton looked up at his wife and said with very evident horror, “You went to bed with him.”

  “Yes, Norton, I went to bed with him.”

  “You rotten little whore! You lousy slut!”

  So far as she could react to anything he said, his words meant nothing. “I still wish you to finish reading it, Norton.”

  Chapter 18

  HE finished the manuscript.

  “Well, I have finished this filthy mess,” he observed, holding himself under control, his manner defined by Patience as “the diplomatic Norton.” “I have finished it indeed. A very unique experience. I imagine few enough men have had the pleasure of a literary picture of a wife’s infidelity—with a murderer.”

  “I’m glad to see that you are going to be sensible about it, Norton, but you appear so upset because it was a murderer. Would it be less sinful if I had chosen a hard-working career diplomat?”

  “I don’t find the situation humorous.”

  “Nor do I, Norton.”

  “And the fact remains that he was a murderer—no, the most vicious, unspeakable kind of murderer, the paid assassin.”

  “Don’t be righteous,” Patience said tiredly. “We are all paid assassins, aren’t we?”

  “I no longer appreciate your nasty little jokes, Pat.”

  “I’m terribly serious. The business of mankind is the murder of its own kind, isn’t it? This is our total preoccupation—the murder of our fellow man. Isn’t that why we have armies and navies and why we stockpile atom bombs for our delightful overkill—the elimination of mankind ten times over? Only we are never honest about it. We lie, we dissemble, we cheat, we pay for the bombers but we never drop the napalm ourselves, do we? We would never, never kill the soft-eyed cow, but we eat the steak with such relish.”

  “I am hardly impressed by that kind of sophomoric nonsense.”

  “Only we must all be paid for our little dance of death. There are no amateurs in the business—no innocent murderers, only assassins. I have heard of priests taking the vow of poverty. I have never heard of a general taking it. You love the generals, don’t you, Norton, but you find Richard Breckner so terribly distasteful.”

  “And that is your defense of Richard Breckner. You are still compelled to defend that animal.”

  “Should I not defend him, Norton? I loved him. You will never know how much I loved him, and I feel that loving him was the most beautiful thing that ever happened to me.”

  “That turns my stomach.”

  “Doesn’t it? But you see, Norton, you are so overwhelmed by the fact that your wife put you down by going to bed with a murderer that you appear splendidly brave. I admire you. Because the essence of what you have read there is not that I have been Richard Breckner’s mistress, but that you are next on their list for death.”

  “Am I supposed to believe that?” he snorted.

  “I believe it, Norton. As surely as the sun rises, you are marked for death.”

  “That’s a damn thing to say!”

  “Yes, but it’s true. And if you are marked, so am I. But I have no intention of being murdered, Norton. The strange truth of it is that for the first time in years, life is good and sweet and desirable. Richard Breckner gave me that. I want to live, Norton, and curiously enough, I want you to live.”

  “Why? You hate my guts.”

  “I hated you. I don’t now. The only thing left that you can do to me is kill me—and I don’t intend to allow that to happen. That is why I want you to live.”

  “I have every intention of living,” Norton Quigley decided. “The first thing I intend to do is to call Scotland Yard and turn this unholy manuscript over to them—”

  “Norton!”

  “You don’t believe me?”

  She smiled hopelessly and said, “Will you really—that manuscript?”

  “Not all of it. Of course, not all of it. Only the first part.”

  “Norton, what proof have you? What proof will they have? On the basis of this manuscript, they won’t even close down Gorivich’s stamp shop. And do you think Scotland Yard will be satisfied with the first half?”

  This hit home. Everything hit home now, and he put his head in his hands and sat for a while, and then he looked up and said, “God damn you to hell, you lousy bitch.” The diplomatic face had gone. He had tears in his eyes now. “You lousy bitch.”

  Almost, but not entirely, she could feel sorry for him; and she replied coldly, “Just in a manner of speaking, I saved your life. For the moment, and calling me a lousy bitch does not help. It’s now up to you.”

  “What is?”

  “To save your own sorry life.”

  “How?” He leaped to his feet, trembling. “How? Just tell me how, you lousy bitch?”

  “By pulling yourself together,” she answered calmly. “By using your head. If you will only think about it for a bit, you will remember why they want to kill you. It is to their interest to have this wretched war go on. They are afraid that you will be making a very strong statement for peace and against the war—and they apparently feel that your position is such that you could be instrumental in ending the war.”

  “But they’re wrong!” he shouted. “I never intended to make such a statement!”

  “Please keep your voice down,” Patience said.

  “I will talk as I damn please.”

  “And you will undoubtedly please the servants who hear everything that goes on here—not to mention what Burt and Helen will learn. So either keep your voice down or I will not go on with this.”

  “All right. I was only making the point that those murderous bastards are wrong. Never—understand me, never—did I have any intention of denouncing my country’s policy and joining that ragtag and toggle gang who call themselves the peace movement.”

  “I am sure,” Patience agreed. “I know that and you know that—but the face you have presented to the world these ten years past, dear Norton, is something entirely different. Not only do millions of Americans take it for granted that you are against the war and keeping your silence only in deference to the post you hold, but the newspapers have so delineated your position.”

  “I don’t control the press.”

  “But you titillate them, Norton. You imply. You indicate.”

  “Are you impugning my integrity?”

  “Dear Norton—this is your wife, Patience.”

  “Whatever the press chooses to think, they are wrong.”

  Patience nodded gravely and said, “Then that leaves you two choices, Norton—either one of which will save your life. You can resign your post and denounce this war publicly, with all the fervor you possess. This will not only make you a hero in the eyes of a goodly part of mankind, but it would keep you alive. From that moment on, your death would be a martyrdom and only aid the peace movement. They want to kill you to keep you silent. And if you remain silent, Norton, if you lack the courage to speak out and take a position, they will surely kill you. Once you have spoken, they will leave you alone. I think that makes sense.”

  Quigley was watching her now, coldly, intently, his eyes narrowed and curious.

  “And the second choice?”

  “You know the second choice, don’t you, Norton?”

  “I think so.”

  “And either way, Norton,” Patience said, “I want a divorce.”

  He was much more himself now. He looked at his watch and said, “They’ll be waiting for us for dinner, my dear.”

  “I want a divorce, Norton.”

  “We’ve discussed that ad nauseam, haven’t we?”

  Patience gathered up the manuscript. “But this changes things—or doesn’t it?”

  Fiercely, he snatched the manuscript from her hands. She made no resistance. “Dear Norton—wouldn’t I have Xeroxed it?”

  “Did
you?”

  “How can you know? Why don’t you give it back to me?”

  For a long moment he hesitated; then he returned the manuscript to her.

  “That’s so much better,” she said. “You know, Norton, our only hope of survival depends upon our being rational and civilized. Every instinct in you begs you to beat me to a pulp—and I remember your last beating so vividly.”

  “You are so right,” he said thinly.

  “But you can’t beat me, can you, Norton? Things have changed. I even believe you will be better off with the divorce.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “You know that I am quite honorable about certain things. I will keep my mouth shut.”

  “And the manuscript?”

  She went to the fireplace, where the embers of the morning’s fire still glowed. She laid the manuscript there, and Quigley walked over and joined her to watch it burn.

  “The Xerox copy?” he asked.

  “Perhaps there is one, perhaps not. We have come to the end, Norton. Shall we go to dinner?”

  The following day Patience Quigley flew to New York, and when she got off the plane at Kennedy, she was greeted with the news that her husband had declared himself as an unequivocal supporter of the war, demanding that all-out bombing begin with the final aim of military victory.

  A half-dozen reporters gathered around her in customs, and one of the reporters asked her:

  “Did your husband’s statement surprise you, Mrs. Quigley?”

  “No.”

  “Then you expected it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you share his position?”

  “That can be of no possible interest,” she replied, smiling. “I have no political views that are even worth discussing.”

  “Are you shocked at his call for the use of tactical atomic weapons if necessary?” another reporter asked.

  “No.”

  “And what are your plans now, Mrs. Quigley?”

  “Only to go home to Connecticut and be with my children,” she replied.

  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 Congress. 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.

  Fast (left) with his older brother, Jerome, in 1935. In his memoir Being Red, Fast wrote that he and his brother “had no childhood.” As a result of their mother’s death in 1923 and their father’s absenteeism, both boys had to fend for themselves early on. At age eleven, alongside his thirteen-year-old brother, Fast began selling copies of a local newspaper called the Bronx Home News. Other odd jobs would follow to make ends meet in violent, Depression-era New York City. Although he resented the hardscrabble nature of his upbringing, Fast acknowledged that the experience helped form a lifelong attachment to his brother. “My brother was like a rock,” he wrote, “and without him I surely would have perished.”

  A copy of Fast’s military identification from World War II. During the war Fast worked as a war correspondent in the China-Burma-India theater, writing articles for publications such as PM, Esquire, and Coronet. He also contributed scripts to Voice of America, a radio program developed by Elmer Davis that the United States broadcast throughout occupied Europe.

  Here Fast poses for a picture with a fellow inmate at Mill Point prison, where he was sent in 1950 for his refusal to disclose information about other members of the Communist Party. Mill Point was a progressive federal institution made up of a series of army bunkhouses. “Everyone worked at the prison,” said Fast during a 1998 interview, “and while I hate prison, I hate the whole concept of prison, I must say this was the most intelligent and humane prison, probably that existed in America.” Indeed, Fast felt that his three-month stint there served him well as a writer: “I think a writer should see a little bit of prison and a little bit of war. Neither of these things can be properly invented. So that was my prison.”

  Fast with his wife Bette and their two chil
dren, Jonathan and Rachel, in 1952. The family has a long history of literary achievement. Bette’s father founded the Hudson County News Company. Jonathan Fast would go on to become a successful popular novelist, as would his daughter, Molly, whose mother, Erica Jong, is the author of the groundbreaking feminist novel Fear of Flying. (Photo courtesy of Lotte Jacobi.)

  Fast at a bookstand during his campaign for Congress in 1952. He ran on the American Labor Party ticket for the twenty-third congressional district in the Bronx. Although Fast remained a committed leftist his entire life, he looked back on his foray into national politics with a bit of amusement. “I got a disease, which is called ‘candidateitis,’” he told Donald Swaim in a 1990 radio interview. “And this disease takes hold of your mind, and it convinces you that your winning an election is important, very often the most important thing on earth. And it grips you to a point that you’re ready to kill to win that election.” He concluded: “I was soundly defeated, but it was a fascinating experience.”

  In 1953, the Soviet Union awarded Fast the International Peace Prize. This photo from the ceremony shows the performer, publisher, and civil rights activist Paul Robeson delivering a speech before presenting Fast (seated, second from left) with the prestigious award. Robeson and Fast came to know each other through their participation in leftist political causes during the 1940s and were friends for many years. Like Fast, Robeson was called before the House Un-American Activities Committee during the McCarthy era and invoked his Fifth Amendment right not to answer questions. This led to Robeson’s work being banned in the United States, a situation that Robeson, unlike Fast, never completely overcame. In a late interview Fast cited Robeson as one of the forgotten heroes of the twentieth century. “Paul,” he said, “was an extraordinary man.” Also shown (from left to right): Essie Robeson, Mrs. Mellisk, Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois, Rachel Fast, and Bette Fast. (Photo courtesy of Julius Lazarus and the author.)