by Howard Fast
The explanation offered by the police, that the tide carried the speedboat down to Newark Bay after the murder had taken place at Berry’s Canal, and that the two thugs fought to the death over the loot that motivated the murder, leaves something to be desired. For one thing, where is this ‘loot’? For another, what happened to the murder weapon? And finally, where is the Consul General’s wife?
According to Mr. Montez’s secretary, Mrs. Montez left the Consulate yesterday afternoon, driving a red Mercedes sport car—and has not been heard from since. Can it be that her body lies somewhere in the muddy water of the Jersey Meadows? Must it be said that diplomatic representatives in our city can be offered no more protection than this?
Curiously enough, the same newspaper carried this much shorter and less sensational story two days later:
Today, police located and, with a court order, opened a safe-deposit box for which they have been searching since last week. This search had been set off by the discovery of a safe-deposit key in the possession of an old man who fell or was pushed to his death in the Forty-second Street Station of the Independent Subway five days ago. No identification was found upon the deceased.
When the box was opened, there was revealed seven kilos, or almost fifteen pounds of pure heroin, with an ultimate market value in excess of three million dollars. The box itself was rented by one Gustav Shlakmann, who gave his residence as the Clemens Hotel, at 667 West Forty-fifth Street. A description furnished by the hotel, in combination with the fact that Shlakmann has not used his room for five days, make it practically certain that the old man who died in the subway and the Shlakmann who rented the safe-deposit box are one and the same person.
So the box was finally opened. But apparently, the trail ended with Shlakmann, even as the other trail came to an end in the Meadows. As for the Consulate—that too has a new staff; for the people of Montez’s country apparently had a bellyful of him and his associates, and recently there was a rather thorough change of government.
As for Lenny, neither she nor the red Mercedes were ever heard from again—insofar as I could learn from the newspapers, and I feel that the less I say about her and about myself within that context, the better off I will be.
Thus, in each case, the trail drew a blank. Until now, there has been no hint of a connection between those events and my family, and I am willing to let that be the case for as long as I live. In all truth, we will never rest quite easily again, but time eases things. Our appearance in the case could help no one and only hurt a good many.
I managed to push my vacation forward, and on April 10, Alice, Polly, and I went to a small Canadian resort on the “Go Now, Pay Later” plan. It was a pleasant three weeks, and during that time I began this account of what happened to us one day at the end of March. I felt that unless I put down all the facts clearly, they would become vague and unreliable; so here is the record for when it may be needed. At first, I set out to put down only the bare facts, but I found it quite impossible—as impossible as it would be to put down the whole story with all of its implications. Somewhere between, I think I have arrived at a good and sound presentation of what happened.
Only one thing more remains to be told. After we had come back to Jersey, and one day while at work in New York, I passed a store where they sold novelties; among them, tiny keys on chains, for doll houses. I bought one of these for Polly, and when I gave it to her, she said, “But Daddy, I have a key.”
Then she lifted the little welcome mat in front of her doll house, and there, safely under it, where no thief would ever think of looking, was the flat key with the letter f.
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 mothe
r’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 children, 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.)
Howard and Bette Fast in California in 1976. The couple relocated to the West Coast after Fast grew disgruntled over the poor reception of his novel The Hessian. While in California, Fast temporarily gave up writing novels to work as a screenwriter, but, like many novelists before him, found the business disheartening. “In L.A. you work like hell because there is nothing else to do, unless you are cheating on your wife,” he told People after he had moved back East in the 1980s. Of course, Fast, an ardent nature-lover, did enjoy California’s scenic beauty and eventually set many of his novels—including The Immigrant’s Daughter and the bestselling Masao Masuto detective series—in the state.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
copyright © 1963 by Doubleday & Company, Inc.
cover design by Jason Gabbert
This edition published in 2011 by Open Road Integrated Media
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