Lillian and Dash (33 page)
Hazel Scott had been deemed uncooperative; she named no one. She was now performing in Paris. Others testified freely and the Committee publicly applauded their cooperation. These were the more widely acknowledged Weasels. Hammett kept the distinction between victim and Weasel very clear; he always had sympathy for human weakness. To Lillian anyone who gave a name for any reason whatsoever was pure Weasel.
All of this is old hat now, relegated to a brief, unfortunate period of American history by most historians, but certainly not by the Committee’s victims. The damage done was far more widespread than history records; it devastated many thousands of un-American American lives. Hammett addressed the situation in a speech he gave at Cooper Union on “The Cop and the Criminal,” ostensibly a talk about his approach to the detective story, but in fact a public defiance of what the Committee was doing to America. Hammett was no longer an effective public speaker.
Lillian made herself inconspicuous at the fringe of the audience. A cold sober Hammett began:
Let’s get this straight from the start. The cop is paid by the state. The state gives him his badge, his gun, his billy club, and permission to use them, his uniform, and, if he’s lucky, a police car to drive around in. His job is to protect the law-abiding public from criminals. So far, so good. There are times, however, when the crooks and the cops and the state are indistinguishable from one another, when they are all mixed together and aligned against the interests and guaranteed rights of those same law-abiding citizens.
We are in one of those times now. Those of you who may have had the ill fortune to have stumbled upon my
Red Harvest
or even
The Glass Key
probably know that I have dealt with just this sort of corrupt situation before in fiction. In both cases—I must tell you
Red Harvest
was based on a real miners’ strike in Montana in which the company, the cops, and the government ganged up on the miners—in both cases my lone detective character is successful in combating the corrupt cops and turning the tide. Remember, though, that’s just what happens in novels. In Montana, the bums mopped up the miners.
Lillian noticed Hammett’s hand begin to tremble. He needed a drink. No way for her to get him one. He sipped some water.
In America today the cops and the crooks and, of course, the judges and the pols are all in cahoots again. It happens periodically, usually around union busting time, which for them is all the time. They like to send very dramatic, unmistakable messages. What else is this preposterous Committee deciding who is American and who is not, but a shot across the bow? Sometimes the legal criminality even reaches the level of political murder.
For a moment Lillian thought he might talk about Jerry Waxman. She held her breath.
What else was Vanzetti and Sacco if not precisely that? These new thugs dressed up as Congressional cops are surely nothing new. They crawl out of the woodwork whenever they have the chance. But every time they appear, we must each become detectives and reveal that they are really the crooks and not the cops.
Lillian scanned the crowd and picked out four men at least she was sure were government agents. Two were taking
notes. She also recognized a legit guy from the
Times
, a gal from the
Trib
.
If I was trying to turn this current mess into a detective story, I’d see it as an old-fashioned protection racket. I’d set it in Mom and Pop’s grocery store. Gunsels come in and want fifty bucks a week to keep trouble away. Pop tells them he’s never had any trouble. They smash his front window. That’ll be fifty bucks. Pop goes to the police. They’ll watch his store when the thugs return, but they can’t promise anything more. Next week the gunsels return for their fifty; a cop watches from across the street while the thugs break the other front window. The cop across the street smiles.
So what’s to be done? And who is there to do it? Certainly not the likes of Nick Charles. He’s too tipsy for the task. He and Nora hobnob in the wrong social circles. A society murder is one thing. The protection racket is a very dirty, roll-up-your-sleeves business. Sam Spade? I don’t think so. There are no beautiful dames involved and no big money to be made in a Mom and Pop grocery. No, the guy I need—the guy we need—is the Op. He’s far tougher than either one of the others and breaking up this protection racket’s going to take a bear of a man, a courageous brute. That’s the Op. He’s also a working stiff, and for me that counts for an awful lot when it comes to a matter of integrity.
As Hammett continued, his quiver became more pronounced. Lillian wanted to hold him, steady his hand. Hammett was never at his best in front of an audience, but he accepted this engagement as a necessary first skirmish in what he knew was now to be a long, difficult battle with the U.S. government. During the question period after his talk he really began to come apart, but he knew to keep his answers brief and somewhat cryptic. He needed a drink badly now, something the cops in the crowd could not miss. Hellman loved her Hammett very much at that moment.
In the cab uptown she took his hand and offered him a flask. He accepted it gratefully with a growl and a slow smile. Traffic was heavy. They didn’t talk. He continued to shake, so she held his arm hard with both hands and tried to absorb his tremor.
They were almost at Columbus Circle when he said, “I could have done it better. But I had to take the first shot. I want them to know I’m ready.”
“
We’re
ready.”
“My guess is they’ll do me first. You’re the bigger fish to fry.”
“I beg your pardon.” She made a pronounced huffy face and then smiled. “I hope that’s not how they see it. But I’m ready for them too.”
“You haven’t been reading your Solomon.”
“Uh-oh.”
“The time to get and the time to lose deal. Sweetheart, this looks like our time to lose. Let’s know that and see what we can hold on to.”
“And let’s see how many of those pricks we can take down with us.”
“Jesus, you are something.”
“Jesus had nothing to do with it.” She passed the flask back to Hammett.
T
HE BRIGHTEST LIGHTS
were placed behind the Committee, backlighting the Congressmen, making them more silhouettes from the witnesses’ position than recognizable individuals. Somehow it seemed appropriate to Hammett that the inquisitors should be indistinguishable from one another. The lighting had been arranged for the movie and new television cameras shooting down from a platform behind the Committee. Smaller lights and cameras were set up before the panel to capture their questioning. The witness was the story.
When John S. Wood, the Committee’s new chairman, a Democrat from Georgia—the Committee’s dirty work was truly bipartisan—rapped for order, the large hearing room in Manhattan’s Federal Building remained abuzz with conversation. He rapped again and the chamber, thronged to standing room with the curious, the politically engaged, the friends and
enemies of the Committee, prospective witnesses, members of the press, radio, and television, still did not fall to silence. The chairman rapped twice more for order. In fact, as Mr. Wood gave the required Congressional justification for the Committee’s investigative hearings on un-American activity, namely the subversion of the country’s political and social system by Comm-a-nists, fellow travelers, and bedfellows, he could still barely be heard. Hammett and his lawyer were already seated at the witness table ready to be legally uncooperative. Finally the room quieted. The chairman turned up his microphone and said, “Please state your full name, address, and occupation.”
Victor Rabinowitz, Hammett’s attorney, interrupted. “Mr. Chairman.” He covered his eyes in a salute. “The lights behind you, Mr. Chairman, are quite blinding and cause great discomfort when we have to look—”
“Nothing can be done ’bout that now, Mr. Rab-nowitz. Maybe we can correct that after the morning session.”
Rabinowitz said, “I really must object, Mr. Chairman. These conditions are impossible and unfair to the witness, sir.”
“Overruled. Please state your full name and—”
“Samuel Dashiell Hammett. Katonah, New York. I am a writer.” Few people in the room had ever heard his voice, sweet and Southern and, today, strong.
“Mr. Hammett, are you now or have you ever been a member of the Comm-a-nist Party?”
“If, Mr. Chairman, your question is intended to determine if I am totally loyal to the United States of America, I
welcome it because it allows me to speak of my proven participation. Even though the lighting does not permit me to see you all with absolute clarity, I can see that almost every member of the Committee is wearing a small American flag pin on the lapel of his jacket. It is a way, I assume, of professing the type of Americanism you would like to see on everyone who comes before you …”
“Mr. Hammett, you can speechify after you answer my question. Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Comm-a-nist Party?”
“Mr. Chairman, believe me, my speechifying days are long over. I was simply trying to assure you of how pure my Americanism is.”
“Are you now or have you ever been—”
“Mr. Wood, I can assure you I will respond if you simply let me finish what I intended to say about our lapels. On yours I see our flag. If you”—here he addressed the cameramen—“shine your light on my lapel, you’ll see four ribbons.” He pointed them out. “Honorable discharge from the U.S. Army, World War I, and honorable discharge, World War II, Pacific Theater ribbon, and Sharpshooter’s medal.” He fingered the latter. “I’m particularly proud of this one. I was almost fifty years old when I qualified …” He paused while the room murmured. “I’ve taken the liberty to ascertain the military service of the Committee members.” The murmur became a buzz again. “You, Mr. Chairman, did not serve at all. As is true of five of your eight colleagues. Two members did serve, one in the Procurement
Office of the War Department in Washington, the other in a Coast Guard recruitment office in his hometown. So my question to you, Mr. Chairman, is how do you determine someone’s patriotism? Is it by a lapel flag or is it by actual military service to that flag?”
There was some applause followed by a very firm series of raps from Mr. Wood’s gavel.
Hammett testified for two and a half hours before the chairman announced a lunch break. When the hearing resumed, the lights had not been moved. Questioning continued until almost five o’clock, when the Committee huddled to decide whether to ask Hammett to return tomorrow. There was more, it turned out, they wished to ask him, even though he had already invoked the Fifth Amendment forty-one times. Most witnesses who did not recognize the Committee’s constitutional authority invoked the Fifth as follows: “I refuse to answer on the grounds that my answer might tend to incriminate me.” Hammett’s lawyer preferred he answer this way: “Mr. Chairman, I choose to decline to respond to your question because I do not believe you have the legal standing to question me and because any answer I give may tend to incriminate me.” Hammett had to answer in precisely that manner after a brief discussion with Rabinowitz. Every time. This process took a very long while.
Although Hammett the Pinkerton man knew his way around a courtroom—he had testified at dozens of trials—he
had never been a defendant before, nor were the rules of testimony here as fair. So when he was asked by the Committee lawyers if he knew or had ever met Charles Chaplin, that prompted a long discussion with his lawyer, who advised him to invoke the Fifth. Same with Walter Huston, Hazel Scott, Paul Muni, Sylvia Sidney, Paul Robeson, Lew Ayres, Dalton Trumbo, and dozens of others. Hammett knew that many of those people had already been blacklisted in Hollywood. He took the Fifth because admitting even to knowing them opened the way to questions about conversations he had with them, political and personal, which if he then refused to answer could open him to a charge of “contempt of Congress.” Better to shut off the line of questioning early. Late with these guys meant “too late,” especially when you didn’t know what they knew or what other witnesses were likely to say about you.
By the end of the second day Hammett’s Fifth Amendment total was well over seventy, prompting Chairman Wood to call him “the least cooperative witness ever to have come before me, sir.”
“Did you ever consider the fact that your unconstitutional bullying might be the problem?”
“Is this how you have decided to show your so-called patriotism for this country?”
“Mr. Wood, I choose to decline to answer that question because my answer would bewilder a Yahoo like yourself …”