The Hidden Hand of Death by Lawrence J Epstein

Author:Lawrence J Epstein [Epstein, Lawrence J]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-04-04T22:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

I went back to the phones to call Everett Remington at home. There was no answer.

“I’ve got to get up early, Gertie. You mind if I use the cot in the back room?”

“I don’t know how you can sleep, Ryder, but, sure, go ahead.”

I got a couple of hours of sleep, got up, had some food, and spent some time planning. I felt trapped, as though life was a prison and I couldn’t get out.

That made me think of 75 ½ Bedford Street. I walked over to the West Village and went between Commerce and Morris Streets. The house on Bedford was made of red brick. It had a black door and three floors of windows. It was supposedly the narrowest house in the city although I’ve seen some houses that looked even smaller. I don’t know why but when they built it in 1873, they only made it nine feet, six inches wide. There is one narrow part that is only two feet wide. The poet Edna St. Vincent Millay used to live there. Cary Grant and John Barrymore lived there while acting at the Cherry Lane Theater, which was nearby.

I liked to come to see the house sometimes when I felt trapped. I liked being in the open air, knowing I could walk in any direction at any time.

I stood there. Then I paced. Then I finally decided to go after the Nazis.

I knew that a lot of people thought of Yorkville as a German village within the City. In fact, there were Czechs and Slovaks and a lot of other people there. I had once been hired by a Hungarian who lived there and needed a bodyguard for a night.

Yorkville ran from the south on 59th Street to 96th Street on the north and from Lexington Avenue over to the East River.

The German American Bund had originated in the area.

The German American Bund was one of several Nazi propaganda groups operating in the area. Fritz Kuhn, the Bund’s notorious leader, had been sentenced to prison a few years earlier. He wound up in Sing Sing. The German-American Business League, which was in the same building as the Bund at 178 East Eighty-Fifth Street, provided a list of firms where those who supported the Nazis could shop.

I had checked about the anti-Nazi Germans in the area as well, especially the German Workers Club and the German Central Book Store which made a point of carrying the books Hitler had banned.

Still, I was concerned. I knew Greenwich Village and Hell’s Kitchen. I knew the Lower East Side and the area around Broadway. I knew a little about Harlem. But I didn’t know Yorkville well.

I went to Penn Station and walked among the cabbies. I saw one who was big and blond with short hair. It was a risk I had to try.

“Hey, buddy,” I said to the driver, “I need a ride. Do you know where I can get some good German food? This American food is killing me.

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