Who am I, you ask? I’ve been called a lot of things in my lifetime: left-wing activitist, anti-fascist, anti-American. Read my bio and decided for yourself.
The first real job I had was for the Pinkerton Detective Agency, the Baltimore Branch. I enjoyed the covertness of the job, but decided to do my duty and I enlisted in the army in 1918. It was kind of embarrassing; I was stationed only twenty miles from Baltimore, caught the flu, which turned into TB, and was discharged. Oh well. I tried. I returned to my job as a detective but my physical condition worsened so I moved to Tacoma and checked into a veteran’s hospital for treatment. I fell in love with my nurse, we moved to San Francisco where we married. I worked for Pinkerton again and couldn’t handle the physical stress the job required, so I decided to create a fictional private eye and write about his exploits instead. The Black Mask magazine published most of my short stories. My writing career took off, my marriage didn’t. I moved to New York where I published my first PI novel. Then I wrote screenplays, moved to Hollywood where I met a woman named Lillian Hellman. WWII broke out while my writing career was in full swing, but I decided to give the military another shot. They took me, can’t you believe it? I ended up in the Aleutian Islands; great place for a guy who’s suffered from TB. When I was discharged, I moved back to New York where I became president of the New York Civil Rights Congress. In the aftermath of the war, the Red Scare spread across the country like an ugly disease. The government believed there were Commies hiding under every bed, including mine. I was subpoenaed to testify before Congress concerning my activities with the Civil Rights Congress. I refused to answer their questions, and spent time in jail. When I was released another governmental organization was waiting; the IRS, with a bill for more than a hundred thousand bucks for “back taxes.” I moved in with Lillian and in died in 1961.