“You owe me some money,” the voice said.
That one left Lozini with nothing to say at all. He stared at the sink on the opposite wall, speechless. He couldn’t begin to think what the son of a bitch was talking about.
“Lozini?”
“Where–” Lozini cleared his throat. “Where are you?”
“This is a local call. You’ve got my money, I came back for it.”
“What money, you son of a bitch? I don’t have any of your money, that’s not the score we have to settle.”
“The money I left behind. You got it and I want it. Do you give it to me easy, or do you give it to me after I make trouble?”
“I won’t give you anything,” Lozini yelled, “but a one-way ticket!”
The voice was staying calm. It said, “Do you know a guy named Karns?”
“What?”
“He runs things,” the voice said. “Your kind of things.”
“No, he doesn’t, that’s–Oh, I know who you mean.” Then Lozini remembered to be mad again, and said “I don’t care who you know. I’m after your head, and I’ll get it.”
“Call Karns,” the voice said.
“I don’t have to call any–”
“Call him and ask him,” the voice said, “what you should do if you owe some money to a guy named Parker.”
Hard to believe this is the twentieth Richard Stark novel I’ve reviewed, since I started out with The Hunter, back in April of last year. Donald Westlake himself must have been at least a little surprised that he’d come this far with Stark–twenty novels at five publishers (not counting reprints in multiple languages). Sixteen Parkers, four Grofields (and a smattering of early short stories hardly anyone reads today). And in looking at what is, in several senses, the ultimate Parker novel (even though it ultimately proved not to be the final one), we must ask the question–did he know he wouldn’t be writing another one for a long time, if ever? And whether he did or not–why?
Throughout that great Starkian interregnum, Westlake always insisted that he’d never had any idea of abandoning his most famous pseudonym–of doing no more stories featuring Parker, Grofield, et al. He would try to write another Parker novel, and it never sounded right. The Stark voice refused to come to him, as it had in the past. He could have just hammered something out and somebody would have published it. But he neither needed nor wanted to do that. So he ended up writing twenty-six novels over twenty-three years, along with two novellas, and a variety of other things, mainly (but not entirely) under his own name. And this ended up being one of his most creative periods.
By this point in time, it was probably no longer true that Stark was outselling Westlake, as he reportedly had from the late 60’s through the early 70’s. Westlake had established Dortmunder as a series character, and we can speculate that Westlake didn’t want to be spending most of his time working out variations on what he’d done before, which is what franchise fiction tends to be, no matter how well written and original.
This is also the twenty-first and final book Westlake published at Random House, ending what has to be considered his most seminal and productive stint at any one publisher–all of his 60’s novels under his own name, plus a short story collection, all five of the Mitchell Tobin mysteries of Tucker Coe, and finally the last four Parker novels (and the first to appear in hardcover).
It was at Random House that Westlake had truly matured as a writer, had made his reputation as a crime novelist (alternately dark and comical), and had benefited greatly from the editing savvy of Lee Wright, one of the most influential figures in the mystery field at that time (and really, of all time). You can read more about her here, in this fascinating and well-researched piece, that makes one small error regarding the Grofield books being published at Random House, like I haven’t made far worse mistakes since I started this blog.
So having re-homed Parker to Random House, and severed all other professional relations with them, did Westlake stop working with his first major publisher because he wanted to stop writing Parker novels for a while, or did he stop writing Parker novels for a while because Random House didn’t want any more? Was it a four book deal, that expired and was not renewed? Is that why this book feels like a planned conclusion to the entire saga to date? Because that is precisely what it does feel like. A saga drawing to a close, with a vengeance. Literally.
And yet it also feels like a fresh departure–for one thing, the format has changed. Butcher’s Moon runs for fifty-five chapters, three hundred and six pages in the first edition, fully twice the length of many of the earlier books. And yet unlike even the shortest of them, it’s not divided into four distinct parts–each part beginning with Chapter One. From the very start, the format had been three parts from the POV of Parker, and one from the perspective of other characters–usually Part Three, and usually a number of different characters, but not always–in Deadly Edge, Part Three was devoted entirely to Claire, and in Slayground, the multi-POV section was Part Two.
These two exceptions aside, the multi-POV Part Three was so integral to the structure of the Parker books, Lawrence Block once referred to it as the scherzo in an overview of the series. As I’ve remarked in the past, the books are about comparative psychology, contrasting Parker’s unique non-human mind with the far more familiar motivations and dysfunctions of the other characters.
This approach also carried over into the Grofield books, but was less well-defined, more experimental. The Damsel tries the same four-part structure as the Parkers, but it doesn’t work nearly so well. The Dame and The Blackbird use the conventional chapter structure Westlake employed in most of the books published under his own name–no perspective switches in those. Lemons Never Lie is five parts, each named after its setting, and that worked very well (it’s a terrific book by any standard), but that’s once more entirely from Grofield’s POV.
Grofield may be really weird (what actor isn’t, really?)–but he’s quite human. So while there may be moments where his own unique outlook on life is contrasted with that of the other characters, it’s more explicit and self-conscious–not integrated within the very structure of the book itself.
Westlake would return to this four-part format in the final eight novels he wrote about Parker, starting in 1997. Was he just tired of the old system, experimenting to see if it would be better to abandon that device entirely? Or was it just not suitable to the story he wanted to tell here, where the perspective needs to keep changing constantly? What we can say with certainty is that this is the only Parker novel not broken up into four parts, and the only one where the perspective is constantly switching back and forth between Parker, Grofield, and a plethora of other characters. Why?
Whatever the reason, the result was a Parker novel like no other–in many ways, a novel like no other, no qualifier needed–a magisterial summing up of everything that had come before, while at the same time breaking with it. Challenging the nature of this character we’d come to be so familiar with–and had perhaps deluded ourselves into thinking we understood. This is one of the most popular books of the series today, and yet one of the most controversial in fan circles–because it seems at times that Parker is not behaving like himself. To the point where one of his most trusted allies tells him that, in so many words.
And perhaps most atypically of all, Parker feels moved to explain himself to that ally. Something he’d really only done once before, in The Black Ice Score, which Westlake had considered to be a really neat thing–forcing Parker into a situation where he had to go into a long involved backstory in order to ask for help from the Africans. Most readers of that book have been less enthused about it.
But even then, Parker wasn’t addressing what motivated him, the gut feelings that drove him to a dangerous course of action–he figured it went without saying that when your mate is in danger, you go get her. That doesn’t need any explaining. Here his motives are murkier, harder to put into words, even for somebody who is comfortable expressing himself in words, as Parker is most definitely not–and yet he tries. For the first time since we’ve known him, Parker wants to make himself understood. Why?
This book features the return of not one but two characters from previous books that we had already been informed were dead. We had basically witnessed one of them die in the previous book, published about two years earlier, also at Random House, and to which Butcher’s Moon is a direct sequel–from Parker’s POV, mere months have transpired between the end of that book and this one.
Westlake could not possibly have forgotten he’d killed these two characters off, he certainly could not have thought none of his readers would spot the discrepancy, and yet not the slightest explanation of these two defacto resurrections is offered, nor would any be offered, until the next cycle of books began to appear, twenty-three years later. Why?
This is going to be at least a three parter, so let me save some of my other querulous queries–and my highly speculative answers thereto–for later. Let’s start the synopsis already. We have ground to cover.
As the first of the Random House Parkers, Deadly Edge, opens at the start of a successful heist, Butcher’s Moon opens at the end of a failed one. Parker and three of his colleagues are running from the law, having tried to hold up a jewelry store, and tripped a silent alarm that was not mentioned in a plan they’d bought from a guy who spots potential jobs, works out the details, and sells the plan to still-active heisters (this is the third time in four books that Parker has been part of a job like this).
One of the crew, Michaelson, is hit by a police bullet, and falls–Parker not only leaves him to his fate, he orders Briggs, the techie of the group, to throw a homemade bomb at the stairway Michaelson’s inert form is draped over, to keep the cops from getting down there and discovering their tunnel from the next building before they can make their escape. Briggs doesn’t want to do it, to which Parker replies “He’s finished, we’re not. Close it up.” If Michaelson wasn’t dead already, he is now.
They get out of the next-door building, and are picked up by their driver, Nick Dalesia, who we’ll be seeing again, far in the future. Hurley (presumably no relation to the now-deceased child-molesting stoolie of The Handle) is furious about the omission of the silent alarm from the plan, and wants retribution–or at least a refund. Dalesia goes along with him without any real enthusiasm for the pointless venture.
Briggs says he’s just going to retire to Florida for a bit. He and the remaining string member, Hurley, have been running an unlucky streak of late, one job after another turning sour. So has Parker, whose reserve funds are starting to run dry. He tells Briggs he’s going to go get some money he left behind, a while back. It’s hard out there for a thief.
Next chapter we pick up with Grofield, and I guess he never did take Parker’s advice, way back when we first met him in The Score, to make sure he can justify his income to the IRS. The tax man is there at his perpetually impecunious community theater in Indiana, inquiring why he’s had no income to report for five years. It’s not quite clear whether he submitted a return or not, or how well his books will hold up to close scrutiny, but while he’s giving the Fed the runaround in the patented Grofield fashion, his lovely wife Mary tells him he’s got a call he should probably take elsewhere.
It turns out to be Parker–he tells Grofield to meet him in Tyler. He doesn’t say precisely why, but Grofield figures it out–it’s the money from the armored car job–the one where Grofield woke up in a hospital, and then ended up fighting foreign terrorists in Canada. Yeah, I wouldn’t have forgotten that either.
So it turns out the city in Slayground–the one with the inaptly named ‘Fun Island’ at its outskirts–is named Tyler. It’s in the mid-west somewhere. It has a rundown salesman’s hotel named Ohio House, where Parker and Grofield meet up, but that hardly proves it’s in Ohio–there’s an Ohio House motel in Chicago, and this sure as hell ain’t Chicago. It has a population of 150,000, is located along a major tributary of the Mississippi, was named after future President John Tyler after he stopped there on the campaign trail in 1840, is quite prosperous at the moment, and is politically rotten, but not 100% ‘sewn up’. You can try to figure out if it’s based on a real town, if you like, but truth is that description would match up to a lot of small mid-western cities of the period. That’s kind of the point. But at least we know its name now.
(Sidebar: I might venture out on a limb and say Tyler is Cincinnati, which has a famous amusement park named King’s Island–hmm!–actually in a nearby town, but that’s quibbling–Cincinnati has certainly had its share of organized crime–but it had a lot more than 150k people back in the early 70’s. Columbus might be the stronger candidate, since John Tyler actually did speak at a convention there in 1840, but it’s also too large, and seems to have had no major amusement parks at the time this book is set. The Ohio towns that do have suitable amusement parks are too small to be Tyler. Westlake could have just used a real city, as he had in the past [The Rare Coin Score], but he’s getting into politics here, and wants more room to maneuver. Let’s just call Tyler a composite, and leave it at that.)
Parker and Grofield head for the amusement park, and damn, that’s where they got that silly scene from the beginning of Parker (the movie), where ‘Parker’ (the Jason Statham character) wins some kid a stuffed toy. Grofield is fooling around at the shooting gallery, and gives his extra turns to some kids hanging around. No, he’s not dressed as a priest, though he does alternate between pretending he’s Humphrey Bogart and a B-film cowboy. Affable gent, Mr. Grofield. But he’s not feeling so affable when he and Parker find out the money is gone from its hiding place–somebody found it. Somebody took it. Somebody’s in big big trouble.
Parker anticipated this eventuality, and knows exactly who to contact–Adolph Lozini, head of the local mob, who tried so hard to find and kill Parker two years earlier, after Parker whacked his lieutenant and presumptive heir, Mr. Caliato (who was trying to kill Parker, and don’t any of you find it irritating when some bad guy says “I’ll kill you for killing that friend of mine who was trying to kill you! If you’d just let him kill you, I wouldn’t kill you now!” There is a logical fallacy there that this type of character somehow never perceives. Probably not in real life either.)
What you see up top is a representative sampling of Parker’s phone conversation with Lozini, who still wants to kill Parker, but who is baffled–and unnerved–by Parker’s insistence that he has Parker’s money. He doesn’t. Far as he’s concerned, the park was heavily searched by his employees, and no money was ever found. He’s half-right about that. Lozini is going to learn that you can be half-right a few times too often.
Finding Lozini to be unreasonable, not that he really expected anything else, Parker figures he’ll try a variation on what he did in The Outfit–hit them where it hurts. He has Grofield do some research at the local library, which has a very sexy young local librarian, who happens to be blonde, and you know where this is going, right? Pouring over past issues of the local papers on a decrepit microfilm reader, Grofield gets a lot of the particulars about the local rackets and racketeers, as well as the librarian’s phone number (he doesn’t even have to ask for it). She awaits his call eagerly. You know, sometimes I really hate Grofield.
Armed with this intel, Parker and Grofield hit three mob-connected businesses in one night–a club, a brewery a parking garage–not merely taking cash (of which there isn’t much), but checks and credit card receipts–useless to them, but with so much business being conducted via credit cards, they’re cutting heavily into Lozini’s income. Parker’s belated revenge against the cashless society he has come to know and loathe. Our present-day modern electronic billing systems don’t exist yet–they still mainly need a physical record of the transaction in order to bill the customers, or even to know who the customers were. Who says there’s no such thing as a free lunch?
They’re cruising around in a ‘borrowed’ Buick Riviera that night, and there’s no particular need for me to post an image, but I like those cars (Due South fan), so–
(The one they steal is sort of maroon-colored, but I like black better, sue me.)
At the brewery, Grofield has to brace the night watchman, who wouldn’t you know, turns out to be Donald Snyder, the same hapless old guy who was guarding Fun Island the night Parker had his run-in with Lozini’s boys, two years earlier. At the time, Caliato ordered him blindfolded, gagged, and tied up while their hunt for Parker went on, so he couldn’t identify them–a terrifying experience for the old man. Grofield considerately agrees not to blindfold and gag him this time, but has to handcuff him and lock him in the executive washroom–with a message for Lozini that Donald doesn’t understand, because he doesn’t even know who Adolph Lozini is, let alone that he works for the guy.
Donald (and do you for even one minute suppose that name was picked out of a hat?) has no idea what happened at Fun Island two years ago. He has no idea what’s happening now. Neither he nor Grofield nor Parker (who is elsewhere at the brewery) are aware of this remarkable coincidence. Nor will any of them ever be made aware of it afterwards, though Lozini is somewhat bemused when they report the theft to him, and he realizes it’s the same guy from Fun Island. Starkian Irony.
Lozini is most unhappy to hear about Parker and Grofield’s activities, but doesn’t really know what to do about them. For all his bluster, he’s not in a good position to fight back right now, because as Parker noted when he came into town, there’s an election in the offing. Parker sees that one candidate clearly has a lot more backing than the other, more signs, more advertising, and figures that’s the machine’s pick–the machine being controlled by Lozini.
Parker doesn’t give a damn about the election, of course, but it’s relevant to his agenda, because Lozini doesn’t dare get into a major shooting war with two crazy heisters, right before the voting starts. The town, as I said, is not 100% sewn-up, there is a reform movement, there are newspapers, as well as state and federal and even some local cops who aren’t in his pocket, and all are waiting patiently for him to make a wrong move.
Hoping to learn something useful, Lozini takes Parker’s ominous advice, and calls Walter Karns, who he knows slightly. This is the third and final appearance (over the phone this time) of the wily ganglord who took over from Bronson after the events of The Outfit. Organized crime in the Stark books is basically a lot of local bosses, and a few who coordinate at the national level. There’s a lot of specific information about the way the Tyler mob is organized–more than in any of the previous novels–that’s because Westlake has made not only the mob but the town it’s headquartered in up out of whole cloth, and can therefore say whatever he wants about either. An old Dashiell Hammett trick, right out of Red Harvest, that Westlake employs with gusto.
The mob is a bit more Italian in the later novels than the early ones, but Westlake was never willing to just come out and say “The mob is an Italian thing”–it really never was just Italians, at any point–and of course Westlake was still remembering his own father’s reputed connection with an Irish gangster back in the Prohibition era, as I discussed in my re-review of 361. He was never interested in doing a realistic take on the mob, because to him a crime syndicate is just a metaphor for corporate culture–a culture he tends to despise. Ever since The Mercenaries, Westlake has mainly depicted gangsters as lackeys, company men. That has not changed.
Karns tells Lozini (obliquely, because their phones are bugged by the law) that if Parker says you owe him money, the most prudent policy is to pay him. He also says Lozini should ask someone about Cockaigne (the island casino Parker and his associates looted and burned at Karns’ behest in The Handle). Lozini is impressed, in spite of himself, but still resisting the idea of letting some two-bit hood strongarm him. And for the record, Karns is a variant spelling of Kearns, an old Irish name. Westlake the mick, writing in the era of The Godfather, gets some small satisfaction out of having the smart Irish national boss set the befuddled Italian local boss straight, something that that certainly could not have happened in the 1970’s. The ancient rivalry lives on.
The Handle gets more of a boost than any other Parker novel here in this most self-referential of all the Parker books–Lozini later talks to an employee of his named Frankie Faran (who runs the club Parker and Grofield hit. Frankie heard the whole story of the Cockaigne heist directly from Yancy, the cocktail loving thug who interfaced between Parker and The Outfit on that job.
They were drinking together, and Yancy, probably drunk as usual, must have spun quite a yarn–he got a few details wrong (only Parker and Grofield know the real story), but the gist remains the same–this man Baron was thumbing his nose at one of the most powerful syndicates in the country for years, sitting there invulnerable on an island, protected by the Cubans and thirty armed men, and this guy Parker went in there with a few other independents, left the place burning, and Baron ended up dead. Lozini is now imagining his own kingdom going up in flames, and him with it. Not at all a pleasant mental image. So he knows he’s in a bad situation here. He doesn’t know the half of it yet.
And then briefly we’re with Officer O’Hara, the ill-tempered impatient bought cop from Slayground, the one Parker forced to undress, so he could get out of Fun Island disguised as a cop. O’Hara, still on Lozini’s payroll, still, has been made aware that Parker is back in town–certain elements of the police force have been marshaled to try and find him and his heister buddy. O’Hara thinks to himself how much he’d like to get the son of a bitch back for the humiliation he suffered.
He’ll never get the chance–in a diner restroom, a guy he clearly knows says hello, then shoots him in the head. I said in my review of Slayground that it’s surprising both the corrupt cops–enforcing the law while consorting with crooks–get away with their lives. Not so surprising now. Anybody who says Richard Stark is all about amorality is not paying close attention. Alternate morality. Know who you are, or die.
Later in the book, the same fate awaits Officer Dunstan, O’Hara’s younger more sympathetic partner, who got tired of living a double life, retired from the force (with a tiny pointless pension they insist on sending him), and moved 300 miles away to start over fresh. But it’s not enough. He gets whacked as well. The Great God Stark is not to be bargained with. You have to live with the consequences of every bad decision you make–well, you don’t necessarily have to live with them.
Parker calls Claire at a hotel in Florida (it’s summer, so they’ve temporarily vacated the house in New Jersey), and this is her only appearance in the book–at this point, they don’t need to say much to each other. They can express everything they feel in a few words. There are a few brief references to the events of The Rare Coin Score, The Black Ice Score, Deadly Edge–books where the violence of Parker’s world affected her directly. She still wants to stay as far from that world as possible.
Before they say goodbye, Claire tells Parker Handy McKay called–not about potential work for Parker, but something else–she says he sounded unhappy. Parker thinks, as he calls Handy, about what happened to his last contact, Joe Sheer, in The Jugger. You know he’s wondering if something like that is happening to Handy–meaning that he might have to kill Handy. It’s just implied, not said out loud. It goes without saying, really.
Handy wants back into the heisting racket. His diner in Maine is going bust, because a new highway shunted truck traffic away from the town–his main source of customers. He wants Parker to know that he’s still good at what they do–don’t do him any favors, just put him back on the active list. Parker predicted, long ago, that Handy wouldn’t stay retired–he’s proven right once more. And there’s a reference to The Mourner, as well–Handy’s last appearance as a heister in the series. Is this book going to reference every single book that came before it?
Lozini, increasingly desperate, calls for a meet with Parker and Grofield, to be conducted on neutral turf, out of town. He manages to convince Parker he never had the money from the armored car heist–but he sent men in there to look for it–clearly some of them took it–and never told him. And no low-level employee would have dared to do that. Meaning somebody high-up gave the order.
At a subsequent meeting, conducted at Lozini’s office, with some of his top-ranking men, Parker hammers this point home. Somebody is making his move. Maybe several somebody’s. Why don’t they just kill Parker right there? Because Grofield isn’t there, and they pull a bluff that Grofield is ready to blow up Lozini’s house if he doesn’t hear back from Parker.
At this point, killing Parker is no longer Lozini’s main objective–his control of his own organization is slipping from his fingers, in spite of everyone outwardly deferring to him. Somebody clearly killed O’Hara–who would have been in on the heisting of Parker’s heist–to make sure he didn’t talk. That somebody has more in mind than just covering his tracks. And that somebody must have gotten most of the seventy-three grand from Fun Island, because O’Hara clearly didn’t. A high-ranking bought cop named Calesian makes that very clear indeed. Parker has a feeling there are other things about Calesian that are not so clear.
Parker and Grofield just want their cash, and before the election–their only real leverage. But in spite of themselves, they’re getting drawn into a Machiavellian gangland power play. Smart as they are, and in spite of Grofield’s research, they’re out of their area of expertise, both of them–this is too complicated a situation to favor their skill set. And the crucial irony is that their mere presence is creating a crisis–exposing machinations that were supposed to stay hidden a while longer. Screwing up everybody’s plans, their own included.
We’re at Chapter 17–oh you can just bet this is going to three parts–and two men are talking in a parked car. One of them is the guy making his move against Lozini–he was not at the meeting, the other guy was, and they are having a somewhat heated conversation. We learn the hit on O’Hara was somebody on their team, but acting on his own, without either man’s knowledge, and his initiative is not being applauded–he’s complicated matters, drawn attention to what’s coming. If there’s one universal dictum in the world of Richard Stark, it’s don’t make murder the answer to everything. But some people just can’t seem to help themselves, and not just in the world of Richard Stark, you ever notice that?
And finally (for this week) we close with Chapter 18, exactly 100 pages into the book. Grofield is the backseat of a car (an Impala this time, I don’t like those as much, no image) screwing the girl from the library–well, they were screwing, and then they both apparently dozed off, awaking in a state of coitus reservatus. Ever the actor, he thinks of her as Madame Librarian, ala The Music Man, but just for the record, her name is Dori Neevin. She will not be heard from again in future, so now would be the time to mention that.
We’re told Grofield feels a bit guilty about seducing her on somewhat false pretenses (this time he’s not being upfront about being married, because he’s under cover, so to speak). Alan Grofield is never very guilty about anything, but there’s always this residual conscience nagging at him–and you can hear Stark’s unstated commentary–what’s the point of feeling guilty about doing something if you’re still going to do it anyway?
It’s implied she has a boyfriend she’s put on hold for Grofield’s sake, and he’s slightly guilty about that too, but it’s pretty clear she’s just a small town girl who wants to have some good dirty fun with an older more sophisticated man than she normally gets to meet–still figuring out who she is, what she likes, how to best express her ebullient young personality, not to mention her ebullient young libido. She’s no more serious about this impromptu hook-up than Grofield–she just wants to have some fun.
And fun they are surely having, in the back seat of a Chevy Impala parked by a church and a graveyard. Nowhere else in all of Westlake’s work under his own name or Stark’s is there a passage that reeks half so much of 60’s era sleaze. With just a bit of extra oomph to it, which was always Westlake’s specialty when he was writing that stuff under false names–one of which, come to think of it, was Alan.
“Wake up, sweetheart,” Grofield murmured. “We seem to be having intercourse.”
Her right arm came up to wrap around his head and close off his windpipe, and her hips began to move more strongly. Clutching with both hands, Grofield gave as good as he got, and the breathing in his right ear became very fast and ragged.
Things went along that way for a while, until suddenly the upper part of the torso reared up, Dori’s astonished face appeared directly in front of Grofield’s eyes, and she cried, in amazement and delight, “Oh!”
“Hello,” he said His right hand was now partly free; partly to ease the pain in his shoulder, he moved it down and placed it next to his left hand.
Dori was laughing. She put the heels of her hands against his shoulders, pressing him down into the car seat, and remained with her upper torso straight-armed erect; they were now like Siamese twins, joined from the navel downward. Laughing and at the same time clenching her face muscles in concentration, she proceeded to bear down, doing things she’d never learned at the library.
Grofield lost track of the church bells, and when he could think about them again, they’d stopped. Dori had collapsed into his chest, her hair in his nose and her lips against the pulse in his throat. “Good morning,” he said, and she murmured something contented, and shot bolt upright, her elbow in his neck as she stared in horror out at the sky.
“It’s tomorrow!”
“Not any more,” Grofield said.
She is not prepared to live openly as a wanton woman yet (it may be the 70’s, but it’s also the midwest–Mary Richards may be having all kinds of premarital intercourse over in Minneapolis, but she’s not talking about it afterwards). Dori clambers all over Grofield, gathering up her clothes, imploring him to get her back home before her absence is noted. And as she does so, he looks around one last time at their surroundings–a church and a graveyard.
Exactly. The church, red brick, was off behind the car, and this was the congregation’s burial ground. Flat land symmetrically lined with weathering tombstones, the symmetry broken by an occasional maple tree or line of hedge. At some distance ahead, woods started, stretching off toward low hills. To the right and left, weedy fields separated the graveyard from tracts of small identical houses.
“In the midst of death,” Grofield murmured, “we are in life.”
A bit trite perhaps, but not bad on the spur of the moment. And mightily prophetic. I don’t really hate Grofield, but as The Bard had Feste declaim in Twelfth Night, “pleasure will be paid, one time or another.” Yes, that was foreshadowing–Westlake’s and mine. And I’d better wrap up now for this week.
Now was that sex scene really necessary? I’m not asking if you liked it, that’s a different question. Stark normally wouldn’t bother with the messy details, because he figures we know about the birds and bees already, and he likes to keep things simple. So why go into such detail here? I think maybe because this is not merely a summation of everything Westlake had written as Richard Stark to date, but of everything he had written at Random House (meaning he probably did know his association with them was ending here), and much of what he’d written elsewhere–including a lot of dirty books under false names.
Only Stark novels are explicitly referred to, though–and not just the Parkers. There are references to events from all four Grofields as well–in fact, this novel concludes with a reference to the opening of The Damsel (featuring another nubile and improbably willing young blonde we never heard from again afterwards). Seventeen books in all are referenced here.
And yet I can’t find any references at all to two of the Parker novels–specifically, The Seventh and The Sour Lemon Score. Which are widely agreed to be two of the very best of the series–the former is often considered to be Stark’s finest accomplishment. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I fail to see even the ghost of a hint regarding Parker’s experiences in those books. Even though it would have taken no more than a few well-placed sentences–less than half a page, in a 306 page book–to make the retrospective complete. The omission is clearly intentional.
WHY?
More questions to follow, hopefully with answers.
PS: This book inspired some very nice cover art, some of which we’ll be seeing over the next few weeks, courtesy of DonaldWestlake.com. This week, aside from the Random House first edition, with its spectral image of Parker looming over the Tyler skyline like Heist-zilla, we have the German and Italian first editions, which as we have seen with past books, took the basic idea of the American edition’s cover art, and did their own thing with it. That way they don’t have to pay for the rights to the original artwork, local artists get to eat, and it all works out nice for everybody. The German cover is cool, but the Italian–bellissima!
With the exception of some Robert E. McGinnis covers, I think it generally works best when Parker’s face is obscured–so we can all imagine what he looks like. According to one character in this book, he looks like a regular guy–just a little tougher and meaner than average (bear in mind, this is a gangster’s perspective on what normal looks like). But I think that’s how he looks when he’s blending in, hiding his true self from the world. You don’t want to be around when the real Parker looks out from behind the mask. And if you ever do see behind that mask, you probably won’t be around for much longer. The moon is waning. See you next week.
(Part of Friday’s Forgotten Books)
The Westlake Review 