The Getaway Car Read online

  Three: So Tell Me About This Job We’re Gonna Pull

  * ©1996 Oxford University Press. Used with permission.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thanks to all my colleagues at the University of Chicago Press for making it a place that I feel honored, happy, and grateful to work at every single day. Thanks also to two of my most reliable Westlake informants, Trent Reynolds, whose Violent World of Parker (www.violentworldofparker.com) site is essential, and Nick Jones of Existential Ennui (www.existentialennui.com). Parker would trust those two on a job any day. My early readers, Charles Ardai (whose Hard Case Crime publishing enterprise introduced me to Westlake) and Sarah Weinman, earned great thanks by giving generously of their time and knowledge of Westlake’s work and crime fiction in general. And thanks to Lawrence Block, whom I’ve been reading since an auspicious trip to the Carmi Public Library at sixteen landed me A Ticket to the Boneyard, for his fine foreword. Speaking of libraries, I also owe thanks to the Chicago Public Library and the University of Chicago Library and their staffs for help with the research for this book.

  Bonus thanks to Ethan Iverson (http://dothemath.typepad.com) for his unparalleled knowledge of Westlake and his indispensable help in going through Westlake’s cryptically organized files. And to Ethan’s wife, Sarah Deming, for her cooking and her company during our trip to the Westlake house, where Abby Adams Westlake was a gracious, friendly hostess and raconteur. I’ll be forever grateful to Abby for trusting her late husband’s legacy to me, and to Chicago. I hope we’ve done him proud.

  To my mom, for giving me Agatha Christie, my dad, for giving me John D. MacDonald, and to Stacey Shintani, for happily living with me in a house full of books. And finally, ultimately, to Donald Westlake, for the countless hours of pleasure he gave us all.

  CREDITS

  “Writers on Writing: A Pseudonym Returns From an Alter-Ego Trip, With New Tales to Tell,” originally published in the New York Times on January 29, 2001, is reproduced courtesy of the New York Times.

  “The Hardboiled Dicks,” originally published in The Armchair Detective, volume 17, issue 1, is reproduced courtesy of Otto Penzler.

  “Introduction to Murderous Schemes,” originally published in Murderous Schemes: An Anthology of Classic Detective Stories (Donald E. Westlake and J. Madison Davis, editors), is © 1996, Oxford University Press, and is reproduced by permission of Oxford University Press.

  “Ten Most Wanted,” originally published in The Armchair Detective Book of Lists (Kate Stine, editor), is reproduced courtesy of Otto Penzler.

  “Introduction to Kahawa,” from Kahawa by Donald E. Westlake. Copyright © 1994 by Donald E. Westlake. By permission of Grand Central Publishing. All rights reserved.

  “Peter Rabe,” originally published in Murder Off the Rack: Critical Studies of Ten Paperback Masters (Jon L. Breen and Martin Harry Greenberg, editors), is reproduced courtesy of Scarecrow Press / Rowman & Littlefield.

  “Foreword to Thurber on Crime,” from Thurber on Crime by James Thurber. Copyright © 1991 by Rosemary A. Thurber. By permission of Grand Central Publishing. All rights reserved.

  “The Worst Happens,” originally published in Sight and Sound, Autumn 1990, and later, in expanded form, in Backstory 4: Interviews with Screenwriters of the 1970s and 1980s (Patrick McGilligan, editor), is reproduced courtesy of Sight and Sound and the University of California Press.

  INDEX OF NAMES AND TITLES

  Alexander, Les, 94–95, 98

  Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, 62, 66, 76, 77, 80, 81, 136

  Alger, Horatio, 141

  Allen, Woody, 153

  All the President’s Men, 164

  Ambler, Eric, 73; The Light of Day, 73

  Amin, Idi, 95–98

  Ardai, Charles, 213

  Asimov, Isaac, 64

  Asphalt Jungle, The, 53

  Atlantic Monthly, 62

  Avakian, Aram, 157, 159

  Barnett, Ray, 96–97; Uganda Holocaust, 96–97

  Barr, Candy, 148

  Batman, 81; Batman, 81

  Baxter, John, 72

  Beatty, Warren, 186

  Beaumont, Charles, 64

  Beauregard, Georges de, 156, 157–58

  Beckham, Rex, 107

  Bellow, Saul, 105

  Benchley, Robert, xv, 139, 212

  Bennett, John, 160

  Bergman, Ingmar, 153

  Bernard, Judd, 156

  Bick, Jerry, 159

  Bierce, Ambrose, 61, 212

  Bin Laden, Osama, 205

  Black, Karen, 164

  Black Mask, 34, 35, 36, 37, 40–41, 44, 48, 52

  Block, Lawrence, xi–xiv, 109–10, 213. See also Lord, Sheldon

  Bogart, Humphrey, 21, 185, 186

  Boland, John, 88; League of Gentlemen, 88

  Boll, Heinrich, 205

  Bologna, Joe, 159

  Boorman, John, 156; Point Blank, 28, 156

  Boucher, Anthony, 18, 66, 114, 137

  Bradbury, Ray, 64

  Breen, Jon L., 111, 206; Murder Off the Rack, 111, 206

  Broekel, Ray, 149; The Chocolate Chronicles, 149

  Budrys, Algis, 64

  Burger, Knox, 111, 206

  Burnett, W. R., 120

  Cagney, James, 185, 186

  Cain, James M., 122

  Caldwell, Erskine, 114

  Campbell, John, 65, 66–67, 68, 71

  Capone, Al, 184

  Capote, Truman, 160

  Carroll, John, 175–78

  Carroll, Mabel, 176–78

  Castle, William, 156

  Cavalier, Alain, 156; Mise à sac, 156, 157

  Celine, 87

  Champion, Gower, 156, 164

  Chance, Lawrence, 194

  Chandler, Raymond, xviii, 16, 41, 43–45, 47, 49, 52; The Long Goodbye, 46; Philip Marlowe series, 45–46

  Charteris, Leslie, 122

  Chartoff, Robert, 156

  Chattahoochie Review, 62

  Chinatown, 162

  Christie, Agatha, 214

  Clark, Curt, 153; Anarchaos, 153

  Clarke, Arthur C., 64, 109

  Coburn, James, 45

  Cody, Buffalo Bill, 39

  Coe, Tucker, 13–22, 23, 24, 84, 99, 153, 155, 161, 206; Kinds of Love, Kinds of Death, 161; Mitch Tobin series, 16, 25, 84; Murder among Children, 161. See also Westlake, Donald E.

  Cole, Ted, 173–74

  Columbo, 53

  Conan Doyle, Arthur, 32, 99; Sherlock Holmes series, 57, 99, 132, 134, 163, 206

  Conrad, Joseph, 63, 134

  Constantin, Michel, 157

  Cook, Elisha, 164

  Cosby, Bill, 161–62

  Costa-Gavras, Constantin, 170; The Ax, 170

  Cotten, Joseph, 152, 206

  Culver, Timothy J., 13–22, 25, 26, 153; Ex Officio, 13, 153. See also Westlake, Donald E.

  Cummings, Robert, 83

  Cunningham, J. Morgan, 153; Comfort Station, 153. See also Westlake, Donald E.

  D’Amato, Barbara, 61

  Dancigers, Georges, 156

  Danihy, Geary, 62

  Dannay, Richard, 205

  Davidson, Avram, 69–71, 72

  Davis, J. Madison, 52, 55

  De Camp, Lyon Sprague, 64, 72

  DeHaven, Carter, 156

  Del Rey, Lester, 10, 64

  Deming, Sarah, 213

  Dennis, Allan, 161

  Dent, Lester, 37; Oscar Sail series, 37

  Detective, The, 51

  Dickens, Charles, 84, 198; The Mystery of Edwin Drood, 84, 86

  Dickinson, Peter, 73; Sleep and His Brother, 73

  Dieterle, William, 153

  Dillinger, John, 184

  Dirty Dingus Magee, 21

  Dostoevsky, Fyodor, 13

  Douglas, Kirk, 20

  Dresner, Hal, 11

  Duvall, Robert, 164

  Earp, Wyatt, 39

  Ed McBain’s Mystery Book, 66, 173

  Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, 62

  Ellin, Stanl
ey, 73; The Eighth Circle, 73

  Farnol, Jeffrey, 129

  Fellini, Federico, 153

  Fleischer, Richard, 153

  Flemyng, Gordon, The Split, 156

  Flynn, John, 156, 164

  Fonda, Henry, 141

  Forbes, Bryan, 88

  Ford, Glenn, 88

  Forester, C. S., 53; Payment Deferred, 53

  Forsyth, Frederick, 20

  Franklin, Tom, 62

  Franzen, Jonathan, 205

  Frears, Stephen, xix, 29–30, 143–45, 166–68; The Grifters, 163, 166–68

  Gaboriau, Émile, 32; Other People’s Money, 32; The Widow Rouge, 32; Within an Inch of His Life, 32

  Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight, The, 186

  Gardner, Erle Stanley, 105; Perry Mason series, 70

  Garfield, Brian, 86, 165–66, 199; The Stepfather, 165–66, 199

  Garrett, Randy, 64, 66–67, 69

  Gartenberg, Max, 112

  Gates, David Edgerly, 61

  Gibbs, Wolcott, 141

  Gibson, Mel, 28

  Girardi, Robert, 63

  Godard, Jean-Luc, 28, 156, 157–58; Made in USA, 156, 157–58

  Godey, John, 18; The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3, 18; A Thrill a Minute with Jack Albany, 18

  Godfather, The, 186

  Gold, H. L., 68, 69

  Goldman, William, 156, 158, 163–64

  Goldsmith, Cele, 65, 68

  Goodis, David, 122

  Gores, Joe, 50, 52, 73; Interface, 50, 52, 73

  Gorman, Cliff, 159

  Gotlieb, Howard B., 102–4

  Gould, Elliott, 161

  Greenberg, Martin, 111

  Greene, Graham, 120; This Gun for Hire, 120

  Grimm, Brothers, 13

  Gruber, Peter, 194–96

  Hackett, Buddy, 161

  Hale, James, 196–97; The 11th Ghost Book, 197; The 12th Ghost Book, 197; The 13th Ghost Book, 197; The 14th Ghost Book, 196

  Hamilton, Donald, 46, 47, 52

  Hammett, Dashiell, 16, 34, 36–37, 41–42, 44, 47, 49, 52, 73, 119, 120, 212; The Continental Op series, 17, 44–45, 47; The Dain Curse, 44–45; The Glass Key, 119; “The Gutting of Couffignal,” 45; The Maltese Falcon, 47, 73; The Thin Man, 41–43

  Hardy, Oliver, 23

  Harper, 158

  Harris, Larry, 66–67

  Hawkins, Jack, 88

  Henry, O., 93, 212; “The Ransom of Red Chief,” 93

  Higgins, Jack, 20

  Higgins, George V., 129–31; The Friends of Eddie Coyle, 129; Victories, 130–31

  High Sierra, 115, 186–87

  Highsmith, Patricia, 16, 169–70; Ripley Underground, 169–70; Tom Ripley series, 169–70

  Hill, M. F., 96; The Permanent Way, 96

  Himes, Chester, 21, 58, 73; Gravedigger / Coffin Ed series, 73

  Hitchcock, Alfred, 83, 153; Sabotage, 83; Saboteur, 83

  Hoffman, Dustin, 159

  Hunter, Evan, xiii, 78, 86, 109. See also McBain, Ed

  Huston, John, 160; Beat the Devil, 21, 160; The Maltese Falcon, 160; The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, 160

  Interlenghi, Franco, 157

  Ivernel, Daniel, 157

  Iverson, Ethan, 213

  Jacobs, Alexander, 156

  Jewison, Norman, 153

  Karina, Anna, 157

  Kastner, 157, 158–60

  Kaye, Danny, 141

  King, Stephen, 197–99; On Writing, 197

  King, Tabitha, 193, 197–99

  Klass, Phil. See Tenn, William Knight, Damon, 109

  Kubrick, Stanley, 88; The Killing, 88

  Ladd, Alan, 85

  Landers, Hal, 156, 161, 164

  Laurel, Stan, 23

  Laurent, Georges, 156

  Lefcourt, Helen, 165

  Lehane, Dennis, 62

  Lehrer, Tom, 87

  Lenny, 159

  Leonard, Elmore, 128, 129

  Leone, Sergio, 52; The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, 52

  Le Person, Paul, 157

  Lion, Bess, 180

  List, John, 165

  Little Caesar, 116

  Lord, Sheldon, xii. See also Block, Lawrence

  Lord Peter Wimsey series (Dorothy L. Sayers), 33, 76

  Lorre, Peter, 160

  Ludlum, Robert, 19

  MacDonald, John D., xviii, 47, 52, 105, 122, 145–47, 214; Cape Fear, 122; The End of the Night, 147

  Macdonald, Ross, 20, 46, 47, 49–50, 52, 105; Black Money, 49–50; Lew Archer series, 46, 49–50. See also Millar, Kenneth

  Mackendrick, Alexander, 165; A Boy Ten Feet Tall (a.k.a. Sammy Goes South), 165–66

  Maggott, Poll, 180

  Maibaum, Richard, 160

  Mailer, Norman, 10, 109

  Manners, William, 72

  “Man Who Read John Dickson Carr, The” 53

  Marshall, Alan, xi, xii. See also Westlake, Donald E.

  Marvin, Lee, 28

  Matheson, Richard, 64

  Matthau, Walter, 137

  May, Elaine, 137

  Mayes, Wendell, 156

  McAleer, John J., 132–33

  McBain, Ed, 72, 78; 87th Precinct series, 87. See also Hunter, Evan

  McCall’s, 119

  McCarthy, Eugene, 51

  McGilligan, Patrick, 163–70

  McLuhan, Marshall, 38

  McNeely, Thomas H., 62

  McRea, Joel, 192

  Meredith, Scott, 10, 11, 109

  Merrill, Judith, 64

  Mike Shayne’s Mystery Magazine, 81

  Millar, Kenneth, 46. See also Macdonald, Ross

  Miller, Arthur, 105

  Milligan, Spike, 192; The Goon Show, 190–92

  Mills, Robert P., 68

  Mitchum, Robert, 161

  Mnouchkine, Alexandre, 156

  Mona Lisa, 122

  Money Trap, The, 88

  Montaigne, Eddie, 91

  Moon, Bucklin, 72, 82

  Moore, Archie, 164

  Morley, Robert, 21

  Morrison, Henry, xii, 11, 63, 110, 204–5

  Moskowitz, Sam, 69

  Mulford, Clarence E., 39; Hopalong Cassidy series, 39

  Murdock, 178–79

  Newhouse, David, 156

  Newhouse, Rafe, 156

  Nussbaum, Albert, 151–63

  Oates, Warren, 142

  O’Day, Anita, 164

  Oedipus Rex, 13

  O’Hara, John, xv

  O’Keefe, Dennis, 92

  Oxford American, 62

  Paradise Lost, 44

  Payback, 28

  Penzler, Otto, 59, 84, 112

  Perelman, S. J., 139

  Peterson, Don, 161

  Peugeot, Eric, 90

  Peugeot, Raymond, 90

  Philo Vance series (Ngaio Marsh), 33

  Pitt, Brad, 204

  Playboy, 62

  Poe, Edgar Allan, 32, 57–58, 63; C. Auguste Dupin series, 57; “The Gold Bug,” 57; “The Imp of the Perverse,” 57; “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” 63; “ ‘Thou Art the Man,’ ” 57

  Pohl, Frederik, 67–68, 69, 70, 72

  Powell, Anthony, 132; A Dance to the Music of Time, 132

  Powell, Dawn, 204; The Locusts Have No King, 204

  Prather, Richard S., 47–49; Shell Scott series, 47–49, 52; “The Sleeper Caper,” 48; The Wailing Frail, 47–48

  Proust, Marcel, 198; Swann’s Way, 198; Within a Budding Grove, 198

  Queen, Ellery, 15, 76

  Rabe, Peter, 73, 111–29; Agreement to Kill, 120; Anatomy of a Killer, 111, 125–26; Benny Muscles In, 116, 117; Black Mafia, 128; Blood on the Desert, 123; The Box, 111, 126–28; Bring Me Another Corpse, 123–24; Code Name Gadget, 111, 128; The Cut of the Whip, 126; Daniel Port series, 119–20, 122, 123–24, 126; Dig My Grave Deep, 119; Girl in a Big Brass Bed, 128; “Hard Case Redhead, 111, 112; A House in Naples, 118; It’s My Funeral, 122; Journey into Terror, 122; Kill the Boss Goodbye, 73, 111–12, 113, 116, 118, 120, 123; Manny de Witt series, 128; Mission for Vengeance, 122; Murder Me for Nickels, 1
13, 125; My Lovely Executioner, 124–25; The Out Is Death, 119–20; A Shroud for Jesso, 117–18; The Spy Who Was Three Feet Tall, 128; Stop This Man, 111, 115–16, 117, 120, 121; Time Enough to Die, 124; War of the Dons, 128

  Ramus, David, 200–202; On Ice, 200–202

  Reiner, Carl, 161

  Reynolds, Trent, 213

  Rice, Craig, 18

  Richardson, Tony, 153

  Rififi, 158

  Ritchie, Jack, 136–38; A New Leaf and Other Stories, 136–38; “Package Deal,” 138; “Piggy Bank Killer,” 138

  Roaring Twenties, The, 186

  Roberts, Bobby, 156, 161, 164

  Robinson, Edward G., 166, 185, 186

  Rockefeller, Nelson, 25–26

  Rogers, Joel Townsley, 73; The Red Right Hand, 73

  Rosaire, Forrest, 37

  Ross, Harold, 140

  Ruben, Joe, 165–66; The Stepfather, 165–66

  Runyon, Damon, 58, 129

  Ryan, Robert, 164

  Ryder, Winona, 204

  Sabaroff, Robert, 156

  Salt, Gary, 203–4

  Santesson, Hans Stefan, 72

  Schaefer, Jack, 40; Shane, 40, 52

  Scott, Justin, 102

  Secombe, Harry, 192

  Sellers, Peter, 192

  Sergeant Bilko, 91

  Shakespeare, William, 13, 196; The Tempest, 42

  Shaw, Captain Joseph M., 36

  Sheckley, Robert, 64

  Sheldon, Sidney, 20

  Sheppard, Jack, 179–83

  Shintani, Stacey, 214

  Sidney, Sylvia, 83

  Silvers, Phil, 91

  Silverstein, Shel, 62

  Simenon, Georges, 105

  Sinatra, Frank, 51

  Smith, Thorne, 19, 116

  Socrates, 211

  Spillane, Mickey, 17, 46–47, 48–49, 114; I, the Jury, 46–47; Mike Hammer series, 15, 17, 36, 46–47, 48–49, 52

  Stahl, Levi, xiii

  Stark, Richard, 13–22, 23, 24, 26, 27–30, 80, 82, 83, 93–94, 99, 100–101, 153, 154, 155, 156, 157–58, 160, 161, 162, 164, 205, 206; Backflash, 29; Break-out, 173; Comeback, 29; The Damsel, 160; Deadly Edge, 161; Firebreak, 29; Grofield series, 27, 155, 160; The Hunter, xvii, 80, 82, 156; The Jugger, 156; The Outfit, 156, 164; Parker series, xvii, xviii, 14, 15, 26, 27–30, 82, 83, 93, 95, 154, 155, 157–58, 173; The Score, 156; The Seventh (a.k.a. The Split), 156, 186. See also Westlake, Donald E.

  Starr, Ben, 156

  Star Wars, 189

  Steinbeck, John, 105

  Stine, Kate, 73; The Armchair Detective Book of Lists, 73

  Stout, Rex, 132–36; The Doorbell Rang, 133; The Father Hunt, 133–35; Fer-de-Lance, 134; The Mother Hunt, 136; Nero Wolfe series, 132–36

  Sturges, Preston, 192; Sullivan’s Travels, 192