Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: What chiefly distinguishes Westlake, under whatever name, is his passion for process and mechanics […]. Parker appears to have eliminated everything from his program [except] machine logic, but this is merely protective coloration. He is a romantic vestige, a free-market anarchist whose independent status is becoming a thing of the past. So reads an insightful observation from a New York Review of Books piece cited on the plaudits page of several of the 24 Parker novels written by Donald E. Westlake under the pseudonym of Richard Stark and republished by the University of Chicago Press.1 The series originally appeared from 1962 to 1974 and resumed, after a hiatus, from 1997 until its author's death in 2008. An inaugural installment titled The Hunter (1962) opens with a roadside glimpse of its antihero as viewed by “office men” and “office women” commuting into New York City while he is walking across the George Washington Bridge at 8:00 a.m. “Big and shaggy, with flat square shoulders and arms too long in sleeves too short” (2008a [1962], p. 3), he strikes passersby who notice him as a down-on-his-luck vagrant: “His hands, swinging curve-fingered at his sides, looked like they were molded of brown clay by a sculptor who thought big and liked veins. […] His face was a chipped chunk of concrete, with eyes of flawed onyx. His mouth was a quick stroke, bloodless” (2008a [1962], p. 4).2 The significant fact about Parker, however, is not that many other characters regard him as an atavistic Cro-Magnon reincarnation. Westlake's series profiles him instead as a highly intentional and inveterately anti-organization man during an era of American culture renowned for its ethos of conformity and subservience to the tacit expectations of corporatism. Wholly an outsider to that sphere, Parker as Luc Sante recognizes is “a romantic vestige, a free-market anarchist” (1985). When Alan Grofield, first introduced as an accomplice in The Score (2009e [1964]), meets Parker again for another heist job in The Handle (1966), he describes Parker as a “Robin Hood in the age of mechanization” (2009a [1966], p. 47). The only error in that representation is that, unlike the legendary outlaw, the professional thief known simply as Parker does not altruistically steal from the rich to give to the poor. There was the crazy, ghost-ridden world of his grandmother and his dead parents. There was the isolated, best-not-remembered world in which he had been a paratrooper. There was the matter-of-fact, opaque-glass-brick-partitioned world of places like the United Broadcasting Company and the Schanenhauser Foundation. And there was the entirely separate world populated by Betsy and Janey and Barbara and Pete, the only one of the four worlds worth a damn. (Wilson, 2002 [1955], p. 22) Although Rath wears a gray flannel suit in compliance with the dress code of New York City's business establishment at the time, he soon discovers that this realm “inhibits [his] attempts to live a fully integrated life” (Mueller, 2013, p. 4). In the novel's second half, thanks largely to his wife's pluck, Rath is able to achieve some balance among the compartmentalized sectors of his life, subtended as they are by time, place, and circumstance, but even so Wilson's parable of the 1950s suggests the idea of a necessary compromise between collectivism and individualism.4 About a third of the way into his treatise, in a short chapter titled “The ‘Well-Rounded’ Man,” Whyte pauses to consider the fictional example of Tom Rath. Wilson's protagonist, he decides, epitomizes a newly emergent generation's blithe premise that “the goals of the individual and the goals of the organization will work out to be one and the same” (2002 [1956], p. 129). Having “an implicit faith that The Organization will be as interested in making use of their best qualities as they are themselves,” young men like Rath “don't see why they shouldn't have the good life and good money both. There doesn't have to be any choice between the two” (2002 [1956], pp. 130,132). It helps, of course, that Rath has an understanding boss in network president Ralph Hopkins and a recently deceased grandmother whose estate overlooking Long Island Sound can be subdivided into a profitable housing development. Whyte's larger argument is that the ideology of the Organization Man had shifted well away from a foundational Protestant ethic, one that valued the intrinsic worth of hard work and thrift, and toward a social ethic that after the New Deal promoted “a belief in the group as the source of creativity; a belief in ‘belongingness’ as the ultimate need of the individual; and a belief in the application of science to achieve the belongingness” (Whyte, 2002 [1956], p. 7). In the process of that paradigm shift emerged rampant consumerism, Big Business, and the erosion of genuine autonomy. Parker's unwavering commitment to efficiency, albeit in his role as a professional thief, would seem to align him with those in the corporate sector who specialize in risk management, but the incommensurate difference is that Westlake's loner knows that “all business is crime” (Sante, 1985, p. 19). The Man with the Getaway Face (1963) does mention that Parker under an alias “owned a couple of parking lots and gas stations around the country to satisfy the curiosity of the Internal Revenue beagles,” but partly as an income-tax dodge he “let the managers siphon off the profits in return for not asking him to take an active part in the business” (2008b [1963], p. 14). Another Parker novel, The Jugger (1965), records a perception by undertaker Bernard Gliffe, who is complicit with corrupt police Captain Abner Younger in Sagamore, Nebraska, that “he had to be a businessman of some kind. The way he looked, big and square and hard, it had to be a tough and competitive business; used cars maybe, or jukeboxes” (2009b [1965], p. 18).5 Ultimately the key to Parker's series-long survival, as Richard Rayner has suggested, is his “endless adaptivity,” but at the same time he maintains a strict set of moral prerogatives (Rayner, 2008). “Parker abhors waste, sloth, frivolity, inconstancy, double-dealing, and reckless endangerment as much as any Puritan,” posits Sante. “He hates dishonesty with a passion […]. He is a craftsman who takes pride in his work” (2009, p. vi). That gyroscopic devotion to efficiency coupled with ruthless retaliation when betrayed is a lesson he learned in Westlake's initial triad of novels. The Hunter memorably dramatizes the last point in its account of Parker's double-cross by both Mal Resnick, his duplicitous associate in a $93,400 munitions caper, and Parker's wife Lynn, as a result of which under a cover name he spent half a year on a prison farm before escaping by killing a guard. The novel begins explosively with a nearly destitute Parker barging into Lynn's Manhattan apartment and demanding to know Resnick's whereabouts. When she explains that Mal moved out 3 months ago but continues to pay the rent in cash by way of a messenger, the revenge-minded Parker decides to wait there for 4 days until the next payment is delivered. By the next morning, however, a remorseful Lynn, whom Resnick had threatened to kill in California unless she shot her husband, has committed suicide by an overdose of prescription painkillers. Temporarily at a loss because “He hated her and he loved her, and he'd never felt either emotion for anyone before” (2008a [1962], p. 24), Parker disposes of her corpse in Central Park and bides his time before tracking down Mal Resnick. At this juncture Westlake's narrative redirects attention to an underworld network that calls itself the Outfit, which has 12,000 employees nationwide as mentioned in the novel of the same title (101). By way of background The Hunter includes the detail that 4 years earlier Resnick had “blown a syndicate connection” when he bungled a heroin transaction (2008a [1962], p. 43). In order to reingratiate himself, Mal repaid the Outfit $80,000 from the munitions job, including Parker's share of $45,000, in return for which he is taken back into the organization as a mid-level manager of liquor sales. Upon learning from lackeys that the man he betrayed in California is on his trail, Resnick seeks an interview with one of the two syndicate bosses in New York City. Westlake's rendering of the consultation masterfully parodies the pretensions and posturing of a corporate hierarchy. Ensconced in a towering office building's Suite 706, the frosted-glass door of which bears the inscription “Frederick Carter, Investments,” the mogul is said to be “an impressive man”: “Sitting behind a massive mahogany desk, he brought to mind visions of Wall Street and high finance, rails and steel and banking. Law books and economic treatises filled the glass-doored bookshelves” (2008a [1962], p. 78). When Mal meets with him to seek the Outfit's help in finding Parker, the executive makes a tent of his fingertips and peering over them immediately ticks off possible ways of handling the situation. “‘First, we could give you the assistance you ask for. Second, we could ignore the problem and let you handle it yourself, as best you may. Third, if it seemed that there actually was a danger to the smooth operation of our organization, we could have you replaced.’” Before opting for the second of these alternatives, Carter stresses that its advantage to Resnick is that if he succeeds in resolving the issue on his own “‘you would leave no doubt in anyone's mind that you were the kind of man we want, the kind of man who could go places in our organization’” (2008a [1962], p. 79). With that decision reached, the businessman advises Mal to move out of the Oakwood Arms, the Outfit's residential hotel, “until this matter is settled one way or the other” (2008a [1962], p. 84). Predictably his deferential petitioner complies. All right, Parker, allow me to give you the facts of life. The organization is not unreasonable. It pays its debts, works within acceptable business ethics, and does its best to run at a profit. Except for the fact that it works outside the law, it conforms as closely as possible to the corporate concept. In other words, if you had come to me with a legitimate corporate debt, you would have no trouble. But you are asking us to reimburse you for a personal debt contracted by a former employee. No corporation in the world would agree to that, Parker, and I'm sure our organization wouldn't either. (2008a [1962], pp. 158–59) Exasperated by this pretension and upon learning that Justin Fairfax, the Outfit's other “regional manager,” is currently in Florida, Parker says: “All right, then who runs the whole thing? […] One man, Carter. You go up high enough, you always come to one man” (2008a [1962], p. 159). That person is 56-year-old Arthur Bronson, currently in Las Vegas, and while on the phone with him Parker bluntly pledges, “‘Either I get paid, or Carter is dead’” (2008a [1962], p. 161). When Bronson spurns the ultimatum, Parker puts the receiver down for a moment, wrests a hidden gun away from Carter, and shoots him. On the line again the outraged CEO blusters that “'No lone man can buck the organization'” (2008a [1962], p. 162), in response to which Parker promises that he will be visiting Bronson soon. He wasn't sure himself any more how much was a tough front to impress the organization and how much was himself. He knew he was hard, he knew that he worried less about emotion than other people. But he'd never enjoyed the idea of a killing. And now he wasn't sure himself whether he'd just been putting a scare into Fairfax or if he'd really meant it. (2008a [1962], p. 171) The upshot is that he knows the former identity he had constructed for himself is blown and, his fingerprints now being on file in Washington, DC, he must have his appearance altered via plastic surgery, as did his friend Joe Sheer before he retired 3 years ago. With that metamorphosis then becomes possible a return to the former pattern of Parker's existence. The Man with the Getaway Face is a notable continuation of the saga for at least a couple of reasons. For one thing, after recuperating from his facial reconstruction at a sanitarium near Lincoln, Nebraska, and fabricating a new identity as Charles Willis, Parker enters warily into a plan with trusted ally Handy McKay and a less reliable associate named Skimm to pull off an armored-car holdup in New Jersey initially conceived by Skimm's barmaid girlfriend Alma. Amid the fraught planning for the heist, Parker is surprised to realize, apparently for the first time, that “there were always the same people in every job” (2008b [1963], p. 57), including one like Alma who has to be watched closely for signs of duplicity. Now approximately 38 years old,6 Westlake's career criminal is beginning to recognize a typology among those with whom circumstances, including financial exigency, forge intermittent alliances. The other thing that to the in this second novel of the series is the of a to and when an is to be plastic whose Parker nearly in Jersey City is more than to and two for the this that in the The Hunter an named financial from and munitions and a piece of an (2008a [1962], pp. The of these is that in the economic of in The Score this When a young named to with in of cash by Parker's from an in New the himself by police in a gun the their begins to the money out an at which point a of from behind and on their and of as the them off one by one p. The it the The and it the You it the I you people have with But I if you the me and pay me back whether you like it or (2008a [1962], p. you people with organization, and have any organization, but know with you know I'm […] never just a and there that know so to (2008a [1962], p. Parker those in his line of work a in to the and corporate of the Outfit is in the when Arthur Bronson, the Outfit's initially at Parker the he his Westlake's of to his them to ignore an the When that in over a of to the Outfit, Parker Bronson and calls off the a with as the of committed over the of the criminal in the however, around or that how a former between economic and is of for Westlake in The Man with the Getaway Face a to this by that in the year between and the money was at the as the to a but at the the and in (2008b [1963], pp. of the Parker novels after The Outfit around with which he must but many The (1963) a by that Parker had the way he to a pattern he He was a in one or two a or a or an to the [1963], p. That begins to in The when with trusted he an to run of its of police who the in The when a young named is during Parker's from her apartment and from he with are taken in by an In order to down the Parker must a of with and a he did not The that he is being into a role to in the same The Handle the by Westlake's thief by as the Outfit's new boss to and an in the of Parker succeeds but The Jugger explains that its from than from not out of but simply because the former have more money than the (2009b [1965], p. Parker, to the of a efficiency, p. but in an less on cash Parker himself to of hard an the title of which on the idea of a former now the of a for survival, this a armored-car heist that Parker is to seek in Island which has for the its including Island and that Parker's new he the of before finding himself the of an by the including on the of a boss named The for the part as Parker it at the idea of of course, but that it the in his of Parker must go to in order to emergent to his of the last and by the of the Westlake's triad of by Parker and his a corrupt in the of a of recently a Parker Alan to the that years ago he at Island but upon finding the they a of Before long Parker discovers that his are for the being up in a to an between two that Westlake's loner calls in several from including Handy and to on the The Parker's to this to the McKay p. but in the take to before they a from his So the of an independent in a criminal establishment while the to which Parker and his of independent must go to even a for their The of the Parker one that the he while on a job, a young of approximately Parker's age first introduced in The Score she a for them both in New as she is by a of but by Parker at the last as it is does not as the of so in 1950s and but Parker to regard it as an of his work life. in the same year as records that “He liked this was in an of New with in it for him. life, with no it to the life he on the It was a kind of thing that, and he enjoyed p. on the we is the name Willis, Parker's cover identity years before he p. both her commitment to Westlake's and the of for No less highly a than has that the Parker novels among the and of their time and, in of any The for his is that Westlake's antihero is “the ultimate professional […] at his when at his One that this is why a be of to in the and is that in the last years or so we have so to after of Whyte first that the idea of a professional who has to no for the posturing and of the corporate In a of Whyte his as are not about after a of What we are about is a which that group are not only but and good as (Whyte, p. The as I to have is the of those Outfit like Carter who have the and of their in the world of legitimate When a individual like Parker, with their of these soon to a more code of that he of a Review on Westlake's the time that we in his Parker to even to the […]. The Parker like Parker himself, their as much in they as in they p. That of a hidden or it for of a Westlake's in the world of and p. because Parker and the series named after he be into a of in American and he can only be as an anti-organization “The other never you but the you were Now of a you a of people Parker to his […] he if like me or people to the I'm around in I'm not When was it like me to take and just […] And I to about it any I to it. or p.
Source: The Journal of American Culture
DOI: 10.1111/jacc.13581
Author: Robert Lance Snyder
Institution: University of West Georgia
Language: English
Subfield: Literature and Literary Theory
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W4401973182