Opening sentence for Blackflash: "When the car stopped rolling, Parker kicked out the rest of the windshield and crawled through onto the wrinkled hood, Glock first."
The other guy, Howell the driver, is trapped in the car, trapped but conscious. Parker can hear the trooper siren in the distance. Howell tells Parker he won't talk. Parker grabs the bag holding $140,000 in cash, says, "See you in twenty years," and heads downslope.
So ends one caper where Parker and crew cut into a deal involving rockets stolen from a military depot. Then, back with his woman Claire in their house by a lake in rural Upstate New Jersey, the unexpected: Parker receives a call from Albany, New York, from a man named Cathman. It appears Howell was next going to work with Cathman on a job but now that Howell is dead, Cathman wants to meet with Parker.
Parker travels north and discovers Hilliard Cathman is a retired state government official with instant access to reams of inside information, including a detailed blueprint of a riverboat soon to be used for gambling on the Hudson River.
Cathman gives Parker the skinny: he's adamantly opposed to gambling in his part of the state and, as a first step , wants Parker to head up a robbery - steal all the cash aboard.
Is this guy crazy? Parker knows something is off with Hilliard Cathman and needs to dig deeper...but, damn, piles and more piles of greenbacks all in one room, the "money room," on that riverboat. So enticing.
Rollin' on the river. Backflash is a thriller that thrills at every swivel, an intricately plotted, masterfully constructed tale of suspense, drama, depth, pathos.
One key for any creative writer: their use of metaphor and simile and vivid language. To serve an added helping of master of the craft Donald E. Westlake writing as Richard Stark, I'll make a special point of peppering in colorful direct quotes as part of my highlight reel:
Finicky Finger
As a way to better understand what's behind his inside man (the "finger" in outlaw parlance), Parker pays a visit to Cathman's office. Is this retired bureaucrat, sometime government consultant, all what he presents himself to be? In the outer office, behind Cathman's secretary, there's "a large framed reproduction of Ben Shahn's Sacco and Vanzetti poster. So Cathman was not a man to give up a cause just because it was dead." Parker keeps looking and looking but none of his answers proves satisfying, but then...for Richard Stark to tell.
River Rat
Parker needs to explore the Hudson River. Through one of his contacts, he's out on a boat owned by crafty older Hanzen, a river rat making his living, in part, by selling the marijuana he grows to bikers. When the boat approaches shore, Hanzen spots three bikers who deal his grass. Westlake/Stark describes this trio in several quick, incisive strokes:
"Bikers. Two were heavyset middle-aged men with heavy beards and mean eyes and round beerguts; the third was younger, thinner, clean shaven. All were in leather jackets and jeans. The two older ones sat on the ground, backs against their motorcycles, while the third, jittery, hopped-up, kept walking this way and that in the little clearing, watching the approaching boat, talking to the other two, looking back up the road they'd come down." Hint: this isn't the last we hear of the biker trio.
Assemblyman and Body Guards
One of the more intriguing parts of the riverboat heist: Parker and Dan Wycza act as armed bodyguards for a state assemblyman, a government official played by Lou Sternberg. Stark fans will recognize both Wycza and Sternberg from previous Parker novels.
Sexy Susan
"Dan Wycza thought this woman Susan Cahill would be therapeutic. She looked like somebody who liked sex without getting all bent out of shape over it, somebody who knew what it was for and all about its limitations." Susan Cahill serves as the ship's top guide and escort, a tall, slender, curvaceous looker whose specialty is using her friendly smile, her sweet words, her suggestive, subtle bump and grind to manipulate - men most especially.
Deigning to cast an eye at the Goon Patrol (Parker and Dan Wycza), Susan Cahill sees "two state cops in civvies, all muscle and gun, no brains." As Stark fans might expect, when the boys transition from body guards to heisters, Susan Cahill gets her comeuppance, as per:
Parker orders Cahill to put her hands behind her back. "I certainly will not!" She folder her arms under her breasts and glared. "If you think you'll get away with -"
He slapped her, left-handed, open-handed, but hard, the sound almost like a baseball being hit by a bat." When Parker gives Susan Cahill the choice: put your hands behind your back or I knock your teeth out, Susan dutifully puts her hands behind her back.
Wan in Wheelchair
Two other of Parker's past string are in on the riverboat heist, including hippie-type chic Noelle Braselle who night after night has been playing the part of a wealthy maiden confined to a wheelchair. Turns out, not an easy job at all, a task taking its toll. Hey, Noelle, how are you doing, honey? "For answer, she hunkered back and drew her legs up under her. Seated in the van doorway, cross-legged, slumped forward, she looked like an untrustworthy oracle."
Ray Rolls the Dice
Another key Backflash player: Ray Becker. I'll conclude with Westlake/Stark providing a bit of background for our man Ray:
"He was a fuckup, and he knew it. He'd been a fuckup all his life, third of five sons of a hardware store owner who was never any problem for any of his boys so long as they worked their ass off. Being in the middle, Ray had never been big enough, or strong enough to compete with his meaner older brothers, and never been cute enough or sly enough to compete with his guileful younger brothers, so he was just the fuckup in the middle, and grew up knowing that about himself, and had never done anything in his life to make him change his opinion of himself."
Is Ray's luck about to change? Read Backflash to find out.
American author Donald E. Westlake, 1933-2008
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