The Green Eagle Score by Richard Stark

 


The Green Eagle Score by Donald E. Westlake writing as Richard Stark clocks in as Parker #10 in the author's list of 24 Parker novels.

The Gold Eagle Score is such a jimdandy crime noir snapper, you'll want to set aside an entire afternoon or evening too read, a novel way too compelling to put down until you've read the last sentence on the last page.

Parker and now steady girlfriend Claire sun themselves on a beach in Puerto Rico when a guy dressed in a black suit turns up. His name is Marty Fusco; he's pulled past heists with Parker and he's hot to pull another for two reasons: 1) he's fresh out of prison and needs the dough; 2) he knows a sharp young stud who works in the fiance department at an Air Force base in upstate New York who can be the inside man to steal the base's monthly cash payroll of $400,000.

But Marty knows the job needs a topnotch planner; Marty knows the job needs Parker.

Parker is intrigued, at least enough to travel to New York (on the stud's dime) and take a look. After meeting young Stan Devers currently shacked up with Marty's ex-wife (fine by Marty), scoping out the Air Force base and talking through the possible plan, the gears in Parker's mind start spinning - he's in.

By my eye, most reviewers go overboard, revealing too much. Each reader deserves the opportunity to encounter all the many surprises and twists on their own. Thus I'll make an immediate pivot to a bushel of Green Eagle Score highlights:

The Force That Flops
Donald E. Westlake served a stint in the US Air Force. He was less than impressed with the way things were run back in the 1950s. Among the many swipes the author takes in Green Eagle, here's Stan Devers telling Parker about an officer, a lieutenant, in the room with the money: "Wormley's like his name. A little creep, fresh out of ROTC. A nothing."

Once at the Air Force base the day of the score, the heisters have some down time before hitting the vault later that night, so the boys go see the movie playing at the base theater, a musical comedy. A true irony picturing Parker and the other crooks watching something like Gene Kelly in Singin' in the Rain before stealing $400,000 from Uncle Sam.

Ellen the Erratic
Marty's ex-wife, Stan's current girlfriend, is a gal by the name of Ellen. Ellen is ordinarily on an emotional yo-yo, so you can imagine what she might be like when the heisters, especially Parker, invade her house.

Ellen enjoys the idea of her man Stan getting his hands on all that cash but the nitty-gritty outlaw life is unhinging her not so stable personality - things like knowing Parker packed real pistols, real machine guns and ammunition in boxes meant for kids toys and stashed those boxes on the top shelf in her three-year-old daughter Pam's closet.

Ellen's Sessions With Her Shrink
Ellen sees her psychoanalyst for an hour session three times a week. Understanding patient-doctor confidentiality and medical ethics, Ellen tells Dr. Godden all about the Air Force base caper.

Dr. Godden is a professional, calm, empathetic, a man Ellen can trust. Dr Godden is especially interested in Ellen's relationship with this man, this cool, calculating outlaw by the name of Parker.

During one session, Ellen has this to say about Parker: “He’s–I don’t know, I look at him and I think he’s evil. But that isn’t right, exactly, I don’t think he’s evil. I mean, I don’t think he’d ever be cruel or anything like that, for the fun of it. I wouldn’t worry about leaving Pam around him, for instance.”

And during another session: "He's cold and ruthless and he doesn't care about anybody, but that's because he cares about things. Not even the money, I don't think. It's the plan that really matters to him. I think the thing that counts is doing it and having it come out right. So he wouldn't want anybody else to be caught."

Ellen's sessions with Dr. Godden counts as a true slam-dunk highlight, such pinpoint revelations on the depth of personality and character.

Hawking Encyclopedias Door-to-Door
Westlake/Stark zeroes in on the plight of a man desperate for money: Jake Kengle, age twenty-six, fresh from prison, penniless, can only get a job peddling encyclopedias door-to-door. "Why would anybody buy an encyclopedia? Kengle didn't know. He'd been ringing doorbells day and night since Tuesday on this damn job, and here it was Saturday afternoon, and he hadn't yet found anybody stupid enough to fork over three hundred bucks for a bunch of books. And the commission on zero sales is zero dollars."

Jake knows there are good sales jobs around but the odds of an ex-con getting that kind of opportunity is nil. Reflecting on his bitter prospects, Jake received a phone call about joining a heist in upstate New York. For a moment, Jake considers how if this is a bum score, he could wind up back in prison. But, hell...anything would be better than hawking encyclopedias. Jake's in.

Stark Language
Mr. Westlake told an interviewer: "I want the language to be very stripped down and bleak and no adverbs; I want it stark. So, the name will be Stark just to remind me what we're doing here."

How true, sir! One quality of these Parker novels I especially appreciate: no frills, no extraneous descriptions, every word counts, every sentence drives story. Take one example from Green Eagle: "In the meantime there was sporadic gunfire, with long seconds of silence. The law was using different kinds of gun, revolvers and rifles and at least one riot gun that twice made its monkey jabber, hemstitching a line of bullets across the front of the house."

If you like sharp, clear and stark, The Green Eagle Score is your book.


American author Donald E. Westlake, 1933-2008