The Parallax View

By Loren Singer

Some Comments from here and abroad concerning THE PARALLAX VIEW:

“An exciting story to begin with… the sinister events in the United States make it more powerful.”

Wigan Evening Post (England)

“… Mr. Singer’s narrative is stunning to read…”

Oxford Mail (England)

“… a very original novel.”

Boileau-Narcejac, L’Express (France)

“… don’t miss it for any reason.”

Mysterie Magazine (France)

“… will the enormous machine finally destroy us all… under the pretext of preserving the common good…”

Petites Affiches Lyonnais (France)

“…an astounding example of the genre…”

Progres Dimanche (France)

“… a chilling suspense story.”

Seattle Times

“… amazingly skillful novel.”

St. Louis Post Dispatch

“… interesting, intriguing, frightening.”

Daily Olympian

“… dark, brooding, exciting, and good story-telling…”

Canyon Crier

“… an exciting and suspenseful plot written with harsh accents.”

Delta Democrat Times

“… a skillful talented writer.”

Tuscaloosa News

“… there is a strange and fascinating book on the stands…”

Albany Knickerbocker News

“… a highly enigmatic suspense novel…”

New York Post

“… written with the vigor and strength that gives truth to fiction…”

Republique, Toulon (France)

A film version of this novel by Paramount is often shown on television. Hume Cronyn, William Daniels, Paula Prentiss, and Warren Beatty were in the cast. The cinematographer was Gordon Willis, the director Alan Pakula.

Cover Photograph by Ellen Jaffe.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Dec 9, 2002
• ISBN: 9781453551158

Loren Singer

Some Comments from here and abroad concerning THE PARALLAX VIEW: “An exciting story to begin with… the sinister events in the United States make it more powerful.” Wigan Evening Post (England) “… Mr. Singer’s narrative is stunning to read…” Oxford Mail (England) “… a very original novel.” Boileau-Narcejac, L’Express (France) “… don’t miss it for any reason.” Mysterie Magazine (France) “… will the enormous machine finally destroy us all… under the pretext of preserving the common good…” Petites Affiches Lyonnais (France) “…an astounding example of the genre…” Progres Dimanche (France) “… a chilling suspense story.” Seattle Times “… amazingly skillful novel.” St. Louis Post Dispatch “… interesting, intriguing, frightening.” Daily Olympian “… dark, brooding, exciting, and good story-telling…” Canyon Crier “… an exciting and suspenseful plot written with harsh accents.” Delta Democrat Times “… a skillful talented writer.” Tuscaloosa News “… there is a strange and fascinating book on the stands…” Albany Knickerbocker News “… a highly enigmatic suspense novel…” New York Post “… written with the vigor and strength that gives truth to fiction…” Republique, Toulon (France) A film version of this novel by Paramount is often shown on television. Hume Cronyn, William Daniels, Paula Prentiss, and Warren Beatty were in the cast. The cinematographer was Gordon Willis, the director Alan Pakula. Cover Photograph by Ellen Jaffe.

Book preview

Table of Contents

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

Epilogue

To Pen,

Andy, Skip, Dick

CHAPTER 1

Man’s image is not only that of God, it is also that of Beelzebub. The image in the ascendant now, cannot be known to us, but only to those that follow on. Perhaps God’s is not the triumph in our time.

THE HANDBOOK

The film unrolled. Tucker sat at the end of the table and gnawed at the nails of his left hand. With the other, he operated the projector controls, now swiftly, now slowly.

There was no sound, but Graham heard them as he watched, breath drawn suddenly into a thousand throats, and then single noises as individual as shards of smashed glass, a shriek, a siren’s keen.

The car swung violently toward the camera, the tires spinning and tracking on the concrete that blazed in the high sun.

Graham lit a cigarette with a shaking hand and dropped the burning match on the table beside the china ash tray.

That’s you with your hand up to your face, isn’t it? Tucker said.

Graham nodded.

The film slowed.

Here. This is where it starts with the rest of us. Cuozzi had his right hand up, palm and fingers straight in the manner of a priest signing a blessing, then he raised the Leica, one of three cameras hung about his neck, and began to aim and to shoot.

On the screen, sky and branches of trees, buildings fled past, then blots of color, and finally people again, individuals again limned and detailed as though the photographer had forced himself to function.

Graham saw Mike Greene kneeling on the pavement, aiming his camera. Then, in quick succession, Sid Pauls, Peggy McKenna, mouth open, lips drawn back, gasping. Then finally, there was a head-and-shoulders close-up of the two of them, Graham himself, and Tucker, running toward the line of cars waving their arms. They scrambled one upon the other into a careening sedan, and the film flickered out.

Tucker rewound it and started it again. This time, he stopped at each face as it was recognized in a frame.

Here, he said. Charlie was the first one. When I heard about it I shook my head. I thought about it, but in no terms at all. Shot and killed outside the American Embassy in Jakarta by Indonesian irregulars. Remember that?

Graham nodded.

All right. Now. Tucker halted the machine again. Mike Greene. Hit by a truck outside a gas station in Missouri. His wife was in the car and two kids asleep in the back seat. Mike was standing near the island when the semi came past. Gas station attendant jumped clear.

I knew it was an automobile accident. I never knew the details.

Tucker grunted.

Continue.

Arthur Faversham. Drowned while fishing on the Ausable River in May. I don’t know anything else about that. But I understand that it’s kind of a rare thing. Wouldn’t you say? You fish.

We used to talk about it endlessly. We made endless plans to go together one time.

He’s turned in his rod Tucker said grimly. Finally, Joe Peralta, Joey baby. Got hit on the head by a drunken farmer in a fight near a park that was being integrated outside of Durham, North Carolina. I saw a state highway patrol officer being interviewed about it. Said that they’d never had a killing in one of those down there. Joey was the first.

Tucker sat back in his chair.

Want to see it again?

Graham shook his head. It was vivid enough. But it was also a surprise to notice how time had softened his recollection. Harshness of sunlight, horror of detail, he had evaded them.

Did you go through this with anyone else? Tucker shrugged. They sat for a moment in silence in the dark.

Who should I show it to? Peggy? Sid Pauls? All the ones worth showing it to are dead.

He dropped a batch of newspaper clippings on the table at Graham’s hand.

I’m not much of a researcher, but I went back and read a lot of papers in the past couple of weeks. I make it twenty-one deaths of persons connected to it in some way or other.

Graham began to scan the clippings rapidly.

Some are disappearances.

Tucker nodded.

I followed up a couple of them by phone. They still haven’t been found.

They can’t all be murders.

All right, Tucker said, almost idly, staring at the table top. Then they can’t all be murders. But why? Because of the circumstances? Because you can’t conceive them to be? He smiled thinly.

I remember you telling me once that it didn’t take much brain to be a photographer.

I said the same thing about actors, as I recall.

What the hell do I care, that’s not my point. You couldn’t insult me that way. I don’t have that much pretension. I have a good line, I don’t do developing tricks and I make money, so I’m all right. My intellect isn’t the issue. But! I made a discovery. I found a clear pattern of violent death for Christ knows how many people—and they are all connected by that.

He gestured in disgust at the projector.

And, he continued, "I’ll tell you something more. I have not been in good shape for some time because of this. It is an obsession. That’s another test. I am afraid to talk about it. I went to a psychiatrist to lay the old burden down.

First I called to make an appointment with one, and his nurse or whoever the hell answered had some kind of an accent. So I hung up. Then finally I got another one, and I went. I sat in the goddam chair for an hour like a character in a bas-relief. I didn’t even give my right name.

Are you drinking?

Am I ever. He shook his head almost admiringly.

I can’t get the smell of booze off me unless I go to a Turkish bath. Even then people notice it. I used to notice it on one or two of the older ones who were working in Korea with me. The ones who were on their fifth or sixth war and overdue to come home in a box.

Graham commiserated superficially, with an understanding nod.

He knew no great fondness for Tucker. He had never sought him out in ten years of acquaintance. They had met, sometimes fairly often during the holiday seasons at a cocktail party or for dinner, for they moved in much the same circle of casual friends. But since Graham had left newspaper work they had rarely crossed paths professionally.

And Graham, besides, had felt a great sense of isolation from his fellows and his times, much of which had stemmed from the day that Tucker was dwelling upon. It was as though the country had revealed to him a great fissure in itself that engendered a deep and strong revulsion.

Or was it merely advancing age, he thought, as the months passed, and the day paled.

Run it again, he said. Once more the images flashed. He printed the names on a memo pad as they appeared. There was no sense of loss. He did not mourn them. He smiled grimly. There was sense to the term departed after all. They were departed all right. And they all shared with the scene in the film a certain inconsequentiality. On occasion they would all be withdrawn from some locked space, from some compartment of a mind, and reviewed, perhaps smiled over, perhaps wept upon, and returned to the dark.

They all died in the order that they appeared in the film, he said brusquely.

Negative, said Tucker. You and me appear first.

I’m not clear in the frame, and neither are you. We know who it is there, but not many others would. We don’t appear full on until the end of the sequence. Look again.

Tucker reran the film.

He grunted agreement.

Every time I see this, I see more. But what you say never occurred to me. You’re right.

There was in his agreement, Graham noted, more of a desire to enlist his interest than an appreciation of the fact.

Tucker turned up the volume of the stereo and drew his chair close to Graham’s. He took a pint bottle of bourbon from his inside pocket and offered it. Refused, he swallowed thirstily, and left it uncapped upon the table ready for another pull.

Listen, he said wearily, do you know how many journalists—that’s how they’re carried in the actuarial listings that I read—die every year in the line of duty, if there isn’t a war?

Graham shook his head.

Couldn’t even guess.

An average of four. We got a year’s supply in less than a year, and all of them are on one twenty-foot strip of movie film. It’s a plan, a scheme with a beginning and a continuity. And an end for us.

In the vortex you don’t see the storm, Graham said, as though to himself. Tucker drank again from the bottle, offered it again. Again Graham refused it, unwilling to take anything that might influence him, rejected as much the ephemeral clarity, as the empty cynicism that would follow.

Who would you voice this to? Who could you show it to? Tucker demanded. Who? That’s the natural process that I followed. Go ahead.

The FBI, said Graham tentatively.

Cranksville. No. How about the CIA. There’s where you could get a hearing for something this devious. Eh? What about them?

What about them? I know some of them fairly well.

Tucker grunted.

So do I. Screw them.

I’ll save you the time. We don’t have any time. I am not recruiting you into the ROTC or the Party, or a committee for truth and justice seekers. You don’t turn this into an arm of the bureaucracy, and say give me a report. What I have to do is break down the differences between you and me, or build up the agreement as a matter of survival. I want to make a plan for resistance to this—something—if it exists. And I’m convinced that it does.

Agitated, he got up and paced the room, cracking his knuckles, rubbing his jaw.

I’ve been living with it alone. Now you can say it’s paranoia, anything. I’m not the most stable of people, I know. But I’m equally certain that you will have the same effect, share the same hallucination, and that it won’t be long, either, before you will have satisfied yourself.

I have already, said Graham. I don’t know enough about you to know whether you’re stable or unstable, or paranoid enough to be institutionalized. Don’t know whether I shouldn’t be either, he added, smiling. He paused for moments, frowning, wanting to be objective, seeking to combine studied abstraction with the turbulence that Tucker had aroused.

Christ, Tucker, he added, "I never have the time or the ability probably to think about men and behavior and attitudes and governments and all the rest of it. I was brought up believing that man’s shell was worth saving—the more exceptional the man, the more worthy of reverence, but that none of them weren’t worth it. Here I’m living in a time when slaughter and repression are common and individuals are smashed and trampled in terms of principles that are claimed to justify the opposite of what they state.

"I can believe almost anything. I have believed almost anything, and it’s brought me bitterness and alienation. A kind of spiritual death that’s changing me from somebody decent to a creature who walks around with a kind of a mental snarl."

But the thing that you’re saying is appalling. It requires the kind of resources—not just financial but, Christ! social, intellectual, that are enormous.

Big, all right, said Tucker. Solid, man. A whole system of destructos. And aimed at you and me.

Why couldn’t it be true, Graham wondered aloud. Only because it shouldn’t be.

It’s happened in other countries. Happened in Rome, Germany, Russia. What’s so sacred about this country? Tell me. What’s so different about its people? They’re just as disgusting as any of the others anywhere. What I’ve seen I remember. This isn’t a civilization any more if it ever was. It’s packs of curs yawping at the asses of their betters. Led by nonentities who come to power because there’s a vacuum to fill.

Tucker’s neck and face were puffed and, swollen, specks of his saliva appeared on the table as he spoke.

Graham temporized.

Calm down, he said, relax.

Tucker laughed explosively.

Lie down, he said. Pretty soon all your troubles will be over. Help me, he said as though speaking to some cleric, help me to understand.

I’m taking a few days off, Graham told him quietly. I always try to get away at this time of the year and fish. As a matter of fact, Faversham and I had kind of a meeting planned for this year. We were going to go to the Ausable—to his favorite place. He described it to me. I’ll go and see if I can turn up anything—maybe people will remember him and how it happened. If there was anything strange about it. Something concrete.

Tucker listened to him, hands folded on the table before him, making an effort to control himself. He nodded.

That’s good. That’s very good. And I’ll go to Durham. I’ll do the same thing there. I was brought up in that goddam town. We’ll be doing something, Mal. Something meaningful, not waiting around like hogs in a pen, mumbling, ‘Oh isn’t that odd.’

And the worst I’ll have, Graham told him, is a chance to go trout fishing. And you, you can go see what happened to all those broads you used to play around with when you were in high school.

What did you say that for? Tucker said, staring at him. Look, if that’s the way you feel, just forget the whole thing. You don’t have to humor me. Just get up and leave. I don’t need anyone that bad.

Graham frowned at him. The door opened and a young woman and two men entered. They stopped abruptly just inside the door.

Sorry, Tuck, one of the men said. I didn’t know it was occupado.

Tucker rose to his feet swiftly again in sudden anger.

What the hell are you, he demanded, the chairman of the board? Ever hear of knocking? You’re goddam right it’s occupied.

The man flushed, but said nothing. As he turned to leave, his eye caught Tucker’s pint bottle, still uncapped upon the table. He shrugged, and glanced almost in reflex at his wrist watch.

Tucker went around the table swiftly, and caught him above the elbow. The other two backed hastily out into the carpeted corridor.

If you’re trying to make a comment, you little bastard, Tucker said, make it.

I did make it. I said I was sorry I interrupted you.

I know you did. I don’t like the way you said it or how you’re going to tell about it later. You understand that, don’t you. Don’t you!

He changed his grip quickly to the man’s tie and shirt front, and drew back a fist. Now Graham wrestled himself between them. Tucker’s grip yielded and the other man drew back into the relative safety of the corridor.

Goddam sot, he said in a quavering voice. People have had enough of you around here, I’m warning you.

Tucker made another convulsive effort to get at him, but Graham swung the door shut with his foot. He stood with his back to the door,