Nobody Runs Forever: A Parker Novel

By Richard Stark and Duane Swierczynski

“Lots of bleak fun . . . This stellar series just gets better and better.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

The saga begins with a poker game gone lethally awry. When Parker goes in on a messy scam—stealing an armored car—with someone he barely knows, as usual the amateurs get in the way of the job. From a nervous ex-con and his well-intentioned sister to a bank manager’s two-timing wife and a beautiful, relentless cop, too many people have their hands too close to Parker’s pie. Even when he sees the job turning bad, he can’t let go of the score—and there just might be nowhere left to run . . .

“Another thrill ride worth staying up all night and calling in sick tomorrow morning for.” ?Austin Chronicle

“The shrewdest sociopath this side of Tom Ripley . . . a great hard-boiled series.” —Booklist

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Sep 8, 2017
• ISBN: 9780226508511

Book preview

The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637

© 2004 by Richard Stark

Foreword © 2017 by Duane Swierczynski

All rights reserved

Originally published by Mysterious Press

University of Chicago Press edition 2017

Printed in the United States of America

25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17     1 2 3 4 5 6 7

ISBN-13: 978-0-226-50848-1 (paper)

ISBN-13: 978-0-226-50851-1 (e-book)

DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226508511.001.0001

Information about Richard Stark books published by the University of Chicago Press—and electronic versions of them—can be found on our website: http://www.press.uchicago.edu/.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Stark, Richard, 1933–2008, author. | Swierczynski, Duane, writer of foreword.

Title: Nobody runs forever : a Parker novel / Richard Stark ; with a new foreword by Duane Swierczynski.

Description: University of Chicago Press edition. | Chicago : The University of Chicago Press, 2017. | Originally published: New York, Mysterious Press, 2004.

Identifiers: LCCN 2017012489 | ISBN 9780226508481 (pbk. : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780226508511 (e-book)

Subjects: LCSH: Parker (Fictitious character from Stark)—Fiction. | Criminals—Fiction. | Thieves—Fiction. | Bank robberies—Fiction. | LCGFT: Fiction. | Novels.

Classification: LCC PS3573.E9 N63 2017 | DDC 813/.54—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017012489

This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper).

NOBODY RUNS FOREVER

A Parker Novel

RICHARD STARK

With a New Foreword by Duane Swierczynski

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS

Praise for Nobody Runs Forever and Richard Stark:

From the necktie party beginning to the flap-flap of police helicopters on his trail at the end, it’s another thrill ride worth staying up all night and calling in sick tomorrow morning for.—Jesse Sublett, Austin Chronicle

Stark (aka MWA Grandmaster Donald Westlake) offers lots of bleak fun as well as intriguing physical details of the illegal variety and righteously sharp descriptions of people we pass every day on the street. . . . This stellar series just gets better and better.—Publishers Weekly, starred review

Stark’s careful control over every element results in a fascinating novel, a look at the true price of crime, and an opportunity to enjoy another book by this master writer (aka Donald Westlake).—Pam Johnson, School Library Journal

If you’re looking for crime novels with a lot of punch, try the very, very tough novels featuring Parker by Donald E. Westlake (writing as Richard Stark). [They] are all beautifully paced [and] tautly composed.—James Kaufmann, Christian Science Monitor

The Nobel Prize for literature should go to the American comic-mystery writer Donald Westlake. Enough with honoring self-consciously solemn, angst-ridden and pseudo-deep chroniclers of the human condition. Westlake is smart, clever and witty—a prolific craftsman—and quite deep.—William Kristol, Weekly Standard

Elmore Leonard wouldn’t write what he does if Stark hadn’t been there before. And Quentin Tarantino wouldn’t write what he does without Leonard. . . . Old master that he is, Stark does them all one better.—Los Angeles Times

The caper novel, the story of a major criminal operation from the point of view of the participants, has no better practitioner than Richard Stark.—Anthony Boucher, New York Times Book Review

Whatever Stark writes, I read. He’s a stylist, a pro, and I thoroughly enjoy his attitude.—Elmore Leonard

What chiefly distinguishes Westlake, under whatever name, is his passion for process and mechanics. . . . Parker appears to have eliminated everything from his program but 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.—Luc Sante, New York Review of Books

[L]ike Rex Stout and Patricia Highsmith, [Westlake] seemed incapable of composing a bad sentence. Elmore Leonard gets deserved recognition as a laconic master of language, but Westlake was no less skillful. In some ways he was more ambitious and audacious.—David Bordwell

Donald E. Westlake . . . has a wonderfully twisted mind that takes impish delight in knocking over its own elaborate plot constructions. . . . There’s no moral in this, you understand. Just the thrill of being caught up . . . in the guilty pleasure of getting away with something really, really bad.—New York Times Book Review

FOREWORD

I know what you’re gonna say. And don’t say it.

I was going to say, the job works just as good with you dead.

—Nobody Runs Forever, by Richard Stark

When I first heard the title, I thought: oh no.

I mean, Nobody Runs Forever? Ominous much? After twenty-one novels, it appeared that luck had finally run out for Parker, no first name. Which made me sad, because Parker was the fictional character who had the biggest impact on my life.

I haven’t been a fan since the beginning. That’s because I hadn’t been born when the series began (with The Hunter, in 1962). I first heard about Parker—and his author, Richard Stark, the mysterious alter ego of Donald E. Westlake—in Stephen King’s afterword for his 1989 novel The Dark Half. Stark sounded like my kind of son of a bitch. But good luck finding any copies in that pre-Internet era. The most recent Parker novel, Butcher’s Moon, had appeared in 1974, when I was two.

Flash forward eight years. I was working at a men’s magazine in New York City, and one day a new Richard Stark novel appeared on the free table (the sad place where promotional copies of new novels come to die). But not this one. Oh no. I snatched up Comeback immediately. Could this be the same Richard Stark who’d written all of those Parker novels I’d never been able to find? Why yes it was. And it was so damned good.

This started a frenzied search for the original run of the Parker novels. On my lunch break, I would hop the subway from Broadway and Lafayette and make my way to the Mysterious Bookshop, then located on West Fifty-Sixth Street. I’d follow the winding iron staircase up to the second floor. Otto Penzler would glare at me, briefly. Then I’d scour the used paperback shelves. My only score was a tattered copy of The Damsel, about Parker’s buddy Alan Grofield. Which was cool, but Grofield is no Parker. Many years later, Otto Penzler would tell me that those same bookshelves I’d been scouring were actually built by Donald Westlake. (That burned ozone odor in the air? That was my mind being blown.)

I haunted the other mystery bookstores, too. Back then, New York was practically teeming with them—Murder Ink on the Upper West Side, Black Orchid on the Upper East, Poisoned Pen in the Village. No dice. At least, not in my I work in magazine publishing price range. Happily, along with the new wave of Parker novels, reprints of the old stuff began to appear. Slowly. Oh, so slowly. Payback, Brian Helgeland’s adaptation of The Hunter starring Mel Gibson, appeared just in time for my twenty-seventh birthday. (I know the film is a sore subject with some Parker-heads, but I loved the hell out of Payback—and the director’s cut is even better.)

Then, in April 2001, I received a gift from the gods. I was nosing around a used bookstore on Fairmount Avenue in Philadelphia when I noticed not one or two . . . but a serious pile of Parker novels. Two bucks each! Yeah, they were the slightly cheeseball eighties editions from Avon, but that didn’t change the hard-boiled prose inside. I snapped them all up and felt like I’d pulled off the heist of the century.

By 2002 my Parker mania had reached such a fever pitch that I somehow talked my wife into naming our firstborn child after the character. And around the same time, I started writing my own version of a no-nonsense, stoic thief. My incarnation was a mute Irish getaway driver, but a deep strain of Parker ran through his DNA. (I think every crime writer sooner or later writes his or her own Parker novel; it’s fortunate that Mr. Stark chose not to sue us thieving bastards.) That novel turned out to be The Wheelman, my first crime novel, and the start of a career that changed my life.

Which is why the announcement (back in 2004) of the title of the twenty-second Parker novel filled me with dread. Perhaps nobody runs forever, but I always liked Parker’s chances.

But my fear was for naught; as it turned out, Parker would return in Ask the Parrot and then his final novel, Dirty Money (2008). Donald Westlake passed away New Year’s Eve that same year, presumably taking Richard Stark along for the ride. Parker, as far as we know, remains at large.

So if this is the first Parker novel you’ve picked up, should you start here? Well, you could, because everything that’s great about the Parker novels is present in both Nobody Runs Forever and Ask the Parrot. Parker is the same consummate professional he’s been since first appearing on the scene back in 1962. How do you make an amoral selfish thug likeable? Richard Stark came up with a brilliant solution: you surround him with people who are even more amoral, even more selfish, and, sometimes, even bigger thugs.

The joy of a Parker novel is watching him operate by his strict no-bullshit code—and then watching him adapt and problem-solve as things go haywire (as they inevitably do). Am I crazy for wishing for a father like Parker? A calm, steady rock of a man you can count on when it feels like the world is quickly devolving into chaos? Sure, he probably wouldn’t do much in the hugs department. But you’d know he’d take good care of the family. And score extra dough on family trips, as needed.

And speaking of all things domestic—I always love Parker’s moments with Claire, long-time paramour. No, they don’t talk much or crack jokes or make kissy-faces at each other. (Nick and Nora Charles, they’re not.) But they sure know how to unwind and unplug. As with so many of our favorite literary characters, we read their adventures because we want to step into their lives for a while. Work hard for a small part of the year, but step back and relax in style the rest of the time. At least, until the bank account starts looking thin.

So sure, you could turn the page and dive right in and see for yourself what all of the fuss is about. Nobody Runs Forever and Ask the Parrot—along with Dirty Money—fit together as a kind of miniepic, much like Butcher’s Moon, which put a cap on the original run of Parkers back in 1974. But why would you want to pick up Parker’s adventures at the end when you can go back and enjoy the series from the very beginning? All without Otto Penzler glaring at you? If I had access to a time machine in the late nineties, I’d be arriving right . . . about . . . now . . . inside the offices of the University of Chicago Press to scoop up the entire run. So go buy them. Every single one. And savor them. You’ll thank me later.

I had the opportunity to meet Donald Westlake at the Edgar Awards banquet in 2006. Our brief encounter was entirely thanks to writer Sarah Weinman (who has introduced the Grofield novels in this reprint series). What do you say when meeting one of your literary heroes—the man who created a character that changed your life? Well, if you’re me, you freeze up and stammer something incoherent. But if I could do it all over again, I’d hope to squeak out two things. First: If you see Mr. Stark, could you tell him I owe him one?

And: You built some mighty fine bookshelves, Mr. Westlake.

Duane Swierczynski

January 4, 2017

CONTENTS

ONE

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

TWO

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

THREE

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

FOUR

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

ONE

1

When he saw that the one called Harbin was wearing a wire, Parker said, Deal me out a hand, and got to his feet. They’d all come to this late-night meeting in suits and ties, traveling businessmen taking a break with a little seven-card stud. Harbin, a nervous man unused to the dress shirt, kept twitching and moving around, bending forward to squint at his cards, and finally Parker, a quarter around the table to Harbin’s left, saw in the gap between shirt buttons that flash of clear tape holding the wire down.

As he walked around the table, Parker stripped off his own tie—dark blue with thin gold stripes—slid it into a double thickness, and arched it over Harbin’s head. He drew the two ends through the loop and yanked back hard with his right hand as his body pressed both Harbin and the chair he was in against the table, and his left hand reached over to rip open Harbin’s shirt. The five at the table, other about to speak or move or react to what Parker was doing, stopped when they saw the wire taped to Harbin’s pale chest, the edge of the black metal box taped to his side.

Parker bore down, holding Harbin against the table, pulling back now with both hands on the tie, twisting the tie. Harbin’s hands, imprisoned in his lap, beat a drumroll on the bottom of the table. The other players held the table in place, palms down, and looked at McWhitney, red-bearded and red-faced, who’d brought Harbin here. McWhitney, expression solemn, looked around at each face and shook his head; he hadn’t known.

My deal, I think, Dalesia said, as calm as before, and shuffled the cards a while, as the others watched Harbin and Parker. Dalesia dealt out hands in front of himself, all the cards facedown, and said, Bet the king.

Fold, said Mott.

It was Stratton who’d taken this hotel room in Cincinnati. He pointed at McWhitney, pointed at Harbin, made a thumb gesture like an umpire calling the runner out. McWhitney nodded and quietly got to his feet, being sure the chair wouldn’t scrape on the floor.

Mott and Fletcher were seated flanking Harbin; now they held him upright while Parker peeled his necktie out of the new, deep crease in Harbin’s neck.

These cards are dead, Mott said, and Fletcher peeled the tape off Harbin’s chest, freeing the antenna wire and the transmitter box.

McWhitney, standing there, made a broad shrugging gesture to the table, a combination of apology and innocence, then came around to pick Harbin up in a fireman’s carry, bent forward with Harbin’s forearms looped around his own throat.

Bet two, Parker said, coming back to his place at the table.

Fletcher held the transmitter and antenna while Mott crossed to the sofa at the side of the room and came back with a cushion, which he put where Harbin had been seated. Fletcher put the transmitter on the cushion, and they all sat, making comments about the game they weren’t playing, except Stratton, who went into the other room, where his gear was.

McWhitney carried Harbin to the hall door, looked out, and left, carrying the body. At twenty after one on a weekday morning, there wasn’t likely to be much traffic out there.

They continued not to play, to discuss how cold the cards were, and to suggest they might all make an early night of it. They hadn’t been together in the room long before Parker had made his discovery, and so hadn’t yet started to talk about anything that the wire shouldn’t know. They were mostly new to one another, and would have had to get acquainted a while before they started to talk for real.

Stratton was back from the other room in five minutes, with one suitcase. He took his former chair and said, Deal me out.

The others all made comments about breaking up early, the cards not interesting, try again some other time. Fletcher, who, it turned out, could sound something like Harbin, with that same rasp in his voice, said, You guys go ahead, I’ll clean up in here.

Thanks, Harbin, Stratton said, and as they left, they all said, See you, Harbin, to the transmitter on the cushion.

2

Parker and Dalesia and Fletcher and Mott and Stratton rode the elevator down together. Mott said, Which of us is in their sights, do you think?

I hope not me, Stratton said. I took that room. Not as me, but still . . .

Parker said, Most likely McWhitney, he brought him.

Or maybe, Fletcher said, just any target of opportunity. Decorate him like a Christmas tree, send him out to get them somebody else, because they’ve already got him.

That sounds right, Stratton said. They love to turn people. Tag, you’re it, now you’re on my side, go turn some of your friends.

They’re like vampires, Fletcher said, making more vampires.

The lobby door opened and they went out to a big space empty of people except for one green-blazered girl clerk behind the check-in desk. Fletcher and Mott had come together, and went off together. The other three had all arrived alone. See you, Stratton said, and left.

Parker was also going to leave, but Nick Dalesia said, You got a minute?

Dalesia, a thin man with tense shoulders, was the one who’d invited Parker here, and the only one present he’d known before, and that not very well. Yes, Parker said.

Let’s find a bar.

.   .   .

At a booth in an underpopulated bar, the few other customers either male-female couples or male singletons, Dalesia said, This means I’m still out of work.

Yes, Parker said.

And you, too.

Parker shrugged.

Dalesia said, I came here because the only other thing I had for a possible is maybe a little iffy and farther down the line. But now I’m thinking maybe I’ll look into it, and maybe you’d like to check it out, too. It’s good to have somebody with you where there’s a little history.

Not much history, Parker said.

Nick Dalesia was a driver brought into a job Parker was on some years ago, brought in there by a guy named Tom Hurley, who Parker had known better. But Hurley got himself shot in the arm that time, and hadn’t ever gotten over it completely, and had gone away to life in retirement somewhere offshore, maybe the Caribbean.

Reviews for Nobody Runs Forever

[johnwculuris · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

If you end up writing what turns out to be a long-running series, you needed to finds ways of keeping yourself interested. Evan Hunter, writer of the 87th precinct series as Ed McBain, did what comic books used to call “a change of pace issue.” He would write a novel completely from the criminal’s point of view, or from that of a neighborhood, or he would focus on something off-topic for your standard police procedural: a doll, a dead girl’s diary, calypso music, even ghosts. I’ve always associated Hunter with Donald Westlake, the man behind Richard Stark and Parker, even if they started almost a decade apart. To me the passage of time has relegated them to the same era. They also both worked for the same literary agency, though not simultaneously; both could write in any style or voice; both wrote under at least a half a dozen pseudonyms; they had their greatest series success under one of those pseudonyms; had successful forays into Hollywood, both with adaptations of their work and screenplays of their own; and, finally, they made it into the 21st Century when most of their contemporaries had retired or passed on.Westlake didn’t take the precautions Hunter did; consequently, 12 years into the series, Parker came to an abrupt stop. At least from Westlake’s point of view. He is quoted as saying that one day he had simply lost the Richard Stark voice. I have to believe on some subconscious level he had to know he was coming to the end. Those last three or four books in the initial run read like they were headed toward a definitive conclusion. And it would be twenty-plus years before Westlake would find that voice again, and Stark and Parker would return.This time the author made sure to keep himself entertained while he entertained us. In small ways at first. Like playing Dominoes with the titles. The first new one, COMEBACK, led to BACKFLASH, then to FLASHFIRE, then FIREBREAK, and then BREAKOUT. That was where the game ended. It was time to attempt a trilogy. Now that’s a challenge! Maybe espionage stories, because of the multiple layers and complexities to be explored, can be stretched out over several books, but generally speaking crime fiction comes with the expectation of a conclusion. Maybe that’s why these final three books--before publication or since--have never been referred to as a trilogy. But the intent seems clear.To answer his self-challenge Westlake had to use every trick in the book. Literally. Every trick he’s ever used. A single heist story can go smoothly and remain interesting but a series featuring a professional thief needs complications, sometimes while planning the job, sometimes during its execution, sometimes in making the getaway. Sometimes they overlap. Westlake needed them all for the next three books. Plus ancillary characters and subplots.Like most Parker novels Nobody Runs Forever opens with a sudden act of violence. Seven men in a hotel room, one of them wearing a wire, whom Parker promptly dispatches. It is an act that will later spawn the complications that the novel needs but immediately leads to the next job. An iffy job to begin with, but even as early as 2004 the world was changing and finding large sums of cash was becoming increasingly difficult. Reservations aside, Parker and his associates go forward. What results is your typical Parker novel. Quick, sparse and engaging. And in due course Westlake passes his first test: How to end the book without ending the story? His answer, from word one, was to write toward a specific conclusion. A conclusion that was not necessarily an ending. Certainly not the ending.Only in not rising to that particular challenge could he mar everything that preceded it. And so, mark “Part 1” a complete success.

[asxz-2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Satisfying Parker romp. There are a few too many people in on the string, but you do what ya gotta when your getting low. Only two more Parkers to go.

[bjkelley · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Another great book from Donald Westlake writing as Richard Stark. So well written that I could actually forget that someone had strung these words together. A good writer knows how not to let the words get in the way of the story.

[davewilde-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

In the introduction to "Deadly Edge," Charles Ardai explains that the Parker novels are all rather similar in that they all involve some kind of heist and things go wrong, but they are like jazz tunes that are all familiar in a sense, but no two solos are alike. "Nobody Runs Forever" is the 22nd book in this series ( not counting the four Grofield books) and it is part one of the trilogy that ends the series with "Ask The Parrot" and "Dirty Money" being the other two pieces. Each of these three novels is complete for themselves, but together they are part of a continuous story about an armored car robbery in Western Massachusetts and it's aftermath.

A smaller bank is getting swallowed up by a larger one and all the cash is being moved at night by a high security team in four armored vehicles. An Ex-con has been dating the bank president's wife and she has the inside scoop on when and what route the money is being moved. A perfect chance or is it ever that simple in Parker's world? Maybe you got an inside person, but the absolute worst thing is to have an amateur involved. And, before they even got underway (like on the first few pages) some joker wearing a wire had to be put down and the body hasn't even been laid to rest. At least, you're not attracting the attention of an over zealous woman cop, Detective Reversa. At least, a bounty hunter isn't trying to crash the party. At least the ex-con isn't running from a jealous husband.
It's hard to pick a favorite among the Parker novels as they are all terrific. This is another brilliant work by Mr. Westlake. Well-plotted and simply well done.

[ecw0647 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Excellent Parker novel.

These just whip right along, every heist coming with numerous complications and mistakes, exemplifying human foibles except for Parker who remains totally amoral and focused only on the job, and who must use his wits to deal with the inevitable screw-ups and unforeseen holes in the road.

To recount the plot would be to layer the review in spoilers. I’ll just whet your interest with four armored trucks, one very smart police detective, a smarmy doctor, two bounty hunters looking for a dead body, some ex-cons, and a church filled with hymnals.

Number 22 in the series. Read them all. Perfect length for a transcontinental flight. You won’t even miss flying over Kansas and Nebraska.

[mmtz_82 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is another lean mean Parker novel by Richard Stark. All of the Parker tales are quick and entertaining reads. Neither Parker nor Stark disappoint, but this time around, Parker runs. This doesn’t happen often.Published in hardcover by Mysterious Press.

[sunjata_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Parker gets involved in a robbery of money being transferred between two banks. A cop and a bounty hunter start making things difficult. A bit slower than early Stark novels and, for me, a bit too much minor character background. His characters work better as ciphers. The momentum did build nicely however and the end was intriguing.

[shawnd_72 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This action book can hardly be called a mystery. It is clear from chapter one who the 'bad guys' are and the only suspense is will the only-somewhat likeable gang of thieves be able to pull off their heist. Anchored by Parker, this book is really a mixed bag in terms of characters and pace. Some, like Dr. Madchen, and Nels, seemed pitch perfect; Nick Dalesia was underdeveloped and flat, and some others were one or two dimensional. The book starts off with an interest event, which could have really popped with some artistry. Then it sags into a slow and sometimes tedious set of character development, much of which never gets a return on investment when the pace starts speeding up to a fever pitch at the end.All in all, this book is a like a moderately bad movie with some really good scenes, where the good scenes are all in the movie trailer, promising more of the same, but when you watch the movie, there's little else. This book had 4-6 amazing scenes, two of the six associate characters are really good, and the rest is boilerplate a writing workshop student could have come up with. Nevertheless, the premise and mostly the lead character Parker are going to make me want to read the sequel, Dirty Money.