A Moment to Prey Read online

  Gallimard, which had published my books in Serie Noire now was reprinting them in Carre Noir. The French equivalent of the Mystery Writers of America, 813, Les Amis Du Crime, published a book devoted to my work.

  The 813 and the Maison d'Andre Malraux invited Kathryn and me as Guest of Honor at the Fourth Festival of Suspense Novels and Films at Reims in Oct. 1982. Along with Evan Hunter, I was the first American writer to be invited to join 813. I was treated with such kindness and love and awe and attention that the entire celebration seems more dream than reality.

  It was all an elegant and brilliant party. The French were the kindest hosts on earth. Jean-Jacques Schleret, Jean Paul Schweighaeuser, Rafael Sorin, Stephane Bourgoin, Francois Gerif and Robert Louit, all wrote glowingly of my work.

  Back home in America Bill Crider, Bill Pronzini, Michael Barson and others praised my old suspense and western novels.

  I wasn't dead after all.

  This spontaneous outpouring of affection and warmth in France and here at home restored my old lost excitement and enthusiasms. It was like plodding for a long time in lonely night wind and coming suddenly upon a bright and festive place loud with love and laughter.

  Rafael Sorin, writing in Le Monde, Paris: "(Whittington)… this prolific writer of more than 140 novels is largely unappreciated. He holds, nevertheless, an honorable position among that intermediate generation of the American suspense novel alongside David Goodis, Don Tracy and Wm. Campbell Gault. Even the most minor of Whittington's earliest narratives reread today does not fail to charm. Whittington, who acknowledges the influences of Cain, Fredric Davis and Day Keene is the most violent writer of this genre. His tomb of death can be the appliance freezer, alligators, mosquitoes carrying fatal virus. But his worst enemy is la femme. She who kills for money and devours those who succumb to her charms… Whittington, who appeared pictured in his early books to be a rebellious young turk, arrives at Reims looking like a casting director's dream-ideal of the well-fed, successful TV lawyer…"

  The West Coast Review of Books in 1979 awarded Porgys to my RAMPAGE as "best contemporary novel" and PANAMA as "best historical novel based on fact." WHO'S WHO IN AMERICA decided to include me in their august pages. Twentieth Century Crime & Suspense Writers were most flattering as was Twentieth Century Western Writers.

  Aroused by affection to optimism and resolution again, I could even remember the good which had accrued in the worst of times: The night at the Mystery Writers Award Dinner when I was introduced to Howard Browne, then executive editor at Mammoth Western. Howard greeted me, "My God, I'm glad to meet you. My chief editor Lila Shaffer says you're the most exciting new writer she's read. Better get a lot of material in to her fast. You've got a real fan there."

  Or Harry Stephen Keeler, in his 80s and still selling his convoluted mysteries, writing in those years when sex in books was two passionate sighs, two loosened buttons and three asterisks: "Whittington is the only writer I know who can make a sex scene last for six pages without ever going out of bounds."

  Or that most caring and selfless lady literary agent of Copenhagen who wrote, deeply troubled, in the midst of my 1960 battle to be free of an agent who admittedly planned to destroy me: "I cannot believe this man would risk losing your great talent for writing by his insensitive and selfish behavior. I have taken the liberty of writing to five New York agents (names and addresses enclosed) who each promise me they would welcome you, with sensitivity, caring and support, as a client."

  It's been a wonderful life and I've met some wonderful people; it's been one hell of a roller-coaster ride.

  Scott Fitzgerald once wrote: "There are no second acts in America." Maybe he was right. Maybe not. Maybe the trick is to hang in there-until after the intermission.

  ***

  And, before we part, a few words about this book before you and the others selected for this classic-suspense-novel revival that constitutes the Black Lizard series.

  Questions most often asked: Why did you write a particular novel, how long did it take to write it, where'd you get the idea for it and, where do you get your ideas?

  First, my story germs are contracted differently than those of some of the leading practitioners of suspense and mystery, and even western, writing. Several stellar-performer-writers have averred on TV and other public dais that they start to write with no idea where they're going, or how their tale will resolve itself. One famous gentleman, writing for beginning writers, said he rewrote the ending of one book several times before making it come out right.

  Despite the protestations of these best-selling writers, I personally find this lack of planning wasteful, unprofessional, and worst, even amateurish. Sometimes, I realize it's said to sound artistic. Still, it's much like setting out in a billion-dollar shuttle for outer space with no flight plan. Head for the moon, but if you land on Mars, what the hell? It's like a magician's walking on stage without knowing if he will draw rabbit or dove or anything at all out of his hat. In my world of writing at least, suspense is for the reader, not the writer. I can't believe bridges are built without minute preparations, or that Donald Trump okays a new tower which might turn out to look like the World Trade Center or Mr. Toad's Wild Ride at Disney World.

  I usually start at the crisis, climax or dramatic denouement of my story, even if it's sparked by some unusual scene, character, situation or speculation. A story is not about "an innocent man framed by his own government" but how-with what special, carefully foreshadowed strength, skill, knowledge or character trait-he overcomes this terrifying situation. That "planting" and a preconceived "emotional effect" which will gratify, shock and involve the reader is truly what the novel is all about. Or, as Mickey Spillane said, "The first page sells the book being read, the last page sells the one you're writing."

  Once a writer sets in his own mind "how" a story-line will be resolved, he is then freed to torment, tease, terrify or tantalize his audience. Alfred Hitchcock called this story core "the McGuffin," Harry Cohn of Columbia Pictures called it the "wiener." I call it the key, the complication factor, the gimmick.

  Don't take my word for it. Let me quote Edgar Allan Poe who wrote, in reviewing Nathaniel Hawthorne's Twice Told Tales: "A skillful artist has constructed a tale. If wise, he has not fashioned his thoughts to accommodate his incidents but, having conceived, with deliberate care, a certain unique or SINGLE EFFECT (caps mine) to be brought out, he then (italics mine) invents such incidents, he then combines such effects as may best aid him in establishing this preconceived effect. If his initial sentence tend not to the out-bringing of this effect, then he has failed in his first step. In the whole composition there should be no word written of which the tendency, direct or indirect, is not in the pre-established design. And by such means, and with such care and skill, a picture is at length painted which leaves in the mind of him who contemplates it with a kindred art, a sense of the fullest satisfaction. The idea of the tale has been presented unblemished, because undisturbed…"

  And I believe a good cabinet-maker can build a cabinet without rebuilding it forty-seven times. And I suggest he likely lays out his entire plan before he starts to build.

  Having said this, I immediately stipulate that some of these writers who embark boldly with only nebulous idea, dramatic first scene or unusual character, have sold more books than Poe and I combined (and including Nathaniel Hawthorne). I still hold to my battered barricades. I still don't want to put myself in the untenable position where, when all else fails, I must resort to God in the machinery or "come to realize."

  Anyhow, once I have worked out a "plot key" which will unlock my mystery, I know where I am going, even if I don't know how I will get there. I wish I could illustrate with examples of "plot keys" from these present novels without destroying your pleasure in them in advance, but I am sure you will discover them for yourself and, best of all, you won't be abandoned with the sense that the "outcome" was thrown in from left field. The climax will be carefully planted and foreshadowed, whi
ch is simply a matter of sweat and blood and hard work called "plotting."

  French critics have noted that my heroes all are "disillusioned knights in rusted armor, often at battle with the very forces which employed them in the first place." I had no idea, as I wrote, that this was true, but in the face of so much evidence, I must concede. No one of my heroes is ever permitted, by his own disenchanted sanity, to believe in the sanity of the social "order" around him. For example, a nation in which an administration bases its policy on industrial/military complex greed, can talk blandly the insanity of "winning a nuclear war," insists upon sixteen thousand atomic warheads when three will be more than sufficient, and spend billions on it while refusing crumbs to dependent children and closing the Library of Congress at 5 P.M. daily; perhaps because that leadership got where it is by having never read more than three books in its combined life span, and wishing to provide every youth that same opportunity. My hero cannot put on the happy face. He is pushed to the place where he can trust only himself, even when he recognizes the impossible odds he faces. This does not stop him because he would rather die fighting than to surrender to greed, corruption and mean-heartedness, which places him as often at war with himself as with the uncompassionate and cynical power structure.

  ***

  I often quoted FORGIVE ME, KILLER as answer to those who wanted to know how long it took me to write one of my suspense novels-and what delayed me?

  With FORGIVE ME, KILLER, the answer is either four years or one month. I make no attempt to resolve the question, I simply state the facts: On March 8,1952, I signed a contract with Fawcett Gold Medal for a novel (in outline) called MY BLOODY HANDS. Nothing went right. It was planned as a novel about a crooked cop named Mike Ballard who is gut-sick of corruption and his own smell of evil. He tries to atone for and redress the wrongs of his rotten city. But, as I wrote, I and Bill Lengel and Richard Carroll at Gold Medal saw it lacked something. One knew from the outset what the end would be. They had paid me a $1000 advance which they told me to keep and to get to work on something else.

  By 1956, I was still stewing over that Mike Ballard novel and getting no answers. I accompanied a friend to a prison to interview an inmate for a True Detective article. When we arrived in late afternoon, we walked through a vaguely illumined, vast tomb-like auditorium where, far down front, the prison orchestra was rehearsing.

  With this strange, eerie picture in mind, everything suddenly fell into place for the long abandoned novel: its mood, tempo, structure, complication gimmick, everything. Mike Ballard was no longer a disgusted cop but a man on the take and content with status quo. Don't ask me why, because I don't know, but when I returned home, I started anew and in about a month had finished the Mike Ballard novel. I now called it HELL CAN'T WAIT, Gold Medal called it BRUTE IN BRASS, the French publisher Gallimard called it VINGT-DEUX and many French critics called it "one of the best of the remain noir genre ever written."

  Did I write FORGIVE ME, KILLER in four weeks, or did it take four long years? Whatever, I hope you find it intriguing.

  ***

  FIRES THAT DESTROY was written to the classic mold of "character proof." (Becky Sharp's selfish ambition in VANITY FAIR is the best example). You establish your character with a strong (even obsessive) character trait and then prove that trait when in a crisis the character has the opportunity to be something more or less than the inner drive prodding him. When he behaves "in character" no matter the cost, his trait has been proved. I am betraying no secrets when I tell you my protagonist, Bernice, wanted above everything else to be regarded with the esteem and respect shown the loveliest of women. How she is given that attention and proves her trait is the story of this novel.

  The hero-and he is one of my few truly unblemished heroes-in TICKET TO HELL is indeed the battered knight tilting against terrible odds and for no promise of reward. This does not stop him from fighting for what he wants-a truly disenchanted knight in rusted armor with only what he is inside, and an old long-lost love he cannot recover, to sustain him.

  WEB OF MURDER, on the other hand, is one of those sweetly plotted novels Day Keene, Fred Davis and James Cain used to concoct. We start the protagonist almost casually down the road to Hades and then follow him on every cruel twist and turn through increasing terror to the pit beyond hell. The reviewer who said WEB OF MURDER "proves that the death penalty may not be the worst punishment" exactly expressed the key to this novel. If you have half the fun reading it that I had writing it, we've got something going here.

  The events in THE DEVIL WEARS WINGS are totally true and documented. This botched, bourbon-laced crime was one I wrote for editor Joe Corona at Fawcett's True Detective. But I could not get this tragic-comedy out of my mind, so I structured the true events enough to give them form, a beginning, middle, end and desired emotional effect.

  The novel here titled A MOMENT TO PREY had a history almost as varied as its titles. When I wrote it, I called it NEVER FIND SANCTUARY, which Gold Medal changed to BACKWOODS TRAMP and which the publisher Galli-mard, of Paris, called LE CHANT D'ALLIGATOR. It is one of my favorites. But I suppose a writer is like a proud parent: among his children he has none but favorites.

  August 1986

  THE RIVER

  A bottle fly buzzed around her head but she didn't bother to brush at it. I heard it muzz-muzzing from where I stood in the bare sand yard. The sun was bearing down on me hotter than the fires of Hell.

  Even after I asked her again, she didn't move. I wasn't more than five or six feet from her but I got the helpless feeling that maybe my voice didn't carry that far any more.

  She leaned against the door jamb of the fishing shack and watched me, without blinking. I was going to ask her again because I had to, but I knew it wasn't going to do any good. She'd heard me all right. It was in the way her fingers twitched when I mentioned his name. I'd got to watch for any faint sign because her refusal to talk was the reaction I'd been getting ever since I had come into the scrub country three days ago. I had moved slowly, asking about him every time I'd met somebody on the road or come to a farmhouse. They'd just stared at me and shaken their heads or hadn't answered at all. It was like that with this girl.

  "Do you know Marve Pooser?"

  She stood there in the shadowed doorway carrying an iron skillet. I saw how she was different from any other cracker I'd met. Even through the sickness inside me I felt this curious thing about her. It was there to see: she was looking for something, she wanted something, and she would kill to get it. Once you saw this curious truth about her, you could never think she was like anyone you ever saw before. You shivered a little, but had trouble pulling your gaze away from her.

  It wasn't that she looked like so much standing on the fishing-shack stoop. Her dress was something she'd outgrown or wore to spite somebody, as if she hated the people who looked at her and made herself as unlovely as possible. And this wasn't easy. She'd developed suddenly, so even though she looked swollen and full, she wasn't quite finished.

  You could look at her and see she had nothing on under that cotton dress, but this wasn't what gave her the look of being practically naked. What did that were her eyes.

  Her eyes were as black as that cypress-fed river out there, and implied that she'd just got out of a warm bed and would topple right back if that was really going to please you. But because of this other thing about her, you knew her eyes were lying to you and her full-lipped mouth lied easily, too. What she really was was sullen and defiant, but you had to look close to tell the difference.

  Her hair made me think of some of the dark places I'd crossed in the cypress swamps. It was that black. She wore it pushed back from her face, soft and thick as moss about her neck and shoulders. She could have been beautiful if she'd ever bothered to brush her hair.

  She was barefooted and her feet were muddy, streaked and caked between the toes. Her legs were briar-marked, but you knew she was beautiful under that careless hair and mud streak and cheap dress, and you knew
again how badly she wanted something. It was something she couldn't have and all you really saw when you looked at her was the anger.

  ***

  It was early summer. The fishing shack was set on stilts on a curve of the river. The current of the river was swift and it swirled in white cones where it struck swiftly against the curve and the wooden pier and the boats chained to it. Out front a white road passed the shack and followed the river down to the highway. The men who came out from the towns to fish pulled off the white road and made dust clouds all the way out to the river. They parked in the sunken yard behind the shack and some of them slept in the one-room shacks on the other side of the pier.

  The scrub grew close against the white road. There were scrub oaks and red oaks and black jack, all heavy with moss and all growing close against the road and endlessly beyond it. Along the river it was swampy, with cypress and water oak and bay and gum matted together with myrtle and elder. It was dry and hot in the scrub and damp and hot along the river.

  There were five or six cars parked out behind the shack, some in the shade of a chinaberry and some of them baking in the sun. They were expensive cars, with trailer hitches and expensive gear locked inside. There were tobacco signs and soft-drink signs and beer ads nailed onto the brown wooden sides of the shack. Its white corrugated tin roof flashed in the sun. Out front somebody was gunning an outboard motor and blue smoke came up like a mist from the river.

  She came out onto the stoop and placed the skillet on a board shelf between the two-by-four uprights.