Cash Problem

Collecting Debts with Donald Westlake

By John Hood

When hot starts hitting the fans here in South Florida, there’s nothing I like better than to slip into something cool and cold-blooded. If I gotta get calamitous to do so, well, so be it — so long as it’s comedic, which, come to think of it, is kinda the same thing, isn’t it? Yep. Calamity and comedy: twin sons of one humorous motherfucker.

And if there’s a motherfucker of a crime scribe more humorous than Donald E. Westlake, I don’t know who it is. In fact, I don’t even wanna know, ’cause Westlake’s way more than just enough for me.

But I impugn the master — or should I say Grand Master? He doesn’t stoop to profanities when telling his tall tales; I shouldn’t stoop when I’m telling you about ’em. The cat’s a consummate gentleman, and gentlemen have better words to use.

In Somebody Owes Me Money (Hard Case Crime, $6.99), the gentleman in question uses every word needed for a book and no more. Spare, sparse and with-it, with nary a syllable outta place. Westlake not only doesn’t need to cuss to get across his story, he doesn’t need to prove his vocabulary is bigger than yours, or mine or anybody else’s either. He simply gives good story.

Make that great story, the kinda story that stretches the imagination into something real and beautiful and downright entertaining.

In Somebody, the story goes like this: A New York cabbie (Chet Conway) gets a tip on a horse from a mysterious fare. Ever one to play a hunch, especially when it’s handed to him, Conway immediately calls his bookie (Tommy McKay) and bets what limit he’s got left. The horse, of course, comes in and pays $980. Less what’s owed, Conway walks with $930.

Or he would walk with it, if Conway didn’t find McKay dead on the floor when he shows to collect. But dead he is, and Conway seems to be out his payoff — and blamed for the murder: first by McKay’s wife, and then by the cops, McKay’s sister and two rival crime gangs who could give two shirks about a lousy $930, let alone little Chet Conway.

The rest is a romp. Chet gets abducted a couple of times, grilled a few more, shot in the head and chased around the Big Bad Apple till he’s whittled to a core. Through it all rides McKay’s sister, Abbie, who’s blown in from Vegas to avenge her brother’s death, and a detective named Golderman, whose patience is exceeded only by his due diligence.

What makes this farce such a blast, though, is the humor with which it’s injected. Conway’s a bit of a dolt, all right, but he’s a good dolt (think Rockford without the license), and he greets the increasing absurdity of his situation with the smirk of a sage who made his bones in slapstick.

And again, it’s cool (though nearly everyone seems to lose their head) and cold-blooded (as in murder, natch). It’s also a treat of a way to beat the heat, and not just because the whole story’s set against snow, either. Like some of Westlake’s best books (God Save the Mark, Lemons Never Lie, The Man with the Getaway Face), and some of the best flicks his best books became (The Hot Rock, The Outfit, The Hunter, aka Point Blank), there’s a chill here that’s absolutely quenching.

In other words, it’s like a long tall drink of what ails you. Cool with it.