Ed McBain: The Con Man

(Incidentally, as a point of perhaps minor interest, in these earlier books Teddy was called a “deaf mute.” A reader pointed out to me some two or three years ago that this expression was now considered derogatory. Out the window it went, and Teddy is now speech-and-hearing impaired.)

As I say, it was easy to get Teddy in and out of trouble. More important, however, was fleshing out this wife of the ✫✫✫ star ✫✫✫ who — if Carella was to continue as the hero in subsequent books in the series — would have to play more than a mere supporting role. Have I mentioned that after the wild critical and public acclaim of the first three books (which sold fourteen copies each, including those purchased by my relatives), my greedy and misguided publishers decided to give me a contract for yet another three books, the first of which was to be The Con Man? If not, this was an oversight, and I beg your indulgence.

I don’t know from whither sprang the notion of Teddy getting herself a tattoo. I feel positive that it preceded the idea of a killer tattooing his victims as a sort of calling card. I know that I still like the scenes between her and Charlie Chen — who makes a repeat performance many years later in Ice — and it’s my continuing hope that a woman brave enough to submit to the torture of a tattoo needle (though nothing like what I suffered in that basement while my publishers were convincing me to bring Carella back to life) was a woman who could not, by the farthest stretch of the imagination, be considered “handicapped.” I had never thought of Teddy as being handicapped, anyway, but it seemed to me that with the simple act of acquiring a tattoo, she achieved the heroic dimensions essential to the tracking of a killer, thereby elevating her to proper ✫✫✫ STARDOM ✫✫✫ alongside her big-hero husband.

As a final note of minor importance, I call your attention to the beginning of chapter 19, reproduced here as it appeared originally in the 1957 Permabooks edition:

If you are as careful a reader as the one who pointed out the error to me some years after the book’s publication, you will have already noticed that in the second line of the opening paragraph, Teddy can hear. Yes. She hears the washing machines going, and she hears the steady thrum of the oil burner. (Be Still, my thrumming heart!) Was this a miracle of modern science? No. It was simply the author’s unfamiliarity with a character who was poised on the brink of celestial permanence. Which is to say, it was merely the author’s stupidity, belatedly corrected in subsequent editions.

For those of you who wish to learn more about the impermanence of stardom and the fragility of fame, stay tuned for the introduction to Killer’s Choice, coming soon to your local bar and grille, maybe.

Ed McBain