"You've Gotten A New Face Since Then, But The Rest is The Same": A Collection of Parker Descriptions

Parker is the subject of a myriad of memorable descriptions throughout every other novel. Below is a collection of these portraits:

The Hunter (1962)

"Office women in passing cars looked at him and felt vibrations above their nylons. He was big and shaggy, with flat square shoulders and arms too long in sleeves too short. He wore a gray suit, limp with age and no pressing. [...]

His hands, swinging curve-fingered at his sides, looked like they were molded of brown clay by a sculptor who thought big and liked veins. His hair was brown and dry and dead, blowing around his head like a poor toupee about to fly loose. His face was a chipped chunk of concrete, with eyes of flawed onyx. His mouth was a quick stroke, bloodless. His suit coat fluttered behind him, and his arms swung easily as he walked.

The office women looked at him and shivered. They knew he was a bastard, they knew his big hands were born to slap with, they knew his face would never break into a smile when he looked at a woman. They knew what he was, they thanked God for their husbands, and still they shivered. Because they knew how he would fall on a woman in the night. Like a tree."

The Man with the Getaway Face (1963)

"When the bandages came off, Parker looked in the mirror at a stranger. He nodded to the stranger and looked beyond at the reflection of Dr. Adler. [...]

Parker had been at the sanitarium a little over four weeks now. He had come in with a face that the New York syndicate wanted to put a bullet in, and now he was going back out with a face that meant nothing to anyone.

Parker stood a while longer at the mirror, studying the stranger. He had a long narrow nose, flat cheeks, a wide lipless mouth, a jutting jaw. There were tiny bunchings of flesh beneath the brows, forcing them out just a bit from the forehead, subtly changing the contours of the face. Only the eyes were familiar, flawed onyx, cold and hard."

"Joe Sheer was the retired jugger who'd vouched for him with the doctor. When the doctor left, Parker opened the closet door and took out the new suit, a dark brown he'd bought on the way here and never worn. He chucked out of the white pajamas and into his clothes, and took one last look at himself in the full-length mirror on the back of the closet door. He was a big man, flat and squared-off, with boxy shoulders and a narrow waist. He had big hands, corrugated with veins, and long hard arms. He looked like a man who'd made money, but who'd made it without sitting behind a desk.

The new face went with the rest of him as well as the old one had. [...]"

The Outfit (1963)

"After the first scream, the woman had been silent. Now she stared, slack-faced, as Parker got to his feet and went around the bed. He was tall and lean with corded veins and hard, tanned flesh. His torso was creased by old scars. His legs had a bony angularity to them; the muscles were etched against the bones. His hands were big, thick, knotted with veins; they were made for gripping an axe, or a rock. When he picked up the .32 again, his hand made it look like a toy."

The Mourner (1963)

"Parker turned the far corner and came striding toward the Sligo Towers. He wore a gray suit and a figured shirt, the suit coat open despite the night chill. He looked like a businessman, in a tough business. He could have been a liquor salesman in a dry state, or the automobile company vice-president who takes away the dealerships, or maybe the business manager of one of the unions with the big buildings downtown around the Capitol. He could have been a hard, lean businessman coming home from a late night at the office."

The Score (1964)

"He was a big man, broad and flat, with the look of a brutal athlete. He had long arms, ending in big flat hands gnarled with veins. His face -- it was his second, done by a plastic surgeon -- looked strong and self-contained. Women asprawl on the sand in two-piece bathing suits raised their heads to look at him as he went by; he was aware of the looks but didn't respond. It didn't interest him right now."

The Jugger (1965)

"For Gliffe, Parker put on his businessman face. He shook Gliffe's hand and said, "Willis. Charles Willis." It was the name he'd used before on trips to this town, so he was using it this time, too. The way he said the name, he had to be a businessman of some kind. The way he looked, big and square and hard, it had to be a tough and competitive business; used cars maybe, or jukeboxes."

"There was something almost frightening about Willis. He was big and rangy and hard-looking, with the coldest eyes Younger had ever seen, and hands as gnarled as tree branches. His clothes fit him like an impatient compromise with society, as though the man inside them could never really be comfortable in a suit and a white shirt, with a tie knotted around his neck and leather shoes encasing his feet.

If it weren't for all the money, Younger might have stayed away from Willis, but half a million dollars was too much to give up, too much. He clung."

The Seventh (1966)

"Three days and three nights, and then at last the stranger came out. A big man he was, hard-looking, mean-looking. After all that time he didn't even seem pleased or satisfied; his expression was flat, emotionless."

"He had a heavy solid way of moving, as though he were made of metal. He looked inexorable, like fate."

"What was this stranger? For the first time, it occurred to him to wonder what sort of man would have two suitcases full of money hidden carelessly in a closet, what sort of man would have pistols and machine guns on that closet floor, what sort of man would move with that square inflexible gait."

The Handle (1966)

"They met in a hotel suite on the Strip; it was their first meeting face to face. They were both big men, Parker thirty-eight and Karns ten or fifteen years older. The difference between them was that Parker looked to be made of chunks of wood, while Karns had a meaty padded look to him, like a wrestler gone to seed."

The Green Eagle Score (1967)

"He let the long waves glide him in toward the beach, and when he waded out onto the sand Fusco was gone. He walked up to his chaise longue, toweled himself dry, slipped into his sandals, draped the towel around his shoulders, and crossed the sand to the rear entrance of the hotel. He was a big man, blocky, with a big frame and an efficient graceless way of moving."

"Then she sat there and listened to the word, echoing and reverberating and revealing her to herself, and she saw that she had been staring at one corner of carpet because a line there, a series of lines there, reminded her vaguely of Parker's face in profile, cold and hard and aloof."

"Lynch was possibly the most unnerving of them all. A cold man, as self-contained and silent as a panther, he seemed to Berridge always to be looking on him with contempt for his flabby body and bad nerves and jumbled mind. Lynch himself was as clean and cold and empty as the interior of a new coffin."

"There was no small talk in Lynch, no social nicety. The man was as stripped and purposeful as a racing car or a fighter plane."

Deadly Edge (1971)

"He was a big man, blocky and wide, with heavy hands roped across the backs with veins. His head was square, ears flat to the skull, hair thin and black. His face had a bony rough-cut look, as though the sculptor hadn't come back to do the final detail work. He was wearing black sneakers, black permanent-press slacks, and a black zippered nylon jacket; the jacket was reversible, a light blue on the other side, and under it he was wearing a white shirt and a blue-and-gold tie. Cheap brown cotton work gloves were on his hands, and on the hands of the other three."

"Parker stood and watched, his hands dangling loose at his sides. When in motion, he looked tough and determined and fast, but when waiting, when at rest, he looked inert and lifeless."

Slayground (1971)

"He was a big man, big and blocky, wearing rubber-soled shoes, dark trousers and a heavy dark zipper jacket closed up to the throat. He had a gun in the jacket pocket and a satchel full of money and a busted plan."

Plunder Squad (1972)

"The guy shrugged. "It was Parker in 1962," he said. "You've gotten a new face since then, but the rest is the same."

"Parker was big and lean and tough-looking, as though he were brooding about somebody he was mad at who wasn't at the moment in this room. Parker reminded Tommy of somebody, but he couldn't quite remember who it was."

"Tommy suddenly remembered who it was that Parker reminded him of. Four years ago Tommy had been living at a commune that had later fallen apart because of sexual jealousies, but which had been going pretty good when he was there, except for some trouble from rednecks in a nearby town. The commune leaders had gone to a couple of lawyers, since the local cops had been on the side of the rednecks, but nobody'd been able to do much of anything. Then one time two of the commune girls had been beaten up and raped on their way back from town, and it turned out one of them had a father in the construction business in Chicago, and the father had sent a man down to straighten things out. The man had been named Tooker, and he'd talked very quietly with a slightly hoarse voice. He never threatened anybody, but there was a general feeling in his neighborhood that somebody was going to suddenly get killed sometime in the next ten seconds. He almost never blinked, and he looked directly at whoever he was talking to, and he didn't have a heck of a lot to say. But he went into town and talked with some people there, and all of a sudden nobody was bothering the commune any more. Tooker came back to the commune and said, "You'll be okay now," and left, and there was no more trouble after that.

Parker was that same kind. Looking at him, Tommy felt the sudden stupid urge to ask him if he knew a man named Tooker, but of course he wouldn't."

Butcher's Moon (1974)

"Parker was on the other side, his shoulder against the side window. He was half turned toward Lozini, facing him. Just looking at him; no words, no expression.

"Hello, Parker," Lozini said. He was thinking that Parker didn't look quite as vicious as his memory had made him. He looked like an ordinary man, really; a little tougher, a little colder, a little harder. But not the ice-eyed robot of Lozini's memory."