Stealing Through Time: On the Writings of Jack Finney

by Jack Seabrook

  Fortunately for Ben, Nova thinks he is Arnie, and the danger passes. Ben's life in prison continues, and he thinks "I truly understood how utterly anonymous and depersonalized a man became when he entered this place" (110). He thinks of his life outside and his address is of interest: 175 Loming Court, Mill Valley, California (110), in the same town where Jack Finney lived. Finney gives the prison system another plug, as Ben thinks: "The warden of this prison and the men around him at this particular moment in the prison's history, Arnie claimed, did their imaginative and resourceful best for the men California required them to confine" (111). Yet, as chapter ten ends, Ben worries that Arnie might betray him and leave him there, then chides himself for failing to trust his brother.

  Chapter eleven returns to Arnie's point of view and he narrates the story of his preparations for escape, preparing a hole in the ground covered with plywood for some unexplained purpose and then returning to his hiding place in the furniture crate.

  Ben narrates chapter twelve, in which the escape plans take an interesting twist — Ben takes Arnie's place in the crate and Arnie returns to his cell. That night, Ben climbs the prison wall and meets Ruth, who drives east into Nevada, toward Reno.

  Arnie's escape begins in chapter thirteen, which he narrates, as he slips into the hole he had dug two nights before. "I'm in a grave" (130), he thinks, but as time passes and he realizes he will soon be reported as missing, his excitement grows. As Ben told Ruth earlier in the novel, Arnie's sense of self comes from what other people think of him. "You're nobody in prison —" he thinks, "nothing— just a pair of blue pants and a shirt. But once you're missing from Quentin, damn them all — you're somebody then!" (133). Arnie's thought provides a chilling conclusion to chapter thirteen, as the reader realizes that his need for outside confirmation of his identity was at least partly responsible for his need to escape and put his brother and his fiancée in danger.

  The next three chapters alternate between Ben's and Arnie's points of view. Ben buys a gun in Reno, then returns home and carves a dummy revolver out of wood. He and Ruth hear a radio report telling them that Arnie has escaped, and they drive out to the Golden Gate Bridge, where Ruth throws the real gun into the bay.

  Meanwhile, Arnie spends the day hiding underground, nearly going crazy in the heat and becoming consumed with jealousy as he thinks of Ben and Ruth together. Next day, Ruth drives Ben to a road near the prison and lets him out. Ben uses the dummy gun to kidnap a man driving alone in a car and force him to drive to a prearranged spot; Ben then steals the car and leaves the man by the side of the road.

  The remainder of the book is narrated by Ben, ending the alternating points of view. Ben abandons his stolen car and Ruth picks him up. They express their love for each other and Ben proposes marriage. Despite some guilt feelings about Arnie, they make plans together and go home, only to find Nova waiting for them in their living room. He has figured out their role in Arnie's escape and suggests that a bribe will make him keep quiet. When he suggests that sex with Ruth be part of the bribe, Ben unsuccessfully attacks him.

  Ben escapes (or so we think) and returns to San Quentin, climbing over the wall and back into the hole with Arnie. The brothers scale the wall to escape, only to find Nova waiting for them on the other side. They overpower the guard and take him home, where Arnie is crushed to learn that Ruth plans to marry Ben in his place.

  Arnie's life has been ruined for nothing — he went to jail due to his plans to marry Ruth, and he escapes only to find that his worst fears have been realized and his own brother has stolen her affections. Arnie loses a fight with Ben and leaves; "my heart cried out for him, but there was nothing to say" (180-81), thinks Ben.

  In the final chapter of The House of Numbers, Ben and Ruth are taken to see the warden (to whom the novel is dedicated), who tells them that a neighbor of theirs called anonymously to report that Ben had helped Arnie escape. The exchange between Ben and the warden is Finney's last bit of public relations, as the warden convinces Ben to turn in his brother to protect him from himself. The warden tells Ben:

  "Listen, Mr. Jarvis, we spend our lives and careers here, scrounging second-hand ball bats and discarded television sets, begging free movie films, fighting for an extra five-cent-a-day food allowance per man, trying to drag this prison a single step closer to what it ought to be! We put in hours we're never paid for — we put in our lives — doing our damnedest with what we're given and what we can scrounge, trying to get these men through prison, and still keep some spark of humanity alive in them. And, yes! —sometimes we fail" [189-90).

  This strange conclusion demonstrates the main reason that The House of Numbers does not totally succeed as a novel. In 5 Against the House, Al Mercer explains that he dislikes casinos and thinks robbing one is ethically justified. At no point is the reader forced to consider that the casino is really a nice, honest place underneath it all, where basically good people run a business that benefits its customers.

  In The House of Numbers, Jack Finney goes out of his way to try to defend the people who run San Quentin, and it weakens the novel, especially because the defense consists mostly of speeches or thoughts (by Ben Jarvis) about how the jail really is not such a bad place after all. Never mind the fact that it reduces its inmates to numbers; the warden is doing his best. Strangest of all is the character of Nova, the sadistic guard, who represents the only authority figure from San Quentin that seems realistic. Finney never explains how such a character functions in such an ideal setting.

  Despite these shortcomings, the novel ends effectively, with Ben agonizing over the idea of betraying his brother to the warden. The last line is especially good: "And I was crying for my lost brother as he reached out for his phone" (192). Ben and Arnie are just the latest in a long line of conflicted brothers, going back to Cain and Abel, whose differences defy resolution. The House of Numbers was a true "paperback original" of the 1950s —not a great novel, but one with enough interesting twists and turns to be worth reading.

  Comparing the 1957 novel with the 1956 novella reveals considerable internal evidence to suggest that Finney wrote the short version first and then expanded it to novel length. It is possible that the novel was written to coincide with the filmed version of the story that was released soon after the novel's publication, since the novel was published as a paperback original and the upcoming movie was advertised on its back cover.

  The differences between the novella and the novel are not as significant as those revealed by a careful comparison of the two early versions of The Body Snatchers. The story in The House of Numbers is reworked in the expanded version but the changes are not significant. They mostly provide more character development among the three main characters, adding background and details to make their personalities more evident.

  A possible flaw in proofreading occurs on page 95 of the short version, where Ben's cellmate Al tells him that '"A con got out last year, 1954."' The story was published in the July 1956 issue of Cosmopolitan, and this line suggests that Finney may have written it in 1955. Two pages are added to the end of chapter ten in the book (110-11), where Finney has Ben thinking with admiration of how hard it is to run the prison and what a good job the warden does. This addition only serves to weaken the novel.

  The other notable change comes at the novel's end. In chapter one, Ruth and Ben discuss the crime that sent Arnie to San Quentin — he committed fraud by cashing bad checks to pay for an engagement ring (15). This scene is absent from the original novella. Instead, we learn at the very end of the story that Arnie was jailed "'for driving while drunk, killing a man with his car'" (115). Changing Arnie's crime from a callous act of negligence (in the novella) to a foolish attempt to gain status (in the novel) is just part of Finney's effort to deepen the characterizations in the longer work. The plot is the same in both versions, however, as is the moving final line.

  As a paperback original, The House of Numbers attracted little attention from reviewers at the time of its publication
in 1957, and the lack of subsequent editions has resulted in its becoming one of Jack Finney's least known novels. More recent critics have discussed it briefly, most notably Marcia Muller in 1001 Midnights. Calling it a "riveting tale" (Pronzini and Muller 247), she points out that Finney's view of San Quentin "is colored by his association with then-warden Harley O. Teets" but adds that "the method Finney devises for the escape is ingenious, and the characters are well drawn." She concludes that "the suspense, as with all Finney's works, is guaranteed to keep you turning the pages" (248).

  Jon L. Breen, writing in 1999, remarks on Finney's "in-depth research" into San Quentin (30), and Fred Blosser, writing in that same year, calls the novel "an inventive return to crime fiction with the patented Finney touch of approaching a familiar genre ... in a new and different way" (51). Blosser calls the setting "impeccably researched," the characters "incisively drawn," and the "stratagems cleverly developed" (51). He also suggests that Ben's impersonation of his brother Arnie recalls the "chilling impostures of The Body Snatchers" (51), though in this case the identity switch is done for allegedly benevolent reasons and with full cooperation by the person whose identity is assumed.

  The filmed version, retitled House of Numbers, is a surprise when viewed today. The screenplay is faithful to the novel, and the film is a gritty, black and white tale that holds up quite well. It is covered in detail in chapter nineteen. The novel on which it was based, however, is a letdown after the triumph of The Body Snatchers. Yet Finney would continue in the crime genre for his next novel, Assault on a Queen, before leaving caper novels behind for more than a decade.

  SEVEN

  "The U-19's Last Kill" and Assault on a Queen

  After the publication of The House of Numbers and The Third Level in 1957, Jack Finney published six more short stories in the 1950s (these will be discussed in chapter eight) and one more serialized novel. Entitled "The U-19's Last Kill," it ran in six consecutive weekly issues of The Saturday Evening Post from August 22, 1959, through September 26, 1959. It was reworked and expanded for book publication that same year as Assault on a Queen.

  Part one of the serial begins as Frank Lauffnauer leaves a resort hotel on Fire Island, New York, clearly looking for something. He retraces a route and paddles out a mile into the Atlantic Ocean before diving ninety feet to the bottom and locating a sunken submarine from World War One. It is the German sub U-19, in which he rode as a 15-year-old sailor and abandoned near the end of the war. Lauffnauer thinks about bringing the sub back up and making her operational, and sets about enlisting a crew.

  The narration then switches from the third person to the first person, as Hugh Brittain tells the reader, "I suppose there are unrecognized moments in everyone's life when enormous events begin with no least hint or indication of it" (40).

  This opening line from Hugh recalls a similar thought of Al Mercer's in 5 Against the House; it is Jack Finney's way of establishing that the story is being told by a narrator who is reflecting back on past events. Hugh and Alice Muir have been dating but she breaks it off because she knows he is not ready to settle down. Hugh tells her: '"You have to sell your life— most of it, the best part if it!— simply in order to stay alive!'" (41).

  Hugh and Alice both work for "one of the big broadcasting networks" (41) and Hugh is afraid he's wasting his youth. By breaking off his relationship with Alice, Hugh clears his mind and severs his ties, making him "ready — ripe — for what happened on Saturday morning" (44).

  Hugh visits the luxury liner the Queen Mary, which is docked in New York Harbor, to see off a co-worker who has just retired. Hugh is exploring the ship when lie meets Vic DeRossier, with whom he had served in the Navy. Vic leads Hugh on a tour of the ship, and Hugh thinks of how spacious it is compared to the submarine on which he once served. Vic and Hugh leave the ship and have lunch at a Manhattan drugstore, where Vic asks Hugh to join him and four others in a scheme that will net them '"a million and a half dollars'" (46).

  Vic tempts Hugh by telling him that he'll have a good time, "'the kind you were made for'" (46), and Hugh agrees to think it over before meeting Vic again the next morning. Part one thus ends with several of the main characters and themes introduced and suspense beginning to build regarding the nature of the crime that Vic has in mind.

  In part two, Vic takes Hugh to a cottage on Fire Island and introduces him to the other members of his team: Frank Lauffnauer, Rosa Lucchesi, Ed Moreno, and Lincoln Langley. Hugh notices that Frank speaks with a German accent and asks, "'Were you a Nazi?'" (74). Frank explains that, while he never joined the National Socialist Party of Germany, he did fight for Germany in the Second World War. After "'difficult'" times in the 1920s, he tells Hugh, Hitler rose to power and Frank's life improved. '"Hitler concerned me,"' he tells Hugh, '"for I truly do not like fanatics of any kind " (74).

  Lauffnauer explains that he was trained as a submarine commander but '"simply did not know of the terrible things Germans were doing in occupied Europe"' (74). The tension between Hugh and Frank is broken by Rosa, who remarks, '"You do not like Nazis, Mr. Brittain? ... Neither do I..."' (74) but points out that Langley, who is black, still does not have equal rights in supposedly freedom-loving America.

  Another source of tension is Moreno, who had served in the Navy with Hugh. Moreno's rank was below that of Hugh, but now Moreno announces that he will be the captain on this mission. Frank explains the mission to Hugh, who is skeptical. According to Frank, a Nazi war criminal named Reinhold Kroll has been hiding in Argentina for thirteen years, '"waiting until the time is ripe ... for Germany to begin her climb back to glory'" (77). Kroll has a specially-made trunk that contains one and a half million American dollars and '"seventy-five thousand in Swiss currency'" (77). Frank plans to steal the trunk, but the reader is kept in suspense regarding just how this will be accomplished by raising the U-19.

  Hugh decides to join Vic, Frank, and the others on their mission and, as part two ends, Frank succeeds in bringing the long-sunken submarine to the surface. Part three finds the group exploring the submarine and finding the bodies of dead seamen still aboard. Frank reads from the submarine's logbook, explaining that influenza struck the crew in 1918 and Frank had to abandon the ship.

  Hugh returns to New York and takes care of his affairs, meeting with Alice Muir one last time to say goodbye. He returns to Fire Island and joins the others as they work to rehabilitate the sub. At the end of part three, Hugh thinks that the weeks spent working on the sub were "the best moments and days of my entire life" (81).

  In part four of the serialized novel, work on the sub concludes and romance develops between Hugh and Rosa, setting up a conflict between Hugh and Ed Moreno, who also fancies the lone female in the group. In the meantime, Frank receives a letter from Argentina with recent photographs of the Nazi Reinhold Kroll, '"reading peacefully in the garden of his villa in a Buenos Aires suburb only a few days ago'" (106). The letter reports that Kroll will fly to New York in the next two days and leave almost immediately thereafter, carrying the trunk with him. Part four concludes with the members of the group going to bed early to get a good night's sleep before proceeding with their plan.

  The plan is finally explained in part five, as Hugh, Frank, and the others board the U-19 and sail out into the Atlantic Ocean. They approach the Queen Mary at sea and Langley hails it, pretending to be on a British submarine conducting a secret mission. Permission to board the ocean liner is secured and Hugh accompanies Frank and Vic as they paddle a raft to the ship and climb aboard.

  Once aboard, they tell the captain that they have a torpedo aimed at the ship and will sink it if he does not cooperate. The captain agrees to their terms and orders all of the ship's first-class passengers to assemble in the main lounge. Hugh addresses the passengers and tells them to line up, adding that '"We are looking for one person only, an escaped criminal "' (134). The passengers file by, and Hugh is surprised to see Alice Muir, his former girlfriend, among them.

  They find Kroll, w
ho appeals to Frank in German to let him go and continue his mission. Frank slaps the man, telling him that '"Germany has had enough of Führers... And so have I " (137). Hugh and Frank take Kroll to his cabin, where they find the trunk and over two million dollars hidden inside. The hidden compartment of the trunk is difficult to open, however, and they decide to bring the entire trunk with them as they escape the ship.

  Hugh and Frank find Vic and hurry back to their raft, realizing that the crew of the Queen Mary had succeeded in quietly signaling to a destroyer nearby that they were in trouble. As Hugh climbs over the side, he hears Alice call to him, and part five ends on a suspenseful note.

  The sixth and final part of " The U-19's Last Kill" finds Vic and Frank taking Alice hostage and bringing her back to the sub with them. While she is able to fit through the hatch easily, Kroll's trunk is not so fortunate, and Vic and Frank frantically try to break it apart without success. Finally, Hugh takes the trunk full of money and casts it into the ocean, where it sinks. Hugh boards the sub and they barely avoid capture by the Navy destroyer, escaping with their lives but without the Nazi fortune.

  The experience brings Hugh and Alice closer together and they realize that they are in love; they leave together, and the reader is left with the suspicion that their story is only beginning.

  "The U-19's Last Kill" is an exciting story that has never been reprinted. Readers of The Saturday Evening Post had a positive response if the letters column in the October 31, 1959 issue of the magazine gives an accurate reading of their opinions. George R. Seeley of Lakeland, Florida, wrote that "Never have I met so many pleasant characters" and that "My curiosity was aroused by the number of smiles and grins." Bryan Dove of Hamilton, Bermuda, was paying close attention to detail, and wrote to complain that Finney has a character refer to the "H.M.S. Submarine" when it should be the "H.M. Submarine." He also found fault with the method Finney described for one British officer's saluting another.