Black Wings Has My Angel is a noir crime novel by American novelist Elliott Chaze, published by Gold Medal Books in 1953. It centers on an escaped convict, Tim Sunblade, and his plot to rob an armored truck in Denver. At the same time, he is wrapped up in a love/hate relationship with Virginia, a call girl he met in Louisiana.
New editions were published as One for My Money (1962), by Berkley, and as One for the Money (1985), by Robert Hale. In January 2016, the novel was reprinted under its original title by New York Review Classics. It has been described as "a flawless heist novel". A French film adaptation was made in 1990. Work on another, American film began in 2005, but has come to no fruition.
Plot
It is narrated in the first person by escaped convict "Tim Sunblade", who had been convicted of car theft. He is staying at a backwoods Louisiana motel after finishing up a four month stint working on a drilling rig on the Atchafalaya River, when he meets "Virginia", a call girl whom he hires for a night. After spending several days in the motel together, they head out West, with Tim thinking of when and how he is going to ditch her. Circumstances lead the couple, after trying to get away from each other, back together. The two duke it out to get Tim's money, which they have sewn into the panels of a pink girdle.
They settle into a love/hate relationship when Tim realizes that she might be the perfect person to help him pull off a heist. "The novel unfolds from here as the sort of love story in which either lover might turn in or murder the other at any moment until its last desperate pages." The two wind up in Colorado, where Tim discovers a part of Virginia's past and what she is running from in fleeing New York. He lets her in on his plans and they plot to rob an armored truck.
They pretend to be a married couple and buy a house in a suburban part of Denver. Tim gets a job at a factory as a steel cutter. He does his homework on his off time, at a bank, watching the armored truck that rolls in and out of there. One night Tim and Virginia go to a massage parlor, where an old friend Mamie, calls her "Jennie" and talks about how she was a debutante and came from a good family.
After spending weeks waiting for the right opportunity, the couple practice the heist. Tim has studied the armored truck and knows its schedule: the stops it makes, how long the driver and "custodian" (the inside guard) take at each location, and when the truck is most vulnerable to robbery. He eventually steals the truck, killing the custodian, who had sat in back with the money. He takes off while the driver is inside the building and finds Virginia. He drives the truck inside a large trailer they have custom built for the job, using steel from his job. While she drives, towing the trailer, he counts the haul, $89,000. They reach Cripple Creek, a secluded place in the woods where they had previously stayed. They push the armored truck—with the custodian's body still inside—and its trailer into a nearly bottomless mineshaft to hide them. Tim reveals that his account is his confession, as he's writing it in his prison cell.
He recounts that he and Virginia go to New Orleans where they meet Eddie Arceneaux and his sister, Loralee, a couple of young adults from a wealthy family. Tim finds that he and Virginia are becoming the snobbish, rich people types who are buying freely. He believes that Virginia is becoming too spoiled by their new wealth.
Tim runs into former neighbors from his hometown who call him "Kenneth McLure". Eddie says that he is going to seduce Virginia and they will run away together. His sister Loralee tries to seduce Tim; when he returns to his room and finds it empty, he thinks Virginia has gone off with Eddie. Virginia returns alone and Tim forces her to leave New Orleans.
They make their way to the Gulf of Mexico and end up in Tim's hometown of Masonville, Mississippi. After driving by the house of Nona Hickman, an old girlfriend, when they are stopped suddenly by a two police officers. They make a run for it, and start a police chase that ends in Virginia killing the first cop and Tim getting out of the car. She panics and drives off, leaving Tim with the second cop. Tim in defense, shoots and kills him and goes on the run. He is caught and badly beaten, burned with cigars, and thrown in jail. The cops had thought they were suspects in a grocery store robbery. They question him but he refuses to reveal information about Virginia.
Virginia is also caught and thrown in jail. After she seduces and knocks out a jailer, they escape and fly to Denver.