The Onion Field

by Joseph Wambaugh

“Get on the freeway and go to the Long Beach sign.”

  “Okay.”

  They were speeding down the freeway, the clutch finally catching up with the engine. Jimmy was studying the road, blinking into headlights, watching the off-ramp signs. He drove past the off-ramp.

  “Jimmy, goddamnit, you did it again!”

  “Well don’t yell at me, Greg. It’s my eyes.”

  “Okay, take the next turnoff. We’ll do another market. Let’s see, we got that Safeway there on Whittier, so next we go to Long Beach and take another, then we return to the vicinity of the first job and take another one. Or we do a liquor store or something.”

  “Why back in the vicinity of the first job, Greg? Shouldn’t we hunt for virgin territory? I mean ain’t that risky?”

  “Naw, I got a theory that it’s confusing to the cops. It always works for me. So we’ll come back.”

  “How much did we get?”

  “I think we got a couple hundred, Jimmy.”

  “Okay, Greg. That’s okay,” said Jimmy tensely. Without willing it, he was pressing hard, and the station wagon was racing past eighty, then ninety, and ninety-five.

  But Greg didn’t see. He was counting the money and chattering excitedly. “You shoulda seen that broad, Jim. I scared the shit out of her. I mean right out of her. I bet she can’t talk yet. God, that was funny.” Then he looked up. “Damn it, Jimmy, we’re almost in downtown Long Beach. You’re missing the off-ramps again!”

  Jimmy cut the wheel to the right, bouncing over the divider curb, skidding sideways, screeching rubber as he stood on the brakes.

  “You damned near dumped it, Jim!” Greg shouted as the car straightened up and slowed down on the off-ramp. In a few moments they were in the parking lot of the all-night market. “Now this time no screwing up when we make our getaway.”

  “Okay, Greg,” said Jimmy. “I’m okay now.”

  It was a short wait while Greg shoved the gun in the face of the man at the checkstand, stared at him, and whispered, “Hurry up, punk,” in a way that almost paralyzed his victim. Then Greg was skipping and jumping across the parking lot.

  Jimmy strained his eyes in the darkness for a passing police car, and then he was pulling on the headlights and dropping into low gear and trying to remember to drive off slowly just as Greg was getting in. It went smoothly this time. It was perfect. Greg said, “I got both tills!”

  They were on the street and Jimmy had not panicked.

  “Turn right here,” said Greg, “and just take it easy. I cased this one good. You can make a right-hand turn on the red light. That’s it. Now go a block and make another turn.”

  It was perfect. As Jimmy drove he grew confident.

  “Make another right,” Greg said, “and we’ll be heading back toward the freeway.”

  “Jumpin fuckin Jesus!” Jimmy yelped. “We’re at a dead end!”

  “Now don’t panic, for chrissake,” said Greg. “Just make a U-turn.”

  “Greg, the cops might be at the store by now!” said Jimmy.

  “Just go back the way we came and don’t panic,” said Greg. but Jimmy could hear the tremor in Greg’s voice, which was an octave higher now. Jimmy felt the panic grow as he instinctively stood on the accelerator and made the engine race too fast.

  “Stop the car,” said Greg.

  “What for?”

  “Stop the car, I lost my hat!”

  “Fuck the hat!”

  “Jimmy, there’s writing in the hat. They can identify me! Stop the car!”

  So Jimmy pulled over in the light from a plate glass window and discovered to his horror that he was directly in front of the market they had just robbed!

  “Greg, we gotta go!”

  “Jim, did I have the hat on when I went in the store?”

  “Greg, we gotta go!”

  But Greg ignored him and was looking under the seat, beside the seat, over into the back seat saying, “If we don’t find it I’m gonna have to go back in that store.”

  “Jumpin fuckin Jesus!” said Jimmy Smith.

  And then, “I got it, Jim! It was wedged down between the seats. I got it!”

  Before the second “I got it,” Jimmy was pressing on the accelerator and the station wagon was moaning down the street into the traffic, gradually picking up speed, heading toward the freeway.

  It had been Gregory Powell’s nineteenth robbery, the fourth he had committed with Jimmy Smith.

  The last either of them would ever commit.

  “I think we got in the neighborhood of a grand, Jim,” Greg said as they turned off the Harbor Freeway in the direction of the apartment. “I think we done enough for tonight.”

  Jimmy felt himself go limp when Greg said it. He knew he couldn’t stand another job tonight. If ever. At last they were parked in front of the apartment. They were safe.

  “Listen, Jim,” Greg said as they got out of the car. “Tell you what. Let’s play a trick on Max. We’ll leave the money on the floor in the back seat and tell her we didn’t score. And she’ll be happy because she doesn’t really want me to pull jobs, you know. And then you come out and get the dough and bring it in.”

  “Okay,” Jimmy said listlessly. Drained.

  “Watch how happy Max is when she hears we didn’t do any robbing tonight.”

  “I’ll watch,” said Jimmy, and then they told her. But he missed the elation that Greg said would be there. In fact, he thought he saw her sigh disgustedly.

  “Oh Jim, go out and bring in my trenchcoat,” Greg said. Jimmy nodded and shuffled out to the car to retrieve the paper bag. He decided to look under the seat, and sure enough, there was a five-dollar bill there. Jimmy picked it up and put it in his shoe, then decided Greg had put it there purposely to test him, so he took it out and threw it in the bag with the rest. But now Greg knew how much there was and Jimmy did not. He’s gettin ready to screw me again, thought Jimmy. Yeah, I just oughtta hold back twenty bucks right now. There’s probably more than eight hundred here. I’d like to fix that bastard. I’d like to tear that head off and turn it around and put it back on upside down on that skinny handle of a neck. Yeah. And then I’d like to dig up the fuckin concrete with that fuckin head! Yeah. That’s what Jimmy thought. But he said nothing. And he did not hold back the twenty.

  Greg grabbed the bag and pushed Max into the bedroom and dumped the bag onto the bed in a shower of bills. Then Jimmy saw on Maxine the expression Greg had predicted earlier. It was joy. Uncomplicated. Childlike. She jumped on the bed and played with the money, stacking it and restacking it. Greg laughed and swaggered into the kitchen for a Schenley’s and Seven-Up.

  “Let’s let my little cashier count the money, Jim,” Greg said, undressing and walking into the kitchen in his under-shorts. “Let’s have us a drink.”

  They left Max counting aloud, eyes shining as she sat on the bed, fondling the bills.

  When they came back in she had it arranged in stacks by denomination. “A twenty-dollar bill is mine, Jim. I used it to fake paying for the Schenley’s when I went through the checkstand. I take that and we can split the rest.”

  “Sure,” Jimmy said.

  Max counted a thousand and forty dollars after Greg took his twenty.

  “What say we give our little banker the odd forty bucks, Jim?”

  “Sure,” Jimmy said. “Like, it’ll pay for the good meals Max gave me. And the good drinks.” And the good nooky, Jimmy thought, and giggled, and winked at Max. But there still was no sign of recognition. Aw fuck it, he thought.

  “Max, count out a hundred for Jimmy and me. Us two guys’re going out tonight. How about a little bowling, Jim? A little fun to relax us. Or maybe you want to spend some money on a girl. That’s okay with me, but I’ll just have to make it back home if you do.”

  “Yeah, a hundred in my pocket would be a groove,” said Jimmy as Max counted it out.

  “If anything unlucky should happen and we ever get busted for something, why, Max’ll bail us out and have us on the
street in no time. Max is like money in the bank, ain’t you, my little banker?” With that Greg smiled and kissed her on a somewhat bulbous nose.

  “Let’s take the ones and fives, Greg,” said Jimmy eagerly, thinking it would make for a fatter looking flash roll. Jimmy was carefully rolling the large wad of ones and fives when Greg dressed to go out. Oh shit, Jimmy thought when he saw him in his tight pants and a string tie. Jesus, I gotta teach him how to dress, but I got to be cool about it so he don’t get tight-jawed.

  “You and me’re just almost exactly the same height and build, Jimmy. Wear anything of mine you want,” Greg said waving toward his closet.

  “Thanks, Greg,” Jimmy said, selecting a sport shirt and a jacket.

  “How about some pants, Jim?”

  “No thanks,” said Jimmy. “You wear them a little tight and I’m bow legged, and all.”

  Jimmy managed to squeeze into a pair of Greg’s shoes, and tight as they were, they were infinitely better than the hot dogs, which he vowed to get rid of tomorrow. Then they were rattling along the Harbor Freeway heading for Jimmy’s hotel. Greg once again impressed Jimmy with some fancy driving and gear shifting, bad clutch and all.

  At the hotel Jimmy found a card in his box from his P.O. saying he’d been by and would see Jimmy tomorrow, March 7, at the parole center. Jimmy was nervous when he went back outside to the waiting station wagon.

  As they drove west on Eleventh Street Greg said, “It’s getting late but I gotta stop and see a friend. You’ll notice, Jimmy, that I’m loyal to all my friends. That’s a quality I admire, loyalty.”

  “Righteous. Me too.”

  “And a fink is someone I loathe, you know? I’d kill me any one of my friends who ever ratted on me.”

  “Don’t blame you, Greg. I damn near beat a dude to death one time who rolled over on me,” Jimmy lied. “I found out he snitched me off and I broke his arm and two ribs.” Then Jimmy thought that didn’t sound too out of line and added, “I broke his jaw too.” He was going to add a leg, but thought it would be too much and Greg wouldn’t believe him.

  “I imagine you can handle your dukes, Jim.”

  “I boxed a little in the joint, and of course I had a million street fights, and that.”

  “I boxed in Vacaville,” said Greg. “Pretty good welterweight if I do say so.”

  “Yeah, you said.”

  “Anyway, this friend I’m taking you to see is the first one I lived with when I came to California. She helped me out when I was broke and was good to me. Now I wanna see if she needs anything.”

  “Okay,” said Jimmy always anxious to meet a strange broad, but then thinking any one of Greg’s broads would no doubt be a strange one. And she was.

  “Oh, looky here,” said the drag queen when the door opened. He was a tall black queen in a tight blouse and women’s slacks, eyebrows arched, hair upswept. He had his hands on his hips, grinning wide, lips red and wet, shaking his head slowly, saying, “Looky looky here.” He threw his arms around Greg, hugging him close. “Good to see you, baby, good to see you.”

  Jimmy Smith was to tell of it in detail at a later time: “As soon as we got in the pad it was plain he was havin some fun. On the couch was some young white guy about twenty years old. He was in his shorts and nothin else. The freak had the little apartment all gussied up with colored lights and had crammed couches and easy chairs to match all into the one room. The place was fixed up for easy livin or layin around doin the things homos did. After goin over and kissin the pigeon on the couch, the freak went on into the kitchen and fixed up drinks. I turned down the drink sayin I just got outta the joint and wasn’t able to handle too many drinks. I just wasn’t all that hungry for a drink from the freak’s glasses, not that it was dirty, and that. I just got a complex against those kinds of things. In the joint I seen some of the dirty rotten things freaks do on the sex side, so when I’m around them the pictures come to mind and I sorta choke up.

  “It dawned on me that Greg seemed to have only black people for his special friends and that he dug on freaks. Later I connected the two together. It turned out Greg was a half-ass homo his own self, one that dug on both men and women. When he was a kid in some juvenile place some black guy musta been his jocker. One thing sure, when we ran together he never let me know he was a homo. In fact, he impressed me as bein a fairly tough guy, just a little off his nut, is all.

  “We only stayed at the sissy’s pad for about fifteen minutes and cut out. I think he was glad to see us leave so he could get back to work on the young pigeon. Before we left, Greg told the freak if he needed any bread, just to say the word, the sky’s the limit for a friend. The freak turned him down, sayin everything was all right. Like, I’m sure he didn’t want his victim to know if he was broke. Most of the freaks that hustle young guys know that without money they’re outta luck.

  “We left the sissy and went out on Normandy and Adams to the hot dog stand where all the brothers hang out at night. A few nice lookin broads was hangin around lookin to turn some tricks, but they give me the ol freeze out. They could see Greg hangin in the background and thought maybe he was the heat, bein a paddy and dressed in that square style he wore. One of the whores was a little bolder but when she heard Greg’s square little remarks she froze up too. She woulda gave up some action if Greg talked like a hip white guy.”

  Hollywood was the next stop that night. Greg drove Jimmy up and down the boulevard and finally stopped at a strip joint on Santa Monica Boulevard where the cocktail waitresses wore tights and cat ears and long cat tails which drunken customers could pull when they wanted a drink.

  “This is all right,” said Jimmy as Greg got them a good table, ordered two whiskeys and soda, and giggled as the kitten took off with tail flying.

  “Looky that horny ol buzzard,” said Jimmy pointing to a florid bald man who had one cocktail waitress by the cat tail, and was stroking it, and wouldn’t release her.

  “Let go, honey, and I’ll come back to you,” she cooed, patting him on the head.

  This was to be the biggest night in the life of Jimmy Smith. The future looked bright indeed, and he was ready for some real action, but the nightclub didn’t look like what he had in mind. As he was to describe it:

  “I kept my eye on the other tables and saw that most everybody was elderly or middle aged guys. They all at one time or other had their hands on the waitresses bottoms or was pullin at the long skinny cat tails. Most of the girls were good at avoidin the sudden hand holds, but some got fondled regular.

  “After the stage show started, it was somethin to see. Each broad got announced like some famous movie star. The names was all male and the broads kinda matched the certain star in some offhand way. Like, Miss Sammy Davis Jr. was black and a little short slender thing. But it wasn’t really much of a comparison to the star because the little broad had teats like bowlin balls. A couple of the dancers did a lightweight all-the-way-off thing, which ended with the G string gone, but still some very small thing was blockin the view. One broad had a special act with the teat thing. Like, she would rotate one tassel one way and the other teat and tassel would rotate in the opposite direction. It reminded me of the old thumb twiddlin game which I could never do.”

  As they sat and drank, and Jimmy gazed with a permanent leer at the stage, Greg talked. Jimmy nodded politely every few seconds, looking blankly at Greg, hearing only snatches of his words which Greg spat like bullets. “Yeah, Jim, I wish I was big like my kid brother. He’s about six one, and two hundred pounds.”

  “Uh huh,” said Jimmy, watching the little pussycat serving the table off to the left. “She’s rubbin it right in that old fart’s face,” said Jimmy. “Right in his goddamn face!”

  “My dad’s a big guy, Jim. Not too tall, but big, you know? I wish I was big boned like him and my brother. But I was a hell of a football player in junior high anyway. Probably coulda made a hell of a running back someday. You ever play high school ball?”

  “Uh huh.” />
  “You did?”

  “I mean, uh uh.”

  “Well, I sure did. And Christ, you should hear me with the tenor sax. I can play just about any instrument. Tell me the scale and I’ll figure it out. I used to sing quite a bit. I ever tell you that? Harmonize too. I got perfect pitch. When we get a real stake I wouldn’t mind living in a small town again. I mean growing up in a town like I did, a town of ten thousand, that’s the way to grow up. You always live in a big city, Jim?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “In a small town you get to do all kinds of things. I used to paint, ski, skate. Moreover, I had a band. You name it, I did it. Don’t you have any hobbies? Anything you like to do?”

  “Pussy.”

  “I mean besides that. Hell, I could tell you about bed artistry. I’ve had some very strange sexual experiences in my time, Jim. Maybe someday when it’s the right time I’ll tell you about them.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “You boxed. You said you did some boxing.”

  “Uh huh. In the joint.”

  “I was a hell of a welterweight at Vacaville. A hell of a fighter. Furthermore, I think I could’ve made it on the outside as a boxer, but I had this brain operation. Can’t afford to get hit in the head.”

  And Jimmy Smith started getting a headache, and stopped turning toward Greg, and gave up nodding politely, and Jesus, he thought, how much longer can I take this fuckin paddy cornpone with his fuckin family, and his fuckin moreovers, furthermores, alsos, wherefores. And when Greg got up to go to the men’s room, Jimmy tossed down the drink and scowled at the empty seat and whispered: “Don’t gimme any more moreovers or furtherfores or whereovers or any of that other HONKY BULLSHIT!” But when Greg returned Jimmy nodded politely as Greg talked of Cadillac, Michigan, and the girls he had conquered with the bedroom virtuosity he learned in strange mysterious places.

  “Want another drink, honey?” asked the cocktail waitress who was coming by the tables every four or five minutes.

  “Naw,” said Jimmy. “I want some real action, and know what? Nothin on that stage does half so much for me as you, kitten. Like, what time you get off work?”