The Onion Field

by Joseph Wambaugh

  “Sorry, baby.” She smiled brightly. “It’s against house rules to date customers. Besides, I got a boyfriend.”

  “Maybe this’ll change your mind,” said Greg throwing his roll of bills on the table.

  Without dropping her smile the waitress said, “See you fellows again, I hope.” She swished her tail at them, and wriggled away.

  “Fuck it,” said Jimmy.

  They went back to the car, but Jimmy was not through yet. “Greg, Small told me about this pad on the west side. Two extra fine chicks work outta this here pad. Cost us maybe twenty, twenty-five bucks apiece, but Small says they’re worth it.”

  “Let’s go.” Greg shrugged, making a U-turn on Santa Monica, slipping the car up on two wheels and burning rubber all over the asphalt.

  Fifteen minutes later they were standing on the porch of a darkened apartment, striking matches and peering through dusty windows.

  “There ain’t a stick of furniture in that place, Jimmy.”

  “No, there ain’t.”

  “There’s nobody living here, for chrissake,” said Greg.

  “Guess it’s one of them floating whorehouses,” said Jimmy.

  “Let’s go home,” said Greg.

  And so ended the biggest night of Jimmy Smith’s life, when the future was glowing and he was full of good whiskey. When, for the first time in his life, he felt like new money. He spent the rest of the night on Greg’s living room floor and woke up with a hangover.

  It was the moaning which woke him. “What the hell,” Jimmy growled, feeling the pain in the front of his skull as he sat up. Then he heard a muffled scream and a laugh and more moans.

  Greg hadn’t bothered to close the bedroom door and now Jimmy was awake, had to urinate, and was getting angry waiting for the bedsprings to stop squeaking. Finally, it was quiet for a moment and he cleared his throat, pulled his pants on, made sure they could hear him moving around, and walked through the bedroom on his way to the toilet.

  Jimmy tried not to look as he passed through, but Jesus, they were lying there naked, and what could he do but glance down. Max paid him no attention, and just lay there. It was Greg who looked at Jimmy in an odd way, half smiling. It was strange the way he looked at Jimmy so intensely. Jimmy wondered about it at the time.

  I didn’t hear that bitch go in the bathroom, Jimmy thought angrily as Max fixed the ham and eggs. She better had washed her slimy mitts in the sink or I ain’t eatin her dirty fuckin eggs. He thought about going to the sink to see if the soap was wet, but thought, what the hell, as the aroma of fried ham struck him. He downed four eggs and two large slices of ham.

  Afterwards, Jimmy sat and smoked contentedly and thought about not waiting until the weekend to cut Greg loose. After all, he had over five hundred bucks coming right now. That was more than enough for a stake and a transportation car. He could join the union and be on a painting job by Monday morning. On the other hand if he hung around with Greg until the weekend as he planned, he might be in the morgue Monday morning. Or in jail.

  “Jim,” said Greg walking into the room, drying his body with a large bath towel. “I got an idea. After we take you to the parole office for your naline test today, let’s cut out. Look, you don’t have to test again until next Thursday, right? Well, that’s a whole week. Let’s the three of us cut out to Las Vegas and Frisco. I’m sick of these two-bit jobs. I heard that in Frisco you just walk in a bank with a note in your hand and walk out with the dough. They say a Frisco bank is nothing to knock over.”

  “I dunno, Greg.”

  “Listen, first we stop by Vegas and do some business. There’s a car there I wanna buy. I saw it last month when I was up to see my sister. Actually it’s in Boulder City, and it’s a beauty. A ’46 Ford coupe. It’s the kind of car I always wanted to play around with. Whadda you say, partner?”

  “I dunno, Greg. A trip outta state? I dunno. That’s a bad violation, you know? I could go back to the joint just for that. Like, even if we got stopped for a traffic ticket, they might find out I’m a parolee and call my P.O.”

  “They don’t stop people for tickets in Nevada,” said Greg. “They need the sucker trade and don’t wanna piss off the tourists. We won’t have any trouble.”

  “You really think we could make a big sting in Frisco?”

  “Jimmy, I’m telling you, it’ll be easy as pie. And listen to what else I got lined up. Something I didn’t tell you about. After we come back to L.A. I got a new bank at the Farmer’s Market lined up. We’ll need a shotgun and one more guy to go in with me. By then Billy’ll be off the sauce and we can use him.”

  “Well maybe,” said Jimmy, impressed that Greg had been planning so far ahead. Maybe this time he really knows what he’s talkin about. Maybe he ain’t so dumb after all, thought Jimmy. Imagine what he could do if he could get hold of five, ten grand. Maybe he really does know where the bear shit in the buckwheat.

  “Let’s do ’er,” said Jimmy, and he was stunned by the fire that flashed in Greg’s blue eyes, at the wide triumphant smile, at the excited chuckle that burst forth. Jimmy watched the jerking Adam’s apple and couldn’t understand the jubilation, but then, Jimmy did not understand that Gregory Powell at last was the unchallenged head of his own little family.

  So they prepared for their trip by going downtown to buy four recapped tires for the station wagon and clothes for Jimmy.

  “No sense cheatin yourself with cheap clothes,” said Jimmy buying a pair of tan, plain toed, thirty-five dollar shoes from the store at Fifth and Broadway, and a pair of thirty-dollar slacks, and a good sport shirt and socks, and underwear, and handkerchiefs.

  “Jim, let’s buy a leather jacket,” said Greg. “They’re just the thing for cool nights in Frisco.”

  “Well, I do need a jacket, but really I ain’t much for leather jackets, Greg.”

  “Come on, Jim, let’s both get one. Like partners.”

  “Well, okay,” Jimmy acquiesced as Greg picked a black one for himself and a brown one for Jimmy. Then Greg decided that he should have a matching black leather snap-brim cap to coordinate with Jimmy’s brown cap.

  “Greg, I’m gonna run over to the YMCA and take a steam bath now because of the naline test this afternoon. Like, naline ain’t supposed to show liquor in the system but I ain’t takin no chance that my P.O. knows I been drinkin. I’m gonna sweat out all the booze.”

  “Okay, I’ll go with you.”

  “Jesus, skinny as you are why’d you want a steam bath unless you had to have one? You’ll disappear, you lose five pounds.”

  “Might relax me a little,” said Greg.

  “And when we was sittin there naked in the steam room,” Jimmy said later, “I sorta felt that way again, like, uncomfortable. I thought he looked at me the way he did when he was in bed with Max. I thought he did, but I just forgot about it and soon we was back in the wagon with good tires and lots of clothes for me and headin for the Naline Center.”

  Max went with them that evening when they drove to the parole office. They parked in front, and Greg, as usual, decided what Jimmy should do.

  “Give me the watch, Jimmy. Your P.O. might notice it. And I don’t like it, you wearing those new shoes, but it can’t be helped. He probably won’t notice slacks and shirt. Don’t carry a lot of bread in there in case he frisks you.”

  “Shit, I ain’t got none. I blew it all on these threads today.”

  “Okay, I’ll give you some spending money when you get back. Max and me’ll go out to dinner while you’re in there. Pick you up in an hour?”

  “ ’Bout two hours, maybe more.”

  The line for testing was long, and it was more than an hour before Jimmy had his turn. While waiting on the benches in the hall he saw a bony woman fall off the bench, flattening her nose on the floor, crying out in surprise when she hit.

  “Tryin to beat the naline,” said a tall black man sitting next to him.

  “By gettin shit-faced?”

  “Look, brother, they a
in’t supposed to violate you for bein drunk. And the naline ain’t supposed to work if you are drunk, so I guess she figures she rather get a few days in a drunk tank than get violated for dope.”

  “Her arms don’t look too bad,” Jimmy observed as two parole officers dragged her up and propped her on the bench, blood smeared all over her face.

  “Probly ain’t got a vein in her legs that ain’t burned out,” said the tall black man.

  After testing, Jimmy went upstairs for the “grouping” and sat there smoking, talking freely to others who, like himself, seemed to be enjoying the effects of the naline.

  “How about someone starting out,” said the discussion leader. “Let’s be honest and start out by telling the last time we fixed.”

  With very little prodding Jimmy began the conversation because he was feeling like a fat mouth. And he told a dozen lies about nothing important and in general had an enjoyable time of it. At the end of the meeting, Jimmy was the first to leave hoping to catch a little Mexican junkie he saw in one of the other groups. He wanted to offer her a ride home. He was rounding a corner in a hurry and crashed into Gregory Powell.

  “What the fuck you doin here?” asked Jimmy, and then he saw the look. “You carrying a piece?” Jimmy whispered, not feeling it, but looking at Greg’s eyes, or rather his expression, seeing the black leather jacket zipped up.

  “I thought they had you, Jim,” said Greg. “I thought maybe you been shooting dope without me knowing and maybe you tested dirty and maybe they had you. I was coming in to get you out.”

  “Man, are you cr … Man, that wouldn’t be too cool, would it? I mean takin off a fuckin parole office?”

  “They don’t have guns.” Greg grinned, the look vanishing quickly. “Just handcuffs. I could’ve done it.”

  “You’re a real pal, Greg,” said Jimmy and smiled weakly.

  They spent the remainder of the night loading the station wagon, all their possessions. It was a big load, making the old wagon creak down onto the frame. The back end was filled up to the window with clothes, food, small appliances, everything they owned. They drove through the night when it was cold on the desert, through Barstow and across the Mojave Desert to Boulder City. It was like most small desert towns, with burned lawns and sparsely planted trees swept clean of their leaves by the wind. At eight the next morning they were knocking at the door of a friend.

  A tall young man about twenty years old opened the door sleepily, smiled warmly, and shook hands with Greg. He was a friend Greg had met while spending time in the small desert town when he and his mother were taking care of Greg’s sister Lei Lani. Jimmy could see he was a complete square and knew nothing of Greg’s business, so he kept a straight face when Greg told him he had been making some money boxing and introduced Jimmy as his sparring partner.

  He had a pretty wife and a pretty new baby girl, both blond and plump. The house was tiny and almost without furniture and Jimmy liked them at once.

  They were given breakfast and then the young man went to work at the naval base where they were doing experiments at the lake. Max stayed at the house with the sailor’s young wife while Greg and Jimmy went to get the hot rod.

  “I like her,” Greg said as he walked around the 1946 maroon Ford coupe. “I’ll give you a hundred and a quarter for this little hot rod.”

  And they bought themselves a car. Then they pushed it to get it started, and drove to a gas station to get the wheels aligned and the battery charged. They decided to try her out and take the short run to Las Vegas, and one of the recently aligned wheels fell off at sixty miles an hour. They barely escaped with their lives.

  “Jesus, Greg,” Jimmy said after they got the wheel back on and the lug nuts tightened. “I only been knowin you a week and like, we seem to be havin too many close calls. I wonder?”

  “You wonder what?”

  “I jist wonder.”

  “Forget it, we’re just getting this family going. We’re just getting our equipment lined up. Everything’s gonna start going smooth, Jim.”

  “I guess so, Greg.”

  Why didn’t the lug nuts come loose later, Jimmy was to wonder a thousand times. Why couldn’t they have come loose on the Ridge Route that night, that fuckin Saturday night. But this was only Friday. Saturday was another day away.

  After stopping every few minutes to check the lug nuts they managed to get the hot rod to Las Vegas. And after visiting the famous Golden Nugget casino Jimmy found himself trailing behind Greg into a Las Vegas pawnshop.

  “We’re gonna get you a piece, Jimmy,” Greg said, and surprisingly, even to himself, Jimmy blurted, “Right, right, righteous. I want one.”

  Later he thought about why he, who hated and feared guns, who had never fired a handgun, should be so anxious to get one. In a moment of self-analysis he understood. I’ll be able to stand up to him then. That piece is gonna equalize this fuckin partnership, maybe even tip it a little my way.

  “All you need in this town is a driver’s license to get a piece,” said Greg and he picked out a .32 Spanish Star Echeverria automatic.

  “Sixty-five dollars,” said the pawnbroker.

  “Like it, Jimmy?”

  “It’s okay, Greg.”

  So Greg bought the gun and a velvet lined case and an extra clip.

  After leaving the pawnshop they stopped at a hardware store for some .32 ammunition and .38’s for the Colt, and Greg took the .32 out of the case and showed it to the proprietor.

  “I just bought this. Whadda you think of it?”

  “Nice gun.” The man shrugged. “It’s in pretty good shape. What did you give for it?”

  “Sixty-five.”

  “Too much. I could sell you a brand new four-inch .38 here for that price. Brand new. And a better gun.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I like the gun okay, Greg,” said Jimmy. “A gun’s a gun. What the hell.”

  “No it’s not, Jim,” said Greg. Then to the man, “Tell you what, pick me out one and get her ready. I’m taking this one back.”

  Now they were hotfooting it down the pavement squinting into the white Las Vegas sunshine, dodging the foot traffic, and Jimmy was saying, “A gun’s a gun, Greg.” But to no avail.

  “Let me do the talking, Jim,” said Greg. “I’ll get our money back.”

  “Greg, there ain’t a pawnbroker born with a heart or a soul either one. And there ain’t never been one who gave a guy back his bread once he gets his mitts on it. It ain’t gonna work, Greg.”

  “Watch me.”

  And Jimmy watched, but it didn’t work. Ten minutes later Greg’s face was white with anger, and he was shouting, “That fucking gun you sold me is no good. It’s broken I tell you and here it is and I want my money back.”

  “If you insist, I’ll take the gun back,” the pawnbroker finally said, never losing his composure. “But of course at a reduced price.”

  “That fucking gun is broke,” Greg said hoarsely, and Jimmy watched the look come into Greg’s face. Jimmy was sure Greg now believed the gun was broken, the way he said it. “You kikes’re all alike. I’ll call a cop to take care of you.”

  “Leave this store,” said the pawnbroker.

  Jimmy was thankful, oh so thankful, that Greg was not carrying his own piece, but still they weren’t safe, because what if Greg unzipped that case and loaded that automatic?

  Once outside Greg said, “Let’s get a cop, Jimmy.”

  “Jesus, Greg,” Jimmy pleaded. “Dig, you can’t mess with that Jew. Like, all pawnbrokers’re snitches and he probably works with the cops. He’s probably a good informant for them, and that. Jesus, Greg, it’s us who’s gonna get fucked over. The cop’ll ask for our I.D., and what if they roust us into the station and find out I’m on parole from California?”

  “I’m gonna call a cop.”

  “Greg, I’m tellin you I been a thief all my life. I oughtta know. I mean I musta did business with a thousand pawnbrokers. Like, they deal in hot merchandise all the
time and to protect themselves they snitch somebody off once in a while. And they take care of cops. Shoot, cops always buy stuff in pawnshops or get stuff free, and that. They’re probably like fuckin brothers, the cops and that fuckin Jew. And somethin else, you never asked me, but I like the gun. You know? I really like the little automatic. It fits right in my hand so nice and all. Let me keep it. Please, Greg.”

  Then the look started to pass and the color returned to Greg’s face. “Okay, Jim, but only for your sake. If it weren’t for you I’d make that bastard give back the money. You can be sure I would.”

  Driving back to Boulder City Jimmy once again made a decision about Greg. That does it, he thought. Fuck it. I gotta cut this maniac loose. I gotta shine him on. That’s it. I ain’t goin to Frisco with him. I ain’t goin nowhere with him. That is fuckin it!

  Just outside Boulder City Greg pulled the car into a remote junk yard in Henderson, Nevada. It was near a railroad track in the wasteland, and the sun was high and hot as they crunched across the sand and sagebrush for their first target practice together. Greg stood six to eight feet from a wrecked car and snapped off nine shots into the door of the car. He fired so suddenly it startled Jimmy, but the reports were not loud out there in the vast open desert.

  “Your turn, Jim.”

  “Why’re we so close, Greg? I mean won’t a shot bounce back and hit us maybe?”

  “We’re at combat distance, Jim. This is the kind of thing we talked about in the yard when I was in the joint. This is the combat distance cops learn to fire at. This is how close you’ll be if you ever have to hit a guy. And see how the pattern I made would fit in the body of a man? You try it, Jim.”

  Jimmy aimed and jerked the trigger and nothing happened.

  Greg smiled and said, “First you gotta jack one in the chamber, Jim. You gotta pull it back like this.”

  Greg drew back the slide and released it. The oily metallic snap made Jimmy wince and now his palms were sweating. Then Jimmy aimed again and jerked the trigger, missing the entire car with half the shots, thinking only of the bullets bouncing back and striking him, thinking that it shouldn’t jerk in his hand like this, and that maybe there was something wrong and it would blow up in his face.