the Onion Field (1973)

by Wambaugh, Joseph

  "Okay," Greg whispered. "Remember. Remember. If we get stopped ..."

  "Yes," Ian said, and they passed the police car at the Sepulveda off-ramp and then they were on Sepulveda Boulevard making good time in the nighttime traffic, catching most lights green, and each man was beginning to think about what all this meant, and to make and reject his own plans.

  "Can I give you some advice?" asked Ian after several minutes during which time no one had spoken. The wind rushing through the window chilled them all because they were still sweating freely, but the car was filled with the smell of fear on all of them, so the window remained partly open.

  "Go ahead," Greg said.

  "You should take off those caps. Nobody around here wears them and we're liable to get stopped."

  Greg immediately took off his cap, but Jimmy ignored the advice. Fuck it, he thought. I ain't showin them my hair. And I ain't takin no free advice from a cop. At night, in this dark little car, if I just keep my mouth shut or talk like a white man when I have to, they ain't even gonna know my race. And if Powell don't run off with his fat mouth and tell them all he knows about me, well shit, I might get out of this yet. I just might.

  And after a few more blocks of driving, Greg reached down on the floor with his free hand and picked up the Schenley's and began drinking.

  "If you drink in a moving car the Highway Patrol might stop us," Ian said, and Greg put the bottle down sourly.

  Karl peered over the ledge seeing they were passing Van Owen. Already his legs were cramping up, and he longed to stretch out.

  Jimmy stopped thinking and listened to the tires hum and the wind rush, and occasionally he blinked when an oncoming driver failed to dim his lights. Then Greg said, "Do you guys have any money?"

  "I've got ten dollars," Ian said, characteristically knowing exactly how much money he had.

  "I've got eight or nine," said Karl.

  "If you take our money it'll get you clear to San Francisco," said Ian, with a faint hope that the gunmen might be tempted by the few dollars. Might drop them off now. Might run for it up the highway in the little Ford. Or might feel that the policemen believed they would run to San Francisco, and then head the other direction. Might do anything, but might just release them. That hope faded quickly as Greg snorted and said, "You know better than that."

  They were quiet for a few more miles, and Karl tried to see his watch in the darkness, but could not. His stomach was twisted and he was sweating so badly the watch was sliding down his wrist. But Karl was not idle. He was looking at them, listening to the voices, staring hard whenever one turned. He would have to describe the faces later, and the car, and the voices. He tried to get a better look at the guns, but could not, except occasionally when the darker man pointed one at him over the top of the seat, his eyes like berries. The sight blade looked to Karl like his own gun.

  Karl watched the blond one chew his lower lip with a craggy overbite. Then Greg said: "Here's the plan. We're gonna take you guys up on the Ridge Route, drive you out on a side road, drop you off, and make sure you have a long walk back to the highway."

  Now Karl felt the tension subside a bit. It was partly what Gregory Powell said, and partly the friendly tone of his voice. The voice had softened now with the barest trace of hometown middle America in it. "With just a little bit of cornpone twang," as Jimmy Smith was to put it.

  So a more relaxed Karl said, "You know, those guns are paid for out of our own pockets. Would you do us a favor and after you drop us off, unload then and heave them into the brush so we can get them after you leave?"

  "We don't make that much money," Ian added.

  "Sure." Greg smiled. "I think we can do that." And now, even Jimmy's breath was coming at regular intervals.

  They were driving through* Sepulveda Pass, out of the heavy traffic. The infrequent street lights made it utterly impossible to see what time it was, so Karl gave up. Once in a while he would glance up at Ian, whose hands did not change position on the wheel. Ian looked calm except that there was a trickle running down the right side of his neck disappearing under the collar.

  Greg said, "There's a lake up here."

  "It's a reservoir off to the left," Karl said.

  "You're damn right there is," snapped Greg, turning, mouth like an iron bar, as though Karl had challenged him. Karl felt himself go tight again. The abrupt change in tone, for no reason, puzzled and upset him.

  They could see the reservoir shimmer in the moonlight and then they were near the Mint Canyon turnoff. After that, Sepulveda turned into the Ridge Route.

  "Give me your money," Greg said, and Karl removed his wallet carefully, seeing Ian do the same. Karl opened his with both hands and held it up for Greg to see and took out his nine dollars.

  "We have a hideout a few hours from here where we'll be safe," Greg said. And this was more than Jimmy Smith could bear. For the very first time he rebuked Gregory Powell.

  "Shut up. Don't tell these guys anything." And the moment he said it he stiffened, but Greg didn't seem to notice what he'd said.

  The tires hummed on the highway, and Karl looked up and could gauge by the frequency of the stars how far they were getting from the smoggy skies of Los Angeles.

  "Where does that road go?" Greg asked suddenly.

  Karl raised up and said, "That's the Mint Canyon turnoff. It eventually swings right back into Highway 99 here."

  "I know it does. I was just checking," Greg said sharply.

  Then they were four or five miles up the Ridge Route and Karl looked out and felt an overwhelming sadness mingle with the fear and he said to no one in particular, "I was fishing out here two days ago. With my wife. She's pregnant with our first."

  "Shut up!" Jimmy Smith said. "Shut your mouth!"

  "That's all right," Greg said soothingly. "Let him talk." And then Greg leaned over to Jimmy and whispered, "Let them talk. Don't make them nervous."

  Jimmy Smith was thinking: Fuck you and fuck the lake and I don't give a fuck if it's covered with fuckin fishes. And you and your knocked-up ol lady, I don't give a fuck about any of it.

  Now as he watched Greg's head turn on its swivel from time to time, he became even more angry, hating everything about Powell, especially that rooster neck. Then Jimmy became aware that Karl was speaking to him.

  "Can I change positions if I keep my hands in sight? My legs're going to sleep."

  "Stay where you are. I'm cramped too," said Jimmy sticking the gun muzzle an inch or so over the seat once again.

  Greg leaned over and whispered something to Jimmy. Then Greg said aloud, "We changed our plan. We're gonna hold you guys until we stop a family car. We need hostages. We're gonna stop a family car and when we get one we'll let you guys go, but let me give you a piece of advice. I know you guys got a job to do, but if you turn us in before we can get away we'll kill every member of the family. Understand?"

  "Yes," Karl said realizing at once the absurdity of it, and feeling once again in danger.

  Jimmy Smith was to tell later what had been whispered. "He said to me, 'Jimmy, I told you it was only a matter of time before it would come to this. It's either them or us. Remember the Lindbergh Law?' And I got an awful cold feelin all of a sudden. Them or us. Them or us.91 couldn't get it outta my mind, what he said. But I didn't know for sure what he meant. I never knew of no Lindbergh Law exactly. I mean, I felt like it meant death. And I wondered about the way he said, 'I told you it was only a matter of time.' He never told me. He musta told somebody else, because he never told me. And he said, 'Remember the Lindbergh Law.' Just like we talked about it before. I never heard of no such thing. Like, he was talkin to me about things I never talked to him about. I started gettin a bad bad feelin then."

  Karl worried over the whispered conversation and he wished the car muffler wasn't noisy, and that he wasn't down on the metal floor just over the differential of the car with the sounds banging around him, reverberating. He hoped that Ian could hear something. He hated the whispered con
versations. But the blond man talked reassuringly. He talked so much he interrupted Karl's thoughts. When Karl was getting very edgy and feeling desperate, the blond one would say something to reassure. It was the other gunman Karl wondered more about, the dark one. What was he thinking? He seemed more volatile. Would he be a threat at the end of their journey? And now the dark one turned and looked at Karl again. He didn't talk enough for Karl to know for sure, but he seemed to be a Mexican. If only he'd talk more, Karl thought.

  Then Greg turned and in a quiet voice said to Jimmy: "We oughtta pull a stickup to get some money. Do you think you can handle these guys? If you think so, I'll go into the next likely place and take it off." Then he raised the bottle of Schenley's and took a deep swallow.

  "Are you crazy?" Jimmy whispered, caution be damned. And Jimmy was to say later, "Powell's head turned on his long neck like a bird and I knew I shouldn't a said that word. Jesus, not then. The gun in my hand, the automatic, was pointed right toward him. I tried to make it up by humorin him. I said real casual, 'Well, maybe I oughtta pull a job, Greg. You watch the cops and I'll go in someplace in Gorman here and pull a job.' And I held my breath hopin he'd see how fuckin insane it was and he took a little drink and said, 'No.' He shook his head and said, 'No.' And that was the end of that. Jesus."

  Now Karl suspected that Ian was sharing his bad vibrations. The blond one was erratic and the dark one had just said something about pulling a robbery.

  Ian said casually, "How're you fixed for gas?" and looked hopefully toward the gas station at Gorman. But the blond one looked at the panel and said, "We got plenty," and smiled. Then Jimmy Smith took a long desperate pull from the bottle, turning nervously as he drank, to keep an eye on Karl.

  Now they were past Gorman, almost on that part of the highway known as the Grapevine. They were at the top near old Fort Tejon, with a view of the great, bleak, lonely San Joaquin Valley. The car started the long descent.

  But while they were closest to the clouds, Ian Campbell looked up, ducking his head because the roof was low. He looked up and Karl pushed his glasses higher on his nose and followed Ian's eyes. Up. Up. But there was nothing. Only the black sky. Vast in this immense valley. Stars flickering close and familiar, as they do at the top of the Tehachapi Range.

  Now Karl felt this was where he belonged. Out here. Where he'd always wanted to be. In cultivated land where things grow. Where the air is so pure and brisk it hurts. And now perhaps, out here in the farmlands, near the earth, he was somehow safe. Perhaps this nightmare was a city dream. He looked at his partner, who was switching his gaze from the road every few seconds as though he had never seen a great sparkling sky before.

  The abandoned felony car was not discovered until eleven o'clock. By midnight, several police supervisors were belatedly panic stricken and plans were formulated to search the area. At fifteen minutes past midnight a command post was established at Carlos and Gower. All residences, apartments, buildings in the area were being systematically checked. Many were carefully searched for any sign of the missing officers. Motorcycle units were called in for traffic diversion. Press relations were established, and all nightwatch units were held over to assist in the search. No resident of that Hollywood neighborhood slept until later that night when the search was abruptly called off.

  During the descent down the mountains, the blond gunman turned all the way around to look at Karl. Or rather his head did. The torso seemed to remain motionless as the head twisted on the axis. The face was so thin and taut it was skull-like, but the voice was pleasant and it lulled, and he said: "Here's your money back, I won't be needing it."

  And now Karl could have wept for joy because he was at last certain they were safe. The gunman was giving back the money. He'd never do that if. . . And then his thought was interrupted by the dark one, who again pointed the gun at him and stared for a second or two. So Karl put the money in his sock and waited.

  Then Greg said, "You should have that gun on half cock, Jimmy," and he reached toward Jimmy's automatic and Karl heard the sound of the slide working, and then the blond one said, "It's on full cock. Ease down the hammer to a safe position." And he said, "There. Now it's ready to go. You don't have to keep pointing over the seat. If anything happens, just fire through the seat. You'll stop him quick enough."

  Then Ian's gun in Greg's belt began poking him in the lower abdomen so he pulled it out and put it on the seat between himself and Jimmy.

  With the automatic cocked and ready, Jimmy opened the glove compartment and put Karl's gun inside.

  Then Greg said to Ian, "What kind of a shot are you?"

  "I'm not very good," Ian said.

  "Yeah? How're you classified on the police force? Sharpshooter? What?"

  "Just a marksman. Not very good."

  "You been in the army?"

  "Marines," said Ian.

  "See any combat?"

  "I was in Korea during the war."

  And now the wind was blowing the little car and it seemed to be an effort to keep it in the number two lane and talk to Greg at the same time.

  "Well I'm an expert shot," said Greg. "In my business you gotta be good. I killed one man with a gun and another with my hands. And Jimmy here can tell you about how I shoot."

  You fuckin fool, thought Jimmy Smith. You fuckin fool.

  But Ian did not respond. He continued wrestling the car through the wind which was whistling around them now, making it difficult for Karl to hear every word. Ian's silence seemed to anger Greg, who said, "Pull in at the next rest stop. I'm gonna give you a chance to see if you can beat me on the draw. I'll give you back your gun and we'll have a little contest."

  Oh, please, Jimmy thought. Oh, please, man, don't say nothin wrong, don't do nothin wrong. And he looked down the steep grade to his right and wondered, what if something happened now at seventy miles per hour. If something . . .

  But Ian did not reply, and Greg nodded and smiled toward Jimmy who sighed sharply and took another drink.

  Jimmy was to say, "That big cop talked intelligent all the way, not like some dummies you meet on the police force, and now I respected him because he was sayin and doin just the right things for the fuckin crazy man. And I jumped in and said, 'You're right, man, right not to fight him. Cause my partner here is some shot.

  Like, I seen him make a tin can jump like a country girl at her first dance! "

  Jimmy smiled at Greg, who returned the grin and seemed satisfied.

  Karl saw Greg's head move toward Jimmy again, and he strained forward, but heard only the muffler's roar. Jimmy Smith was to say later, "Powell told me, he said, 'Jimmy, remember, if you have to shoot a policeman, save one bullet for you.' He said that, and my asshole slammed shut again."

  When they reached the valley floor, Jimmy Smith for the first time believed they were going to make it. Had made it. They were less than an hour from the motel and the station wagon-a cold car. They had kidnapped two cops and were walking away from it. It was hard to control his exultation. "I know where there's a dirt road," he said to Greg. "I used to work around the Bakersfield area." And they were at the Maricopa turnoff, where they had been earlier in the day with the shorted-out tail lights.

  "Turn off here," Greg said, and Ian did, and the road curved west over the highway.

  "Do you want me to go straight?" asked Ian, now headed west.

  "Yeah, if you turn it'll take us back to 99."

  And Jimmy was straining his eyes for a place, anyplace. A dirt road. Just a place. And then there were some dusty tire tracks out of the fields to the south. The tire tracks meant a road, and suddenly Greg said, "Pull over and turn around."

  Ian eased the little Ford to the side and made a U-turn on the lonely quiet highway and Karl's heart began pounding with new vigor, as did Ian's, as did Jimmy Smith's and Gregory Powell's, as each approached his destiny. Then Ian made a right turn on the dirt road heading south toward Wheeler Ridge, south on the long dusty dirt road.

  Karl strained u
pward, tried to see, but as far as he could see was black loneliness and quiet. The smell of sweat and whiskey was suddenly unendurable. Then Greg said: "That's the farmhouse you're going to hike back to. To make your call."

  But it wasn't that far. It wasn't that far! Were they going to handcuff them? It wasn't that far to be logical!

  They had driven ninety miles. They had four tenths of a mile to go down the dirt road, down toward the ridge.

  "I see it," Karl said. "I see the farmhouse." That sight, that farmhouse in the middle of these lonely fields with its little lights, gave him hope. Somehow here, next to the earth, with his kind of people, on his kind of land, somehow he would be safe.

  "We gotta tie these guys up," said Jimmy.

  "No, if we tie them up they'll be here all night long and freeze to death," said Greg.

  "Well, we oughtta tie them up just a little bit, you know, so they'll work themselves loose."

  "No," Greg said vacantly. "We'll just let them go."

  And Jimmy was to confess at a later time, "Jesus. It dawned on me then. It really hit me!"

  And then they came to a dirt road which crossed the one they'd been driving on.

  "Do we turn here?" asked Jimmy Smith, and his voice was shaking and he rubbed his mouth with nicotine-smudged fingers, face numb, head feeling oppressively heavy.

  "No, just keep going," said Greg.

  "It looks too soft. We'll get stuck," Karl said, feeling that he could not bear it. Not another moment. Wondering if his legs would hold him when he stood. They were cramped, and weak from the fear.

  Then they came to another dirt road which crossed this one and Ian again slowed to a crawl. There was a large ditch in front of them in which a huge, recently installed gas line was lying, waiting to be buried.

  "This is the spot," Greg said. "Turn left and then turn around."

  While Ian made a careful U-turn in the soft dirt, Greg said, "You get this car stuck and you're both dead."

  "Don't chatter the wheels," Karl said to his partner. "You might get the rear wheels stuck." But Ian managed the turn and was now driving back toward the ditch, the little car pointing the way they had come.