About a week before the job, Diane and I left the house. We didn't tell the landlady. We went and stayed with Frank in East L.A. We took everything out of the house, but we moved our stuff just a little at a time so the neighbors wouldn't know we were leaving and notify the landlady. We had to have access to the house to burglarize the nightclub.
They decided to do it on a Saturday night, actually Sunday morning. We drove out there in the Thunderbird. Frank had a black leather jacket on and a pair of black slacks. And he was wearing a hat, a stingy-brim hat. He was a dapper cat. There were two guns, and I wasn't allowed to have one. They were afraid with my inexperience I might get nervous and fire when there was no need to, which was a drag for me. I felt I should have one just in case. I was voted out of having a gun.
We parked in back and entered the house through the back door. We didn't turn on any lights. We used candles. When it got to be about 2:30 Frank went down the street to a pay phone and called the club. Somebody answered. He asked about reservations and came back. At 3:15 he called again, and there was no answer. He waited and called again. No answer. He let it ring and ring. Then he walked by the club and looked at it from all sides. There were no lights, no cars in the lot. He came back to the house and said, "Everything is ready. There's no one there."
The plan was to cut a hole in the wall. The hole would come out in the kitchen area. They would go from there into the club itself, search that, take whatever was stashed, and then go upstairs into the manager's office, where the safe was, with the money. Ruben was one of the best safe men in East L.A. Guys would pull burglaries; they would have the hole already drilled and cut; and then they'd go get Ruben to open the safe.
Frank said to me, "You're going to be the lookout. That means I want you to look out the front windows and the side windows and keep circulating, keep your ears open. If you hear anything take this flashlight and signal us." I saw them getting the tools out and I said, "Why do you have to go through the wall?" They said, "You can't go through the doors because there's alarms on the doors. You have to go through the roof or a hole in the wall."
They went out and started the hole. I could see them from the bedroom window. Their manner was very businesslike. They didn't waste any time. It was almost like surgeons working, you know: "Chisel. Wire cutters." The side of the building was stucco, but every so often as they went through the wall they'd find a big piece of wire mesh (I think there were about three of them, to make the wall strong), and each time they came to the mesh they had to cut-they had to make a hole large enough for a body to get through. It was hard work, and every now and then I'd hear an "owwwww!" when they'd cut themselves or when they'd be straining to bend the wire back.
I'm listening, pointing, and it's very spooky at this time of the morning. Very cold and damp. I'm walking around this abandoned house that's just a mess, with the broken pill bottles on the floor and a few old pieces of furniture. I'd wanted to fix before we did the job, but they had rationed the dope out. We'd fixed at around nine o'clock so we'd be clearheaded. After a certain length of time, about three or four hours after you fix, you become very aware, keenly aware, and as you start to get sick you really become conscious and supersensitive to everything-feelings, sounds.
They kept working, working, it seemed like forever, and then I heard, "I think that's it." "Yeah, I think so." They both came into the house and Frank said, "Alright. We're going in. You've got to really be careful now, man. If anything happens you've gotta run to the hole and holler inside." Both of them put handkerchiefs around their faces, and they took their guns out.
Frank went first and then Ruben, really not knowing if there was someone waiting inside. I kept running from the back of the house to the front, into the yard, listening, watching, and every now and then I'd hear a car or a siren. Finally, they came to the hole and called for me. They had a bundle, bottles of whiskey, and they had a bagful of change, money from the machines-cigarette machines and things like that. We put it in the car. I said, "Is everything alright?" Ruben said, "I don't know, man." Frank said, "There's an office upstairs, just like I thought, where the money is, but the door to the office is locked and it's wired. There's an alarm system into the office and, I don't know, there could be someone hiding in there, sleeping in there." We were standing in the bedroom of the house; they were debating what to do; and I was thinking that we'd gone through all this hassle and we weren't going to get anything. Ruben said, "Well, I think I can take care of the alarm. Run it back into itself. Rewire it." I said to Frank, "Why don't you give me a gun. Let me go into the office." I really wanted to do something that would be exciting and dangerous, and I really needed the money. Frank said, "I'll do it. That's okay." Ruben went in. After a while he came back to the hole and said, "Everything's cool. I got the thing turned around." Frank went in and he said, "Keep your fingers crossed."
They had hoped to have everything done while it was still dark; now it wouldn't be long before daylight, and I'm getting panicked. We should have already been out of there, long gone out of there. We don't know if a silent alarm has been tripped, if the police are sneaking up to get us coming out with the stuff. Here I am without a gun. I can see myself getting hung with the whole thing and them getting away. I'm standing out by the hole, and all of a sudden here's Ruben, and he's got a big smile on his face. He says, "Help me out of here, man." He was too tired to push out of the hole. I pulled him and I said, "What happened?" And here comes Frank. He says, "Here, take this." He hands out a box, a little box, and I say, "What's this?" He says, "That's it." He comes out and I say, "That's it?" He says, "That's it."
And the money wasn't in a safe. It was in a strongbox. He handed me this box, and boy, my heart was pounding, and I said, "Is this it?" He said, "Yeah, man, we really lucked out. There was no one there, and everything's cool. Let's get outta here!" We covered the hole with brush to keep it from being visible. We got into the car, and Frank said to me, "Why don't you drive, man?" Both of them were tired and cut up from breaking into the hole. It was daylight now.
I got on the freeway, the same freeway I'd taken my little excursion on when I'd decided to go back to my dopefiend life. There's no cops, no black and whites, no motorcycles. And so, after we'd traveled a certain distance I realized that we had made it. I looked over at Frank and said, "Man, let me have a drink." He handed me one of the bottles with the pouring spouts on them. I took four big shots. I was already starting to get sick. I was really strung out but I was just so happy. We're driving along, and Frank opens the box and says, "Wow!" I look over and I see that there's just stacks of money. I felt so happy. I had never felt any elation like that before. It was a feeling of power, a feeling of accomplishment. I really felt like a man. I don't think I've ever been so satisfied with anything I've done. I looked at the other people on the streets and I thought, "They ain't nothin' compared to me! I'm a giant! King Pepper! King Arthur! Mr. Jazz! Mr. Everything!"
We went to Ruben's house. He had a place in back of his parents', a little shed. Sometimes he'd go back there with guys to fix, and his parents knew he did that with his friends. It was cool to do that. We went in to count the money. Naturally I wouldn't get as big a share as they did. They were the brains behind the thing. They had the guns. They had the plan. They had cut me in. I had done a good job, but naturally I wouldn't get as much as they did. We counted up the money. They were going to throw the checks away but I said, "No, let me have them." They said, "You know you've got to be awfully careful. You've got to hold them for a while, and when you finally do pass them you've got to be careful where you pass them. And if anything happens, that's you. Period." I said, "I know that. You don't have to worry about me." They said, "Well, you've been in prison. You know what it's all about." And I did. It made me happy that they trusted me, and I had no worry about my ability to stand up under a bust and to take whatever I had to take. I said, "Let me have the checks."
Frank gave them to me, and then he handed me a little money sack.
I didn't question or count or anything. Whatever I got was what I deserved. We left Ruben at the pad, and Frank and I got in his car and went to his house, where I was staying. The Mexicans that are married have a life separate from their wives'. The wife stays home and takes care of the kids and the house, and the man goes out. That's the way it's always been. The wife doesn't ask any questions. Frank drove me to the pad and said, "Tell Lupe I'll see her later on. I'm going to get some Menudo." He was going to see his mistress too. He let me off. I said, "Man, thank you!" I was so elated. I was talking a mile a minute, and he was kind of chuckling. I wanted to kiss him I was so happy.
I walked to the house and looked around to make sure everything was okay. I've got this money sack, and I hold it behind my back. I knock on the door real quiet. We were sleeping in the front room. Diane comes to the door, sees it's me, and opens it. She says, "What happened?" We were really late. Frank's old lady comes and she says, "Is everything alright?" I say, "Yeah." And I took this bag, and I opened it, and I turned it like that, and money flew all over the room.
We got all the money together and counted it. We had over thirteen hundred dollars in cash. That was my share. There was three or four thousand in checks, but it remained to be seen whether I could cash any of them. As it worked out, we cashed a lot of them. When you have checks like that you give them to certain people: you take a percentage and they take the risk. They go through them and take the ones they think they can cash, on consignment, and they pay you as they cash each one. When they finish, they lay the rest back on you. We made almost a thousand dollars on that, so I ended up with about twenty-three hundred dollars for one night's work, and I felt like a real success. I felt that my dad would be proud of me. I wished he could have seen me and gone through the whole night with me, being aware of what was happening, what I did.
I was really sick. I had forgotten all about it; now it hit me. I said to Lupe, "Man, here!" I laid some bread on her and I said, "Give me a quarter." She said, "No, here," and she gave me ten back. She gave me a quarter for forty dollars, and it was good stuff. I put it in the spoon. I told Diane, "I'm going to go first." She said, "Go ahead." And for about a week we were in heaven.
The money from the burglary went fast. When you're doing nothing but using, money really goes. Diane went. I'll talk about that later. Finally, all I had left was Bijou, the poodle, and I was going out boosting every day to get money for dope.
I usually went with a guy named Rudy who had an old Plymouth. We'd drive out together and steal tools. We'd go to building sites in East L.A. When the workers ate their lunches they'd all sit facing the same way, facing the street or the sun, and they'd leave all their tools hooked up, the drills and sanders. One of us would sneak up over the big piles of dirt where they were digging foundations and unhook the tools, get as many as we could carry, and get out. You'd have to crawl, and it was scary because if these guys ever caught us ... They were rough guys, construction workers, and you were taking their tools that they worked to pay for. As soon as you got out, the other guy would drive up and you'd jump in the car and get away.
I was just moving around, staying at motels and different people's pads, and I didn't like to leave the dog behind so I was taking Bijou with me when I went out boosting. And one time we were driving, me and Rudy and Bijou, near Olympic and Indiana, and we spotted an auto paint place so we stopped. Rudy would go one way, and I'd go another; we'd grab what we could get and meet at the car. We both got out. I left Bijou and walked around the corner to the place where they were painting cars. I looked inside and saw a big hydraulic jack; you pump it and the whole car goes up. I snuck into this place and grabbed the thing, and once I grabbed it and started to move it, it was too late to leave it, and what I didn't realize at first was that it had steel wheels, and when I started pulling it, it made this awful noise going over the sidewalk. It made a terrible noise, and I pushed it down the street just as fast as I could.
I get to the corner. I look for Rudy. He's down the other way. I wave. I want him to come immediately, but it's too late, and I can't leave this thing. I roll it to the car. We'd parked on a residential street right off the main thoroughfare, and I saw some people sitting on a porch a few houses down. They were watching me, but I was getting sick, and anyway it was too late to do anything but what I had to do. I open the door, and I'm trying to get this thing into the back seat of this old Plymouth sedan-it was a real beat car,'kind of a rusty red color-and I'm just killing myself. I've got grease on me, and the handle hits the roof and rips out what upholstery's left. And there's nothing I can do with Bijou. She's jumping up and down. She wants to play.
I don't know how I got it in the car. It must have weighed a couple tons. I get it in, and I look around, and there's Bijou down by this house with the people on the porch. She's running around the lawn, barking. I holler, "Come on, Bijou!" And I go after her, but she thinks I'm playing so she's running like poodles can. Her ears are flying back, and she's got this smile on her face. She's running like the wind, barking and leaping up in the air. Her tongue is hanging out, and her tail is wagging, and she pounces down on her front paws, stops, looks at me; I get almost up to her and then she runs real fast and, oh God, I said, "Come on, Bijou! Hurry! Please! Please!" Some other people come out of their houses to watch. I see Rudy up at the corner. He doesn't have anything, and he's running, and I think, "Uh-oh, something's wrong!" Here he comes, man, and he says, "Let's go! Let's go!" I say, "We gotta get Bijou, man!" So now we're both going after her. Finally I catch her; I get her in the car; and we pull out with all the neighbors looking and her still barking. I thought sure someone would take the license number or something, but what saved us was the fact that this was East L.A. and everybody minds their own business.
I sold Bijou to Ruben. One day I was really sick, waiting for Rudy to come over, and Ruben said, "Why don't you let me take Bijou, man?" His old lady liked her. I looked at the dog, and I knew I couldn't keep her, so I said, "I'll let you take her, but as soon as I get settled I want to buy her back." He said, "Okay, man, but you're not going to get settled. You're just going to jail." I sold Bijou for twenty dollars.
Later on, after I got busted and got out on bail, I went over to Ruben's to see her. I looked out in the yard and couldn't believe my eyes. I said, "Is that you, Bijou?" Always before she'd hold her tail straight up. She'd wag it. She'd prance. I saw this dog slinking around with her tail between her legs. She was fat, and she had grease on her. Her head looked like a lion's head. Ruben had trimmed the hair off her body but he'd left it on her head because he was afraid he might hurt her eyes or her ears. She looked at me and started to wag her tail, and then she said, "Ohhhh, God. I look awful."
I talked to Ruben and I said, "What happened to her?" He said, "Oh, she's fine except for her haircut." I said, "Well, how'd she get so fat? She used to be so groovy." He said, "Oh, she likes tortillas and beans, man. We've been feeding her tortillas and beans." I went through a big scene with them, but they finally agreed to sell her back to me. I took her to a grooming parlor. All the other dogs were there, strutting around, and there were beautiful cats sitting in people's laps. I walked in with this fat dog in a rope collar. She didn't even want to go in the door. I had to carry her, and she hid her head so nobody would see her. The nurse took her on the leash, and the dog looked at me and then slunk out of the room hiding her eyes. And all the animals were looking at her, like, "Who is that? What is she doing here?"
It took a couple hours or a couple days, I don't remember, and I came back. They called my name. The door opens, and here comes Bijou, just prancing out. I had bought her a collar and given it to them, a little diamond collar with blue, beautiful against her champagne color. They'd cleaned her and clipped her. She walked out with her tail up. She strutted out. She looked marvelous. She looked down her nose at all the other dogs and at the people, and then when I petted her she went and peed on the floor as if to say, "There. Take that!"
I kept her until it
was time to go back to jail. Then I gave her to Diane's sister, Marie. She had a nice, big home in West L.A.
Boosting is hard. Every day you go through the hassle of stealing some little thing, taking a chance of getting busted, trying to sell it to a fence, going out to score, and by the time you do all that and fix, usually you've shot up all the dope that you got and it's time to go out and steal something else. It was a continuous job. It was a drag.
I'd go to bed at night and maybe I'd have a little bit of dope left. I knew if I had a getup, if I could fix in the morning, I'd be able to get started. But what would happen, I'd go to sleep and dream about dope. Dream about police chasing me. Dream about jail. And I would wake up at three, four o'clock in the morning, soaked with sweat and panicked. These dreams had just taken all the dope out of me, I felt. And so I would invariably shoot my getup, go back to sleep, and then wake up at eight and not have anything and be sick. And then that thing would start of running around trying to figure out how to get money and where to score.
So many things could go wrong. There's been times when I'd be going to one connection, and everything was running along smooth, and then one day I'd make the phone call and some strange voice would answer or his old lady, "Yeah? He's not here anymore." Or, "He doesn't live here." I would have to find another connection. I'd have to go all over. Then I'd run into somebody, and I'd ask the guy does he have anything, and he'd say, "No, man, I just sold my last gram, but I know where I can score for you, man." So you don't want to, but the only thing you can do is go with him. And here you are with some guy in a car in all kinds of weird neighborhoods. You're in places where it's real hot as far as the heat goes, and you don't feel safe. And you're trying to figure out some way to score without putting the money out in front because you might get burned, but the guy says, "Man, I gotta have the bread. I can't take you to the man. I gotta have the bread to buy the stuff. If you don't trust me, forget it, man." He'd get indignant. So you had to be cool, and you might give him twenty or fifty dollars, and that's it. That's your money, and you're sick already, and you think, "What if he doesn't come back?"
Straight Life Page 28