O relate how “Nifty” Burke became the right-hand man of Joe Carden, the famous crook comedian, is to betray no confidence. Every man and woman of standing in the underworld knows the story now, and even Nifty Burke himself can tell it and laugh as he does so, which he did not do at first; but time has taken the edge off what Nifty once thought a disgrace, and his association with Joe Carden has more than repaid him for losing his standing as a holdup man of skill and courage.
He was not Nifty Burke then; he was “Shorty” Burke, and there was nothing “nifty” about him. He lived like a rat in a hole, crept out now and then to gain sustenance through nefarious methods, always feared the touch of an official hand on his shoulder because he had neither money nor influence with which to fight through court, and was miserable generally.
There came an evening, dark and misty, when Burke slipped from the room he called home, went straight down a flight of rickety stairs, journeyed through a foul alley that was in total darkness, and so came to a side street where there were few pedestrians save furtive men who dodged into the shadows when they met one another.
Along this street he hurried, and so on into another, and reached a tiny park with curving walks that were bordered with trees and shrubbery. Crouching behind a clump of brush, Burke tied a black handkerchief around his neck in such a manner that he could draw it up quickly over his chin and make a mask, pulled his cap down low over his eyes, and took a revolver from beneath his left arm under his coat. Burke hated to admit it to himself, but that revolver always worried him. He needed it in his business, and yet his standing—or lack of it—in the community was such that he scarcely dared apply for a permit to carry a gun; and carrying a gun without a permit is a thing both sinister and dangerous.
Burke never had fired the revolver, and was not sure whether it was a certain shot. He did not have the slightest intention in the world of firing it. The revolver was used only as a menace. Burke was a common holdup man.
Others in the game declared that Burke had courage and possessed a sort of sixth sense that caused him to pick the right victims. He had been incarcerated but once, and then only for six months on a charge of vagrancy. Burke admired the plaudits of others of his ilk, but his existence was not pleasing. He never seemed to get far ahead. His enterprises were dangerous and productive only of enough to furnish a meager living. Burke was not satisfied,
His journey to the little park to-night was in an effort to replenish his purse. On one side of the park was a cluster of short streets lined with studios, and Burke knew that certain gentlemen who lived there often walked across the park and along the dark paths after having dined at a big hotel on the avenue on the opposite side of the little square of green.
It was almost midnight now. Burke shivered a bit because of the cold mist, and crept closer to the clump of brush. A short distance away there was a sudden gleam beneath one of the lights. Burke knew the gleam. It came from the shield and buttons of a policeman.
Burke almost held his breath. He dropped the handkerchief around his neck and put the revolver beneath the clump of brush; and then he waited, crouching close to the ground, scarcely daring to breathe. The patrolman swung past within half a dozen feet of Burke, and went on across the square.
Almost immediately another man came along the path, the sort of man Burke was expecting. But Burke did not dare step from his place of concealment and attempt a holdup. The patrolman was too near. A single squeal of fright from the victim might be enough to bring the officer back on the run. And Burke was not ambitious to spend a term of years behind the walls of the big prison up the river, to wear a degrading uniform, and be known by a number—and to be known to the police always thereafter as a person to be suspected of all things at all times.
Fifteen minutes longer Burke waited, crouching behind the clump of brush in the drizzle of rain. He felt sure now that the patrolman had gone down the street, that he merely had been cutting across the park to get to some report box at the appointed hour.
Burke began to despair. It was getting rather late, and the mist and drizzle cut down the chances of a pedestrian coming along the path. And then, beneath the light in the distance, Burke saw his man.