“You will follow my movements closely. When I get behind the counter I will take out the best tray I can get and set it on the show case in front of you. You will put your bottomless package over the tray, pick it up, put it under your arm, and walk out. We have two weeks to get ready. We will go down there separately and look the place over for a week. When you go in, you rehearse the thing in your mind and don’t think of anything else for the next ten days.”
We thought and talked of the Diamond Palace only for days and days. “Kid,” said Sanc, “I heard ‘Rebel George’ who invented the gold-brick swindle say: ‘The way to sell a brass brick is to bunko yourself first into the belief that your brick is solid gold—the rest is easy. The most successful bunko man is the one who bunkoes himself before he goes after a sucker.’
“I am going to hypnotize myself into the belief that I am a clerk in that store from the minute I take my hat off till I put it on. You are a visitor from the minute you go in till you get your hands on the stones; then, presto, you are what you are. If we can get one of the larger trays of stones we can get enough money on them to go to Salt Lake or Denver, and open a small gambling house where, while we can’t be entirely respectable, we can at least be secure. I am at a stage where I would like to quit. I don’t feel like going to work as a laborer at two dollars a day, or as a clerk for fifteen a week. I’m not speaking disparagingly of them, mind you—fact is, they have more real courage than we have, working for such wages. But this life of ours breeds expensive habits of loose, careless spending that are hard to overcome, and even if I could swallow my objections to being exploited I would still find it impossible to survive on the pay.
“I didn’t jump into this life I’m leading as I jump into bed, and I can’t get out of it in one jump. I drifted in by slow degrees, and if I get out I’ll have to ease out of it by slow stages. A gambling joint would be the first step away. Then maybe something better after that. This can all be threshed out later; we must not let our minds stray from the Diamond Palace.”
Sanc’s philosophy stood up under our bad luck with the near-ruby. “Kid,” he said later, “this is the season of peace on earth and good will to men. Who gives to the poor lends to the Lord, but when I give anything to the poor I am going to have a better motive. However, we are not givers; we are takers, and our taking should be reasoned out rationally. We will reverse this ‘giving and lending.’ We will rob the rich and discomfit the devil; thereby, perhaps, finding favor in the sight of the Lord. And this brings us to the front door of the Diamond Palace. It’s one of the city’s show places and visitors are always welcome. We will visit it.”
And we did. Separately, we made several visits in the evening to familiarize ourselves with the inside, and to locate the trays of stones. At night in my room Sanc drew diagrams of the interior and the show cases. We rehearsed the thing in detail night after night. He made a neat dummy parcel and drilled me in placing it over an imitation tray of diamonds; showed me how to place it under my arm securely yet carelessly and walk out of the store with entire nonchalance.
He bought his black suit, white shirt, and black tie, put them on and rehearsed his part. We put our rooms in order, cleaning out everything that might look suspicious, protecting ourselves against a possible “pinch.” The hotel keys I had made were put away carefully against a rainy day—or night. Our money was taken from the safety box, changed into bank notes, and secreted in our clothes.
I asked him about the guns. “No gun for you, Kid. You might get nervous. Leave yours somewhere. I’ll take mine along.”
Christmas was ten days away. Every evening we dressed for our parts, got barbered, shined, and slicked up, and walked about the block prepared to go into the store when it looked right. We made sure every day that the getaways I had located were still open.
“I could make it now,” said Sanc as we stood across the street the third evening, “but I’ll wait; it’s getting better every day.”