You can't win

by Jack Black

This soft life that loomed before me in Irish Annie’s had about as much lure for me as the dishwashing job. Without taking her into my confidence, I went on with my burgling. That was my trade and I would not leave it for a job in a restaurant, a “job” in Annie’s, or a position in a bank.

Winter came with a rush and a roar. I had thought of getting away from the North, but it came before I was prepared and there was nothing to do but stick it out with the others.

Of all the gamblers that found their way into this camp “Swede Pete” was probably the cleverest. I knew him from towns on the “American side,” where he played in all the big poker games with more or less success. He submitted a scheme to me that looked very good. His plan was to buy a box of playing cards, mark each deck, and have me, as a capable burglar, go into one of the big poker rooms, open the card locker, and substitute his box of marked cards for a box of legitimate cards belonging to the house. I looked at the place and saw my end of the business would be simple. He went to work on his cards, and after many days and nights of patient toil put his “work” on them so he could read them from the back as easily as from the front. When he had replaced the seals on each deck and on the box that contained them, he put them in my hands and it was but an hour’s work for me to put them in the locker and return to him the full box that his had replaced.

The following night he sat in the game as usual. Whenever he lost a pot he threw the unlucky deck on the floor and ordered a fresh one. After a night or two of this, the gamekeeper had to open a fresh box. This was our box and Pete’s luck changed at once. In a couple of nights’ play he got the long end of the money in the game. From what I heard and saw I estimated his winnings, or stealings, at three thousand dollars. It was understood that the money should be split evenly between us. When he gave me my end of it he declared he had won but fifteen hundred and that he had to have a man in the game with him and the money had to go three ways. I took the five hundred dollars knowing I was getting the worst of it and wondering how I could get even.

Pete was a big, six-foot, blond giant, good-natured, generous, and with a laugh you could hear a block. Everybody liked him; he was a good spender and a good loser. He carried a bankroll of several thousand dollars, as I knew, but the thought of robbing him never entered my mind till he burnt me in the marked-card transaction. He was interested in a saloon and had a game of his own in a rear room. I watched him carefully and learned that when the game and the bar were closed for the night he put his bankroll in the cash register, locked it, and went to bed in a comfortable little room that adjoined the big barroom. Apparently his money was safe. He left his room door open; the register could not be opened without waking him.

After thinking the matter over pro and con, I decided to beat off the barroom, carry the register out and into the alley and smash it open with an ax. Every night for a week I watched him from across the street and saw him make up his cash for the day, then put his own money in the register, lock it carefully, and go into his bedroom. Satisfied on this point, I now kept away from his place so as not to be too fresh in his mind on the morning after I got his money.

At last a stormy night came that drove everybody off the street. I kept out of the neighborhood of Pete’s place till four o’clock in the morning. I had no trouble getting into the barroom through a door opening into the hall that separated the saloon from the hotel office. Carefully removing a lot of glasses from around the register, I lifted it and placed it on the bar. Then I had to go around the bar, pick it up again, and carry it out into the hall where I put it on a table while I went back to close the door. All the while Swede Pete was snoring like a horse.

Lifting the heavy weight again, I made my way slowly to the sidewalk. Groping along in the blinding storm of snow and sleet, I missed my footing and fell flat on my back with the heavy register fair on my chest. Its sharp edge dug into my ribs and although I never went to a doctor, I believe to this day a couple of them were cracked or splintered. Unable to lift it again, I tied my handkerchief in the grill work at the top of the thing and painfully dragged it to an opening between two buildings and down into the alley where I had planted an ax.

I was morally certain Pete’s money was in it. I saw him put it there the night before, but on this last night I had kept away, not caring to be seen about his place. There was one chance in a million that he hadn’t locked the register, so before attacking it with the ax I touched one of the keys. The bell did not ring, but the cash drawer opened. But to my dismay it did not slide out with the slow, labored, obese movement of a cash drawer loaded with heavy gold and silver; instead it shot out with a thin, empty, hollow jerk that told me there was nothing in it.

With numb and freezing fingers I explored the little cups only to find them bare of coin. The compartments in the back gave up no fat bankroll. The thing was as empty and as inviting as a new-dug grave. This last blow was too much for my philosophy. Cursing the snow and sleet and every organic thing, I started back determined to go into Pete’s bedroom and search for his money. I was too late. At the door I looked into the hall and saw the porter limbering up for another day’s work.