For a time I managed to get along fairly well and was able by honest efforts to have a little home and to have my children with me. But my old career came up to haunt me and many refused to have business dealings with me when they were informed of my earlier life. At last I was at the end of my resources—should I lose my little home and my children, or should I go back once more, just once more to my old life?
The struggle between my two impulses was finally settled by a visit from two of my old acquaintances of the underworld—Tom Bigelow and Johnny Meaney. They came to ask my help in a promising job which they felt sure would be a success if they could enlist my services—there would be at least $50,000 for me, they said.
"Big Tom" Bigelow was an old-time professional bank burglar, who had learned his business under such leaders as Jimmy Hope and Langdon W. Moore—men who had never found any bank or any vault too much for their skill. Little Johnny Meaney was one of the cleverest "bank sneaks" that ever lived. He would perform the most amazing feats in getting behind bank counters and walking off with large bundles of money. He was so quick and noiseless in his work that he would never have been arrested but for his fondness for women and drink. When under the influence of champagne he would confide in some strange woman he had met only a few days before, and in order to get the reward some of the women would tell the police where to find Johnny.
He had granulated eyelids, and his inflamed eyes were so conspicuous that he could always be recognized easily. He was married and had several children. His wife never knew the kind of work he did. He had a quarrelsome temper, and always got into some dispute with every woman he met, and usually left them feeling unfavorably disposed toward him. Many of the girls who betrayed him did so more through resentment than anything else. I mention these things to show how personal peculiarities and temperament are often serious menaces to criminals.
Meaney's specialty was day work. He would walk into a bank during business hours and sneak behind the counter and pick up everything he could lay his hands on. He never did any night work, and knew nothing about safe blowing. As a rule, a man who makes a specialty of night work, with dark lantern, mask, and jimmy, will not attempt any sneak work, and the first-class sneak will not undertake night work. The night robber is guided by the moon, and oftentimes a job will be called off because the cracksmen think the moon is not right for the work. The darker the night the better. But the bank sneak prefers daylight of the brightest kind. He often works right under the eyes of a room full of clerks, and the bigger the crowd in the streets the easier for him to make his escape and lose himself among them.
HOW I PLANNED A BANK ROBBERY
It was a "bank sneak" job they had in mind. The bank was in a small New Jersey city, near enough to New York so that we could lose ourselves in our old haunts on the East Side before the detectives should get hot on our trail.
I went to the town in advance of the other members of the party and rented a small cottage, posing as a widow who planned to settle down there and live on the income of her husband's insurance money.
Soon after settling in my new quarters, I visited the bank and opened a small account. I found the cashier a man who fitted in perfectly with our dishonest designs. He must have been nearly seventy years old and he could not hear or see so well as he should for the security of the funds in his charge.
I saw right away that he was very susceptible to pretty women and was quite willing to drop his work at any time for a half hour's chat with such a comely widow as I looked to be. My task was to look the ground over, find out where the cash was kept, and how and when access to it could best be secured. It was the simplest thing in the world to get these facts after I had worked my way into the cashier's good graces.