Carden, Crook Comedian/Chapter 1

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.

He watched carefully. The one who approached wore evening dress, had his hat on the back of his head, and was carrying an umbrella at a rakish angle. Burke liked that. It meant that the man was not alert, that he was thinking of pleasant things, and did not have his mind concentrated on the possibilities of danger. Catching a man off guard that way was half the battle; a man taken by surprise rarely thinks and acts quickly.

The path forked, and Burke held himself ready to dodge to the other branch of it if his prospective victim elected to take it. But his man came straight on.

Now Burke prepared for business. He glanced down the walk in the other direction and made sure that nobody approached. He pulled the handkerchief up over his chin, settled his cap, picked up the revolver, and braced himself for a quick step to the edge of the walk.

On came the victim. Burke judged the distance correctly, and at the proper time darted forward, the revolver held in a menacing manner before him.

“Put ’em up!” he snarled.

The man before him stopped instantly and allowed the umbrella to tip backward.

“Quick! Up with them hands, or I’ll plug you!” Burke declared, a mean and threatening hiss in his voice.

The man standing before him did raise his hands, but to close the umbrella carefully and deliberately and then to toss it one side on the grass. But he did not put up his hands after the time-honored fashion of men consenting to be robbed. He rested them against his hips, bent forward quickly, and began chuckling.

“Up with ’em!” Burke ordered once more, wondering at his victim’s manner. “This ain’t a comedy!”

“P-pardon me, but it is a comedy,” the other replied. “You’ll appreciate it yourself in a minute or two. Holdup man, are you? Ought to be ashamed of yourself! Lowest order of the animal kingdom—holdup men!”

“Say! Up with them mitts o’ yours, and no more talk! I mean business!”

“And suppose I don’t put them up?” the other wanted to know, still chuckling.

“If you don’t, I’ll plug you!”

“You haven’t the nerve,” the victim declared. “Pardon me while I laugh again. This is an excellent joke. And allow me to ask you one question—just one. Did you ever hear of Joe Carden?”

“The comedian?”

“I believe he also is known by that name. Well, my young friend, I am Joe Carden! And you are trying to hold me up. Fancy that! You wouldn’t shoot in a million years.”

“The comedian, are you? And I’m the King of Siam!” Burke said.

“I see that you do not believe me. Do you know anything about this Joe Carden?”

“Only what I’ve heard,” Burke admitted. “But I know that he’s got a long blue scar across his left wrist”

“Very good! Suppose you take a look at my left wrist, then.”

The arm was extended quickly, and Burke, keeping a close watch on his man, pulled back the sleeve. The scar was there.

“’Course, I didn’t know” Burke began. It was his attempt at apology. It is not ethical for one crook to steal from, another, save under most peculiar circumstances.

At the moment of speaking, Burke experienced a sensation. Something happened to him that he often had declared could not happen—a man got away with his gun.

Joe Carden made a lightninglike movement, Burke felt a quick pain in his wrist, the revolver was torn out of his grasp and Joe Carden, the crook comedian, was chuckling once more.

“You’re not even a good holdup man,” Joe Carden sneered, stopping his laughter suddenly and getting a new note in his voice. “Now, what do you suppose I am going to do with you?”

Burke had heard certain tales about Joe Carden—that everything was as a joke to him, that he was utterly without fear, and that he rewarded friends and punished enemies in a way that caused him to be spoken of frequently. There was considerable mystery about him, too. His crimes were all unusual, and he kept the police half insane trying to apprehend him when they “had the goods on him.”

Fear came to Burke now, for he imagined Joe Carden was about to give him punishment. He began cringing.

“Honest, I didn’t know,” Burke said. “I wouldn’t have tried it on you; you know that. Gee, I just supposed you was some swell goin’ home from the hotel dinin’ room.”

“Possibly I’ll overlook it this time,” Carden said. “What’s your name?”

“Burke.”

“I’ve heard of you—an artist in your particular line. Yet I got your gun away from you.”

“I—I was a bit surprised.”

“It’s a bad thing to allow yourself to be surprised when you are engaged in such an enterprise. On second thought, I don’t think I’ll let you escape entirely.”

“I never guessed”

“Stop sniveling!” Joe Carden commanded. “I think I can use a man like you, Burke—possibly make something of you before I’m done. I’ve had a man for a couple of years, and only yesterday, catching him stealing from me, I suggested that he leave town and remain away. I am informed that he is on his way West. And I want a man to take his place.”

“What’s the job?” Burke asked.

“Obeying orders. I live like a gentleman, and a gentleman has a servant. You’ll be valet”

“I wasn’t cut out to be any he-maid.”

“Um! If you are worrying about the job being too effeminate for your taste, you may cease worrying. It will have stern moments—even violent ones, perhaps. You’d be my right-hand man, and there’d be good pay and—er—a certain amount of prestige. How about it?”

“Looks good, but I never aimed to hook up with anybody.”

“Understand me—you’ll be an assistant, not a partner,’ Joe Carden said. “I don’t hook up with anybody either, as you so aptly express it. Well?”

“I dunno!”

“I do,” Carden said. “You’ll come with me right now—and leave that silly cap pistol there on the grass. Pick up my umbrella and come along.”

“Ain’t I got anything to say about it?”

“Not a word,” Carden replied happily. “You may refuse, if you wish, and I’ll spread it all over town how you tried to hold me up, and how I took your gun away. And, in addition to that, I may be tempted to handle you myself.”

Burke noticed at that instant that Joe Carden had bent forward, and that his eyes were glittering. Burke did not like the glitter. It would be a good job, too, to work for a topnotcher. The misery of his existence might be removed. Perhaps he would have ample funds with which to purchase the fashionable raiment he craved. Even at that day Burke longed to be Nifty Burke.

“Well?” Carden snapped.

“You’ve got a man,” Burke answered. “Where is that umbrella?”

Carden motioned toward it, and Burke picked it up and opened it, and held it over the head of his new employer. They walked quickly along the path toward the nearest exit of the park. Burke watched Joe Carden from the corners of his eyes; Carden was humming as happily as though out strolling on a charming afternoon.

Burke had heard a lot about Carden. Where he had come from, no man knew. He was more than a match for the police, and some of his escapades kept the underworld in throes of laughter. He was a peculiar sort of individual, “hard as nails” at times, and at other times going far out of his way to aid some unfortunate who was deserving. He had supplied attorneys’ fees for more than one man, had cared for families of men sent up the river. He made few close friends, and played the game alone. That was one reason the police could not catch him, though they knew him well.

Once Joe Carden had been arrested on a charge of vagrancy, and he had gone into court and proved that he had a snug fortune properly invested, and lived on the proceeds. They traced the fortune and discovered that it was honest money that had been inherited from an uncle who had been a recluse.

So Joe Carden had laughed at the officers, and laughed at them now, even at those who knew him for what he was and yet could not prove it, and Detective Sam Marter, who had arrested him for vagrancy and had thus let himself in for a lot of ridicule, swore to get him if it took years. Marter even went as far as to construct elaborate traps, all of which Joe Carden dodged with consummate skill.

Burke thought of these things as they went from the park and then along the avenue. Presently, Carden led the way into a cross-street, and after a time stopped before a doorway and let himself in with a latchkey. He bade Burke close the door, and showed him how to snap on the lights. They went up the stairs and unlocked another door. Burke found himself in the living room of a suite furnished in an artistic manner.

“Here we are,” Joe Carden announced. “And kindly remember that from this time forward you are my man. I’ll break you in gradually. If you turn out to be valuable to me, you’ll not regret it. But watch your step, Burke! There are some peculiar things in these rooms, and curiosity is punished at times.”

“I getcha!” Burke said.

“Um! I may say that your language is scarcely elegant, Burke. And your clothing is not of the best, either. We can attend to the clothing to-morrow, but I suppose it will take me some time to change your language.”

Joe Carden tried it for six months, and then gave it up as a bad job. Burke continued to use a language of his own, not exactly a bad language, but one through which idiomatic remarks were scattered generously.

But Burke was not dismissed. He formed a sincere attachment for the crook comedian, and became a man of value to him. Burke did have genuine courage, as Joe Carden soon dis- covered, and also a certain amount of originality and ability. They worked well together, and profitably.