Confessions of a Second Story Man

by Allen M. Hornblum

  This unimpressive criminal career took a dramatic turn in 1953, when Effie came under the wing of Willie Sears, who was then in the process of revolutionizing the craft of burglary in America. Evidently, their collegial arrangement came none too soon for Burke. As some of the older K&A burglars recall, Effie was a nonentity until he met Sears.

  “Effie was never nothing,” says Jimmy Laverty authoritatively. “He was a nobody. He always had his head under the hood of a beat-up old Hudson while Searsy was driving a brand new 1953 Olds.” Laverty, who also trained under Sears, says that Sears lived with his father for a while on Joyce Street, just down the block from Effie. Every day he’d see Effie “working under the hood, trying to fix this old piece of shit Hudson.” Sears finally told Effie, “C’mon and work with me and you’ll be able to get rid of that piece of shit.” Effie did, says Laverty, and pretty soon Burke was buying a new Cadillac every year. They all were.

  Effie spent a good couple years learning the nuances of production work from Willie Sears. The results were dramatic. He was now making more money than he had ever dreamed of, and, best of all, it seemed almost risk-free. He was burglarizing several houses a night, practically every night of the week, with impunity. He would not get pinched again until the end of the decade. (In this respect he did better than his mentor, since the police periodically nabbed Sears.)

  Though never a scholar in the classroom, Effie gave his undivided attention to learning the fine points of production work. He had found a curriculum he enjoyed and excelled in. Effie quickly grasped and bought into Sears’s multifaceted system: the team approach with a division of labor; dressing like businessmen with briefcases in order to blend into the best neighborhoods; going on the road for a week at a time and doing five to seven houses a night; and the prohibition against carrying weapons. The game plan worked; they were all making money and getting their kicks out of the ballsy capers as well.

  Sugar Cable, Harry Stocker, Hughie Breslin, Richie Blaney, Raymond Chalmers, and La La McQuoid were also crew members for Willie Sears at one time or another and part of Kensington’s free-floating criminal labor pool. They learned the business from him, eventually started their own crews (as did Effie), and ultimately became key players in the new neighborhood enterprise. But in his own quiet way Effie Burke emerged as a pillar of this cottage industry. In contrast to Sears, who intimidated, abused, and cheated many of his partners, most Kensington burglars sang Effie’s praises. “It was a big deal to work for Effie,” says Frank Mawhinney. “Everyone made money. He was honest. Everybody always got a fair cut.” According to Georgie Smith, “Effie was a real gentleman” and possessed a “wonderful sense of humor.”

  Jackie Johnson, who spent years with Burke’s crew, speaks of Effie’s work ethic, competence, and integrity. “You put in a night’s work with Effie,” says Johnson of Effie’s no-nonsense, workman-like approach. “Effie knew the business and was on top of every detail. He rarely put you in a dangerous situation— and if he did, he knew how to get you out of it. He was always the first to break open the front door and enter a house. He didn’t centerfield it by sending the dumbest guy in the house first.” Johnson also appreciated his crew chief’s softer side. “Effie was an easy mark. He was a good guy, an easy touch. He’d always help you out if you were in a jam.” Johnson describes the time he was out of commission with a broken leg as a result of a car accident. “Who needs a fuckin’ one-legged burglar?” asks Johnson. “But Effie put me to work as the crew’s driver.” Effie Burke could also be all business, as Johnson found out when he came to work drunk. Effie fired him, kicked him off the crew, and replaced him with another Kensington second story man. Burglary was too risky an undertaking for stupid blunders.

  For Jimmy Dolan, Effie Burke was almost a father figure, a guy who “was generous to a fault, an expert at every phase of the game,” and someone who displayed the “rare combination of being both instinctive and highly technical in the burglary field.” Dolan points out that the K&A burglars were playing “a dangerous game. You couldn’t make too many mistakes. And once you got some notoriety and the police were on to you, it was much worse.” Effie Burke, he makes clear, knew how to handle such problems—so well, in fact, that Dolan “never got caught with Effie on a job.” This was an incredible achievement, considering the hundreds of nights they worked together and the thousands of jobs they pulled. The difference between Effie Burke and the common burglar, says Dolan, is “the difference between a professor with a Ph.D. and a kid in kindergarten.” The educational analogy is not that great a stretch, for Burke was indeed a teacher. “Guys would train under Effie, and after a few years they would go out on their own,” says Dolan. They left to start their own crews knowing they had been trained by the best. The FBI concurred. As one special agent said of Burke, “He was the pinnacle of their operation and a teacher as well.”

  Even members of the general public appreciated Burke’s qualities. “Effie was a guy a lot of legitimate people gave tips to” regarding cash-stuffed homes, says Dolan. “They’d come up to him all the time.” And probably most important of all, according to Dolan, he was “a real standup guy.” Effie would never talk; he would never rat out his partners.

  As was true of just about all of the K&A gang members, however, the intense, highballing lifestyle took its toll on Burke’s private life. Arlene Burke, who met Effie in 1949 when she was 19, says, “Effie was a good-natured, very easy-going guy” when she first ran in to him one day in a Kensington luncheonette. She was unaware of his prior arrests but definitely attracted to him. His friends and their lifestyle were exciting. “La La, Willie Sears, Richie Blaney, Effie, all of those neighborhood guys didn’t want to work or go to school,” Arlene says, “but they liked the good life.” She was intrigued by all of them, but especially drawn to Effie. “Effie was very good company,” recalls Arlene, fondly. “At night we’d go from bar to bar to bar. I was a quiet person, and he was really exciting.”

  In 1954 the two Kensington youngsters solidified their mutual attraction. Nearly half a century later, Arlene’s recollection of Effie’s marriage proposal and their whirlwind honeymoon still brings a chuckle. “Effie came over one evening,” she recalls, “and excitedly says, ‘C’mon, get your things. We’re leaving.”’ Arlene asked where they were going and Effie matter-of-factly said, “Mexico.” Shocked, Arlene asked, “Why Mexico?” “We’re going to get married,” replied Effie. “C’mon, get your things. We’re in a hurry.”

  “I knew it was crazy,” says Arlene, “but I did it anyway. My mother was furious.” Sitting outside in a brand new air-conditioned Oldsmobile were Willie Sears and his wife, Dolly. The five-day cross-country adventure culminated in Arlene’s seeing her first bullfight. A small wedding ceremony soon followed in Juarez, Mexico. “Willie and Dolly stood up for us,” says Arlene. “After the wedding, we all had a filet mignon dinner for a dollar-fifty and drove home.”

  Arlene quickly became disenchanted with her husband’s lifestyle, extracurricular activities, and occasional girlfriends; K&A burglars were not paternal, comforting, stay-at-home types. Arlene’s sister, Carole, maintained a three-decade-long friendship with Effie Burke and speaks highly of his sense of humor and fair play, but admits, “He wasn’t a very good father or husband. He had a succession of girlfriends” who ruined his marriage. “My husband,” says Carole, “thought Effie was Louderback Moving and Storage ’cause he was moving so often.”

  “Most of the time,” says Arlene, “I had no idea what he was up to.” News of her husband’s criminal misadventures arrived in various forms. Sometimes it was the sound of police knocking on the door; on other occasions it might be an acquaintance announcing that Effie was in danger and needed help. “One night,” she recalls, “a friend of Effie’s came over” and ordered her to get dressed. “‘Effie got caught in a house and we need to pick him up before the cops catch him. He’s stuck in the woods in Jersey somewhere and needs a ride.’ I had to get dressed and go with this guy
. We had to look like a normal couple just out for a quiet evening drive in the country.” Such impromptu excursions combined with Effie’s bar-hopping and womanizing took their toll. “We separated four or five times during the next six years,” says Arlene, “and I left for good in 1960.” Though the couple divorced in 1964, FBI agents looking for information continued to pay her uninvited visits.

  Though his marriage was crumbling, Effie’s professional career was exceedingly successful. His reputation as a shrewd master burglar, a moneymaker who was rarely, if ever, caught in the act by police, was growing quickly. As the mid-fifties arrived and he broke off from Willie Sears to form his own crew, it gradually became a sign of status to work with Effie Burke. “He had a knack for knowing what house to hit,” says Jimmy Laverty. “He wouldn’t leave a house until money or jewelry was found.” Effie had quietly but rapidly moved to the front of the class and placed his own stamp of excellence on the art of production work.

  Yet the risks of his chosen profession took their toll on him, as they did on most burglars. Burglary was a crime that could land you in jail. In addition, a burglar could never be sure what he was going to find when he broke into someone’s home. He could walk into a veritable gold mine or the barrel of a shotgun. And the latter happened just often enough to legitimize a thief’s worst fears. The specter of such discomforting scenarios caused universal dyspepsia in the burglar community, Effie included.

  “Effie had really bad nerves,” says Laverty. “He was a nervous person.” So nervous, in fact, that he frequently left an unusual and distinctive landmark at the scene of the crime. “Effie would crap on the lawn or the sidewalk alongside the house he was burglarizing,” says Laverty. This bizarre habit allowed police to tell who had burglarized a home as soon as they came upon (or stepped in) the evidence. “We knew it was Effie’s crew,” snickers retired Philly detective John Del Carlino, “when we investigated a burglary scene and heard one of our guys yell, ‘Damn it. It’s that Polack again,’ while cleaning off his shoes.”

  Although professional burglars are usually thought to have nerves of steel and icicles for veins, a professional, too, could have an anxiety attack while ransacking a house. As Donnie Abrams flatly states, “All burglars got bad nerves.” Taking the time to visit an unfamiliar home’s bathroom was a luxury a bona fide burglar couldn’t afford, especially if he was the lookout man stationed by a first floor window. Such constraints produced some humorous incidents, which K&A burglars still recall with delight. Jimmy Laverty, for example, tells the story of lookout man Harry Stocker, whose nerves got the better of him while he stealthily peered out the window. As the minutes slowly ticked by, he had an uncontrollable urge to defecate. Unable to leave his critical perch by the window, “Stocker took a shit in a large fish bowl near the window and used fine lace that was set on the dinner table to wipe his ass.” When the searchers had completed their haul they gathered up their relieved lookout man and exited the house, but not before one of them caught sight of a strange dark object floating in the fish tank. “Jesus Christ,” exclaimed the startled burglar, “look at the size of that goddamn whale in the fish bowl.”

  5. Road Companies, Brutes, and Safecrackers

  The three of us—me, Jackie, and John L.—are on the road doing production work in an upscale, ritzy neighborhood that’s loaded with big homes and fancy mansions. But oddly enough, on that particular night we’re doing a high-rise apartment building. It’s the only one in the area. Most of the guys didn’t really like doing high-rise work because there’s too many people around and, more importantly, the difficulty in getting out of the place if the cops catch wind of ya. But we had gotten a tip on a doctor who lived there.

  Anyway, we’re doing this apartment and it’s near the bank of elevators, which is good so we can hear if anybody is coming. We get in with no trouble and start going through the place, grabbing anything that looks of value—cash, jewelry, silverware—and then Jack whispers, “Hold it! I hear the elevator.” Well, we all figure this is a 10 or 12 story building; what are the chances of somebody stopping at this floor? Don’t you know, the damn elevator stops at the floor we’re working on and we hear a couple people get off—a man and a woman. So we’re looking at each other, trying to reassure ourselves there’s no way in hell they’re coming to the apartment we just cleaned out. We’re listening to them walk down the hall, the side of the building we’re on, unfortunately, and hope they keep going right past the apartment door me, Jack, and John L. are hiding behind. Ain’t it our goddamn luck, but they stop right at our door. It’s their goddamn apartment we just emptied.

  We hear the guy going for his keys and putting it in the lock, but then he stops. He knows something is wrong, something doesn’t feel right. Well, we ain’t even breathing at this point and look at each other like, can it get any worse? We’re wondering, is this guy armed? Are we gonna have to hurt somebody here?

  He suddenly pushes the door open, but all we see is his hand and arm, and believe me the guy musta been a big son-of-a-bitch because his hand was huge. Right away I’m thinking somebody is gonna get hurt. Jackie and I are little guys, but John L. is pretty good size and can handle himself in a scuffle. No sooner is the thought outta my mind when the guy steps around the door, and John L. immediately gives him a forearm shiver to the throat that clears the guy right off his feet, pins him against the wall, and then drops him to the floor. His wife or girlfriend starts screaming her head off, and we grab our things and tear ass outta there. We got away, but the people in the building probably got a pretty good scare. I never did like doing apartment buildings. I did them, but they weren’t one of my favorites.—GEORGE “JUNIOR” SMITH

  THEY WERE ALMOST ALL there in Kensington that morning: the smooth scam artists, the ballsy burglars, the crafty “safe” men, the hardened gunmen who specialized in “walk-ins.” They were there to say a last goodbye to one of their own. The normally unruly, rough-hewn characters who survived on a fluid combination of wits, nerve, and societal indifference had gathered at Gniewek’s Funeral Parlor for a melancholy farewell to a neighborhood guy, a beloved member of their criminal fraternity who had finally succumbed to a self-destructive lifestyle and a long battle with lung cancer.

  Danny Gundaker, a consummate burglar, loyal partner, and trusted friend, was making one last journey. The men who had shared his zest for life (and the attraction of an unoccupied home) assembled in small groups in the building’s foyer and on the pavement outside, recalling raucous misadventures, wild parties, and outrageous incidents. They recounted the time Danny was shot in the face and shoulder by police in Florida during a burglary gone bad, the time Danny broke both his ankles jumping off a roof while trying to escape from a county jail in Maryland, and the time he ran into a backyard clothesline while fleeing the police and tore the scalp off his head. Despite his recurring misfortunes, Danny was “a class act,” a “standup guy,” fearless, with “balls like ingots.” They were all going to miss him.

  After each of the nearly three dozen mourners had paid his last respects to Gundaker, and just before they closed the casket, two formidable-looking men came forward and placed on top of the smartly dressed corpse a few objects: a three-foot-long brute, a pair of burglar’s gloves, and a set of home alarm turnoff keys. A few of the mourners may have missed the significance of the gesture, but most of those gathered readily understood, smiled, and nodded. They didn’t know for sure where their friend Danny Gundaker was headed, but they seemed to agree that wherever his journey ended, he’d probably feel more comfortable with the tools of his trade at his side. As they all knew, Danny was all business as a burglar. And a true professional never wanted to be caught unprepared when an attractive opportunity presented itself.

  One night we’re doin’ a bowling alley up on Roosevelt Boulevard and Adams Avenue. We’re inside and decide we’re gonna have to burn the safe, which takes a little time and casts off a good bit of light. We’re all tense, tryin’ to be as quiet and inconspicuous a
s possible, when all of a sudden there’s a big bang like a goddamn explosion. It scares the shit out of everybody, and we all duck for cover and try to figure out what the hell happened. When we don’t hear any sirens or see any cops come barging in, we look out into the middle of the building where all the dust and debris seem to be, and there’s a guy lying on one of the bowling lanes moaning his head off. Once we realize it ain’t the cops, we go over to see what the hell all the commotion is about. We get on the eighth or ninth lane, put our flashlights on the guy moaning in pain and the big hole that’s now in the ceiling of the joint. It turns out the guy flat on his back is Steve Zagnojney. He’s another burglar from the neighborhood, and we always called him Steve the Mechanic. He’s screaming that he broke his leg when he fell through the roof and needs a doctor bad. What could we do? We had to forget about burning the safe and took Steve to Frankford Hospital. But that’s what it was like in those days. While we’re tryin’ to open a safe and make a few bucks, another Kensington crew decides to burglarize the same damn bowling alley. But one of their guys, Steve the Mechanic, who goes about six-two, 250 pounds, falls through the roof while we’re burnin’ the safe. None of us made any money that night.—JOHNNY BOGGS

  THEY WEREN’T OFF the Delta jetliner more than a few seconds before Junior stopped at a concourse newsstand and purchased a copy of the Houston Chronicle.nd a map of the city. He was never one to waste time when working: the newspaper and map took priority over both a necessary pit stop in the men’s room after the long flight and a cold beer at an airport restaurant. Junior and his three friends were in Texas on business; some things, especially a refreshing libation, could wait.