You Can’t Win · Chapter
XIII explained
Sanc and the narrator plan a heist at the Diamond Palace jewelry store in San Francisco, rehearsing their roles and scouting the location.
What happens
Sanc and the narrator plan a heist at the Diamond Palace jewelry store in San Francisco, rehearsing their roles and scouting the location. After a failed ruby theft in Oakland, Sanc suspects the stone is fake and travels to Salt Lake City to verify it. Meanwhile, the narrator explores Chinatown, learns about the origin of the word 'yegg,' and identifies potential escape routes for the Diamond Palace job.
Themes in this chapter
Survival and Adaptability
The narrator and Sanc adapt to their circumstances by planning a heist and exploring alternative escape routes, showing resourcefulness in the criminal underworld.
Criminal Identity and Rehabilitation
Sanc expresses a desire to quit crime gradually, first by opening a gambling house, reflecting the struggle between criminal identity and the hope of reform.
Characters to notice
- Sanc
Plans the Diamond Palace heist, rehearses his role as a clerk, and later takes the suspected fake ruby to Salt Lake City for appraisal.
- The Sanctimonious Kid
The narrator; assists in planning the heist, scouts escape routes, and explores Chinatown while Sanc is away.
- Rebel George
Mentioned as the inventor of the goldbrick swindle; Sanc quotes his advice on self-deception.
- William A. Pinkerton
Mentioned as the detective who popularized the term 'yegg' with a different meaning.
- Tom Dennison
Mentioned as the operator of the Wasatch gambling house in Salt Lake City, to whom Sanc sold the imitation ruby.
Key passages
“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.”
Sanc suggests that stealing a tray of diamonds could fund a move to Salt Lake City or Denver to start a gambling house, offering a step toward security if not respectability.
Sanc outlines the plan to use the heist proceeds for a semi-legitimate business.
“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.”
Sanc plans to mentally convince himself he is a store clerk to pull off the heist convincingly.
Sanc describes his method of self-deception for the Diamond Palace job.
“It is a corruption of 'yekk,' a word from one of the many dialects spoken in Chinatown, and it means beggar.”
The term 'yegg' originated from the Chinese word 'yekk' for beggar, used by hypos in Chinatown before being adopted by criminals nationwide.
The narrator explains the true etymology of 'yegg' as opposed to Pinkerton's version.