You mean the time of day
The time and the circumstances.
I was ready to go to lunch-it must have been about twelve twenty. I had a call from the Police Commissioner’s office-Deputy Commissioner Toombes. He said he’d been on the horn with the president of Merchants Trust-he said they had this nut on their hands.
By “this nut” you mean Harold Craycroft?
No. Craycroft was the one in the airplane. The one in the bank was Charles Ryterband, but we didn’t know that at first. He’d given his name as something else-William Roberts, something like that.
According to Deputy Commissioner Toombes’ log, the call to your office was placed at eleven minutes past twelve. Does that jibe with your recollection? Just now you said it was about twelve twenty.
It probably took a few minutes to get through to my desk. I had a lot of calls that morning.
What I’m trying to get at, Mr. Swarthout, didn’t your switchboard break in and tell you there was an emergency?
No.
No? That’s all-just no?
Nobody said anything about an emergency. When Andy Toombes came on the line, he said just what I’ve told you. He said, “We’ve got a nut on our hands, Phil.”
In other words nobody seemed to be taking it very seriously at that point, is that right?
Mr. Skinner, you’re not a police officer. I understand the Mayor’s intentions-setting up this independent review commission-but I think you’re going to have to accept the fact that those of us who are involved full time in security procedures have to contend with cranks and nut cases all the time. Most of them are just trying to attract attention, in their warped way. They threaten to assassinate the mayor or pollute the Central Park reservoir or off the pigs. They’re crazy people-they wouldn’t have the slightest idea how to go about actually doing what they threaten to do. I don’t know what motivates them-you’d have to ask a psychiatrist-but in my experience nearly all these crazies are attention cravers. Who knows? Maybe they’re just lonely-they want to be arrested so they’ll have somebody to talk to.