Then you’re saying neither you nor Deputy Commissioner Toombes took the threat seriously.

We take every threat seriously, Mr. Skinner. That’s our job.

Isn’t that a contradiction to what you just told me?

Not at all. Toombes took Ryterband seriously. Seriously enough to call me.

But not seriously enough to instruct his secretary to make it an emergency call?

It wasn’t an emergency yet. Look, every time there’s a parade down Fifth Avenue we get crank calls threatening to snipe at the parade from the rooftops. We have to sift every call, post men on every rooftop sometimes. But it’s not an emergency unless you actually find a guy up there with a rifle. Do you see what I’m trying to get at?

In other words you’d heard Ryterband’s threat but you didn’t know whether there was any truth in it.

We didn’t have any confirmation. Not that early. It was just another crank at that stage. Every business day somebody walks up to a bank teller in New York City and hands over a note saying, “I’ve got a gun in my pocket. Clean out your cash drawer.” Ninety-nine percent of the time there’s no gun in his pocket.

But it’s standard procedure for the tellers to hand over the money anyway, isn’t it?

Sure. He might turn but to be the one percent who’s got a real gun. We’ve got camera surveillance in the banks. Silent alarms. It’s SOP to let the guy walk out with the money. Nine times out of ten he’s nabbed before he gets across the sidewalk, or identified from the photograph and arrested within twelve hours. We’d have done the same thing with Ryterband except his demands were so outrageous.

Could you explain that a bit more?

If a guy walks up to the teller’s window and hands over a note that says, “I’ve got a gun in my pocket. Give me five million dollars in cash,” I mean, let’s face it, you’re going to have to see the gun before you think about handing over that much money, even if you were able to. And you couldn’t anyway, obviously, because nobody’s got five million dollars in cash lying around, have they? You’ve got to be certifiably crazy to make demands that can’t possibly be met.