Brian Garfield: Target Manhattan

Yes. But Ryterband warned us that his partner wouldn’t respond to calls from anyone except himself.

But you tried to talk to Craycroft anyway, is that right?

I talked. It was a one-way transmission. The pilot didn’t respond.

How did you know you had the right transmission frequency?

Ryterband gave us the frequency. He seemed amused at that point.

Was that his general attitude at the time? Amusement?

Only for a little while. Most of the time he was in a state of rather childish agitation. He kept throwing tantrums.

What sort of tantrums?

Heaving himself around the room, demanding to know whether we realized how serious it all was. Demanding to know whether we realized how short the time was getting.

And did you realize those things?

Naturally.

Did he restate his deadline and demands?

Yes.

What did he say?

He said he had to have the money, delivered to him in his parked car, by three o’clock. He was then to be given two hours and ten minutes, without surveillance of any kind, to get away with the money. At five ten, if we cooperated with the demands, the airplane would leave its station. By its station I mean the fact that it was circling over Manhattan Island.

Hadn’t he demanded that the money be delivered by five ten originally?

I’m told that was his initial demand; but afterward he said he’d been rattled at the beginning and had got it wrong. He said obviously he had to have time to get away with the money before the airplane could leave its station.

In any case, three o’clock became the deadline. It was now-what, about a quarter to one?

Yes. The exact time is in my report, of course. We told him it was physically impossible to raise that much cash in that short a time. But he was adamant.

Your name?

Emmett O. Valkenburg.

Your title and position, Mr. Valkenburg? It’s for the record.

Executive Vice-President, Merchants Trust Bank Company, Incorporated. Chief cashier.

Do you have a prepared statement?

No.

At some point on May twenty-second you received an interoffice call from the president of your bank, Mr. Maitland. He apprised you of the situation in his office and asked you whether you could make arrangements to raise five million dollars in cash. Could you tell me what time you received that call?

It was about eleven thirty in the morning, give or take ten minutes.

I see. Then that was long before the FBI arrived on the scene.

I’m afraid I wouldn’t know that, Mr. Skinner.

Sorry. Talking to myself. Can you tell me what action you took?

Well, after I came down off the ceiling I called in my two chief assistants and we had a council of war. I told them what Paul Maitland had told me. There was a bughouse character threatening to spray bombs all over Manhattan if we didn’t come up with five million in unmarked bills, nothing larger than hundred-dollar denominations. I asked my assistants if they had any bright ideas. That’s what assistants are for. One of them had the only bright idea any of us came up with during the day.

What was that?

Get out of town.

(Laughter) I can quite understand that. But you did make concrete efforts toward raising the cash, didn’t you?

Well, sure we did. But we had to start from a depressing premise. There isn’t that much cash. I mean there simply isn’t. Oh, you could go out and canvass every biped in the five boroughs of New York and you might find an average of ten bucks a person. But you don’t find that kind of cash lying around in one institutional bundle. The biggest bank in the city might have a few hundred thousand in cash on hand at any one moment. But the only place where you’d find anything in the millions would be the Federal Reserve or maybe the safe-deposit boxes of a few Mafia dons.

What did you decide to do?

Hell, we did the only thing we could do. We got permission from Paul Maitland and we phoned the boys over at the Federal Reserve.

Your name, please, Captain?

Henry L. Grofeld. L. for Listowel, if it matters. Captain, NYPD. Chief of the First Division.

I gather that’s a statement you’ve prepared for us?

That’s right.

Would you like to read it into the record?

Is that necessary?

We could simply have the stenographer insert it, if you prefer.

That would save time, wouldn’t it? Why don’t you do it that way, then? Here you go.

Thank you…

(Pause)

Good Lord. This isn’t exactly what I expected.

I guess it’s not the usual officialese.

Did you prepare this for publication, Captain?

Sort of. But under the circumstances I don’t suppose I can ever submit it.

It’s a shame. This looks like a nice piece of work.

Well, I’ve got a confession to make. I moonlight as a writer-detective stories, crime novels. Under a pen name, of course. I’ve written several books.

Just leafing through this, it looks like a remarkable job of reconstructing the background of this case-the histories of the two men. How did you find the time?

I asked for it. It wasn’t just that I’d participated in the case. The whole thing fit into all my interests, as it happened. Criminal psychology, aircraft, and of course writing. I was given departmental leave to research the profiles on Ryterband and Craycroft. The leave was granted because the department was interested in the case the same way you’re interested in it-the idea that possibly we could determine what had caused the thing, and maybe if we knew that, we might be closer to preventing it happening again. Anyhow, I was put on detached duty with the assignment of compiling dossiers on the two men and the background of the case from its beginnings. Eventually, as you see, that took me back nearly forty years.

(Reading) “The bombs were five-hundred-pounders. Armed, contact-fused, balanced with machine-shop precision. They squatted in the abdomen of the thirty-year-old Flying Fortress like a deadly brood embryo.

“They hung in racks above open bomb-bay doors, poised to drop. Beneath them was the unsuspecting target: Manhattan, the city of New York-innocent hostage to one man’s demented dreams.

“Harold Craycroft had prepared a squadron of Eighth Air Force bombers for their participation in the deadly bombardment of the city of Dresden in the Second World War. Now he had prepared his own bomber-an airplane which actually had flown in the Dresden raid-for a macabre encore against the most concentrated urban center in the United States.

“The anatomy of the Craycroft-Ryterband case is unique in American criminological history. There can be no question that Craycroft was deranged, but his derangement led to a crime that was stunningly brilliant in the simplicity of its plan, awesome in concept, terrifying in implication. Drawn up and executed in its entirety by one solitary man (with incidental assistance from his brother-in-law), the Craycroft ransom may well turn out to have been literally the crime of the century.”

That’s an impressive opening, Captain. Here-I return this to you temporarily so that you can refer to it. I wonder if you’d mind covering the essentials of your paper orally, for our tape recorder. You may use the paper for reference as you talk, of course, and read from it if you wish. We’ll enter the entire document into the record, of course, but I’d rather go over it with you orally because various questions are bound to occur to me that may not be covered by the document itself. Do you mind?

No. However you want to do it.

Well, just start at the beginning then, if you will.

Right. I began with a biographical resume on Harold Craycroft. You want me to go over that?