“No. But they must’ve been big. Sy always had plenty of money. A big spender he was, Sy.” Torr paused. “Do you? Know who the marks were, I mean?”
“No,” Kling said, “but of course we’ll look into it. I still don’t know why you’re so interested, Torr.”
“He was my friend,” Torr said simply. “I want to see justice done.”
“You can rest assured we’ll do everything in our power,” Kling said.
“Thanks,” Torr said. “It’s just cause he was my friend, you understand. And I think you’re taking the wrong approach with this ‘Gangland Murder’ garbage the newspapers are printing.”
“We have no control over the press, Mr. Torr,” Kling said.
“Sure, but I wanted you to know what I thought. Cause he was my friend, Sy was.”
“We’ll look into it,” Kling said. “Thanks for coming up.”
THE FIRST THING KLING DID when Torr left the squadroom was to call the Bureau of Criminal Identification.
The bureau was located at Headquarters, downtown on High Street. It was open twenty-four hours a day, and its sole reason for existence was the collection, compilation, and cataloguing of any and all information descriptive of criminals. The I.B. maintained a Fingerprint File, a Criminal Index File, a Degenerate File, a Parolee File, a Released Prisoner File, a Known Gamblers, Known Rapists, Known Burglars, Known Muggers, Known Any-and-All Kinds of Criminal File. Its Modus Operandi File contained more than 80,000 photographs of known criminals. And since all persons charged with and convicted of a crime were photographed and fingerprinted, as specified by law, the file was continually growing and continually being brought up to date. The I.B. received and classified some 206,000 sets of prints yearly, and it answered requests for some 250,000 criminal records from police departments all over the country. When Kling asked for whatever they had on a man named Mario Torr, the I.B. dug into its files and sent Kling the photostated tickets before noon.
Kling was not at all interested in the fingerprints that were in the envelope. He scanned them rapidly, and then picked up the copy of Mario Torr’s sheet.
There was in the Penal Law a subtle distinction between extortion and blackmail.
Section 850 defined extortion as “the obtaining of property from another, or the obtaining the property of a corporation from an officer, agent or employee thereof, with the consent, induced by a wrongful use of force or fear, or under color of official right.”
Section 851 picked up where 850 left off, with a definition of what threats may constitute extortion: “Fear, such as will constitute extortion may be induced by an
Such was the nature of extortion.
Blackmail was extortion in writing.
Section
The distinction was indeed a subtle one in that blackmail had to be in writing, whereas extortion could be either oral or written. In any case, Torr was both a convicted extortionist and an accused blackmailer.
Kling shrugged and looked through the rest of the photostated material in the I.B.’s packet. Torr had served a year at Castleview, the state’s-and possibly the nation’s-worst penitentiary. He had been released on parole at the end of that time, after receiving a guarantee of employment from a construction company out on Sand’s Spit. He had in no way violated his parole. Nor had he been arrested again since his prison term had ended. He was, at present, still gainfully employed by the same Sand’s Spit construction company, earning good wages as a laborer.
He seemed to be a decent, upright, honest citizen.
And yet he was interested in the apparent gangland murder of a known blackmailer.
And Bert Kling wondered why.
THERE HAD BEEN A TIME when Detective Steve Carella had considered Danny Gimp just another stool pigeon. He had considered him a good stoolie, true, and a valuable stoolie-but nonetheless a pigeon, a somewhat-pariah who roamed the nether world between criminal and law-enforcement officer. There had been a time when, had Danny Gimp dared to call Carella “Steve,” the detective would have taken offense.
All that had been before December.
