They meet in the back rooms of saloons behind locked doors, under pretence of wishing to play a game of zecchinetta unmolested, or in the gloaming in the middle of a city park or undeveloped property on the outskirts.
There the different members of the gang get their orders and stations, and perhaps a few dollars advance wages.

It is naturally quite impossible to guess the number of successful and unsuccessful attempts at blackmail among Italians, as the amount of undiscovered crime throughout the country at large is incomputable.

No word of it comes from the lips of the victims, who are in mortal terror of the vendetta--of meeting some casual stranger on the street who will significantly draw the forefinger of his right hand across his throat.
There is rather more chance to find and convict a kidnapper than a bomb-thrower, so that, as a means of extortion, child-snatching is less popular than the mere demand for the victim's money or his life.

On the other hand it is probably much more effective in accomplishing its result.

But America will not stand for kidnapping, and, although the latter occurs occasionally, the number of cases is insignificant compared with those in which dynamite is the chief factor.