CHAP­TER ONE

The Fledgling

&nb­sp;

A man's al­ter ego is noth­ing more than his fa­vorite im­age of him­self. The mir­ror in my room in the Wind­sor Ho­tel in Paris re­flect­ed my fa­vorite im­age of me-a dark­ly hand­some young air­line pi­lot, smooth-​skinned, bull-​shoul­dered and im­mac­ulate­ly groomed. Mod­esty is not one of my virtues. At the time, virtue was not one of my virtues.

Sat­is­fied with my ap­pear­ance, I picked up my bag, left the room and two min­utes lat­er was stand­ing in front of the cashier's cage.

"Good morn­ing, Cap­tain," said the cashier in warm tones. The mark­ings on my uni­form iden­ti­fied me as a first of­fi­cer, a co-​pi­lot, but the French are like that. They tend to over­es­ti­mate ev­ery­thing save their wom­en, wine and art.

I signed the ho­tel bill she slid across the counter, start­ed to turn away, then wheeled back, tak­ing a pay­roll check from the in­side pock­et of my jack­et. "Oh, can you cash this for me? Your Paris night life near­ly wiped me out and it'll be an­oth­er week be­fore I'm home." I smiled rue­ful­ly.

She picked up the Pan Amer­ican World Air­ways check and looked at the amount. "I'm sure we can, Cap­tain, but I must get the man­ag­er to ap­prove a check this large," she said. She stepped in­to an of­fice be­hind her and was back in a mo­ment, dis­play­ing a pleased smile. She hand­ed me the check to en­dorse.

"I as­sume you want Amer­ican dol­lars?" she asked, and with­out wait­ing for my re­ply count­ed out $786.73 in Yan­kee cur­ren­cy and coin. I pushed back two $50 bills. "I would ap­pre­ci­ate it if you would take care of the nec­es­sary peo­ple, since I was so care­less," I said, smil­ing.

She beamed. "Of course, Cap­tain. You are very kind," she said. "Have a safe flight and please come back to see us."

I took a cab to Or­ly, in­struct­ing the driv­er to let me off at the TWA en­trance. I by-​passed the TWA tick­et counter in the lob­by and pre­sent­ed my FAA li­cense and Pan Am ID card to the TWA op­er­ations of­fi­cer. He checked his man­ifest. "Okay, First Of­fi­cer Frank Williams, dead­head­ing to Rome. Gotcha. Fill this out, please." He hand­ed me the fa­mil­iar pink form for non­rev­enue pas­sen­gers and I penned in the per­ti­nent da­ta. I picked up my bag and walked to the cus­toms gate marked "crew mem­bers on­ly." I start­ed to heft my bag to the counter top but the in­spec­tor, a wiz­ened old man with a wispy mus­tache, rec­og­nized me and waved me through.

A young boy fell in be­side me as I walked to the plane, gaz­ing with un­abashed ad­mi­ra­tion at my uni­form with its bur­nished gold stripes and oth­er adorn­ments.

"You the pi­lot?" he asked. He was En­glish from his ac­cent.

"Nah, just a pas­sen­ger like you," I replied. "I fly for Pan Am."

"You fly 707s?"

I shook my head. "Used to," I said. "Right now I'm on DC-8s." I like kids. This one re­mind­ed me of my­self a few years past.

An at­trac­tive blond stew­ardess met me as I stepped aboard and helped me to stow my gear in the crew's lug­gage bin. "We've got a full load this trip Mr. Williams," she said. "You beat out two oth­er guys for the jump seat. I'll be serv­ing the cab­in."

"Just milk for me," I said. "And don't wor­ry about that if you get busy. Hitch­hik­ers aren't en­ti­tled to any­thing more than the ride."

I ducked in­to the cab­in. The pi­lot, co-​pi­lot and flight en­gi­neer were mak­ing their pre-​take­off equip­ment and in­stru­ment check but they paused cour­te­ous­ly at my en­trance. "Hi, Frank Williams, Pan Am, and don't let me in­ter­rupt you," I said.

"Gary Giles," said the pi­lot, stick­ing out his hand. He nod­ded to­ward the oth­er two men. "Bill Austin, num­ber two, and Jim Wright. Good to have you with us." I shook hands with the oth­er two air­men and dropped in­to the jump seat, leav­ing them to their work.

We were air­borne with­in twen­ty min­utes. Giles took the 707 up to 30,000 feet, checked his in­stru­ments, cleared with the Or­ly tow­er and then un­coiled him­self from his seat. He ap­praised me with ca­su­al thor­ough­ness and then in­di­cat­ed his chair. "Why don't you fly this bird for a while, Frank," he said. "I'll go back and min­gle with the pay­ing pas­sen­gers."

His of­fer was a cour­tesy ges­ture some­times ac­cord­ed a dead­head­ing pi­lot from a com­pet­ing air­line. I dropped my cap on the cab­in floor and slid in­to the com­mand seat, very much aware that I had been hand­ed cus­tody of 140 lives, my own in­clud­ed. Austin, who had tak­en the con­trols when Giles va­cat­ed his seat, sur­ren­dered them to me. "You got it, Cap­tain," he said, grin­ning.

I prompt­ly put the gi­ant jet on au­to­mat­ic pi­lot and hoped to hell the gad­get worked, be­cause I couldn't fly a kite.

I wasn't a Pan Am pi­lot or any oth­er kind of pi­lot. I was an im­pos­tor, one of the most want­ed crim­inals on four con­ti­nents, and at the mo­ment I was do­ing my thing, putting a su­per hype on some nice peo­ple.

I was a mil­lion­aire twice over and half again be­fore I was twen­ty-​one. I stole ev­ery nick­el of it and blew the bulk of the bun­dle on fine threads, gourmet foods, lux­uri­ous lodg­ings, fan­tas­tic fox­es, fine wheels and oth­er sen­su­al good­ies. I par­tied in ev­ery cap­ital in Eu­rope, basked on all the fa­mous beach­es and good-​timed it in South Amer­ica, the South Seas, the Ori­ent and the more palat­able por­tions of Africa.

It wasn't al­to­geth­er a re­lax­ing life. I didn't ex­act­ly keep my fin­ger on the pan­ic but­ton, but I put a lot of mileage on my run­ning shoes. I made a lot of ex­its through side doors, down fire es­capes or over rooftops. I aban­doned more wardrobes in the course of five years than most men ac­quire in a life­time. I was slip­perier than a but­tered es­car­got.

Odd­ly enough, I nev­er felt like a crim­inal. I was one, of course, and I was aware of the fact. I've been de­scribed by au­thor­ities and news re­porters as one of this cen­tu­ry's clever­est bum-​check passers, flim­flam artists and crooks, a con man of Acade­my Award cal­iber. I was a swindler and poseur of as­ton­ish­ing abil­ity. I some­times as­ton­ished my­self with some of my im­per­son­ations and shenani­gans, but I nev­er at any time de­lud­ed my­self. I was al­ways aware that I was Frank Abag­nale, Jr., that I was a check swindler and a fak­er, and if and when I were caught I wasn't go­ing to win any Os­cars. I was go­ing to jail.

I was right, too. I did time in a French poky, served a stint in a Swedish slam­mer and cleansed my­self of all my Amer­ican sins in the Pe­ters­burg, Vir­ginia, fed­er­al jug. While in the last prison, I vol­un­tar­ily sub­ject­ed my­self to a psy­cho­log­ical eval­ua­tion by a Uni­ver­si­ty of Vir­ginia crim­inol­ogist-​psy­chi­atrist. He spent two years giv­ing me var­ious writ­ten and oral tests, us­ing truth-​serum in­jec­tions and poly­graph ex­am­ina­tions on var­ious oc­ca­sions.

The shrink con­clud­ed that I had a very low crim­inal thresh­old. In oth­er words, I had no busi­ness be­ing a crook in the first place.

One of the New York cops who'd worked hard­est to catch me read the re­port and snort­ed. "This head doc­tor's got­ta be kid­din' us," he scoffed. "This pho­ny rips off sev­er­al hun­dred banks, hus­tles half the ho­tels in the world for ev­ery­thing but the sheets, screws ev­ery air­line in the skies, in­clud­ing most of their stew­ardess­es, pass­es enough bad checks to pa­per the walls of the Pen­tagon, runs his own god­damned col­leges and uni­ver­si­ties, makes half the cops in twen­ty coun­tries look like dumb-​ass­es while he's steal­ing over $2 mil­lion, and he has a low crim­inal thresh­old? What the hell would he have done if he'd had a high crim­inal thresh­old, loot­ed Fort Knox?"

The de­tec­tive con­front­ed me with the pa­per. We had be­come ami­able ad­ver­saries. "You conned this shrink, didn't you, Frank?"

I told him I'd an­swered ev­ery ques­tion asked me as truth­ful­ly as pos­si­ble, that I'd com­plet­ed ev­ery test giv­en me as hon­est­ly as I could. I didn't con­vince him. "Nah," he said. "You can fool these feds, but you can't fool me. You conned this couch turkey." He shook his head. "You'd con your own fa­ther, Frank."

I al­ready had. My fa­ther was the mark for the first score I ev­er made. Dad pos­sessed the one trait nec­es­sary in the per­fect pi­geon, blind trust, and I plucked him for $3,400. I was on­ly fif­teen at the time.

I was born and spent my first six­teen years in New York's Bronxville. I was the third of four chil­dren and my dad's name­sake. If I want­ed to lay down a ba­by con, I could say I was the prod­uct of a bro­ken home, for Mom and Dad sep­arat­ed when I was twelve. But I'd on­ly be bum-​rap­ping my par­ents.

The per­son most hurt by the sep­ara­tion and sub­se­quent di­vorce was Dad. He was re­al­ly hung up on Mom. My moth­er, Paulette Abag­nale, is a French-​Al­ge­ri­an beau­ty whom dad met and mar­ried dur­ing his World War II army ser­vice in Oran. Mom was on­ly fif­teen at the time, and Dad was twen­ty-​eight, and while the dif­fer­ence in ages didn't seem to mat­ter at the time, I've al­ways felt it had an in­flu­ence on the breakup of their mar­riage.

Dad opened his own busi­ness in New York City af­ter his dis­charge from the army, a sta­tionery store at For­ti­eth and Madi­son Av­enue called Gramer­cy's. He was very suc­cess­ful. We lived in a big, lux­uri­ous home and if we weren't fab­ulous­ly wealthy, we were cer­tain­ly af­flu­ent. My broth­ers, my sis­ter and I nev­er want­ed for any­thing dur­ing our ear­ly years.

A kid is of­ten the last to know when there's se­ri­ous trou­ble be­tween his par­ents. I know that's true in my case and I don't think my sib­lings were any more aware than ? I. We thought Mom was con­tent to be a house­wife and moth­er and she was, up to a point. But Dad was more than just a suc­cess­ful busi­ness­man. He was al­so very ac­tive in pol­itics, one of the Re­pub­li­can wheels in the Bronx precincts. He was a mem­ber and past pres­ident of the New York Ath­let­ic Club, and he spent a lot of his time at the club with both busi­ness and po­lit­ical cronies.

Dad was al­so an avid salt-​wa­ter fish­er­man. He was al­ways fly­ing off to Puer­to Ri­co, Kingston, Be­lize or some oth­er Caribbean spa on deep-​sea fish­ing ex­pe­di­tions. He nev­er took Mom along, and he should have. My moth­er was a wom­en's lib­ber be­fore Glo­ria Steinem learned her Maid­en­form was flammable. And one day Dad came back from a mar­lin-​chas­ing jaunt to find his home creel emp­ty. Mom had packed up and moved her­self, us three boys and Sis in­to a large apart­ment. We kids were some­what mys­ti­fied, but Mom qui­et­ly ex­plained that she and Dad were no longer com­pat­ible and had elect­ed to live apart.

Well, she had elect­ed to live apart, any­way. Dad was shocked, sur­prised and hurt at Mom's ac­tion. He plead­ed with her to come back home, promis­ing he'd be a bet­ter hus­band and fa­ther and that he'd cur­tail his deep-​sea out­ings. He even of­fered to for­go pol­itics.

Mom lis­tened, but she made no promis­es. And it soon be­came ap­par­ent to me, if not Dad, that she had no in­ten­tion of rec­on­cil­ing. She en­rolled in a Bronx den­tal col­lege and start­ed train­ing to be a den­tal tech­ni­cian.

Dad didn't give up. He was over at our apart­ment at ev­ery op­por­tu­ni­ty, plead­ing, ca­jol­ing, en­treat­ing and flat­ter­ing her. Some­times he'd lose his tem­per. "Damn it, wom­an-can't you see I love you!" he'd roar.

The sit­ua­tion did have its ef­fect on us boys, of course. Me in par­tic­ular. I loved my dad. I was the clos­est to him, and he com­menced to use me in his cam­paign to win back Mom. "Talk to her, son," he'd ask of me. "Tell her I love her. Tell her we'd be hap­pi­er if we all lived to­geth­er. Tell her you'd be hap­pi­er if she came home, that all you kids would be hap­pi­er."

He'd give me gifts to de­liv­er to Mom, and coach me in speech­es de­signed to break down my moth­er's re­sis­tance.

As a ju­ve­nile John Alden to my fa­ther's Myles Stan­dish and my moth­er's Priscil­la Mullins, I was a flop. My moth­er couldn't be conned. And Dad prob­ably hurt his own case be­cause Mom re­sent­ed his us­ing me as a pawn in their game of mar­ital chess. She di­vorced Dad when I was four­teen.

Dad was crushed. I was dis­ap­point­ed, for I had re­al­ly want­ed them to get back to­geth­er. I'll say this for Dad: when he loved a wom­an, he loved her for­ev­er. He was still try­ing to win Mom back when he died in 1974.

When Mom fi­nal­ly di­vorced my fa­ther, I elect­ed to live with Dad. Mom wasn't too keen on my de­ci­sion, but I felt Dad need­ed one of us, that he shouldn't have to live alone, and I per­suad­ed her. Dad was grate­ful and pleased. I have nev­er re­gret­ted the de­ci­sion, al­though Dad prob­ably did.

Life with Fa­ther was a whole dif­fer­ent ball game. I spent a lot of time in some of New York's finest sa­loons. Busi­ness­men, I learned, not on­ly en­joy three-​mar­ti­ni lunch­es, but they belt out a lot of boil­er­mak­er brunch­es and whack out scores of scotch and so­da din­ners. Politi­cians, I al­so not­ed quick­ly, had a bet­ter grasp of world af­fairs and a loos­er lid on their pork bar­rels when they were at­tached to a bour­bon on the rocks. Dad did a lot of his busi­ness deal­ing and a good­ly amount of his po­lit­ical ma­neu­ver­ing close to a bar, with me wait­ing near­by. My fa­ther's drink­ing habits alarmed me at first. I didn't think he was an al­co­holic, but he was a two-​fist­ed drinker and I wor­ried that he had a drink­ing prob­lem. Still, I nev­er saw him drunk al­though he drank con­stant­ly and af­ter a while I as­sumed he was im­mune to the juice.

I was fas­ci­nat­ed by my dad's as­so­ciates, friends and ac­quain­tances. They ranged the gamut of the Bronx's so­cial stra­tum: ward heel­ers, cops, union boss­es, busi­ness. ex­ec­utives, truck­ers, con­trac­tors, stock bro­kers, clerks, cab­bies and pro­mot­ers. The whole smear. Some were right out of the pages of Da­mon Run­yon.

Af­ter hang­ing out with Dad for six months, I was street­wise and about five-​eighths smart, which is not ex­act­ly the kind of ed­uca­tion Dad had in mind for me, but it's the kind you get in sauce par­lors.

Dad had a lot of po­lit­ical clout. I learned this when I start­ed play­ing hookey from school and run­ning with some loose-​end kids from my neigh­bor­hood. They weren't gang mem­bers or any­thing like that. They weren't in­to any­thing re­al­ly heavy. They were just guys with a screwed-​up fam­ily sit­ua­tion, try­ing to get at­ten­tion from some­one, if on­ly the tru­ant of­fi­cer. Maybe that's why I start­ed hang­ing out with them. Per­haps I was seek­ing at­ten­tion my­self. I did want my par­ents to­geth­er again, and I had vague no­tions at the time that if I act­ed like a ju­ve­nile delin­quent, it might pro­vide a com­mon ground for a rec­on­cil­ia­tion.

I wasn't too good as a ju­ve­nile delin­quent. Most of the time I felt plain fool­ish, swip­ing can­dy and slip­ping in­to movies. I was much more ma­ture than my com­pan­ions, and much big­ger. At fif­teen I was phys­ical­ly grown, six feet and 170 pounds, and I guess we got away with a lot of mi­nor mis­chief be­cause peo­ple who saw us abroad thought I was a teach­er shep­herd­ing some stu­dents or a big broth­er look­ing out for the younger crowd. I some­times felt that way my­self, and I was of­ten ir­ri­tat­ed at their child­ish­ness.

What both­ered me most was their lack of style. I learned ear­ly that class is uni­ver­sal­ly ad­mired. Al­most any fault, sin or crime is con­sid­ered more le­nient­ly if there's a touch of class in­volved.

These kids couldn't even boost a car with any fi­nesse. The first set of wheels they lift­ed, they came by to pick me up, and we weren't a mile from my house when a squad car pulled us over. The jerks had tak­en the car from a drive­way while the own­er was wa­ter­ing his lawn. We all end­ed up in the Ju­ve­nile Hilton.

Dad not on­ly got me out, but he had all men­tion of my part in the in­ci­dent erased from the records. It was a bit of ward-​heel­ing wiz­ardry that was to cost a lot of cops a lot of sleep in fu­ture years. Even an ele­phant is eas­ier to find if you can pick up his trail at the start of the hunt.

Dad didn't chew me out. "We all make mis­takes, son," he said. "I know what you were try­ing to do, but that's not the way to do it. Un­der the law, you're still a child, but you're man-​sized. Maybe you ought to try think­ing like a man."

I dropped my erst­while chums, start­ed go­ing to school reg­ular­ly again and got a part-​time job as a ship­ping clerk in a Bronxville ware­house. Dad was pleased-so pleased he bought me an old Ford, which I pro­ceed­ed to fix up in­to a re­al fox trap.

If I had to place any blame for my fu­ture ne­far­ious ac­tions, I'd put it on the Ford.

That Ford frac­tured ev­ery moral fiber in my body. It in­tro­duced me to girls, and I didn't come to my sens­es for six years. They were won­der­ful years.

There are un­doubt­ed­ly oth­er ages in a man's life when his rea­son­ing pow­er is eclipsed by his li­bido, but none press­es on the pre­frontal lobes like the post-​pu­ber­ty years when the thoughts are run­ning and ev­ery lus­cious chick who pass­es in­creas­es the flow. At fif­teen I knew about girls, of course. They were built dif­fer­ent­ly than boys. But I didn't know why un­til I stopped at a red light one day, af­ter ren­ovat­ing the Ford, and saw this girl look­ing at me and my car. When she saw she had my at­ten­tion, she did some­thing with her eyes, jig­gled her front and twitched her be­hind, and sud­den­ly I was drown­ing in my thoughts. She had rup­tured the dam. I don't re­mem­ber how she got in­to the car, or where we went af­ter she got in, but I do re­mem­ber she was all silk, soft­ness, nuz­zly, warm, sweet-, smelling and ab­so­lute­ly de­light­ful, and I knew I'd found a con­tact sport that I could re­al­ly en­joy. She did things to me that would lure a hum­ming­bird from a hi­bis­cus and make a bull­dog break his chain.

I am not im­pressed by to­day's tomes on wom­en's rights in the bed­room. When Hen­ry Ford in­vent­ed the Mod­el-​T, wom­en shed their bloomers and put sex on the road.

Wom­en be­came my on­ly vice. I rev­eled in them. I couldn't get enough of them. I woke up think­ing of girls. I went to bed think­ing of girls. All love­ly, leg­gy, breath­tak­ing, fan­tas­tic and en­chant­ing. I went on girl scout­ing for­ays at sun­rise. I went out at night and looked for them with a flash­light. Don Juan had on­ly a mild case of the hots com­pared to me. I was ob­sessed with foxy wom­en.

I was al­so a charm­ing broke af­ter my first few close en­coun­ters of the best kind. Girls are not nec­es­sar­ily ex­pen­sive, but even the most frol­ic­some Fraulein ex­pects a ham­burg­er and a Coke now and then, just for en­er­gy pur­pos­es. I sim­ply wasn't mak­ing enough bread to pay for my cake. I need­ed a way to jug­gle my fi­nances.

I sought out Dad, who was not to­tal­ly un­aware of my dis­cov­ery of girls and their at­ten­dant joys. "Dad, it was re­al­ly neat of you to give me a car, and I feel like a jerk ask­ing for more, but I've got prob­lems with that car," I plead­ed. "I need a gas cred­it card. I on­ly get paid once a month, and what with buy­ing my school lunch­es, go­ing to the games, dat­ing and stuff, I don't have the dough to buy gas some­times. I'll try and pay the bill my­self, but I promise I won't abuse your gen­eros­ity if you'll let me have a gas card."

I was as glib as an Irish horse trad­er at the time, and at the time I was sin­cere. Dad mulled the re­quest for a few mo­ments, then nod­ded. "All right, Frank, I trust you," he said, tak­ing his Mo­bil card from his wal­let. "You take this card and use it. I won't charge any­thing to Mo­bil from now on. It'll be your card, and with­in rea­son, if 11 be your re­spon­si­bil­ity to pay this bill each month when it comes in. I won't wor­ry about your tak­ing ad­van­tage of me."

He should have. The ar­range­ment worked fine the first month. The Mo­bil bill came in and I bought a mon­ey or­der for the amount and sent it to the oil firm. But the pay­ment left me strapped and once again I found my­self ham­pered in my con­stant quest for girls. I be­gan to feel frus­trat­ed. Af­ter all, the pur­suit of hap­pi­ness was an in­alien­able Amer­ican priv­ilege, wasn't it? I felt I was be­ing de­prived of a con­sti­tu­tion­al right.

Some­one once said there's no such thing as an hon­est man. He was prob­ably a con man. It's the fa­vorite ra­tio­nale of the pi­geon drop­per. I think a lot of peo­ple do fan­ta­size about be­ing a su­per­crim­inal, an in­ter­na­tion­al di­amond thief or some­thing like that, but they con­fine their larce­ny to day­dreams. I al­so think a lot of oth­er peo­ple are ac­tu­al­ly tempt­ed now and then to com­mit a crime, es­pe­cial­ly if there's a nice bun­dle to be had and they think they won't be con­nect­ed with the ca­per. Such peo­ple usu­al­ly re­ject the temp­ta­tion. They have an in­nate per­cep­tion of right and wrong, and com­mon sense pre­vails.

But there's al­so a type of per­son whose com­pet­itive in­stincts over­ride rea­son. They are chal­lenged by a giv­en sit­ua­tion in much the same man­ner a climber is chal­lenged by a tall peak: be­cause it's there. Right or wrong are not fac­tors, nor are con­se­quences. These peo­ple look on crime as a game, and the goal is not just the loot; it's the suc­cess of the ven­ture that counts. Of course, if the booty is boun­ti­ful, that's nice, too.

These peo­ple are the chess play­ers of the crim­inal world. They gen­er­al­ly have a ge­nius-​lev­el IQ and their men­tal knights and bish­ops are al­ways on the at­tack. They nev­er an­tic­ipate be­ing check­mat­ed. They are al­ways as­ton­ished when a cop with av­er­age in­tel­li­gence rooks them, and the cop is al­ways as­ton­ished at their mo­tives. Crime as a chal­lenge? Je­sus.

But it was the chal­lenge that led me to put down my first scam. I need­ed mon­ey, all right. Any­one with a chron­ic case of the girl cra­zies needs all the fi­nan­cial as­sis­tance that's avail­able. How­ev­er, I re­al­ly wasn't dwelling on my lack of funds when I stopped at a Mo­bil sta­tion one af­ter­noon and spot­ted a large sign in front of the sta­tion's tire dis­play racks, "put a set on your mo­bil card-we'll put the set on your car" the sign read. It was the first inkling I'd had that the Mo­bil card was good for more than gas or oil. I didn't need any tires-the ones on the Ford were prac­ti­cal­ly new-but as I stud­ied the sign I was sud­den­ly pos­sessed by a four-​ply scheme. Hell, it might even work, I thought.

I got out and ap­proached the at­ten­dant, who was al­so the own­er of the sta­tion. We were ca­su­al ac­quain­tances from the many pit stops I'd made at the sta­tion. It was not a busy gas stop. "I'd make more mon­ey hold­ing up fill­ing sta­tions than run­ning one," he'd once com­plained.

"How much would it cost me for a set of white­walls?" I asked.

"For this car, $160, but you got a good set of treads," the man said.

He looked at me and I knew he sensed he was about to be propo­si­tioned. "Yeah, I don't re­al­ly need any tires," I agreed. "But I got a bad case of the shorts. Tell you what I'll do. I'll buy a set of those tires and charge them on this card. On­ly I don't take the tires. You give me $100 in­stead. You've still got the tires, and when my dad pays Mo­bil for them, you get your cut. You're ahead to start with, and when you do sell the tires, the whole $160 goes in­to your pock­et. What do you say? You'll make out like a drag­on, man."

He stud­ied me, and I could see the spec­ula­tive greed in his eyes. 'What about your old man?" he asked cau­tious­ly.

I shrugged. 'He nev­er looks at my car. I told him I need­ed some new tires and he told me to charge them."

He was still doubt­ful. "Lemme see your driv­er's li­cense. This could be a stolen card," he said. I hand­ed him my ju­nior driv­er's li­cense, which bore the same name as the card. "You're on­ly fif­teen? You look ten years old­er," the sta­tion own­er said as he hand­ed it back.

I smiled. "I got a lot of miles on me," I said.

He nod­ded. "I'll have to call in­to Mo­bil and get an ap­proval-we have to do that on any big pur­chase," he said. "If I get an okay, we got a deal."

I rolled out of the sta­tion with five twen­ties in my wal­let.

I was heady with hap­pi­ness. Since I hadn't yet had my first taste of al­co­hol, I couldn't com­pare the feel­ing to a cham­pagne high, say, but it was the most de­light­ful sen­sa­tion I'd ev­er ex­pe­ri­enced in the front seat of a car.

In fact, my clev­er­ness over­whelmed me. If it worked once, why wouldn't it work twice? It did. It worked so many times in the next sev­er­al weeks, I lost count. I can't re­mem­ber how many sets of tires, how many bat­ter­ies, how many oth­er au­to­mo­bile ac­ces­sories I bought with that charge card and then sold back for a frac­tion of val­ue. I hit ev­ery Mo­bil sta­tion in the Bronx. Some­times I'd just con the guy on the pumps in­to giv­ing me $10 and sign a tick­et for $20 worth of gas and oil. I wore that Mo­bil card thin with the scam.

I blew it all on the broads, nat­ural­ly. At first I op­er­at­ed on the premise that Mo­bil was un­der­writ­ing my plea­sures, so what the hell? Then the first month's bill land­ed in the mail­box. The en­ve­lope was stuffed fuller than a Christ­mas goose with charge re­ceipts. I looked at the to­tal due and briefly con­tem­plat­ed en­ter­ing the priest­hood, for I re­al­ized Mo­bil ex­pect­ed Dad to pay the bill. It hadn't oc­curred to me that Dad would be the pat­sy in the game.

I threw the bill in­to the waste­bas­ket. A sec­ond no­tice mailed two weeks lat­er al­so went in­to the trash. I thought about fac­ing up to Dad and con­fess­ing, but I didn't have the courage. I knew he'd find out, soon­er or lat­er, but I de­cid­ed some­one oth­er than me would have to tell him.

Amaz­ing­ly, I didn't pull up while await­ing a sum­mit ses­sion be­tween my fa­ther and Mo­bil. I con­tin­ued to work the cred­it-​card con and spend the loot on love­ly wom­en, even though I was aware I was al­so did­dling my dad. An in­flamed sex drive has no con­science.

Even­tu­al­ly, a Mo­bil in­ves­ti­ga­tor sought Dad out in his store. The man was apolo­get­ic.

"Mr. Abag­nale, you've had a card with us for fif­teen years and we prize your ac­count. You've got a top cred­it rat­ing, you've nev­er been late with a pay­ment and I'm not here to ha­rass you about your bill," said the agent as Dad lis­tened with a puz­zled ex­pres­sion. "We are cu­ri­ous, sir, and would like to know one thing. Just how in the hell can you run up a $3,400 bill for gas, oil, bat­ter­ies and tires for one 1952 Ford in the space of three months? You've put four­teen sets of tires on that car in the past six­ty days, bought twen­ty-​two bat­ter­ies in the past nine­ty days and you can't be get­ting over two miles to the gal­lon on gas. We fig­ure you don't even have an oil pan on the damned thing. . . . Have you giv­en any thought to trad­ing that car in on a new one, Mr. Abag­nale?"

Dad was stunned. "Why, I don't even use my Mo­bil card-my son does," he said when he re­cov­ered. "There must be some mis­take."

The Mo­bil in­ves­ti­ga­tor placed sev­er­al hun­dred Mo­bil charge re­ceipts in front of Dad. Each bore his sig­na­ture in my hand­writ­ing. "How did he do this? And why?" Dad ex­claimed.

"I don't know," replied the Mo­bil agent. "Why don't we ask him?"

They did. I said I didn't know a thing about the swin­dle. I didn't con­vince ei­ther of them. I had ex­pect­ed Dad to be fu­ri­ous. But he was more con­fused than an­gry. "Look, son, if you'll tell us how you did this, and why, we'll for­get it. There'll be no pun­ish­ment and I'll pay the bills," he of­fered.

My dad was a great guy in my book. He nev­er lied to me in his life. I prompt­ly copped out. "It's the girls, Dad," I sighed. "They do fun­ny things to me. I can't ex­plain it."

Dad and the Mo­bil in­ves­ti­ga­tor nod­ded un­der­stand­ing-​ly. Dad laid a sym­pa­thet­ic hand on my shoul­der. "Don't wor­ry about it, boy. Ein­stein couldn't ex­plain it, ei­ther," he said.

If Dad for­gave me, Mom didn't. She was re­al­ly up­set over the in­ci­dent and blamed my fa­ther for my delin­quen­cies. My moth­er still had le­gal cus­tody of me and she de­cid­ed to re­move me from Dad's in­flu­ences. Worse still, on the ad­vice of one of the fa­thers who worked with Catholic Char­ities, with which my moth­er has al­ways been af­fil­iat­ed, she popped me in­to a C.C. pri­vate school for prob­lem boys in Port Chester, New York.

As a re­for­ma­to­ry, the school wasn't much. It was more of a posh camp than a re­me­di­al in­sti­tu­tion. I lived in a neat cot­tage with six oth­er boys, and ex­cept for the fact that I was re­strict­ed to cam­pus and con­stant­ly su­per­vised, I was sub­ject­ed to no hard­ships.

The broth­ers who ran the school were a benev­olent lot. They lived in much the same man­ner as their wards. We all ate in a com­mon din­ing hall, and the food was good and plen­ti­ful. There was a movie the­ater, a tele­vi­sion room, a recre­ation hall, a swim­ming pool and a gym­na­si­um. I nev­er did cat­alogue all the recre­ation­al and sports fa­cil­ities that were avail­able. We at­tend­ed class­es from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., Mon­day through Fri­day, but oth­er­wise our time was our own to do with as we liked. The broth­ers didn't ha­rangue us about our mis­deeds or bore us with pon­tif­ical lec­tures, and you re­al­ly had to mess up to be pun­ished, which usu­al­ly meant be­ing con­fined to your cot­tage for a cou­ple of days. I nev­er en­coun­tered any­thing like the school un­til I land­ed in a U.S. prison. I have of­ten won­dered since if the fed­er­al pe­nal sys­tem isn't se­cret­ly op­er­at­ed by Catholic Char­ities.

The monas­tic lifestyle galled me, how­ev­er. I en­dured it, but I looked on my stint in the school as pun­ish­ment and un­de­served pun­ish­ment at that. Af­ter all, Dad had for­giv­en me and he had been the sole vic­tim of my crimes. So what was I do­ing in the place? I'd ask my­self. What I dis­liked most about the school, how­ev­er, was its lack of girls. It was strict­ly an all-​male at­mo­sphere. Even the sight of a nun would have thrilled me.

I would have been even more de­pressed had I known what was hap­pen­ing to Dad dur­ing my stay. He nev­er went in­to de­tails, but while I was in the school he ran in­to some se­vere fi­nan­cial dif­fi­cul­ties and lost his busi­ness.

He was re­al­ly wiped out. He was forced to sell the house and his two big Cadil­lacs and ev­ery­thing else he had of ma­te­ri­al val­ue. In the space of a few months, Dad went from liv­ing like a mil­lion­aire to liv­ing like a postal clerk.

That's what he was when he came to get me af­ter I'd spent a year in the school. A postal clerk. Mom had re­lent­ed and had agreed to my liv­ing with Dad again. I was shocked at the re­ver­sal of his for­tunes, and more than a lit­tle guilt-​rid­den. But Dad would not al­low me to blame my­self. The $3,400 I'd ripped him off for was not a fac­tor in his busi­ness down­fall, he as­sured me. "Don't even think of it, kid. That was a drop in the buck­et," he said cheer­ful­ly.

He did not seem to be both­ered by his sud­den drop in sta­tus and fi­nances, but it both­ered me. Not for my­self, but for Dad. He'd been so high, a re­al wheel­er-​deal­er, and now he was work­ing for wages. I tried to pump him for the caus­es. "What about your friends, Dad?" I asked. "I re­mem­ber you were al­ways pulling them out of tight spots. Didn't any of them of­fer to help you?"

Dad just smiled wry­ly. "You'll learn, Frank, that when you're up there're hun­dreds of peo­ple who'll claim you as a friend. When you're down, you're lucky if one of them will buy you a cup of cof­fee. If I had it to do over again, I'd se­lect my friends more care­ful­ly. I do have a cou­ple of good friends. They're not wealthy, but one of them got me my job in the post of­fice."

He re­fused to dwell on his mis­for­tunes or to dis­cuss them at length, but it bugged me, es­pe­cial­ly when I was with him in his car. It wasn't as good as my Ford, which he'd sold for me and placed the mon­ey in an ac­count in my name. His car was a bat­tered old Chevy. "Doesn't it both­er you at all to drive this old car, Dad?" I asked him one day.

"I mean, this is re­al­ly a come­down from a Cadil­lac. Right?"

Dad laughed. "That's the wrong way to look at it, Frank. It's not what a man has but what a man is that's im­por­tant. This car is fine for me. It gets me around. I know who I am and what I am, and that's what counts, not what oth­er peo­ple might think of me. I'm an hon­est man, I feel, and that's more im­por­tant to me than hav­ing a big car.... As long as a man knows what he is and who he is, he'll do all right."

Trou­ble was, at the time I didn't know what I was or who I was.

With­in three short years I had the an­swer. "Who are you?" asked a lush brunette when I plopped down on Mi­ami Beach be­side her.

"Any­one I want to be," I said. I was, too.

CHAP­TER TWO

The Pi­lot

&nb­sp;

I left home at six­teen, look­ing for me.

There was no pres­sure on me to leave, al­though I wasn't hap­py. The sit­ua­tion on my du­al home front hadn't changed. Dad still want­ed to win Mom back and Mom didn't want to be won. Dad was still us­ing me as a me­di­ator in his sec­ond courtship of Mom, and she con­tin­ued to re­sent his cast­ing me in the role of Cu­pid. I dis­liked it my­self. Mom had grad­uat­ed from den­tal tech­ni­cian's school and was work­ing for a Larch­mont den­tist. She seemed sat­is­fied with her new, in­de­pen­dent life.

I had no plans to run away. But ev­ery time Dad put on his postal clerk's uni­form and drove off to work in his old car, I'd feel de­pressed. I couldn't for­get how he used to wear Louis Roth suits and drive big ex­pen­sive cars.

One June morn­ing of 1964,1 woke up and knew it was time to go. Some re­mote cor­ner of the world seemed to be whis­per­ing, "Come." So I went.

I didn't say good-​bye to any­one. I didn't leave any notes be­hind. I had $200 in a check­ing ac­count at the Westch­ester branch of the Chase Man­hat­tan Bank, an ac­count Dad had set up for me a year be­fore and which I'd nev­er used. I dug out my check­book, packed my best clothes in a sin­gle suit­case and caught a train for New York City. It wasn't ex­act­ly a re­mote cor­ner of the globe, but I thought it would make a good jump­ing-​off place.

If I'd been some run­away from Kansas or Ne­bras­ka, New York, with its sub­way bed­lam, awe­some skyscrap­ers, chaot­ic streams of noisy traf­fic and end­less tread­mills of peo­ple, might have sent me scur­ry­ing back to the prairies. But the Big Ap­ple was my turf. Or so I thought.

I wasn't off the train an hour when I met a boy my own age and conned him in­to tak­ing me home with him. I told his par­ents that I was from up­state New York, that both my moth­er and fa­ther were dead, that I was try­ing to make it on my own and that I need­ed a place to stay un­til I got a job. They told me I could stay in their home as long as I want­ed.

I had no in­ten­tions of abus­ing their hos­pi­tal­ity. I was ea­ger to make a stake and leave New York, al­though I had no ideas at the mo­ment as to where I want­ed to go or what I want­ed to do.

I did have a def­inite goal. I was go­ing to be a suc­cess in some field. I was go­ing to make it to the top of some moun­tain. And once there, no one or noth­ing was go­ing to dis­lodge me from the peak. I wasn't go­ing to make the mis­takes my dad had made. I was de­ter­mined on that point.

The Big Ap­ple quick­ly proved less than juicy, even for a na­tive son. I had no prob­lem find­ing a job. I'd worked for my fa­ther as a stock clerk and de­liv­ery boy and was ex­pe­ri­enced in the op­er­ation of a sta­tionery store. I start­ed call­ing on large sta­tionery firms, pre­sent­ing my­self in a truth­ful light. I was on­ly six­teen, I said, and I was a high school dropout, but I was well versed in the sta­tionery busi­ness. The man­ag­er of the third firm I vis­it­ed hired me at $1.50 an hour. I was naive enough to think it an ad­equate salary.

I was dis­il­lu­sioned with­in the week. I re­al­ized I wasn't go­ing to be able to live in New York on $60 a week, even if I stayed in the shab­bi­est ho­tel and ate at the Au­tomats. Even more dis­heart­en­ing, I was re­duced to the role of spec­ta­tor in the dat­ing game. To the girls I'd met so far, a stroll in Cen­tral Park and a hot dog from a street ven­dor's cart would not qual­ify as an en­chant­ed evening. I wasn't too en­chant­ed with such a dal­liance my­self. Hot dogs make me belch.

I an­alyzed the sit­ua­tion and ar­rived at this con­clu­sion: I wasn't be­ing paid low­ly wages be­cause I was a high school dropout but be­cause I was on­ly six­teen. A boy sim­ply wasn't worth a man's wages.

So I aged ten years overnight. It had al­ways sur­prised peo­ple, es­pe­cial­ly wom­en, to learn I was still a teen-​ager. I de­cid­ed that since I ap­peared old­er, I might as well be old­er. I had ex­celled in graph­ic arts in school. I did a cred­ible job of al­ter­ing the birth date on my driv­er's li­cense from 1948 to 1938. Then I went out to test the job mar­ket as a twen­ty-​six-​year-​old high school dropout, with proof of my age in my wal­let.

I learned the pay scale for a man with­out a high school diplo­ma wasn't some­thing that would em­bar­rass the cre­ators of the Min­imum Wage Act. No one ques­tioned my new age, but the best of­fer made me was $2.75 an hour as a truck driv­er's helper. Some prospec­tive em­ploy­ers blunt­ly told me that it wasn't age that de­ter­mined a work­er's salary, but ed­uca­tion. The more ed­uca­tion he had, the more he was paid. I rue­ful­ly con­clud­ed that a high school dropout was like a three-​legged wolf in the wilder­ness.

He might sur­vive, but he'd sur­vive on less. It did not oc­cur to me un­til lat­er that diplo­mas, like birth dates, are al­so eas­ily faked.

I could have sur­vived on $110 a week, but I couldn't live on that amount. I was too en­am­ored of the ladies, and any horse play­er can tell you that the surest way to stay broke is play­ing the fil­lies. The girls I was ro­manc­ing were all run­ning fil­lies, and they were cost­ing me a bun­dle.

I start­ed writ­ing checks on my $200 ac­count when­ev­er I was low on fun funds.

It was a re­serve I hadn't want­ed to tap, and I tried to be con­ser­va­tive. I'd cash a check for on­ly $10, or at most $20, and at first I con­duct­ed all my check trans­ac­tions in a branch of the Chase Man­hat­tan Bank. Then I learned that stores, ho­tels, gro­cery mar­kets and oth­er busi­ness firms would al­so cash per­son­al checks, pro­vid­ed the amount wasn't over­ly large and prop­er iden­ti­fi­ca­tion was pre­sent­ed. I found my al­tered driv­er's li­cense was con­sid­ered suit­able iden­ti­fi­ca­tion, and I start­ed drop­ping in at the hand­iest ho­tel or de­part­ment store when­ev­er I need­ed to cash a $20 or $25 check. No one asked me any ques­tions. No one checked with the bank to see if the check was good. I'd sim­ply present my jazzed-​up driv­er's li­cense with my check and the driv­er's li­cense would be hand­ed back with the cash.

It was easy. Too easy. With­in a few days I knew I was over­drawn on my ac­count and the checks I was writ­ing were no good. How­ev­er, I con­tin­ued to cash a check when­ev­er I need­ed mon­ey to sup­ple­ment my pay­check or to fi­nance a gourmet evening with some beau­ti­ful chick. Since my pay­check seemed al­ways in need of a sub­sidy, and be­cause New York has more beau­ti­ful chicks than a poul­try farm, I was soon writ­ing two or three bad checks dai­ly.

I ra­tio­nal­ized my ac­tions. Dad would take care of the in­suf­fi­cient checks, I told my­self. Or I'd as­suage my con­science with con man's salve: if peo­ple were stupid enough to cash a check with­out ver­ify­ing its va­lid­ity, they de­served to be swin­dled.

I al­so con­soled my­self with the fact that I was a ju­ve­nile. Even if I were caught, it was un­like­ly that I'd re­ceive any stern pun­ish­ment, con­sid­er­ing the soft­ness of New York's ju­ve­nile laws and the le­nien­cy of the city's ju­ve­nile judges. As a first of­fend­er, I'd prob­ably be re­leased to my par­ents. I prob­ably wouldn't even have to make resti­tu­tion.

My scru­ples for­ti­fied by such neb­ulous de­fens­es, I quit my job and be­gan to sup­port my­self on the pro­ceeds of my spu­ri­ous checks. I didn't keep track of the num­ber of bum checks I passed, but my stan­dard of liv­ing im­proved re­mark­ably. So did my stan­dard of lov­ing.

Af­ter two months of crank­ing out worth­less checks, how­ev­er, I faced my­self with some un­pleas­ant truths. I was a crook. Noth­ing more, noth­ing less. In the par­lance of the streets, I had be­come a pro­fes­sion­al pa­per­hang­er. That didn't both­er me too much, for I was a suc­cess­ful pa­per­hang­er, and at the mo­ment to be a suc­cess at any­thing was the most im­por­tant fac­tor in the world to me.

What did both­er me were the oc­cu­pa­tion­al haz­ards in­volved in be­ing a check swindler. I knew my fa­ther had re­port­ed my ab­sence to the po­lice. Gen­er­al­ly, the cops don't spend a lot of time look­ing for a miss­ing six­teen-​year-​old, un­less foul play is sus­pect­ed. How­ev­er, my case was un­doubt­ed­ly an ex­cep­tion, for I had pro­vid­ed plen­ty of foul play with my scores of bad checks. The po­lice, I knew, were look­ing for me as a thief, not a run­away. Ev­ery mer­chant and busi­ness­man I'd bilked was al­so on the alert for me, I spec­ulat­ed.

In short, I was hot. I knew I could elude the cops for a while yet, but I al­so knew I'd even­tu­al­ly be caught if I stayed in New York and con­tin­ued to lit­ter cash draw­ers with use­less chits.

The al­ter­na­tive was to leave New York, and the prospect fright­ened me. That still-​re­mote cor­ner of the world sud­den­ly seemed chill and friend­less. In Man­hat­tan, de­spite my brash show of in­de­pen­dence, I'd al­ways clutched a se­cu­ri­ty blan­ket. Mom and Dad were just a phone call or a short train ride away. I knew they'd be loy­al, no mat­ter my mis­deeds. The out­look ap­peared de­cid­ed­ly gloomy if I fled to Chica­go, Mi­ami, Wash­ing­ton or some oth­er dis­tant metropo­lis.

I was prac­ticed in on­ly one art, writ­ing fraud­ulent checks. I didn't even con­tem­plate any oth­er source of in­come, and to me that was a mat­ter of prime con­cern. Could I flim­flam mer­chants in an­oth­er city as eas­ily as I had swin­dled New York­ers? In New York I had an ac­tu­al, if val­ue­less, check­ing ac­count, and a valid, if ten years off, driv­er's li­cense, which to­geth­er al­lowed me to work my ne­far­ious trade in a lu­cra­tive man­ner. Both my stack of per­son­al­ized checks (the name was re­al, on­ly the funds were fic­tion­al) and my tin­seled driv­er's li­cense would be use­less in any oth­er city. I'd have to change my name, ac­quire bo­gus iden­ti­fi­ca­tion and set up a bank ac­count un­der my alias be­fore I could op­er­ate. It all seemed com­plex and dan­ger-​rid­den to me. I was a suc­cess­ful crook. I wasn't yet a con­fi­dent crook.

I was still wrestling with the per­plex­ities of my sit­ua­tion sev­er­al days lat­er while walk­ing along Forty-​sec­ond Street when the re­volv­ing doors of the Com­modore Ho­tel dis­gorged the so­lu­tion to my quandary.

As I drew near the ho­tel en­trance, an East­ern Air­lines flight crew emerged: a cap­tain, co-​pi­lot, flight en­gi­neer and four stew­ardess­es. They were all laugh­ing and an­imat­ed, caught up in a joie de vivre of their own. The men were all lean and hand­some, and their gold-​piped uni­forms lent them a buc­ca­neer­ish air. The girls were all trim and love­ly, as grace­ful and col­or­ful as but­ter­flies abroad in a mead­ow. I stopped and watched as they board­ed a crew bus, and I thought I had nev­er seen such a splen­did group of peo­ple.

I walked on, still en­meshed in the net of their glam­our, and sud­den­ly I was seized with an idea so dar­ing in scope, so daz­zling in de­sign, that I whelmed my­self.

What if I were a pi­lot? Not an ac­tu­al pi­lot, of course. I had no heart for the gru­el­ing years of study, train­ing, flight school­ing, work and oth­er mun­dane toils that fit a man for a jet lin­er's cock­pit. But what if I had the uni­form and the trap­pings of an air­line pi­lot? Why, I thought, I could walk in­to any ho­tel, bank or busi­ness in the coun­try and cash a check. Air­line pi­lots are men to be ad­mired and re­spect­ed. Men to be trust­ed. Men of means. And you don't ex­pect an air­line pi­lot to be a lo­cal res­ident. Or a check swindler.

I shook off the spell. The idea was too lu­di­crous, too ridicu­lous to con­sid­er. Chal­leng­ing, yes, but fool­ish.

Then I was at Forty-​sec­ond and Park Av­enue and the Pan Amer­ican World Air­ways Build­ing loomed over me. I looked up at the soar­ing of­fice build­ing, and I didn't see a struc­ture of steel, stone and glass. I saw a moun­tain to be climbed.

The ex­ec­utives of the famed car­ri­er were un­aware of the fact, but then and there Pan Am ac­quired its most cost­ly jet jock­ey. And one who couldn't fly, at that. But what the hell. It's a sci­en­tif­ic fact that the bum­ble­bee can't fly, ei­ther. But he does, and makes a lot of hon­ey on the side.

And that's all I in­tend­ed to be. A bum­ble­bee in Pan Am's hon­ey hive.

I sat up all night, cog­itat­ing, and fell asleep just be­fore dawn with a ten­ta­tive plan in mind. It was one I'd have to play by ear, I felt, but isn't that the ba­sis of all knowl­edge? You lis­ten and you learn.

I awoke short­ly af­ter 1 p.m., grabbed the Yel­low Pages and looked up Pan Am's num­ber. I di­aled the main switch­board num­ber and asked to speak to some­one in the pur­chas­ing de­part­ment. I was con­nect­ed prompt­ly.

"This is John­son, can I help you?"

Like Cae­sar at the Ru­bi­con, I cast the die. "Yes," I said.

"My name is Robert Black and I'm a co-​pi­lot with Pan Amer­ican, based in Los An­ge­les." I paused for his re­ac­tion, my heart thump­ing.

"Yes, what can I do for you, Mr. Black?" He was cour­te­ous and mat­ter-​of-​fact and I plunged ahead.

"We flew a trip in here at eight o'clock this morn­ing, and I'm due out of here this evening at sev­en," I said. I plucked the flight times from thin air and hoped he wasn't fa­mil­iar with Pan Am's sched­ules. I cer­tain­ly wasn't.

"Now, I don't know how this hap­pened," I con­tin­ued, try­ing to sound cha­grined. "I've been with the com­pa­ny sev­en years and nev­er had any­thing like this hap­pen. The thing is, some­one -has stolen my uni­form, or at least it's miss­ing, and the on­ly re­place­ment uni­form I have is in my home in Los An­ge­les. Now, I have to fly this trip out tonight and I'm al­most sure I can't do it in civil­ian clothes. ... Do you know where I can pick up a uni­form here, a sup­pli­er or what­ev­er, or bor­row one, just till we work this trip?"

John­son chuck­led. "Well, it's not that big a prob­lem," he replied. "Have you got a pen­cil and pa­per?"

I said I did, and he con­tin­ued. "Go down to the Weil-​Built Uni­form Com­pa­ny and ask for Mr. Rosen. He'll fix you up. I'll call him and tell him you're com­ing down. What's your name again?"

"Robert Black," I replied, and hoped he was ask­ing sim­ply be­cause he'd for­got­ten. His fi­nal words re­as­sured me.

"Don't wor­ry, Mr. Black. Rosen will take good care of you," John­son said cheer­ful­ly. He sound­ed like a Boy Scout who'd just per­formed his good deed for the day, and he had.

Less than an hour lat­er I walked in­to the Well-​Built Uni­form Com­pa­ny. Rosen was a wispy, dour lit­tle man with a phleg­mat­ic man­ner, a tai­lor's tape dan­gling on his chest. "You Of­fi­cer Black?" he asked in a reedy voice and, when I said I was, he crooked a fin­ger. "Come on back I fol­lowed him through a maze of cloth­ing racks boast­ing a va­ri­ety of uni­forms, ap­par­ent­ly for sev­er­al dif­fer­ent air­lines, un­til he stopped be­side a dis­play of dark blue suits.

"What's your rank?" Rosen asked, sift­ing through a row of jack­ets.

I knew none of the air­line ter­mi­nol­ogy. "Co-​pi­lot," I said, and hoped that was the right an­swer.

"First of­fi­cer, huh?" he said, and be­gan hand­ing me jack­ets and trousers to try on for size. Fi­nal­ly, Rosen was sat­is­fied. "This isn't a per­fect fit, but I don't have time to make al­ter­ations. If 11 get you by un­til you can find time to get a prop­er fit­ting." He took the jack­et to a sewing ma­chine and deft­ly and swift­ly tacked three gold stripes on each sleeve cuff. Then he fit­ted me with a vi­sored cap.

I sud­den­ly no­ticed the uni­form jack­et and cap each lacked some­thing. "Where's the Pan Am wings and the Pan Am em­blem?" I asked.

Rosen re­gard­ed me quizzi­cal­ly and I tensed. I blew it, I thought. Then Rosen shrugged. "Oh, we don't car­ry those. We just man­ufac­ture uni­forms. You're talk­ing about hard­ware. Hard­ware comes di­rect­ly from Pan Am, at least here in New York. You'll have to get the wings and the em­blem from Pan Am's stores de­part­ment."

"Oh, okay," I said, smil­ing. "In L.A. the same peo­ple who sup­ply our uni­forms sup­ply the em­blems. How much do I owe you for this uni­form? I'll write you a check." I was reach­ing for my check­book when it dawned on me that my checks bore the name Frank Abag­nale, Jr., and al­most cer­tain­ly would ex­pose my cha­rade.

Rosen him­self staved off dis­as­ter. "It's $289, but I can't take a check." I act­ed dis­ap­point­ed. "Well, gosh, Mr. Rosen, I'll have to go cash a check then and bring you the cash."

Rosen shook his head. "Can't take cash, ei­ther," he said. "I'm go­ing to have to bill this back to your em­ploy­ee ac­count num­ber and it'll be de­duct­ed from your uni­form al­lowance or tak­en out of your pay­check. That's the way

^. «.**? ~C ,,--_ _...._ 1--1-

we do it here." Rosen was a ver­ita­ble fount of air­line op­er­ations in­for­ma­tion and I was grate­ful.

He hand­ed me a form in trip­li­cate and I com­menced to fill in the re­quired in­for­ma­tion. Op­po­site the space for my name were five small con­nect­ed box­es, and I as­sumed right­ly that they were for an em­ploy­ee's pay­roll ac­count num­ber. Five box­es. Five dig­its. I filled in the box­es with the first five num­bers that came to mind, signed the form and pushed it back to Rosen. He snapped off the bot­tom copy, hand­ed it to me.

"Thank you very much, Mr. Rosen," I said, and left, car­ry­ing the love­ly uni­form. If Rosen an­swered, I didn't hear him.

I went back to my room and di­aled the Pan Am switch­board again. "Ex­cuse me, but I was re­ferred to the stores de­part­ment," I said, act­ing con­fused. "What is that, please? I'm not with the com­pa­ny, and I have to make a de­liv­ery there."

The switch­board girl was most help­ful. "Stores is our em­ploy­ee com­mis­sary," she said. "It's in Hangar Four­teen at Kennedy Air­port. Do you need di­rec­tions?"

I said I didn't and thanked her. I took an air­port bus to Kennedy and was dis­mayed when the driv­er let me off in front of Hangar 14. What­ev­er stores Pan Am kept in Hangar 14, they had to be valu­able. The hangar was a fortress, sur­round­ed by a tall cy­clone fence topped with strands of barbed wire and its en­trances guard­ed by armed sen­tries. A sign on the guard shack at each en­trance warned "em­ploy­ees on­ly."

A dozen or more pi­lots, stew­ardess­es and civil­ians en­tered the com­pound while I re­con­noi­tered from the bus stop. I no­ticed the civil­ians stopped and dis­played iden­ti­fi­ca­tion to the guards, but most of the uni­formed per­son­nel, pi­lots and stew­ardess­es, mere­ly strolled through the gate, some with­out even a glance at the guard. Then one turned back to say some­thing to a sen­try and I no­ticed he had an ID card clipped to his breast pock­et be­low his wings.

It was a day that threat­ened rain. I had brought a rain­coat along, a black one sim­ilar to the ones some of the pi­lots had draped over their arms. I had my new­ly ac­quired pi­lot's uni­form in a small duf­fle bag. I felt a lit­tle like Custer must have felt when he chanced up­on Sit­ting Bull's Sioux.

I re­act­ed just like Custer. I charged. I went in­to one of the air­port toi­lets and changed in­to the uni­form, stuff­ing my civies in­to the duf­fle bag. Then I left the ter­mi­nal and walked di­rect­ly to­ward Hangar 14's near­est en­trance.

The guard was in his shack, his back to­ward me. As I neared the gate, I flipped the rain­coat over my left shoul­der, con­ceal­ing the en­tire left side of my jack­et, and swept off my hat. When the guard turned to con­front me, I was comb­ing my hair with my fin­gers, my hat in my left hand.

I didn't break stride. I smiled and said crisply, "Good evening." He made no ef­fort to stop me, al­though he re­turned my greet­ing. A mo­ment lat­er I was in­side Hangar 14. It was, in­deed, a hangar. A gleam­ing 707, parked at the rear of the build­ing, dom­inat­ed the in­te­ri­or. But Hangar 14 was al­so an im­mense com­part­ment­ed of­fice struc­ture con­tain­ing the of­fices of the chief pi­lot and chief stew­ardess, the firm's me­te­orol­ogy of­fices and dozens of oth­er cu­bi­cles that I pre­sumed ac­com­mo­dat­ed oth­er Pan Am func­tions or per­son­nel. The place was teem­ing with hu­man traf­fic. There seemed to be dozens of pi­lots, scores of stew­ardess­es and in­nu­mer­able civil­ians milling around. I pre­sumed the lat­ter were clerks, tick­et agents, me­chan­ics and oth­er non­fly­ing per­son­nel.

I hes­itat­ed in the lob­by, sud­den­ly ap­pre­hen­sive. Abrupt­ly I felt like a six­teen-​year-​old and I was sure that any­one who looked at me would re­al­ize I was too young to be a pi­lot and would sum­mon the near­est cop.

I didn't turn a head. Those who did glance at me dis­played no cu­rios­ity or in­ter­est. There was a large plac­ard on a fac­ing wall list­ing var­ious de­part­ments and with ar­rows point­ing the way. Stores was down a cor­ri­dor to my left, and proved to be a mil­itary-​like cu­bi­cle with a myr­iad of box-​hold­ing shelves. A lanky youth with his name em­broi­dered on the right side of his shirt rose from a chair in front of a large desk as I stopped at the counter.

"Can I he'p ya?" he asked in mo­lasses tones. It was the first re­al south­ern drawl I'd ev­er heard. I liked it.

"Yes," I said and at­tempt­ed a rue­ful grin. "I need a pair of wings and a hat em­blem. My two-​year-​old took mine off my uni­form last night and he won't, or can't, tell me what he did with them."

The store­keep­er laughed. "We got mo' wings on kids 'n gals 'n we got on pi­lots, I 'spect," he said drol­ly. "We shore re­place a lot of 'em, any­way. Here you are. Gimme yore name and em­ploy­ee num­ber." He took a form from a file slot on his desk and laid it on the counter with a pair of gold­en wings and a Pan Am cap badge and stood, pen poised.

"Robert Black, first of­fi­cer, 35099," I said, af­fix­ing the hat em­blem and pin­ning the wings on my tu­nic. "I'm out of Los An­ge­les. You need an ad­dress there?"

He grinned. "Nah, damned com­put­ers don't need noth-​in' but num­bers," he replied, hand­ing me a copy of the pur­chase form.

I loi­tered leav­ing the build­ing, try­ing to min­gle un­ob­tru­sive­ly with the crowd.

I want­ed to pick up as much in­for­ma­tion as pos­si­ble on air­line pi­lots and air­line op­er­ations, and this seemed a good op­por­tu­ni­ty to glean a few tid­bits. De­spite the num­ber of pi­lots and oth­er air­crew­men in the build­ing, they all seemed to be strangers to one an­oth­er. I was es­pe­cial­ly in­ter­est­ed in the plas­tic-​en­closed cards, ob­vi­ous­ly iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of some sort, that most of the pi­lots sport­ed on their breasts. The stew­ardess­es, I ob­served, had sim­ilar ID cards but had them clipped to their purse straps.

A cou­ple of pi­lots were scan­ning no­tices tacked on a large bul­letin board in the lob­by. I stopped and pre­tend­ed to look at some of the no­tices, FAA or Pan Am mem­os most­ly, and was af­ford­ed a close-​up view of one pi­lot's ID card. It was slight­ly larg­er than a driv­er's li­cense and sim­ilar to the one in my pock­et, save for a pass­port-​sized col­or pho­to­graph of the man in the up­per right-​hand cor­ner and Pan Amer­ican's firm name and lo­go across the top in the com­pa­ny's col­ors.

Ob­vi­ous­ly/ I re­flect­ed as I left the build­ing, I was go­ing to need more than a uni­form if I was to be suc­cess­ful in my role of Pan Am pi­lot. I would need an ID card and a great deal more knowl­edge of Pan Am's op­er­ations than I pos­sessed at the mo­ment. I put the uni­form away in my clos­et and start­ed haunt­ing the pub­lic li­brary and can­vass­ing book­stores, study­ing all the ma­te­ri­al avail­able on pi­lots, fly­ing and air­lines. One small vol­ume I en­coun­tered proved es­pe­cial­ly valu­able. It was the rem­inis­cences of a vet­er­an Pan Amer­ican flight cap­tain, re­plete with scores of pho­tographs, and con­tain­ing a wealth of air­line ter­mi­nol­ogy. It was not un­til lat­er I learned that the pi­lot's phrase­ol­ogy was some­what dat­ed.

A lot of the things I felt I ought to know, how­ev­er, were not in the books or mag­azines I read. So I got back on the pipe with Pan Am. "I'd like to speak to a pi­lot, please," I told the switch­board op­er­ator. "I'm a re­porter for my high school news­pa­per, and I'd like to do a sto­ry on pi­lots' lives-you know, where they fly, how they're trained and that sort of stuff. Do you think a pi­lot would talk to me?"

Pan Am has the nicest peo­ple. "Well, I can put you through to op­er­ations, the crew lounge," said the wom­an. "There might be some­one sit­ting around there that might an­swer some of your ques­tions."

There was a cap­tain who was hap­py to oblige. He was de­light­ed that young peo­ple showed an in­ter­est in mak­ing a ca­reer in the air­line field. I in­tro­duced my­self as Bob­by Black, and af­ter some in­nocu­ous queries, I start­ed to feed him the ques­tions I want­ed an­swered.

"What's the age of the youngest pi­lot fly­ing for Pan Am?"

"Well, that de­pends," he an­swered. " We have some

flight en­gi­neers who're prob­ably no old­er than twen­ty-​three or twen­ty-​four. Our youngest co-​pi­lot is prob­ably up in his late twen­ties. Your av­er­age cap­tain is close to forty or in his for­ties, prob­ably."

"I see," I said. "Well, would it be im­pos­si­ble for a copi­lot to be twen­ty-​six, or even younger?"

"Oh, no," he an­swered quick­ly. "I don't know that we have that many in that age brack­et, but some of the oth­er air­lines do have a lot of younger co-​pi­lots, I've no­ticed. A lot de­pends, of course, on the type of plane he's fly­ing and his se­nior­ity. Ev­ery­thing is based on se­nior­ity, that is, how long a pi­lot has been with a com­pa­ny."

I was find­ing a lot of nuggets for my poke. "When do you hire peo­ple; I mean, at what age can a pi­lot go to work for an air­line, say Pan Am?"

"If I re­mem­ber cor­rect­ly, you can come on the pay­roll at twen­ty as a flight en­gi­neer," said the cap­tain, who had an ex­cel­lent mem­ory.

"Then fea­si­bly, with six or eight years' ser­vice, you could be­come a co-​pi­lot?" I pressed.

"If s pos­si­ble," he con­ced­ed. "In fact, I'd say it wouldn't be un­usu­al at all for a ca­pa­ble man to make co-​pi­lot in six or eight years, less even."

"Are you al­lowed to tell me how much pi­lots earn?" I asked.

"Well, again, that de­pends on se­nior­ity, the route he flies, the num­ber of hours he flies each week and oth­er fac­tors," said the cap­tain. "I would say the max­imum salary for a co-​pi­lot would be $32,000, a cap­tain's salary around $50,000."

"How many pi­lots does Pan Am have?" I asked.

The cap­tain chuck­led. "Son, that's a tough one. I don't know the ex­act num­ber. But eigh­teen hun­dred would prob­ably be a fair es­ti­mate. You can get bet­ter fig­ures from the per­son­nel man­ag­er."

"No, that's okay," I said. "How many places are these pi­lots?"

"You're talk­ing about bases," he replied. "We have five bases in the Unit­ed States: San Fran­cis­co, Wash­ing­ton D.C., Chica­go, Mi­ami and New York. Those are cities where our air­crews live. They re­port to work in that city, San Fran­cis­co, say, fly out of that city and even­tu­al­ly ter­mi­nate a flight in that city. It might help you to know that we are not a do­mes­tic car­ri­er, that is, we don't fly from city to city in this coun­try. We're strict­ly an in­ter­na­tion­al car­ri­er, serv­ing for­eign des­ti­na­tions."

The in­for­ma­tion helped me a lot. "This may sound strange to you, Cap­tain, and it's more cu­rios­ity than any­thing else, but would it be pos­si­ble for me to be a co-​pi­lot based in New York City, and you to be a co-​pi­lot al­so based in New York, and me nev­er to meet you?"

"Very pos­si­ble, even more so with co-​pi­lots, for you and I would nev­er fly to­geth­er in the same plane," said the talkative cap­tain. "Un­less we met at a com­pa­ny meet­ing or some so­cial func­tion, which is im­prob­able, we might nev­er en­counter one an­oth­er. You'd be more apt to know more cap­tains and more flight en­gi­neers than co-​pi­lots. You might fly with dif­fer­ent cap­tains or dif­fer­ent flight en­gi­neers and run in­to them again if you're trans­ferred, but you'd nev­er fly with an­oth­er co-​pi­lot. There's on­ly one to a plane.

"There're so many pi­lots in the sys­tem, in fact, that no one pi­lot would know all the oth­ers. I've been with the com­pa­ny eigh­teen years, and I don't think I know more than six­ty or sev­en­ty of the oth­er pi­lots."

The cap­tain's ver­bal pin­balls were light­ing up all the lights in my lit­tle head.

"I've heard that pi­lots can fly free, I mean as a pas­sen­ger, not as a pi­lot. Is that true?" I prompt­ed.

"Yes," said the cap­tain. "But we're talk­ing about two things, now. We have pass priv­ileges. That is, me and my fam­ily can trav­el some­where by air on a stand-​by ba­sis. That is, if there's room, we can oc­cu­py seats, and our on­ly cost is the tax on the tick­ets. We pay that.

"Then there's dead­head­ing. For ex­am­ple, if my boss told me tonight that he want­ed me in L.A. to­mor­row to fly a trip out of there, I might fly out there on Delta, East­ern, TWA or any oth­er car­ri­er con­nect­ing with Los An­ge­les that could get me there on time. I would ei­ther oc­cu­py an emp­ty pas­sen­ger seat or, more like­ly, ride in the jump seat. That's a lit­tle fold-​down seat in the cock­pit, gen­er­al­ly used by dead­head­ing pi­lots, VIPs or FAA check rid­ers."

"Would you have to help fly the plane?" I quizzed.

"Oh, no," he replied. "I'd be on an­oth­er com­pa­ny's car­ri­er, you see. You might be of­fered a con­trol seat as a cour­tesy, but I al­ways de­cline. We fly on each oth­er's planes to get some­where, not to work." He laughed.

"How do you go about that, dead­head­ing, I mean?" I was re­al­ly en­thused. And the cap­tain was pa­tient. He must have liked kids.

"You want to know it all, don't you?" he said ami­ably, and pro­ceed­ed to an­swer my ques­tion.

"Well, it's done on what we call a pink slip. It works this way. Say I want to go to Mi­ami on Delta. I go down to Delta op­er­ations, show them my Pan Am ID card and I fill out a Delta pink slip, stat­ing my des­ti­na­tion and giv­ing my po­si­tion with Pan Am, my em­ploy­ee num­ber and my FAA pi­lot's li­cense num­ber. I get a copy of the form and that's my 'jump/ I give that copy to the stew­ardess when I board, and that's how I get to ride in the jump seat."

I wasn't through, and he didn't seem to mind my con­tin­uing. "What's a pi­lot's li­cense look like?" I asked. "Is it a cer­tifi­cate that you can hang on the wall, or like a driv­er's li­cense, or what?"

He laughed. "No, if s not a cer­tifi­cate you hang on the wall. If s kind of hard to de­scribe, re­al­ly. If s about the size of a driv­er's li­cense, but there's no pic­ture at­tached. It's just a white card with black print­ing on it."

I de­cid­ed it was time to let the nice man go back to his com­fort­able seat. "Gee, Cap­tain, I sure thank you," I said. "You've been re­al­ly su­per."

"Glad to have helped you, son," he said. "I hope you get those pi­lot's wings, if that's what you want."

I al­ready had the wings. What I need­ed was an ID card and an FAA pi­lot's li­cense. I wasn't too con­cerned about the ID card. The pi­lot's li­cense had me stumped. The FAA was not ex­act­ly a mail-​or­der house.

I let my fin­gers do the walk­ing in my search for a suit­able ID card. I looked in the Yel­low Pages un­der iden­ti­fi­ca­tion, picked a firm on Madi­son Av­enue (any ID com­pa­ny with a Madi­son Av­enue ad­dress had to have class, I thought) and went to the firm dressed in a busi­ness suit.

It was a pres­ti­gious of­fice suite with a re­cep­tion­ist to screen the walk-​in trade. "Can I help you?" she asked in ef­fi­cient tones.

"I'd like to see one of your sales rep­re­sen­ta­tives, please," I replied in equal­ly busi­nesslike in­flec­tions.

The sales rep­re­sen­ta­tive had the as­sured air and man­ner of a man who would dis­dain talk­ing about a sin­gle ID card, so I hit him with what I thought would best get his at­ten­tion and win his af­fec­tion, the prospect of a big ac­count.

"My name is Frank Williams, and I rep­re­sent Carib Air of Puer­to Ri­co," I said crisply. "As you prob­ably know, we are ex­pand­ing ser­vice to the con­ti­nen­tal Unit­ed States, and we present­ly have two hun­dred peo­ple in our fa­cil­ities at Kennedy. Right now we're us­ing on­ly a tem­po­rary ID card made of pa­per, and we want to go to a for­mal, lam­inat­ed, plas­tic-​en­closed card with a col­or pho­to­graph and the com­pa­ny lo­go, sim­ilar to what the oth­er air­lines use here. We want a qual­ity card, and I un­der­stand you peo­ple deal on­ly in qual­ity prod­ucts."

If he knew that Carib Air ex­ist­ed and was ex­pand­ing to the Unit­ed States, he knew more than I did. But he was not a man to let the facts stand in the way of a juicy sale.

"Oh, yes, Mr. Williams. Let me show you what we have along that line," he said en­thu­si­as­ti­cal­ly, lead­ing me to his of­fice. He pulled down a huge, leather-​bound sam­ple cat­alogue from a shelf, leafed through the con­tents, which ranged from vel­lum to beau­ti­ful­ly wa­ter­marked bond, and dis­played a whole page of var­ious iden­ti­fi­ca­tion forms.

"Now, most of the air­lines we serve use this card here," he said, point­ing out one that seemed a du­pli­cate of Pan Am's ID cards. "It has em­ploy­ee num­ber, base, po­si­tion, de­scrip­tion, pho­to­graph and, if you wish, a com­pa­ny lo­go. I think it would do very nice­ly."

I nod­ded in com­plete agree­ment. "Yes, I think this is the card we want," I said. It was cer­tain­ly the card I want­ed. He gave me a com­plete cost run­down, in­clud­ing all the vari­ables.

"Can you give me a sam­ple?" I asked on im­pulse. "I'd like to show it to our top peo­ple, since they're the ones who'll have the fi­nal say."

The sales­man obliged in a mat­ter of min­utes. I stud­ied the card. "This is fine, but it's blank," I said. "Tell you what. Why don't we fix this up, so they'll have an idea of what the fin­ished prod­uct looks like? We can use me as the sub­ject."

"That's an ex­cel­lent sug­ges­tion," said the sales­man, and led me to an ID cam­era that pro­duced ID-​sized mug shots with­in min­utes.

He took sev­er­al pho­tographs, we se­lect­ed one (he gra­cious­ly gave me the culls) and he af­fixed it to the space on the card, trim­ming it neat­ly. He then filled in my pho­ny name, adopt­ed rank (co-​pi­lot), fic­ti­tious em­ploy­ee num­ber, height, weight, col­or­ing, age and sex in the ap­pro­pri­ate blanks. He then sealed it in a clear, tough plas­tic and hand­ed it to me with his busi­ness card.

"I'm sure we can do a good job for you, Mr. Williams," he said, ush­er­ing me out.

He al­ready had done a good job for me, save for one de­tail. The love­ly ID card lacked Pan Am's dis­tinc­tive lo­go and firm name. I was won­der­ing how to re­solve the prob­lem when a dis­play in the win­dow of a hob­by shop caught my eye. There, poised on grace­ful­ly curved mounts, was an ar­ray of mod­el planes, among them sev­er­al com­mer­cial air­lin­ers. And among them a beau­ti­ful Pan Am jet, the firm's famed lo­go on its tail, and the com­pa­ny leg­end, in the copy­right­ed let­ter­ing used by the air­line, on the fuse­lage and wings.

The mod­el came in sev­er­al sizes. I bought the small­est, for $2.49, in an unassem­bled state, and hur­ried back to my room. I threw the plane parts away. Fol­low­ing in­struc­tions in the kit, I soaked the de­cal and let­ter­ing in wa­ter un­til they sep­arat­ed from their hold­ing base. Both the lo­go and the com­pa­ny name were of mi­cro­scop­ical­ly thin plas­tic. I laid the Pan Am lo­go on the up­per left-​hand cor­ner of the ID card and care­ful­ly ar­ranged the firm leg­end across the top of the card. The clear de­cals, when they dried, ap­peared to have been print­ed on the card.

It was per­fect. An ex­act du­pli­cate of a Pan Am iden­ti­fi­ca­tion card. It would have re­quired an ex­am­ina­tion with a spec­tro­scope to re­veal that the de­cals were ac­tu­al­ly on the out­side of the plas­tic seal. I could have clipped the ID card on my breast pock­et and passed muster at a Pan Am board meet­ing.

As a fake pi­lot, how­ev­er, I was still ground­ed. I re­called the words of the cap­tain I'd in­ter­viewed un­der false pre­tens­es: "Your li­cense is the most im­por­tant thing. You've got to have it on your per­son at all times when op­er­at­ing an air­craft. I car­ry mine in a fold­er that al­so con­tains my ID. You'll be asked to show your li­cense as of­ten as you're asked for your ID."

I mulled the is­sue over for days, but could think of no so­lu­tion short of work­ing my way through com­mer­cial avi­ation school. I start­ed fre­quent­ing book­stores again, thumb­ing through the var­ious fly­ing pub­li­ca­tions. I wasn't sure of what I was look­ing for, but I found it.

There it was, a small dis­play ad in the back of one of the books placed by a plaque-​mak­ing firm in Mil­wau­kee that catered to pro­fes­sion­al peo­ple. The firm of­fered to du­pli­cate any pi­lot's li­cense, en­graved in sil­ver and mount­ed on a hand­some eight-​by-​eleven-​inch hard­wood plaque, for on­ly $35. The com­pa­ny used the stan­dard, pre­cut li­cense die used by the FAA. All a pi­lot had to do was sup­ply the per­ti­nent in­for­ma­tion, in­clud­ing his FAA li­cense num­ber and rat­ings, and the firm would re­turn a sil­ver repli­ca of his li­cense, suit­able for dis­play any­where. The FAA did have a mail-​or­der branch, it ap­peared.

I want­ed one of the plaques, nat­ural­ly. I felt there had to be a way, plaque in hand, to re­duce it to the prop­er size on ap­pro­pri­ate pa­per. And I'd have my pi­lot's li­cense!

I was fever­ish with the idea. I didn't write the firm; I called their of­fices in Mil­wau­kee. I told the sales­man I want­ed one of the plaques and asked if the trans­ac­tion could be han­dled by tele­phone.

He ex­pressed no cu­rios­ity as to why I was in such a hur­ry. "Well, you can give me all the nec­es­sary in­for­ma­tion over the tele­phone, but we'll have to have a check or mon­ey or­der be­fore we ac­tu­al­ly make up the plaque," said the man. "In the mean­time, we can start rough­ing it out and we'll treat it as a spe­cial or­der. It'll be $37.50, in­clud­ing postage and spe­cial han­dling."

I didn't quib­ble. I gave him my alias, Frank Williams. I gave him my spu­ri­ous age and my cor­rect weight, height, col­or of hair and eyes and so­cial se­cu­ri­ty num­ber. A pi­lot's li­cense or cer­tifi­cate num­ber is al­ways the same as his so­cial se­cu­ri­ty num­ber. I gave my­self the high­est rat­ing a pi­lot can at­tain, an air trans­port rat­ing. I told the man I was checked out on DC-9s, 727s and 707s. I gave him my ad­dress in care of gen­er­al de­liv­ery, New York City (not un­usu­al for com­mer­cial pi­lots who spend a lot of time in tran­sit), and told him I'd have a mon­ey or­der in the mail that same day. I had the mon­ey or­der in the mail with­in an hour, in fact. It was the on­ly valid draft I'd giv­en in sev­er­al weeks.

The plaque ar­rived with­in a week. It was gor­geous. Not on­ly was I cer­ti­fied as a pi­lot in ster­ling, but the li­cense repli­ca even boast­ed the sig­na­ture of the head of the Fed er­al Avi­ation Agen­cy.

I took the plaque to a hole-​in-​the-​wall print shop in Brook­lyn and sought out the head print­er. "Look, I'd like to get my li­cense re­duced down so I can car­ry it in my wal­let, you know, like you would a diplo­ma. Can it be done?" I asked.

The print­er stud­ied the plaque ad­mir­ing­ly. "Geez, I didn't know pi­lots got this sort of thing when they learned to fly," he said. "It's fanci­er'n a col­lege diplo­ma."

"Well, an ac­tu­al li­cense is a cer­tifi­cate, but it's back at my home in L.A.," I said. "This is some­thing my girl gave me as a gift. But I'll be based here for sev­er­al months and I would like to have a wal­let-​sized copy of my li­cense. Can you do it with this or will I have to send for the cer­tifi­cate?"

"Nah, I can do it from this," he said, and, us­ing a spe­cial cam­era, he re­duced it to ac­tu­al size, print­ed it on heavy white stock, cut it out and hand­ed it to me. The whole pro­cess took less than thir­ty min­utes and cost me five bucks. I lam­inat­ed it with two pieces of plas­tic my­self. I'd nev­er seen a re­al pi­lot's li­cense, but this sure as hell looked like one.

I put on my pi­lot's uni­form, which I had had al­tered to a per­fect fit, tilt­ed my cap at a rak­ish an­gle and caught a bus to La Guardia Air­port.

I was ready for flight du­ty. Pro­vid­ed some­one else flew the plane.

CHAP­TER THREE

Fly a Crooked Sky

&nb­sp;

There is en­chant­ment in a uni­form, es­pe­cial­ly one that marks the wear­er as a per­son of rare skills, courage or achieve­ment.

A para­troop­er's wings tell of a spe­cial breed of sol­dier. A sub­mariner's dol­phin de­notes the un­usu­al sailor. A po­lice­man's blue sym­bol­izes au­thor­ity. A for­est ranger's rai­ment evokes wilder­ness lore. Even a door­man's gaudy garb stirs vague thoughts of pomp and roy­al­ty.

I felt great in my Pan Am pi­lot's uni­form as I walked in­to La Guardia Air­port. I ob­vi­ous­ly was com­mand­ing re­spect and es­teem. Men looked at me ad­mir­ing­ly or en­vi­ous­ly. Pret­ty wom­en and girls smiled at me. Air­port po­lice­men nod­ded cour­te­ous­ly. Pi­lots and stew­ardess­es smiled, spoke to me or lift­ed a hand in greet­ing as they passed. Ev­ery man, wom­an and child who no­ticed me seemed warm and friend­ly.

It was heady stuff and I loved it. In fact, I be­came in­stant­ly ad­dict­ed. Dur­ing the next five years the uni­form was my al­ter ego. I used it in the same man­ner a junkie shoots up on hero­in. When­ev­er I felt lone­ly, de­pressed, re­ject­ed or doubt­ful of my own worth, I'd dress up in my pi­lot's uni­form and seek out a crowd. The uni­form bought me re­spect and dig­ni­ty. With­out it on, at times, I felt use­less and de­ject­ed. With it on, dur­ing such times, I felt like I was wear­ing For­tu­na­tus' cap and walk­ing in sev­en-​league boots.

I milled with the crowd in La Guardia's lob­by that morn­ing, glo­ry­ing in my make-​be­lieve sta­tus. I ful­ly in­tend­ed to bluff my way aboard a flight to a dis­tant city and start op­er­at­ing my check swin­dles there, but I de­layed im­ple­ment­ing my de­ci­sion. I was hav­ing too much fun lux­uri­at­ing in the at­ten­tion and def­er­ence I was re­ceiv­ing.

I be­came hun­gry. I stepped in­to one of the air­port's many cof­fee shops, dropped on­to a stool at the counter and or­dered a sand­wich and milk. I was al­most fin­ished eat­ing when a TWA co-​pi­lot sat down on a stool eater-​cor­nered from me. He looked at me and nod­ded. He or­dered cof­fee and a roll, then re­gard­ed me with mild cu­rios­ity.

"What's Pan Am do­ing here at La Guardia?" he asked ca­su­al­ly. Ap­par­ent­ly, Pan Am did not fly out of La Guardia.

"Oh, I just dead­head­ed in from Frisco on the first flight I could catch," I replied. "I'll catch a chop­per to Kennedy."

"What kind of equip­ment you on?" he asked, bit­ing in­to his roll.

My brains turned to ice cubes. I near­ly freaked out. Equip­ment? What did he mean, equip­ment? En­gines? Cock­pit in­stru­ments? What? I couldn't re­call hav­ing heard the word be­fore in con­nec­tion with com­mer­cial air­lines. I fran­ti­cal­ly searched for an an­swer for it was ob­vi­ous­ly a nor­mal ques­tion for him to ask. I men­tal­ly reread the rem­inis­cences of the vet­er­an Pan Am cap­tain, a lit­tle book I'd re­al­ly liked and which I'd vir­tu­al­ly adopt­ed as a man­ual. I couldn't re­call his ev­er us­ing the word "equip­ment."

It had to have some sig­nif­icance, how­ev­er. The TWA air­man was look­ing at me, await­ing my re­ply. "Gen­er­al Elec­tric," I said hope­ful­ly. It was def­inite­ly not the right an­swer. His eyes went frosty and a guard­ed look crossed his fea­tures. "Oh," he said, the friend­li­ness gone from his voice. He bus­ied him­self with his cof­fee and roll. >

I gulped the rest of my milk and dropped three dol­lars on the counter, more than am­ple pay­ment for my snack. I stood up and nod­ded to the TWA pi­lot. "So long," I said, and head­ed for the door.

"Fruzhum­tu," he growled. I wasn't sure of his ex­act words, but they sound­ed sus­pi­cious­ly like some­thing I couldn't ac­tu­al­ly do to my­self.

What­ev­er, I knew I wasn't suf­fi­cient­ly pre­pared to at­tempt a dead­head­ing ven­ture, de­spite all my pri­or work and re­search. It was ev­ident that I need­ed a bet­ter com­mand of air­line ter­mi­nol­ogy, among oth­er things. As I was leav­ing the ter­mi­nal, I no­ticed a TWA stew­ardess strug­gling with a heavy bag. "Can I help you?" I asked, reach­ing for the lug­gage.

She re­lin­quished it read­ily. "Thanks," she said with a grin. "That's our crew bus just out­side there."

"Just get in?" I asked as we walked to­ward the bus.

She gri­maced. "Yes, and I'm pooped. About half the peo­ple in our load were whiskey sales­men who'd been to a con­ven­tion in Scot­land, and you can imag­ine what that scene was like."

I could, and laughed. "What kind of equip­ment are you on?" I asked on im­pulse.

"Sev­en-​o-​sev­ens, and I love 'em," she said as I heaved her suit­case aboard the bus. She paused at the bus door and stuck out her hand. "Thanks much, friend. I need­ed your mus­cles."

"Glad I could help," I said, and meant it. She was slim and el­egant, with pix­ie fea­tures and auburn hair. Re­al­ly at­trac­tive. Un­der oth­er cir­cum­stances I would have pressed to know her bet­ter. I didn't even ask her name. She was love­ly, but she al­so knew ev­ery­thing there was to know about fly­ing pas­sen­gers from this place to that one, and a date with her might prove em­bar­rass­ing.

Air­line peo­ple man­ifest­ly loved to talk shop, and at the mo­ment I ob­vi­ous­ly wasn't ready to punch in at the fac­to­ry. So equip­ment was an air­plane, I mused, walk­ing to my own bus. I felt a lit­tle stupid, but halfway back to Man­hat­tan I burst out laugh­ing as a thought came to mind. The TWA first of­fi­cer was prob­ably back in the pi­lot's lounge by now, telling oth­er TWA crew­men he'd just met a Pan Am jerk who flew wash­ing ma­chines.

I spent the next few days in the bone­yard. In the past I'd found my best sources of in­for­ma­tion on air­lines were air­lines them­selves, so I start­ed call­ing the var­ious car­ri­ers and pump­ing their peo­ple for in­for­ma­tion. I rep­re­sent­ed my­self as a col­lege stu­dent do­ing a pa­per on trans­porta­tion, as an em­bryo book au­thor or mag­azine writ­er, or as a cub re­porter for one of the area's dailies.

Gen­er­al­ly I was re­ferred to the air­line's pub­lic re­la­tions de­part­ment. Air­line PR peo­ple love to talk about their par­tic­ular air­line, I found. I quick­ly con­firmed my sus­pi­cions that my avi­ation ed­uca­tion was strict­ly el­emen­tary, but with­in a week I had zoomed through high school and was work­ing on my bach­elor's de­gree.

The air­line flacks, a lot of whom had been mem­bers of air­crews them­selves, oblig­ing­ly filled me in on a wealth of juicy facts and tech­ni­cal tid­bits: the types of jets used by both Amer­ican and for­eign car­ri­ers, fu­el ca­pac­ities and speeds, al­ti­tudes, weight lim­its, pas­sen­ger ca­pac­ities, num­ber of crew­men, weight lim­its and oth­er such good­ies.

I learned, for in­stance, that a large num­ber of com­mer­cial air­line pi­lots are drawn from the mil­itary. Those with­out an air force or naval avi­ation back­ground had come up from small, bush-​league air­lines or were grad­uates of pri­vate fly­ing schools such as Em­bry-​Rid­dle, I was told.

Em­bry-​Rid­dle Aero­nau­ti­cal Uni­ver­si­ty in Day­tona Beach, Flori­da, is the most re­spect­ed, and prob­ably the largest, com­mer­cial flight-​train­ing school in the na­tion, I was in­formed. It's the Notre Dame of the air. A kid out of high school, with no knowl­edge of aero­nau­tics what­so­ev­er, could en­ter ground school at Em­bry-​Rid­dle and leave sev­er­al years lat­er able to fly any cur­rent jet lin­er.

"Those of our pi­lots who didn't come to us from the air force or the navy came to us from Em­bry-​Rid­dle," said one air­line flack pride­ful­ly.

I knew noth­ing about the mil­itary. I couldn't tell a pri­vate from a vice ad­mi­ral. So I award­ed my­self a schol­ar­ship to Em­bry-​Rid­dle, grad­uat­ed fan­ta­sy cum laude, and then gave my­self a few years of myth­ical ex­pe­ri­ence with East­ern Air­lines.

As my knowl­edge of air­lines and air­line ter­mi­nol­ogy broad­ened, my con­fi­dence re­turned. I opened a check­ing ac­count in the name of Frank Williams, with a post-​of­fice box ad­dress, and when my or­der for two hun­dred per­son­al­ized checks ar­rived gen­er­al de­liv­ery, I tried cash­ing a few checks in my guise as an air­line pi­lot.

It was like go­ing on sa­fari in the Bronx Zoo. Cashiers couldn't get the mon­ey out of the tills fast enough. Most of them didn't even ask for iden­ti­fi­ca­tion. I shoved my pho­ny ID card and my er­satz pi­lot's li­cense in their faces any­way. I didn't want my hand­iwork to go un­no­ticed. The first cou­ple of checks I wrote were good. The oth­ers had all the val­ue of bub­ble-​gum wrap­pers.

I start­ed hang­ing around La Guardia reg­ular­ly, not with any in­ten­tions of catch­ing a flight, but to meet air­line per­son­nel and to eaves­drop on air­line talk. Test­ing my vo­cab­ulary, so to speak. I shunned Kennedy, since Pan Am op­er­at­ed out of there. I was afraid that the first Pan Am pi­lot I en­coun­tered at Kennedy would rec­og­nize me as a fraud, court-​mar­tial me on the spot and strip me of my wings and but­tons.

At La Guardia I made out like a pos­sum in a per­sim­mon tree. Some books are judged by their cov­ers, it seems, and in my uni­form I was an im­me­di­ate best sell­er. I'd walk in­to a cof­fee shop, where there would usu­al­ly be a dozen or more pi­lots or oth­er crew­men tak­ing a break, and in­vari­ably some­one would in­vite me to join him or them. More of­ten it was them, for air­line peo­ple tend to gag­gle like geese. It was the same in cock­tail lounges around the air­port. I nev­er took a drink in the bars, since I had yet to try al­co­hol and wasn't sure how it would af­fect me, but no one ques­tioned my ab­sti­nence.

Any pi­lot, I'd learned, could grace­ful­ly de­cline a drink by plead­ing the re­quired "twelve hours be­tween the bot­tle and the throt­tle." It ap­par­ent­ly nev­er oc­curred to any­one that I'd nev­er seen a throt­tle. I was al­ways ac­cept­ed at par val­ue. I wore the uni­form of a Pan Am pi­lot, there­fore I must be a Pan Am pi­lot. Bar­num would have loved air­line peo­ple.

I didn't do a lot of talk­ing ini­tial­ly. I usu­al­ly let the con­ver­sa­tions flow around me, mon­itor­ing the words and phras­es, and with­in a short time I was speak­ing air­li­nese like a na­tive. La Guardia, for me, was the Berlitz of the air.

Some of my lan­guage books were ab­so­lute­ly gor­geous. I guess the stew­ardess­es just weren't that used to see­ing a re­al­ly young pi­lot, one that ap­peared to be an age peer. "Hel-​looo!" one would say in pass­ing, putting a pret­ty move on me, and the in­vi­ta­tion in her voice would be un­mis­tak­able. I felt I could turn down on­ly so many in­vi­ta­tions with­out seem­ing to be rude, and I was soon dat­ing sev­er­al of the girls. I took them to din­ner, to the the­ater, to the bal­let, to the sym­pho­ny, to night clubs and to movies. Al­so to my place or their place.

I loved them for their minds.

The rest of them was won­der­ful, too. But for the first time I was more in­ter­est­ed in a girl's knowl­edge of her work than in her body. I didn't ob­ject, of course, if the one came with the oth­er. A bed­room can be an ex­cel­lent class­room.

I was an apt stu­dent. I mean, it takes a cer­tain de­gree of aca­dem­ic con­cen­tra­tion to learn all about air­line trav­el-​ex­pense pro­ce­dures, say, when some­one is bit­ing you on the shoul­der and dig­ging her fin­ger­nails in­to your back. It takes a ded­icat­ed pupil to say to a naked la­dy, "Gee, is this your flight man­ual? It's a lit­tle dif­fer­ent from the ones our stew­ardess­es use."

I picked their brains dis­creet­ly. I even spent a week in a Mas­sachusetts moun­tain re­sort with three stew­ardess­es, and not one of them was skep­ti­cal of my pi­lot's sta­tus, al­though there were some doubts ex­pressed con­cern­ing my stami­na.

Don't get the im­pres­sion that stew­ardess­es, as a group, are promis­cu­ous. They aren't. The myth that all stew­ardess­es are pas­sion­ate nymphs is just that, a myth. If any­thing, "stews" are more cir­cum­spect and dis­crim­inat­ing in their sex­ual lives than wom­en in oth­er fields. The ones I knew were all in­tel­li­gent, so­phis­ti­cat­ed and re­spon­si­ble young wom­en, good in their jobs, and I didn't make out en masse. The ones who were play­mates would have hopped in­to bed with me had they been sec­re­taries, nurs­es, book­keep­ers or what­ev­er. Stews are good peo­ple. I have very pleas­ant mem­ories of the ones I met, and if some of the mem­ories are more pleas­ant than oth­ers, they're not nec­es­sar­ily sex­ual­ly ori­ent­ed.

I didn't score at all with one I re­call vivid­ly. She was a Delta flight at­ten­dant whom I'd met dur­ing my ini­tial stud­ies of air­line jar­gon. She had a car at the air­port and of­fered to drive me back to Man­hat­tan one af­ter­noon.

"Would you drop me at the Plaza?" I re­quest­ed as we walked through the lob­by of the ter­mi­nal. "I need to cash a check and I'm known there." I wasn't known there, but I in­tend­ed to be.

The stew­ardess stopped and ges­tured at the dozens of air­line tick­et coun­ters that lined ev­ery side of the huge lob­by. There must be more than a hun­dred air­lines that have tick­et fa­cil­ities at La Guardia. "Cash your check at one of those coun­ters. Any one of them will take your check."

"They will?" I said, some­what sur­prised but man­ag­ing to con­ceal the fact. "It's a per­son­al check and we don't op­er­ate out of here, you know."

She shrugged. "It doesn't mat­ter," she said. "You're a Pan Am pi­lot in uni­form, and any air­line here will take your per­son­al check as a cour­tesy. They do that at Kennedy, don't they?"

"I don't know. I've nev­er had oc­ca­sion to cash a check at a tick­et counter be­fore," I said truth­ful­ly.

Amer­ican's counter was the near­est. I walked over and con­front­ed a tick­et clerk who wasn't busy. "Can you cash a $100 per­son­al check for me?" I asked, check­book in hand.

"Sure, be glad to," he said, smil­ing, and took the bounc­ing beau­ty with bare­ly a glance at it. He didn't even ask me for iden­ti­fi­ca­tion.

I had oc­ca­sion to cash checks at air­line coun­ters fre­quent­ly there­after. I worked La Guardia like a fox on a turkey ranch. The air fa­cil­ity was so im­mense that the risk of my be­ing caught was min­imal. I'd cash a check at the East­ern counter, for in­stance, then go to an­oth­er sec­tion of the ter­mi­nal and tap some oth­er air­line's till. I was cau­tious. I nev­er went back to the same counter twice. I worked a con­densed ver­sion of the scam at Newark, and hit Teter­boro a few elas­tic licks. I was pro­duc­ing rub­ber faster than a Cey­lon planter.

Ev­ery gam­bler has a road game. Mine was hit­ting the ho­tels and mo­tels where air­line crews put up in tran­sit. I even bought a round-​trip air­line tick­et to Boston, an hon­est tick­et paid for with dis­hon­est mon­ey, and pa­pered Lo­gan Air­port and its sur­round­ing crew hostel­ries with scenic chits be­fore scur­ry­ing back to New York.

Flushed with suc­cess, em­bold­ened by the ease with which I passed my­self off as a pi­lot, I de­cid­ed I was fi­nal­ly ready for "Op­er­ation Dead­head."

I'd been liv­ing in a walk-​up flat on the West Side. I'd rent­ed the small apart­ment un­der the name Frank Williams and I'd paid my rent punc­tu­al­ly and in cash. The land­la­dy, whom I saw on­ly to ten­der the rent mon­ey, thought I worked in a sta­tionery store. None of the oth­er ten­ants knew me and I'd nev­er ap­peared around the build­ing in my pi­lot's uni­form. I had no tele­phone and I'd nev­er re­ceived mail at the ad­dress.

When I packed and left the flat, there was no trail to fol­low. The best bell-​mouthed hound in the Blue Ridge Moun­tains couldn't have picked up my spoor.

I took a bus to La Guardia and went to East­ern's op­er­ations of­fice. There were three young men work­ing be­hind the en­clo­sure's counter. "Yes, sir, can I help you?" one of them asked.

"I need to dead­head to Mi­ami on your next flight, if you've got room," I said, pro­duc­ing my sham Pan Am ID.

"We've got one go­ing out in fif­teen min­utes, Mr. Williams," he said. "Would you like to make that one, or wait un­til our af­ter­noon flight? The jump seat's open on ei­ther one."

I didn't want to tar­ry. "I'll take this flight," I said. "It'll give me more time on the beach."

He slid a pink form to­ward me. I'd nev­er seen one be­fore, but it was fa­mil­iar be­cause of my in­ter­view with the help­ful Pan Am cap­tain. The in­for­ma­tion elicit­ed was min­imal: name, com­pa­ny, em­ploy­ee num­ber and po­si­tion. I filled it out, hand­ed it back to him and he popped off the top copy and hand­ed it to me. I knew that was my board­ing pass.

Then he picked up the tele­phone and asked for the FAA tow­er, and my stom­ach was sud­den­ly full of yel­low but­ter­flies.

"This is East­ern," he said. "We've got a jump on Flight 602 to Mi­ami. Frank Williams, co-​pi­lot, Pan Am. . . . Okay, thanks." He hung up the tele­phone and nod­ded to­ward a door out­side the glass win­dow. "You can go through there, Mr. Williams. The air­craft is board­ing at the gate to your left."

It was a 727. Most of the pas­sen­gers had al­ready board­ed. I hand­ed my pink slip to the stew­ardess at the door to the air­craft and turned to­ward the cock­pit like I'd been do­ing this for years. I felt cocky and debonair as I stowed my bag in the com­part­ment in­di­cat­ed by the stew­ardess and squeezed through the small hatch in­to the cab­in.

"Hi, I'm Frank Williams," I said to the three men seat­ed in­side. They were busy with what I lat­er learned was a check-​off list, and ig­nored me ex­cept for nods of ac­cep­tance.

I looked around the in­stru­ment-​crammed cab­in and the but­ter­flies start­ed fly­ing again. I didn't see a jump seat, what­ev­er a jump seat looked like. There were on­ly three seats in the cock­pit and all of them were oc­cu­pied.

Then the flight en­gi­neer looked up and grinned. "Oh, sor­ry," he said, reach­ing be­hind me and clos­ing the cab­in door. "Have a seat."

As the door closed, a tiny seat at­tached to the floor clicked down. I eased down in­to the small perch, feel­ing the need for a cigarette. And I didn't smoke.

No one said any­thing else to me un­til we were air­borne. Then the cap­tain, a rud­dy-​faced man with tints of sil­ver in his brown hair, in­tro­duced him­self, the-​co-​pi­lot and the flight en­gi­neer. "How long you been with Pan Am?" asked the cap­tain, and I was aware from his tone that he was just mak­ing con­ver­sa­tion.

"This is my eighth year," I said, and wished im­me­di­ate­ly I'd said six.

None of the three evinced any sur­prise, how­ev­er. It ap­par­ent­ly was a tenure com­pat­ible with my rank. "What kind of equip­ment are you on?" queried the co-​pi­lot.

"Sev­en-​o-​sev­ens," I said. "I was on DC-8s un­til a cou­ple of months ago."

Al­though I felt like I was sit­ting on a bed of hot coals all the way to Mi­ami, it was re­al­ly ridicu­lous­ly easy. I was asked where I had re­ceived my train­ing and I said Em­bry-​Rid­dle. I said Pan Am had hired me right out of school. Af­ter that, the con­ver­sa­tion was desul­to­ry and in­dif­fer­ent and most­ly among the three East­ern of­fi­cers. Noth­ing else was di­rect­ed to­ward me that might threat­en my as­sumed sta­tus. At one point the co-​pi­lot, who was han­dling traf­fic, hand­ed me a pair of ear­phones and asked if I want­ed to lis­ten in, but I de­clined, say­ing I pre­ferred a rock sta­tion. That brought a laugh. I did mon­itor their talk dili­gent­ly, stor­ing up the slang phras­es that passed among them and not­ing how they used the air­line jar­gon. They were all three mar­ried and a lot of their con­ver­sa­tion cen­tered around their fam­ilies.

The stew­ardess who served the cab­in was a cute lit­tle brunette. When I went to the toi­let I stopped en route back to the cock­pit and en­gaged her in a con­ver­sa­tion. I learned she was lay­ing over in Mi­ami and be­fore I re­turned to the cab­in I had made a date with her for that night. She was stay­ing with a girl friend who lived there.

I thanked the fly­ing of­fi­cers be­fore de­plan­ing. They ca­su­al­ly wished me luck and the cap­tain said the jump seat was gen­er­al­ly avail­able "any­time you need it."

I'd nev­er been to Mi­ami be­fore. I was im­pressed and ex­cit­ed by the col­or­ful trop­ical veg­eta­tion and the palms around the ter­mi­nal, the warm sun and the bright, clean air. The lack of tall build­ings, the seem­ing open­ness of the land­scape, the gaudy and ca­su­al at­tire of the peo­ple milling around the air­port ter­mi­nal made me feel like I'd been set down in a strange and won­der­ful land. I was in­side the ter­mi­nal be­fore I re­al­ized I didn't have the slight­est idea where Pan Am housed its peo­ple in Mi­ami. Well, there was an easy way to find out.

I walked up to the Pan Am tick­et counter and the girl be­hind the counter, who was busy with pas­sen­gers, ex­cused her­self and stepped over to face me. "Can I help you?" " she asked, look­ing at me cu­ri­ous­ly.

"Yes," I said. "This is my first lay­over in Mi­ami. I'm here on a re­place­ment sta­tus. I nor­mal­ly don't fly trips in here, and I came in such a hur­ry that no one told me where the hell we stay here. Where do we lay over here?"

"Oh, yes, sir, we stay at the Sky­way Mo­tel if it's go­ing to be less than twen­ty-​four hours," she re­spond­ed, sud­den­ly all aid and as­sis­tance.

"It will be," I said.

"Well, it's on­ly a short dis­tance," she said. "You can wait on the crew bus or you can just take a cab over there. Are you go­ing to take a cab?"

"I think so," I replied. I knew I was go­ing to take a cab. I wasn't about to get on a bus full of re­al Pan Am flight peo­ple.

"Wait a minute, then," she said and stepped over to her sta­tion. She opened a draw­er and took out a claim-​check-​sized card and hand­ed it to me. "Just give that to any of the cab drivers out front. Have a good stay."

Damned if it wasn't a tick­et for a free cab ride, good with any Mi­ami cab firm. Air­line peo­ple lived in the prover­bial land of milk and hon­ey, I thought as I walked out of the ter­mi­nal. I liked milk and I knew I was in the right hive when I checked in at the mo­tel. I reg­is­tered un­der my pho­ny name and put down Gen­er­al De­liv­ery, New York, as my ad­dress. The reg­is­tra­tion clerk took the card, glanced at it, then stamped "air­line crew" in red ink across its face.

"I'll be check­ing out in the morn­ing," I said.

She nod­ded. "All right. You can sign this now if you want, and you won't have to stop by here in the morn­ing."

"I'll just sign it in the morn­ing," I replied. "I might run up some charges tonight." She shrugged and filed the card.

I didn't see any Pan Am crew­men around the mo­tel. If there were any around the pool, where a live­ly crowd was as­sem­bled, I drew no at­ten­tion from them. In my room, I changed in­to ca­su­al at­tire and called the East­ern stew­ardess at the num­ber she'd giv­en me.

She picked me up in her friend's car and we had a ball in the Mi­ami Beach night spots. I didn't put any moves on her, but I wasn't be­ing gal­lant. I was so turned on by the suc­cess of my first ad­ven­ture as a bo­gus bird­man that I for­got about it. By the time I re­mem­bered, she'd dropped me at the Sky­way and gone home.

I checked out at 5:30 the next morn­ing. There was on­ly a sleepy-​faced night clerk on du­ty when I en­tered the lob­by. He took my key and gave me my room bill to sign.

"Can I get a check cashed?" I asked as I signed the tab.

"Sure, do you have your ID card?" he said.

I hand­ed it to him and wrote out a check for $100, payable to the ho­tel. He copied the fic­ti­tious em­ploy­ee num­ber from my fake ID card on­to the back of the check and hand­ed me back my ID and five $20 bills. I took a cab to the air­port and an hour lat­er dead­head­ed to Dal­las on a Bran­iff flight. The Bran­iff flight of­fi­cers were not in­quis­itive at all, but I had a few tense mo­ments en route. I wasn't aware that Pan Am didn't fly out of Dal­las. I was aware that dead­head­ing pi­lots were al­ways sup­posed to be on busi­ness.

"What the hell are you go­ing to Dal­las for?" the co-​pi­lot asked in ca­su­al­ly cu­ri­ous tones. I was search­ing for a re­ply when he gave me the an­swer. "You in on a char­ter or some­thing?"

"Yeah, freight," I said, know­ing Pan Am had world­wide freight ser­vice, and the sub­ject was dropped.

I stayed overnight at a mo­tel used by flight crews of sev­er­al air­lines, stung the inn with a $100 bum check when I left in the morn­ing and dead­head­ed to San Fran­cis­co im­me­di­ate­ly. It was a pro­ce­du­ral pat­tern I fol­lowed, with vari­ations, for the next two years. Modus operan­di, the cops call it.

Mine was a ready-​made scam, one for which the air­lines, mo­tels and ho­tels set them­selves up. The ho­tels and mo­tels around metropoli­tan or in­ter­na­tion­al air­ports con­sid­ered it just good busi­ness, of course, when they en­tered in­to agree­ments with as many air­lines as pos­si­ble to house tran­sit flight crews. It as­sured the hostel­ries of at least a min­imum rate of oc­cu­pan­cy, and no doubt most of the op­er­ators felt the pres­ence of the pi­lots and stew­ardess­es would at­tract oth­er trav­el­ers seek­ing lodg­ing. The air­lines con­sid­ered it a de­sir­able ar­range­ment be­cause the car­ri­ers were guar­an­teed room space for their flight crews, even dur­ing con­ven­tions and oth­er fes­tive af­fairs when rooms were at a pre­mi­um. I know from nu­mer­ous con­ver­sa­tions on the sub­ject that the flight crews liked the plan where­by the air­lines were billed di­rect­ly for lodg­ing and al­lot­ted meals. It sim­pli­fied their ex­pense-​ac­count book­keep­ing.

The dead­head­ing ar­range­ment be­tween air­lines ev­ery­where in the world was al­so a sys­tem based on good busi­ness prac­tices. It was more than a cour­tesy. It af­ford­ed a max­imum of mo­bil­ity for pi­lots and co-​pi­lots need­ed in emer­gen­cy or es­sen­tial sit­ua­tions.

How­ev­er, su­per­vi­sion, au­dit­ing or oth­er watch­dog pro­ce­dures con­cern­ing the agree­ments and ar­range­ments were patent­ly, at least dur­ing that pe­ri­od, lax, slop­py or nonex­is­tent. Air­port se­cu­ri­ty, un­der­stand­ably, was min­imal at the time. Ter­ror­ist raids on ter­mi­nals and plane hi­jack­ings were yet to be­come the vogue. Air­ports, small cities that they are in them­selves, had a low crime ra­tio, with theft the com­mon prob­lem.

No one, ap­par­ent­ly, save un­der ex­treme cir­cum­stances, ev­er went be­hind the pink "jump" forms and checked out the re­quest­ing pi­lot's bona fides. The dead­head­ing form con­sist­ed of an orig­inal and two copies. I was giv­en the orig­inal as a board­ing pass and I gave that to the stew­ardess in charge of board­ing. I knew the op­er­ations clerk al­ways called the FAA tow­er to in­form the tow­er op­er­ators that such-​and-​such flight would have a jump pas­sen­ger aboard, but I didn't know that a copy of the pink pass was giv­en the FAA. Pre­sum­ably, the third copy was kept in the op­er­ations files of the par­tic­ular air­line. An air­line of­fi­cial who made a state­ment to po­lice con­cern­ing my es­capades of­fered what seemed to him a log­ical ex­pla­na­tion:

"You sim­ply don't ex­pect a man in a pi­lot's uni­form, with prop­er cre­den­tials and ob­vi­ous knowl­edge of jump pro­ce­dures, to be an im­pos­tor, dammit!"

But I have al­ways sus­pect­ed that the ma­jor­ity of the jump forms I filled out end­ed up in the trash, orig­inal and both copies.

There were oth­er fac­tors, too, that weighed the odds in my fa­vor. I was not at first a big op­er­ator. I lim­it­ed the checks I cashed at mo­tels, ho­tels and air­line coun­ters to $100, and not in­fre­quent­ly I was told there wasn't enough cash on hand to han­dle a check for more than $50 or $75. It al­ways took sev­er­al days for one of my worth­less checks to tra­verse the clear­ing-​house routes to New York, and by the time the check was re­turned stamped "in­suf­fi­cient funds," I was a long time gone. The fact that I had a le­git­imate (on the face of it, at least) ac­count had a bear­ing on my suc­cess al­so. The bank didn't re­turn my checks with the no­ta­tion "worth­less," "fraud­ulent" or "forgery." They mere­ly sent them back marked "in­suf­fi­cient funds to cov­er."

Air­lines and hostel­ries do a vol­ume busi­ness by check. Most of the checks re­turned to them be­cause of in­suf­fi­cient funds aren't at­tempts to de­fraud. It's usu­al­ly a bad case of the shorts on the part of the peo­ple who ten­dered the checks. In most in­stances, such per­sons are lo­cat­ed and their checks are made good. In many cas­es in­volv­ing checks I passed, the checks were first placed for col­lec­tion be­fore any at­tempt to lo­cate me was made through Pan Am. In many oth­er in­stances, I'm sure, the vic­tim­ized busi­ness sim­ply wrote off the loss and didn't pur­sue the mat­ter.

Those who did usu­al­ly turned the mat­ter over to lo­cal po­lice, which fur­ther aid­ed and abet­ted me. Very few po­lice de­part­ments, if any, have a hot-​check di­vi­sion or bun­co squad that is ad­equate­ly staffed, not even metropoli­tan forces.

And no de­tec­tive on any po­lice force is bur­dened with a case load heav­ier than the of­fi­cer as­signed to the check-​fraud de­tail. Fraud­ulent check swin­dles are the most com­mon of crimes, and the pro­fes­sion­al pa­per­hang­er is the wil­iest of crim­inals, the hard­est to nab. That's true to­day and it was true then, and it's no re­flec­tion on the abil­ities or de­ter­mi­na­tion of the of­fi­cers in­volved. Their suc­cess ra­tio is ad­mirable when you con­sid­er the num­ber of com­plaints they han­dle dai­ly. Such po­lice­men usu­al­ly work on pri­or­ities. Say a team of de­tec­tives is work­ing on a bum-​check op­er­ation in­volv­ing pho­ny pay­roll checks that's bilk­ing lo­cal mer­chants of $10,000 week­ly, ob­vi­ous­ly the hand­iwork of a ring. They al­so have a com­plaint from a jew­el­er who lost a $3,000 ring to a hot-​check artist. And one from a banker whose bank cashed a $7,500 coun­ter­feit cashier's check. Plus a few dozen cas­es in­volv­ing res­ident forg­ers. Now they're hand­ed a com­plaint from a mo­tel man­ag­er who says he lost $100 to a con artist pos­ing as an air­line pi­lot. The of­fense oc­curred two weeks past.

So what do the de­tec­tives do? They make the rou­tine ges­tures, that's what. They as­cer­tain the man's New York ad­dress is a pho­ny. They learn Pan Am has no such pi­lot on its pay­roll. Maybe they go so far as to de­ter­mine the im­pos­tor bilked the one air­line out of a free ride to Chica­go, De­troit, Philadel­phia, Los An­ge­les or some oth­er dis­tant point. They put a mes­sage to whichev­er city is ap­pro­pri­ate on the po­lice tele­type and pi­geon­hole the com­plaint for pos­si­ble fu­ture ref­er­ence, that's what they do. They've done as much as they could.

And like the bum­ble­bee, I kept fly­ing and mak­ing hon­ey on the side.

So it's not too amaz­ing that I could op­er­ate so freely and brazen­ly when you con­sid­er the last two fac­tors in my hy­poth­esis. The Na­tion­al Crime In­for­ma­tion Cen­ter (NCIC) did not ex­ist as a po­lice tool dur­ing the pe­ri­od. Had I had to con­tend with the com­put­er­ized po­lice link, with its vast and awe­some reser­voir of crim­inal facts and fig­ures, my ca­reer would prob­ably have been short­ened by years. And last­ly, I was pi­oneer­ing a scam that was so im­plau­si­ble, so seem­ing­ly im­pos­si­ble and so brass-​balled bla­tant that it worked.

In the last months of my ad­ven­tures, I ran in­to a Con­ti­nen­tal cap­tain with whom I had dead­head­ed a cou­ple of times. It was a tense mo­ment for me, but he dis­pelled it with the warmth of his greet­ing. Then he laughed and said, "You know, Frank, I was talk­ing to a Delta stew­ardess a cou­ple of months ago and she said you were a pho­ny. I told her that was bull­shit, that you'd han­dled the con­trols of my bird. What'd you do to that girl, boy, kick her out of bed?"

My ad­ven­tures. The first few years that's ex­act­ly what they were for me, ad­ven­tures. Ad­ven­tures in crime, of course, but ad­ven­tures nonethe­less.

I kept a note­book, a sur­rep­ti­tious jour­nal in which I jot­ted down phras­es, tech­ni­cal da­ta, mis­cel­la­neous in­for­ma­tion, names, dates, places, tele­phone num­bers, thoughts and a col­lec­tion of oth­er da­ta I thought was nec­es­sary or might prove help­ful.

It was a com­bi­na­tion log, text­book, lit­tle black book, di­ary and air­line bible, and the longer I op­er­at­ed, the thick­er it be­came with en­tries. One of the first no­ta­tions in the note­book is "glide scopes." The term was men­tioned on my sec­ond dead­head flight and I jot­ted it down as a re­minder to learn what it meant. Glide scopes are run­way ap­proach lights used as land­ing guides. The jour­nal is crammed with all sorts of triv­ia that was in­valu­able to me in my sham role. If you're im­per­son­at­ing a pi­lot it helps to know things like the fu­el con­sump­tion of a 707 in flight (2,000 gal­lons an hour), that planes fly­ing west main­tain al­ti­tudes at even-​num­bered lev­els (20,000 feet, 24,000 feet, etc.) while east-​bound planes fly at odd-​num­bered al­ti­tudes (19,000 feet, 27,000 feet, etc.), or that all air­ports are iden­ti­fied by code (LAX, Los An­ge­les; JFK or LGA, New York, etc.).

Lit­tle things mean a lot to a big pho­ny. The names of ev­ery flight crew I met, the type of equip­ment they flew, their route, their air­line and their base went in­to the book as some of the more use­ful da­ta.

Like I'd be dead­head­ing on a Na­tion­al flight.

"Where you guys out of?"

"Oh, we're Mi­ami-​based."

A sneak look in­to my note­book, then: "Hey, how's Red do­ing? One of you's got­ta know Red O'Day. How is that Irish­man?"

All three knew Red O'Day. "Hey, you know Red, huh?"

"Yeah, I've dead­head­ed a cou­ple of times with Red. He's a great guy."

Such ex­changes re­in­forced my im­age as a pi­lot and usu­al­ly avert­ed the mild cross-​ex­am­ina­tions to which I'd been sub­ject­ed at first.

Just by watch­ing and lis­ten­ing I be­came adept in oth­er things that en­hanced my pose. Af­ter the sec­ond flight, when­ev­er I was of­fered a pair of ear­phones with which to lis­ten in on air­line traf­fic, I al­ways ac­cept­ed, al­though a lot of pi­lots pre­ferred a squawk box, in which case no ear­phones were need­ed.

I had to im­pro­vise a lot. When­ev­er I'd dead­head in­to a city not used by Pan Am, such as Dal­las, and didn't know which mo­tels or ho­tels were used by air­line crews, I'd sim­ply walk up to the near­est air­line tick­et counter. "Lis­ten, I'm here to work a char­ter that's com­ing in to­mor­row. Where do the air­lines stay around here?" I'd ask.

I was al­ways sup­plied with the name or names of a near­by inn or inns. I'd pick one, go there and reg­is­ter, and I was nev­er chal­lenged when I asked that Pan Am be billed for my lodg­ing. All they asked was Pan Am's ad­dress in New York.

At in­ter­vals I'd hole up in a city for two or three weeks for lo­gis­tics pur­pos­es. I'd open an ac­count in, say, a San Diego bank, or a Hous­ton bank, giv­ing the ad­dress of an apart­ment I'd rent­ed for the oc­ca­sion (I al­ways rent­ed a pad that could be had on a month-​to-​month ba­sis), and when my lit­tle box of per­son­al­ized checks ar­rived, I would pack up and take to the air­ways again.

I knew I was a hunt­ed man, but I was nev­er sure how close­ly I was be­ing pur­sued or who was in the posse those first two years. Any trav­el­ing con man oc­ca­sion­al­ly gets the jit­ters, cer­tain he's about to be col­lared, and I was no ex­cep­tion. When­ev­er I got a case of the whib­bies, I'd go to earth like a fox.

Or with a fox. Some of the girls I dat­ed came on pret­ty strong, mak­ing it ap­par­ent they thought I was mar­riage ma­te­ri­al. I had a stand­ing in­vi­ta­tion from sev­er­al to vis­it them in their homes for a few days and get to know their par­ents. When I felt the need to hide out, I'd drop in on the near­est one and stay for a few days or a week, rest­ing and re­lax­ing. I hit it off well with the par­ents in ev­ery in­stance. None of them ev­er found out they were aid­ing and abet­ting a ju­ve­nile delin­quent.

When I felt the sit­ua­tion was cool again, I'd take off, promis­ing the par­tic­ular girl that I'd re­turn soon and we'd talk about our fu­ture. I nev­er went back, of course. I was afraid of mar­riage.

Be­sides, my moth­er would not have per­mit­ted it. I was on­ly sev­en­teen.

CHAP­TER FOUR

If I'm a Kid Doc­tor,

Where's My Jar

of Lol­lipops?

Na­tion­al Flight 106, New Or­leans to Mi­ami. A rou­tine dead­head­ing de­cep­tion. I was now pol­ished in my pet­ti­fog­gery as a pi­lot with­out port­fo­lio. I had grown con­fi­dent, even cocky, in my pre-​empt­ing of cock­pit jump seats. Af­ter two hun­dred du­plic­itous flights, I oc­cu­pied a jump seat with the same as­sump­tion of a Wall Street bro­ker in his seat on the stock ex­change.

I even felt a lit­tle nos­tal­gic as I stepped in­to the flight cab­in of the DC-8. My first fraud­ulent flight had been on a Na­tion­al car­ri­er to Mi­ami. Now, two years lat­er, I was re­turn­ing to Mi­ami, and again on a Na­tion­al jet. I thought it ap­pro­pri­ate.

"Hi, Frank Williams. Nice of you to give me a lift," I said with ac­quired poise, and shook hands all around. Cap­tain Tom Wright, air­craft com­man­der, for­ties, slight­ly rum­pled look of com­pe­tence. First Of­fi­cer Gary Evans, ear­ly thir­ties, dap­per, with amused fea­tures. Flight En­gi­neer Bob Hart, late twen­ties, skin­ny, se­ri­ous de­meanor, new uni­form, a rook­ie. Nice guys. The kind I liked to soft-​con.

A stew­ardess brought me a cup of cof­fee as we tax­ied to­ward the run­way. I sipped the brew and watched the plane traf­fic on the strip ahead. It was late Sat­ur­day night, moon­less, and the air­craft, dis­tin­guish­able on­ly by their in­te­ri­or lights and flick­er­ing ex­hausts, dipped and soared like light­ning bugs. I nev­er ceased to be fas­ci­nat­ed by air traf­fic, night or day.

Wright was ap­par­ent­ly not one to use the squawk box. All three of­fi­cers had head­sets, and none of the three had of­fered me a set for mon­itor­ing. If you weren't of­fered, you didn't ask. The cock­pit of a pas­sen­ger plane is like the cap­tain's bridge on a ship. Pro­to­col is rigid­ly ob­served, if that's the tone set by the skip­per. Tom Wright op­er­at­ed his jet by the book, it seemed. I didn't feel slight­ed. The con­ver­sa­tion be­tween the three and the tow­er was clipped and cur­so­ry, rather un­in­ter­est­ing, in fact, as most such one-​sid­ed ex­changes are.

Sud­den­ly it was re­al in­ter­est­ing, so in­ter­est­ing that I start­ed to puck­er at both ends.

Wright and Evans ex­changed arch-​browed, quizzi­cal looks, and Hart was sud­den­ly re­gard­ing me with solemn-​eyed in­ten­si­ty. Then Wright twist­ed around to face me. "Do you have your Pan Am iden­ti­fi­ca­tion card?" he asked.

"Uh, yeah," I said and hand­ed it to him, stom­ach quak­ing as Wright stud­ied the artis­tic fake. "This is Na­tion­al 106 back to tow­er. . . uh, yes, I have an ID card here . . . Pan Am . . . looks fine. . . . Em­ploy­ee num­ber? Uh, three-​five-​ze­ro-​nin­er-​nin­er. . . . Uh-​huh. . . . Uh, yeah. M-​mm, just a mo­ment."

He turned again to me. "Do you have your FAA li­cense?"

"Yes, of course," I said, at­tempt­ing to act puz­zled and keep my blad­der un­der con­trol. It was bulging like a Dutch dike at high tide.

Wright ex­am­ined the forgery close­ly. He was the first re­al pi­lot to in­spect the il­lic­it li­cense. He scru­ti­nized it with the in­ten­si­ty of an art ex­pert judg­ing the au­then­tic­ity of a Gau­guin. Then: "Uh, yeah. FAA li­cense, num­ber ze­ro-​sev­en-​five-​three-​six-​six-​eight-​ze­ro-​five. . . . Yes . . . mul-​tiengine . . . check-​out ATR. . . . Looks fine to me ... I see noth­ing wrong with it. ... Uh, yes, six foot, brown hair, brown eyes. . . . Okay, you got it."

He twist­ed and hand­ed back my ID card and the pur­port­ed li­cense, his face re­flect­ing a mix­ture of cha­grin and apol­ogy. "I don't know what that was all about," he said with a shrug, and did not ask me if I had any ideas on the sub­ject.

I did, but I didn't vol­un­teer any of them. I tried to con­vince my­self that noth­ing was amiss, that the tow­er op­er­ator in New Or­leans was just over­ly of­fi­cious, or do­ing some­thing he thought he should be do­ing. Maybe, I told my­self, there was an FAA reg­ula­tion re­quir­ing such an in­quiry and the tow­er op­er­ator was the first to ob­serve the rule in my ex­pe­ri­ences, but that didn't wash. It had clear­ly been an un­usu­al in­ci­dent for Tom Wright.

The three of­fi­cers seemed to have dis­missed the mat­ter. They asked the usu­al ques­tions and I gave the usu­al an­swers. I took part when the con­ver­sa­tion was in­dus­try-​ori­ent­ed, lis­tened po­lite­ly when the three talked of their fam­ilies. I was ner­vous all the way to Mi­ami, my in­sides as tight­ly coiled as a rat­tler in a prick­ly pear patch.

Wright had no soon­er touched down in Mi­ami than the sword of Damo­cles was once more sus­pend­ed over my head. The omi­nous one-​sid­ed con­ver­sa­tion com­menced while we were taxi­ing to the dock.

"Yeah, we can do that. No prob­lem, no prob­lem," Wright said curt­ly in an­swer to some query from the tow­er. "Take over, I'll be right back," he said to Evans, get­ting out of his seat and leav­ing the flight cab­in.

I knew then with cer­tain­ty that I was in trou­ble. No cap­tain ev­er va­cat­ed his seat while taxi­ing save un­der ex­treme cir­cum­stances. I man­aged to peer around the cab­in-​door comb­ing. Wright was en­gaged in a whis­pered con­ver­sa­tion with the chief stew­ardess. There was no doubt in my mind that I was the sub­ject of the con­ver­sa­tion.

Wright said noth­ing when he re­turned to his seat. I as­sumed a ca­su­al mien, as if noth­ing was amiss. I sensed that any overt ner­vous­ness on my part could prove dis­as­trous, and the sit­ua­tion was al­ready cas­tas­troph­ic.

I was not sur­prised at all when the jet­way door opened and two uni­formed Dade Coun­ty sher­iff's of­fi­cers stepped aboard. One took up a po­si­tion block­ing the ex­it of the pas­sen­gers. The oth­er poked his head in the flight cab­in.

"Frank Williams?" he asked, his eyes dart­ing from man to man.

"I'm Frank Williams," I said, get­ting out of the jump seat.

"Mr. Williams, would you please come with us?" he said, his tone cour­te­ous, his fea­tures pleas­ant.

"Cer­tain­ly," I said. "But what's this all about, any­way?"

It was a ques­tion that al­so in­trigued the three flight of­fi­cers and the stew­ardess­es. All of them were look­ing on with in­quis­itive ex­pres­sions. None of them asked any ques­tions, how­ev­er, and the of­fi­cers did not sat­is­fy their cu­rios­ity. "Just fol­low me, please," he in­struct­ed me, and led the way out the ex­it door. His part­ner fell in be­hind me. It was a mat­ter of con­jec­ture on the part of the flight crew as to whether or not I had been ar­rest­ed. No ref­er­ences had been made to ar­rest or cus­tody. I was not placed in hand­cuffs. Nei­ther of­fi­cer touched me or gave the im­pres­sion I was be­ing re­strained.

I had no il­lu­sions. I'd been bust­ed.

The of­fi­cers es­cort­ed me through the ter­mi­nal and to their pa­trol car, parked at the front curb. One of the deputies opened the right rear door. "Will you get in, please, Mr. Williams. We have in­struc­tions to take you down­town."

The of­fi­cers said noth­ing to me dur­ing the ride to the sher­iff's of­fices. I re­mained silent my­self, as­sum­ing an air of puz­zled in­dig­na­tion. The deputies were clear­ly un­com­fort­able and I had a hunch this was an af­fair in which they weren't re­al­ly sure of their role.

I was tak­en to a small room in the de­tec­tive di­vi­sion and seat­ed in front of a desk. One of the deputies seat­ed him­self in the desk chair while the oth­er stood in front of the closed door. Nei­ther man made an ef­fort to search me, and both were over­ly po­lite.

The one be­hind the desk cleared his throat ner­vous­ly. "Mr. Williams, there seems to be some ques­tion as to whether you work for Pan Am or not," he said, more in ex­pla­na­tion than ac­cu­sa­tion.

"What!" I ex­claimed. "Why that's crazy! Here's my ID and here's my FAA li­cense. Now you tell me who I work for." I slapped the pho­ny doc­uments down on the desk, act­ing as if I'd been ac­cused of sell­ing nu­cle­ar se­crets to the Rus­sians. He ex­am­ined the ID card and the pi­lot's li­cense with ob­vi­ous em­bar­rass­ment and passed them to the sec­ond of­fi­cer, who looked at them and hand­ed them back with a ner­vous smile. They both gave the im­pres­sion they'd just ar­rest­ed the Pres­ident for jay­walk­ing.

"Well, sir, if you'll just bear with us, I'm sure we can get this straight­ened out," the one be­hind the desk ob­served. "This re­al­ly isn't our deal, sir. The peo­ple who asked us to do this will be along short­ly."

"Okay," I agreed. "But who are these peo­ple?" He didn't have to tell me. I knew. And he didn't tell me.

An un­com­fort­able hour passed, more un­com­fort­able for the of­fi­cers than for me. One of them left for a short time, re­turn­ing with cof­fee, milk and sand­wich­es, which they shared with me. There was lit­tle con­ver­sa­tion at first. I act­ed miffed and they act­ed like I should have been act­ing-like they want­ed to be some­where else. Odd­ly enough, I grew re­laxed and con­fi­dent as time passed, dropped my pose of righ­teous in­dig­na­tion and tried to ease their ob­vi­ous dis­com­fi­ture. I told a cou­ple of air­line jokes and they start­ed to re­lax and ask me ques­tions about my ex­pe­ri­ences as a pi­lot and the types of planes I flew.

The queries were ca­su­al and gen­er­al, but of the kind de­signed to es­tab­lish if I was a bona-​fide air­line pi­lot. One of the of­fi­cers, it de­vel­oped, was a pri­vate pi­lot him­self, and at the end of thir­ty min­utes he looked at his part­ner and said, "You know, Bill, I think some­one's made a hel­lu­va mis­take here."

It was near mid­night when the "some­one" ar­rived. He was in his late twen­ties, wear­ing an Ivy League suit and a se­ri­ous ex­pres­sion. He ex­tend­ed a cre­den­tials fold­er in which nes­tled a gold shield. "Mr. Williams? FBI. Will you come with me, please?"

I thought we were go­ing to the FBI of­fices, but in­stead he led me to an ad­join­ing of­fice and shut the door. He flashed a friend­ly smile. "Mr. Williams, I was called over here by the Dade Coun­ty au­thor­ities, who, it seems, were con­tact­ed by some fed­er­al agen­cy in New Or­leans. Un­for­tu­nate­ly, the of­fi­cer who took the call didn't take down the caller's name or the agen­cy he rep­re­sent­ed. He thought it was our agen­cy. It wasn't. We re­al­ly don't know what the prob­lem is, but ap­par­ent­ly there's some ques­tion as to whether you work for Pan Am.

"Frankly, Mr. Williams, we're in a bit of a quandary. We've been pro­ceed­ing on the as­sump­tion the com­plaint is le­git­imate, and we're try­ing to clar­ify the mat­ter one way or the oth­er. The prob­lem is, the em­ploy­ee records are in New York and the Pan Am of­fices are closed over the week­end." He paused and gri­maced. Like the deputies, he wasn't cer­tain he was on firm ground.

"I work for Pan Am, as you will learn when the of­fices open Mon­day morn­ing," I said, af­fect­ing a calm­ly in­dig­nant at­ti­tude. "In the mean­time, what do you do? Put me in jail? If you in­tend to do that, I have a right to call a lawyer. And I in­tend . . ."

He cut me off with a raised hand, palm out­ward. "Look, Mr. Williams, I know what the sit­ua­tion is, if you're for re­al, and I have no rea­son to be­lieve you are not. Lis­ten, do you have any lo­cal su­pe­ri­ors we can con­tact?"

I shook my head. "No, I'm based in L.A. I just dead­head­ed in here to see a girl, and I was go­ing to dead­head back to the Coast Mon­day. I know a lot of pi­lots here, but they're with oth­er air­lines. I know sev­er­al stew­ardess­es, too, but again they're with oth­er car­ri­ers."

"May I see your cre­den­tials, please?"

I hand­ed over the ID card and FAA li­cense. He in­spect­ed the two doc­uments and re­turned them with a nod. "Tell you what, Mr. Williams," he of­fered. "Why don't you give me the names of a cou­ple of pi­lots you know here, and the names of some of the stew­ardess­es, too, who can ver­ify your sta­tus. I don't know what this is about, but it's ob­vi­ous­ly a fed­er­al sit­ua­tion and I'd like to re­solve it."

I fished out my book of facts and names and gave him the names and tele­phone num­bers of sev­er­al pi­lots and stew­ardess­es, hop­ing all the while some of them were home and re­mem­bered me fond­ly. And as an ac­tu­al pi­lot.

I re­al­ly was a "hot" pi­lot at the mo­ment, I thought wry­ly while await­ing the FBI agent's re­turn, but so far I'd been in­cred­ibly lucky con­cern­ing the sit­ua­tion. Ob­vi­ous­ly, the FAA tow­er op­er­ator in New Or­leans had ques­tioned my sta­tus and had made an ef­fort to pur­sue his doubts. What had aroused his sus­pi­cions? I didn't have the an­swer and I wasn't go­ing to seek one. The sher­iffs of­fice had com­mit­ted a faux pas in bob­bling the source of the in­quiry, and the FBI agent was ap­par­ent­ly com­pound­ing the er­ror by ig­nor­ing the FAA as a source of in­for­ma­tion. That puz­zled me, too, but I wasn't go­ing to raise the ques­tion. If a check with the FAA did oc­cur to him, I would re­al­ly be in the grease.

I spent an anx­ious forty-​five min­utes in the room alone and then the agent popped through the door. He was smil­ing. "Mr. Williams, you're free to go. I have con­fir­ma­tion from sev­er­al per­sons as to your sta­tus, and I apol­ogize for the in­con­ve­nience and em­bar­rass­ment I know we've caused you. I'm re­al­ly sor­ry, sir."

A Dade Coun­ty sher­iff's sergeant was be­hind him. "I want to add our apolo­gies, too, Mr. Williams. It wasn't our fault. Just a damned mix-​up. It was an FAA com­plaint from New Or­leans. They asked us to pick you up when you got off the plane and, well, we didn't know where to go from there, so I con­tact­ed the lo­cal FBI and, well, I'm just sor­ry as hell about it, sir."

I didn't want the FBI agent to pick up on the FAA bit. The sergeant had ob­vi­ous­ly cor­rect­ed his de­part­ment's er­ror. I spread my hands in a peace ges­ture and smiled. "Hey, don't wor­ry about it. I un­der­stand, and I'm glad you guys are do­ing your job. I wouldn't want any­one fly­ing around mas­querad­ing as a pi­lot, ei­ther."

"We ap­pre­ci­ate your be­ing so nice about it, Mr. Williams," said the sergeant. "Oh, your bag is over there by my desk."

Ob­vi­ous­ly it hadn't been searched. There was more than $7,000 in cur­ren­cy stashed in the bot­tom, among my un­der­wear. "I got­ta go, gen­tle­men," I said, shak­ing hands with each of them. "I've got a girl wait­ing, and if she doesn't be­lieve this wild tale, I may be call­ing one of you."

The FBI agent grinned and hand­ed me his card. "Call me," he said. "Es­pe­cial­ly if she has a beau­ti­ful friend."

I split like a jack rab­bit. Out­side, I hailed a cab and had the driv­er take me to the bus sta­tion. "The com­pa­ny's on an econ­omy kick," I said as I paid him off. A smile re­placed the quizzi­cal ex­pres­sion on his face.

I went in­to the bus sta­tion rest room and changed out of my uni­form, grabbed an­oth­er cab and went straight to the air­port. The ear­li­est flight leav­ing Mi­ami, de­part­ing with­in thir­ty min­utes, was a Delta hop to At­lanta. I bought a one-​way tick­et on the flight un­der the name Tom Lom-​bar­di and paid cash for it. But I didn't to­tal­ly re­lax un­til we were at cruis­ing al­ti­tude and fly­ing west. Once, dur­ing the short flight, I thought about the young FBI agent and hoped his boss didn't find out how the kid had goofed. The agent didn'tseem the type who'd en­joy a tour of du­ty in Tu­cum­cari, New Mex­ico, or No­gales, Ari­zona.

There was a girl in At­lanta, an East­ern stew­ardess. In any city, there was al­ways a girl. I told this one I was on a six-​month hol­iday, ac­cu­mu­lat­ed leave and sick time. "I thought I'd spend a cou­ple months in At­lanta," I said.

"Make that one month, Frank," she said. "I'm be­ing trans­ferred to New Or­leans in thir­ty days. But you can put up here un­til then."

It was a very pleas­ant and re­lax­ing month, at the end of which I rent­ed a truck and moved her to New Or­leans. She want­ed me to stay with her there for the re­main­der of my "va­ca­tion," but I didn't feel com­fort­able in New Or­leans. My in­stincts told me to get the hell away from the Cres­cent City, so I went back to At­lanta, where, for rea­sons I didn't at­tempt to fath­om, I felt hid­den and se­cure.

The sin­gles com­plex was a still-​rare in­no­va­tion in apart­ment con­struc­tion at the time. One of the most el­egant in the na­tion was Riv­er Bend, lo­cat­ed on the out­skirts of At­lanta. It was a sprawl­ing, spa-​like clus­ter of apart­ment units boast­ing a golf course, an Olympic-​sized pool, saunas, ten­nis courts, a gym­na­si­um, game rooms and its own club. One of its ad­ver­tise­ments in the At­lanta Jour­nal caught my eye and I went out to scout the premis­es.

I don't smoke. I've nev­er had an urge to try to­bac­co. I didn't drink at the time, and still don't save on rare oc­ca­sions. I didn't have any quar­rel with al­co­hol or its users. My ab­sti­nence was part of the role I was play­ing. When I first be­gan mas­querad­ing as a pi­lot I had the im­pres­sion that pi­lots didn't drink to any great de­gree, so I ab­stained on the premise that it would re­in­force my im­age as a fly­er. When I learned that some pi­lots, like oth­er peo­ple, get soused to the fol­li­cle pits un­der per­mis­si­ble cir­cum­stances, I'd lost all in­ter­est in drink­ing.

My one sen­su­ous fault was wom­en. I had a Cypri­an lust for them. The Riv­er Bend ad had tout­ed it as a "scin­til­lat­ing" place to live, and the builder was ob­vi­ous­ly a firm ad­vo­cate of truth in ad­ver­tis­ing. Riv­er Bend sparkled with scin­til­la­tors, most of them young, leg­gy, love­ly, shape­ly and clad in re­veal­ing cloth­ing. I in­stant­ly de­cid­ed that I want­ed to be one of the bulls in this Geor­gia peach or­chard.

Riv­er Bend was both ex­pen­sive and se­lec­tive. I was giv­en a lengthy ap­pli­ca­tion to fill out when I told the man­ag­er I want­ed to lease a one-​bed­room unit for one year. The form de­mand­ed more in­for­ma­tion than a prospec­tive moth­er-​in-​law. I elect­ed to stay Frank W. Williams since all the pho­ny iden­ti­fi­ca­tion with which I had sup­plied my­self was in that name. I paused at the space for oc­cu­pa­tion. I want­ed to put down "air­line pi­lot," for I knew that the uni­form would at­tract girls like a buck rub lures a doe. But if I did that I'd have to spec­ify Pan Am as my em­ploy­er, and that made me wary. Maybe, just maybe, some­one in the man­ag­er's of­fice might check with Pan Am.

On im­pulse, noth­ing more, I put down "med­ical doc­tor" as my oc­cu­pa­tion. I left the spaces for rel­atives and ref­er­ences blank and, hope­ful it would dis­tract at­ten­tion from the ques­tions I'd ig­nored, I said I'd like to pay six months' rent in ad­vance. I put twen­ty-​four $100 bills on top of the ap­pli­ca­tion.

The as­sis­tant man­ag­er who ac­cept­ed the ap­pli­ca­tion, a wom­an, was in­quis­itive. "You're a doc­tor?" she asked, as if doc­tors were as rare as whoop­ing cranes. "What type of doc­tor are you?"

I thought I'd bet­ter be the kind of doc­tor that would nev­er be need­ed around Riv­er Bend. "I'm a pe­di­atri­cian," I lied. "How­ev­er, I'm not prac­tic­ing right now. My prac­tice is in Cal­ifor­nia, and I've tak­en a leave of ab­sence for one year to au­dit some re­search projects at Emory and to make some in­vest­ments."

"That's very in­ter­est­ing," she said, and then looked at the pile of $100 bills. She gath­ered them up briskly and dropped them in­to a steel cash box in the top draw­er of her desk. "It'll be nice hav­ing you with us, Dr. Williams."

I moved in the same day. The one-​bed­room pad wasn't over­ly large, but it was el­egant­ly fur­nished, and there was am­ple room for the ac­tion I had in mind.

Life at Riv­er Bend was fas­ci­nat­ing, de­light­ful and sat­is­fy­ing, if some­times fre­net­ic. There was a par­ty in some­one's pad al­most ev­ery night, and side ac­tion all over the place. I was gen­er­al­ly in­vit­ed to be a part of the scene, what­ev­er it was. The oth­er ten­ants ac­cept­ed me quick­ly, and save for ca­su­al in­quiries, eas­ily han­dled, made no ef­fort to pry in­to my per­son­al life or af­fairs. They called me "Doc," and of course there were those few who don't dif­fer­en­ti­ate be­tween doc­tors. This guy had a com­plaint about his foot. That one had mys­te­ri­ous pains in his stom­ach. There was a brunette who had an "odd, tight feel­ing" around her up­per chest.

"I'm a pe­di­atri­cian, a ba­by doc­tor. You want a po­di­atrist, a foot doc­tor," I told the first man.

"I'm not li­censed to prac­tice in Geor­gia. I sug­gest you talk to your own doc­tor," I told the oth­er one.

I ex­am­ined the brunette. Her brassiere was too small.

No sea of­fers calm sail­ing all the time, how­ev­er, and one Sat­ur­day af­ter­noon I en­coun­tered a squall that quick­ly built in­to a tragi­com­ic hur­ri­cane.

I an­swered a knock on my door to face a tall, dis­tin­guished-​look­ing man in his mid­dle fifties, ca­su­al­ly at­tired but still man­ag­ing to ap­pear im­pec­ca­bly groomed. He had a smile on his pleas­ant fea­tures and a drink in his hand.

"Dr. Williams?" he said, and as­sum­ing he was cor­rect, pro­ceed­ed to the point. "I'm Dr. Willis Granger, chief res­ident pe­di­atri­cian of Smithers Pe­di­atric In­sti­tute and Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal in Ma­ri­et­ta."

I was too stunned to re­ply and he went on with a grin, "I'm your new neigh­bor. Just moved in yes­ter­day, right be­low you. The as­sis­tant man­ag­er, Mrs. Prell, told me you were a pe­di­atri­cian. I couldn't help but come up and in­tro­duce my­self to a col­league. I'm not in­ter­rupt­ing any­thing, am I?"

"Uh, no-no, not at all, Dr. Granger. Come in," I said, hop­ing he'd refuse. He didn't. He walked in and set­tled on my so­fa.

"Where'd you go to school, here?" he asked. It was a nor­mal ques­tion for doc­tors meet­ing, I sup­pose.

I knew on­ly one col­lege that had a school of medicine. "Columbia Uni­ver­si­ty in New York," I said, and prayed he wasn't an alum­nus.

He nod­ded. "A great school. Where'd you serve your in­tern­ship?"

In­tern­ship. That was done in a hos­pi­tal, I knew. I'd nev­er been in a hos­pi­tal. I'd passed a lot of them, but the name of on­ly one stuck in my mind. I hoped it was the kind of hos­pi­tal that had in­terns. "Har­bor Chil­drens Hos­pi­tal in Los An­ge­les," I said and wait­ed.

"Hey, ter­rif­ic," he said, and much to my re­lief dropped the per­son­al line of prob­ing.

"You know, Smithers is a new fa­cil­ity. I've just been ap­point­ed to head up the pe­di­atrics staff. It'll be a sev­en-​sto­ry hos­pi­tal when it's fin­ished, but we've got on­ly six floors open at the mo­ment, and not too much traf­fic as yet. Why don't you come up and have lunch with me some af­ter­noon and let me show you around the place. You'll like it, I think."

"That sounds great, I'd love it," I replied, and soon af­ter­ward he left. I was sud­den­ly glum and de­pressed in the wake of his vis­it, and my first im­pulse was to pack and get the hell out of Riv­er Bend, if not At­lanta. Granger liv­ing right be­low me posed a def­inite threat to my ex­is­tence at Riv­er Bend.

If I stayed, it would be on­ly a mat­ter of time be­fore he'd know I was a pho­ny, and I doubt­ed he'd let it go at that. He'd prob­ably call in the au­thor­ities.

I was tired of run­ning. I'd been on the run for two years, and at the mo­ment I wasn't re­call­ing the ex­cite­ment, glam­our and fun of it all; I just want­ed a place to call home, a place where I could be at peace for a while, a place where I had some friends. Riv­er Bend had been that place for two months, and I didn't want to leave. I was hap­py at Riv­er Bend.

A stub­born anger re­placed my de­pres­sion. To hell with Granger. I wouldn't let him force me back to the pa­per-​hang­er's cir­cuit. I'd just avoid him. If he came to vis­it, I'd be busy. When he was in, I'd be out.

It wasn't that easy. Granger was a lik­able man and a gre­gar­ious one. He start­ed show­ing up at the par­ties to which I was in­vit­ed. If he wasn't in­vit­ed, he'd in­vite him­self. And he was soon one of the most pop­ular men in the com­plex. I couldn't avoid him. When he'd see me abroad, he'd hail me and stop me for a chat. And when he knew I was at home, he'd call on me.

Granger had a sav­ing grace. He wasn't one to talk shop. He pre­ferred to talk about the many love­ly wom­en he'd met at Riv­er Bend, and the fun he was hav­ing with them. "You know, I was nev­er re­al­ly a bach­elor, Frank," he con­fid­ed. "I got mar­ried young, a mar­riage nei­ther of us should have en­tered in­to, and we stayed with it too long. Why, I don't know. But I'm hav­ing a ball, now. I feel like a thir­ty-​year-​old man again." Or he'd talk pol­itics, world af­fairs, cars, sports, ethics and any­thing else. He was a learned and ar­tic­ulate man, in­formed on an amaz­ing range of sub­jects.

I start­ed to re­lax around Granger. In fact, I found him en­joy­able com­pa­ny and even start­ed seek­ing him out. Wary that the sub­ject of pe­di­atrics would re­cur soon­er or lat­er, how­ev­er, I start­ed spend­ing a lot of time in the At­lanta li­brary, read­ing books by pe­di­atri­cians, med­ical jour­nals with ar­ti­cles on chil­dren's medicine and any oth­er avail­able print­ed mat­ter that dealt with the sub­ject. I quick­ly ac­quired a broad gen­er­al knowl­edge of pe­di­atrics, enough knowl­edge, I felt, to cope with any ca­su­al con­ver­sa­tions con­cern­ing pe­di­atrics.

I felt well-​enough in­formed, af­ter sev­er­al weeks of study, in fact, to ac­cept Granger's in­vi­ta­tion to have lunch with him at the hos­pi­tal.

He met me in the lob­by and prompt­ly in­tro­duced me to the re­cep­tion­ist. "This is Dr. Williams, a friend of mine from Los An­ge­les and, un­til he re­turns to Cal­ifor­nia, my neigh­bor." I'm not sure why I was in­tro­duced to the re­cep­tion­ist, un­less Granger thought he was be­ing help­ful. She was a love­ly young wom­an.

A sim­ilar in­tro­duc­tion was made fre­quent­ly dur­ing an ex­act­ing tour of the hos­pi­tal. We vis­it­ed ev­ery de­part­ment. I met the hos­pi­tal ad­min­is­tra­tor, the chief ra­di­ol­ogist, the head of phys­ical ther­apy, the head nurse, in­terns, oth­er doc­tors and dozens of nurs­es. We had lunch in the hos­pi­tal cafe­te­ria, and from the num­ber of doc­tors and nurs­es who joined us at the dorm-​type ta­ble where we sat, it was ob­vi­ous Dr. Granger was a pop­ular and well-​liked man.

I re­turned to the hos­pi­tal fre­quent­ly there­after, chiefly be­cause of Bren­da Strong, a nurse I had met there and start­ed dat­ing, but al­so be­cause the hos­pi­tal had a large med­ical li­brary with up-​to-​the-​minute books, jour­nals and med­ical mag­azines deal­ing with ev­ery facet of pe­di­atrics.

I could browse around in the li­brary as long as I want­ed, which was some­times hours, with­out arous­ing any sus­pi­cions. In fact, I learned my fre­quent use of the li­brary earned me re­spect be­yond pro­fes­sion­al recog­ni­tion from the hos­pi­tal's staff doc­tors. "Most of the doc­tors think you're pret­ty sharp, keep­ing up in your field even though you're on a leave of ab­sence," Bren­da told me.

"I think you're pret­ty sharp, too."

She was thir­ty, a ripe, lus­cious brunette with a zest for mak­ing it. I some­times won­dered what she'd think if she knew her lover was an eigh­teen-​year-​old fraud. How­ev­er, I nev­er thought of my­self as a teen-​ager any­more, save on rare oc­ca­sions. When I looked in a mir­ror, I saw a ma­ture man of twen­ty-​five or thir­ty and that's how I felt about my­self, too. I'd been just an ad­ven­tur­ous boy when I al­tered my chrono­log­ical age, but my men­tal clock, dur­ing the past two years, had set it­self ahead to cor­re­spond.

Still, I'd al­ways had ma­ture tastes in wom­en. There were sev­er­al tan­ta­liz­ing can­dy-​stripers among the vol­un­teer staff of the hos­pi­tal, all in their late teens, but I was nev­er at­tract­ed to any one of them. I pre­ferred so­phis­ti­cat­ed, ex­pe­ri­enced wom­en in their twen­ties or old­er. Like Bren­da.

Af­ter sev­er­al vis­its to the hos­pi­tal, my ini­tial trep­ida­tions dis­si­pat­ed, I be­gan to en­joy my spu­ri­ous role as a medi­co. I ex­pe­ri­enced the same vi­car­ious plea­sures, the same ego boosts, I'd known as a bo­gus pi­lot.

I'd walk down the cor­ri­dor on one of the hos­pi­tal floors and a pret­ty nurse would smile and say, "Good morn­ing, Dr. Williams."

Or I'd en­counter a group of staff in­terns and they'd nod re­spect­ful­ly and chant in uni­son, "Good af­ter­noon, Dr. Williams."

Or I'd en­counter one of the se­nior staff physi­cians and he'd shake hands and say, "Good to see you again, Dr. Williams."

And all day long I'd go around feel­ing like Hip­pocrates in my hyp­ocrite's man­tle. I even start­ed sport­ing a tiny gold ca­duceus in my lapel.

No one tried to put me in a cor­ner. I had no prob­lems at all un­til one af­ter­noon, fol­low­ing lunch with Granger and Bren­da, I was leav­ing the hos­pi­tal when John Colter, the ad­min­is­tra­tor, hailed me.

"Dr. Williams! May I see you just a mo­ment, sir." With­out wait­ing for an an­swer, he head­ed straight for his of­fice near­by.

"Oh, shit," I said, and didn't re­al­ize I'd said it aloud un­til a pass­ing or­der­ly gave me a grin. I had an im­pulse to bolt, but sup­pressed the urge. Colter's voice had not re­flect­ed any ir­ri­ta­tion or doubt. The re­quest, while brusque, seemed de­void of sus­pi­cion. I fol­lowed him in­to his of­fice.

"Doc­tor, have a seat, please," said Colter, mo­tion­ing to a com­fort­able lounge chair as he set­tled be­hind his desk. I re­laxed im­me­di­ate­ly. He was still ad­dress­ing me as "doc­tor," and his man­ner now was al­most in­gra­ti­at­ing.

Colter, in fact, seemed em­bar­rassed. He cleared his throat. "Dr. Williams, I'm about to ask you for a very big fa­vor, a fa­vor I have no right to ask," Colter said with a wry gri­mace. "I know that what I'm about to pro­pose will be im­pos­ing on you, but I'm in a box, and I think you're the man who can solve my prob­lem. Will you help me?"

I looked at him, per­plexed. "Well, I'll be hap­py to, if I can, sir," I replied cau­tious­ly.

Colter nod­ded and his tone be­came brisk. "Here's my prob­lem, Doc­tor. On my mid­night-​to-​eight shift, I have a res­ident who su­per­vis­es sev­en in­terns and about forty nurs­es. He had a death in the fam­ily this af­ter­noon, a sis­ter in Cal­ifor­nia. He's left to go out there, and will be gone about ten days. Doc­tor, I've got no­body to cov­er that shift. No­body. If you've been keep­ing up with the sit­ua­tion here, and I know from your ac­tiv­ities that you have, you know we've got a se­vere short­age of doc­tors in At­lanta at the mo­ment. I can't find a doc­tor to re­place Jes­sup, and I can't do it my­self. I'm not a med­ical doc­tor, as you know.

"I can't use an in­tern. The law re­quires a gen­er­al prac­ti­tion­er or a spe­cial­ist in one of the med­ical fields be the su­per­vis­ing res­ident of a hos­pi­tal like this. Do you fol­low me?"

I nod­ded. I was fol­low­ing him, but in the same man­ner a jack­al fol­lows a tiger. Way back.

Colter plunged on. "Now, Dr. Granger tells me you're pret­ty well un­en­cum­bered here, that you spend a lot of time around your apart­ment, just tak­ing it easy and play­ing with the girls." He held up a hand and smiled. "No of­fense, Doc­tor. I en­vy you."

His voice be­came plead­ing. "Dr. Williams, could you come up here and just sit around for ten days from mid­night to eight? You won't have to do any­thing, I as­sure you. Just be here, so I can meet the state's re­quire­ments. I need you, Doc­tor. We'll pay you well, Doc­tor. Hell, as a bonus, I'll even put Nurse Strong on the shift for the ten days. I tell you, Doc­tor, I'm in a bind. If you refuse me, I don't know what the hell I can do."

The re­quest as­ton­ished me, and I prompt­ly ob­ject­ed. "Mr. Colter, I'd like to help you, but there's no way I could agree," I protest­ed.

"Oh, why not?" Colter asked.

"Well, in the first place, I don't have a li­cense to prac­tice medicine in Geor­gia," I be­gan, but Colter si­lenced me with an em­phat­ic shake of his head.

"Well, you wouldn't re­al­ly be do­ing any­thing," said Colter. "I'm not ask­ing that you ac­tu­al­ly treat pa­tients. I'm just ask­ing that you act in a stand-​in ca­pac­ity. As for a li­cense, you don't re­al­ly need one. You have a Cal­ifor­nia li­cense, and Cal­ifor­nia stan­dards are as high as, if not high­er than, Geor­gia stan­dards, and rec­og­nized by our med­ical as­so­ci­ation. All I have to do, Doc­tor, is to bring you be­fore a pan­el of five doc­tors, li­censed by this state and mem­bers of this hos­pi­tal's staff, for an in­ter­view con­fer­ence, and they have the au­thor­ity to ask the state for a tem­po­rary med­ical cer­tifi­cate that will al­low you to prac­tice in Geor­gia. Doc­tor, I'd like to have that con­fer­ence in the morn­ing. What do you say?"

Rea­son told me to refuse. There were too many haz­ards to my pos­ture in­volved. Any one of the ques­tions that might be asked me on the mor­row could strip me of my pre­tense and ex­pose me for the "doc­tor" I was in re­al­ity. A snake-​oil spe­cial­ist.

But I was chal­lenged. "Well, if there's not that much dif­fi­cul­ty in­volved, and if it won't take a lot of my time, I'll be hap­py to help you out," I agreed. "Now, specif­ical­ly, what will be my du­ties? Mine has been an of­fice prac­tice

on­ly, you know. Save for call­ing on pa­tients that I've had to ad­mit for one rea­son or an­oth­er, I know noth­ing of hos­pi­tal rou­tines."

Colter laughed. He was ob­vi­ous­ly re­lieved and hap­py. "Hot dog! Your du­ty? Just be here, Doc­tor. Walk around. Show your­self. Play pok­er with the in­terns. Play grab-​ass with the nurs­es. Hell, Frank-I'm gonna call you Frank be­cause you're a friend of mine, now-do any­thing you want to do. Just be here!"

I did have mis­giv­ings when I walked in­to the con­fer­ence room the next morn­ing to face the five doc­tors. I knew all of them from my fre­quent vis­its to the hos­pi­tal, and Granger head­ed up the pan­el. He flashed me a con­spir­ato­ri­al grin as I walked in.

The in­ter­view was a farce, much to my de­light. I was asked on­ly ba­sic ques­tions. Where'd I go to med­ical school? Where'd I in­tern? My age? Where did I prac­tice? How long had I been a prac­tic­ing pe­di­atri­cian? Not one of the doc­tors posed a ques­tion that would have test­ed any med­ical knowl­edge I might have pos­sessed. I walked out of the con­fer­ence with a let­ter ap­point­ing me tem­po­rary res­ident su­per­vi­sor on the staff of the hos­pi­tal, and the next day Granger brought me an­oth­er let­ter from the state med­ical board au­tho­riz­ing me to use my Cal­ifor­nia med­ical cer­tifi­cate to prac­tice in Geor­gia for a pe­ri­od of one year.

One of my fa­vorite tele­vi­sion pro­grams is "M*A*S*H," the se­ri­ocom­ic sto­ry of a fic­tion­al Army med­ical unit on the Ko­re­an War front. I nev­er see a "M*A*S*H" seg­ment with­out re­call­ing my "med­ical ca­reer" at Smithers. I imag­ine there are sev­er­al doc­tors in Geor­gia to­day who al­so can't view the pro­gram with­out mem­ories of a cer­tain res­ident su­per­vi­sor.

My first shift set the tone for all my sub­se­quent "du­ty tours." I was aware from the mo­ment I ac­cept­ed Colter's plea that there was on­ly one way I could car­ry out my mon­umen­tal bluff. If I was go­ing to fake out sev­en in­terns, forty nurs­es and lit­er­al­ly dozens of sup­port per­son­nel, I was go­ing to have to give the im­pres­sion that I was some­thing of a buf­foon of the med­ical pro­fes­sion.

I de­cid­ed I'd have to project the im­age of a hap­py-​go-​lucky, easy­go­ing, al­ways-​jok­ing ras­cal who couldn't care less whether the rules learned in med­ical school were kept or not. I put my act on the road the minute I ar­rived for du­ty the first night and was met by Bren­da in the R.S.'s of­fice. Colter had not been jest­ing, it seemed. She was smil­ing.

"Here you are, Doc­tor, your smock and your stetho­scope," she said, hand­ing them to me. "Hey, you don't have to work this dog shift," I said, shrug­ging in­to the white gar­ment. "When Colter said he'd as­sign you to this shift, I thought he was kid­ding. I'll talk to him to­mor­row."

She flashed an imp­ish look. "He didn't as­sign me," she said. "I asked the head nurse to put me on this shift for the du­ra­tion-your du­ra­tion."

I prompt­ly donned the ear­pieces of the stetho­scope and reached in­side her blouse to ap­ply the disk to her left breast. "I al­ways knew your heart was in the right place, Nurse Strong," I said. "What's the first or­der of busi­ness tonight?"

"Not that," she said, pulling my hand away. "I sug­gest you make a floor check be­fore you start think­ing about a bed check."

The pe­di­atrics ward took in the en­tire sixth floor of the hos­pi­tal. It in­clud­ed the nurs­ery, with about a dozen new­born ba­bies, and three wings for chil­dren con­va­lesc­ing from ill­ness, in­jury or surgery, or chil­dren ad­mit­ted for di­ag­no­sis or treat­ment. There were about twen­ty chil­dren, rang­ing in age from two to twelve, in my charge. For­tu­nate­ly, they weren't tech­ni­cal­ly un­der my care, since each was in the care of his or her own pe­di­atri­cian who pre­scribed all treat­ment and med­ica­tion.

Mine was strict­ly a su­per­vi­sor's or ob­serv­er's role, al­though I was ex­pect­ed to be the med­ical doc­tor avail­able

for any emer­gen­cies. I hoped there wouldn't be any emer­gen­cies, but I had a plan for such a con­tin­gen­cy. I spent the first night cul­ti­vat­ing the in­terns, who were ac­tu­al­ly the guardians of the pa­tients. All of them want­ed to be pe­di­atri­cians, and the sixth floor was an ex­cel­lent prov­ing ground. They seemed to me, af­ter sev­er­al hours of watch­ing them, to be as com­pe­tent and ca­pa­ble as some of the staff doc­tors, but I wasn't re­al­ly in a po­si­tion to pass judg­ment. It would have been akin to an il­lit­er­ate cer­ti­fy­ing Ein­stein's the­ory of rel­ativ­ity.

But I sensed be­fore morn­ing that the in­terns, to a man, liked me as a su­per­vi­sor and weren't like­ly to cause a flap.

The first shift was lazy, pleas­ant and un­event­ful un­til about 7 a.m., when the nurse in charge of the sixth-​floor sta­tion con­tact­ed me. "Doc­tor, don't for­get be­fore you go off du­ty that you need to write charts for me," she said.

"Uh, yeah, okay, get them ready for me," I said. I went up to the sta­tion and looked over the stack of charts she had ready for me. There was one for each pa­tient, not­ing med­ica­tion giv­en, times, the names of the nurs­es and in­terns in­volved and in­struc­tions from the at­tend­ing physi­cian. "That's your space," said the nurse, point­ing to a blank area on the chart op­po­site the head­ing su­per­vis­ing

RES­IDENT'S COM­MENTS.

I no­ticed the oth­er doc­tors in­volved had writ­ten in Latin. Or Greek. Or maybe it was just their nor­mal hand­writ­ing. I sure couldn't read it.

I sure as hell didn't want any­one read­ing what I wrote, ei­ther. So I scrib­bled some hi­ero­glyph­ics all over each chart and signed my name in the same in­de­ci­pher­able man­ner in each in­stance.

"There you go, Miss Mur­phy," I said, hand­ing back the charts. "You'll note I gave you an A."

She laughed. I got a lot of laughs dur­ing the fol­low­ing shifts with my wise­crack­ing man­ner, seem­ing ir­rev­er­ence for se­ri­ous sub­jects and zany ac­tions. For ex­am­ple, an ob­ste­tri­cian came in ear­ly one morn­ing with one of his pa­tients, a wom­an in the last throes of la­bor. "You want to scrub up and look in on this? I think it's go­ing to be triplets," he asked.

"No, but I'll see you have plen­ty of boil­ing wa­ter and lots of clean rags," I quipped. Even he thought it was hi­lar­ious.

But I knew I was tread­ing on thin ice, and about 2:30 a.m. at the end of my first week, the ice start­ed crack­ing. "Dr. Williams! To Emer­gen­cy, please. Dr. Williams! To Emer­gen­cy, please."

I had so far avoid­ed the emer­gen­cy ward, and it was my un­der­stand­ing with Colter that I wouldn't have to han­dle emer­gen­cy cas­es. There was sup­posed to be a staff doc­tor man­ning the emer­gen­cy ward. I pre­sumed there was. I hate the sight of blood. I can't stand the sight of blood. Even a lit­tle blood makes me ill. I once passed near the emer­gen­cy ward and saw them bring­ing in an ac­ci­dent vic­tim. He was all bloody and moan­ing, and I hur­ried to the near­est toi­let and vom­it­ed.

Now here I was be­ing sum­moned to the emer­gen­cy room. I knew I couldn't say I hadn't heard the an­nounce­ment-two nurs­es were talk­ing to me when the loud­speak­er blared the mes­sage-but I daw­dled as much as pos­si­ble en route.

I used the toi­let first. Then I used the stairs in­stead of the el­eva­tor. I knew my de­lay might be harm­ful to whomev­er need­ed a doc­tor, but it would be just as harm­ful if I rushed to the emer­gen­cy ward. I wouldn't know what to do once I got there. Es­pe­cial­ly if the pa­tient was bleed­ing.

This one wasn't, for­tu­nate­ly. It was a kid of about thir­teen, white-​faced, propped up on his el­bows on the ta­ble and look­ing at the three in­terns grouped around him. The in­terns looked at me as I stopped in­side the door.

"Well, what do we have here?" I asked.

"A sim­ple frac­ture of the tib­ia, about five inch­es be­low the patel­la, it looks like," said the se­nior in­tern, Dr. Hol­lis Carter. "We were just get­ting ready to take some X rays. Un­less we find some­thing more se­vere, I'd say put him in a walk­ing cast and send him home."

I looked at Carl Farnsworth and Sam Bice, the oth­er two in­terns. "Dr. Farnsworth?" He nod­ded. "I con­cur, Doc­tor. It may not even be bro­ken."

"How about you, Dr. Bice?"

"I think that's all we've got here, if that much," he said.

"Well, gen­tle­men, you don't seem to have much need of me. Car­ry on," I said and left. I learned lat­er the kid had a bro­ken shin bone, but at the time he could have need­ed eye­glass­es for all I knew.

I had oth­er emer­gen­cy-​ward calls in en­su­ing nights, and each time I let the in­terns han­dle the sit­ua­tion. I would go in, ques­tion one of them as to the na­ture of the ill­ness or in­jury and then ask him how he would treat the pa­tient. On be­ing told, I'd con­fer with one or both of the oth­er in­terns who were usu­al­ly present. If he or they con­curred, I'd nod au­thor­ita­tive­ly and say, "All right, Doc­tor. Have at it."

I didn't know how well my at­ti­tude set with the in­terns con­cern­ing such in­ci­dents, but I soon found out. They loved it. "They think you're great, Frank," said Bren­da.

"Young Dr. Carter es­pe­cial­ly thinks you're ter­rif­ic. I heard him telling some friends of his vis­it­ing from Ma­con how you let him get re­al prac­tice, that you just come in, get his com­ments on the sit­ua­tion and let him pro­ceed. He says you make him feel like a prac­tic­ing doc­tor."

I smiled. "I'm just lazy," I replied.

But I re­al­ized af­ter the first shift that I need­ed some help. I lo­cat­ed a pock­et dic­tio­nary of med­ical terms, and there­after when I'd hear the in­terns or nurs­es men­tion a word or phrase, the mean­ing of which I didn't know, I'd slip up­stairs to the un­fin­ished sev­enth floor, go in­to one of the emp­ty linen clos­ets and look up the word or words. Some­times I'd spend fif­teen or twen­ty min­utes in the clos­et just leaf­ing through the dic­tio­nary.

On what I thought would be my last night in the guise of res­ident su­per­vi­sor, Colter sought me out. "Frank, I know I've got no right to ask this, but I have to. Dr. Jes­sup isn't com­ing back. He's de­cid­ed to stay and prac­tice in Cal­ifor­nia. Now, I'm pret­ty sure I can find a re­place­ment with­in a cou­ple of weeks, so could I pre­sume on you to stay that long?" He wait­ed, a plead­ing look on his face.

He caught me at the right time. I was in love with my role as doc­tor. I was en­joy­ing it al­most as much as my pre­tense of air­line pi­lot. And it was much more re­lax­ing. I hadn't writ­ten a bad check since as­sum­ing the pose of pe­di­atri­cian. In fact, since tak­ing the tem­po­rary po­si­tion at Smithers, I hadn't even thought about pass­ing any worth­less pa­per. The hos­pi­tal was pay­ing me a $125-a-​day "con­sul­tant's" fee, payable week­ly.

I clapped Colter on the back. "Sure, John," I agreed. "Why not? I've got noth­ing else I'd rather do at the mo­ment."

I was con­fi­dent I could car­ry the scam for an­oth­er two weeks, and I did, but then the two weeks be­came a month and the month be­came two months, and Colter still hadn't found a re­place­ment for Jes­sup. Some of the con­fi­dence be­gan to wane, and at times I was nagged by the thought that Colter, or some doc­tor on the staff, even Granger, maybe, might start check­ing in­to my med­ical cre­den­tials, es­pe­cial­ly if a sticky sit­ua­tion de­vel­oped on my shift.

I main­tained my cocky, to-​hell-​with-​rules-​and-​reg­ula-​tions de­meanor with the in­terns, nurs­es and oth­ers un­der my nom­inal com­mand, and the mid­night-​to-​eight shift staff con­tin­ued to sup­port me loy­al­ly. The nurs­es thought I was a dar­ling kook and ap­pre­ci­at­ed the fact that I nev­er tried to cor­ner them in an un­oc­cu­pied room. The in­terns were proud to be on my shift. We'd de­vel­oped a re­al ca­ma­raderie, and the young doc­tors re­spect­ed me. They thought I was wacky, but com­pe­tent. "You don't treat us like the oth­er staff doc­tors, Dr. Williams," Carter con­fid­ed. "When they walk in while we're treat­ing a pa­tient, they say 'Move aside/ and just take over. You don't. You let us go ahead and han­dle the case. You let us be re­al doc­tors."

I sure as hell did. I didn't know a damned thing about medicine. Those young doc­tors didn't know it un­til years lat­er, but they were the sole rea­son I was able to keep up my med­ical mas­quer­ade. When things got tough-at least tough for me, and a headache was too stout for my med­ical knowl­edge- I'd leave it to the in­terns and flee to my linen clos­et on the sev­enth floor.

For­tu­nate­ly, dur­ing my tenure at Smithers, I was nev­er faced with a life-​or-​death sit­ua­tion, but there were tick­lish po­si­tions where on­ly my an­tic's mien saved me. Ear­ly one morn­ing, for in­stance, an ob­stet­rics team nurse sought me out. "Dr. Williams, we just de­liv­ered a ba­by, and Dr. Mar­tin was called across the hall to do a Cae­sar­ian sec­tion while we were still ty­ing the cord. He asks if you'd be kind enough to make a rou­tine ex­am­ina­tion of the child."

I couldn't very well refuse. I was chat­ting with two nurs­es on my shift at the time the re­quest was made. "I'll help you, Dr. Williams," vol­un­teered the one, Jana Stern, a ded­icat­ed RN who was at­tend­ing med­ical school her­self and hoped to be a pe­di­atri­cian spe­cial­iz­ing in new­borns.

She led the way to the nurs­ery and I re­luc­tant­ly fol­lowed. I had some­times paused out­side the plate-​glass win­dow of the nurs­ery to look at the tiny, wrin­kled new­borns in their in­cu­ba­tors or box-​like bassinets, but I'd nev­er gone in­side. They re­mind­ed me of so many mewl­ing kit­tens, and I've al­ways been slight­ly leery of cats, even lit­tle ones.

I start­ed to shove open the door of the nurs­ery and Nurse Stern grabbed my arm. "Doc­tor!" she gasped.

"Whaf s wrong?" I asked, look­ing around des­per­ate­ly for one of my trusty in­terns.

"You can't go in like that!" she scold­ed me. "You have to scrub up and put on a smock and mask. You know that!" She hand­ed me a green jack­et and a ster­ile mask.

I gri­maced. "Help me on with these damned things," I growled. "Why do we need a mask? I'm on­ly gonna look at the kid, not stick him up." I re­al­ized why I need­ed a mask. I was try­ing to cov­er. And I did. She clucked. "Hon­est, Doc­tor, you're too much at times," she said in ex­as­per­at­ed tones.

It was a ba­by boy, still glis­ten­ing red­ly from his rough pas­sage through the nar­row chan­nel of life. He re­gard­ed me with a lugubri­ous ex­pres­sion. "Okay, kid, take a deep breath and milk it back," I com­mand­ed in mock mil­itary tone, start­ing to ap­ply my stetho­scope to the ba­by's chest.

Nurse Stern grabbed my arm again, laugh­ing. "Doc­tor! You can't use that stetho­scope on a new­born! You use a pe­di­atrics stetho­scope." She bust­ed out and re­turned with a small­er ver­sion of the one I held. I hadn't known they came in sizes. "Will you quit fool­ing around, please? We've got a lot of work to do."

I stepped back and waved at the ba­by. "Tell you what, Dr. Stern. You ex­am­ine the boy. I'd like to check your style."

She rose to the bait. "Well, I can do it," she said, as if I'd in­sult­ed her, but still vis­ibly pleased. She ap­plied the stetho­scope, then draped it around her neck and pro­ceed­ed to ma­nip­ulate the ba­by's arms, legs and hips, peered in­to his eyes, ears, mouth and anus and ran her hands over his head and body. She stepped back and stared at me chal­leng­ing­ly. "Well?"

I leaned down and kissed her on the fore­head. "Thank you, Doc­tor, you've saved my on­ly son," I said with mock tear­ful­ness.

The ba­by had lost his dole­ful look. No one is re­al­ly cer­tain if new­born in­fants have thoughts or are aware of what is go­ing on around them. No one but me, that is. That kid knew I was a pho­ny. I could see it in his face.

I ex­am­ined sev­er­al new­borns af­ter that. I nev­er knew what I was do­ing, of course, but, thanks to Nurse Stern, I knew how to do it.

But I still spent a lot of time in my sev­enth-​floor linen clos­et.

There were times, too, I'm sure, when my tom­fool de­meanor irked peo­ple. Like the night, in the eleventh month of my im­per­son­ation, when a nurse rushed up to the nurs­ing sta­tion where I was writ­ing my un­de­ci­pher­able com­ments on charts. "Dr. Williams! We've got a blue ba­by in 608! Come quick­ly." She was a new nurse, bare­ly a month out of school. And I'd nipped her with one of my prac­ti­cal jokes. Her first night on du­ty I'd told her to "bring me a buck­et of steam to the nurs­ery. I want to ster­il­ize the place." She'd ea­ger­ly rushed off to the boil­er room, where a help­ful in­tern had steered her.

Odd­ly enough, in the eleven months I'd posed as a doc­tor, I'd nev­er heard the term "blue ba­by." I thought she was get­ting back at me.

"I'll be right along," I said, "but first I've got to check the green ba­by in 609." When I made no move, she rushed off, shout­ing for one of the in­terns. I stepped around the cor­ner and con­sult­ed my med­ical dic­tio­nary. I learned a blue ba­by was one suf­fer­ing from cyanosis, or lack of oxy­gen in the blood, usu­al­ly due to a con­gen­ital heart de­fect. I took off for Room 608, and was re­lieved to find one of my in­terns had bailed me out again. He was ad­just­ing a portable oxy­gen tent around the in­fant. "I've called his doc­tor. He's on his way. I'll han­dle it un­til he gets here, if it's all right with you, sir."

It was all right with me. The in­ci­dent shook me. I re­al­ized I was play­ing a role that had reached its lim­its. I'd been lucky so far, but I sud­den­ly knew some child could die as a re­sult of my im­per­son­ation. I de­ter­mined to seek out Colter and re­sign, and I de­ter­mined not to be swayed by any en­treaties.

He sought me out in­stead.

"Well, Frank, you can go back to be­ing a play­boy," he said cheer­ful­ly. "We've got a new res­ident su­per­vi­sor. Got him from New York. He'll be here to­mor­row."

I was re­lieved. I dropped around the next day to pick up my fi­nal pay­check and wasn't at all dis­ap­point­ed when I didn't meet my re­place­ment. I was leav­ing the hos­pi­tal when I en­coun­tered Ja­son, the el­der­ly jan­itor on the mid­night-​to-​eight shift.

"You're com­ing to work a lit­tle ear­ly, aren't you, Ja­son?" I asked.

"Workin' a dou­ble shift to­day, Doc­tor," said Ja­son.

"If you haven't heard, Ja­son, I won't be around any­more," I said. "They fi­nal­ly found a re­place­ment."

"Yes, sir, I heard," said Ja­son. He looked at me quizzi­cal­ly. "Doc­tor, can I ask you some­thin'?"

"Sure, Ja­son. Any­thing." I liked him. He was a nice old man.

He drew a deep breath. "Doc­tor, you nev­er knowed it, but I al­ways spent my re­lax­in' time up there on the sev­enth floor. And, Doc­tor, for near­ly a year now I been seein' you go in a linen clos­et up there. You nev­er go in with any­thin', and you nev­er come out with any­thin'. I know you don't drink, and, Doc­tor, there ain't noth­in' in that clos­et, noth­in'! I done searched it a dozen times. Doc­tor, my cu­rios­ity's about to drive me to drink. Just what did you do in that linen clos­et, Doc­tor? I won't tell no­body, I swear!"

I laughed and hugged him. "Ja­son, I was con­tem­plat­ing my navel in that clos­et. That's all. I swear it."

But I know he nev­er be­lieved me. He's prob­ably still in­spect­ing that clos­et.

CHAP­TER FIVE

A Law De­gree Is Just An Il­le­gal Tech­ni­cal­ity

&nb­sp;

A week af­ter I sev­ered my con­nec­tion with the hos­pi­tal, my lease at Bal­morhea came up for re­new­al and I de­cid­ed to leave At­lanta. There was no com­pul­sion for me to go; at least I felt none, but I thought it un­wise to stay. The fox who keeps to one den is the eas­iest caught by the ter­ri­ers, and I felt I had nest­ed too long in one place. I knew I was still be­ing hunt­ed and I didn't want to make it easy for the hounds.

I lat­er learned that my de­ci­sion to leave At­lanta was an as­tute one. About the same time, in Wash­ing­ton, D.C., FBI In­spec­tor Sean O'Ri­ley was or­dered to drop all his oth­er cas­es and con­cen­trate sole­ly on nab­bing me. O'Ri­ley was a tall, dour man with the coun­te­nance of an Irish bish­op and the tenac­ity of an Airedale, an out­stand­ing agent ded­icat­ed to his job, but an em­inent­ly fair man in all re­spects.

I came to ad­mire O'Ri­ley, even while mak­ing ev­ery ef­fort to thwart his task and to em­bar­rass him pro­fes­sion­al­ly. If O'Ri­ley has any per­son­al feel­ings con­cern­ing me, I am cer­tain an­imos­ity is not among such emo­tions. O'Ri­ley is not a mean man.

Of course, I had no knowl­edge of O'Ri­ley's ex­is­tence, even, at the time I va­cat­ed At­lanta. Save for the young spe­cial agent in Mi­ami, and the Dade Coun­ty of­fi­cers I'd en­coun­tered there, the of­fi­cers on my case were all phan­toms to me.

I de­cid­ed to hole up for a month or so in the cap­ital city of an­oth­er south­ern state. As usu­al, I was prompt­ed in my choice by the fact that I knew an air­line stew­ardess there. I was yet to find a more de­light­ful in­flu­ence on my ac­tions than a love­ly wom­an.

Her name was Di­ane and I had known her in­ter­mit­tent­ly for about a year. I had nev­er flown with her, hav­ing met her in the At­lanta air­port ter­mi­nal, and she knew me un­der the alias Robert F. Con­rad, a Pan Am first of­fi­cer, an al­lonym I used on oc­ca­sion. I was forced to main­tain the nom de plume with her, for we de­vel­oped a close and pleas­ing re­la­tion­ship, dur­ing the course of which, ini­tial­ly, she had delved in­to my per­son­al back­ground, in­clud­ing my ed­uca­tion­al his­to­ry. Most pi­lots have a col­lege de­gree, but not all of them ma­jored in the aero­nau­ti­cal sci­ences. I told Di­ane that I had tak­en a law de­gree but had nev­er prac­ticed, since a ca­reer as an air­line pi­lot had loomed as not on­ly more ex­cit­ing but al­so much more lu­cra­tive than law. She read­ily ac­cept­ed the premise that a man might shun the court­room for the cock­pit.

She al­so re­mem­bered my con­coct­ed law de­gree. A few days af­ter my ar­rival in her city she took me to a par­ty staged by one of her friends and there in­tro­duced me to a pleas­ant fel­low named Ja­son Wilcox.

"You two ought to get along. Ja­son is one of our as­sis­tant state's at­tor­neys," Di­ane told me. She turned to Wilcox. "And Bob here is a lawyer who nev­er hung out his shin­gle. He be­came a pi­lot in­stead."

Wilcox was im­me­di­ate­ly in­ter­est­ed. "Hey, where'd you go to law school?"

"Har­vard," I said. If I was go­ing to have a law de­gree, I thought I might as well have one from a pres­ti­gious source.

"But you nev­er prac­ticed?" he asked.

"No," I said. "I got my Com­mer­cial Pi­lot's Li­cense the same week I took my mas­ter's in law, and Pan Am of­fered me a job as a flight en­gi­neer. Since a pi­lot makes $30,000 to $40,000, and since I loved fly­ing, I took the job. Maybe some­day I'll go back to law, but right now I fly on­ly eighty hours a month. Not many prac­tic­ing lawyers have it that good."

"No, you're right there," Wilcox agreed. "Where do you fly to? Rome? Paris? All over the world, I guess."

I shook my head. "I'm not fly­ing at the mo­ment," I said. "I've been fur­loughed. The com­pa­ny made a per­son­nel cut­back last month and I didn't have se­nior­ity. It may be six months or a year be­fore they call me back. Right now I'm just loaf­ing, draw­ing un­em­ploy­ment. I like it."

Wilcox stud­ied me with be­mused eyes. "How'd you do at Har­vard?" he asked. I felt he was lead­ing up to some­thing.

"Pret­ty well, I guess," I replied. "I grad­uat­ed with a 3.8 av­er­age. Why?"

"Well, the at­tor­ney gen­er­al is look­ing for lawyers for his staff," Wilcox replied. "In fact, he's re­al­ly in a bind. Why don't you take the bar here and join us? I'll rec­om­mend you. The job doesn't pay an air­line pi­lot's salary, of course, but it pays bet­ter than un­em­ploy­ment. And you'll get in some law prac­tice, which sure as hell couldn't hurt you."

I al­most re­ject­ed his pro­pos­al out­right. But the more I thought about it, the more it in­trigued me. The chal­lenge again. I shrugged. "What would it en­tail for me to take the bar ex­am­ina­tion in this state?" I asked.

"Not much, re­al­ly," said Wilcox. "Just take a tran­script from Har­vard over to the state bar ex­am­in­er's of­fice and ap­ply to take the bar. They won't refuse you. Of course, you'd have to bone up on our civ­il and crim­inal statutes, but I've got all the books you'd need. Since you're from an­oth­er state, you'll be al­lowed three cracks at the bar here. You shouldn't have any trou­ble."

A tran­script from Har­vard. That might prove dif­fi­cult, I mused, since the uni­ver­si­ty and I were strangers. But then I'd nev­er had any pi­lot's train­ing, ei­ther. And I had a valid-​ap­pear­ing FAA pi­lot's li­cense in my pock­et stat­ing I was qual­ified to fly pas­sen­ger jets, didn't I? My bum­ble­bee in­stincts be­gan buzzing.

I wrote to the reg­is­trar of the Har­vard Law School and asked for a fall sched­ule and a law school cat­alogue, and with­in a few days the re­quest­ed ma­te­ri­al was de­posit­ed in my mail­box. The cat­alogue list­ed all the cours­es nec­es­sary for a doc­tor of law from Har­vard, and it al­so boast­ed some love­ly lo­gos and let­ter­heads. But I still didn't have the fog­gi­est no­tion of what a col­lege tran­script looked like.

Di­ane was an Ohio Uni­ver­si­ty grad­uate, who had ma­jored in busi­ness ad­min­is­tra­tion. I ca­su­al­ly en­gaged her in a con­ver­sa­tion re­volv­ing around her stu­dent years.

She had been heav­ily in­volved in cam­pus ac­tiv­ities, it de­vel­oped, some­thing of a play­girl in col­lege. "You must not have done much study­ing," I said jest­ing­ly.

"Oh, yes, I did," she main­tained. "I had a 3.8 av­er­age. In fact, I was on the dean's list my se­nior year. You can have fun and still make good grades, you know."

"Aw, come on! I don't be­lieve you had that kind of av­er­age. I'd have to see your tran­script to be­lieve that," I protest­ed.

She grinned. "Well, smart-​ass, I just hap­pen to have one," she said, and re­turned from her bed­room a few min­utes lat­er with the doc­ument.

The tran­script con­sist­ed of four le­gal-​sized sheets of. lined pa­per and was, in fact, a cer­ti­fied pho­to­copy of her four years of col­lege work, at­test­ed to and no­ta­rized by the reg­is­trar. The first page was head­ed by the name of the uni­ver­si­ty in large, bold let­ters, be­neath which ap­peared the state seal of Ohio. Then came her name, the year she had grad­uat­ed, the de­gree she had re­ceived and the col­lege (Col­lege of Busi­ness Ad­min­is­tra­tion) award­ing the de­gree. The re­main­der of the pages was filled, line by line, with the cours­es she had tak­en, the dates, the hours of cred­it she had ac­cu­mu­lat­ed and her grades. A grade av­er­age was giv­en at the end of each year and a fi­nal en­try not­ed her over-​all av­er­age, 3.8. In the bot­tom right-​hand cor­ner of the last page was the Ohio Uni­ver­si­ty seal, with a no­tary's seal su­per­im­posed and bear­ing the sig­na­ture of the school reg­is­trar.

I com­mit­ted the struc­ture of the tran­script to mem­ory, ab­sorb­ing it as a sponge ab­sorbs wa­ter, be­fore hand­ing it back. "Okay, you're not on­ly sexy, you're al­so brainy," I said in mock apol­ogy.

I went shop­ping the next day at a graph­ic arts sup­ply house, a sta­tionery store and an of­fice-​sup­ply firm, pick­ing up some le­gal-​sized bond pa­per, some lay­out ma­te­ri­al, some press-​on let­ters in sev­er­al dif­fer­ent type faces, some ar­tisf s pens and pen­cils, an X-​Ac­to knife, some glue and a right-​an­gle ruler, some gold seals and a no­tary's press.

I start­ed by sim­ply cut­ting out the Har­vard Law School lo­go and past­ing it at the top of a piece of bond pa­per. I then af­fixed the school seal, al­so filched from the cat­alogue, be­neath the school head­ing. Next I filled in my name, year of grad­ua­tion, de­gree and then, us­ing the right an­gle and a fine artist's pen, I care­ful­ly lined sev­er­al pages of the le­gal-​sized bond. Af­ter­ward, us­ing block press-​on let­ters, I care­ful­ly en­tered ev­ery course re­quired for a law

de­gree from Har­vard, my elec­tives and my fic­ti­tious grades. Since Wilcox might see the tran­script, I gave my­self a three-​year over-​all grade av­er­age of 3.8.

The fin­ished, past­ed-​up prod­uct looked like leav­ings from a lay­out artist's desk, but when I ran the pages through a do-​it-​your­self copy­ing ma­chine, it came out beau­ti­ful­ly. It had all the ap­pear­ances of some­thing coughed out by a du­pli­cat­ing com­put­er. I fin­ished the six-​page coun­ter­feit by at­tach­ing a gold seal to the bot­tom of the last page and im­press­ing over it, in a de­lib­er­ate­ly blurred man­ner, the no­tary stamp, which I filled in by hand, us­ing a heavy pen, and sign­ing with a flour­ish the name of the Har­vard Law School reg­is­trar, not­ing be­low the forgery that the reg­is­trar was al­so a no­tary.

Whether or not it re­sem­bled an ac­tu­al Har­vard tran­script, I didn't know. The acid test would come when I pre­sent­ed the pho­ny doc­ument to the state bar ex­am­in­er's of­fice. Wilcox had been prac­tic­ing law for fif­teen years, and had been an as­sis­tant state's at­tor­ney for nine years. He al­so had a wide ac­quain­tance among the state's lawyers. He said I was the first Har­vard grad­uate he'd ev­er met.

I spent three weeks por­ing over the vol­umes in Wilcox's of­fice li­brary, find­ing law a much eas­ier, if some­what duller, sub­ject than I had as­sumed, and then with bat­ed breath pre­sent­ed my­self at the state bar ex­am­in­er's of­fice. A law stu­dent act­ing as a clerk in the of­fice leafed through my fake tran­script, nod­ded ap­prov­ing­ly, made a copy of the pho­ny in­stru­ment and hand­ed my orig­inal coun­ter­feit back to me, along with an ap­pli­ca­tion to take the bar ex­am­ina­tion. While I was fill­ing out the form, he thumbed through a cal­en­dar and called some­one on the tele­phone.

"You can take the ex­am next Wednes­day, if you think you're ready," he stat­ed, and then grinned en­cour­ag­ing­ly. "It should be no hill at all for a Har­vard step­per."

His col­lo­qui­al­ism might have been true in re­gard to an ac­tu­al Ivy League law grad­uate. For me it was a moun­tain, eight hours of sur­mis­es, I hopes, maybes, con­fi­dent con­jec­ture and semied­ucat­ed guess­es.

I flunked.

To my as­ton­ish­ment, how­ev­er, the no­ti­fi­ca­tion that I had failed was at­tached to the test I had tak­en, which re­flect­ed the an­swers I had cor­rect­ly giv­en and the ques­tions I had missed. Some­one in the SBE's of­fice ob­vi­ous­ly liked me.

I went back to Wilcox's of­fice and camped in his li­brary, con­cen­trat­ing on the sec­tions of the test I had missed. When­ev­er pos­si­ble Wilcox him­self tu­tored me. Af­ter six weeks I felt I was ready to at­tempt the test a sec­ond time.

I blew it again. But again my test pa­pers were re­turned to me, show­ing where I had suc­ceed­ed and where I had failed. I was gain­ing. In fact, I was de­light­ed at the num­ber of le­gal ques­tions I had an­swered cor­rect­ly and I was de­ter­mined to pass the ex­am­ina­tion on my fi­nal try.

I took the third ex­am­ina­tion sev­en weeks lat­er and passed! With­in two weeks I re­ceived a hand­some cer­tifi­cate at­test­ing to the fact that I had been ad­mit­ted to the state bar and was li­censed to prac­tice law. I cracked up. I hadn't even fin­ished high school and had yet to step on a col­lege cam­pus, but I was a cer­ti­fied lawyer! How­ev­er, I re­gard­ed my ac­tu­al lack of aca­dem­ic qual­ifi­ca­tions mere­ly a tech­ni­cal­ity, and in my four months of le­gal cram­ming I'd learned the law is full of tech­ni­cal­ities. Tech­ni­cal­ities are what screw up jus­tice.

Wilcox ful­filled his promise. He ar­ranged a job in­ter­view for me with the state at­tor­ney gen­er­al, who, on Wilcox's rec­om­men­da­tion, hired me as an as­sis­tant. My salary was $12,800 an­nu­al­ly.

I was as­signed to the cor­po­rate law di­vi­sion, one of the AG's civ­il de­part­ments. The di­vi­sion's at­tor­neys han­dled all the small claims made against the state, tres­pass-​to-​try-​ti­tle suits, land-​con­dem­na­tion cas­es and var­ious oth­er re­al es­tate ac­tions.

That is, most of them did. The se­nior as­sis­tant to whom I was as­signed as an aide was Phillip Rig­by, the haughty scion of an old and es­tab­lished lo­cal fam­ily. Rig­by con­sid­ered him­self a south­ern aris­to­crat and I im­pinged on two of his strongest prej­udices. I was a Yan­kee, but even worse, I was a Catholic Yan­kee! He rel­egat­ed me to the role of "go­pher"-go for cof­fee, go for this book or that book, go for any­thing he could think of for me to fetch. I was the high­est-​paid er­rand boy in the state. Rig­by was a red­necked co­pro­lite. Mine was an opin­ion shared by many of the oth­er younger as­sis­tants, most of whom were na­tives them­selves but sur­pris­ing­ly lib­er­al in their views.

I was pop­ular with the young bach­elors in the di­vi­sion. I still had over $20,000 in my boo­dle and I spent it freely on the friends I made on the AG's staff, treat­ing them to din­ners in fine restau­rants, river­boat out­ings and evenings in posh night clubs.

I de­lib­er­ate­ly gave the im­pres­sion that I was from a wealthy New York fam­ily with­out mak­ing any such di­rect claim. I lived in a swank apart­ment over­look­ing a lake, drove a leased Jaguar and ac­cu­mu­lat­ed a wardrobe wor­thy of a British duke. I wore a dif­fer­ent suit to work each day of the week, part­ly be­cause it pleased me but most­ly be­cause my ex­ten­sive wardrobe seemed to ir­ri­tate Rig­by. He had three suits to my knowl­edge, one of which I was sure was a hand-​me-​down from his Con­fed­er­ate colonel grand­fa­ther. Rig­by was al­so penu­ri­ous.

If my groom­ing was re­sent­ed by Rig­by, it was ap­proved by oth­ers. One day in court, dur­ing a short de­lay in the case at hand, the judge leaned for­ward on his bench and ad­dressed me:

"Mr. Con­rad, you may not con­tribute much in the way of le­gal ex­per­tise to the pro­ceed­ings be­fore this court, but you cer­tain­ly add style, sir. You are the best-​dressed go­pher in Dix­ie, Coun­selor, and the court com­mends you." It was a gen­uine trib­ute and I was pleased, but Rig­by near­ly had an apoplec­tic seizure.

Ac­tu­al­ly, I was sat­is­fied with my er­rand-​boy role. I had no re­al de­sire to ac­tu­al­ly try a case. There was too much dan­ger that my ba­sic lack of knowl­edge of the law would be ex­posed. And the work Rig­by and I did was dull and un­in­ter­est­ing the ma­jor­ity of the time, a bore­some task that I was con­tent to let him han­dle. Oc­ca­sion­al­ly he did throw me a bone, al­low­ing me to present some mi­nor land is­sue or make the open­ing ar­gu­ment in a giv­en case, and I did en­joy those in­ci­dents and on the whole han­dled them with­out detri­ment to the law pro­fes­sion, I thought. Rig­by was a high­ly com­pe­tent lawyer, and I learned a lot sit­ting be­hind him, much more than I had gleaned from the law-​books or the ex­am­ina­tions.

Ba­si­cal­ly, my po­si­tion was a haven, a lair not like­ly to be dis­cov­ered by the hounds. When you're look­ing for a crim­inal, you don't of­ten think to look for him on the at­tor­ney gen­er­al's staff of pros­ecu­tors, es­pe­cial­ly if you're seek­ing a teen-​age high school dropout.

Sev­er­al weeks af­ter I joined the AG's staff, Di­ane was trans­ferred to Dal­las. I was on­ly mo­men­tar­ily sad­dened at los­ing her. I was soon dat­ing Glo­ria, the daugh­ter of a high state of­fi­cial. Glo­ria was a live­ly, per­son­able, vi­brant girl, and if our re­la­tion­ship had a fault, it was that she was not ex­act­ly a bo­som com­pan­ion. But I was learn­ing that a wom­an can al­so be de­light­ful with her clothes on.

Glo­ria was a mem­ber of a staunch Methodist fam­ily and I of­ten squired her to church, with the un­der­stand­ing that I was not a can­di­date for con­ver­sion. It was a ges­ture of in­ter­de­nom­ina­tion­al re­spect on my part that was ap­pre­ci­at­ed by her par­ents, and ac­tu­al­ly I en­joyed it. In fact, I formed a close friend­ship with the young pas­tor of the church and he per­suad­ed me to be­come in­volved in the church's youth pro­grams. I par­tic­ipat­ed ac­tive­ly in build­ing sev­er­al chil­dren's play­grounds in blight­ed ar­eas of the city and served on sev­er­al com­mit­tees gov­ern­ing oth­er ur­ban youth projects. It was an odd pas­time for a con man, but I had no re­al sense of hypocrisy. For the first time in my life I was giv­ing un­selfish­ly of my­self, with no thought of any re­turn, and it made me feel good.

A sin­ner toil­ing in the vine­yards of the Church, how­ev­er, no mat­ter how wor­thy his labors, shouldn't put in too much over­time. I ac­cept­ed one too many com­mit­tee ap­point­ments and the grapes be­gan to sour.

There was a re­al Har­vard grad­uate on this par­tic­ular pan­el. Not just a Har­vard grad­uate, but a Har­vard Law grad­uate, and he was de­light­ed to meet me. He was prac­ti­cal­ly deliri­ous with joy. I have since learned some­thing about Har­vard men. They're like bad­gers. • They like to stick to­geth­er in their own bar­rows. A lone bad­ger is go­ing to find an­oth­er bad­ger. A Har­vard man in a strange area is go­ing to find an­oth­er Har­vard man. And they're go­ing to talk about Har­vard.

This one pounced on me im­me­di­ate­ly, with all the en­thu­si­asm of Stan­ley en­coun­ter­ing Liv­ing­stone in dark­est Africa. When had I grad­uat­ed? Who had my in­struc­tors been? Who were the girls I knew? To what club had I be­longed? What pubs had I fre­quent­ed? Who had my friends been?

I suc­cess­ful­ly fend­ed him off that first night, with ei­ther inane an­swers or by ig­nor­ing him and con­cen­trat­ing on the com­mit­tee busi­ness at hand. But there­after he sought me out at ev­ery op­por­tu­ni­ty. He'd call me to have lunch. He'd drop by my of­fice when he chanced to be in the area. He called me to in­vite me to par­ties or out­ings, to play golf or to take in some cul­tur­al event. And al­ways he man­aged to steer the con­ver­sa­tion around to Har­vard. What build­ings had I had class­es in? Didn't I know Pro­fes­sor So-​and-​So? Had I been ac­quaint­ed with any of the old fam­ilies of Cam­bridge? Har­vard men around oth­er Har­vard men seem to be rather lim­it­ed in their con­ver­sa­tion­al top­ics.

I couldn't avoid him, and of course I couldn't an­swer many of his ques­tions. His sus­pi­cions aroused, he be­gan to build a res ges­tae case against me as a bo­gus Har­vard man if not a pho­ny lawyer. It be­came res ju­di­ca­ta for me when I learned he was mak­ing nu­mer­ous in­quiries in­to my back­ground on sev­er­al fronts, se­ri­ous­ly ques­tion­ing my hon­esty and in­tegri­ty.

Like the prover­bial Arab, I fold­ed my tent and silent­ly stole away. Not, how­ev­er, with­out draw­ing a fi­nal pay­check. I did say good-​bye to Glo­ria, al­though she wasn't aware it was a fi­nal farewell. I mere­ly told her I'd had a death in the fam­ily and had to re­turn to New York for a cou­ple of weeks.

I turned in my leased Jaguar and pur­chased a bright or­ange Bar­racu­da. It wasn't the most in­con­spic­uous set of wheels for a want­ed fugi­tive to drive, but I liked it and I want­ed it, so I bought it. I jus­ti­fied the ac­tion by telling my­self that since the car, if not the driv­er, was cool, it would prob­ably prove a wise mvest­ment. Large­ly it was an as­tute move, for in the past I had sim­ply rent­ed cars and then aban­doned them at air­ports when I was through with them, and O'Ri­ley, un­known to me, was mak­ing good use of this prac­tice to com­pile a pat­tern of my move­ments.

I had posed as a doc­tor for near­ly a year. I had played the role of lawyer for nine months. While I was hard­ly lead­ing a straight life dur­ing those twen­ty months, I hadn't passed any bad checks or done any­thing else to at­tract the at­ten­tion of the au­thor­ities. Pro­vid­ed Rig­by or the AG him­self didn't press the is­sue of my sud­den de­par­ture from my post as as­sis­tant at­tor­ney gen­er­al, I felt jus­ti­fied in as­sum­ing I was not the ob­ject of any press­ing man­hunt. And I wasn't, save for O'Ri­ley's dogged ef­forts, and de­spite his per­sis­tence he was as yet fol­low­ing a cold trail.

I at­tempt­ed to keep it that way, since I was still in no bind for funds. My flight from my "Har­vard col­league's" in­qui­si­tion turned in­to some­thing of a va­ca­tion. I me­an­dered around the west­ern states for sev­er­al weeks, tour­ing Col­orado, New Mex­ico, Ari­zona, Wyoming, Neva­da, Ida­ho and Mon­tana, dal­ly­ing wher­ev­er the scenery in­trigued me. Since the scenery usu­al­ly in­clud­ed some very love­ly and sus­cep­ti­ble wom­en, I stayed per­pet­ual­ly in­trigued.

Al­though the im­age of my­self as a crim­inal grad­ual­ly blurred and dimmed, I en­ter­tained no thoughts of re­ha­bil­ita­tion. In fact, look­ing to the fu­ture, I stopped long enough in a large Rocky Moun­tain metropo­lis to equip my­self with du­al iden­ti­ties as a fic­ti­tious air­line pi­lot.

Us­ing the same pro­ce­dures that had en­abled me to as­sume the alias of Frank Williams, a first of­fi­cer for Pan Am, I cre­at­ed Frank Adams, an al­leged co-​pi­lot for Trans World Air­ways, com­plete with uni­form, sham ID and coun­ter­feit FAA pi­lot's li­cense. I al­so as­sem­bled a set of du­plic­itous cre­den­tials that would al­low me, in my pos­ture as Frank Williams, to be a pi­lot for ei­ther Pan Am or TWA.

Short­ly af­ter­ward I was in Utah, a state no­table for not on­ly its spec­tac­ular ge­og­ra­phy and Mor­mon his­to­ry but al­so for its pro­lif­er­ation of col­lege cam­pus­es. Hav­ing pur­loined a cou­ple of col­lege de­grees, I thought it on­ly fair that I at least ac­quaint my­self with a uni­ver­si­ty cam­pus and so I vis­it­ed sev­er­al Utah col­leges, strolling around the grounds and tak­ing in the aca­dem­ic sights, es­pe­cial­ly the co­eds. There were so many love­ly girls on one cam­pus that I was tempt­ed to en­roll as a stu­dent.

In­stead I be­came a teach­er.

While I was lolling around my mo­tel room one af­ter­noon, read­ing the lo­cal news­pa­per, my at­ten­tion was drawn to an ex­pect­ed short­age of sum­mer in­struc­tors at one uni­ver­si­ty. The news item quot­ed the fac­ul­ty dean, one Dr. Amos Grimes, as be­ing most con­cerned about find­ing sum­mer re­place­ments for the school's two so­ci­ol­ogy pro­fes­sors. "It ap­pears we will have to look out of state for qual­ified peo­ple will­ing to teach for on­ly three months," said Dr. Grimes in the sto­ry.

A vi­sion of my­self en­sconced in a class­room with a dozen or so nu­bile beau­ties took hold of my imag­ina­tion, and I couldn't re­sist. I rang up Dr. Grimes.

"Dr. Grimes, Frank Adams here," I said briskly. "I have a Ph.D. in so­ci­ol­ogy from Columbia Uni­ver­si­ty in New York. I'm vis­it­ing here, Doc­tor, and I see by the news­pa­per that you're look­ing for so­ci­ol­ogy in­struc­tors."

"Yes, we're def­inite­ly in­ter­est­ed in find­ing some peo­ple," Dr. Grimes replied cau­tious­ly. "Of course, you un­der­stand it would be on­ly a tem­po­rary po­si­tion, just for the sum­mer. I as­sume you do have some teach­ing ex­pe­ri­ence?"

"Oh, yes," I said air­ily. "But it's been sev­er­al years. Let me ex­plain my po­si­tion, Dr. Grimes. I am a pi­lot for Trans World Air­ways, and just re­cent­ly I was fur­loughed for six months for med­ical pur­pos­es, an in­flam­ma­tion of the in­ner ear that bars me at the mo­ment from fly­ing sta­tus. I've been look­ing around for some­thing to do in the in­ter­im, and when I saw the sto­ry it oc­curred to me that it might be pleas­ant to get back in­to a class­room again.

"I was a pro­fes­sor of so­ci­ol­ogy at City Col­lege of New York for two years be­fore I joined TWA."

"Well, it cer­tain­ly sounds like you're a like­ly can­di­date for one of our po­si­tions, Dr. Adams," said Dr. Grimes, now en­thu­si­as­tic. "Why don't you come by my of­fice to­mor­row morn­ing and we'll talk about it."

"I'd be de­light­ed to do that, Dr. Grimes," I replied. "Since I'm a com­plete stranger in Utah, could you tell me what doc­uments I will need to ap­ply for a fac­ul­ty po­si­tion with your col­lege?"

"Oh, just a tran­script from Columbia will do, re­al­ly," said Dr. Grimes. "Of course, if you can ob­tain a cou­ple of let­ters of rec­om­men­da­tion from CC­NY, it would be de­sir­able."

"No prob­lem," I said. "I'll have to send for both my tran­script and the let­ters of rec­om­men­da­tion, of course. I came here un­pre­pared on ei­ther score, since I didn't even con­tem­plate a tem­po­rary teach­ing po­si­tion un­til I saw the sto­ry."

"I un­der­stand, Dr. Adams," replied Dr. Grimes. "I'll see you in the morn­ing."

I wrote Columbia Uni­ver­si­ty that af­ter­noon, re­quest­ing a com­plete cat­alogue and any per­ti­nent brochures on the school. I al­so dashed off a let­ter to the reg­is­trar of CC­NY, stat­ing I was a Utah grad­uate stu­dent seek­ing a teach­ing po­si­tion in New York, prefer­ably in so­ci­ol­ogy. I ar­ranged to rent a box at the lo­cal post of­fice be­fore mail­ing off the mis­sives.

My meet­ing with Dean Grimes was a very pleas­ant one. He seemed im­me­di­ate­ly im­pressed with me, and we spent most of the time, in­clud­ing a leisure­ly lun­cheon in­ter­lude in the fac­ul­ty club, dis­cussing my "ca­reer" as a pi­lot. Dr. Grimes, like many men with seden­tary jobs, had a ro­man­tic view of air­line pi­lots and was ea­ger to have his ex­cit­ing per­spec­tive val­idat­ed. I had more than enough anec­dotes to sat­is­fy his vi­car­ious ap­petite.

"I have no doubt at all that we can use you this sum­mer, Dr. Adams," he said on my de­par­ture. "I'm per­son­al­ly look­ing for­ward to your be­ing here on cam­pus."

The ma­te­ri­als I had re­quest­ed from Columbia and CC­NY ar­rived with­in the week, and I drove to Salt Lake City to pur­chase the sup­plies nec­es­sary for my cur­rent coun­ter­feit­ing ven­ture. My fin­ished "tran­script" was a beau­ty, giv­ing me a 3.7 grade av­er­age and list­ing my doc­tor­al the­sis as a dis­ser­ta­tion on "The So­ci­olog­ical Im­pact of Avi­ation on the Ru­ral Pop­ula­tions of North Amer­ica." As I had an­tic­ipat­ed, the re­ply from the reg­is­trar of CC­NY was on of­fi­cial col­lege sta­tionery. I clipped off the let­ter­head and, us­ing clear white plas­tic tape and high-​qual­ity bond pa­per, cre­at­ed a fine fac­sim­ile of the col­lege's sta­tionery. I trimmed it to reg­ula­tion type­writ­er-​pa­per size and then sat down and wrote my­self two let­ters of rec­om­men­da­tion, one from the reg­is­trar and one from the head of the so­ci­ol­ogy de­part­ment.

I was cau­tious with both let­ters. They mere­ly not­ed that I had been a so­ci­ol­ogy in­struc­tor at CC­NY dur­ing the years 1961-62, that the fac­ul­ty rat­ing com­mit­tee had giv­en me very sat­is­fac­to­ry marks and that I had re­signed vol­un­tar­ily to en­ter the field of com­mer­cial avi­ation as a pi­lot. I then . took the let­ters to a Salt Lake City job print­er and had him run off a dozen copies of each, telling him I was ap­ply­ing at sev­er­al uni­ver­si­ties for a teach­ing po­si­tion and thus need­ed ex­tra copies on fine-​grade bond. Ap­par­ent­ly mine was not an un­usu­al re­quest, for he did the job per­func­to­ri­ly.

Dr. Grimes bare­ly glanced at the doc­uments when I pre­sent­ed them to him. He in­tro­duced me to Dr. Wilbur Van­der­hoff, as­sis­tant head of the so­ci­ol­ogy de­part­ment, who al­so gave the in­stru­ments on­ly a cur­so­ry ex­am­ina­tion be­fore send­ing them on to fac­ul­ty per­son­nel for fil­ing. I was hired with­in the hour to teach two six-​week semesters dur­ing the sum­mer at a salary of $1,600 per semester. I was as­signed to teach a nine­ty-​minute fresh­man course in the morn­ing, three days a week, and a nine­ty-​minute sopho­more course in the af­ter­noon, twice week­ly. Dr. Van­der­hoff pro­vid­ed me with the two text­books to be used in the class­es, as well as stu­dent at­ten­dance ledgers. "Any oth­er sup­plies you might need, you can prob­ably find in the book­store. They have stan­dard req­ui­si­tion forms on hand," said Dr. Van­der­hoff. He grinned. "I'm glad to see you're young and strong. Our sum­mer so­ci­ol­ogy class­es are usu­al­ly large ones, and you'll earn your salary."

I had three weeks be­fore the first sum­mer semester start­ed. On the pre­tense of re­fresh­ing my­self, I au­dit­ed sev­er­al of Dr. Van­der­hoff's class­es, just to get an idea of how a col­lege course was con­duct­ed. At night I stud­ied the two text­books, which I found both in­ter­est­ing and in­for­ma­tive.

Van­der­hoff was right. Both my class­es were large ones. There were sev­en­ty-​eight stu­dents in my fresh­man class and six­ty-​three stu­dents in my sopho­more course, the ma­jor­ity in both in­stances be­ing fe­male stu­dents.

That sum­mer was one of the most en­joy­able of my life.

I thor­ough­ly en­joyed my role as a teach­er. So did my stu­dents, I'm cer­tain. My cours­es were taught by the book, as re­quired, and I had no dif­fi­cul­ty there. I just read one chap­ter ahead of the stu­dents and se­lect­ed what por­tions of the text I want­ed to em­pha­size. But al­most dai­ly I de­vi­at­ed from the text­book in both class­es, lec­tur­ing on crime, the prob­lems of young adults from bro­ken homes and the ef­fects on so­ci­ety as a whole. My de­par­tures from text­book con­tents-which were large­ly drawn from my own ex­pe­ri­ences, un­known to the stu­dents-al­ways sparked live­ly dis­cus­sions and de­bates.

Week­ends I re­laxed by im­mers­ing my­self in one or the oth­er of Utah's scenic won­der­lands, usu­al­ly ac­com­pa­nied by an equal­ly won­drous com­pan­ion.

The sum­mer was gone as swift­ly as the desert spring, and I knew re­al re­gret when it end­ed. Dr. Van­der­hoff and Dr. Grimes were de­light­ed with my work. "Keep in touch with us, Frank," said Dr. Grimes. "If ev­er we have a per­ma­nent open­ing for a so­ci­ol­ogy pro­fes­sor, we'd like a chance to lure you down from the skies," said Dr. Grimes.

At least fifty of my stu­dents sought me out to tell me how much they had en­joyed my class­es and to wish me good-​bye and good luck.

I was re­luc­tant to leave that Utah Utopia, but I could find no valid rea­son for stay­ing. If I lin­gered, my past was cer­tain to catch up, and I did not want these peo­ple's im­age of me to be tar­nished.

I head­ed west to Cal­ifor­nia. There was a storm build­ing in the Sier­ras when I crossed the moun­tains, but it was noth­ing com­pared to the whirl­wind of crime I was soon to cre­ate my­self.

CHAP­TER SIX

Pa­per­hang­er in a Rolls-​Royce

&nb­sp;

The for­mer po­lice chief of Hous­ton once said of me: "Frank Abag­nale could write a check on toi­let pa­per, drawn on the Con­fed­er­ate States Trea­sury, sign it 'U.R. Hooked' and cash it at any bank in town, us­ing a Hong Kong driv­er's li­cense for iden­ti­fi­ca­tion."

There are sev­er­al bank em­ploy­ees in Eu­re­ka, Cal­ifor­nia, who would en­dorse that state­ment. In fact, if it were put in the form of a res­olu­tion, there are scores of tellers and bank of­fi­cials around the coun­try who would sec­ond the mo­tion.

I was not re­al­ly that crude. But some of the moves I put on bank per­son­nel were very, very em­bar­rass­ing, not to men­tion cost­ly.

Eu­re­ka, for me, was my com­mence­ment as an ex­pert forg­er. I was al­ready an ad­vanced stu­dent of pa­per­hang­ing when I ar­rived, of course, but I took my mas­ter's de­gree in check swin­dling in Cal­ifor­nia.

I didn't pur­pose­ly pick Eu­re­ka as a mile­stone in my capri­cious ca­reer. It was meant mere­ly as a pit stop en route to San Fran­cis­co, but the in­evitable girl ap­peared and I stayed to play house for a few days and to ru­mi­nate on my fu­ture. I was pos­sessed by an urge to flee the coun­try, vague­ly fear­ful that a posse of FBI agents, sher­iffs and de­tec­tives was hard on my heels. There was no tan­gi­ble rea­son for such trep­ida­tion. I hadn't bilked any­one with a bounc­ing check in near­ly two years, and "Co-​pi­lot Frank Williams" had been in the clos­et for the same length of time. I should have been feel­ing rea­son­ably safe, but I wasn't. I was ner­vous, fret­ful and doubt­ful, and I saw a cop in ev­ery man who gave me more than a ca­su­al look.

The girl and Eu­re­ka, be­tween them, al­layed my mis­giv­ings some­what af­ter a cou­ple of days, the girl with her warm and will­ing ways and Eu­re­ka with its po­ten­tial for el­evat­ing me from pet­ty larce­ny to grand theft. Eu­re­ka, in Cal­ifor­nia's north­ern red­wood forests, perched on the edge of the Pa­cif­ic, is a de­light­ful lit­tle city. It has the pic­turesque al­lure of a Basque fish­ing vil­lage, and in fact a large and col­or­ful fish­ing fleet op­er­ates out of Eu­re­ka's har­bor.

The most fas­ci­nat­ing facet of Eu­re­ka, to me, was its banks. It had more mon­ey hous­es for a city its size than any com­pa­ra­ble city I'd ev­er vis­it­ed. And I need­ed mon­ey, a lot of it, if I were go­ing to be an ex­pa­tri­ate pa­per­hang­er.

I still had sev­er­al stacks of worth­less per­son­al checks, and I was sure I could scat­ter a dozen or more of them around town with ease, net­ting $1,000 or more. But it oc­curred to me that the per­son­al-​check dodge wasn't re­al­ly that great. It was the eas­iest of bum-​check ca­pers, but it gen­er­at­ed too much heat from too many points, and the penal­ty for pass­ing a worth­less $100 check was the same as that for drop­ping $5,000 in pho­ny parch­ment.

I felt I need­ed a sweet­er type of check, one that would yield more hon­ey for the same amount of nec­tar. Like a pay­roll check, say. Like a Pan Am pay­roll check, nat­ural­ly. No one would ev­er be able to say I wasn't a loy­al thief.

I went shop­ping. I ob­tained a book of blank counter checks from a sta­tionery store. Such checks, still in wide use at the time, were ide­al for my pur­pos­es, since it was left to the pay­er to fill in all the per­ti­nent de­tails, in­clud­ing the re­spon­dent bank's name. I then rent­ed an IBM elec­tric type­writ­er with sev­er­al dif­fer­ent type­face spheres, in­clud­ing script, and some ex­tra rib­bon car­tridges in var­ious car­bon den­si­ties. I lo­cat­ed a hob­by shop that han­dled mod­els of Pan Am's jets and bought sev­er­al kits in the small­er sizes. I made a fi­nal stop at an art store and pur­chased a quan­ti­ty of press-​on mag­net­ic-​tape nu­mer­als and let­ters.

Thus pro­vi­sioned, I re­tired to my mo­tel room and set to work. I took one of the blank counter checks and across the top af­fixed a pan Amer­ican world air­ways de­cal from one of the kits. Be­low the leg­end I typed in the air­line's New York ad­dress. In the up­per left-​hand cor­ner of the check I ap­plied the Pan Am lo­go, and in the op­po­site right-​hand cor­ner I typed in the words "ex­pense check," on the premise that a firm's ex­pense checks would dif­fer in ap­pear­ance from its reg­ular pay­roll checks. It was a pre­cau­tion­ary ac­tion on my part, since some Eu­re­ka bank tellers might have had oc­ca­sion to han­dle reg­ular Pan Am vouch­ers.

I made my­self, "Frank Williams," the pay­ee, of course, in the amount of $568.70, a sum that seemed rea­son­able to me. In the low­er left-​hand cor­ner I typed in "chase Man­hat­tan bank" and the bank's ad­dress, go­ing over the bank leg­end with pro­gres­sive­ly black­er rib­bons un­til the words ap­peared to have been print­ed on the coun­ter­feit check.

Be­low the bank leg­end, across the bot­tom left-​hand cor­ner of the check, I laid down a se­ries of num­bers with mag­net­ic tape. The num­bers pur­port­ed­ly rep­re­sent­ed the Fed­er­al Re­serve Dis­trict of which Chase Man­hat­tan was a mem­ber, the bank's FRD iden­ti­fi­ca­tion num­ber and Pan Am's ac­count num­ber. Such num­bers are very im­por­tant to any­one cash­ing a check and ten­fold as im­por­tant to a hot-​check swindler. A good pa­per­hang­er is es­sen­tial­ly op­er­at­ing a num­bers game and if he doesn't know the right ones he's go­ing to end up with an en­tire­ly dif­fer­ent set sten­ciled across the front and back of a state-​is­sued shirt.

The fab­ri­cat­ing of the check was ex­act­ing, ar­du­ous work, re­quir­ing more than two hours, and I was not at all hap­py with the fin­ished prod­uct. I looked at it and de­cid­ed it was not a check I would cash were I a teller and some­one pre­sent­ed the check for pay­ment.

But a thrift-​shop dress is usu­al­ly tak­en for high fash­ion when it's re­vealed un­der a mink coat. So I de­vised a mink cov­er for the rab­bit-​fur check. I took one of the win­dowed en­velopes, hoaxed it up with a Pan Am de­cal and Pan Am's New York ad­dress, stuck a blank piece of sta­tionery in­side and mailed it to my­self at my mo­tel. The mis­sive was de­liv­ered the fol­low­ing morn­ing, and the lo­cal post of­fice had un­wit­ting­ly as­sist­ed me in my scheme. The clerk who had can­celed the stamp had done such a botched job with the post­mark that it was im­pos­si­ble to tell where the let­ter had been mailed from. I was de­light­ed with the man's slop­pi­ness.

I donned my Pan Am pi­lot's uni­form, placed the check in the en­ve­lope and stuck it in the in­side pock­et of my jack­et. I drove to the near­est bank, walked in jaun­ti­ly and pre­sent­ed my­self at a teller's booth at­tend­ed by a young wom­an. "Hi," I said, smil­ing. "My name is Frank Williams and I'm va­ca­tion­ing here for a few days be­fore re­port­ing to Los An­ge­les. Would you please cash this check for me? I think I have suf­fi­cient iden­ti­fi­ca­tion."

I took the en­ve­lope from my in­side pock­et, ex­tract­ed the check and laid it on the counter, along with my pho­ny Pan Am ID card and my il­lic­it FAA pi­lot's li­cense. I pur­pose­ly dropped the en­ve­lope, with its dis­tinc­tive Pan Am lo­go and re­turn ad­dress, on the counter.

The girl looked at my bo­gus iden­ti­fi­ca­tion doc­uments and glanced at the check, but she seemed more in­ter­est­ed in me. Com­mer­cial air­line pi­lots in uni­form were ob­vi­ous­ly a rar­ity in Eu­re­ka. She pushed the check back to me for en­dorse­ment, and while she count­ed out the mon­ey she asked chat­ty ques­tions about my work and the places I'd been, ques­tions I an­swered in a man­ner de­signed to bol­ster her ap­par­ent ro­man­tic im­age of air­line pi­lots.

I was care­ful to take the en­ve­lope with me when I left. I had made cer­tain that she no­ticed the wrap­per, and it had patent­ly en­hanced her faith in the check. The trans­ac­tion al­so ver­ified a sus­pi­cion I had long en­ter­tained: it's not how good a check looks but how good the per­son be­hind the check looks that in­flu­ences tellers and cashiers.

I went back to my mo­tel room and la­bored late in­to the night con­coct­ing sev­er­al more of the sham checks, all in the amount of $500 or more, and the fol­low­ing day I suc­cess­ful­ly passed all of them in dif­fer­ent down­town or sub­ur­ban banks. Based on my knowl­edge of the check-​rout­ing pro­ce­dures used by banks, I cal­cu­lat­ed I could spend two more days in Eu­re­ka mak­ing and drop­ping the bum ex­pense checks and then have three days lead time for trav­el be­fore the first one was re­turned as a coun­ter­feit.

But an iden­ti­ty cri­sis, which I ex­pe­ri­enced pe­ri­od­ical­ly, forced me to re­vise my timetable.

I nev­er im­mersed my­self so deeply in an as­sumed iden­ti­ty that I for­got I was re­al­ly Frank Abag­nale, Jr. In fact, in ca­su­al en­coun­ters with peo­ple, where I felt no com­pul­sion to play-​act and noth­ing was to be gained by af­fect­ing a guise, I in­vari­ably pre­sent­ed my­self as Frank Abag­nale, a foot-​loose fel­low from the Bronx.

It was no dif­fer­ent in Eu­re­ka. Away from my mo­tel, where I was reg­is­tered as Frank Williams, or the girl, who had suc­cumbed to a man she be­lieved to be a Pan Am pi­lot, and out of the pi­lot's garb, I was sim­ply Frank Abag­nale, Jr. To a de­gree, my ac­tu­al iden­ti­ty be­came a refuge from the pres­sures and ten­sions of pos­ing.

In Eu­re­ka I met a fish­er­man off a fish­ing boat in a seafood restau­rant. He stopped at my ta­ble to tell me he had per­son­al­ly caught the very fish I was eat­ing, and then sat down to con­verse with me. He was a car buff, it de­vel­oped, and I told him about my old Ford and what I had done to dress up the car. "Hey, that's what I'm try­ing to fix up now, a 1950 Ford con­vert­ible," he said. "You don't have any pic­tures of your heap, do you?"

I shook my head. "I do, but they're all back in my room at home," I said.

"Gimme your ad­dress in New York and I'll send you some pic­tures of my wheels when I'm fin­ished with it," he said. "Heck, I might even drive to New York and look you up."

It was very un­like­ly that he'd ei­ther write me or come to New York to see me, and just as un­like­ly that I'd be there to re­ceive ei­ther his let­ter or him, so I searched my pock­ets for a piece of pa­per on which to jot down my name and New York ad­dress.

I came up with one of the blank counter checks. I bor­rowed a pen­cil from a wait­er and was writ­ing my name and New York ad­dress on the back of the check when the fish­er­man was called to the tele­phone, a pay phone on the wall near the door. He talked for a few min­utes and then waved at me. "Hey, lis­ten, Frank, I got­ta go back to the boat," he shout­ed. "Come by to­mor­row, willya?" He bolt­ed out the door be­fore I could re­ply. I gave the pen­cil back to the wait­er and asked for my tab. "You need a pen­cil with heav­ier lead," I said, in­di­cat­ing what I had writ­ten on the back of the counter check. The words were bare­ly dis­cernible.

I put the check back in my pock­et in­stead of tear­ing it up, an ac­tion that was to prove both fool­ish and for­tu­nate. Back in my room, I dropped it on top of the open book of counter checks, changed clothes and called the girl. We spent a pleas­ant evening at a fine restau­rant in the tall red­woods some­where out­side of Eu­re­ka.

It was such a pleas­ant evening that I was still re­call­ing it ear­ly the next morn­ing when I sat down to cre­ate three more pho­ny Pan Am checks. There were on­ly three banks left in and around Eu­re­ka that didn't have one of my artis­tic frauds, and I didn't want to slight any of the three. I was caught up in my new scheme. All my fears of a posse pound­ing down my back­trail were for­got­ten. I had al­so com­plete­ly for­got­ten the young fish­er­man of the past af­ter­noon.

Fin­ished with the first check, I slipped it in­to the now well-​used en­ve­lope. Less than two hours lat­er I com­plet­ed the oth­er two and was ready for my farewell for­ay in Eu­re­ka, one that went off with­out a hitch. By mid-​af­ter­noon I was back in my mo­tel room, adding near­ly $1,500 to the cur­ren­cy-​cush­ioned lin­ing of my two-​suit­er.

That night I told the girl I would be leav­ing the fol­low­ing day. "I'll prob­ably be fly­ing out of Frisco or L.A., I don't know which," I lied. "Ei­ther way I'll be back of­ten. I'll just rent a light plane and come up. We'll look at those red­woods from the top for a change."

She be­lieved me. "That's a deal," she said, and sug­gest­ed we go down to the wharves and eat seafood. She seemed more hun­gry than un­hap­py, which was agree­able with me. But halfway through the meal I looked out the win­dow, saw a fish­ing boat com­ing in to the dock and re­mem­bered the young fish­er­man. I al­so re­mem­bered. I had jot­ted down my re­al name and my New York ad­dress-my fa­ther's ad­dress, at least-on the back of one of the counter checks. I had a puck­ered feel­ing in the nether re­gions at the thought, as if some­one had goosed me. What the hell had I done with that check? I couldn't re­call off­hand, and try­ing to re­mem­ber and car­ry on an ar­dent con­ver­sa­tion with my com­pan­ion made my last night with the girl some­thing less than mem­orable.

Back in my room, I searched for the blank check, but to no avail. I had a lot of blank checks, but they were all still in the binder. I had to con­clude that I'd made that par­tic­ular blank check up as a sham Pan Am ex­pense check and had passed it at one of the three banks. But I couldn't have, I told my­self. I had to en­dorse each check on its back, and sure­ly I'd have no­ticed the writ­ing. But would I have? I re­called how light the pen­cil had been. My writ­ing had been bare­ly leg­ible, even in the bright light of af­ter­noon. I could eas­ily have over­looked the scrawled words when I en­dorsed the check, es­pe­cial­ly in view of the op­er­at­ing pro­ce­dure I'd de­vel­oped in Eu­re­ka. I had found that palm­ing off one of the fake vouch­ers went much smoother and quick­er when I kept the teller's at­ten­tion on me rather than the check. And to get a wom­an's at­ten­tion, you have to pay at­ten­tion to her.

I sat down on the bed and forced a to­tal re­call of the events that had re­sult­ed in the sit­ua­tion, and soon sat­is­fied my­self as to what had hap­pened. I had dropped the loose check on top of the open book of counter checks. I had picked it up first the next morn­ing, my en­counter with the fish­er­man un­re­mem­bered, when I made up the three coun­ter­feit ex­pense checks. And I had placed it in the phonied-​up en­ve­lope im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter fin­ish­ing it, so there­fore it had been the first of the three cashed. And I now re­called the teller who'd cashed the check for me. I'd giv­en her lots of at­ten­tion. Too much, it seemed.

And a cer­tain bank in Eu­re­ka had a coun­ter­feit Pan Am ex­pense check en­dorsed by a coun­ter­feit co-​pi­lot, but al­so bear­ing on the back the sig­na­ture of Frank Abag­nale, Jr., and the ad­dress of his fa­ther in the Bronx. Once the check was ex­posed as a fraud, it wouldn't take a Sher­lock Holmes to make the con­nec­tion. And the case.

I sud­den­ly felt hot­ter than a blast fur­nace. I start­ed think­ing again of leav­ing the coun­try, jump­ing the bor­der in­to Mex­ico. Or even more souther­ly climes. But this time I con­tem­plat­ed the idea re­luc­tant­ly. In Eu­re­ka I'd de­vised what I con­sid­ered a grand new theft scheme, one that paid off bet­ter than doc­tored dice in a crap game. And heady with the suc­cess of the sys­tem, I'd set aside my fears of be­ing close­ly pur­sued and had con­vinced my­self that I was as cool as an arc­tic ice floe. I had in­tend­ed to work my coun­ter­feit check scam from coast to coast and bor­der to bor­der. It chafed me to have to aban­don my plans be­cause I'd stupid­ly blown my cov­er.

But did I have to give up the game? Had I blown my cov­er at this point? If I hadn't no­ticed the scrib­bling on the back of the check, maybe no one else had, ei­ther.

There was al­so a good pos­si­bil­ity the check was still in the bank. I'd cashed it ear­ly in the af­ter­noon, and it was pos­si­ble it wouldn't be rout­ed to New York un­til the mor­row. If it hadn't left the bank, per­haps I could pur­chase it back. I could tell them Pan Am had is­sued the check in er­ror and I shouldn't have cashed it, or some such con­coct­ed tale. I was sure I could come up with a good sto­ry if the check was still on hand. I fell asleep mulling fea­si­ble ex­cus­es to of­fer.

I packed, stowed my gear in my car and paid my mo­tel bill be­fore call­ing the bank the next morn­ing. I asked for the head teller and was con­nect­ed with a wom­an who iden­ti­fied her­self as "Stel­la War­ing" in brisk tones.

"Mrs. War­ing, a Pan Am pi­lot cashed a check in your bank yes­ter­day," I said. "Can you tell me ..." She cut me off be­fore I could say more.

"Yes, a bo­gus check," she said, abrupt­ly in­dig­nant and with­out ask­ing my iden­ti­ty or my rea­son for call­ing. "We've no­ti­fied the FBI. They're sup­posed to be send­ing an agent for the check."

I wasn't chal­lenged. I act­ed on im­pulse, an in­cite­ment to pro­tect my re­al iden­ti­ty. "Yes," I said. "This is the FBI. I want­ed to alert you that our agent will be there in about fif­teen min­utes. Do you have the check, or is there some­one else he should con­tact?"

"Just have him see me, sir, I'll have the check," Mrs.

War­ing replied. "Of course, we'd like a Xe­rox of the check for our records. That is all right, isn't it?"

"Of course," I as­sured her. "I will in­struct Mr. Davis to pro­vide you with a copy."

I was at the bank with­in five min­utes, dressed in a blue busi­ness suit, but I dis­creet­ly cased the in­te­ri­or be­fore en­ter­ing. The teller who had cashed the check was nowhere in sight.

Had she been, I would not have en­tered. I didn't know whether she was on a cof­fee break or what, and I was un­easy about her ap­pear­ing while I was in the bank, but I was driv­en to take the risk. I strode in­to the lob­by and the re­cep­tion­ist di­rect­ed me to Mrs. War­ing's desk at one side of the floor. She was a trim, hand­some wom­an in her thir­ties, with the dress and air of the com­plete busi­ness­wom­an. She looked up as I stopped in front of her desk.

"Mrs. War­ing, I'm Bill Davis of the FBI. I be­lieve my boss called you ear­li­er?" I said.

She nod­ded with a gri­mace. "Oh, yes, Mr. Davis," she said. "I have the check right here." She did not ask for cre­den­tials or seem sus­pi­cious of my sta­tus at all. She mere­ly pro­duced the check from a draw­er and hand­ed it to me. I ex­am­ined it with a pro­fes­sion­al air, an at­ti­tude eas­ily as­sumed since I was the man­ufac­tur­er. On the back, bare­ly per­ceiv­able, was my re­al name and my fa­ther's ad­dress.

"It looks pret­ty junky," I ob­served dry­ly. "I'm sur­prised any­one would cash it."

Mrs. War­ing smiled sour agree­ment. "Yes, we have some girls here that, well, they see a hand­some pi­lot or some oth­er man that presents a ro­man­tic fig­ure, and they tend to lose their cool. They're more in­ter­est­ed in the man than in what he's hand­ing them," she said in dis­ap­prov­ing tones. "The girl who took this check, Miss Cast­er, was so up­set she didn't even come in this morn­ing."

I re­laxed at the in­for­ma­tion and be­gan to en­joy my pose as a G-​man. "Well, we will have to talk to her, but we can do that lat­er," I said. "Have you made a copy of this yet?"

"No, but there's a Xe­rox ma­chine right there in the cor­ner, it'll on­ly take me a minute," she said.

"I'll do it," I said, and walked quick­ly to the ma­chine be­fore she could ob­ject. I copied on­ly the front of the check, a fac­tor she didn't no­tice when I laid it on her desk.

"Let me sign this and date it," I said, pick­ing up a pen. "This copy is your re­ceipt. You un­der­stand we need this orig­inal as ev­idence. It will be in the cus­tody of the U.S. At­tor­ney. I think this is all we need at the mo­ment, Mrs. War­ing. We cer­tain­ly ap­pre­ci­ate your, co­op­er­ation." I pock­et­ed the damn­ing orig­inal and left.

I learned lat­er that I ex­it­ed the bank bare­ly five min­utes be­fore the ac­tu­al FBI agent-Eu­re­ka's on­ly G-​man, in fact-ar­rived. I al­so learned lat­er that Mrs. War­ing her­self was more than a lit­tle up­set when she learned she had been duped, but then FBI agents do have a cer­tain ro­man­tic au­ra of their own and a wom­an doesn't have to be young to be im­pressed by a glam­orous fig­ure.

Pos­ing as an FBI agent was not the smartest move I made at that point in my crim­inal ca­reer. Fed­er­al agents are gen­er­al­ly high­ly ef­fi­cient of­fi­cers, but they are even more ef­fi­cient and de­ter­mined when some­one im­per­son­ates an FBI agent. I had cir­cum­vent­ed, tem­porar­ily, the dis­clo­sure that Frank Williams, pi­lot poseur, was in re­al­ity Frank Abag­nale, Jr., but un­know­ing­ly I fur­nished O'Ri­ley a fresh trail to fol­low and there­after it was hound and hare to the end.

How­ev­er, I was still in a learn­ing stage as a forg­er, al­beit an ad­vanced stu­dent, and I tend­ed to take risks an ex­pe­ri­enced check thief would shud­der to chance. I was an in­de­pen­dent ac­tor, writ­ing, pro­duc­ing and di­rect­ing my own scripts. I did not know any pro­fes­sion­al crim­inals, I didn't seek out crim­inal ex­per­tise and I shunned any place that smacked of be­ing a crim­inal haunt.

The peo­ple who as­sist­ed me in my du­bi­ous ca­pers were all hon­est, le­git­imate, re­spectable folk whom I duped or conned in­to lend­ing me help. In re­al­ity, my to­tal au­ton­omy was the biggest fac­tor in my suc­cess. The usu­al crim­inal sources of in­for­ma­tion for the po­lice were use­less to them in their search for me. The un­der­world grapevine sim­ply had no in­tel­li­gence on me. While my true iden­ti­ty was es­tab­lished mid­way in my course, the leads gar­nered by po­lice were all af­ter-​the-​fact leads. I was al­ways sev­er­al days gone by the time my mis­deeds were ex­posed as such, and of­fi­cers were nev­er able to pick up my trail un­til I struck again, usu­al­ly in some far-​off city.

Once I em­barked on coun­ter­feit­ing checks, I re­al­ized I had reached a point of no re­turn. I had cho­sen pa­per-​hang­ing as a pro­fes­sion, my means of sur­viv­ing, and hav­ing cho­sen a ne­far­ious oc­cu­pa­tion, I set out to per­fect my work­ing skills. In the en­su­ing weeks and months, I stud­ied check trans­ac­tions and bank­ing pro­ce­dures as dili­gent­ly as any in­vestor stud­ies the mar­kets avail­able to him, and I did my home­work in un­ob­tru­sive ways. I dat­ed tellers and picked their brains while stroking their bod­ies. I went to li­braries and pe­rused bank­ing mag­azines, jour­nals and trade books. I read fi­nan­cial pub­li­ca­tions and cre­at­ed op­por­tu­ni­ties to con­verse with bank of­fi­cials. All my wrong­ful tech­niques, in short, were pol­ished with right­ful wax.

Of course, as some­one once ob­served, there is no right way to do some­thing wrong, but the most suc­cess­ful check swindlers have three fac­tors in their fa­vor, and any one of the three, or the scant­iest com­bi­na­tion of the three, can pay off like three bars on a slot ma­chine.

The first is per­son­al­ity, and I look on per­son­al groom­ing as part of one's per­son­al­ity. Top con artists, whether they're push­ing hot pa­per or hawk­ing pho­ny oil leas­es, are well dressed and ex­ude an air of con­fi­dence and au­thor­ity. They're usu­al­ly, too, as charm­ing, cour­te­ous and seem­ing­ly sin­cere as a politi­cian seek­ing re­elec­tion, al­though they can, at times, ef­fect the cool ar­ro­gance of a ty­coon.

The sec­ond is ob­ser­va­tion. Ob­ser­va­tion is a skill that can be de­vel­oped, but I was born blessed (or cursed) with the abil­ity to pick up on de­tails and items the av­er­age man over­looks. Ob­ser­va­tion, as I will il­lus­trate lat­er, is the on­ly ne­ces­si­ty for suc­cess­ful in­no­va­tive larce­ny. A news­man who did a sto­ry on me not­ed, "A good con man reads sign like an In­di­an, and Frank Abag­nale would have made the best Pawnee scout on the fron­tier look like a half-​blind ten­der­foot."

The third fac­tor is re­search, the big dif­fer­ence be­tween the hard-​nosed crim­inal and the su­per con man. A hood plan­ning a bank holdup might case the trea­sury for rudi­men­ta­ry facts, but in the end he de­pends on his gun. A con artist's on­ly weapon is his brain. A con man who de­cides to hit the same bank with a fic­ti­tious check or a so­phis­ti­cat­ed check swin­dle re­search­es ev­ery facet of the ca­per. In my hey­day as a hawk­er of hot pa­per, I knew as much about checks as any teller em­ployed in any bank in the world and more than the ma­jor­ity. I'm not even sure a great many bankers pos­sessed the knowl­edge I had of checks.

Here are some ex­am­ples of the things I knew about checks and most tellers didn't, lit­tle things that en­abled me to fleece them like sheep. All le­git­imate checks, for in­stance, will have at least one per­fo­rat­ed (or scal­loped) edge. The edge will be at the top if tak­en from a per­son­al check­book, on two or three sides if tak­en from a busi­ness check ledger. Some knowl­edge­able firms even scal­lop all four sides of their checks. An in­ge­nious check coun­ter­feit­er can du­pli­cate such vouch­ers, of course, but on­ly if he in­vests $40,000 or more in a per­fo­rat­ing press, and if he did that he'd hard­ly be in­ge­nious. It's not some­thing one can tote around in a suit­case.

There are worth­less checks that have a per­fo­rat­ed edge, of course, but the checks aren't bo­gus. The ac­count is. In ev­ery in­stance where I passed a per­son­al check, I was ac­tu­al­ly pass­ing an in­suf­fi­cient check. When­ev­er I went off on a per­son­al-​check-​pass­ing tan­gent, I would first open up a le­git­imate check­ing ac­count, us­ing a pho­ny name, in or­der to get fifty to one hun­dred per­son­al­ized checks. And, as men­tioned pre­vi­ous­ly, the first one or two I wrote were usu­al­ly good. Af­ter that I was fly­ing kites.

I said ear­li­er that the good check swindler is re­al­ly op­er­at­ing a num­bers game, and he is. All checks, whether per­son­al or busi­ness, have a se­ries of num­bers in the low­er left-​hand cor­ners, just above the bot­toms. Take a per­son­al check that has the num­bers 1130 0119 546 085 across the bot­tom left-​hand cor­ner. Dur­ing my reign as a rip-​off cham­pi­on, not one out of a hun­dred tellers or pri­vate cashiers paid any at­ten­tion to such nu­mer­als, and I'm con­vinced that on­ly a hand­ful of the peo­ple han­dling checks knew what the se­ries of num­bers sig­ni­fied. I'll de­code it:

The num­ber 11 de­notes that the check was print­ed with­in the Eleventh Fed­er­al Re­serve Dis­trict. There are twelve and on­ly twelve Fed­er­al Re­serve Dis­tricts in the Unit­ed States. The Eleventh in­cludes Texas, where this check was print­ed. The 3 af­ter the 11 tells one that the check was print­ed in Hous­ton specif­ical­ly, for the Third Dis­trict Of­fice of the FRD is lo­cat­ed in that city. The 0 in­di­cates that im­me­di­ate cred­it is avail­able on the check. In the mid­dle se­ries of num­bers, the 0 iden­ti­fies the clear­ing house (Hous­ton) and the 119 is the bank's iden­ti­fi­ca­tion num­ber with­in the dis­trict. The 546 085 is the ac­count num­ber as­signed the cus­tomer by the bank.

How does that knowl­edge ben­efit a check coun­ter­feit­er? With a bun­dle in his swag and a run­ning head start, that's how. Say such a man presents a pay­roll check to a teller or cashier for pay­ment. It is a fine-​look­ing check, is­sued by a large and rep­utable Hous­ton firm, payable at a Hous­ton bank, or so it states on the face of the chit. The se­ries of num­bers in the low­er left-​hand cor­ner, how­ev­er, starts with the num­ber 12, but the teller or cashier doesn't no­tice that, or if she/he does, she/he, is ig­no­rant of the mean­ing of the num­bers.

A com­put­er isn't. When the check lands in the clear­ing­house bank, usu­al­ly the same night, a com­put­er will kick it out, be­cause, while the face of the check says it's payable in Hous­ton, the num­bers say it's payable in San Fran­cis­co and bank com­put­ers read on­ly num­bers. The check, there­fore, is sort­ed in­to a batch of checks go­ing to the Twelfth Dis­trict, San Fran­cis­co in this in­stance, for col­lec­tion. In San Fran­cis­co an­oth­er com­put­er will re­ject the check be­cause the bank iden­ti­fi­ca­tion num­ber doesn't jibe, and at that point the check lands in the hands of a clear­ing-​house bank clerk. In most in­stances, the clerk will note on­ly the face of the check, see that it is payable at a Hous­ton bank and hand-​mail it back, at­tribut­ing its ar­rival in San Fran­cis­co to com­put­er er­ror. In any event, five to sev­en days have passed be­fore the per­son who cashed the check is aware he or she has been swin­dled, and the pa­per­hang­er has long since hooked 'em.

I got rich off the ig­no­rance of bank per­son­nel con­cern­ing their own nu­mer­ical codes and the lack of knowl­edge of checks on the part of peo­ple who cashed checks. In San Fran­cis­co, where I tar­ried for sev­er­al weeks af­ter flee­ing Eu­re­ka, I man­ufac­tured sev­er­al dozen of the pho­ny Pan Am ex­pense checks and passed them in San Fran­cis­co banks, at the air­port and in banks or ho­tels in sur­round­ing com­mu­ni­ties, cod­ing the checks so they were rout­ed' to such dis­tant points as Boston, Philadel­phia, Cleve­land and Rich­mond.

No forty-​nin­er ev­er struck it rich­er in them thar Cal­ifor­nia hills than I did. My fab­ri­cat­ed en­ve­lope was still an in­valu­able aid in cash­ing the fake vouch­ers, but I used it so much in the Bay Area that it start­ed to come apart at the seams. I need­ed a new one.

And why not a re­al one? I rea­soned. San Fran­cis­co was one of Pan Am's bases, and I was a Pan Am pi­lot, wasn't I? Hell no, I wasn't, but who out at Pan Am op­er­ations would know that? I went to the air­port and bold­ly saun­tered in­to the Pan Am op­er­ations com­plex. "Say, where can I get some writ­ing pa­per and en­velopes? I'm a stranger here," I asked the first per­son I en­coun­tered, a ra­dio op­er­ator.

"The stock­room, around the cor­ner there," he said, point­ing. "Help your­self."

I did, since the stock­room was unat­tend­ed. I grabbed a batch of en­velopes, a stack of sta­tionery with Pan Am's let­ter­head, stuffed them in my brief­case and was leav­ing when an­oth­er stack of forms caught my eye. "check au­tho­riza­tion," said the bold let­ters across the head of the top form. I picked up a sheaf and ex­am­ined the top doc­ument. The forms were re­quests for ad­vance ex­pense checks or com­pen­sa­tion for ex­pens­es in­curred, au­tho­riz­ing the com­pa­ny cashier to is­sue a check to the named bear­er when signed by Pan Am's San Fran­cis­co man­ag­er. I put a pack­et of the forms in my brief­case, too. No one spoke to me as I left. I don't think any­one I en­coun­tered paid the slight­est heed to me.

The check au­tho­riza­tion form was a love­ly lit­tle helper. I'd fold it around one of my bas­tard brain­chil­dren be­fore slip­ping the check in­to an au­then­tic Pan Am en­ve­lope. I al­ways made cer­tain that the au­tho­riza­tion form, prop­er­ly if not legal­ly filled out, and the en­ve­lope were promi­nent­ly in ev­idence when I cashed one of my check cre­ations.

One day I re­turned from for­ag­ing among Berke­ley's mon­ey hous­es to find there was no room in ei­ther my suit­case or my duf­fel bag for clothes. They were both full of loose bills. I was steal­ing faster than I could spend. I took $25,000, went to a San Jose bank, rent­ed a safe-​de­posit box un­der the name of John Calcagne, paid three years' rent in ad­vance and stowed the cash in the box. The next day I went to a bank in Oak­land and re­peat­ed the pro­ce­dure, us­ing the name Pe­ter Morel­li.

Then I went back to San Fran­cis­co and fell in love.

Her name was Ros­alie and she was a stew­ardess for Amer­ican Air­lines. She lived in an old house with five room­mates, all stews for Amer­ican, too, and I met her when I en­coun­tered the six of them on a bus re­turn­ing from the air­port. They had been to the air­port on le­git­imate busi­ness. I had been there per­pe­trat­ing a lit­tle light larce­ny. We start­ed dat­ing that same night.

Ros­alie was one of the loveli­est wom­en I'd ev­er met, and I still think so. She had frost­ed blond hair and, as I learned quick­ly, some­thing of a frost­ed na­ture. At twen­ty-​four she was still a vir­gin, and she in­formed me on our sec­ond date that she in­tend­ed to stay chaste un­til her wed­ding day. I told her I ad­mired her at­ti­tude, and I did, but it still didn't stop me from try­ing to un­dress her any­time we were alone.

As a com­pan­ion, Ros­alie was de­light­ful. We shared an en­joy­ment of mu­sic, good books, the ocean, ski­ing, the the­ater, trav­el and a score of oth­er plea­sures and pur­suits. Ros­alie was de­vout­ly re­li­gious, and like me a Catholic, but she did not in­sist that I at­tend mass with her.

"Why don't you preach to me about my sins?" I asked her in a ban­ter­ing tone one day af­ter pick­ing her up at church.

She laughed. "I don't know that you have any, Frank," she replied. "You sure don't have any bad habits that I'm aware of. I like you like you are."

I found my­self get­ting clos­er to Ros­alie each time I was with her. She had so many good qual­ities. She seemed the epit­ome of the kind of wom­an most young bach­elors dream of find­ing for a wife: she was loy­al, clean-​cut, in­tel­li­gent, even-​tem­pered, con­sid­er­ate, love­ly and she didn't smoke or drink. She was all ap­ple pie, Amer­ican flag, mom and sis and spring rolled up in a Girl Scout sash.

"Ros­alie, I love you," I said to her one night.

She nod­ded. "I love you, too, Frank," she said qui­et­ly.

"Why don't we go vis­it my par­ents and tell them about us?"

Her par­ents lived in Downey, south of Los An­ge­les. It was a long drive, and en route we stopped and rent­ed a cab­in near Pis­mo Beach. We had a won­der­ful evening, and when we re­sumed our jour­ney the next morn­ing, Ros­alie was no longer a vir­gin. I re­al­ly felt bad about it, for I thought I should have been more con­sid­er­ate of her virtue, which I knew full well she val­ued high­ly. I apol­ogized re­peat­ed­ly as we drove down the coast in her car, which she had in­sist­ed we use.

Ros­alie snug­gled up to me and smiled. "Stop apol­ogiz­ing, Frank," she said. "I want­ed to do it. Any­way, we'll just add that one to our wed­ding night."

Her par­ents were nice peo­ple. They wel­comed me warm­ly, and when Ros­alie told them we were go­ing to be mar­ried, they were en­thu­si­as­tic and con­grat­ulat­ed us warm­ly. For two days all I heard was wed­ding plans al­though I hadn't ac­tu­al­ly asked Ros­alie to mar­ry me. But it seemed tak­en for grant­ed that I had, and her par­ents ob­vi­ous­ly ap­proved of me.

But how could I mar­ry her? She thought I was Frank Williams, a Pan Am co-​pi­lot with a bright fu­ture. I knew I couldn't main­tain the pose if we were mar­ried. It would be on­ly a mat­ter of time be­fore she learned I was re­al­ly Frank Abag­nale, a teen-​aged swindler with a pho­ny front and a dirty past. I couldn't do that to Ros­alie, I told my­self.

Or could I? I had $80,000 or $90,000 in cash, am­ple funds to fi­nance the be­gin­ning of a mar­riage. Maybe Ros­alie would be­lieve me if I told her I didn't want to fly any­more, that I'd al­ways want­ed to own and op­er­ate a sta­tionery store. I didn't, re­al­ly, but it was the one hon­est trade in which I was versed. I dis­missed the idea. I would still be "Frank Williams," and Frank Williams would still be a hunt­ed out­law.

What start­ed as a pleas­ant vis­it turned in­to an or­deal for me. I felt I re­al­ly loved Ros­alie, and I felt I re­al­ly want­ed to mar­ry her, but I didn't see how un­der the cir­cum­stances.

How­ev­er, Ros­alie thought she was go­ing to mar­ry me. And her par­ents thought she was go­ing to mar­ry me. They hap­pi­ly charged ahead, set­ting the date for a month hence, mak­ing up a list of whom to in­vite, plan­ning the re­cep­tion and do­ing all the things par­ents and a daugh­ter do when the girl's about to be­come a bride. I took part in many of the dis­cus­sions, out­ward­ly hap­py and ea­ger for the day, but in­ward­ly I was tor­tured with guilt, burn­ing with shame and to­tal­ly mis­er­able. I had told Ros­alie and her par­ents that my par­ents were on a Eu­ro­pean va­ca­tion, and they agreed they should wait un­til my par­ents re­turned, which I said should be with­in ten days, be­fore fi­nal­iz­ing any plans.

"I'm sure your moth­er will want to have a hand in this, Frank," said Ros­alie's moth­er.

"I'm sure she would," I lied, al­though I was sure my moth­er would like to get her hands on me.

I didn't know what to do. I was stay­ing in Ros­alie's home, in the guest room, and at night I'd lie in my bed and I could hear the mur­mur of her par­ents' voic­es in their room across the hall, and I knew they were talk­ing about their daugh­ter's mar­riage to such a fine young man. It made me feel rot­ten.

One af­ter­noon Ros­alie and I went bike rid­ing and we end­ed up in a park, sit­ting un­der a gi­ant shade tree, and Ros­alie, as usu­al, was chat­ter­ing about our fu­ture-where we'd live, how many kids we'd have and so on. I looked at her as she talked and sud­den­ly I felt she'd un­der­stand, that she loved me enough to not on­ly un­der­stand but to for­give. One of the traits I loved most in her was her com­pas­sion.

I put my hand gen­tly over her mouth. "Ros­alie," I said, and I was sur­prised at my calm­ness and com­po­sure. "I need to tell you some­thing, and I want you to try and un­der­stand. If I didn't love you so much, I wouldn't tell you this at all, for I've nev­er told any­one what I'm go­ing to tell you. And I'm telling you, Ros­alie, be­cause I love you and I do want us to get mar­ried.

"Ros­alie, I am not a pi­lot for Pan Amer­ican. I'm not twen­ty-​eight, Ros­alie. I'm nine­teen. My name is not Frank Williams. My name is Frank Abag­nale. I'm a crook, Ros­alie, an im­pos­tor and a check swindler, and I'm want­ed by the po­lice all over the coun­try."

She looked at me, shocked. "Are you se­ri­ous?" she fi­nal­ly said. "But I met you at the air­port. You have a pi­lot's li­cense. I've seen it! You have a Pan Am ID card. You were in uni­form, Frank! Why are you say­ing these things, Frank? What is the mat­ter with you?"

She laughed ner­vous­ly. "You're kid­ding me, Frank!"

I shook my head. "No, Ros­alie, I'm not. Ev­ery­thing I've said is true," I said, and I laid it all out for her, from the Bronx to Downey. I talked for an hour, watch­ing her face as I talked and see­ing her eyes mir­ror in turn hor­ror, dis­be­lief, agony, de­spair and pity be­fore her emo­tions were hid­den be­hind a cur­tain of tears.

She buried her hands in her hair and wept un­con­trol­lably for what seemed an eter­ni­ty. Then she took my hand­ker­chief, wiped her eyes and face and stood up. "Let's go back home, Frank," she said qui­et­ly.

"You go on, Ros­alie," I said. "I'll be there short­ly, but I need to be alone for a while. And Ros­alie, don't say any­thing to any­one un­til I get there. When your par­ents learn about this, I want them to hear it from me. Promise me that, Ros­alie."

She nod­ded. "I promise, Frank. I'll see you lat­er."

She ped­aled off, a love­ly wom­an re­duced to a for­lorn fig­ure at the mo­ment. I got on my bike and rode around, think­ing. Ros­alie hadn't said a lot, re­al­ly. She cer­tain­ly hadn't told me ev­ery­thing would be all right, that she for­gave me and we'd be mar­ried any­way. I re­al­ly didn't know what she was think­ing, or what her re­ac­tion would be when I reap­peared at her home. Should I even go back? All I had at her house were some sports clothes, a cou­ple of suits, un­der­wear and shav­ing kit. I'd left my uni­form in my mo­tel room in San Fran­cis­co, and I had my fake ID and pho­ny pi­lot's li­cense in my pock­et. I had nev­er told Ros­alie where I lived. I'd al­ways called her or gone to her home. When she asked me once, I told her I lived with a cou­ple of kooky pi­lots in Alame­da and they were so weird they wouldn't have a tele­phone or tele­vi­sion in the apart­ment.

That had seemed to sat­is­fy her. She wasn't at all an in­quis­itive per­son, tend­ing to take peo­ple as they pre­sent­ed them­selves. That's one rea­son I en­joyed her com­pa­ny and had dat­ed her more than usu­al. I felt safe around her.

But I didn't feel safe at the mo­ment and I was be­gin­ning to doubt the wis­dom of my im­promp­tu con­fes­sion. I forced my­self to brush aside my mis­giv­ings. What­ev­er else she might do, in light of what she now knew, Ros­alie wouldn't be­tray me, I told my­self.

I con­tem­plat­ed phon­ing her to get a read­ing on what her feel­ings were now, but de­cid­ed to face her and press for a de­ci­sion. I ap­proached her home from a side street and just be­fore reach­ing the cor­ner I stopped, laid the bike down and walked along a hedge bor­der­ing a neigh­bor's yard un­til I had a view of her house through the fo­liage.

Parked in front of Ros­alie's home was an L.A. black-​and-​white, and a sec­ond ve­hi­cle, which, while not-​marked, was plain­ly a cop car, was parked in the drive­way. A uni­formed po­lice­man was in the squad car scan­ning the street.

My love­ly Ros­alie had finked on me.

I went back to the bike and ped­aled off in the op­po­site di­rec­tion. When I reached the down­town dis­trict, I parked the bike and caught a cab to the Los An­ge­les air­port. With­in thir­ty min­utes I was in the air, re­turn­ing to San Fran­cis­co. I was plagued with a feel­ing I couldn't iden­ti­fy the en­tire trip, and the neb­ulous emo­tion stayed with me as I packed, paid my mo­tel bill and re­turned to the air­port. I bought a tick­et to Las Ve­gas, us­ing the name James Franklin, and I left the Bar­racu­da in the air­port park­ing lot, the keys in the ig­ni­tion. It was the first of many cars I pur­chased and aban­doned.

I was still pos­sessed by the odd feel­ing dur­ing the flight to Las Ve­gas. It wasn't anger. It wasn't sad­ness. It wasn't guilt. I couldn't put my fin­ger on it un­til I stepped off the plane in Neva­da. Then I iden­ti­fied the emo­tion.

It was re­lief. I was hap­py to have Ros­alie out of my life! The knowl­edge as­ton­ished me, for not six hours past I'd been des­per­ate­ly seek­ing a way to make her my wife. As­ton­ished or not, I was still re­lieved.

It was my first trip to Las Ve­gas and the city was ev­ery­thing and more than I'd imag­ined. There was a fran­tic, elec­tric au­ra about the whole city, and the peo­ple, vis­itors and res­idents alike, seemed to be rush­ing around in a state of fre­net­ic ex­pec­ta­tion. New York was a city of leisure­ly calm in com­par­ison. "Gam­bling fever," ex­plained a cab­bie when I men­tioned the dy­nam­ic at­mo­sphere.

"Ev­ery­body's got it. Ev­ery­body's out to make a killing, es­pe­cial­ly the Johns. They fly in on jets or driv­ing big wheels and leave on their thumbs. The on­ly win­ners in this town are the hous­es. Ev­ery­body else is a los­er. Take my ad­vice-if you're gonna play, play the dolls. A lot of them are hun­gry."

I took a suite at a mo­tel and paid two weeks' rent in ad­vance. The reg­is­tra­tion clerk wasn't im­pressed at all by the wad of $100 bills from which I peeled the ho­tel charge. A big roll in Ve­gas is like pock­et change in Peo­ria, I soon learned.

I in­tend­ed Las Ve­gas to be just an R & R stop. I fol­lowed the cab­bie's ad­vice and played the chicks. He was right about the girls. Most of them were hun­gry. Ac­tu­al­ly hun­gry. Fam­ished, in fact. Af­ter a week with some of the more ravenous ones, I felt like Moses feed­ing the mul­ti­tudes.

How­ev­er, as the Good Book sayeth: He that giveth un­to the poor shall not lack.

I am feed­ing a fam­ished gamin pool­side. She has been liv­ing on casi­no free lunch­es for three days while try­ing to con­tact a broth­er in Phoenix to ask for bus fare home. "I blew ev­ery­thing," she said rue­ful­ly while de­vour­ing a huge steak with all the trim­mings. "All the mon­ey I brought with me, all the mon­ey in my check­ing ac­count, all I could raise on my jew­el­ry. I even cashed in my re­turn air­line tick­et. It's a good thing my room was paid in ad­vance or I'd be sleep­ing on lob­by couch­es."

She grinned cheer­ful­ly. "Serves me right. I've nev­er gam­bled be­fore, and I didn't in­tend to gam­ble when I came here. But the damned place gets to you."

She looked at me quizzi­cal­ly. "I hope you're just be­ing nice, buy­ing me din­ner. I know there're ways a girl can get things in this burg, but that ain't my style, man."

I laughed. "Re­lax. I like your style. Are you go­ing back to a job in Phoenix?"

She nod­ded. "I am if I can get hold of Bud. But I may not have a job if I'm not back by Mon­day."

"What do you do?" I asked. She looked the sec­re­tary type.

"I'm a check de­sign­er for a firm that de­signs and prints checks," she said. "A com­mer­cial artist, re­al­ly. It's a small firm, but we do work for a cou­ple of big banks and a lot of busi­ness firms."

I was as­ton­ished. "Well, I'll be darned," I ven­tured. "That's in­ter­est­ing. What do you do when you de­sign and print a check?"

"Oh, it de­pends on whether we're mak­ing up plain checks or fan­cy ones; you know, the kind with pic­tures, land­scapes and dif­fer­ent col­ors. It's a sim­ple op­er­ation for just plain checks. I just lay it out on a big paste-​up board how­ev­er the cus­tomer wants it, and then we pho­to­graph it with an I-​Tek cam­era, re­duc­ing it to size, and the cam­era pro­duces an en­grav­ing. We just put the en­grav­ing on a lit­tle off­set press and print up the check in blocks or sheets. Any­body could do it, re­al­ly, with a lit­tle train­ing."

Her name was Pix­ie. I leaned over and kissed her on the fore­head. "Pix­ie, how'd you like to go home tonight, by air?" I asked.

"You're kid­ding me?" she ac­cused, her eyes wary.

"No, I'm not," I as­sured her. "I'm an air­line pi­lot for Pan Am. We don't fly out of here, but I have dead­head priv­ileges. I can get you a seat to Phoenix on any air­line that serves Ve­gas from there. All it'll cost is a lit­tle white lie. I'll say you're my sis­ter. No oth­er strings at­tached, okay?"

"Hey, all right!" she said de­light­ed­ly and gave me a big bear hug.

While she packed, I bought her a tick­et, pay­ing for it in cash. I took her to the air­port and pressed a $100 bill in her hand as she board­ed the plane. "No ar­gu­ments," I said. "That's a loan. I'll be around to col­lect one of these days."

I did get to Phoenix, but I made no ef­fort to con­tact her. If I had, it wouldn't have been to col­lect but to pay off, for Pix­ie let me in­to the mint.

The next day I sought out a sta­tionery print­ing sup­ply firm. "I'm think­ing of start­ing a lit­tle sta­tionery store and job print­ing shop," I told a sales­man.

"I've been ad­vised that an I-​Tek cam­era and a small off­set press would prob­ably meet my ini­tial needs, and that good used equip­ment might prove just as fea­si­ble from an eco­nom­ic stand­point."

The sales­man nod­ded. "That's true," he agreed. "Trou­ble is, used I-​Tek cam­eras are hard to come by. We don't have one. We do have a fine lit­tle off­set press that's seen very lim­it­ed ser­vice, and I'll make you a good deal on the press if you take it along with a new I-​Tek. Let you have both for $8,000."

I was some­what sur­prised by the price, but af­ter he showed me the ma­chines and demon­strat­ed the op­er­at­ing pro­ce­dure of both, I felt $8,000 was a pal­try sum to in­vest in such gems. An I-​Tek cam­era is sim­ply a pho­to­elec­tric en­graver. It pho­to­graph­ical­ly pro­duces an en­grav­ing of the orig­inal copy to be re­pro­duced. The lightweight, flex­ible plate is then wrapped around the cylin­der of an off­set press, and the plate prints di­rect­ly on the blan­ket of the press, which in turn off­sets the im­age on­to what­ev­er pa­per stock is used. As Pix­ie said, any­body could do it with a lit­tle train­ing, and I ac­quired my train­ing on the spot.

The I-​Tek cam­era and the small press, while not over­ly heavy, were large and bulky, not ob­jects to be cart­ed around the coun­try as part of one's lug­gage. But I planned on­ly a lim­it­ed own­er­ship of the ma­chines.

I lo­cat­ed a ware­house stor­age firm and rent­ed a well-​light­ed cu­bi­cle for a month, pay­ing in ad­vance. I then ob­tained a cashier's check for $8,000 and bought the I-​Tek cam­era and the press and had them de­liv­ered to the stor­age room. The same day I made a round of sta­tionery stores and pur­chased all the sup­plies I need­ed-a draw­ing board, pens and pen­cils, rulers, a pa­per cut­ter, press-​on let­ters and nu­mer­als, a quan­ti­ty of safe­ty pa­per in both blue and green card stock of the type used for the re­al ex­pense checks and oth­er items.

The next day I clos­et­ed my­self in my makeshift work­shop and, us­ing the var­ious ma­te­ri­als, cre­at­ed a 16-by-24-inch fac­sim­ile of the sham Pan Am ex­pense check I'd been re­pro­duc­ing by hand. Fin­ished, I po­si­tioned my art­work un­der the cam­era, set the re­duc­tion scale for a 2>V2-by-7V2-inch en­grav­ing and pushed the but­ton. With­in min­utes I was fit­ting the plate around the drum of the press and print­ing sam­ple copies of my in­ven­tion.

I was as­ton­ished and de­light­ed. The cam­era re­duc­tion had tak­en away any in­frac­tions and dis­crep­an­cies in lines and let­ter­ing as far as the naked eye could dis­cern. Us­ing the pa­per cut­ter, I sliced one from the card stock and ex­am­ined it. Save for the four smooth edges, I might have been hold­ing a gen­uine check!

I ran off five hun­dred of the coun­ter­feit checks be­fore shut­ting down the lit­tle press and aban­don­ing both it and the I-​Tek cam­era. I went back to my ho­tel room, donned my pi­lot's uni­form, stuck a pack­et of the checks in my coat and went out to buck the tiger.

The tiger, for me, was a pussy cat. I ironed out Ve­gas like a bed sheet. That af­ter­noon and night, and the fol­low­ing day, I hit near­ly a hun­dred casi­nos, bars, ho­tels, mo­tels, night clubs and oth­er gam­bling spots, and in Ve­gas al­most any place you walk in­to of­fers some kind of ac­tion. There're slot ma­chines in the gro­cery stores. No cashier showed the slight­est hes­ita­tion about cash­ing one of my pho­ny checks. "Would you cash this and give me $50 in chips?" I'd ask, and prompt­ly I'd be hand­ed $50 in mark­ers and the bal­ance in cash. For ap­pear­ance's sake, I'd usu­al­ly stay in a casi­no for twen­ty or thir­ty min­utes, play­ing the ta­bles, be­fore hit­ting the next place, and much to my amuse­ment I whacked out the casi­nos that way too.

I came out $300 ahead play­ing the slots. I won $1,600 play­ing black­jack. With­out the slight­est inkling of the game, I picked up $900 play­ing roulette, and I won $2,100 at the dice ta­bles. In all, I mur­dered Ve­gas for $39,000! I left Neva­da driv­ing a rent­ed Cadil­lac, al­though I had to put up a $1,000 de­posit when I told the lessor I'd prob­ably be us­ing the car sev­er­al weeks.

I had it for near­ly three months, as a mat­ter of fact. I made a leisure­ly, me­an­der­ing tour of the North­west and Mid­west, main­tain­ing the pose of an air­line pi­lot on va­ca­tion and al­ter­nat­ing in the role of Frank Williams and Frank Adams. Since I didn't want to leave the hounds a trail that could be too eas­ily fol­lowed, I didn't ex­act­ly scat­ter my coun­ter­feits like con­fet­ti but I did stop to make a score now and then. I picked up $5,000 in Salt Lake City, $2,000 in Billings, $4,000 in Cheyenne and I bilked Kansas City banks for $18,000 be­fore end­ing up in Chica­go, where I sim­ply parked the Cadil­lac and walked away.

I de­cid­ed to hole up in Chica­go for a while and give some se­ri­ous thought to the fu­ture, or at least where I want­ed to spend a great deal of the fu­ture. I was again en­ter­tain­ing the idea of flee­ing the coun­try. I wasn't too con­cerned about my im­me­di­ate se­cu­ri­ty, but I knew that if I con­tin­ued to op­er­ate in the U.S. it would be on­ly a mat­ter of time be­fore I was nabbed. The prin­ci­pal prob­lem I faced in try­ing to leave the coun­try, of course, was ob­tain­ing a pass­port. I couldn't ap­ply for one in my own name since blab­bing to Ros­alie, and by now the au­thor­ities must have linked Frank Williams and Frank Adams to Frank Abag­nale, Jr. I mulled the sit­ua­tion as I went about set­tling in Chica­go, but as things turned out I didn't have too much time for mulling.

I leased a nice apart­ment on Lakeshore Drive, us­ing the name Frank Williams. I did so pri­mar­ily be­cause I was out of per­son­al­ized checks and I al­ways liked to have a sup­ply in my pos­ses­sion. A lot of mo­tels, I had learned, would not cash a com­pa­ny check but would ac­cept a per­son­al check in the amount of the bill or in cash amounts up to $100. I had for­sak­en per­son­al checks as a means of swin­dling, but I still used them as a means of pay­ing room rent when nec­es­sary. I didn't like to lay out hard cash when I could slide one of my soft checks.

Ac­cord­ing­ly, I dropped in­to a bank a week af­ter alight­ing in Chica­go and opened a check­ing ac­count for $500. I iden­ti­fied my­self as a Pan Am pi­lot, and gave as my ad­dress for the checks that of a mail ser­vice firm in New York to which I'd re­cent­ly sub­scribed as an­oth­er means of cov­er­ing my trail. "But I want my checks and my month­ly state­ments mailed to this ad­dress," I in­struct­ed the bank of­fi­cer who han­dled the trans­ac­tion, giv­ing him my Lake-​shore Drive ad­dress.

"You see, the rea­son I want an ac­count here is be­cause I'm in and out of Chica­go all the time on com­pa­ny busi­ness and it's much more con­ve­nient to have an ac­count in a lo­cal bank."

The bank of­fi­cer agreed. "You'll re­ceive your reg­ular checks in about a week, Mr. Williams. In the mean­time, here're some tem­po­rary checks you can use," he said.

Ob­ser­va­tion. A great as­set for a con man, I've said. I had ob­served a very love­ly teller when I en­tered the bank. Her im­age re­mained in my mind af­ter I left the bank, and when she per­sist­ed in my thoughts over the next few days I de­ter­mined to meet her. I re­turned to the bank sev­er­al days lat­er on the pre­text of mak­ing a de­posit and was fill­ing out a de­posit slip I had tak­en from a counter in the mid­dle of the lob­by when an even high­er pow­er of ob­ser­va­tion took com­mand of my mind.

In the low­er left-​hand cor­ner of the de­posit slip was a rect­an­gu­lar box for the de­pos­itor's ac­count num­ber. I nev­er filled in the box, for I knew it wasn't re­quired. When a teller put a de­posit slip in the small ma­chine in his or her cage, in or­der to fur­nish you with a stamped re­ceipt, the ma­chine was pro­gramed to read the ac­count num­ber first. If the num­ber was there, the amount of the de­posit was au­to­mat­ical­ly cred­it­ed to the ac­count hold­er. But if the num­ber wasn't there, the ac­count could still be cred­it­ed us­ing the name and ad­dress, so the num­ber wasn't nec­es­sary.

There was a fel­low be­side me fill­ing out a de­posit slip. I no­ticed he ne­glect­ed to give his ac­count num­ber. I daw­dled in the bank for near­ly an hour and watched those who came in to de­posit cash, checks or cred­it-​card vouch­ers. Not one in twen­ty, if that many, used the space pro­vid­ed for his or her ac­count num­ber.

I for­got about the girl. I sur­rep­ti­tious­ly pock­et­ed a sheaf of the de­posit slips, re­turned to my apart­ment and, us­ing press-​on nu­mer­als match­ing the type face on the bank forms, filled in the blank on each slip with my own ac­count num­ber.

The fol­low­ing morn­ing, I re­turned to the bank and just as stealthi­ly put the sheaf of de­posit slips back in a slot atop a stack of oth­ers. I didn't know if my ploy would suc­ceed or not, but it was worth a risk. Four days lat­er I re­turned to the bank and made a $250 de­posit. "By the way, what's my bal­ance, please?" I asked the teller. "I for­got to en­ter some checks I wrote this week."

The teller oblig­ing­ly called book­keep­ing. "Your bal­ance, in­clud­ing this de­posit, is $42,876.45, Mr. Williams," she said.

Just be­fore the bank closed, I re­turned and drew out $40,000 in a cashier's check, ex­plain­ing I was buy­ing a home. I didn't buy a home, of course, but I sure did feath­er my nest. The next morn­ing I cashed the check at an­oth­er bank and that af­ter­noon flew to Hon­olu­lu, where a pret­ty Hawai­ian girl greet­ed me with a kiss and put a lei around my neck.

I was a cad when it came to re­cip­ro­cat­ing. Dur­ing the next two weeks I fash­ioned a $38,000 lei of fraud­ulent checks, spent three days hang­ing it around the necks of banks and ho­tels on the is­lands of Oahu, Hawaii, Maui and Kauai, and then jet­ted to New York.

It was the first time I'd been back in New York since hit­ting the pa­per­hang­er's trail, and I was tempt­ed to call Mom and Dad and maybe even see them. I de­cid­ed against any such ac­tion, how­ev­er, as much from shame as any­thing else. I might re­turn home a fi­nan­cial suc­cess be­yond ei­ther Mom's or Dad's com­pre­hen­sion, but mine was not the kind of suc­cess ei­ther of them would ap­pre­ci­ate or con­done.

I stayed in New York just long enough to de­vise a new scam. I opened a check­ing ac­count in one of the Chase Man­hat­tan branch­es, and when I re­ceived my per­son­al­ized checks, in the name of Frank Adams, with the ad­dress of an East Side flat I'd rent­ed, I flew to Philadel­phia and scout­ed the city's banks. I se­lect­ed one with an all-​glass front, en­abling prospec­tive de­pos­itors to see all the ac­tion in­side and pro­vid­ing the bank of­fi­cers, whose desks lined the glass wall, with a* good view of the cash in­flow.

I want­ed them to have a very pleas­ant view of me, so I ar­rived the next morn­ing in a Rolls-​Royce driv­en by a chauf­feur I had hired for the oc­ca­sion.

As the chauf­feur opened the door for me, I saw one of the bank of­fi­cers had in­deed no­ticed my ar­rival. When I en­tered the bank, I walked di­rect­ly to him. I had dressed be­fit­ting a man with a chauf­feured Rolls-​Royce-cus­tom-​tai­lored three-​piece suit in pearl gray, a $100 hom­burg and al­li­ga­tor Ballys-and the look in his eyes told me the young banker rec­og­nized my groom­ing as an­oth­er in­di­ca­tion of wealth and pow­er.

"Good morn­ing," I said briskly, tak­ing a seat in front of his desk. "My name is Frank Adams, Adams Con­struc­tion Com­pa­ny of New York. We'll be do­ing three con­struc­tion projects here dur­ing the year and I want to trans­fer some funds here from my New York bank. I want to open a check­ing ac­count with you peo­ple."

"Yes, sir!" he replied en­thu­si­as­ti­cal­ly, reach­ing for some forms. "Will you be trans­fer­ring all your funds here, Mr. Adams?"

"As far as my per­son­al funds are con­cerned, yes," I said. "I'm not sure about the com­pa­ny funds as yet, and won't be un­til I look clos­er at the projects, but in any event we'll want to place a sub­stan­tial amount here."

"Well, for your per­son­al ac­count, Mr. Adams, all you have to do is write me a check for the re­main­ing bal­ance in your New York bank and that will close that ac­count out."

"Is that all?" I said, feign­ing sur­prise. "I didn't re­al­ize it was that sim­ple." I took my check­book from my in­side pock­et and, hold­ing it so he couldn't see it, ran my fin­ger down an imag­inary col­umn of fig­ures, mur­mur­ing. Then I looked up at him. "May I use your adding ma­chine, please? I wrote some checks yes­ter­day and didn't bal­ance my check­book and I'm not much on adding fig­ures in my head."

"Cer­tain­ly," he said and turned the ma­chine for my use. I ran a few fig­ures and then nod­ded.

"Well, I make my bal­ance $17,876.28, and I'm sure that's cor­rect," I said. "But let's just open an ac­count for $17,000. I'll be go­ing back to New York on oc­ca­sion and I'd like to main­tain a small bal­ance there."

I wrote him a check for $17,000 and gave him the nec­es­sary in­for­ma­tion for set­ting up an ac­count. I gave my ad­dress as the ho­tel where I had reg­is­tered. "I'll be stay­ing there un­til I can find a suit­able apart­ment or house to lease," I said.

The young banker nod­ded. "You re­al­ize, of course, Mr. Adams, you can't write any checks on your ac­count un­til your check has cleared in New York," he said. "That shouldn't take over four or five days, how­ev­er, and in the mean­time if you run short of funds, come to me and I'll take care of it. Here are some tem­po­rary checks for such an event."

I shook my head. "That's kind of you, but I an­tic­ipat­ed the de­lay," I said. "I have am­ple funds for my needs."

I shook hands with him and left. That night I flew to Mi­ami and the fol­low­ing af­ter­noon I ap­peared in front of an­oth­er glass-​front­ed bank, again in a Rolls-​Royce but at the wheel my­self, and ca­su­al­ly but again ex­pen­sive­ly at­tired. I glanced at my watch as I en­tered the lob­by. The Philadel­phia bank would be open for an­oth­er thir­ty min­utes. A strik­ing­ly hand­some and chicly dressed wom­an who had not­ed my ar­rival greet­ed me as I stepped in­to the lob­by.

"May I help you, sir?" she asked, smil­ing. On clos­er in­spec­tion she was much old­er than I had first thought, but she was still an al­lur­ing wom­an.

"I hope so," I said, re­turn­ing the smile. "But I think I'd bet­ter speak to the bank man­ag­er."

Her eyes lit imp­ish­ly. "I am the bank man­ag­er," she said, laugh­ing. "Now, what's your prob­lem? You cer­tain­ly don't ap­pear to need a loan."

I threw up my hands in mock de­feat. "No, no, noth­ing like that," I said. "My name's Frank Adams and I'm from Philadel­phia and I've been look­ing around Mi­ami for years for a suit­able va­ca­tion home. Well, to­day I found a fan­tas­tic deal, a float­ing house near Bis­cayne Bay, but the man wants cash and he wants a $15,000 de­posit by five o'clock to­day. He won't take a per­son­al check and I don't have a bank ac­count here.

"I'm won­der­ing, could I write you a check on my bank in Philadel­phia and you is­sue me a cashier's check, payable to cash, for $15,000? I re­al­ize you'll have to call my bank to ver­ify that I have the mon­ey, but I'll pay for the call. I re­al­ly want this house. It would mean I could spend half my time down here." I paused, a plead­ing look on my face.

She pursed her lips pret­ti­ly. "What's the name of your bank in Philadel­phia, and your ac­count num­ber?" she asked. I gave her the name of the bank, the tele­phone num­ber and my ac­count num­ber. She walked to a desk and, pick­ing up the tele­phone, called Philadel­phia.

"Book­keep­ing, please," she said when she was con­nect­ed. Then: "Yes, I have a check here, drawn on ac­count num­ber 505-602, Mr. Frank Adams, in the amount of $15,000.1 would like to ver­ify the check, please."

I held my breath, sud­den­ly aware of the burly bank guard stand­ing in one cor­ner of the lob­by. It had been my ex­pe­ri­ence that clerks in bank book­keep­ing de­part­ments, when asked to ver­ify a check, mere­ly looked at the bal­ance.

They rarely went be­hind the re­quest to check on the sta­tus of the ac­count. I hoped that would be the case here. If not, well, I could on­ly hope the bank guard was a lousy shot.

I heard her say, "All right, thank you," and then she re­placed the re­ceiv­er and looked at me with a spec­ula­tive ex­pres­sion. "Tell you what, Frank Adams," she said with an­oth­er of her bril­liant smiles. "I'll take your check if you'll come to a par­ty I'm hav­ing tonight. I'm short of hand­some and charm­ing men. How about it?"

"You got a deal," I said, grin­ning, and wrote her a check on the Philadel­phia bank for $15,000, re­ceiv­ing in re­turn a $15,000 cashier's check, payable to cash.

I went to the par­ty. It was a fan­tas­tic bash. But then she was a fan­tas­tic la­dy-in more ways than sev­er­al.

I cashed the check the next morn­ing, re­turned the Rolls-​Royce and caught a plane for San Diego. I re­flect­ed on the wom­an and her par­ty sev­er­al times dur­ing the flight and near­ly laughed out loud when I was struck with one thought.

I won­dered what her re­ac­tion would be when she learned she'd treat­ed me to two par­ties on the same day, and the one had been a re­al cash ball.

CHAP­TER SEV­EN

How to Tour Eu­rope on a Felony a Day

&nb­sp;

I de­vel­oped a scam for ev­ery oc­ca­sion and some­times I waived the oc­ca­sion. I mod­ified the Amer­ican bank­ing sys­tem to suit my­self and si­phoned mon­ey out of bank vaults like a coon drains an egg. When I jumped the bor­der in­to Mex­ico in late 1967,1 had il­lic­it cash as­sets of near­ly $500,000 and sev­er­al dozen bank of­fi­cials had crim­son der­ri­eres.

It was prac­ti­cal­ly all done with num­bers, a sta­tis­ti­cal shell game with the pea al­ways in my pock­et.

Look at one of your own per­son­al checks. There's a check num­ber in the up­per right-​hand cor­ner, right? Thaf s prob­ably the on­ly one you no­tice, and you no­tice it on­ly if you keep an ac­cu­rate check reg­is­ter. Most peo­ple don't even know their own ac­count num­ber, and while a great num­ber of bank em­ploy­ees may be able to de­ci­pher the bank code num­bers across the bot­tom of a check, very few scan a check that close­ly.

In the 1960s bank se­cu­ri­ty was very lax, at least as far as I was con­cerned. It was my ex­pe­ri­ence, when pre­sent­ing a per­son­al check, drawn on a Mi­ami bank, say, to an­oth­er Mi­ami bank, about the on­ly se­cu­ri­ty pre­cau­tion tak­en by the teller was a glance at the num­ber in the up­per right-​hand cor­ner. The high­er that num­ber, the more read­ily ac­cept­able the check. It was as if the teller was telling her­self or him­self, "Ah-​hah, check num­ber 2876-boy, this guy has been with his bank a long time. This check's got­ta be okay."

So I'm in an East Coast city, Boston, for ex­am­ple. I open an ac­count in the Bean State Bank for $200, us­ing the name Ja­son Park­er and a board­ing­house ad­dress. With­in a few days, I re­ceive 200 per­son­al­ized checks, num­bered 1-200 con­sec­utive­ly in the up­per right-​hand cor­ner, my name and ad­dress in the left-​hand cor­ner and, of course, that string of odd lit­tle num­bers across the left-​hand bot­tom edge. The se­ries of num­bers com­menced with the num­bers 01, since Boston is lo­cat­ed with­in the First Fed­er­al Re­serve Dis­trict.

The most suc­cess­ful cat­tle rustlers in the Old West were ex­perts at brand blot­ting and brand chang­ing. I was an ex­pert in check num­ber blot­ting and chang­ing, us­ing press-​on num­bers and press-​on mag­net­ic-​tape num­bers.

When I fin­ished with check num­ber 1, it was check num­ber 3100, and the se­ries of num­bers above the left-​hand bot­tom edge start­ed with the num­ber 12. Oth­er­wise, the check looks the same.

Now I walk in­to the Old Set­tlers Farm and Home Sav­ings As­so­ci­ation, which is just a mile from the Bean State Bank. "I want to open a sav­ings ac­count," I tell the clerk who greets me. "My wife tells me we're keep­ing too much mon­ey in a check­ing ac­count."

"All right, sir, how much do you wish to de­posit?" he or she asks. Let's say it's a he. Bank dum­mies are di­vid­ed equal­ly among the sex­es.

"Oh, $6,500,1 guess," I re­ply, writ­ing out a check to the OSFH­SA. The teller takes the check and glances at the num­ber in the up­per right-​hand cor­ner. He al­so no­tices it's drawn on the Bean State Bank. He smiles. "All right, Mr. Park­er. Now, there is a three-​day wait­ing pe­ri­od be­fore you can make any with­drawals. We have to al­low time for your check to clear, and since it's an in-​town check the three-​day wait­ing pe­ri­od ap­plies."

"I un­der­stand," I re­ply. I do, too. I've al­ready as­cer­tained that's the wait­ing pe­ri­od en­forced by sav­ings and loan in­sti­tu­tions for in-​town checks.

I wait six days and on the morn­ing of the sixth day I re­turn to Old Set­tlers. But I de­lib­er­ate­ly seek out a dif­fer­ent teller. I hand him my pass­book. "I need to with­draw $5,500," I say. If the teller had ques­tioned the amount of the with­draw­al, I would have said that I was buy­ing a house or giv­en some oth­er plau­si­ble rea­son. But few sav­ings and loan bank tellers pry in­to a cus­tomer's per­son­al af­fairs.

This one didn't. He checked the ac­count file. The ac­count was six days old. The in-​town check had ob­vi­ous­ly cleared. He re­turned my pass­book with a cashier's check for $5,500.

I cashed it at the Bean State Bank and left town . . . be­fore my check for $6,500 re­turned from Los An­ge­les, where the clear­ing-​house bank com­put­er had rout­ed it.

I in­vest­ed in an­oth­er I-​Tek cam­era and print­ing press and did the same thing with my pho­ny Pan Am ex­pense checks. I made up dif­fer­ent batch­es for pass­ing in dif­fer­ent ar­eas of the coun­try, al­though all the checks were pur­port­ed­ly payable by Chase Man­hat­tan Bank, New York.

New York is in the Sec­ond Fed­er­al Re­serve Dis­trict. Bona fide checks on banks in New York all have a se­ries of nu­mer­als be­gin­ning with the num­ber 02. But all the pho­ny checks I passed on the East Coast, or in north­east­ern or south­east­ern states, were rout­ed first to San Fran­cis­co or Los An­ge­les. All the pho­ny checks I passed in the South­west, North­west or along the West Coast were first rout­ed to Philadel­phia, Boston or some oth­er point across the con­ti­nent.

My num­bers game was the per­fect sys­tem for floats and stalls. I al­ways had a week's run­ning time be­fore the hounds picked up the spoor. I learned lat­er that I was the first check swindler to use the rout­ing num­bers rack­et. It drove bankers up the wall. They didn't know what the hell was go­ing on. They do now, and they owe me.

I worked my schemes over­time, all over the na­tion, un­til I de­cid­ed I was just too hot to cool down. I had to leave the coun­try. And I de­cid­ed I could wor­ry about a pass­port in Mex­ico as fret­ful­ly as I could in Rich­mond or Seat­tle, since all I need­ed to vis­it Mex­ico was a visa. I ob­tained one from the Mex­ican Con­sulate in San An­to­nio, us­ing the name Frank Williams and pre­sent­ing my­self as a Pan Am pi­lot, and dead­head­ed to Mex­ico City on an Aero-​Mex­ico jet.

I did not take the en­tire pro­ceeds of my crime spree with me. Like a dog with ac­cess to a butch­er-​shop bone box and forty acres of soft ground, I buried my loot all over the Unit­ed States, stash­ing stacks of cash in bank safe-​de­posit box­es from coast to coast and from the Rio Grande to the Cana­di­an bor­der.

I did take some $50,000 with me in­to Mex­ico, con­cealed in thin sheafs in the lin­ing of my suit­cas­es and the lin­ings of my jack­ets. A good cus­toms of­fi­cer could have turned up the cash speed­ily, but I didn't have to go through cus­toms. I was wear­ing my Pan Am uni­form and was waived along with the AeroMex­ico crew.

I stayed in Mex­ico City a week. Then I met a Pan Am stew­ardess, en­joy­ing a five-​day hol­iday in Mex­ico, and ac­cept­ed her in­vi­ta­tion to go to Aca­pul­co for a week­end. We were air­borne when she sud­den­ly groaned and said a naughty word. "What's the mat­ter?" I asked, sur­prised to hear such lan­guage from such love­ly lips.

"I meant to cash my pay­check at the air­port," she said. "I've got ex­act­ly three pe­sos in my purse. Oh, well, I guess the ho­tel will cash it."

"I'll cash it, if it's not too much," I said. "I'm send­ing my own check off tonight for de­posit, and I can just run it through my bank. How much is it?"

I re­al­ly didn't care how much cash was in­volved. A re­al Pan Am check! I want­ed it. I got it for $288.15, and stowed it care­ful­ly away. I nev­er did cash it, al­though it net­ted me a for­tune.

I liked Aca­pul­co. It teemed with beau­ti­ful peo­ple, most of them rich, fa­mous or on the make for some­thing or oth­er, some­times all three. We stayed at a ho­tel fre­quent­ed by air­line crews, but I nev­er felt in jeop­ardy. Aca­pul­co is not a place one goes to talk shop.

I stayed on af­ter the stew­ardess re­turned to her base in Mi­ami. And the ho­tel man­ag­er be­came friend­ly with me, so friend­ly that I de­cid­ed to sound him out on my dilem­ma.

He joined me at din­ner one night and since he seemed in an es­pe­cial­ly af­fa­ble mood, I de­cid­ed to make a try then and there. "Pe­te, I'm in a hel­lu­va jam," I ven­tured.

"The hell you are!" he ex­claimed in con­cerned tones.

"Yeah," I replied. "My su­per­vi­sor in New York just called me. He wants me to go to Lon­don on the noon plane from Mex­ico City to­mor­row and pick up a flight that's be­ing held there be­cause the pi­lot is sick."

Pe­te grinned. "That's a jam? I should have your trou­bles."

I shook my head. "The thing is, Pe­te, I don't have my pass­port with me. I left it in New York and I'm sup­posed to have it with me all the time. I can't make it back to New York in time to get my pass­port and get to Lon­don on sched­ule. And if the su­per learns I'm here with­out a pass­port, he'll fire me. What the hell am I gonna do, Pe­te?"

He whis­tled. "Yeah, you are in a jam, aren't you?" His fea­tures took on a mus­ing look, and then he nod­ded. "I don't know that this will work, but have you ev­er heard of a wom­an named Kit­ty Cor­bett?"

I hadn't and said so. "Well, she's a writ­er on Mex­ican af­fairs, an old dame. She's been down here twen­ty or thir­ty years and is re­al re­spect­ed. They say she has clout from the Pres­iden­tial Palace in Mex­ico City to Wash­ing­ton, D.C., the White House even, I un­der­stand. I be­lieve it, too." He grinned. "The thing is, that's her at the ta­ble by the win­dow. Now, I know she plays mam­ma to ev­ery down-​and-​out Amer­ican who puts a con on her, and she loves to do fa­vors for any­body who seeks her out want­ing some­thing. Makes her feel like the queen moth­er, I guess. Any­way, let's go over and buy her a drink, put some sweet lines on her and cry a lit­tle. Maybe she can come up with an an­swer."

Kit­ty Cor­bett was a gra­cious old wom­an. And sharp. Af­ter a few min­utes, she smiled at Pe­te. "Okay, innkeep­er, what's up? You nev­er sit down with me un­less you want some­thing. What is it this time?"

Pe­te threw up his hands and laughed. "I don't want a thing, hon­est! But Frank here has a prob­lem. Tell her, Frank."

I told her vir­tu­al­ly the same sto­ry I'd put on Pe­te, ex­cept I went a lit­tle heav­ier on the melo­dra­ma. She looked at me when I fin­ished. "You need a pass­port re­al bad, I'd say," she com­ment­ed.

"Trou­ble is, you've got one. If s just in the wrong place. You can't have two pass­ports, you know. Thaf s il­le­gal."

"I know," I said, gri­mac­ing. "That wor­ries me, too. But I can't lose this job. It might be years be­fore an­oth­er air­line picked me up, if at all. I was on Pan Am's wait­ing list for three years." I paused, then ex­claimed, "Fly­ing jet lin­ers is all I ev­er want­ed to do!"

Kit­ty Cor­bett nod­ded sym­pa­thet­ical­ly, lost in thought.

Then she pursed her mouth. "Pe­te, get me a tele­phone over here."

Pe­te sig­naled and a wait­er brought a tele­phone to the ta­ble and plugged it in­to a near­by wall jack. Kit­ty Cor­bett picked it up, jig­gled the hook and then be­gan talk­ing to the op­er­ator in Span­ish. It re­quired sev­er­al min­utes, but she was put through to whomev­er she was call­ing.

"Son­ja? Kit­ty Cor­bett here," she said. "Lis­ten, I've got a fa­vor to ask ..." She went on and de­tailed my predica­ment and then lis­tened as the par­ty on the oth­er end replied.

"I know all that, Son­ja," she said. "And I've got it fig­ured out. Just is­sue him a tem­po­rary pass­port, just as you would if his had been lost or stolen. Hell, when he gets back to New York he can tear up the tem­po­rary pass­port, or tear up the old one and get a new one."

She lis­tened again for a minute, then held her hand over the re­ceiv­er and looked at me. "You don't hap­pen to have your birth cer­tifi­cate with you, do you?"

"Yes, I do," I said. "I car­ry it in my wal­let. It's a lit­tle worn, but still leg­ible."

Kit­ty Cor­bett nod­ded and turned again to the phone. "Yes, Son­ja, he has a birth cer­tifi­cate. . . . You think you can han­dle it? Great! You're a love and I owe you. See you next week."

She hung up and smiled. "Well, Frank, if you can get to the Amer­ican Con­sulate in Mex­ico City by ten o'clock to­mor­row, Son­ja Gun­der­sen, the as­sis­tant con­sul, will is­sue you a tem­po­rary pass­port. You've lost yours, un­der­stand? And if you tell any­one about this, I'll kill you."

I kissed her and or­dered a bot­tle of the best cham­pagne. I even had a glass my­self. Then I called the air­port and found there was a flight leav­ing in an hour. I made a reser­va­tion and turned to Pe­te. "Lis­ten, I'm go­ing to leave a lot of my stuff here. I don't have time to pack. Have some­one pack what I leave and store it in your of­fice, and I'll pick it up in a cou­ple of weeks, maybe soon­er. I'm go­ing to try and come back through here."

I stuffed one suit­case with my uni­form and one suit, and my mon­ey. Pe­te had a cab wait­ing when I went down to the lob­by. I re­al­ly liked the guy, and I wished there were some way to thank him.

I thought of a way. I laid one of my pho­ny Pan Am checks on him. On the ho­tel he man­aged, any­way.

I cashed an­oth­er one at the air­port be­fore board­ing the flight to Mex­ico City. In Mex­ico City, I stowed my bag in a lock­er af­ter chang­ing in­to my Pan Am pi­lot's garb and walked in­to Miss Gun­der­sen's of­fice at 9:45 a.m.

Son­ja Gun­der­sen was a crisp, starched blonde and she didn't waste any time. "Your birth cer­tifi­cate, please."

I took it from my wal­let and hand­ed it to her. She scanned it and looked at me. "I thought Kit­ty said your name was Frank Williams. This says your name is Frank W. Abag­nale, Jr."

I smiled. "It is. Frank William Abag­nale, Jr. You know Kit­ty. She had a lit­tle too much cham­pagne last night. She kept in­tro­duc­ing me to all her friends as Frank Williams, too. But I thought she gave you my full name."

"She may have," agreed Miss Gun­der­sen. "I had trou­ble hear­ing a lot of what she said. These damned Mex­ican tele­phones. Any­way you're ob­vi­ous­ly a Pan Am pi­lot, and part of your name is Frank William, so you must be the one."

As in­struct­ed, I had stopped and ob­tained two pass­port-​sized pho­tographs. I gave those to Miss Gun­der­sen, and walked out of the con­sulate build­ing fif­teen min­utes lat­er with a tem­po­rary pass­port in my pock­et. I went back to the air­port and changed in­to a suit and bought a tick­et for Lon­don at the British Over­seas Air­ways counter, pay­ing cash.

I was -told the flight was de­layed. It wouldn't de­part un­til sev­en that evening.

I changed back in­to my pi­lot's uni­form and spent six hours pa­per­ing Mex­ico City with my dec­ora­tive duds. I was $6,500 rich­er when I flew off to Lon­don, and the Mex­ican fed­er­ates joined the posse on my tail.

In Lon­don I checked in­to the Roy­al Gar­dens Ho­tel in Kens­ing­ton, us­ing the name F. W. Adams and rep­re­sent­ing my­self as a TWA pi­lot on fur­lough. I used my al­ter­nate alias on the premise that Lon­don po­lice would soon be re­ceiv­ing queries on Frank W. Abag­nale, Jr., al­so known as Frank Williams, erst­while Pan Am pi­lot.

I stayed on­ly a few days in Lon­don. I was be­gin­ning to feel pres­sure on me, the same un­easi­ness that had plagued me in the States. I re­al­ized in Lon­don that leav­ing the U.S. hadn't solved my prob­lem, that Mex­ican po­lice and Scot­land Yard of­fi­cers were in the same busi­ness as cops in New York or Los An­ge­les-that of catch­ing crooks. And I was a crook.

Giv­en that knowl­edge, and the small for­tune in cash I had stashed away in var­ious places, it would have been pru­dent of me to live as qui­et­ly and dis­creet­ly as pos­si­ble un­der an as­sumed name in some out-​of-​the-​way for­eign niche. I rec­og­nized the mer­its of such a course, but pru­dence was a qual­ity I didn't seem to pos­sess.

I was ac­tu­al­ly in­ca­pable of sound judg­ment, I re­al­ize now, driv­en by com­pul­sions over which I had no con­trol. I was now liv­ing by ra­tio­nal­iza­tions: I was the hunt­ed, the po­lice were the hunters, er­go, the po­lice were the bad guys. I had to steal to sur­vive, to fi­nance my con­tin­ual flight from the bad guys, con­se­quent­ly I was jus­ti­fied in my il­le­gal means of sup­port. So, af­ter less than a week in Eng­land, I pa­pered Pic­cadil­ly with some of my pic­cadil­lies and flew off to Paris, smug in the ir­ra­tional as­sump­tion that I'd re­sort­ed to fraud again in self-​de­fense.

A psy­chi­atrist would have viewed my ac­tions dif­fer­ent­ly. He would have said I want­ed to be caught. For now the British po­lice be­gan to put to­geth­er a dossier on me.

Per­haps I was seek­ing to be caught. Per­haps I was sub­con­scious­ly seek­ing help and my sub­lim­inal mind told me the au­thor­ities would of­fer that help, but I had no such con­scious thoughts at the time.

I was ful­ly aware that I was on a mad car­rousel ride, a mer­ry-​go-​round whirling un­governed from which I seemed un­able to dis­mount, but I sure as hell didn't want cops to stop the whirligig.

I hadn't been in Paris three hours when I met Monique Lava­lier and en­tered in­to a re­la­tion­ship that was not on­ly to broad­en my ve­nal vis­tas but, ul­ti­mate­ly, was al­so to de­stroy my hon­ey hive. Look­ing back, I owe Monique a debt of thanks. So does Pan Am, al­though some of the firm's of­fi­cials might ar­gue the point.

Monique was a stew­ardess for Air France. I met her in the Wind­sor Ho­tel bar, where she and sev­er­al dozen oth­er Air France flight-​crew peo­ple were giv­ing a par­ty for a re­tir­ing cap­tain pi­lot. If I met the hon­oree, I don't re­mem­ber him, for I was mes­mer­ized by Monique. She was as heady and sparkling as the fine cham­pagne be­ing served. I was in­vit­ed to the par­ty by an Air France first of­fi­cer who saw me, dressed in my Pan Am at­tire, check­ing in at the desk. He prompt­ly ac­cost­ed me, hus­tled me in­to the bar, and my re­al protests evap­orat­ed when he in­tro­duced me to Monique.

She had all of Ros­alie's charms and qual­ities and none of Ros­alie's in­hi­bi­tions. Ap­par­ent­ly I af­fect­ed Monique the same way she af­fect­ed me, for we be­came in­sep­ara­ble dur­ing the time I was in Paris and on sub­se­quent vis­its. Monique, if she had any thoughts of mar­ry­ing me, nev­er men­tioned it, but she did, three days af­ter we met, take me home to present me to her fam­ily. The Lava­liers were de­light­ful peo­ple, and I was par­tic­ular­ly in­trigued with Pa­pa Lava­lier.

He was a job print­er, op­er­ator of a small print­ing shop on the out­skirts of Paris. I was im­me­di­ate­ly seized with an idea for im­prov­ing up­on my check-​swin­dling scam in­volv­ing pho­ny Pan Am vouch­ers.

"You know, I have some good con­nec­tions in the Pan Am busi­ness of­fice," I said ca­su­al­ly dur­ing lunch. "Maybe I can get Pan Am to give you some print­ing busi­ness."

Pa­pa Lava­lier beamed. "Yes, yes!" he ex­claimed. "Any­thing you want done, we will try and do, and we would be most grate­ful, mon­sieur." Monique act­ed as an in­ter­preter, for none of her fam­ily had the slight­est com­mand of En­glish. That af­ter­noon her fa­ther took me on a tour of his plant, which he op­er­at­ed with two of Monique's broth­ers. He em­ployed one oth­er young man, who, like Monique, spoke frac­tured En­glish, but Pa­pa Lava­lier said he and his sons would per­son­al­ly per­form any print­ing jobs I might se­cure for their lit­tle firm. "What­ev­er you want print­ed in En­glish, my fa­ther and my broth­ers can do it," Monique said proud­ly. "They are the best print­ers in France."

I still had the ac­tu­al Pan Am pay­roll check I'd cashed for the stew­ardess in Mex­ico. Study­ing it, I was struck by the dif­fer­ence be­tween it and my imag­ina­tive ver­sion of a Pan Am check. My im­ita­tions were im­pres­sive, cer­tain­ly, else I wouldn't have been able to pass so many of them, but one placed next to the re­al thing fair­ly shrieked "coun­ter­feit!" I had been lucky to get by with pass­ing them. Ob­vi­ous­ly the tellers who'd ac­cept­ed them had nev­er han­dled a re­al Pan Am check.

It oc­curred to me, how­ev­er, that Pan Am checks might be very fa­mil­iar to Eu­ro­pean bank tellers, since the car­ri­er did the bulk of its busi­ness out­side the con­ti­nen­tal Unit­ed States. The thought had crossed my mind in Lon­don, even, when the teller in the one bank I'd bilked had seemed over­ly stu­dious of my art­work.

"It's an ex­pense check," I'd said, point­ing to the bold black let­ters so stat­ing.

"Oh, yes, of course," he'd replied, and had cashed the check, but with a trace of re­luc­tance.

Now I had an­oth­er thought. Maybe Pan Am had a dif­fer­ent-​type check, maybe a dif­fer­ent-​col­ored check, per­haps, for dif­fer­ent con­ti­nents. I thought it best to check on the the­ory be­fore pro­ceed­ing with my plan. The next morn­ing I called Pan Am's Paris of­fice and asked to speak to some­one in the busi­ness of­fice. I was con­nect­ed with a man who sound­ed very young and very in­ex­pe­ri­enced, and soon proved he was the lat­ter. I was be­com­ing con­vinced that La­dy Luck was my per­son­al switch­board op­er­ator.

"Say, lis­ten, this is Jack Rogers over at Daigle Freight For­ward­ing," I said. "I got a check here, and I think your com­pa­ny must have sent it to us by mis­take."

"Uh, well, Mr. Rogers, why do you say that?" he in­quired.

"Be­cause I got a check here for $1,900, sent from your New York of­fice, and I don't have an in­voice to match the pay­ment no­ta­tion," I replied. "I can't find any record of hav­ing han­dled any­thing for you peo­ple. You got any idea what this check's for?"

"Well, not right off­hand, Mr. Rogers. Are you sure the check's from us?"

"Well, it seems to me it is," I said. "It's a reg­ular green check with Pan Amer­ican in big let­ters across the top and it's made out to us for $1,900."

"Mr. Rogers, that doesn't sound like one of our checks," the fel­low said. "Our checks are blue, and they have Pan Am-Pan Am-Pan Am in fad­ed-​out word­ing all over the face, along with a glob­al map of the world. Does yours have that on it?"

I was hold­ing the stew­ardess's check in my hand. He had de­scribed it per­fect­ly, but I didn't tell him that. "You got­ta Pan Am check there?" I de­mand­ed, in the tone of a man who want­ed to re­move all doubts.

"Well, yes, I do, but. . ."

I cut him off. "Who's it signed by? What's the comptroller's name?" I asked.

He told me. It was the same name ap­pear­ing on the check in my hand. "What's the string of lit­tle num­bers across the bot­tom read?" I pressed.

"Why, 02 ..." and he rat­tled them off to me. They matched the num­bers on the stew's check.

"Nah, that's not the guy who signed this check and the num­bers don't match," I lied. "But you peo­ple do bank with Chase Man­hat­tan, don't you?"

"Yes, we do, but so do a lot of oth­er com­pa­nies, and you may have a check from some oth­er firm op­er­at­ing un­der the name Pan Amer­ican. I don't think you have one of our checks, Mr. Rogers. I sug­gest you re­turn it and es­tab­lish some sort of cor­re­spon­dence," he said help­ful­ly.

"Yeah, I'll do that, and thanks," I said.

Monique flew the Berlin-​Stock­holm-​Copen­hagen run for Air France, a two-​day turnaround trip, and then was off for two days. She had a flight that day. She was bare­ly air­borne when I ap­peared in her fa­ther's shop. He was de­light­ed to see me, and we had no trou­ble con­vers­ing be­tween the French I had learned from my moth­er and the En­glish of his young print­er.

I dis­played the check I'd got­ten from the Pan Am stew­ardess, but with her name and the amount of the check blocked out. "I talked to our busi­ness-​of­fice peo­ple," I said. "Now, we've been hav­ing these checks print­ed in Amer­ica, a pret­ty ex­pen­sive pro­cess. I told them I thought you could do the job as well and at a sub­stan­tial sav­ings. Do you think you can du­pli­cate this check in pay­roll-​book form?

"If you think you can, I am au­tho­rized to give you a tri­al or­der of ten thou­sand, pro­vid­ed you can beat the New York price."

He was ex­am­in­ing the check. "And what is your print­er's cost for these in New York, mon­sieur?" he asked.

I hadn't the faintest idea, but I named a fig­ure I felt wouldn't of­fend New York print­ers. "Three hun­dred and fifty dol­lars per thou­sand," I said.

He nod­ded. "I can pro­vide your com­pa­ny with a qual­ity prod­uct that will ex­act­ly du­pli­cate this one, and at $200 per thou­sand," he said ea­ger­ly. "I think you will find our work most sat­is­fac­to­ry."

He hes­itat­ed, seem­ing­ly em­bar­rassed. "Mon­sieur, I know you and my daugh­ter are close friends, and I trust you im­plic­it­ly, but it is cus­tom­ary that we re­ceive a de­posit of fifty per­cent," he said apolo­get­ical­ly.

I laughed. "You will have your de­posit this af­ter­noon," I said.

I went to a Paris bank, dressed in my Pan Am pi­lot's uni­form, and placed $1,000 on the counter of one of the tellers' cages. "I would like a cashier's check in that amount, please," I said. "The re­mit­tor should be Pan Amer­ican World Air­ways, and make the check payable to Mau­rice Lava­lier and Sons, Print­ers, if you will."

I de­liv­ered the check that af­ter­noon. Pa­pa Lava­lier had an in­spec­tion sam­ple ready for the fol­low­ing day. I ex­am­ined the work and had to re­strain my­self from whoop­ing. The checks were beau­ti­ful. No, gor­geous. Re­al Pan Am checks, four to a page, twen­ty-​five pages to the book, per­fo­rat­ed and on IBM card stock! I felt on top of the moun­tain, and no mat­ter it was a check swindler's pin­na­cle.

Pa­pa Lava­lier filled the en­tire or­der with­in a week, and I again ac­quired a le­git­imate cashier's check, pur­port­ed­ly is­sued by Pan Am, for the bal­ance due him.

Pa­pa Lava­lier fur­nished me with in­voic­es and re­ceipts and was pleased that I was pleased. It prob­ably nev­er oc­curred to him, hav­ing nev­er dealt with Amer­icans be­fore, that there was any­thing strange about our deal­ings. I was a Pan Am pi­lot. His daugh­ter vouched for me. And the checks he re­ceived were valid checks, is­sued by Pan Am.

"I hope we can do more work for your com­pa­ny, my friend," he said.

"Oh, you will, you will," I as­sured him. "In fact, we're so de­light­ed with your work that we may re­fer oth­ers to you."

There were oth­er re­fer­rals, all pho­ny, and all han­dled per­son­al­ly by me, but Pa­pa Lava­lier nev­er ques­tioned any­thing I asked. From the time he de­liv­ered the 10,000 Pan Am checks, he was the print­er of any spu­ri­ous doc­ument I need­ed or de­sired, an in­no­cent dupe who felt grate­ful to me for hav­ing opened the door of the "Amer­ican mar­ket" to him.

Of course I had no need of 10,000 Pan Am checks. The size of the or­der was sim­ply to avert any sus­pi­cion. Even Pa­pa Lava­lier knew Pan Am was a be­he­moth of the air­line in­dus­try. An or­der for a less­er num­ber of checks might have made him wary.

I kept a thou­sand of the checks and fu­eled the in­cin­er­ators of Paris with the re­main­der. Then I bought an IBM elec­tric type­writ­er and made out a check to my­self for $781.45, which I pre­sent­ed to the near­est bank, garbed as a Pan Am pi­lot.

It was a small bank. "Mon­sieur, I am cer­tain this check is a good one, but I would have to ver­ify it be­fore I cash it, and we are not al­lowed to make transat­lantic calls at the bank's ex­pense," he said with a wry smile. "If you would care to pay for the call..." He looked at me ques-​tion­ing­ly.

I shrugged. "Sure, go ahead. I'll pay what­ev­er the call costs."

I hadn't an­tic­ipat­ed such a pre­cau­tion on the bank's part, but nei­ther was I alarmed. And I had in­ad­ver­tent­ly cho­sen a time to cash the check when its worth as a coun­ter­feit could be test­ed. It was 3:15 p.m. in Paris. The banks in New York had been open for fif­teen min­utes. It re­quired about the same length of time for the teller to be con­nect­ed with the book­keep­ing de­part­ment of the Chase Man­hat­tan Bank. The French teller was pro­fi­cient in En­glish, al­though with an ac­cent. "I have a check here, pre­sent­ed by a Pan Amer­ican pi­lot, drawn on your bank in the amount of $781.45, Amer­ican dol­lars," said the teller, and pro­ceed­ed to give the ac­count num­ber across the bot­tom left-​hand cor­ner of the sham check.

"I see, yes, thank you very much.. . . Oh, the weath­er here is fine, thank you." He hung up and smiled. "Ev­ery time I talk to Amer­ica, they want to know about the weath­er." He hand­ed me the check to en­dorse and com­menced count­ing out the amount of the check, less $8.92 for the tele­phone call. All things con­sid­ered, it was not an un­rea­son­able ser­vice charge.

I show­ered Paris and its sub­ur­ban en­vi­rons with the bo­gus checks, and rent­ed a safe-​de­posit box, for a five-​year pe­ri­od paid in ad­vance, in which to store my loot. Very rarely was a check ques­tioned, and then it was on­ly a mat­ter of ver­ifi­ca­tion, and if the banks in New York were closed, I would re­turn to the bank when they were open. On­ly once did I ex­pe­ri­ence a tense mo­ment. In­stead of call­ing Chase Man­hat­tan, one teller called Pan Am's busi­ness of­fice in New York! Not once was my as­sumed name men­tioned, but I heard the teller give the name of the bank, the ac­count num­ber and the name of the Pan Am comptroller.

Pan Am must have ver­ified the check, for the teller paid it.

I was as­ton­ished my­self at the ease and smooth­ness of my new op­er­ation. My God, I was now hav­ing my fic­ti­tious checks cleared by tele­phone and by Pan Am it­self. I rent­ed a car and while Monique was fly­ing I drove around France, cash­ing the checks in ev­ery vil­lage bank and big-​city trea­sury that loomed in sight. I have nev­er ver­ified the sus­pi­cion, but I of­ten thought in lat­er months and years that the rea­son I was so suc­cess­ful with those par­tic­ular Pan Am checks was be­cause Pan Am was pay­ing them!

Pa­pa Lava­lier re­ceived a lot of busi­ness from me. I had him make me up a new Pan Am ID card, much more im­pres­sive than my own fraud­ulent one, af­ter a re­al Pan Am pi­lot care­less­ly left his IE) card on the bar in the Wind­sor. "I'll give it to him," I told the bar­tender. I did mail it to him, in care of Pan Am's New York of­fices, but on­ly af­ter I'd had Pa­pa Lava­lier copy it and sub­sti­tute my own pho­ny name, fake rank and pho­to­graph.

I had told the Lava­liers that I was in Paris as a spe­cial rep­re­sen­ta­tive of Pan Am, do­ing pub­lic re­la­tions for the firm. A month af­ter meet­ing Monique, how­ev­er, I told her I had to re­turn to fly­ing sta­tus as a stand­by pi­lot, and caught a plane to New York. I ar­rived short­ly be­fore noon on a Tues­day and went im­me­di­ate­ly to the near­est branch of the Chase Man­hat­tan Bank, where I pur­chased a $1,200 cashier's check, with "Roger D. Williams" as re­mit­tor and "Frank W. Williams" as pay­ee.

I took a plane back to Paris that same day, checked in­to the King George V this time, and once in my room al­tered the Fed­er­al Re­serve Dis­trict num­ber on the check so that, when cashed, it would be rout­ed to San Fran­cis­co or Los An­ge­les.

Then I took the check to Pa­pa Lava­lier. "I need three hun­dred of these," I said.

I thought sure­ly he would ques­tion the du­pli­ca­tion of what was ob­vi­ous­ly a mon­ey or­der, but he didn't. I learned lat­er that he nev­er re­al­ly un­der­stood what he was print­ing when he did jobs for me, but per­formed with a blind faith in my in­tegri­ty.

I flew back to New York the day af­ter re­ceiv­ing the three hun­dred du­pli­cates, each an im­age of the orig­inal. There are 112 branch­es of Chase Man­hat­tan in the New York metropoli­tan area alone. Over a pe­ri­od of three days I called at six­ty of the branch­es, pre­sent­ing one of the repli­cas in each bank. On­ly once in the six­ty in­stances were there more than per­func­to­ry words passed.

"Sir, I know this is one of Chase's checks, but it wasn't is­sued from this branch," she said apolo­get­ical­ly. "I will have to call the is­su­ing bank. Can you wait a minute?"

"Cer­tain­ly, go ahead," I said eas­ily.

She made her call with­in earshot of me. No part of the con­ver­sa­tion sur­prised me. "Yes, this is Jan­ice in Queens. Cashier's check 023685, can you tell me whom it was is­sued to, how much, when and what's the cur­rent sta­tus on it?" She wait­ed, then ap­par­ent­ly re­peat­ed what she'd been told. "Frank W. Williams, $1,200, Jan­uary 5, cur­rent­ly out­stand­ing. I must have it right here. Thank you very much."

"I'm sor­ry, sir," she said, smil­ing as she count­ed out the cash.

"That's all right," I said. "And you should nev­er apol­ogize for do­ing your job well." I meant it, too. That girl got stung, but she's still the kind banks should hire. And she saved Chase a bun­dle. I had in­tend­ed to hit at least 100 Chase branch­es, but af­ter she made her call, I pulled up on that par­tic­ular ca­per.

I fig­ured I couldn't af­ford an­oth­er call to the bank that had is­sued the orig­inal check. I knew the odds fa­vored me, but I couldn't chance the same book­keep­ing clerk an­swer­ing the phone if some oth­er teller de­cid­ed to go be­hind the check.

New York made me ner­vous. I felt I should head for a for­eign clime again, but I couldn't de­cide whether to re­turn to Paris and Monique or vis­it some new and ex­cit­ing place.

While I was de­bat­ing with my­self, I flew to Boston, where I got my­self flung in­to jail and robbed a bank. The for­mer was a shock, like an un­planned preg­nan­cy. The lat­ter was the re­sult of an ir­re­sistible im­pulse.

I went to Boston sim­ply to get out of New York. I thought it would be as good as any place along the east­ern seaboard as a point of em­barka­tion, and it al­so had a lot of banks. On ar­rival, I stowed my bags in an air­port rental lock­er, put the key in my ID fold­er and called at sev­er­al of the banks, ex­chang­ing some of my Pan Am check fac­sim­iles for gen­uine cur­ren­cy. I re­turned to the air­port ear­ly in the evening, in­tend­ing to catch an over­seas flight as soon as pos­si­ble. I had gar­nered over $5,000 in my felo­nious for­ay through Bean Town, and I stowed $4,800 of it in my bags be­fore check­ing on what for­eign flights were avail­able that night.

I didn't have a chance to make my in­quiries un­til late that night. Turn­ing away from the lock­er, I en­coun­tered a pret­ty Al­leghe­ny Air­lines stew­ardess from my em­bryo days as a pi­lot with­out port­fo­lio.

"Frank! What a neat sur­prise!" she ex­claimed. Nat­ural­ly, we had to have a re­union. I didn't get back to the air­port un­til af­ter 11 p.m., and by then I'd de­cid­ed to go to Mi­ami and make an over­seas con­nec­tion from there.

I walked up to the Al­leghe­ny Air­lines counter. "When's your next con­nect­ing flight to Mi­ami?" I asked the tick­et agent on du­ty, a man. I had changed in­to my pi­lot's uni­form.

"You just missed it." He gri­maced.

"Who's got the next flight, Na­tion­al, Amer­ican, who?" I in­quired.

"No one," he said. "You've missed any flight to Mi­ami un­til to­mor­row. Noth­ing flies out of here af­ter mid­night. Boston's got a noise-​con­trol or­di­nance, now, and no out­go­ing traf­fic is al­lowed af­ter mid­night. No air­line can put a plane in the air un­til 6:30 a.m., and the first flight to Mi­ami is Na­tion­al's at 10:15 a.m."

"But it's on­ly 11:40 now," I said.

He grinned. "Okay. You want to go to Burling­ton, Ver­mont? That's the last flight out tonight."

All things con­sid­ered, I de­clined. I walked over and sat down in one of the lob­by chairs, mulling the sit­ua­tion. The lob­by, like most large air­port vestibules, was ringed with gift shops, news­stands, cof­fee shops, bars and var­ious oth­er shops, and I not­ed idly, while cog­itat­ing, that most of them were clos­ing. I al­so not­ed, sud­den­ly in­ter­est­ed, that many of them were stop­ping at the night de­pos­ito­ry of a large Boston bank, sit­uat­ed near the mid­dle of one ex­it cor­ri­dor, and drop­ping bags or bulky en­velopes-ob­vi­ous­ly their day's re­ceipts-in­to the steel-​faced re­cep­ta­cle.

My ob­ser­va­tion was in­ter­rupt­ed by two chill­ing words:

"Frank Abag­nale?"

I looked up, quelling a surge of pan­ic. Two tall, grim-​vis­aged Mas­sachusetts state troop­ers, in uni­form, stood over me.

"You are Frank Abag­nale, aren't you?" de­mand­ed the one in stony tones.

"My name is Frank, but it's Frank Williams," I said, and I was sur­prised that the calm, un­flus­tered re­ply had is­sued from my throat.

"May I see your iden­ti­fi­ca­tion, please?" asked the one. The words were spo­ken po­lite­ly, but his eyes said if I didn't prompt­ly pro­duce my ID, he was go­ing to pick me up by the an­kles and shake it out of my pock­ets.

I hand­ed over my ID card and my fraud­ulent FAA pi­lot's li­cense. "Look, I don't know what this is all about, but you're bad­ly mis­tak­en," I said as I ten­dered the doc­uments. "I fly for Pan Amer­ican, and these ought to be proof enough."

The one stud­ied the ID card and li­cense, then passed them to his part­ner. "Why don't you knock off the bull­shit, son? You're Frank Abag­nale, aren't you?" said the sec­ond one, al­most gen­tly.

"Frank who?" I protest­ed, feign­ing anger to cov­er my in­creas­ing ner­vous­ness. "I don't know who the hell you're af­ter, but it's not me!"

The one frowned. "Well, we ain't gonna stand around here ar­gu­ing with you," he growled. "Come on, we're tak­ing you in."

They didn't ask where my lug­gage was, and I didn't vol­un­teer. They took me out­side, placed me in their pa­trol car and drove me di­rect­ly to the state po­lice of­fices. There I was ush­ered in­to the of­fice of a har­ried-​look­ing lieu­tenant, whom I as­sumed was the shift com­man­der.

"What the hell is this?" he de­mand­ed in ex­as­per­at­ed tones.

"Well, we think it's Frank Abag­nale, Lieu­tenant," said one of the troop­ers. "He says he's a pi­lot for Pan Am."

The lieu­tenant eyed me. "You don't look very old to be a pi­lot," he said. "Why don't you tell the truth? You're Frank Abag­nale. We've been look­ing for him for a long time. He's sup­posed to be a pi­lot, too. You fit his de­scrip­tion-per­fect­ly."

"I'm thir­ty years old, my name is Frank Williams and I fly for Pan Am, and I want to talk to my lawyer," I shout­ed.

The lieu­tenant sighed. "You ain't been charged with noth­in' yet," he said. "Take him over to the city jail, book him for va­grancy and then let him call a lawyer. And call the feds. He's their pi­geon. Let them straight­en it out."

"Va­grancy!" I protest­ed. "I'm no va­grant. I've got near­ly $200 on me."

The lieu­tenant nod­ded. "Yeah, but you ain't proved you're gain­ful­ly em­ployed," he said weari­ly. "Get 'im out of here."

I was tak­en to the coun­ty jail in down­town Boston, which had all the ap­pear­ances of a fa­cil­ity that should have long ago been con­demned, and had been, and I was turned over to the book­ing sergeant.

"Damn me, what did he do?" he queried, look­ing at me.

"Just book him for va­grancy. Some­one will pick him up in the morn­ing," said the one troop­er.

"Va­grant!" bel­lowed the sergeant. "By damn, if he's a va­grant, I hope you guys nev­er bring in any bums."

"Just book him," grunt­ed the one troop­er, and he and his part­ner left.

"Emp­ty your pock­ets, lad," the sergeant said gruffly, pulling a form in trip­li­cate from a draw­er. "I'll give you a re­ceipt for your goods."

I start­ed plac­ing my valu­ables be­fore him. "Lis­ten, can I keep my ID card and pi­lot's li­cense?" I asked. "Com­pa­ny reg­ula­tions say I have to have them on me at all times. I'm not sure if be­ing ar­rest­ed is in­clud­ed, but I'd still like to keep them, if you don't mind."

The sergeant ex­am­ined the card and the li­cense and pushed them to­ward me. "Sure," he said kind­ly. "I'd say there's been some kind of mix-​up here, lad. I'm glad I'm not in­volved."

A jail­er took me up­stairs and placed me in a dingy, rusty cell ad­join­ing the drunk tank. "If you need any­thing, just holler," he said sym­pa­thet­ical­ly.

I nod­ded, not re­ply­ing, and slumped on the cot. I was sud­den­ly de­pressed, mis­er­able and scared. The game was over, I had to ad­mit. The FBI would pick me up in the morn­ing, I knew, and then it would be just one court­room af­ter an­oth­er, I fig­ured. I looked around the jail cell and hoped that prison cells were more ten­able. Je­sus, this was a rat hole. And I didn't have a prayer of get­ting out. But then no man has a prayer, I thought re­gret­ful­ly, when he wor­ships a hus­tler's god.

Even a hus­tler's god, how­ev­er, has a le­gion of an­gels. And one ap­peared to me now, pre­ced­ed by a thin, wa­ver­ing whis­tle, like a kid bol­ster­ing his courage in a grave­yard. He hauled up in front of my cell, an ap­pari­tion in a hideous, green-​checked suit topped by a face that might have come out of a lob­ster pot, ques­tion­ing lips punc­tu­at­ed by an odor­ous cigar and eyes that re­gard­ed me as a weasel might look on a mouse.

"Well, now, what the hell might you be do­ing in there?" he asked around the cigar.

I didn't know who he was. He didn't look like any­one who could help me. "Va­grancy," I said short­ly.

"Va­grancy!" he ex­claimed, ex­am­in­ing me with his shrewd eyes. "You're a pi­lot with Pan Am, aren't you? How the hell can you be a va­grant? Did some­body steal all your planes?"

"Who're you?" I asked.

He fished in his pock­et and thrust a card through the bars. "Aloy­ius James 'Bailout' Bai­ley, my high-​fly­ing friend," he said. "Bail bonds­man par ex­cel­lence. The cops bring 'em, I spring 'em. You're on their turf, now, pal. I can put you on mine. The street."

Hope didn't ex­act­ly spring eter­nal in my breast, but it crow-​hopped.

"Well, I'll tell you the truth," I said cau­tious­ly. "There was this guy at the air­port. He was get­ting pret­ty ob­nox­ious with a girl. I racked his ass. They ran us both in for fight­ing. I should've stayed out of it. I'll prob­ably lose my job when the skip­per finds out I'm in jail."

He stared at me, un­be­liev­ing. "What the hell you sayin'? You ain't got no­body to bail you out? Call one of your friends, for Chris' sakes."

I shrugged. "I don't have any friends here. I flew in on a char­ter car­go job. I'm based in Los An­ge­les."

"What about the rest of your crew?" he de­mand­ed. "Call one of them."

"They went on to Is­tan­bul," I lied. "I got time off due me. I was go­ing to dead­head to Mi­ami to see a chick."

"Well, god­damned! You have got your ass in a crack, haven't you?" said Aloy­ius James "Bailout" Bai­ley. Then he smiled, and his fea­tures sud­den­ly took on the charm of a jol­ly lep­rechaun. "Well, my fight­er-​pi­lot chum, let's see if we can't get your butt out of this Boston bastille."

He dis­ap­peared and was gone for an ag­oniz­ing length of time, all of ten min­utes. Then he hove to in front of my cell again. "God­damn, your bond is $5,000," he said in a sur­prised tone. "Sarge says you must have giv­en the troop­ers a hard time. How much mon­ey you got?"

My hopes came to a stand­still again. "Just $200, maybe not that much," I sighed.

He mulled the re­ply; his eyes nar­rowed. "You got any iden­ti­fi­ca­tion?" he asked.

"Sure," I said, pass­ing my ID and pi­lot's li­cense through the bars. "You can see how long I've been a pi­lot, and I've been with Pan Am sev­en years."

He hand­ed back the doc­uments. "You got a per­son­al check?" he asked abrupt­ly.

"Yeah, that is, the sergeant down­stairs has it," I said. "Why?"

"Be­cause I'm gonna take your check, that's why, Jet Jock­ey," he said with a grin. "You can write it out when the sarge lets you loose."

The sarge let me loose thir­ty-​five min­utes lat­er. I wrote Bai­ley a check for the stan­dard 10 per­cent, $500, and hand­ed him a hun­dred in cash. "That's a bonus, in lieu of a kiss," I said, laugh­ing with joy. "I'd give you the kiss ex­cept for that damned cigar!"

He drove me to the air­port af­ter I told him I was tak­ing the first flight to Mi­ami.

This is what hap­pened lat­er. I have it on unim­peach­able sources, as the White House re­porters are fond of say­ing. An ec­stat­ic O'Ri­ley, high enough with joy to re­quire a pi­lot's li­cense him­self, showed up at the jail. "Abag­nale, or what­ev­er the hell name you've got him booked un­der, trot him out," he chor­tled.

"He made bond at three-​thir­ty this morn­ing," vol­un­teered a jail­er. The sergeant had gone home.

O'Ri­ley flirt­ed with apoplexy. "Bond! Bond! Who the hell bond­ed him out?" he fi­nal­ly shrieked in stran­gled tones.

"Bai­ley, 'Bailout' Bai­ley, who else?" replied the jail­er.

O'Ri­ley wrath­ful­ly sought out Bai­ley. "Did you post bond for a Frank Wil­iams this morn­ing? he de­mand­ed.

Bai­ley looked at him, as­ton­ishd. "The pi­lot? Sure, I went his bail. Why the hell not?"

"How'd he pay you? How much?" O'Ri­ley grat­ed.

"Why, the reg­ular amount, $500. I've got his check right here," said Bai­ley, of­fer­ing the vouch­er.

O'Ri­ley looked at the check and then dropped it on Bai­ley's desk. "Serves your ass right," he growled, and turned to­ward the door.

"What do you mean?" Bai­ley de­mand­ed as the FBI agent grasped the door han­dle.

O'Ri­ley grinned wicked­ly. "Run it through your bank ac­count, turd, and you'll find out what I mean."

Out­side, a Mas­sachusetts de­tec­tive turned to O'Ri­ley. "We can get out an APB on him."

O'Ri­ley shook his head. "For­get it. That bas­tard's five hun­dred miles away. No Boston cop's gonna catch him."

A pru­dent man would have been five hun­dred miles away. I wasn't pru­dent. When you're hot, you're hot, and I had the ca­jones of a bil­ly goat.

No soon­er had Bai­ley dropped me at the air­port, and was gone, than I grabbed a cab and checked in at a near­by mo­tel.

The next morn­ing I called the bank that had a branch at the air­port. "Se­cu­ri­ty, please," I said when the switch­board op­er­ator an­swered.

"Se­cu­ri­ty."

"Yeah, lis­ten, this is Con­nors, the new guard. I don't have a uni­form for tonight's shift. My damned uni­form got ripped up in an ac­ci­dent. Where can I get a re­place­ment, la­dy?" I spoke in out­rage.

"Well, we get our uni­forms from Beke Broth­ers," the wom­an replied in mol­li­fy­ing tones. "Just go down there, Mr. Con­nors. They'll out­fit you with a re­place­ment."

I looked up the ad­dress of Beke Broth­ers. I al­so had my fin­gers do some walk­ing through oth­er sec­tions of the Yel­low Pages.

I went first to Beke Broth­ers. No one ques­tioned my sta­tus. With­in fif­teen min­utes I walked out with a com­plete guard's out­fit: shirt, tie, trousers and hat, the name of the bank em­bla­zoned over the breast pock­et and on the right shoul­der of the shirt. I stopped at a po­lice-​sup­ply firm and picked up a Sam Browne belt and hol­ster. I called at a gun shop and picked up a repli­ca of a .38 po­lice spe­cial.

It was harm­less, but on­ly an id­iot would have ig­nored it were it point­ed at him. I then rent­ed a sta­tion wag­on, and when I left my mo­tel each door sport­ed a sign pro­claim­ing

"SE­CU­RI­TY-BEAN STATE NA­TION­AL BANK."

At 11:15 p.m. I was stand­ing at at­ten­tion in front of the night-​de­posit box of the Bean State Na­tion­al Bank Air­port Branch, and a beau­ti­ful­ly let­tered sign adorned the safe's de­pos­ito­ry: "night de­posit vault out of or­der, please

MAKE DE­POSITS WITH SE­CU­RI­TY OF­FI­CER."

There was an up­right dol­ly, with a large mail-​type bag bulk­ing open, in front of the de­pos­ito­ry.

At least thir­ty-​five peo­ple dropped bags or en­velopes in­to the con­tain­er.

Not one of them said more than "Good evening" or "Good night."

When the last shop had closed, I se­cured the top of the can­vas bag and be­gan haul­ing the loot to the sta­tion wag­on. I be­came stuck try­ing to get the dol­ly over the weath­er strip of the ex­it door. Try as I might, I couldn't get the damned thing across the lit­tle ridge. It was just too heavy.

"What's go­ing on, bud­dy?"

I twist­ed my head and near­ly soiled my draw­ers. They weren't the same ones, but a pair of state troop­ers was stand­ing less than five feet away.

"Well, the box is out of or­der, and the truck broke down, and I've got the bank's sta­tion wag­on out here and no god­damned hy­draulic pul­ley, and I ain't ex­act­ly Sam­son," I said, grin­ning sheep­ish­ly.

The old­er one, a rud­dy-​faced red­head, laughed. "Well, hell, let us help you with it," he said, and stepped for­ward and grabbed the han­dle of the dol­ly. With three of us tug­ging, it came over the ridge eas­ily. They helped me drag the dol­ly to the sta­tion wag­on and as­sist­ed me in lift­ing the bulky, cum­ber­some car­go in­to the back of the ve­hi­cle. I slammed shut the tail­gate and turned to the of­fi­cers.

"I ap­pre­ci­ate it, boys," I said, smil­ing. "I'd spring for the cof­fee, but I've got to get this lit­tle for­tune to the bank."

They laughed and one lift­ed a hand. "Hey, no sweat. Next time, okay?"

Less than an hour lat­er, I had the booty in my mo­tel room and was sort­ing out the cash. Bills on­ly. I tossed the change, cred­it-​card re­ceipts and checks in­to the bath­tub.

I net­ted $62,800 in cur­ren­cy. I changed in­to a ca­su­al suit, wrapped the haul in a spare shirt and drove to the air­port, where I re­trieved my bags. An hour lat­er I was on a flight to Mi­ami. I had a thir­ty-​minute lay­over in New York. I used the time to call the man­ag­er of the air­port in Boston. I didn't get him but I got his sec­re­tary.

"Lis­ten, tell the Bean State Bank peo­ple they can get the ma­jor­ity of the loot from last night's de­pos­ito­ry ca­per in the bath­tub of Room 208, Rest Haven Mo­tel," I said and hung up.

The next day I winged out of Mi­ami, bound for Is­tan­bul.

I had an hour's lay­over in Tel Aviv.

I used it up­hold­ing my code of hon­or. In my en­tire ca­reer, I nev­er yenched a square John as an in­di­vid­ual.

I sought out a branch of an Amer­ican bank. And laid a sheaf of bills on the counter be­fore a teller.

"I want a $5,000 cashier's check," I said.

"Yes, sir. And your name?"

"Frank Abag­nale, Jr.," I said.

"All right, Mr. Abag­nale. Do you want this check made out to you?"

I shook my head. "No," I said. "Make it payable to Aloy­ius James 'Bailout' Bai­ley, in Boston, Mas­sachusetts."

CHAP­TER EIGHT

A Small Crew Will Do- It's Just a Pa­per Air­plane

&nb­sp;

An en­tourage is ex­pect­ed of some peo­ple. The Pres­ident. Queen Eliz­abeth. Frank Sina­tra. Muham­mad Ali. Arnold Palmer. Most celebri­ties, in fact.

And air­line pi­lots.

"Where's your crew, sir?" asked the desk clerk in the Is­tan­bul ho­tel. It was a ques­tion I'd en­coun­tered be­fore.

"I don't have a crew with me," I replied. "I just flew in to re­place a pi­lot who be­came ill." It was my stan­dard an­swer to such queries, which were much more nu­mer­ous in Eu­rope and the Mid­dle East than in the Unit­ed States. Con­ti­nen­tal ho­tels, ob­vi­ous­ly, were more ac­cus­tomed to cater­ing to en­tire air crews. A lone pi­lot aroused cu­rios­ity.

And cu­rios­ity breeds sus­pi­cion.

I need­ed a crew, I mused that evening while din­ing in a Turk­ish restau­rant. I had doffed my uni­form. Save on spe­cial oc­ca­sions, I now wore it on­ly when check­ing in and check­ing out of a ho­tel, pass­ing a check or cadg­ing a free ride.

The mat­ter of a crew had en­tered my mind be­fore. In fact, it en­tered my mind each time I saw a com­mand pi­lot sur­round­ed by his crew. His sta­tus was not on­ly more be­liev­able than mine, but he al­so al­ways seemed to be hav­ing much more fun than I. Stews, I had no­ticed, tend­ed to act as hand­maid­ens to the pi­lots. My life as a bo­gus bird­man, on the oth­er hand, was es­sen­tial­ly a lone­ly ex­is­tence. But then a man on the run is usu­al­ly a for­lorn fig­ure. It's hard to play the so­cial li­on when you're mov­ing like a scald­ed cat. My dal­liances, by and large, had all the per­ma­nen­cy of rab­bits' re­la­tion­ships and about the same de­gree of sat­is­fac­tion.

My fan­tasies of an air­crew of my own, of course, were mo­ti­vat­ed by more than just a de­sire for com­pan­ion­ship. An air­crew-and I thought of an air­crew on­ly in terms of stew­ardess­es-would lend con­crete va­lid­ity to my role of air­line pi­lot. I had learned that a soli­tary pi­lot was al­ways sub­ject to scruti­ny. Con­verse­ly, a pi­lot trail­ing a squad of love­ly stew­ardess­es would al­most cer­tain­ly be above- sus­pi­cion. If I had a beau­ti­ful bevy of flight at­ten­dants with me in my trav­els, I could scat­ter my val­ue­less checks like con­fet­ti and they'd be ac­cept­ed like rice at a wed­ding, I thought. Not that I was hav­ing any trou­ble pass­ing them at present, but I was pass­ing them one at a time. With a crew be­hind me, I could cash the sham checks in mul­ti­ple num­bers.

I left Is­tan­bul af­ter a week and flew to Athens. "Don't you have a crew with you, sir?" asked the ho­tel desk clerk. I gave him my usu­al re­ply, feel­ing ha­rassed.

The next day I flew to Paris to vis­it the Lava­liers. "I wish you flew for Air France. I could be a mem­ber of your crew," Monique said at one point dur­ing the vis­it. The re­mark con­vinced me that an air­crew was a ne­ces­si­ty.

But how did a pi­lot with­out port­fo­lio, who didn't know how to fly, go about as­sem­bling an air­crew? I could hard­ly gath­er a few girls at ran­dom and pro­pose, "Hey, kids, wan­na go to Eu­rope? I've got this great scheme for pass­ing worth­less checks . . ." And since I had ab­so­lute­ly no con­nec­tions in the un­der­world, Amer­ican or Eu­ro­pean, I couldn't look for help there.

I was in West Berlin when a so­lu­tion pre­sent­ed it­self. It was long-​range and fraught with risks, but it was al­so chal­leng­ing. Pan Am's hives had al­ways pro­vid­ed the bulk of my hon­ey. If the car­ri­er wasn't my par­ent com­pa­ny, I was in a sense its bas­tard child, and this was an is­sue de­mand­ing fil­ial loy­al­ty.

I'd let Pan Am fur­nish me a flight crew.

I flew to New York and on ar­rival called Pan Am's per­son­nel of­fice, rep­re­sent­ing my­self as the place­ment di­rec­tor of a small west­ern col­lege, Prescott Pres­by­te­ri­an Nor­mal. "I'm aware that you peo­ple send em­ploy­ment re­cruit­ing teams to var­ious col­leges and uni­ver­si­ties, and I won­dered if you might pos­si­bly have our school on your sched­ule this year?" I said.

"I'm sor­ry, we don't," said the Pan Am per­son­nel of­fi­cer who took my call. "How­ev­er, we will have a team on the Uni­ver­si­ty of Ari­zona cam­pus dur­ing the last two weeks in Oc­to­ber, in­ter­view­ing stu­dents for var­ious po­si­tions, and I'm sure they'd be glad to talk to any of your stu­dents who might be in­ter­est­ed in a ca­reer with Pan Am. If you like, we can mail you some brochures."

"That would be nice," I said, and gave him a fic­ti­tious ad­dress for my nonex­is­tent col­lege.

Mine was a plan that de­mand­ed the bold­ness of a moun­tain climber. I donned my uni­form and went to Pan Am's Hangar 14 at Kennedy. With my pho­ny ID card dan­gling from my breast pock­et, I had no trou­ble at all gain­ing en­trance, and I spent a leisure­ly half hour roam­ing through the stores de­part­ment un­til I had ac­cu­mu­lat­ed the sup­plies I need­ed: en­velopes, large mani­la hold­ers and sta­tionery, all boast­ing Pan Am's let­ter­head, a pad of em­ploy­ment ap­pli­ca­tion forms and a stack of col­or­ful brochures.

Back in my mo­tel room, I sat down and com­posed a let­ter to the di­rec­tor of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Ari­zona place­ment of­fice. Pan Am, I said, was ini­ti­at­ing a new re­cruit­ing tech­nique this year. In ad­di­tion to the reg­ular per­son­nel re­cruiters who would vis­it the cam­pus in Oc­to­ber, the let­ter stat­ed, Pan Am was al­so field­ing pi­lots and stew­ardess­es to in­ter­view prospec­tive pi­lots and flight at­ten­dants, since ac­tu­al flight per­son­nel could of­fer a bet­ter per­spec­tive of what a fly­ing po­si­tion with Pan Am would en­tail and could al­so bet­ter eval­uate the ap­pli­cants.

"A pi­lot will be vis­it­ing your cam­pus on Mon­day, Septem­ber 9, and will be avail­able for three days to in­ter­view stew­ardess ap­pli­cants," the spu­ri­ous let­ter stat­ed. "Un­der sep­arate cov­er, we are send­ing you some brochures and em­ploy­ment ap­pli­ca­tion forms which you might wish to dis­tribute to in­ter­est­ed stu­dents."

I signed the name of Pan Am's di­rec­tor of per­son­nel to the let­ter and placed it in a Pan Am en­ve­lope. I pack­aged the brochures and ap­pli­ca­tion forms in one of the large mani­la hold­ers. Then I went to Pan Am's of­fice build­ing, sought out the air­line's mail room and dropped the mis­sives off with a young clerk, brusque­ly or­der­ing they be sent air mail.

I thought Pan Am's own postage me­ter, with its lit­tle Pan Am blurb, "World's Most Ex­pe­ri­enced Air­line," would add a lit­tle class to the coun­ter­feit mail­ings.

I dis­patched the let­ter and the oth­er ma­te­ri­al on Au­gust 18. On Au­gust 28 I called the Uni­ver­si­ty of Ari­zona and was con­nect­ed with John Hen­der­son, di­rec­tor of stu­dent place­ment.

"Mr. Hen­der­son, this is Frank Williams, a co-​pi­lot for Pan Amer­ican World Air­ways," I said. "I am sched­uled to vis­it your cam­pus in a cou­ple of weeks, and I'm call­ing to see if you re­ceived our ma­te­ri­al and if the dates are suit­able."

"Oh, yes, Mr. Williams," en­thused Hen­der­son. "We're look­ing for­ward to your vis­it and we did re­ceive your ma­te­ri­al. In fact, we've post­ed it about cam­pus, and you should have a good­ly num­ber of ap­pli­cants."

"Well, I don't know what was in the let­ter you re­ceived," I lied. "But I have been in­struct­ed by the flight su­per­vi­sor to in­ter­view on­ly ju­niors and se­niors."

"We un­der­stand that, Mr. Williams," Hen­der­son said. "In fact, all the in­quiries I have re­ceived so far have been from ju­niors or se­niors." He vol­un­teered quar­ters on the cam­pus for me, but I de­clined, say­ing I'd al­ready made reser­va­tions with a ho­tel fa­vored by the com­pa­ny.

I ap­peared on the Uni­ver­si­ty of Ari­zona cam­pus at 8 a.m., Mon­day, Septem­ber 9, and Hen­der­son greet­ed me cor­dial­ly. I was, of course, in uni­form. Hen­der­son had set aside a small room for my use dur­ing my stay. "We have thir­ty ap­pli­cants to date, and I have sched­uled them to ap­pear in lots of ten each day," he said. "I know, of course, you'll be talk­ing to them in­di­vid­ual­ly, and you can set your own dai­ly sched­ule, if you wish. But the first ten will be here at 9 a.m."

"Well, I think I'll talk to them as a group at first, and then in­ter­view them in­di­vid­ual­ly," I said.

The first group of ten co­eds was, col­lec­tive­ly and in­di­vid­ual­ly, sim­ply love­ly. More than ev­er, look­ing at them, I saw the need for a crew of my own. The ten of them eyed me like I was Elvis Pres­ley about to swing in­to ac­tion.

I af­fect­ed a busi­nesslike air. "First of all, ladies, I want you to know this is as new to me as it is to you. I'm more used to a cock­pit than a class­room, but the com­pa­ny has as­signed me this task and I hope I can car­ry it out suc­cess­ful­ly. With your help and un­der­stand­ing, I think I can.

"I say 'un­der­stand­ing' be­cause I don't have the fi­nal say as to who will be hired and who will not. My job is just to se­lect girls who I think would be most suit­able as flight at­ten­dants and to make a rec­om­men­da­tion in their be­half The per­son­nel di­rec­tor has the au­thor­ity to re­ject any or all of the can­di­dates I of­fer. How­ev­er, I can al­so say that you might be hired on my rec­om­men­da­tion with­out your hav­ing to be in­ter­viewed by any­one else.

"There is al­so this-it's un­like­ly any of you will be hired by Pan Am be­fore you grad­uate. But if you are se­lect­ed as a fu­ture stew­ardess, it's our pol­icy to give you some sort of as­sis­tance dur­ing your last year in school just so you won't be tempt­ed to take some oth­er job. Am I mak­ing my­self clear?"

I was. The girls said so. I then dis­missed them as a group and be­gan in­ter­view­ing them in­di­vid­ual­ly. I wasn't re­al­ly sure of the type of girl I want­ed in my "crew," but I was sure of the type I didn't want. I didn't want a girl who couldn't han­dle it if she learned she'd been conned in­to an elab­orate scam.

To­tal­ly naive and patent­ly prud­ish can­di­dates I crossed off im­me­di­ate­ly. Those who were per­son­able and at­trac­tive, but su­per­straight (the kind of girl an air­line would like as a stew­ardess), I marked as ques­tion­able. I put check marks af­ter the names of girls who im­pressed me as easy­go­ing, some­what gullible, a lit­tle dar­ing or dev­il-​may-​care, ul­tra­lib­er­al or not like­ly to pan­ic in a cri­sis. I thought the girls who pos­sessed such traits would be the best bets for my make-​be­lieve flight squad.

Hen­der­son sat in dur­ing the morn­ing ses­sions, but dur­ing the lunch break he led me to a file room be­hind his of­fice and showed me an en­trance near where I was in­ter­view­ing the girls. He hand­ed me a key to the door. "There's very rarely any­one on du­ty here, since our stu­dent records sys­tem is com­plete­ly com­put­er­ized," he said. "So you'll need this key. Now, I've pulled the files of all the ap­pli­cants and put them aside on this desk here, in case you want to study the record of a par­tic­ular girl. This way, you can op­er­ate pret­ty much on your own, al­though we'll be avail­able to help you if you feel you need help, of course."

I was in­trigued with the record-​keep­ing sys­tem and Hen­der­son oblig­ing­ly showed me how the sys­tem worked be­fore tak­ing me to lunch as his guest.

I fin­ished with the first ten ap­pli­cants ear­ly in the af­ter­noon and the fol­low­ing morn­ing met the sec­ond batch of can­di­dates. I gave them the same spiel, and like the first ten, they were equal­ly amenable to my terms. The last girls, too, were ex­posed to the same con, and by the af­ter­noon of the third day I had nar­rowed the field to twelve can­di­dates.

I spent a cou­ple of hours study­ing the files of the twelve on an in­di­vid­ual ba­sis, re­call­ing my own in­ter­views with them and my im­pres­sions of them, be­fore set­tling on eight. I was leav­ing the records room when I was seized with an amus­ing whim, one that took me less than thir­ty min­utes to sat­is­fy. When I left the room, Frank Abag­nale, Jr., a na­tive of Bronxville, had tran­scripts in the files show­ing him to have earned both a bach­elor's de­gree and a mas­ter's de­gree in so­cial work.

The next morn­ing I de­liv­ered my "the­sis" to my eight fi­nal­ists, since they were the lambs who had made pos­si­ble my whim­si­cal sheep­skins.

The girls were ex­cit­ed when I as­sem­bled them, in the per­fect mood for the con I put down. "Calm down, please, calm down," I im­plored them. "You haven't been hired as stew­ardess­es. I think you ought to know that now."

The words achieved the de­sired mul­ti­ple shock. And mo­men­tary to­tal si­lence. Then I grinned and laid it on them. "That's be­cause you're all ju­niors and we want you to fin­ish your ed­uca­tion be­fore join­ing Pan Am," I said.

"I think I men­tioned be­fore that the com­pa­ny likes to as­sist ap­proved stew­ardess can­di­dates dur­ing their last year in school, and I've been au­tho­rized to make you eight girls an of­fer I think you'll find in­ter­est­ing.

"I have been in­formed that the com­pa­ny in­tends to hire a num­ber of girls as sum­mer in­terns for the com­ing year, and these girls will be sent to Eu­rope in dif­fer­ent groups to act as ad­ver­tis­ing rep­re­sen­ta­tives and pub­lic re­la­tions peo­ple. That is, they'll be used as mod­els for pho­tographs for Pan Am ads in var­ious world pub­li­ca­tions-I'm sure you've all seen the kind I'm talk­ing about-and some will be used as speak­ers at schools, civic group meet­ings, busi­ness sem­inars and that sort of thing. It's a show-​the-​com-​pa­ny-​flag type of tour and usu­al­ly we use re­al stew­ardess­es or pro­fes­sion­al mod­els dressed up in flight-​at­ten­dant uni­forms.

"But this com­ing sum­mer, we're go­ing to use girls who've ap­plied for stew­ardess po­si­tions and it will serve as sort of a pre­train­ing pe­ri­od for them. I per­son­al­ly think it's a good idea for sev­er­al rea­sons. One, it will al­low our ad peo­ple to use pic­tures of our own per­son­nel, de­pict­ed in cities we serve, and sec­ond­ly, we won't have to pull ac­tu­al stew­ardess­es off the flight line when a pho­to sit­ua­tion calls for an ac­tu­al stew­ardess. That's al­ways made it tougher on the oth­er stew­ardess­es in the past, be­cause sum­mer months are our peak pas­sen­ger months, and when we have to pull at­ten­dants off flight du­ty, oth­er girls have to do their work.

"Now, if any or all of you would like to take part in the pro­gram this sum­mer, I'm au­tho­rized to hire you. You'll have an ex­pense-​paid tour of Eu­rope. You'll be paid the same salary as a start­ing stew­ardess, and you'll dress as stew­ardess­es, but you won't be stew­ardess­es. We'll sup­ply your uni­forms. Al­so, you'll be giv­en a let­ter of em­ploy­ment, which is very im­por­tant in this in­stance. It means that those of you who do de­cide to be­come stew­ardess­es af­ter grad­ua­tion will be ap­ply­ing as for­mer Pan Am em­ploy­ees, and you'll be giv­en pri­or­ity over all oth­er ap­pli­cants.

"Do I have any tak­ers among you?"

They all vol­un­teered. "Okay," I said, smil­ing. "Now, you'll all need pass­ports. That's your re­spon­si­bil­ity. I'll al­so need your ad­dress­es so the com­pa­ny can keep in touch with you. I'm sure you'll have your let­ters of em­ploy­ment with­in a month. That's it, ladies. I've cer­tain­ly en­joyed meet­ing you all, and I hope that if and when you be­come stew­ardess­es, some of you will be as­signed to my crew."

I in­formed Hen­der­son of the of­fer I'd made the girls, and he was as de­light­ed as they had been. In fact, Hen­der­son, his wife and the eight girls all host­ed me that night at a de­light­ful din­ner par­ty around the pool in the Hen­der­sons' back yard.

I flew back to New York and rent­ed a box with mail-​an­swer­ing ser­vice that had of­fices in the Pan Am Build­ing. It was the per­fect cov­er, since it al­lowed me to use Pan Am's own ad­dress in sub­se­quent cor­re­spon­dence I had with the girls, but all their replies would be di­rect­ed to my box with the mail-​ser­vice firm.

Af­ter a week or so, I sent a "let­ter of em­ploy­ment" to each of them, along with a cov­er­ing let­ter signed by my­self (as Frank Williams) in­form­ing each of them that-sur­prise! sur­prise!-I had been as­signed by the com­pa­ny to head up the Eu­ro­pean op­er­ation in­volv­ing them, so they were to be my "crew" af­ter all. I al­so en­closed a pho­ny lit­tle form I'd made up, re­quest­ing all their mea­sure­ments for pur­pos­es of hav­ing their uni­forms made up. I di­rect­ed each of them to ad­dress any fu­ture ques­tions or in­for­ma­tion di­rect­ly to me, in care of my box num­ber.

Then I turned to get­ting ready for the tour my­self. The pass­port I had was on­ly a tem­po­rary one, and in my re­al name. I de­cid­ed I need­ed a reg­ular pass­port that I could use as Frank Williams and de­cid­ed to take a chance that the pass­port of­fice in New York was too busy for its em­ploy­ees to play cop.

I walked in­to the of­fice one morn­ing, turned in my tem­po­rary pass­port and ten days lat­er was is­sued a reg­ular pass­port. I was pleased to have the doc­ument, but it was, af­ter all, is­sued to Frank W. Abag­nale, Jr. It was not a pass­port that would serve "Pan Am First Of­fi­cer Frank W. Williams," should the need ev­er arise. I start­ed look­ing around and found what I need­ed in the hall of records of a large East Coast city. It was the death no­tice of Fran­cis W. Williams, age twen­ty months, who had died at that young age on Novem­ber 22,1939. The archives dis­closed the in­fant had been born on March 12, 1938, in a lo­cal hos­pi­tal. I ob­tained a cer­ti­fied copy of the birth cer­tifi­cate for $3.00 by pre­sent­ing my­self to one of the clerks as the same Fran­cis W. Williams. It seemed log­ical to me, and I'm sure it would make sense to any­one else, that any­one named "Fran­cis" would pre­fer to be called "Frank."

I took the copy of the birth cer­tifi­cate to the pass­port of­fice in Philadel­phia, to­geth­er with the nec­es­sary pho­tos, and two weeks lat­er had a sec­ond pass­port, one that matched my Pan Am uni­form. I was now ready to "com­mand" my crew, if noth­ing oc­curred in the next sev­er­al months to up­set my Ari­zona ap­ple cart.

I spent those months knock­ing around the coun­try, keep­ing a low pro­file in the main, but oc­ca­sion­al­ly drop­ping a few pho­ny Pan Am checks or coun­ter­feit cashier's checks.

At one point I end­ed up in Mi­ami, stay­ing in the pent­house suite of a Mi­ami Beach ho­tel, the Fontainebleau, un­der the guise of a Cal­ifor­nia stock bro­ker, com­plete with a brief­case full of $20s, $50s and $100s, and a rent­ed Rolls-​Royce, which I had leased in Los An­ge­les and driv­en to Flori­da.

It was all part of a grand scam I had in mind, which was to drop some re­al­ly big coun­ter­feit cashier's checks on some of the Mi­ami banks and some of its more elite ho­tels af­ter es­tab­lish­ing a rep­utable front. I earned the rep­utable front in large part sheer­ly by ac­ci­dent. I had made it a point to ac­quaint my­self with some of the ho­tel's top man­age­ment peo­ple, and one of them stopped me in the lob­by one af­ter­noon and in­tro­duced me to a Flori­da bro­ker, one whose fi­nan­cial ge­nius was known even to me.

A staunch Florid­ian, he had the true Florid­ian's thin­ly dis­guised con­tempt for Cal­ifor­nia, and I gath­ered from most of his re­marks dur­ing our ca­su­al en­counter that he didn't hold Cal­ifor­nia stock­bro­kers in any es­teem, ei­ther. He was so bla­tant­ly rude and ar­ro­gant at times that the ho­tel ex­ec­utive was patent­ly em­bar­rassed. Af­ter a few min­utes I ex­cused my­self, he was so hos­tile. He grasped my arm as I was leav­ing.

"What's your opin­ion on the Sat­urn Elec­tron­ics of­fer­ing?" he asked with a su­per­cil­ious smirk. I'd nev­er heard of the com­pa­ny and in fact didn't know any such firm ex­ist­ed. But I re­gard­ed him bland­ly, then dropped one eye­lid. "Buy all of it you can get your hands on," I said and walked off.

A few days lat­er I en­coun­tered the man again as we were both wait­ing for our cars to be brought to the front en­trance. He greet­ed me with grudg­ing re­spect, which sur­prised me. "I should have lis­tened to you on that Sat­urn stock," he said. "How the hell did you know Galaxy Com­mu­ni­ca­tions was go­ing to take over the com­pa­ny?"

I just grinned and gave him an­oth­er wink. Lat­er I learned that Sat­urn Elec­tron­ics, af­ter its ac­qui­si­tion by Galaxy, had closed from five to eight points up on each of the pre­vi­ous four days.

That evening I was ac­cost­ed at the el­eva­tor by a well-​groomed man in his thir­ties who in­tro­duced him­self as a promi­nent city of­fi­cial.

"Rick [one of the ho­tel ex­ec­utives] told me about you, Mr. Williams," he said. "He said you might be set­ting up an of­fice here and per­haps make your home in Mi­ami dur­ing part of the year."

I nod­ded. "Well, I'm think­ing about it se­ri­ous­ly," I said, smil­ing. "I'll prob­ably make up my mind with­in a few weeks."

"Well, per­haps I can help you/' he said. "My wife and I are giv­ing a par­ty tonight and some of the city's and the state's top gov­ern­ment and busi­ness lead­ers are go­ing to be there, in­clud­ing the may­or and some peo­ple from the gov­er­nor's staff. I'd like to in­vite you, if you'd con­sid­er com­ing. I think it would be an en­joy­able evening for you, and like I say, you might meet some peo­ple who will help you make up your mind."

I ac­cept­ed his in­vi­ta­tion, be­cause he was right, in a way. It was quite pos­si­ble some of his guests could help me. By let­ting me fleece them.

It was a black-​tie af­fair, but I had no trou­ble find­ing a tuxe­do rental shop that was open and which could fit me on such short no­tice. I al­so had no trou­ble lo­cat­ing the city fa­ther's home, which proved to be un­com­fort­ably close to a cer­tain banker's home. I hoped she wasn't a guest al­so, but I had the park­ing at­ten­dant po­si­tion my car for a quick get­away, just in case.

She wasn't a guest, but the most stun­ning and at­trac­tive blonde I've ev­er en­coun­tered, be­fore and since, was a guest. I no­ticed her mo­ments af­ter I joined the throng of guests, and she kept at­tract­ing my at­ten­tion all evening. Odd­ly enough, al­though she seemed al­ways to be the cen­ter of a cir­cle of ad­mir­ers, she didn't seem to be with any one of the men pay­ing her court. My host con­firmed the fact.

"That's Cheryl," he said. "She's a stan­dard dec­ora­tion at par­ties like this. She's a mod­el and she's been on the cov­ers of sev­er­al mag­azines. We have a pret­ty good ar­range­ment with her. She lends ex­cite­ment to our par­ties and we make sure she gets men­tioned in all the so­ci­ety columns. Come on, I'll in­tro­duce you."

She made it im­me­di­ate­ly known that she'd been cu­ri­ous about me al­so. "I saw you ar­rive," she said, ex­tend­ing her hand. "That's a love­ly Rolls. Is it yours or did you bor­row it for the oc­ca­sion?"

"No, it's one of mine," I said.

Her eye­brows arched. "One of yours? Do you have more than one Rolls-​Royce?"

"I have sev­er­al," I replied. "I'm a col­lec­tor." I knew from the gleam in her eyes that I'd made a dear friend. She was ob­vi­ous­ly im­pressed by wealth and ma­te­ri­al pos­ses­sions. In fact, I was con­tin­ual­ly sur­prised through­out the re­main­der of the evening that such a beau­ti­ful ex­te­ri­or masked such a ve­nal and cov­etous in­te­ri­or. How­ev­er, I wasn't in­ter­est­ed in her lack of virtues. I was at­tract­ed by her ob­vi­ous vices. She was avari­cious­ly gor­geous.

We weren't to­geth­er the en­tire evening. We would part oc­ca­sion­al­ly and go prowl­ing sep­arate­ly, like two leop­ards seek­ing prey in the same jun­gle. I found the prey I was hunt­ing, a cou­ple of fat and juicy bank pi­geons. She al­so found her prey. Me.

I took her aside about 2:30 a.m. "Look, this par­ty's about dead," I pro­posed. "Why don't we go back to my pent­house and have some break­fast?"

Her re­ply was a blow to my ego. "What's it worth to you for me to go back to your ho­tel with you?" she asked, ey­ing me provoca­tive­ly.

"I thought you were a mod­el," I blurt­ed, sur­prised.

She smiled. "There're dif­fer­ent kinds of mod­el­ing. Some mod­el­ing jobs come high­er than oth­ers," she said.

I had nev­er paid a girl to go to bed with me. The world of pro­fes­sion­al sex was an un­known realm. To my knowl­edge, I'd nev­er be­fore met a hook­er or a call girl. But ap­par­ent­ly I had now. How­ev­er, I still want­ed her in my bed, and hav­ing es­tab­lished her true call­ing, I made an at­tempt to es­tab­lish her price. What the hell, I had plen­ty of mon­ey. "Uh, $300?" I ven­tured.

She gri­maced pret­ti­ly and shook her head. "No, I'm afraid $300 isn't enough,' she said.

I was as­ton­ished. Ob­vi­ous­ly I'd been ca­vort­ing in lux­ury for years with­out know­ing the val­ue of the wares I'd en­joyed. "Oh, all right, let's dou­ble it and say $600," I said.

She gave me a cool­ly spec­ula­tive look. "That's clos­er," she said. "But for a man of your means, I should think it would be high­er."

I looked at her and was ir­ri­tat­ed. I had es­tab­lished and fol­lowed a cer­tain felo­nious code of ethics since tak­ing up crime as a pro­fes­sion. Among oth­er things, I'd nev­er did­dled an in­di­vid­ual. For in­stance, I'd nev­er pur­chased a wardrobe or any oth­er per­son­al item with a hot check. Too many de­part­ment stores and busi­ness firms held an in­di­vid­ual sales­per­son re­spon­si­ble for bo­gus checks. If a sales­man took a check for a suit, and the check bounced, the cost of the suit came out of the clerk's salary. My tar­gets had al­ways been cor­po­rate tar­gets-banks, air­lines, ho­tels, mo­tels or oth­er es­tab­lish­ments pro­tect­ed by in­sur­ance. When I splurged on a new wardrobe or any­thing else of a per­son­al na­ture, I al­ways hit a bank or a ho­tel for the need­ed cash.

It sud­den­ly oc­curred to me that Cheryl would make a love­ly ex­cep­tion to my rule. "Look, we could stand here all night and ar­gue price," I said. "I hate quib­bling. In­stead of go­ing to my place, why don't we go to your apart­ment, spend an hour or so there, and I'll give you $1,000."

She reached for her purse. "Let's go," she agreed. "But I don't have an apart­ment at the mo­ment. I lost my lease and I'm stay­ing at a ho­tel in Mi­ami Beach." She named the ho­tel, which was one not too far from mine, and we were there with­in thir­ty min­utes.

She was in­sert­ing her key in­to the door of her suite when I turned, say­ing, "I'll be right back."

She grabbed my arm. "Hey, where're you go­ing?" she asked, some­what ag­itat­ed. "You're not go­ing to back out, are you?"

I took her hand off my arm. "Look, you don't think I car­ry $1,000 in my pock­et, do you?" I said. "I'm go­ing down­stairs and cash a check."

"At three-​thir­ty in the morn­ing!" she ex­claimed. "You're not go­ing to get a check cashed for that amount at this hour. You couldn't get one cashed for $100."

I smiled lofti­ly. "I think so. I know the own­ers of this ho­tel. Be­sides, this is a cer­ti­fied cashier's check, drawn on the Chase Man­hat­tan Bank in New York. It's like gold here. I cash them all the time."

"Let me see it," she asked. I reached in­side my jack­et pock­et and ex­tract­ed one of the Chase Man­hat­tan coun­ter­feits I'd ac­quired be­fore com­ing to Mi­ami. It was in the amount of $1,400. She ex­am­ined the vouch­er and nod­ded. "It is like gold," she agreed. "Why don't you just en­dorse it over to me?"

"Uh-​uh/' I de­clined. "This check is for $1,400. We agreed on $1,000, and while $400 isn't that im­por­tant, a deal is a deal."

"I agree," she said. "So en­dorse it. I'll give you the $400." She dug in her purse and came up with a thin sheaf of $100s, from which she took four and hand­ed them to me. I en­dorsed the check and hand­ed it to her.

I have the se­quel from what re­porters call "re­li­able sources." Sev­er­al days lat­er, when her bank in­formed her the cashier's check was a coun­ter­feit, she called the Dade Coun­ty Sher­iff's De­part­ment, fu­ri­ous. She even­tu­al­ly was con­tact­ed by O'Ri­ley.

"Why'd he give you this check?" asked O'Ri­ley.

"That doesn't mat­ter," she snapped. "He gave it to me, and it's bad, and I want the bas­tard caught."

"I know," said O'Ri­ley. "But I al­so need to know how this man thinks, so I can catch him. Your de­scrip­tion fits Frank Abag­nale, but he's nev­er giv­en any bad pa­per to an in­di­vid­ual. He doesn't even pass bad pa­per in re­tail stores. Why, all of a sud­den, is he giv­ing a square John, and a beau­ti­ful wom­an at that, a worth­less check for $1,400? What was the pur­pose?"

O'Ri­ley is some­thing of a con artist him­self. He ob­tained the full sto­ry from her. "I don't mind his get­ting a free piece/' she con­clud­ed bit­ter­ly. "Hell, I've giv­en it away be­fore. But that bas­tard conned me out of $400 cash. That I re­sent."

I have al­ways agreed with O'Ri­ley's as­sess­ment of the mat­ter. We both got screwed.

How­ev­er, her ses­sion with me was prob­ably more de­light­ful and less cost­ly than the en­coun­ters I had with the two bankers be­fore leav­ing Mi­ami. I ripped them off for more than $20,000 each. I al­so flim­flammed the Fontaine-​bleau by pay­ing my bill with a coun­ter­feit cashier's check that yield­ed me sev­er­al hun­dred dol­lars change.

I put the Rolls in a stor­age garage and sent a tele­gram to the Cal­ifor­nia leas­ing firm in­form­ing them of its where­abouts. Cheryl was right. It was a love­ly car and de­served bet­ter than be­ing aban­doned to the el­ements and van­dals.

I holed up in Sun Val­ley, keep­ing a low pro­file and an hon­est de­meanor, for the win­ter. As spring ap­proached, I flew back to New York, set my­self up in a brown­stone flat in an el­egant sec­tion of Man­hat­tan and dropped "re­minder" notes to each of my prospec­tive "stews." The replies I re­ceived as­sured me that my fic­tion­al sta­tus as a Pan Am pro­mo­tion­al ex­ec­utive was still be­lieved, so I pro­ceed­ed to ful­fill my flesh­ly fan­ta­sy. I knew the name of the Hol­ly­wood firm that de­signed and man­ufac­tured all of the stew­ardess uni­forms for Pan Am. I flew to Hol­ly­wood and, wear­ing my Pan Am pi­lot's garb, called on the fash­ion firm. I pre­sent­ed a pho­ny let­ter of in­tro­duc­tion to the wom­an in charge of Pan Am's ac­count, de­tailed the fic­tion­al pub­lic re­la­tions tour of Eu­rope and had my ex­pla­na­tion ac­cept­ed at face val­ue. "We'll have the en­sem­bles ready in six weeks," she said. "I pre­sume you al­so want lug­gage for each of the girls?"

"Of course," I said.

I stayed in the Los An­ge­les area while the girls' cloth­ing was be­ing fash­ioned, at­tend­ing to oth­er facets nec­es­sary to the es­capade. I paid a call to the Pan Am stores de­part­ment at the Los An­ge­les Air­port, dressed as a pi­lot, and picked up all the hat and uni­form em­blems they'd need.

I'd had all the girls send me one-​inch-​square col­or pho­tographs of them­selves. I used the pho­tographs to make up fake Pan Am ID cards, sim­ilar to mine, and list­ing the sta­tus of each as "flight at­ten­dant."

When the uni­forms were ready, I picked them up per­son­al­ly, driv­ing a rent­ed sta­tion wag­on with coun­ter­feit Pan Am lo­gos on the doors, and paid for the uni­forms by sign­ing an in­voice for them.

In late May I sent each of the girls a let­ter, en­clos­ing an air­line tick­et for each-tick­ets I'd bought and paid for with cash-and telling them to as­sem­ble in the lob­by of the Los An­ge­les air­port on May 26.

The gath­er­ing of my ea­glets was one of the bold­est and more flam­boy­ant pro­duc­tions of my poseur per­for­mances. I went to one of the more lux­uri­ous inns sur­round­ing the air­port and booked a room for each of the girls, and al­so en­gaged, for the day af­ter their ar­rival, one of the ho­tel's con­fer­ence rooms. I made all the book­ings in Pan Am's firm name, al­though I paid cash for the fa­cil­ities. I sa­ti­at­ed the cu­rios­ity of the as­sis­tant man­ag­er who han­dled the trans­ac­tion by ex­plain­ing this was not reg­ular Pan Am busi­ness but a "spe­cial fea­ture" of the air­line's pro­mo­tion de­part­ment.

On the morn­ing the girls were to ar­rive, I donned my Pan Am pi­lot's uni­form and vis­it­ed Pan Am's op­er­ational de­part­ment at the air­port, seek­ing out the man­ag­er of the car­ri­er's car pool.

"Look, I've got eight stew­ardess­es com­ing in at two P.M. to­day on a spe­cial as­sign­ment, and I need some trans­porta­tion to get them to the ho­tel," I said. "You think you can help me out?"

"Sure," he said. "I've got a reg­ular crew wag­on avail­able. I'll pick them up my­self. You gonna be there?"

"I'll just meet you here at one-​thir­ty and go with you/' I said. "You need me to sign any­thing?"

"Nah, I got you cov­ered/ Jet­man." He grinned. "Just have one my size."

The girls showed up on time and were du­ly im­pressed with the gleam­ing Pan Am crew wag­on, which was ac­tu­al­ly just an over­sized sta­tion wag­on. The pool chief and I load­ed their lug­gage and he drove us all to the ho­tel, where he again as­sist­ed in un­load­ing their lug­gage and get­ting the girls sit­uat­ed. I of­fered to buy him a drink af­ter we were through, but he de­clined. "I like your kind of du­ty," he said, grin­ning. "Just call on me any­time."

The next morn­ing I as­sem­bled the girls in the con­fer­ence room, where I passed out their ID cards and pre­sent­ed them with their uni­forms and lug­gage. They squealed with de­light as they in­spect­ed the en­sem­bles and the lug­gage, each piece of which was mono­grammed with the own­er's name and Pan Am's lo­go.

There were more squeals of joy as I out­lined our itin-​ner­ary: Lon­don, Paris, Rome, Athens, Gene­va, Mu­nich, Berlin, Madrid, Oslo, Copen­hagen, Vi­en­na and oth­er Eu­ro­pean spas. I qui­et­ed them down and took on the air of a stern fa­ther.

"Now, this sounds like a lot of fun, and I hope it will be, but we're on se­ri­ous busi­ness, and I won't put up with any non­sense," I told them. "I have the au­thor­ity to dis­charge any one of you for mis­con­duct or for goof­ing off, and I will send you home if I have to. Let's get one thing straight-I'm the boss and you will live by my in­struc­tions and fol­low the poli­cies I out­line. I think you'll find my rules em­inent­ly fair, and you should have no trou­ble fol­low­ing them, and there­fore no trou­ble at all.

"First off, you'll no­tice that each of you is iden­ti­fied as a stew­ardess on your ID card. As far as the per­son­nel of the ho­tels where we'll be stay­ing, and the pho­tog­ra­phers with whom we'll be work­ing are con­cerned, you are stew­ardess­es. But we will all trav­el as civil­ians, and that in­cludes fly­ing or driv­ing, and I will tell you when you are to wear the uni­forms. You're on a very de­sir­able tour, du­ty that could cause some dis­sen­sion and jeal­ousy among our reg­ular cadre of flight at­ten­dants, male and fe­male. So if you do have oc­ca­sion to min­gle with reg­ular flight crews, just say you're with our New York pub­lic re­la­tions of­fice, on a spe­cial as­sign­ment, and an­swer as few ques­tions about your ac­tu­al sta­tus as pos­si­ble. If any­one press­es, re­fer him or her to me.

"Now, you'll be paid ev­ery two weeks, a reg­ular com­pa­ny pay­check. It's very dif­fi­cult to cash a check in Eu­rope, so when I give you your pay­check, if you'll just en­dorse it, I'll cash it at the lo­cal Pan Am of­fice or at one of the banks or ho­tels with which we've made ar­range­ments.

"Now I know some of you are won­der­ing why you can't just send your checks home to be de­posit­ed. There're two rea­sons. First, the checks will prob­ably be is­sued on one of our for­eign ac­counts. The com­pa­ny likes the checks to be cashed in Eu­rope. Sec­ond is the ex­change rate. If you cash a check your­self, it will be cashed at the cur­rent ex­change rate and you'll usu­al­ly end up los­ing mon­ey. So I'll cash your checks, give you the cash and then if you want to send any mon­ey home, you can send a mon­ey or­der or a cashier's check home. Does any­one have any ques­tions?"

No one did. I smiled. "Okay, then, you're on your own for the rest of the day and the night. But get a good night's sleep. We leave to­mor­row for Lon­don."

We did, too, us­ing tick­ets that had cost me a small for­tune in cash. We land­ed in Lon­don in a clam­my, predawn rain and I in­struct­ed the girls to change in­to their stew­ardess uni­forms be­fore we went to the ho­tel.

I was, un­der­stand­ably, ner­vous and ap­pre­hen­sive at the out­set of my scheme, but I plunged ahead reck­less­ly. I even checked us in at the Roy­al Gar­dens in Kens­ing­ton, gam­bling that none of the em­ploy­ees would as­so­ciate TWA Pi­lot Frank Adams with Pan Am First Of­fi­cer Frank Williams. I hired a van to take us from the air­port to the ho­tel, and the reg­is­tra­tion clerk, to my re­lief, was a to­tal stranger to me.

"We're Pan Am Flight 738," I said. "We were di­vert­ed from Shan­non and I don't know if any­one made reser­va­tions for us or not."

"No prob­lem, Cap­tain," said the clerk. "That is, if the girls don't mind dou­bling up. We've on­ly five rooms avail­able."

The girls slept un­til near­ly noon. Then I loosed them on the town by them­selves, telling them I had "set up a pho­to ses­sion" with the lo­cal Pan Am of­fice. What I did was to go through the Lon­don tele­phone book un­til I found what I was look­ing for, a com­mer­cial pho­tog­ra­phy firm. I called the com­pa­ny and iden­ti­fied my­self as a Pan Am pub­lic re­la­tions rep­re­sen­ta­tive.

"I've got eight girls at the Roy­al Gar­dens, stew­ardess­es, and what we need is some col­or and black and white shots suit­able for ad­ver­tise­ments and pro­mo­tion brochures- you know, can­did stuff of the girls at Pic­cadil­ly, some of them at the Thames bridges, that sort of thing," I said. "Do you think you can han­dle it?"

"Oh, quite!" en­thused the man to whom I spoke. "Why don't I have one of our boys pop right over with some sam­ples of our work? I'm sure we can do busi­ness, Mr. Williams."

The firm's rep­re­sen­ta­tive and I had lunch and worked out a deal. I'd picked one of the bet­ter firms in Lon­don, it seemed. They'd even done some work in the past for Pan Am.

"Well, this is a lit­tle dif­fer­ent, some­thing new we're try­ing," I said. "One thing you'll like, I'm sure, is that you'll be paid in cash at the end of each day. Just give me an in­voice for the amount."

"What about the proofs?" asked the cam­era firm's rep.

"Well, chances are we'll be long gone to an­oth­er city-

we've got a hec­tic sched­ule-so just send them to the pub­lic re­la­tions and ad­ver­tis­ing de­part­ment of Pan Am in New York," I said. "If they de­cide to use any of your pic­tures, you'll be paid again at your nor­mal com­mer­cial rate for each pic­ture se­lect­ed."

He whis­tled and raised his glass of beer. "That is a dif­fer­ent way of do­ing things, and I like it," he said, grin­ning con­tent­ed­ly.

The next morn­ing, a three-​man cam­era crew in a pas­sen­ger van load­ed with pho­to­graph­ic equip­ment called at the ho­tel and picked up my eight fledglings. I didn't go with them, but sim­ply told the chief cam­era­man to use his own judg­ment and imag­ina­tion and re­turn the girls in a rea­son­ably sober and pre­sentable con­di­tion.

"Gotcha, guv'nor." He laughed and shep­herd­ed the girls in­to the van.

I had busi­ness of my own to con­duct. I had em­barked on this il­lic­it odyssey well pro­vi­sioned with sin­ful sup­plies: coun­ter­feit cashier's checks (prod­ucts of my own hand­iwork), Pan Am ex­pense checks and reg­ular pay­checks (Pa­pa Lava­lier's un­wit­ting art­work) and Pan Am re­im­burse­ment au­tho­riza­tion forms (pil­fered from Pan Am's own stores de­part­ment), the last more for bluff than ef­fect.

There were a lot of fac­tors weigh­ing in my fa­vor. Lon­don, and most of the oth­er ma­jor cities on out itinerary, was dot­ted with branch­es of ma­jor Amer­ican banks.

The next morn­ing I gath­ered the girls in my room and ex­plained the ho­tel pol­icy on air­line crews, then spread out eight pho­ny Pan Am "ex­pense checks" for them to en­dorse. Each check, of course, was for much more than the ho­tel bill. "I'll need your ID cards, too, and while I'm set­tling the bill, you'll all have to stand in sight of the cashier," I said. Not one of them ques­tioned the amount of the check she signed, if any one of them both­ered to no­tice.

The scam went off flaw­less­ly. The girls clus­tered in a group in the lob­by, in view of the cashier, and I pre­sent­ed the nine fake checks in pay­ment for our lodg­ing and oth­er charges. The cashier raised the on­ly ques­tion.

"Oh, these are rather high, Cap­tain, I'm not sure I have enough Amer­ican dol­lars to make change," she said, in­spect­ing her cash draw­er. "In fact, I don't. You're go­ing to have to take pounds in change, I'm afraid."

I act­ed miffed, but ac­cept­ed the de­ci­sion, know­ing the cashier would prob­ably make a prof­it, or thought she would. The pounds she gave me, how­ev­er, were re­al. The Pan Am checks weren't.

We flew to Rome that af­ter­noon, where, over the next three days, the pro­ce­dure was re­peat­ed. The ho­tel cashier in Rome, too, ques­tioned the amount of the ex­pense checks, but was sat­is­fied with my ex­pla­na­tion.

"Well, I'm sor­ry about that," I said. "But we're on an eigh­teen-​day tour of Italy, and, of course, you can give me change in li­ra if you like."

He liked, since it meant a per­son­al prof­it of some fifty Amer­ican dol­lars for him.

I de­cid­ed against jaunt­ing around Eu­rope by air, not be­cause of the ex­pense but be­cause it would have ex­posed the girls con­stant­ly to oth­er air­line crews. That was my biggest prob­lem in im­ple­ment­ing my scheme-shield­ing the girls from oth­er air­line peo­ple. As I pre­vi­ous­ly point­ed out, air­line peo­ple like to talk shop, es­pe­cial­ly if they work for the same car­ri­er.

There was, nat­ural­ly, some un­avoid­able con­tact with oth­er flight crews, since the suc­cess of my check-​cash­ing scam de­mand­ed we stay at ho­tels which catered to air­line per­son­nel. There was al­ways the risk that one of the girls, while in uni­form, would en­counter an­oth­er, ac­tu­al, Pan Am stew­ardess, and a dis­as­trous di­alogue would en­sue.

Ac­tu­al stew: "Hi, I'm Mary Al­ice, out of L. A. Where are you based?"

My girl: "Oh, I'm not based any­where. I'm just over here on a P.R. thing."

Ac­tu­al stew: "You're not a stew­ardess?"

My girl: "Not re­al­ly. There're eight of us, and we're do­ing some pho­to­graph­ic mod­el­ing for pro­mo­tion and ad­ver­tis­ing pur­pos­es."

Ac­tu­al stew (to her­self): "Like hell. I've been with Pan Am for five years and I nev­er heard of any such work. I'd bet­ter re­port this to the chief and see if these peo­ple are for re­al."

I want­ed to avoid any such sce­nario, so I would fre­quent­ly re­in­force my in­struc­tions to the girls with re­peat lec­tures. "Look, when you're out in civil­ian clothes and you meet a Pan Am flight at­ten­dant in uni­form, don't say you fly for Pan Am, too, be­cause you don't," I'd warn them.

"If you're in uni­form and you en­counter an­oth­er Pan Am stew­ardess, just say you're here on va­ca­tion if your sta­tus is ques­tioned. You may feel that's be­ing de­cep­tive, and it is, but we have a rea­son. We don't want oth­er air­lines to find out about this ven­ture, be­cause they'd most like­ly, with some jus­ti­fi­ca­tion, put the word out in the in­dus­try that Pan Am isn't us­ing re­al stew­ardess­es in our trav­el ads or pro­mo­tion­al brochures. And we don't re­al­ly want our line stew­ardess­es to know, as I've told you, be­cause it would like­ly cause dis­sen­sion. For a work­ing stew­ardess, this would re­al­ly be a choice as­sign­ment."

The girls co­op­er­at­ed splen­did­ly in that re­spect. And I rent­ed a com­fort­able, al­most lux­uri­ous Volk­swa­gen bus for our me­an­der­ing around Eu­rope. At times my scheme seemed more like a leisure­ly va­ca­tion than a felo­nious ven­ture, for we of­ten spent days, some­times a week or more, in col­or­ful lit­tle out-​of-​the-​way spots in this coun­try or that one and dur­ing such de­tours I curbed my crooked ac­tiv­ities. It was not part of my plan to shaft the peas­ants.

But my scam got back on the track in ma­jor cities. Be­fore en­ter­ing such a metropo­lis, we'd stop and change in­to our air­line uni­forms, and, on our ar­rival at the ho­tel of my choos­ing, the scheme would pick up steam and be­gin op­er­at­ing again.

Ev­ery two weeks I paid the girls with a coun­ter­feit pay­roll check, then had them en­dorse the checks over to me in re­turn for cash. Since I was pay­ing all their ex­pens­es (al­though each thought Pan Am was pick­ing up the tab), most of them pur­chased mon­ey or­ders and sent them home to their par­ents or their bank.

The girls were en­tire­ly guilt­less, of course. Not one, dur­ing the sum­mer, ev­er had an inkling she was in­volved in a crim­inal ven­ture. Each thought she was le­git­imate­ly em­ployed by Pan Am. They were com­plete­ly duped by my con.

Mine was an idyl­lic in­trigue, but of­ten hec­tic and tax­ing. Rid­ing herd on eight love­ly, vi­va­cious, ex­uber­ant, en­er­get­ic girls is akin to a cow­boy rid­ing herd on a bunch of wild steers while mount­ed on a lame horse-damned near im­pos­si­ble. I had de­ter­mined at the out­set of the scheme that there would be no per­son­al in­volve­ment with any of the girls, but my re­solve was en­dan­gered a score of times dur­ing the course of the sum­mer. Each of them was an out­ra­geous flirt, and I, of course, was a prince of phi­lan­der­ers, and when one of the girls was in­clined to make a sex­ual ad­vance (and each of them did on sev­er­al oc­ca­sions), I was hard­ly prone to fend her off. But I al­ways man­aged.

I did not lead a celi­bate life dur­ing the sum­mer. I had am­ple op­por­tu­ni­ties to en­gage in side li­aisons with the girls of what­ev­er lo­cal­ities we were fre­quent­ing, and I took ad­van­tage of each and ev­ery op­por­tu­ni­ty.

Monique was not one of the li­aisons. When we vis­it­ed Paris and I sought her out, she in­formed me our re­la­tion­ship was fin­ished. "I'll still be your friend, Frank, and I hope you'll still help Pa­pa in his busi­ness, but I want to set­tle down and you don't," she said. "I've met an­oth­er man, a pi­lot for Air France, and we're pret­ty se­ri­ous about our fu­ture."

I as­sured her of my un­der­stand­ing and, in fact, was some­what re­lieved. I al­so af­firmed that her fa­ther would con­tin­ue to get "Pan Am busi­ness," al­though that state­ment was a lie. I was be­gin­ning to feel some guilt con­cern­ing my du­plic­itous use of Pa­pa Lava­lier, and had opt­ed to re­lease him as a pawn in my scur­rilous game. Any­way, he'd al­ready pro­vid­ed me with enough sup­plies to drain a dozen bank vaults if I used them all.

The girls and I end­ed our tour of Eu­rope in Copen­hagen, where I put them on a plane for Ari­zona. I dis­patched them back to the States with their arms laden with ros­es and a flow­ery speech de­signed to al­lay any sus­pi­cions that might arise in their minds in com­ing weeks.

"Keep your uni­forms, keep your ID cards and keep your check stubs [I'd al­ways re­turned a check stub when I cashed a check]," I in­struct­ed them. "If the com­pa­ny wants the uni­forms and IDs re­turned, you'll be con­tact­ed. As far as em­ploy­ment goes, just re­turn to school, be­cause we're not go­ing to hire you on a per­ma­nent ba­sis un­til you grad­uate, and then you'll be con­tact­ed by a com­pa­ny rep­re­sen­ta­tive. It prob­ably won't be me, be­cause I've been or­dered back to flight du­ty. But I hope you'll all end up as part of my crew again, for I've had a won­der­ful time with you this sum­mer."

I had had a won­der­ful time, all things con­sid­ered. If the girls put a lot of gray strands in my hair, they al­so, un­wit­ting­ly, put a lot of green stuff in my pock­ets. Some­thing like $300,000 in all.

The girls did hear from Pan Am, as a mat­ter of fact. Af­ter three months of a steady stream of pho­tographs, from dozens of Eu­ro­pean cities and all show­ing the same eight girls in Pan Am stew­ardess cos­tumes, ad­ver­tis­ing ex­ec­utives of Pan Am launched an in­ves­ti­ga­tion. Even­tu­al­ly the en­tire mat­ter end­ed up in O'Ri­ley's hands and he deft­ly sort­ed it out and put it in­to fo­cus for the car­ri­er's of­fi­cers and al­so for the girls.

I un­der­stand all eight of them took it grace­ful­ly, if with some vivid and de­scrip­tive lan­guage.

I stayed in Eu­rope for sev­er­al weeks af­ter part­ing with the girls, then re­turned to the States, where I wan­dered around like a gyp­sy for sev­er­al weeks, nev­er stay­ing in one place for more than two or three days. I was be­com­ing moody again, ner­vous and edgy, and the knowl­edge that I would prob­ably al­ways be a man on the move, a fox per­pet­ual­ly hunt­ed by the hounds, was be­gin­ning to weigh on my con­science, af­fect­ing my con­scious life.

I vir­tu­al­ly ceased my check-​swin­dling ac­tiv­ities, fear­ful the hounds were close enough and re­luc­tant to cre­ate ad­di­tion­al spoor. On­ly rarely was I chal­lenged to dis­play my cre­ative crim­inal­ity.

One such time was in a large mid­west­ern city. I was sit­ting in the air­port restau­rant af­ter ar­rival, en­joy­ing lunch, when I be­came in­ter­est­ed in the con­ver­sa­tion in the ad­join­ing booth, an ex­change be­tween an el­der­ly, stern-​faced man and a very young, servile com­pan­ion, ap­par­ent­ly an em­ploy­ee. I gath­ered from the con­ver­sa­tion that the old­er man was a banker, en route to a con­ven­tion in San Fran­cis­co, and from the re­marks he made to the young man it was clear he ex­pect­ed his bank to make mon­ey in his ab­sence. He was cool, crusty, ar­ro­gant and ob­vi­ous­ly proud of his lofty sta­tus, and when he was paged on the air­port in­ter­com I learned his name. Jasper P. Cash­man.

That af­ter­noon I did some dis­creet dig­ging in­to Jasper P. Cash­man's back­ground, uti­liz­ing a lo­cal news­pa­per's li­brary. J. P. Cash­man was a promi­nent man in his com­mu­ni­ty, a self-​made ty­coon. He'd start­ed as a teller in his bank when the fi­nan­cial house had as­sets of less than $5 mil­lion. He was pres­ident now and the bank's as­sets ex­ceed­ed $100 mil­lion.

I scout­ed the bank the fol­low­ing day. It was a new build­ing, still boast­ing its ex­pan­sion mot­to on the large front win­dow. The in­te­ri­or was roomy and pleas­ing. Tellers on one side, ju­nior of­fi­cers scat­tered across an op­po­site wall. Se­nior of­fi­cers in airy, glassed-​in of­fices. Cash­man's of­fices on the third floor. J. P. Cash­man didn't be­lieve in close con­tact with the un­der­lings.

I rent­ed a car, drove to a mod­est city 175 miles dis­tant and opened a check­ing ac­count for $10,000 with a coun­ter­feit cashier's check. Then I re­turned to Cash­man's town and the next day called at his bank. I wasn't re­al­ly in­ter­est­ed in the mon­ey in­volved in my swin­dle. Cash­man's man­ner had irked me, and I sim­ply want­ed to sting him.

I was the pic­ture of the af­flu­ent busi­ness­man when I en­tered the bank. Gray three-​piece suit. Al­li­ga­tors, lus­ter-​shined. Count­ess Mara tie. A leather brief-​case, slim and el­egant.

Cash­man's com­pan­ion at the air­port was one of the ju­nior of­fi­cers. His desk was neat and tidy. His name­plate sparkled with new­ness. He ob­vi­ous­ly was new­ly pro­mot­ed. I dropped in­to the chair in front of his desk.

"Yes, sir, can I help you?" he asked, patent­ly im­pressed by my dress and bear­ing.

"Yes, you can, as a mat­ter of fact," I said eas­ily. "I'm Robert Lee­man from Junc­tion, and I need to cash a check, a rather large one. I've all the prop­er iden­ti­fi­ca­tion and you can call my bank for ver­ifi­ca­tion, but I don't think that'll be nec­es­sary. J. P. Cash­man knows me, and he'll ver­ify the check. You can call him. No, I'll do it my­self, since I need to talk to him any­way."

Be­fore he could re­act, I reached over, picked up his tele­phone and di­aled Cash­man's cor­rect ex­ten­sion. Cash-​man's sec­re­tary an­swered.

"Yes, Mr. Cash­man, please. ... He isn't.. . . Oh, yes, he men­tioned that last week and it slipped my mind. Well, lis­ten, would you tell him when he re­turns that Bob Lee­man dropped by, and tell him Jean and I are look­ing for­ward to see­ing him and Mil­dred in Junc­tion for the hunt. He'll know what I mean. . . . Yes, thank you."

I re­placed the tele­phone and stood up, gri­mac­ing. "Doesn't look like my day," I said rue­ful­ly. "I need­ed the cash, too. I can't get to Junc­tion and back in time for this deal. Well, good day, sir."

I start­ed to turn and the young of­fi­cer stopped me. "Uh, how big is the check you want­ed to cash, Mr. Lee­man?"

"Pret­ty good sized," I said. "I need $7,500. Do you think you can take care of it? I can give you the num­ber of my bank in Junc­tion." With­out wait­ing for a re­ply, I dropped back in­to the chair, briskly wrote out a check for $7,500 and hand­ed it to him. As I fig­ured, he didn't call the bank in Junc­tion. He stood up and turned to­ward one of the glassed-​in of­fices. "Sir, I'll have to have Mr. James, the vice pres­ident, okay this, which I'm sure he will. I'll be back in a mo­ment."

He walked in­to James's of­fice and said (as I lat­er learned) ex­act­ly what I'd con­di­tioned him to say. "Sir, there's a Mr. Lee­man here from Junc­tion and he needs to cash this rather large check. He's a per­son­al friend of Mr. Cash­man, and he want­ed to see Mr. Cash­man, but as you know Mr. Cash­man's in San Fran­cis­co."

"A per­son­al friend of the old man's?"

"Yes, sir, busi­ness and so­cial, I un­der­stand."

"Cash it. We sure as hell don't want to ir­ri­tate any of the old man's as­so­ciates."

A minute lat­er the young of­fi­cer was hand­ing the pho­ny check to a teller. "Cash this for the gen­tle­man, please. Mr. Lee­man, I'm glad I could help you."

I wasn't too well pleased with the Pavlov's-​dog swin­dle. In fact, I didn't en­joy it at all. I left town that day and sev­er­al days lat­er stopped in a re­mote Ver­mont vil­lage to do some med­itat­ing. Mine were gloomy cog­ita­tions. I was no longer liv­ing, I de­cid­ed, I was mere­ly sur­viv­ing. I had ac­cu­mu­lat­ed a for­tune with my ne­far­ious im­per­son­ations, swin­dles and felonies, but I wasn't en­joy­ing the fruits of my li­bidi­nous labors. I con­clud­ed it was time to re­tire, to go to earth like a fox in a re­mote and se­cure lair where I could re­lax and com­mence build­ing a new and crime-​free life.

I re­viewed the places I had been on the at­las of my mind. I was mild­ly as­ton­ished at the ex­ten­sive­ness of my trav­els, re­call­ing my jour­neys of the past few years. I had criss­crossed the globe from Sin­ga­pore to Stock­holm, from Tahi­ti to Tri­este, from Bal­ti­more to the Baltics, and to oth­er places I had for­got­ten I'd vis­it­ed.

But one place I hadn't for­got­ten. And its name kept pop­ping in­to my thoughts as I sought a safe haven. Mont­pel­li­er, France.

Mont­pel­li­er. That was my safe haven, I fi­nal­ly de­cid­ed. And hav­ing made the de­ci­sion, I didn't give it a sec­ond thought.

I should have.

CHAP­TER NINE

Does This Tab In­clude the Tip?

&nb­sp;

Quan­ti­ta­tive­ly, the vine­yards of Bas Langue­doc pro­duce more wine than the oth­er three great French wine de­part­ments com­bined. Qual­ita­tive­ly, with one or two ex­cep­tions, the wine of Langue­doc has all the bou­quet, body and taste of flat root beer. The con­sid­er­ate host serves an or­di­nary Langue­doc wine on­ly with left­over meat loaf, and prefer­ably to guests whom he'd rather not see again.

It is, in the main, re­al­ly bad juice.

For­tu­nate­ly for France, the vint­ners, grape pick­ers, bot­tlers and the vast ma­jor­ity of the rest of the pop­ula­tion con­sume the bulk of Langue­doc's wines. France ex­ports on­ly its great wines from the vine­yards of Bur­gundy, Bor­deaux and Cham­pagne, which are just­ly fa­mous for qual­ity and ex­cel­lence.

I learned all about vini­cul­ture in Mont­pel­li­er. The first thing I learned was not to drink the lo­cal vins du pays.

I was prob­ably the on­ly wa­ter drinker in town. How­ev­er, I didn't go to Mont­pel­li­er for ei­ther the wine or the wa­ter. I was there to hide. Per­ma­nent­ly, I hoped. I had reached the pin­na­cle of a crim­inal moun­tain and the view wasn't that great. Now I want­ed an hon­est val­ley to shel­ter me in its hol­low.

I had passed through Mont­pel­li­er, driv­ing from Mar­seille to Barcelona, dur­ing one of my first bad-​check for­ays through Eu­rope. Out­side of town I had parked be­neath a huge olive tree and pic­nicked on cheese, bread, sausages and soft drinks I'd picked up in the city. Close at hand, pick­ers swarmed like ants through a vast grape or­chard and far away the snow-​tipped peaks of the Pyre­nees glis­tened in the sun. I felt com­fort­able, at ease, al­most hap­py. As if I were home.

In a sense, I was. This part of south­ern France was my moth­er's na­tive land. She had been born here and af­ter she mar­ried my fa­ther, and fol­low­ing the break­out of guer­ril­la war­fare in Al­giers, her par­ents had re­turned here with their oth­er chil­dren. My ma­ter­nal grand­par­ents, sev­er­al un­cles and aunts and a cov­ey of cousins still lived with­in an hour's drive of the olive tree. I quelled an im­pulse to turn aside and vis­it my moth­er's peo­ple and drove on to Spain.

I had nev­er for­got­ten that tran­quil, en­joy­able in­ter­lude near Mont­pel­li­er. And when, at the ripe old age of twen­ty, I de­cid­ed to re­tire from my life as a coun­ter­feit per­son, deal­ing in coun­ter­feit wares, I chose Mont­pel­li­er as my re­treat. I was not hap­py that I had to re­turn there be­hind yet an­oth­er coun­ter­feit iden­ti­ty, but I had no choice.

Mont­pel­li­er, in many ways, was ide­al for my pur­pose. It was not a tourist at­trac­tion. It was sit­uat­ed too far in­land from the Mediter­ranean to lure the Riv­iera set, yet close enough that a seashore out­ing was avail­able at the end of a short drive.

It was large enough (80,000 pop­ula­tion) that an Amer­ican tak­ing up res­idence would not ex­cite un­due cu­rios­ity, yet too small to com­mand a ma­jor air­port or to en­tice large ho­tel op­er­ators. There were no Hiltons or Sher­atons in Mont­pel­li­er and its tiny air fa­cil­ity served on­ly light air­craft. The lack of air ser­vice or swank ho­tels weighed in my fa­vor. There was very lit­tle chance of my en­coun­ter­ing a pi­lot, a stew­ardess or a ho­tel em­ploy­ee who might rec­og­nize me.

I pre­sent­ed my­self in Mont­pel­li­er as Robert Mon­jo, a suc­cess­ful au­thor and screen­writ­er from Los An­ge­les, "suc­cess­ful" in or­der to ex­plain the siz­able ac­count I opened in one of the lo­cal banks. At that, I didn't de­posit all the mon­eys I took with me to Mont­pel­li­er. Had I done so, it might have aroused some cu­rios­ity as to my ac­tu­al liveli­hood. I re­tained tre­ble the amount in cash, hid­den away in my lug­gage. As a mat­ter of fact, the peo­ple of Mont­pel­li­er were not prone to pry. I was asked on­ly the nec­es­sary and per­func­to­ry ques­tions as I went about the busi­ness of be­com­ing an ex­pa­tri­ate cit­izen of the town.

I bought a small cot­tage, a charm­ing and gra­cious lit­tle house with a tiny back yard shield­ed by a high board fence, where the pre­vi­ous own­er had cul­ti­vat­ed a mi­nus­cule gar­den. The op­er­ator of the store where I bought fur­nish­ings for the house lent me the ser­vices of his wife, a skilled in­te­ri­or dec­ora­tor, in se­lect­ing the prop­er fur­ni­ture and ar­rang­ing the decor. I fixed up one room as a study and li­brary, re­in­forc­ing my im­age as a writ­er en­gaged in re­search and lit­er­ary cre­ation.

I bought a Re­nault, one of the more com­fort­able mod­els but not lux­uri­ous enough to at­tract at­ten­tion. With­in two weeks I felt at home, se­cure and con­tent in my new sur­round­ings.

And if God had short­ed the Mediter­ranean Langue­doc on good grapes, He made up for it in the peo­ple. They were a stur­dy, ami­able, cour­te­ous and gre­gar­ious pop­ulace in the main, quick to smile and to of­fer any as­sis­tance. The house­wives in my neigh­bor­hood were al­ways knock­ing on my door with gifts of pas­try, fresh baked bread or a serv­ing from their din­ner pots. My im­me­di­ate neigh­bor, Ar­mand Perigueux, was my fa­vorite. He was a huge, gnarled man of sev­en­ty-​five and he still worked as an over­seer in a vine­yard, com­mut­ing to and from work on a bi­cy­cle.

He called the first time bear­ing two bot­tles of wine, one red and one white. "Most of our wines do not suit Amer­ican palates," he said in his boom­ing, yet gen­tle, voice. "But there are a few good wines in the Langue­doc, and these two are among them."

I am not a tastevin, but hav­ing drunk of the good wines I de­ter­mined nev­er to sam­ple the oth­ers. But the peo­ple of Mont­pel­li­er drank more wine than any oth­er liq­uid. A lunch or din­ner was not served with­out wine. I have even seen wine con­sumed at break­fast.

From Ar­mand I learned that God ac­tu­al­ly had noth­ing to do with Langue­doc's poor record as a pro­duc­er of qual­ity wines. Near­ly one hun­dred years past, he said, an in­sect, the phyl­lox­era, had rav­aged all the vine­yards of France, al­most deal­ing a death blow to the wine in­dus­try. "I have heard that this pest was brought to France at­tached to the roots of vines im­port­ed from Amer­ica," said Ar­mand. "But I do not know that to be true."

How­ev­er, Ar­mand told me, he did know it to be truth that the great bulk of France's grape vines were of Amer­ican root­stock, im­mune to the wine bug, on­to which French plants had been graft­ed. And, he said sly­ly af­ter I had gained his con­fi­dence, Amer­icans and oth­er na­tion­als prob­ably con­sumed more Langue­doc wines than they were aware of.

Al­most dai­ly, he in­formed me, tanker trucks filled with the cheap wines of the Langue­doc chugged north­ward to the great wine dis­tricts, where their car­goes were blend­ed with the choice wines of Bur­gundy and Bor­deaux. "It is called stretch­ing, like adding wa­ter to whiskey," said Ar­mand. "I do not think it is hon­est."

Mont­pel­li­er was a good place to learn about wines, he said. "We have the Wine Uni­ver­si­ty of France right here in our city," he said proud­ly. "You can go there and study."

I nev­er vis­it­ed the uni­ver­si­ty. Since I had no taste for wine, al­though I drank it on so­cial oc­ca­sions, I had no yen to ac­quire a knowl­edge of wine. I was sat­is­fied with the bits and pieces of in­for­ma­tion im­part­ed by Ar­mand. He was a good teach­er. He nev­er gave tests and he nev­er grad­ed me.

It was dif­fi­cult for me to stay busy. Loaf­ing is hard work. I spent a lot of time driv­ing around. I would drive to the coast and spend a few days ex­plor­ing the sand dunes. Or I would drive to the Span­ish bor­der and spend hours hik­ing in the foothills of the Pyre­nees. Oc­ca­sion­al­ly I vis­it­ed Ar­mand's vine­yard or the or­chard of an­oth­er wine­grow­er. At the end of the first month, I drove to the small vil­lage where my grand­par­ents lived and spent three days with them. My grand­moth­er cor­re­spond­ed reg­ular­ly with my moth­er, and she was aware of all the hap­pen­ings at home. I wormed them out of her dis­creet­ly, for I did not want her to know I had ex­iled my­self from my fam­ily. My moth­er was well, as were my sis­ter and broth­ers. My fa­ther was still court­ing my moth­er, which my grand­moth­er found amus­ing. My moth­er had ap­par­ent­ly told my grand­moth­er that I was "hitch­hik­ing" around the world, seek­ing a goal and at­tempt­ing to de­cide my fu­ture, and I fos­tered that im­pres­sion dur­ing my vis­it.

I did not tell my grand­par­ents that I was liv­ing in Mont­pel­li­er. I told them I was on my way to Spain, with the thought in mind of en­rolling in one of the Span­ish uni­ver­si­ties. I vis­it­ed them a sec­ond time dur­ing my stay in Mont­pel­li­er. I told them on that oc­ca­sion that I hadn't found a Span­ish col­lege that chal­lenged me and was re­turn­ing to Italy to ex­plore the uni­ver­si­ties there.

As I be­came more sat­is­fied with my life in Mont­pel­li­er, I ac­tu­al­ly con­tem­plat­ed re­sum­ing my ed­uca­tion. Mont­pel­li­er is the seat of one of France's twen­ty aca­dem­ic dis­tricts and a small but fine state uni­ver­si­ty was lo­cat­ed in the city. I vis­it­ed the cam­pus and learned that sev­er­al cours­es were avail­able to for­eign­ers, al­though none was taught in En­glish. How­ev­er, that was no bar to me, since French was a sec­ond tongue for me, ac­quired from my moth­er.

I al­so start­ed think­ing about get­ting a job or open­ing some kind of small busi­ness, per­haps a sta­tionery store, since I was grow­ing sleek and plump in the idle, lux­uri­ous life I was lead­ing. Even Ar­mand re­marked on my in­creas­ing stout­ness. "There is not much ex­er­cise in writ­ing, eh, Robert?" he said, pok­ing me in the stom­ach.

"Why don't you come to work for me in the vine­yards, and I will make you lean and tough." I de­clined the of­fer. Phys­ical la­bor is not my forte. Nor could I force my­self to ex­er­cise.

I was still mulling the thought of reg­is­ter­ing at the uni­ver­si­ty, and the idea of find­ing some use­ful em­ploy­ment, when both is­sues were ren­dered moot. Four months af­ter tak­ing up res­idence in Mont­pel­li­er, I learned a bit­ter truth: when the hounds have help, there is no safe place for a fox to hide.

I shopped reg­ular­ly at a small (by Amer­ican stan­dards) mar­ket on the out­skirts of Mont­pel­li­er, a gro­cery Ar­mand had rec­om­mend­ed. I went to the store twice week­ly to sup­ply my larder, or when­ev­er I need­ed some­thing. This oc­ca­sion was one of my sched­uled shop­ping trips and the store clerk was sack­ing my gro­ceries when I re­mem­bered I need­ed milk. I told the boy to set my food­stuffs aside (there were oth­ers in line) and strolled to the back ot the store for the milk. Re­turn­ing to the check-​out counter, I walked around a shelf of canned goods and saw four men at the check­er's stand, now de­void of cus­tomers and clerk.

One had a shot­gun, an­oth­er had what ap­peared to be a short-​bar­reled ma­chine gun and the oth­er two had pis­tols. My first thought was that ban­dits were rob­bing the store and that the em­ploy­ees and cus­tomers were on the floor.

But as I wheeled to seek cov­er be­hind the shelves, one of the men shout­ed, "Abag­nale!"

I ducked be­hind the shelves on­ly to be con­front­ed by three uni­formed gen­darmes, all point­ing pis­tols at me. They came at me from all sides then, men in uni­form, men in plain­clothes and all point­ing a pis­tol, shot­gun, ma­chine gun or ri­fle at me. Or­ders cracked around my ears like whip pops.

"Hands up!"

"Hands on your head!"

"Up against the shelves, spread-​ea­gle!"

"Face down on the floor!"

I had my hands up. I didn't know which of the oth­er com­mands to obey, but I sure as hell didn't want to be shot. And some of the of­fi­cers were han­dling their weapons in a man­ner that scared me. As a mat­ter of fact, they were scar­ing their fel­low of­fi­cers.

"For God's sake, don't shoot," I shout­ed. "One of you tell me what you want me to do and I'll do it."

A tall, lean man with aus­tere fea­tures point­ed his pis­tol at me. "Get on the floor, face­down!" he barked. I did as he in­struct­ed, helped by sev­er­al less-​than-​gen­tle hands. Rough hands twist­ed my arms up be­hind my back and oth­er un­car­ing hands clamped steel cir­clets tight­ly around my wrists.

I was then hauled un­cer­emo­ni­ous­ly to my feet and, sur­round­ed by Surete de­tec­tives, In­ter­pol agents, gen­darmes and God knows what oth­er kind of fuzz, I was hus­tled out of the store and rude­ly shoved in­to the back seat of an un­marked sedan. I can't say French po­lice are bru­tal, but I will say they han­dle sus­pects with un­due firm­ness. I was driv­en di­rect­ly to the Mont­pel­li­er po­lice sta­tion. No one said a word en route.

At the sta­tion, the aus­tere de­tec­tive and two oth­er of­fi­cers, al­so Surete agents, ush­ered me in­to a small room. French po­lice­men have a wide lat­itude in the han­dling of crim­inals, es­pe­cial­ly in in­ter­ro­ga­tions of sus­pects. They get right to the point, dis­pens­ing with the read­ing of any rights a crim­inal may have. I don't think a crook has any rights in France.

"My name is Mar­cel Gas­ton, of the Surete!," said the lean of­fi­cer in curt tones. "You are Frank Abag­nale, are you not?"

"I'm Robert Mon­jo," I said in in­dig­nant tones. "I'm a writ­er from Cal­ifor­nia, an Amer­ican. I'm afraid you gen­tle­men have made a very se­ri­ous mis­take."

Gas­ton slapped me, a sharp, sting­ing blow. "Most of the mis­takes I make, mon­sieur, are se­ri­ous mis­takes, but I have not made a mis­take in this in­stance. You are Frank Abag­nale."

"I am Robert Mon­jo," I said dogged­ly, search­ing their faces for a hint of doubt.

One of the oth­er Sure­ty agents stepped for­ward, his hand balled in­to a fist, but Gas­ton put out an arm and stopped him, with­out re­leas­ing me from his fixed stare. Then he shrugged.

"We could beat it out of you, but that isn't nec­es­sary," he said. "I have all the time in the world, Abag­nale, but I don't in­tend to waste too much of it on you. We can hold you un­til dooms­day, or at least un­til we have lo­cat­ed wit­ness­es to iden­ti­fy you. Un­til then, un­less you choose to co­op­er­ate, I am go­ing to place you in the cell for com­mon drunks and pet­ty crim­inals. You can stay there for a week, two weeks, a month, it makes no dif­fer­ence to me. How­ev­er, you will not be fed and you will have no wa­ter un­til you de­cide to con­fess. Why don't you just tell us what we want to know right now? We know who you are. We know what you have done. You will on­ly in­con­ve­nience your­self.

"One oth­er thing, Abag­nale. If you force us to go to a lot of trou­ble to get the in­for­ma­tion you could give us at this mo­ment, I will not for­get it. And you will al­ways re­mem­ber the con­se­quences, I promise you."

I looked at Gas­ton and knew he meant ev­ery word he had spo­ken. Mar­cel Gas­ton was one tough bas­tard.

"I'm Frank Abag­nale," I said.

I nev­er re­al­ly gave them the kind of con­fes­sion they want­ed. I nev­er vol­un­teered any de­tails on any of the of­fens­es I'd com­mit­ted in France. But if they knew of a par­tic­ular ca­per and out­lined it for me, I'd nod and say, "That's about the way it hap­pened, all right," or, "Yes, that was me."

Gas­ton made up a doc­ument, set­ting down a lot of my crimes, the cir­cum­stances of my ar­rest and my in­ter­ro­ga­tion, and let me read it. "If that is es­sen­tial­ly cor­rect, you will help your­self by sign­ing it," he said.

I couldn't quar­rel with the in­stru­ment. He'd even in­clud­ed the fact that he'd slapped me. I signed it.

The af­fi­davit al­so dis­closed how I'd been caught. Ma­jor air­lines didn't serve Mont­pel­li­er, but it was vis­it­ed fre­quent­ly by stew­ardess­es and oth­er flight per­son­nel. An Air France flight at­ten­dant, vis­it­ing rel­atives in Mont­pel­li­er, had spot­ted me shop­ping a cou­ple of weeks past and had rec­og­nized me. She had seen me get in­to my car and had jot­ted down the li­cense num­ber. On her re­turn to Paris, she had sought out her cap­tain and told him of her sus­pi­cions. She was pos­itive enough about her iden­ti­fi­ca­tion that her cap­tain called the po­lice.

"I'm pos­itive it's him. I dat­ed him," she in­sist­ed.

I nev­er learned which Air France stew­ardess put the fin­ger on me. No one would tell me. I had dal­lied with sev­er­al, over the years. I hoped it wasn't Monique, but to this day I still don't know the in­for­mant's iden­ti­ty. I don't think it was Monique, how­ev­er. Had she seen me in Mont­pel­li­er, she would have con­front­ed me.

I was kept six days in Mont­pel­li­er, dur­ing which time sev­er­al lawyers ap­peared to of­fer their ser­vices. I se­lect­ed a mid­dle-​aged man whose man­ner­isms and ap­pear­ance re­mind­ed me of Ar­mand, al­though he frankly stat­ed he didn't think he could win me my free­dom. "I have gone over all the po­lice doc­uments, and they have you dead to rights," he com­ment­ed. "The best we can hope for is a light sen­tence."

I told him I'd set­tle for that.

Scarce­ly a week af­ter my ar­rest, to my as­ton­ish­ment, I was re­moved to Per­pig­nan and the day af­ter my ar­rival there I was brought to tri­al in a court of as­sizes, made up of a judge, two as­ses­sors (pros­ecu­tors) and nine cit­izen ju­rors, all of whom would joint­ly de­cide my guilt or in­no­cence.

It wasn't much of a tri­al, re­al­ly, last­ing less than two days. Gas­ton list­ed the charges against me and the ev­idence he'd gath­ered to sup­port the ac­cu­sa­tions. There were am­ple wit­ness­es avail­able to ap­pear against me.

"How does the de­fen­dant plead?" in­quired the judge of my at­tor­ney.

"My client will of­fer no de­fense against these charges," replied the lawyer. "In the in­ter­est of time, we would like to sum up our po­si­tion now."

He then launched in­to an elo­quent and im­pas­sioned plea for le­nien­cy in my be­half. He cit­ed my youth-I was still not twen­ty-​one-and por­trayed me as an un­for­tu­nate and con­fused young man, the prod­uct of a bro­ken home "and still more of a delin­quent than a crim­inal." He point­ed out that a dozen oth­er Eu­ro­pean na­tions where I had per­pe­trat­ed sim­ilar crimes had placed for­mal de­mands for ex­tra­di­tion, once my debt to France was paid.

"This young man will, in all prob­abil­ity, nev­er see his na­tive land for many, many years, and even when he does re­turn home, he will re­turn in chains and on­ly to face prison there," ar­gued the lawyer. "I need not point out to this court the harsh­ness of the prison life this young man will have to en­dure here. I ask the court to take that in­to ac­count in set­ting a penal­ty."

I was ad­judged guilty. But at the time I thought ju­bi­lant­ly that my at­tor­ney, if he'd lost a bat­tle, had won the war. The judge sen­tenced me to on­ly one year in prison.

I was re­mand­ed to Per­pig­nan's prison, the "House of Ar­rest," a gloomy, for­bid­ding stone fortress con­struct­ed in the sev­en­teenth cen­tu­ry, and not un­til I had been there for a few days did I re­al­ize just how le­nient the judge had been.

I was re­ceived by two guards who brusque­ly or­dered me to strip and who then es­cort­ed me, still naked, to an up­per floor where I was marched down a nar­row cor­ri­dor de­void of cells as such. On ei­ther side were on­ly stone walls set with sol­id steel doors. The guards halt­ed be­fore one of the met­al por­tals and one un­locked and opened the door. It screeched open with a sound rem­inis­cent of a hor­ror movie, and the oth­er guard shoved me in­side the dark cu­bi­cle. I stum­bled and fell for­ward, strik­ing my head against the back of the cell, for the cell was a sunken one. I had not not­ed the two steps lead­ing to the floor. I was nev­er ac­tu­al­ly to see the steps.

I was in to­tal dark­ness. A damp, chill­ing, breath-​sti­fling, fright­en­ing dark­ness. I stood up to grope around for the light switch and cracked my head against the steel ceil­ing.

There was no light switch. There was no light in the cell. There was, in fact, noth­ing in the cell but a buck­et. No bed, no toi­let, no wash basin, no drain, noth­ing. Just the buck­et. The cell was not a cell, ac­tu­al­ly, it was a hole, a raised dun­geon per­haps five feet wide, five feet high and five feet deep, with a ceil­ing and door of steel and a floor and walls of stone. The ceil­ing and door were chill to the touch. The walls wept chilly tears con­stant­ly.

I wait­ed for my eyes to ad­just to the dark­ness. No light fil­tered in­to the cell from any source. There were no cracks in the over­head or walls. The an­cient door to my steel and stone box seemed to blend it­self in­to its aper­ture like a her­met­ic seal. My eyes did not ad­just. The eyes do not ad­just to to­tal dark­ness.

There was air en­ter­ing the cell. Pe­ri­od­ical­ly a cold draft ex­plored my skin like clam­my fin­gers, rais­ing goose bumps as much from the eerie sen­sa­tion as from the chill. I won­dered whence it came. What­ev­er its chan­nels, they al­so were dark.

I slumped on the floor, shiv­er­ing and feel­ing like I'd been en­tombed alive. Pan­ic added to my shak­ing. I sought to calm my­self by ra­tio­nal­iz­ing my sit­ua­tion. Sure­ly, I told my­self, this was not to be the cell I would oc­cu­py dur­ing the en­tire year. Prob­ably I was in here for ob­ser­va­tion. I dis­card­ed the the­ory im­me­di­ate­ly. Any­one ob­serv­ing me in this cell would have to have X-​ray eyes. All right, then, I was be­ing giv­en a taste of what could hap­pen to me if I mis­be­haved. I clung to the sec­ond sup­po­si­tion. Yes, this treat­ment was cal­cu­lat­ed to en­sure my good be­hav­ior once I was re­leased among the gen­er­al prison pop­ula­tion. Af­ter all, on­ly un­ruly pris­on­ers were con­fined in soli­tary un­der such harsh con­di­tions, weren't they? Cer­tain­ly no civ­ilized coun­try would per­mit such cru­el and in­hu­mane pun­ish­ment to be met­ed out by its prison warders with­out cause.

France does. Or did.

I was not fed my first day in Per­pig­nan's prison. I had been placed in my grim cell late in the af­ter­noon. Sev­er­al hours lat­er, ex­haust­ed, cold, hun­gry, be­wil­dered, fright­ened and des­olate, I laid down on the hard floor and fell asleep. I slept curled in a ball, for I am six feet tall.

The screech­ing of the door awak­ened me. I sat up, winc­ing from the sore­ness and cramps caused by my un­com­fort­able sleep­ing po­si­tion. The dim form of a guard loomed in the door­way. He was plac­ing some­thing on the steps in­side my crypt. I was gal­va­nized in­to ac­tion as he straight­ened and start­ed to close the door.

"Wait! Wait!" I shout­ed, scram­bling for­ward and plac­ing my hands against the in­side of the door, try­ing to re­strain its clos­ing.

"Why am I be­ing kept in here? How long will I stay in here?"

"Un­til you have com­plet­ed your sen­tence," he said, and shoved shut the door. The words clanked on my ears with the metal­lic fi­nal­ness of the door slam­ming against the stone jamb.

I fell back, stunned by the ghast­ly truth. A year? I was to live in this black cof­fin a year? With­out light? With­out bed­ding? With­out cloth­ing? With­out toi­let fa­cil­ities? And with­out God knows what else? It was im­pos­si­ble, I told my­self. No man could live in such a dark void, un­der such con­di­tions, for a year. He would die, and his death would be slow and tor­tur­ous. It would have been bet­ter had I been sen­tenced to the guil­lo­tine. I loved France. But what kind of coun­try was it that coun­te­nanced such pun­ish­ment for such a crime as mine? And if the gov­ern­ment was ig­no­rant of such prison con­di­tions, the peo­ple un­know­ing, what man­ner of men were the French pe­nol­ogists, in­to whose hands I had been de­liv­ered? De­praved mon­sters, mad­men, per­verts, un­doubt­ed­ly.

I was sud­den­ly scared, ac­tu­al­ly fear­ful. I did not know how, or if, I could sur­vive a year in this Sty­gian vault. I still have night­mares from my stay in Per­pig­nan's House of Ar­rest. Com­pared to Per­pig­nan prison, the Black Hole of Cal­cut­ta was a health spa, Dev­il's Is­land a va­ca­tion par­adise.

I had not ex­pect­ed prison life to be easy. My one ex­pe­ri­ence be­hind bars, and then for on­ly a few hours, had con­vinced me that jails and pris­ons were not nice places to re­side. But noth­ing I had ev­er read, heard or seen had ev­er in­di­cat­ed that im­pris­on­ment could be as bru­tal and heart­less as this.

I felt around and lo­cat­ed the food the guard had broughc. It was a quart con­tain­er of wa­ter and a small loaf of bread. The sim­ple break­fast had not even been brought on a tray. The guard had sim­ply set the con­tain­er of wa­ter on the top step and had dropped the bread be­side it on the stone. No mat­ter, I wolfed down the loaf of bread and gulped down the wa­ter in one swig. Then I hud­dled mis­er­ably against the wet gran­ite wall and con­tem­plat­ed the machi­na­tions of French Jus­tice.

Mine was not a term in prison, it was an or­deal de­signed to de­stroy the mind and body.

The menu in Per­pig­nan prison nev­er var­ied. For break­fast, I was served bread and wa­ter. Lunch con­sist­ed of a weak chick­en soup and a loaf of bread. Sup­per was a cup of black cof­fee and a loaf of bread. The monotonous di­et var­ied on­ly in the time it was served or in the or­der it was served. I had no means of telling time and I soon lost track of the days, and the guards who served the meals fur­ther con­fused my at­tempts to keep a men­tal timetable and cal­en­dar by al­ter­nat­ing the sched­ule of my mea­ger ra­tions. For in­stance, for sev­er­al days break­fast, lunch and din­ner might be served reg­ular­ly at sev­en, noon and five, but then, abrupt­ly, din­ner would be served at ten a.m., sup­per at 2 p.m. and break­fast at 6 p.m. I am es­ti­mat­ing the times. I re­al­ly nev­er knew at what hour I was fed, or whether it was day or night. And not in­fre­quent­ly I was fed on­ly one or two times dai­ly. Oc­ca­sion­al­ly I wasn't fed at all dur­ing the span of the day.

I nev­er left the cell. Not once dur­ing my stay in the hoary jail was I per­mit­ted out­side for ex­er­cise or recre­ation. If the prison had a day room where pris­on­ers might read, write let­ters, lis­ten to the ra­dio, watch tele­vi­sion or play games, I was not among those priv­ileged to share the fa­cil­ity. I was not al­lowed to write let­ters, and if any of my rel­atives knew I was jailed at Per­pig­nan and wrote me, I did not re­ceive the mail. My re­quests, made of the guards who served the meals, to con­tact my rel­atives, my at­tor­ney, the Red Cross, the war­den or the Amer­ican con­sular au­thor­ities were ig­nored save once.

On that oc­ca­sion, the guard smacked me along­side the head with his huge hand. "Don't talk to me," he growled. "It is not per­mit­ted. Don't talk, don't sing, don't whis­tle, don't hum, don't make any sound or you will be beat­en." He slammed the heavy door shut on fur­ther pleas.

The buck­et was my la­trine. I was not giv­en any toi­let pa­per, nor was the buck­et re­moved af­ter use. I soon adapt­ed to the stench, but af­ter a few days the buck­et over­flowed and I had to move around and sleep in my own fe­cal mat­ter. I was too numbed, in body and spir­it, to be re­volt­ed. Even­tu­al­ly, how­ev­er, the odor be­came too nau­se­at­ing for even the guards to en­dure, ap­par­ent­ly. One day, be­tween meals, the door creaked open and an­oth­er con­vict scur­ried in with the furtive­ness and man­ner of a rat, grabbed the buck­et and fled. It was re­turned, emp­ty, a few min­utes lat­er. On per­haps half a dozen oth­er oc­ca­sions dur­ing my time in the tiny tomb, the pro­ce­dure was re­peat­ed. But on­ly twice dur­ing my im­pris­on­ment were the fe­ces cleaned from the floor of the cell. Each time a guard stood by at the door while an in­mate hosed out the cell and then picked up the ac­cu­mu­lat­ed wa­ter in the hole with a mop. Both times I man­aged a makeshift show­er in the spray of the hose, dar­ing the wrath of the guard. Both times the clean­ing was per­formed in ab­so­lute si­lence.

Those were the on­ly times I was able to cleanse my­self to any ex­tent dur­ing my term, al­though oc­ca­sion­al­ly I used a por­tion of my wa­ter ra­tion to rinse my hands or to anoint my face.

I was not al­lowed to shave nor was I ev­er giv­en a hair­cut. I am hir­sute by her­itage, and with­out the means to curb their growth, my hair and beard sprout­ed prodi­gious­ly. My hair was soon be­low my shoul­ders, a tan­gled, sod­den skein, and my beard brushed my chest. Both hair and beard were oiled and per­fumed with ex­cre­ment, for I could not avoid soil­ing my­self in my own wastes.

Lice and oth­er in­sects small enough to gain ad­mit­tance to the fetid cell nest­ed in my body hair and feast­ed on my flesh. I de­vel­oped sores from my scratch­ing and these be­came in­fect­ed from con­tact with the al­ways present filth. My body soon be­came a mass of scabs, a liv­ing petri dish for the cul­ture of myr­iad forms of bac­te­ria. In the cramped con­fines of the hole, shroud­ed in black­ness, I lost my sense of bal­ance and fell of­ten as I at­tempt­ed to move about, stretch my­self or per­form sim­ple ex­er­cis­es, nick­ing or bruis­ing my­self against the rough walls or the hard floor and fur­ther adding to my wounds.

I weighed 210 pounds when I was re­ceived at Per­pig­nan. The te­dious di­et did not con­tain enough nu­tri­ents or calo­ries to main­tain me. My body be­gan to feed up­on it­self, the mus­cles and ten­dons de­vour­ing the stored fats and oily tis­sues in or­der to fu­el the pumps of my heart and my cir­cu­la­to­ry sys­tem. With­in weeks I was able to en­cir­cle my bi­ceps with my fin­gers.

I was not alone in my mis­ery. I soon con­clud­ed that most if not all of the steel doors in Per­pig­nan prison sealed a wretched in­mate.

The stone walls be­tween the cells were too thick to per­mit talk be­tween ad­join­ing pris­on­ers, but they were by no means sound­proof. Un­in­tel­li­gi­ble shouts and curs­es, screams of pain and an­guish, and muf­fled groans and cries washed soft­ly along the cor­ri­dor out­side al­most con­stant­ly, some­times ceas­ing abrupt­ly on­ly to start again with­in min­utes. The sounds, al­ways laden with de­spair, per­me­at­ed the walls of my dank box, fil­ter­ing through the stone and seep­ing up from the floor like the sighs and sobs of some be­lea­guered ban­shee. Some­times, how­ev­er, the sounds had the qual­ities of rage and anger, rem­inis­cent of the dis­tant howl of a hunt­ing wolf or the de­fi­ant yip­ping of a hurt coy­ote.

Some­times the sounds were my own, for in my lone­li­ness I of­ten talked to my­self just to hear the sound of a hu­man voice. Or I would stand stooped be­fore the door and scream at the guards to let me out or de­mand that I be treat­ed like a hu­man be­ing, with dig­ni­ty and con­sid­er­ation if not re­spect. I cursed them. I cursed my­self. I rant­ed and raved, wept and screamed, chant­ed and sang, laughed and bel­lowed, shout­ed and banged the buck­et against the walls, splat­ter­ing ex­cre­ment all over my crate-​like cell. I felt I was go­ing mad.

I had no doubt that many of the men in Per­pig­nan were mad, re­duced to lu­na­cy by the ma­ni­acal man­ner in which they were treat­ed. I was cer­tain af­ter a few weeks that I would lose my own san­ity. I lost the abil­ity to dis­tin­guish be­tween that which was re­al and that which was un­re­al, and be­gan to hal­lu­ci­nate. I would find my­self back in the Roy­al Gar­dens, sur­round­ed by my love­ly "crew," din­ing sump­tu­ous­ly on lob­ster or roast beef, or strolling along the gold­en beach­es of the Cos­ta Bra­va, my arm around Monique. On­ly to re­gain my rea­son in the damp dun­geon that was re­al­ity, wal­low­ing in my own exc­re­ta and curs­ing the fates that had con­demned me to Per­pig­nan.

I think that I ac­tu­al­ly would have gone mad and died a lu­natic in Per­pig­nan prison had it not been for my vivid imag­ina­tion. The cre­ative abil­ity that had en­abled me to con­coct the bril­liant swin­dles I'd per­pe­trat­ed over the years, and which had re­sult­ed in my present plight, now served as a life­guard.

If I were go­ing to hal­lu­ci­nate, I de­ter­mined, mine would be planned hal­lu­ci­na­tions, and so I be­gan to pro­duce my own fan­tasies. I would sit on the floor, for in­stance, and re­call the im­age I pre­sent­ed in my air­line uni­form and pre­tend that I was a re­al pi­lot, com­man­der of a 707. And sud­den­ly the cramped, vile and oozy pit in which I was pris­on­er be­came a sleek, clean jet lin­er, crowd­ed with joy­ful, ex­cit­ed pas­sen­gers at­tend­ed by chic, glam­orous stew­ardess­es. I em­ployed all the air­line jar­gon I'd ac­quired over the years as I pre­tend­ed to taxi the plane away from the ter­mi­nal, ob­tain take­off clear­ance from the tow­er and jock­ey the great ma­chine in­to the air, lev­el­ing off at 35,000 feet.

Then I'd pick up the PA mike. "Ladies and gen­tle­men, this is your cap­tain speak­ing. Wel­come aboard Flight 572 of Abag­nale Air­lines, Seat­tle to Den­ver. We're present­ly cruis­ing at miles per hour and we ex­pect good weath­er, and thus a good flight, all the way to Den­ver. Those of you seat­ed on the star­board side-that's the right side of the air­craft-should have a good view of Mount Rainier be­low and off in the dis­tance. Mount Rainier, with an el­eva­tion of 14,410 feet, is, as you prob­ably know, the high­est peak in Wash­ing­ton State ..."

Of course I was a hero at times, fight­ing my huge plane through ter­ri­ble storms or over­com­ing dire me­chan­ical dis­as­ters to de­liv­er my hu­man car­go safe­ly and to bask in the grat­itude of the pas­sen­gers. Es­pe­cial­ly the wom­en. Es­pe­cial­ly the pret­ty wom­en.

Or I would imag­ine I was a tour bus driv­er, dis­play­ing the splen­dors of the Grand Canyon or the en­chant­ments of San An­to­nio, New Or­leans, Rome, New York City (I ac­tu­al­ly re­mem­bered that New York City had en­chant­ments) or some oth­er his­toric city to a group of rapt tourists, en­ter­tain­ing them with my rapid, wit­ty spiel. "Now, the man­sion on your left, ladies and gen­tle­men, is the home of J. P. Green­stuff, one of the city's founders. He made big mon­ey most of his life. Trou­ble is, he made it too big, and now he's spend­ing the rest of his life in a fed­er­al prison."

In my fan­tasies, I was any­one I want­ed to be, much as I'd been dur­ing the five years be­fore my ar­rest, al­though I added to and am­pli­fied my Per­pig­nan im­per­son­ations. I was a fa­mous sur­geon, op­er­at­ing on the Pres­ident and sav­ing his life with my med­ical skills. A great au­thor, win­ning the No­bel Prize for lit­er­ature. A movie di­rec­tor, mak­ing an Os­car-​win­ning epic. A moun­tain guide, res­cu­ing hap­less climbers trapped on a dan­ger­ous moun­tain face. I was tin­ker, tai­lor, In­di­an chief, bak­er, banker and in­ge­nious thief. For I some­times restaged some of my more mem­orable ca­pers. And some of my more mem­orable love scenes too.

But al­ways the cur­tain had to come down on my plays, and I re­turned to re­al­ity, but know­ing I'd been on a make-​be­lieve jour­ney, in my chill, gloomy, dark and loath­some cell.

Wal­ter Mit­ty in du­rance vile.

One day the door grat­ed open at an un­ex­pect­ed time and a guard tossed some­thing in­to my cell. It was a thin, dirty, evil-​smelling mat­tress, hard­ly more than a tick, but I spread it out on the floor and curled up on it, rev­el­ing in its com­fort. I fell asleep won­der­ing what mod­el de­port­ment I had ex­hib­it­ed that de­served such a lux­uri­ous re­ward.

I was awak­ened by the mat­tress's be­ing jerked sav­age­ly from be­neath me by a burly guard, who laughed jeer­ing­ly as he slammed the steel door shut. I do not know what time it was. It was long be­fore I was served break­fast, how­ev­er. Some­time af­ter din­ner, the door shrieked open again and the mat­tress was dumped on the steps. I grabbed it and fell on its soft­ness, fondling it like it was a wom­an. But again I was rude­ly awak­ened by a guard's re­mov­ing the tick force­ful­ly from un­der me. And yet again, at some un­known hour lat­er, the mat­tress was plopped on­to the steps. The truth dawned. The guards were play­ing a game with me, a cru­el and bar­bar­ic game, but a game nonethe­less. Some of their oth­er mice have died, I told my­self, and I ig­nored the bed­ding. My body had be­come ac­cus­tomed to the smooth stone floor, or at least as ac­cus­tomed to it as any blend­ing of soft flesh and hard rock. I nev­er used the tick again, al­though the guards con­tin­ued pro­vid­ing it each night, in hopes, I sup­posed, that I would again use it and fur­nish them more sport.

In my fifth month in Per­pig­nan's House of Ar­rest (a fact es­tab­lished lat­er) there was a tap on the out­side of my cell door and then a por­tion of it slid open, ad­mit­ting a weak, fil­tered light. I was as­ton­ished, for I had been un­aware the door had a slid­ing pan­el, so cun­ning­ly was it con­trived.

"Frank Abag­nale?" asked a voice un­mis­tak­ably Amer­ican.

I floun­dered to the door and peered out. Stand­ing on the out­er side of the cor­ri­dor, where he had re­coiled from the stench, was a tall, skin­ny man with an equal­ly bony face, in the act of putting a hand­ker­chief over his mouth and nos­trils.

"I'm Frank Abag­nale," I said ea­ger­ly. "Are you an Amer­ican? Are you with the FBI?"

"I'm Pe­ter Ram­sey, and I'm from the Amer­ican Con­sulate in Mar­seille," replied the thin man, re­mov­ing the hand­ker­chief from his face. "How are you do­ing?"

I stared at him, as­ton­ished. My God, he act­ed like we were talk­ing over a glass of wine in some Mar­seille side­walk cafe. Words sud­den­ly start­ed cas­cad­ing from my mouth like grav­el from a sluice.

"How am I do­ing?" I re­peat­ed his query in near hys­ter­ical tones. "I'll tell you how I'm do­ing. I'm sick, I'm sore, I'm naked, I'm hun­gry and I'm cov­ered with lice. I don't have a bed. I don't have a toi­let. I don't have a wash basin. I'm sleep­ing in my own shit. I have no light, no ra­zor, no tooth­brush, no noth­ing. I don't know what time it is. I don't know what day it is. I don't know what month it is. I don't even know what year it is, for Christ's sake. . . . I'm be­ing treat­ed like a mad dog. I'll prob­ably go mad if I stay in here much longer. I'm dy­ing in here. That's how I'm do­ing!"

I slumped against the door, ex­haust­ed from my tirade.

Ram­sey's fea­tures, save for an ob­vi­ous re­ac­tion to the odor em­anat­ing from my cell, did not change. He nod­ded im­pas­sive­ly when I fin­ished.

"I see," he said calm­ly. "Well, per­haps I should ex­plain my vis­it. You see, I make the rounds of my dis­trict about twice a year, call­ing on Amer­icans in this dis­trict, and I learned on­ly re­cent­ly that you were here. Now, be­fore you get your hopes up, let me tell you now that I am pow­er­less to as­sist you. ... I am aware of the con­di­tions here and of the way you're be­ing treat­ed.

"And it's pre­cise­ly be­cause of that treat­ment that I can't do any­thing. You see, Abag­nale, you're be­ing treat­ed ex­act­ly the same as ev­ery French­man who's con­fined here is treat­ed. They're not do­ing any­thing to you that they're not do­ing to the man on ei­ther side of you, to the man in each cell in the prison, in fact. Each of them has the same ac­com­mo­da­tion as you. Each is liv­ing in the same filth. Each is eat­ing the same food. Each is de­nied the priv­ileges you're de­nied.

"You haven't been sin­gled out for es­pe­cial­ly harsh treat­ment, Abag­nale. And as long as they treat you as they treat their own, I can't do a damn thing about your predica­ment, not even com­plain.

"The minute they dis­crim­inate against you, or treat you dif­fer­ent­ly be­cause you're an Amer­ican, a for­eign­er, then I can step in and com­plain. It may not do any good, but I could, then, in­ter­vene in your be­half.

"But as long as they mete out the same pun­ish­ment to you as they do to their own, that's it. French pris­ons are French pris­ons. It's al­ways been like this, to my knowl­edge, and it'll al­ways be like this. They don't be­lieve in re­ha­bil­ita­tion. They be­lieve in an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. In short, they be­lieve in pun­ish­ment for a con­vict­ed crim­inal and you're a con­vict­ed crim­inal. You're lucky, re­al­ly. It used to be worse than this, if you can be­lieve it. Pris­on­ers were once beat­en dai­ly. As long as you're not be­ing specif­ical­ly abused by some­one, there's noth­ing I can do."

His words fell on my ears like whip strokes across my back. I felt like a death sen­tence had been pro­nounced on me. Then Ram­sey, with the ghost of a grin, hand­ed me a re­prieve.

"It is my un­der­stand­ing that you on­ly have an­oth­er thir­ty days or so here," he said. "You won't be freed, of course. I am told that au­thor­ities from an­oth­er coun­try, which one I don't know, are com­ing to take you in­to cus­tody for tri­al in that coun­try. Wher­ev­er you go, you're bound to be treat­ed bet­ter than this. Now, if you'd like me to write your par­ents and let them know where you are, or if you want me to get in touch with any­one else, I'll be glad to do so."

His was a gen­er­ous ges­ture, one he didn't have to make, and I was tempt­ed, but on­ly mo­men­tar­ily. "No, that won't be nec­es­sary," I said. "Thank you, any­way, Mr. Ram­sey."

He nod­ded again. "Good luck to you, Abag­nale," he said. He turned and seemed to dis­ap­pear in a ra­di­ant ex­plo­sion. I jumped back, shield­ing my eyes and scream­ing with pain. It was on­ly lat­er that I knew what had hap­pened. The lights in the cor­ri­dor were vari­able pow­er lights. When a cell door was opened or a peep­hole broached, the lights were dimmed, low enough to avoid dam­age to the eyes of the pris­on­er who lived like a mole in his light­less hole. When a vis­itor like Ram­sey ap­peared, the lights were turned up, so he might see his way. Once he halt­ed in front of my cell, the lights had been dimmed. When he left, a guard had hit the bright switch pre­ma­ture­ly. A con­cern for their sight was the on­ly con­sid­er­ation ac­cord­ed pris­on­ers in Per­pig­nan's House of Ar­rest.

Af­ter Ram­sey left, I sat down against the wall and, af­ter the pain in my eyes had sub­sid­ed, mulled the in­for­ma­tion he'd im­part­ed. Was my sen­tence near­ly over? Had it re­al­ly been eleven months since I was shoved in­to this aw­ful crypt? I didn't know, I had lost all sense of time, but I felt he had told me the truth.

I tried to keep count of the days there­after, to tal­ly thir­ty days on the al­manac of my mind but it was im­pos­si­ble. You sim­ply can't keep a cal­en­dar in a fecu­lent vac­uum, void of light, where any seg­ment of time, if such ex­ist­ed, was de­vot­ed to sur­viv­ing. I am sure it was on­ly a few days be­fore I re­turned to just hold­ing on to my san­ity.

Still, time passed. And one day the pan­el in the door opened, ad­mit­ting the dim light that, with the one ex­cep­tion, was the on­ly light I knew.

"Turn around, face the back of your cell and shut your eyes," a voice or­dered gruffly. I did as in­struct­ed, my heart ham­mer­ing. Was this the day of my re­lease? Or was some­thing else in store for me.

"Do not turn around, but open your eyes slow­ly and let them get ac­cus­tomed to the light," the voice in­struct­ed. "I will leave this open for an hour, then I'll be back."

I slow­ly opened my eyes and found my­self sur­round­ed by a bright, gold­en glow, too bright for my weak orbs. I had to shut them against the glare. Grad­ual­ly, how­ev­er, my pupils ad­just­ed to the il­lu­mi­na­tion and I was able to look around me with­out squint­ing and with­out pain. Even so, the cell was still gloomy, like twi­light on a rainy day. An hour lat­er the guard re­turned, or at least the voice sound­ed the same.

"Close your eyes again," he in­struct­ed. "I am go­ing to turn up the lights fur­ther." I did so, and when he in­struct­ed me to do so, I opened my eyes slow­ly and cau­tious­ly. The tiny cu­bi­cle was flood­ed with a lu­mi­nous glare, caus­ing me to squint again. The ra­di­ance ringed the cell like a nim­bus around a dark star, il­lu­mi­nat­ing ful­ly for the first time the in­te­ri­or of the tiny vault. I was ap­palled and sick­ened as I looked around. The walls were moist and crust­ed with slimy mold. The ceil­ing, too, glis­tened with mois­ture. The floor was filthy with ex­cre­ment, and the buck­et, un­emp­tied for some time, teemed with mag­gots. The odi­ous worms were al­so slith­er­ing around the floor.

I vom­it­ed.

It was per­haps an­oth­er hour be­fore the guard re­turned. This time he opened the door. "Come with me," he or­dered. I scram­bled from the foul cave with­out hes­ita­tion, ex­pe­ri­enc­ing shoot­ing pains in my neck, shoul­ders, arms and legs as I straight­ened up for the first time since my ar­rival. I had dif­fi­cul­ty walk­ing, but I wad­dled af­ter the guard like a half-​drunk duck, some­times steady­ing my­self by putting a hand against the wall.

He led me down­stairs and in­to a sparse­ly fur­nished room.

"Stand here," he or­dered, and dis­ap­peared through an open door that led to an­oth­er cham­ber. I turned, in­spect­ing the room, mar­veling at its size and spa­cious­ness af­ter so long in my moldy bur­row, and then stopped as I sud­den­ly con­front­ed the most hideous crea­ture I had ev­er en­coun­tered.

It was a man. It had to be a man, but God in heav­en, what man­ner of man was this? He was tall and ema­ci­at­ed, his head crowned by a dirty, un­kempt thatch of hair that spilled to his waist, his face hid­den by a filthy, mat­ted beard that fell to his bel­ly. Spit­tle drooled from the slash that was his mouth, and his eyes were wild­ly glow­ing coals in their sunken sock­ets. He was naked and his flesh was coat­ed with filth, sores and scabs, lend­ing it a lep­rous ap­pear­ance. The nails of his fin­gers and toes were grown out, elon­gat­ed and curved like the talons of a vul­ture. In­deed, he looked like a vul­ture. I shud­dered as I re­gard­ed the ap­pari­tion. I shud­dered again as recog­ni­tion loomed.

I was fac­ing my­self in a mir­ror.

I was still hor­ri­fied at my ap­pear­ance when the guard re­turned, cloth­ing draped over his arm and a pair of shoes in his hand.

I rec­og­nized the ap­par­el as mine, the clothes I was wear­ing when I was re­ceived in the prison. "Put these on," said the guard brusque­ly, hand­ing me the gar­ments and drop­ping the shoes on the floor. "Can't I show­er and shave first, please?" I asked.

"No, put on the clothes," he said, giv­ing me a malev­olent look. I hur­ried­ly garbed my filthy frame in the clothes, which were now sev­er­al sizes too large for me. My belt was miss­ing. I clutched the trousers around my wast­ed stom­ach and looked at the guard. He stepped in­to the next room and re­turned with a length of cot­ton rope. I cinched the waist of my trousers with that.

Al­most im­me­di­ate­ly two gen­darmes ap­peared, one of them car­ry­ing an ar­ray of re­straints. One of them cinched a thick leather belt with a ring­bolt in the front around my waist while the oth­er fas­tened heavy shack­les around my an­kles. I was then hand­cuffed and a long, slen­der steel chain was looped around my neck and the hand­cuff chain, thread­ed through the ring­bolt and fas­tened with a lock to the chain con­nect­ing my leg irons. Nei­ther of­fi­cer said a word as they trussed me. One then point­ed to­ward the door and gave me a light shove as his part­ner led the way through the ex­it.

I shuf­fled af­ter him, un­able to walk be­cause of the leg irons and fear­ful of my des­ti­na­tion. I had nev­er been chained like this be­fore. I con­sid­ered such re­straints on­ly for vi­olent, dan­ger­ous crim­inals.

"Where are we go­ing, where are you tak­ing me?" I asked, squint­ing in the late af­ter­noon sun­light. It was even more bril­liant than the lights in­side. Nei­ther of them both­ered to an­swer me.

Silent­ly, they placed me in the back seat of an un­marked sedan and one climbed be­hind the wheel as the oth­er seat­ed him­self be­side me.

They drove me to the rail­road sta­tion. The af­ter­noon light, even shel­tered as I was in the car, made me dizzy and nau­seous. The nau­sea was not all due to my sud­den ex­po­sure to day­light af­ter all these months, I knew. I'd been ill-fever­ish, vom­it­ing, di­ar­rhea and racked at times by chills-for the past month or so. I had not com­plained to the guards in Per­pig­nan. They would have ig­nored me, as they had ig­nored all my oth­er pleas and protests.

At the rail­road sta­tion I was tak­en from the car and one of the gen­darmes snapped one end of a light chain on­to my belt. He wrapped the oth­er end around his one hand, and, leashed like a dog, I was led and dragged through the peo­ple as­sem­bled at the de­pot and shoved on­to the train. The con­duc­tor showed us to a glassed-​in com­part­ment con­tain­ing two bench­es, the door of which was adorned with a sign stat­ing the booth was re­served for the Min­istry of Jus­tice. The oth­er pas­sen­gers looked at me in hor­ror, shock or re­vul­sion as we passed among them, some falling back in dis­gust as they de­tect­ed my odor. I had long since lost all ol­fac­to­ry sen­si­tiv­ity to my own fecu­lence, but I could sym­pa­thize with them. I had to smell like a con­ven­tion of out­raged skunks.

The com­part­ment was large enough to ac­com­mo­date eight per­sons and as the train filled and all the seats were oc­cu­pied, sev­er­al stur­dy peas­ants, at var­ious times, ap­peared and sought per­mis­sion to ride in the com­part­ment with us. They seemed obliv­ious to my mal­odor­ous con­di­tion. Each time, the gen­darmes waved them on with a curt re­fusal.

Then three vi­va­cious, pret­ty Amer­ican girls ap­peared, dressed in a min­imum of silks and ny­lon and fes­tooned with shop­ping bags laden with sou­venirs and gifts, wines and foods.

They reeked de­light­ful­ly of pre­cious per­fumes, and with a broad smile, one gen­darme rose and gal­lant­ly seat­ed them on the op­po­site bench. They im­me­di­ate­ly tried to en­gage the of­fi­cers in con­ver­sa­tion, cu­ri­ous as to who I was and what my crime had been. Ob­vi­ous­ly, en­snared in chains as I was, I was some no­to­ri­ous, ter­ri­ble mur­der­er, on a par at least with Jack the Rip­per. They seemed more fas­ci­nat­ed than fright­ened, and an­imat­ed­ly dis­cussed my of­fen­sive stench. "He smells like they've been keep­ing him in a sew­er," re­marked one. The oth­ers laugh­ing­ly agreed.

I did not want them to know I was an Amer­ican. I felt de­grad­ed and ashamed of my ap­pear­ance in their pres­ence. The gen­darmes fi­nal­ly made the three young wom­en un­der­stand that they nei­ther spoke nor un­der­stood En­glish, and the three fell to talk­ing among them­selves as the train pulled out of the sta­tion.

I did not know where we were go­ing. I had no sense of di­rec­tion at the mo­ment and I thought it would be use­less to again seek my des­ti­na­tion from the gen­darmes. I hud­dled mis­er­ably be­tween the of­fi­cers, ill and de­spon­dent, oc­ca­sion­al­ly look­ing out at the pass­ing land­scape or covert­ly study­ing the girls. I gath­ered from their con­ver­sa­tion­al com­ments that they were schoolteach­ers from the Philadel­phia area and were in Eu­rope on a va­ca­tion. They'd been to Spain, Por­tu­gal and the Pyre­nees and were now jour­ney­ing to some oth­er en­chant­ed area. Were we en route to Paris, I won­dered?

As the miles passed I grew hun­gry, de­spite my feel­ing of sick­ness. The girls took cheeses and breads from their bags, canned pates and wine, and be­gan to eat, shar­ing their repast with the gen­darmes. One at­tempt­ed to feed me a small sand­wich (my hands were re­strained so that I could not have eat­en had I been al­lowed), but one gen­darme grasped her wrist gen­tly.

"No," he said firm­ly.

At some point, some hours af­ter we left Per­pig­nan, the young wom­en, con­vinced that nei­ther I nor the gen­darmes could un­der­stand En­glish, com­menced dis­cussing the amorous ad­ven­tures they'd been hav­ing on va­ca­tion, and in such in­ti­mate de­tail that I was as­ton­ished. They com­pared the phys­ical at­tributes, prowess and per­for­mance of their var­ious lovers in such vivid lan­guage that I ac­tu­al­ly felt em­bar­rassed. I'd nev­er heard wom­en en­gage in such lock­er-​room tales, re­plete with all the four-​let­ter words and lewd com­ments. I con­clud­ed I still had a lot to learn about wom­en and at the same time I spec­ulat­ed as to my own stand­ing had I been a par­tic­ipant in their sex­ual Olympics. I made a men­tal note to try out for their games should we ev­er meet again.

Our des­ti­na­tion was Paris. The gen­darmes hauled me to my feet, made their farewells to the ladies and hus­tled me off the train. But not be­fore I'd said my own good-​bye.

As I was pulled through the door of the com­part­ment, I twist­ed my head and smiled las­civ­ious­ly at the three young teach­ers.

"Say hel­lo to ev­ery one in Philly for me," I said in my best Bronx voice.

The ex­pres­sions on their faces buoyed my sag­ging ego.

I was driv­en to the pre­fec­ture de po­lice jail in Paris and turned over to the prefet de po­lice, a plump, bald­ing man with sleek jowls and cold, re­morse­less eyes. Nonethe­less, those eyes reg­is­tered shock and dis­gust at my ap­pear­ance, and he set about prompt­ly rem­edy­ing my im­age. An of­fi­cer es­cort­ed me to a show­er, and af­ter I had washed my­self clean of my ac­cu­mu­lat­ed filth an in­mate bar­ber was sum­moned to snave my beard and shear my mane. I was then es­cort­ed to a cell, a small and aus­tere lit­tle cu­bi­cle in re­al­ity, but sheer lux­ury com­pared to my pre­vi­ous prison ac­com­mo­da­tions. &<<•

There was a nar­row iron cot with a wafer of a mat­tress and coarse, clean sheets, a tiny wash basin and an hon­est-​to-​john toi­let. There was al­so a light, con­trolled from the out­side. "You may read un­til nine o'clock. The light goes out then," the guard in­formed me.

I didn't have any­thing to read. "Look, I'm sick," I said. "Can I see a doc­tor, please?"

"I will ask," he said. He re­turned an hour lat­er bear­ing a tray on which re­posed a bowl of thin stew, a loaf of bread and a con­tain­er of cof­fee. "No doc­tor," he said. "I am sor­ry." I think he meant it.

The stew had meat in it and was a ver­ita­ble feast for me. In fact the mea­ger meal was too rich for my stom­ach, which was un­ac­cus­tomed to such hearty fare. I vom­it­ed the food with­in an hour af­ter din­ing.

I was still un­aware of my cir­cum­stances. I didn't know whether I would be brought to tri­al again in Paris, whether I was to com­plete my term here or be hand­ed over to some oth­er gov­ern­ment. All my queries were re­buffed.

I was not to stay in Paris, how­ev­er. The fol­low­ing morn­ing, af­ter a break­fast of cof­fee, bread and cheese which I man­aged to keep in­side me, I was tak­en from my cell and again shack­led like a wild an­imal. A pair of gen­darmes placed me in a win­dowed van, my feet se­cured by a chain to a bolt in the floor, and start­ed on a route that I soon rec­og­nized. I was be­ing driv­en to Or­ly Air­port.

At the air­port I was tak­en from the van and es­cort­ed through the ter­mi­nal to the Scan­dana­vian Air­lines Ser­vice counter. My progress through the ter­mi­nal at­tract­ed a max­imum of at­ten­tion and peo­ple even left cafes and bars to gawk at me as I shuf­fled along, my chains clink­ing and rat­tling.

I rec­og­nized the one clerk be­hind the SAS counter. She'd once cashed a pho­ny check for me. I couldn't now re­mem­ber the amount. If she rec­og­nized me, she gave no in­di­ca­tion of it. How­ev­er, the man she'd cashed a check for had been a ro­bust two-​hun­dred-​pounder, tanned and healthy. The chained pris­on­er be­fore her now was a sick, pal­lid-​faced skele­ton of a man, stooped and hol­low-​eyed. In fact, af­ter one look at me, she kept her eyes avert­ed.

"Look, it won't hurt for you to tell me what's go­ing on," I plead­ed with the gen­darmes, who were scan­ning the hu­man traf­fic in the vicin­ity of the tick­et counter.

"We are wait­ing for the Swedish po­lice," one said in abrupt tones. "Now, shut up. Don't speak to us again."

He was sud­den­ly con­front­ed by a pe­tite and shape­ly young wom­an with long blond hair and bril­liant blue eyes, smart­ly dressed in a tai­lored blue suit over which she wore a fash­ion­ably cut trench coat. She car­ried a thin leather case un­der one arm. Be­hind her loomed a younger, taller Valkyrie, sim­ilar­ly at­tired, al­so hold­ing an at­tache case tucked un­der an arm.

"Is this Frank Abag­nale?" the small­er one asked of the gen­darme on my left. He stepped in front of me, hold­ing up his hand.

"That is none of your busi­ness," he snapped. "At any rate, he is not al­lowed vis­itors. If this man is a friend of yours, you will not be al­lowed to talk to him."

The blue eyes flashed and the small shoul­ders squared. "I will talk to him, Of­fi­cer, and you will take those chains off him, at once!" Her tone was im­pe­ri­ous­ly de­mand­ing. Then she smiled at me and the eyes were warm, the fea­tures gen­tle.

"You are Frank Abag­nale, are you not?" she asked in per­fect En­glish. "May I call you Frank?"

CHAP­TER TEN

Put Out an APB- Frank Abag­nale Has Es­caped!

&nb­sp;

The two gen­darmes were trans­fixed in amaze­ment, two griz­zly bears sud­den­ly chal­lenged by a chip­munk. I my­self stood gap­ing at the love­ly ap­pari­tion who de­mand­ed that I be re­leased from my chains and who seemed de­ter­mined to take me from my tor­men­tors.

She ex­tend­ed a slen­der hand and placed it on my arm. "I am In­spec­tor Jan Lund­strom of the Swedish po­lice, the na­tion­al po­lice force," she said, and ges­tured to the pret­ty girl be­hind her.

"This is my as­sis­tant, In­spec­tor Ker­sten Berglund, and we are here to es­cort you back to Swe­den, where, as I am sure you are aware, you face a crim­inal pro­ceed­ing."

As she talked, she ex­tract­ed a small leather fold­er from her pock­et and opened it to dis­play to the French of­fi­cers her cre­den­tials and a small gold badge.

The gen­darme, per­plexed, looked at his part­ner. The sec­ond gen­darme dis­played the sheaf of pa­pers. "He is her pris­on­er," he said with a shrug. "Take off the chains."

I was un­shack­led. The crowd ap­plaud­ed, an ova­tion ac­com­pa­nied by a whistling and stamp­ing of feet. In­spec­tor Lund­strom drew me aside.

"I wish to make some things per­fect­ly clear, Frank," she said. "We do not nor­mal­ly use hand­cuffs or oth­er re­straints in Swe­den. I nev­er car­ry them my­self. And you will not be re­strained in any way dur­ing our jour­ney. But our flight makes a stop in Den­mark and my coun­try has had to post a bond to en­sure your pas­sage through Den­mark. It is a nor­mal pro­ce­dure in these cas­es.

"We will be on the ground on­ly an hour in Den­mark, Frank. But I have a re­spon­si­bil­ity to the French Gov­ern­ment, to the Dan­ish Gov­ern­ment and to my own gov­ern­ment to see that you are brought to Swe­den in cus­tody, that you do not es­cape. Now, I can as­sure you that you will find Swedish jails and pris­ons far dif­fer­ent from French pris­ons. We like to think our pris­on­ers are treat­ed hu­mane­ly.

"But let me tell you this, Frank. I am armed. Ker­sten is armed. We are both versed in the use of our weapons. If you try to run, if you make an at­tempt to es­cape, we will have to shoot you. And if we shoot you, Frank, we will kill you. Is that un­der­stood?"

The words were spo­ken calm­ly and with­out heat, much in the man­ner, in fact, of giv­ing di­rec­tions to a stranger, co­op­er­ative but not re­al­ly friend­ly. She opened the large purse she car­ried on a shoul­der strap. Bulk­ing among its con­tents was a .45 semi­au­to­mat­ic pis­tol.

I looked at In­spec­tor Berglund. She smiled an­gel­ical­ly and pat­ted her own purse.

"Yes, I un­der­stand," I said. I re­al­ly thought she was bluff­ing. Nei­ther of my love­ly cap­tors im­pressed me as an An­nie Oak­ley.

In­spec­tor Lund­strom turned to the clerk be­hind the tick­et counter. "We're ready," she said. The girl nod­ded and sum­moned an­oth­er clerk, a young man, from a room be­hind her. He led us through an of­fice be­hind the counter, through the bag­gage area, through op­er­ations and to the plane's board­ing stair­well.

Save for the shab­by cloth­ing I was wear­ing, we ap­peared to be just three more pas­sen­gers. And from the lack of in­ter­est in my ap­pear­ance, I was prob­ably re­gard­ed as just an­oth­er hip­pie.

We were fed on the plane be­fore we land­ed in Copen­hagen. It was the usu­al mea­ger air­line meal, but deliri­ous­ly pre­pared, and it was the first de­cent meal I'd had since be­ing com­mit­ted to prison. For me, it was a de­light­ful feast and I had to force my­self to refuse my es­corts' of­fer of their por­tions.

We had a longer lay­over in Den­mark than was ex­pect­ed, two hours. The two young of­fi­cers prompt­ly es­cort­ed me to one of the ter­mi­nal's restau­rants and or­dered a lav­ish lunch for the three of us, al­though I'm sure they couldn't have been hun­gry again. I felt it was strict­ly an at­tempt to ap­pease my still ravenous hunger, but I didn't protest. Be­fore we board­ed the plane again, they bought me sev­er­al can­dy bars and some En­glish-​lan­guage mag­azines.

Through­out the trip they treat­ed me as if I were a friend rather than a pris­on­er. They in­sist­ed I call them by their giv­en names. They con­versed with me as friends, in­quir­ing about my fam­ily, my likes, my dis­likes and oth­er gen­er­al sub­jects. They probed on­ly briefly in­to my crim­inal ca­reer, and then on­ly to ask about my hor­ri­ble treat­ment in Per­pig­nan prison, I was sur­prised to learn I had served on­ly six months in that hell­hole. I had lost all track of time.

"As a for­eign­er, you were not el­igi­ble for pa­role, but the judge had dis­cre­tion to re­duce your term, and he did so," said Jan. I was sud­den­ly grate­ful to the stern ju­rist who'd sen­tenced me. Know­ing that I had served on­ly six months, I re­al­ized I would not have last­ed a full year in Per­pig­nan. Few pris­on­ers did.

The plane land­ed in Mal­mo, Swe­den, thir­ty min­utes af­ter leav­ing Copen­hagen. To my sur­prise, we dis­em­barked in Mal­mo, re­trieved our lug­gage, and Jan and Ker­sten led the way to a marked po­lice car, a Swedish black-​and-​white, parked in the ter­mi­nal lot, a uni­formed of­fi­cer at the wheel. He helped load our lug­gage-the girls' lug­gage, re­al­ly, since I had none-in­to the trunk and then drove us to the po­lice sta­tion in the vil­lage of Klip­pan, a short dis­tance from Mal­mo.

I was in­trigued by the Klip­pan po­lice sta­tion. It seemed more like a quaint old inn than a po­lice precinct. A rud­dy-​faced, smil­ing sergeant of po­lice greet­ed us, Jan and Ker­sten in Swedish, me in on­ly slight­ly ac­cent­ed En­glish. He shook my hand as if he were greet­ing a guest. "I have been ex­pect­ing you, Mr. Abag­nale. I have all your pa­pers here."

"Sergeant, Frank needs a doc­tor," said Jan in En­glish. "He is very ill, I'm afraid, and needs im­me­di­ate at­ten­tion."

It was near­ly 9 p.m, but the sergeant mere­ly nod­ded. "At once, In­spec­tor Lund­strdm," he said, beck­on­ing to a young uni­formed of­fi­cer who stood watch­ing the scene. "Karl, please take the pris­on­er to his quar­ters."

"Ja, min herre," he said and grinned at me. "If you will fol­low me, please." I fol­lowed him in some­what of a daze. If this was the treat­ment ac­cord­ed crim­inals in Swe­den, how did they treat hon­est folk?

He led me down the hall to a huge oak­en door, which he un­locked, opened and then stood aside for me to en­ter. I was stunned when I stepped in­side. This was no cell, it was an apart­ment, a huge, spa­cious room with a great pic­ture win­dow over­look­ing the vil­lage, a large bed with carved head and foot­board and a col­or­ful spread, rus­tic fur­ni­ture and a sep­arate bath­room with both a tub and a show­er. Prints of gal­lant scenes from Swe­den's past dec­orat­ed the walls, and taste­ful drapes, drawn at the mo­ment, af­ford­ed pri­va­cy from out­side passers­by.

"I hope you will be well soon, min herre," said Karl in his ac­cent­ed En­glish be­fore clos­ing the door.

"Thank you," I replied. I didn't know what else to say, al­though I want­ed to say more. Af­ter his de­par­ture, I in­spect­ed the room close­ly. The win­dows were thick plate glass and could not be opened and the door al­so could not be opened from the in­side, but no mat­ter. I had no thoughts of es­cape from this prison.

I didn't get to sleep in the bed that night. With­in min­utes the door opened again to ad­mit Jan and a bald­ing, ami­able but very ef­fi­cient, doc­tor. "Strip, please," he said in En­glish. I hes­itat­ed, but Jan made no move to leave, so I peeled my scant at­tire, re­al­ly em­bar­rassed to stand naked be­fore her. Her face mir­rored noth­ing but con­cern, how­ev­er. Nu­di­ty, I learned, is sex­ual on­ly un­der the cir­cum­stances with the Swedes.

The doc­tor poked, prod­ded, looked and lis­tened, us­ing a va­ri­ety of in­stru­ments, and tapped, felt and pressed, all in si­lence, be­fore he put away his in­stru­ments and stetho­scope and nod­ded. "This man is suf­fer­ing from se­vere mal­nu­tri­tion and vi­ta­min de­fi­cien­cy, but worst of all, he has, in my opin­ion, dou­ble pneu­mo­nia," he said. "I sug­gest you call an am­bu­lance, In­spec­tor."

"Yes, Doc­tor," said Jan and ran from the room.

With­in thir­ty min­utes I was en­sconced in a pri­vate room in a small, clean and ef­fi­cient hos­pi­tal. I was there a month, re­cu­per­at­ing, a uni­formed of­fi­cer out­side my door at all times but seem­ing more a com­pan­ion than a guard. Each day, ei­ther Jan or Ker­sten, the sergeant or Karl vis­it­ed me, and each time they brought me some­thing, a bou­quet, can­dy, a mag­azine or some oth­er lit­tle gift.

Not once dur­ing my hos­pi­tal stay was I ques­tioned about my al­leged crimes, nor was any ref­er­ence made to my up­com­ing tri­al or the charges against me.

I was re­turned to my "cell" at the end of the month, be­fore lunch, and at noon Karl brought me a menu. "We do not have a kitchen/' he said apolo­get­ical­ly. "You may or­der what you wish from this, and we will bring it from the cafe. It is very good food, I as­sure you."

It cer­tain­ly was. With­in a month I was back nudg­ing two hun­dred pounds.

The day fol­low­ing my re­lease from the hos­pi­tal, Jan called on me, ac­com­pa­nied by a thin man with spright­ly fea­tures.

"I am In­spec­tor Jan Lund­strom with the Swedish Na­tion­al Po­lice," she said for­mal­ly. "It is my du­ty to tell you that you will be held here for a pe­ri­od of time, and that it is al­so my du­ty to in­ter­ro­gate you. This is a min­is­ter, and he will act as in­ter­preter. He speaks per­fect En­glish and is fa­mil­iar with all of your Amer­ican slang and id­ioms."

I was flab­ber­gast­ed. "Aw, come on, Jan, you speak per­fect En­glish your­self," I protest­ed. "What is this?"

"Swedish law re­quires that an in­ter­preter flu­ent in the lan­guage of a pris­on­er be present when that pris­on­er is ques­tioned, if he or she is a for­eign­er," said Jan, still speak­ing in cor­rect tones as if she had nev­er seen me be­fore.

"The law al­so says you have the right to an at­tor­ney, and your at­tor­ney must be present at all times dur­ing your in­ter­ro­ga­tion. Since you have no funds to re­tain a lawyer, the gov­ern­ment of Swe­den has ap­point­ed you a coun­sel. Her name is El­sa Kris­tians­son and she will meet with you lat­er to­day. Do you un­der­stand ev­ery­thing I have told you?"

"Per­fect­ly," I said.

"I will see you to­mor­row, then," she said, and left.

An hour lat­er there was a knock on my door and then the por­tal opened. It was one of the guards with my sup­per, a boun­ti­ful and taste­ful meal, which he ar­ranged on a portable ta­ble as if he were a wait­er and not a jail­er.

When he re­turned to gath­er up the dish­es, he grinned at me. "Would you like to take a walk?" he asked. "It will on­ly be in the build­ing, as I make my rounds, but I thought per­haps you might be get­ting tired of be­ing shut in­side."

I ac­com­pa­nied him to the kitchen, where a wait­er from a near­by restau­rant took the tray and used dish­es from him. The kitchen was not re­al­ly a kitchen, just a nook where the guards could brew cof­fee for them­selves. He then led me on a tour of the jail, a two-​sto­ry af­fair that could ac­com­mo­date on­ly twen­ty pris­on­ers. At each cell, he knocked be­fore open­ing the door, greet­ed the oc­cu­pant pleas­ant­ly and in­quired of the pris­on­er's needs. He bade each a cheery good night be­fore clos­ing and lock­ing the door.

When I re­turned to my cell, El­sa Kris­tians­son was wait­ing for me, as was the in­ter­preter, Rev. Carl Greek. I won­dered at his pres­ence un­til he ex­plained that Mrs. Kris­tians­son did not speak any En­glish at all. Nor did she spend any time in­quir­ing about rny case. She mere­ly ac­knowl­edged the in­tro­duc­tion and then told me she would be on hand the next morn­ing when Jan com­menced her in­ter­ro­ga­tion.

She was a tall, hand­some wom­an of about forty, I judged, serene and cour­te­ous, but I had mis­giv­ings about her act­ing as my lawyer. Still, I had no choice. I had no funds to hire an at­tor­ney of my choice. The French po­lice had seized all my as­sets in France, or so I pre­sumed. They had not men­tioned any­thing about my loot fol­low­ing my ar­rest or dur­ing my de­ten­tion, and they cer­tain­ly hadn't re­turned any mon­ey to me on my re­lease. And, here in Swe­den, I had no way of get­ting funds from one of my many caches.

Jan ap­peared the next morn­ing with Mrs. Kris­tians­son and Herre Greek. She com­menced im­me­di­ate­ly to ques­tion me about my crim­inal ac­tiv­ities in Swe­den, with Bergen trans­lat­ing her queries for Mrs. Kris­tians­son, who sat silent, mere­ly nod­ding now and then.

I was eva­sive with Jan dur­ing the first two in­ter­rog­ative ses­sions. Ei­ther I re­fused to an­swer or I would re­ply "I don't re­mem­ber" or "I can't say."

On the third day Jan be­came ex­as­per­at­ed. "Frank! Frank!" she ex­claimed. "Why are you so de­fen­sive? Why are you so eva­sive? You're here, you're go­ing to go to tri­al, and it would be much bet­ter for you if you are hon­est with me. We know who you are and we know what you've done, and you know we have the ev­idence. Why are you so re­luc­tant to talk?"

"Be­cause I don't want to go to prison for twen­ty years, even if it is a nice prison like this one," I replied blunt­ly.

Bergen trans­lat­ed for Mrs. Kris­tians­son. The re­ac­tion of all three was to­tal­ly un­ex­pect­ed. They burst in­to laugh­ter, the loud, tear-​pro­duc­ing peals of laugh­ter usu­al­ly pro­voked on­ly by fine slap­stick com­edy. I sat look­ing at them in amaze­ment.

Jan calmed her­self some­what, but still shak­ing with de­light, she looked at me. "Twen­ty years?" she gulped.

"Or five years, or ten years, or what­ev­er," I replied de­fen­sive­ly, ir­ri­tat­ed at their at­ti­tude.

"Five years? Ten years?" Jan ex­claimed. "Frank, the max­imum penal­ty for the crime you are charged with is one year, and I will be very sur­prised if you re­ceive that much time, since you are a first of­fend­er. Frank, mur­der­ers and bank rob­bers rarely re­ceive over ten years on con­vic­tion in this coun­try. What you did is a very se­ri­ous of­fense, but we con­sid­er a year in prison a very se­ri­ous pun­ish­ment, and I as­sure you that is the max­imum sen­tence you face."

I gave her a com­plete con­fes­sion, de­tail­ing what I could re­call of my trans­ac­tions in Swe­den. A week lat­er I was brought to tri­al in Mal­mo be­fore a ju­ry of eight men and wom­en who would de­ter­mine both my guilt and my pun­ish­ment, my con­fes­sion hav­ing ex­clud­ed any ques­tion of in­no­cence.

Yet I al­most beat the rap. Or Mrs. Kris­tians­son did. She sur­prised me by chal­leng­ing the whole pro­ceed­ings at the close of tes­ti­mo­ny against me. The charge against me was "se­ri­ous fraud by check," she told the pre­sid­ing judge.

"I would point out to the court that the in­stru­ments in­tro­duced here to­day are not checks, as de­fined by Swedish law," she con­tend­ed. "They are in­stru­ments he made up him­self. They nev­er were checks. They are not checks at this time.

"Un­der Swedish law, Your Hon­or, these in­stru­ments could nev­er be checks, since they are ut­ter coun­ter­feits. Un­der the law, Your Hon­or, my client has not re­al­ly forged any checks, since these in­stru­ments are not checks, but mere­ly cre­ations of his own, and there­fore the charges against him should be dis­missed."

The charges weren't dis­missed. But they were re­duced to a less­er felony, the equiv­alent of ob­tain­ing mon­ey un­der false pre­tens­es, and the ju­ry sen­tenced me to six months in prison. I con­sid­ered it a vic­to­ry and ren­dered my en­thu­si­as­tic thanks to Mrs. Kris­tians­son, who was al­so pleased with the ver­dict.

I was re­turned to my cell in the Klip­pan jail, and the next day Jan ap­peared to con­grat­ulate me. How­ev­er, she al­so had dis­qui­et­ing news. I was not to serve my time in my com­fort­able and homey lit­tle hostel­ry in Klip­pan, but was to be trans­ferred to the state in­sti­tu­tion in Mal­mo, lo­cat­ed on the cam­pus of Lund Uni­ver­si­ty, the old­est col­lege in Eu­rope. "You will find it very dif­fer­ent from the pris­ons in France. In fact it is very dif­fer­ent from any of your Amer­ican pris­ons," Jan as­sured me.

My mis­giv­ings evap­orat­ed when I was de­liv­ered to the prison, known on the cam­pus as "The Crim­inal Ward." There was noth­ing of a prison at­mo­sphere about the ward- no fences, no guard tow­ers, no bars, no elec­tron­ic gates or doors. It blend­ed right in with the oth­er large and state­ly build­ings on the cam­pus. It was, in fact, a com­plete­ly open fa­cil­ity.

I was checked in and es­cort­ed to my quar­ters, for I no longer looked on Swedish de­ten­tion rooms as cells. My room in the ward was slight­ly small­er, but just as com­fort­able, and with sim­ilar fur­nish­ings and fa­cil­ities, to those of the one in which I'd been lodged at Klip­pan.

The prison rules were re­laxed, the re­stric­tions le­nient. I could wear my own clothes, and since I had on­ly the one set, I was es­cort­ed to a cloth­ing store in the city where I was out­fit­ted with two changes of clothes. I was giv­en un­re­strict­ed free­dom to write and re­ceive let­ters or oth­er mail, and my mail was not cen­sored. Since the ward housed on­ly one hun­dred pris­on­ers, and it was not deemed eco­nom­ical to main­tain a kitchen, food was brought to pris­on­ers from out­side restau­rants and the pris­on­er pre­pared his own menu with­in rea­son.

The ward was a co­ed prison. Sev­er­al wom­en were housed in the in­sti­tu­tion, but sex­ual co­hab­ita­tion was pro­hib­it­ed be­tween in­mates. Con­ju­gal vis­its were al­lowed be­tween a man and wife, a wife and hus­band or be­tween an in­mate and his/her boy/girl friend. The pris­on­ers had the free­dom of the build­ing be­tween 7 a.m. and 10 p.m., and they could re­ceive vis­itors in their quar­ters be­tween 4 p.m. and 10 p.m. dai­ly. The in­mates were locked in­to their rooms at 10 p.m., cur­few time in the ward.

The ward housed no vi­olent crim­inals. Its in­mates were check swindlers, car thieves, em­bez­zlers and sim­ilar non­vi­olent crim­inals. How­ev­er, pris­on­ers were seg­re­gat­ed, in mul­ti­roomed dor­mi­to­ries, by age, sex and type of crime. I was lodged in a dor­mi­to­ry with oth­er forg­ers and coun­ter­feit­ers of like age.

Swedish pris­ons ac­tu­al­ly at­tempt to re­ha­bil­itate a crim­inal. I was told I could, dur­ing my term, ei­ther at­tend class­es at the uni­ver­si­ty or work in a parachute fac­to­ry sit­uat­ed on the prison grounds. Or I could sim­ply serve my time in the ward. If I at­tend­ed class­es, the Swedish Gov­ern­ment would pay my tu­ition and fur­nish my sup­plies. If I chose to work in the parachute fac­to­ry, I would be paid the pre­vail­ing free-​world wage for my job clas­si­fi­ca­tion.

Es­cape would have been easy, save for one fac­tor. The Swedes, at an ear­ly age, are is­sued iden­ti­ty cards They are rarely re­quired to pro­duce the card, but a po­lice­man has a right to ask a cit­izen to dis­play his or her iden­ti­ty card. And dis­play of the ID is re­quired for any bor­der cross­ing, or in­ter­na­tion­al train or plane jour­ney. I didn't have one. I al­so didn't have any mon­ey.

It re­al­ly didn't mat­ter. Es­cape nev­er en­tered my mind. I loved it at Mal­mo prison. One day, to my as­ton­ish­ment, one of my vic­tims, a young bank clerk, ap­peared to vis­it me, bring­ing a bas­ket of fresh fruit and some Swedish cheeses. "I thought you might like to know that I did not get in­to any trou­ble be­cause of your cash­ing checks at my sta­tion," said the young man. "Al­so, I want­ed you to know I have no ill feel­ings to­ward you. It must be very dif­fi­cult to be im­pris­oned."

I had re­al­ly conned that kid. I had made him my friend, in fact, even vis­it­ing in his home, in or­der to per­pe­trate my swin­dle. His ges­ture re­al­ly touched me.

I both worked in the parachute fac­to­ry and at­tend­ed class­es, which seemed to please the ward's su­per­vi­sors. I stud­ied com­mer­cial art, al­though I was more adept in some of the tech­niques taught at Lund than the in­struc­tors.

The six months passed swift­ly, too swift­ly. Dur­ing the fourth month, Mrs. Kris­tians­son ap­peared with alarm­ing news. The gov­ern­ments of Italy, Spain, Turkey, Ger­many, Eng­land, Switzer­land, Greece, Den­mark, Nor­way, Egypt, Lebanon and Cyprus had all made for­mal re­quests to ex­tra­dite me on com­ple­tion of my sen­tence, and had been ac­cord­ed pref­er­ence in that or­der. I would be hand­ed over to Ital­ian au­thor­ities on com­ple­tion of my term, and Italy would de­ter­mine which coun­try would get me af­ter I set­tled my debt with the Ital­ians.

One of my fel­low in­mates in the ward had served time in an Ital­ian prison. The hor­ror tales he re­count­ed con­vinced me that Ital­ian pris­ons were as bad as, if not worse than, Per­pig­nan's jail. Mrs. Kris­tians­son, too, had heard that con­di­tions in Ital­ian pe­nal units were ex­treme­ly harsh and bru­tal. She al­so had in­for­ma­tion that Ital­ian judges and ju­ries were not not­ed for le­nien­cy in crim­inal cas­es.

We launched a de­ter­mined cam­paign to pre­vent my ex­tra­di­tion to Italy. I bom­bard­ed the judge who had presid­ed at my tri­al, the Min­is­ter of Jus­tice and even the King him­self with pe­ti­tions and pleas for sanc­tu­ary, ask­ing that I be al­lowed to stay in Swe­den af­ter my re­lease or at the worst that I be de­port­ed to my na­tive Unit­ed States. I point­ed out that no mat­ter where I went, if I was de­nied refuge in Swe­den, I would be pun­ished again and again for the same crime, and con­ceiv­ably I could be shunt­ed from prison to prison for the rest of my life.

Each and ev­ery one of my plead­ings was re­ject­ed. Ex­tra­di­tion to Italy seemed in­evitable. The night be­fore Ital­ian au­thor­ities were to take me in­to cus­tody, I lay in my bed, un­able to sleep and mulling over des­per­ate plans for es­cape. I didn't feel I could sur­vive any amount of im­pris­on­ment in Italy if pe­nal con­di­tions there were as ter­ri­ble as I had been told, and I ac­tu­al­ly felt it would be bet­ter for me to be killed in an es­cape at­tempt than to die in a hell­hole sim­ilar to Per­pig­nan's.

Short­ly be­fore mid­night, a guard ap­peared. "Get dressed, Frank, and pack all your be­long­ings," he in­struct­ed me. "There're some peo­ple here to get you."

I sat up, alarmed. "What peo­ple?" I asked. "The Ital­ians weren't sup­posed to pick me up be­fore to­mor­row, I was told."

"They aren't," he replied. "These are Swedish of­fi­cers."

"Swedish of­fi­cers!" I ex­claimed. "What do they want?"

He shook his head. "I don't know. But they have the prop­er pa­pers to take you in­to cus­tody."

He es­cort­ed me out of the ward and to a marked po­lice car parked at the curb. A uni­formed of­fi­cer in the back seat opened the door and mo­tioned for me to get in be­side him. "The judge wants to see you," he said.

They drove me to the judge's home, a mod­est dwelling in an at­trac­tive neigh­bor­hood, where I was ad­mit­ted by the judge's wife. The of­fi­cers re­mained out­side. She led me to the judge's study and ges­tured to­ward a large leather chair. "Sit down, Mr. Abag­nale," she said pleas­ant­ly. "I will bring you some tea, and the judge will be with you short­ly." She spoke per­fect En­glish.

The judge, when he ap­peared a few min­utes lat­er, was al­so flu­ent in En­glish. He seat­ed him­self op­po­site me af­ter greet­ing me and then re­gard­ed me in si­lence for a few min­utes. I said noth­ing, al­though I want­ed to ask a dozen or more ques­tions.

Fi­nal­ly the judge start­ed speak­ing, in a soft, de­lib­er­ate man­ner. "Young man, I've had you on my mind for the past sev­er­al days," he said. "I have, in fact, made many in­quiries in­to your back­ground and your case. You are a bright young man, Mr. Abag­nale, and I think you could have made a worth­while con­tri­bu­tion to so­ci­ety, not on­ly in your own coun­try but else­where, had you cho­sen a dif­fer­ent course. It is re­gret­table that you have made the mis­takes that you have made."

He paused. "Yes, sir," I said meek­ly, hope­ful that I was here for more than a lec­ture.

"We are both aware, young man, that if you are re­turned to Italy to­mor­row, you might very well face a prison sen­tence of up to twen­ty years," the judge con­tin­ued. "I have some knowl­edge of Ital­ian pris­ons, Mr. Abag­nale. They are very much like French pris­ons. And when you have served your sen­tence, you will be hand­ed over to Spain, I un­der­stand. As you point­ed out in your pe­ti­tion, young man, you could very well spend the rest of your life in Eu­ro­pean pris­ons.

"And there's very lit­tle we can do about that, Mr. Abag­nale. We have to hon­or Italy's re­quest for ex­tra­di­tion just as France hon­ored ours. The law is not some­thing we can flout with im­puni­ty, sir." He paused again.

"I know, sir," I said, my hopes re­ced­ing. "I would like to stay here, but I un­der­stand I can­not."

He rose and be­gan to pace around the study, talk­ing the while. "What if you had a chance to start your life anew, Mr. Abag­nale?" he asked. "Do you think you would choose a con­struc­tive life this time?"

"Yes, sir, if I had the chance," I replied.

"Do you think you've learned your les­son, as the teach­ers say?" he pur­sued.

"Yes, sir, I re­al­ly have," I said, my hopes ris­ing again He seat­ed him­self again and looked at me, fi­nal­ly nod­ding. "I did some­thing tonight, Mr. Abag­nale, that sur­prised even my­self," he said. "Had some­one told me two weeks ago that I would take this ac­tion, I would have ques­tioned his san­ity.

"Tonight, young man, I called a friend of mine in the Amer­ican Em­bassy and made a re­quest that vi­olates your rights un­der Swedish law. I asked him to re­voke your U.S. pass­port, Mr. Abag­nale. And he did."

I gazed at him, and from his slight grin I knew my as­ton­ish­ment was vis­ible. I was re­al­ly puz­zled at his ac­tion, but not for long.

"You are now an un­wel­come alien in Swe­den, Mr. Abag­nale," the judge said, smil­ing. "And I can legal­ly or­der your de­por­ta­tion to the Unit­ed States, re­gard­less of any ex­tra­di­tion re­quests pend­ing. In a few min­utes, Mr. Abag­nale, I am go­ing to or­der the of­fi­cers out­side to take you to the air­port and place you on a plane for New York City. All the ar­range­ments have been made.

"Of course, you should know that po­lice of your own coun­try will be wait­ing to ar­rest you when you de­bark from the air­craft. You are a want­ed crim­inal in your own coun­try, too, sir, and I felt it on­ly prop­er that they be no­ti­fied of my ac­tions. The FBI has been in­formed of your flight num­ber and the time of your ar­rival.

"I'm sure you will be tried in your own coun­try. But at least, young man, you will be among your own peo­ple and I'm sure your fam­ily will be present to sup­port you and to vis­it you in prison, if you are con­vict­ed. How­ev­er, in case you aren't aware, once you have served your term in Amer­ica, none of these oth­er coun­tries can ex­tra­dite you. The law in the Unit­ed States pro­hibits a for­eign na­tion from ex­tra­dit­ing you from the land of your birth.

"I have tak­en this ac­tion, young man, be­cause I feel it is in the best in­ter­ests of all con­cerned, es­pe­cial­ly your­self. I think, when you have set­tled your obli­ga­tions in your own coun­try, that you can have a fruit­ful and hap­py life. ... I am gam­bling my per­son­al in­tegri­ty on that, Mr. Abag­nale. I hope you don't prove me wrong."

I want­ed to hug and kiss him. In­stead I wrung his hand and tear­ful­ly promised him that I would make some­thing worth­while of my fu­ture. It was a promise I was to break with­in eigh­teen hours.

The of­fi­cers drove me to the air­port, where, to my de­light, Jan was wait­ing to take charge of me. She had a large en­ve­lope con­tain­ing my pass­port, my oth­er pa­pers and the mon­ey I had earned in the prison parachute fac­to­ry. She gave me a $20 bill for pock­et mon­ey be­fore hand­ing over the en­ve­lope to the pi­lot. "This man is be­ing de­port­ed," she told the plane com­man­der. "Of­fi­cers of the Unit­ed States will meet the plane in New York and will take him in­to cus­tody. You will turn over this prop­er­ty to them."

She turned to me and took my hand. "Good-​bye, Frank, and good luck. I hope your fu­ture will be a hap­py one," she said grave­ly.

I kissed her, to the as­ton­ish­ment of the pi­lot and a watch­ing stew­ardess. It was the first over­ture I had made to­ward Jan, and it was a ges­ture of sin­cere ad­mi­ra­tion. "I will nev­er for­get you," I said. And I nev­er have. Jan Lund­strom will al­ways be a fine and gra­cious per­son, a love­ly and help­ful friend, in my thoughts.

It was a non­stop flight to New York. I was seat­ed up front, near the cock­pit, where the crew could keep an eye on me, but oth­er­wise I was treat­ed as just an­oth­er pas­sen­ger. In flight I had the free­dom of the pas­sen­ger sec­tions.

I do not know when I be­gan think­ing of elud­ing the wait­ing of­fi­cers, or why I felt com­pelled to be­tray the judge's trust in me. Per­haps it was when I start­ed think­ing of my short so­journ in the Boston jail, with its sor­did tanks and cells. Cer­tain­ly it was lux­uri­ous when com­pared to Per­pig­nan's prison, but if Amer­ican pris­ons were com­pa­ra­ble, I didn't want to do time in one. My six months in the Klip­pan jail and the ward had spoiled me.

The jet was a VC-10, a British Vis­count, an air­craft with which I was very fa­mil­iar. A BOAC pi­lot had once giv­en me a de­tailed tour of a VC-10, ex­plain­ing its ev­ery struc­tural spec­ifi­ca­tion, even to con­struc­tion of the Johns.

From past flight ex­pe­ri­ences, I knew the jet would land on Kennedy's Run­way 13 and that it would re­quire ap­prox­imate­ly ten min­utes for the air­craft to taxi to the ter­mi­nal.

Ten min­utes be­fore the pi­lot was to make his land­ing ap­proach, I rose and strolled back to one of the lava­to­ries and locked my­self in­side. I reached down and felt for the snap-​out knobs I knew were lo­cat­ed at the base of the toi­let, pulled them out, twist­ed them and lift­ed out the en­tire toi­let ap­pa­ra­tus, a self-​con­tained plumb­ing unit, to dis­close the two-​foot-​square hatch cov­er for the vac­uum hose used to ser­vice the air­craft on the ground.

I wait­ed. The plane touched down with a jolt and then slowed as the pi­lot re­versed his en­gines and used his flaps as brakes. At the end of the run­way, I knew, he would come to al­most a com­plete stop as he turned the jet on­to the taxi strip lead­ing to the ter­mi­nal. When I judged he was al­most at that point, I squeezed down in­to the toi­let com­part­ment, opened the hatch and wrig­gled through, hang­ing from the hatch comb­ing by my fin­gers, dan­gling ten feet above the tar­mac. I knew when I opened the hatch that an alarm beep­er would sound in the cock­pit, but I al­so knew from past flights that the hatch was of­ten jarred open slight­ly by the im­pact of land­ing and that the pi­lot, since he was al­ready on the ground, usu­al­ly just shut off the beep­er as the hatch be­ing ajar posed no haz­ard.

I re­al­ly didn't care whether this pi­lot was of that school or not. We had land­ed at night. When the huge jet slowed al­most to a stop, I re­leased my hold on the comb­ing and lit run­ning.

I fled straight across the run­way in the dark­ness, lat­er learn­ing that I had es­caped un­no­ticed, the method of my es­cape un­known un­til an irate O'Ri­ley and oth­er FBI agents searched the plane and found the lift­ed-​out toi­let.

On the Van Wyck Ex­press­way side of the air­port, I scaled a cy­clone fence and hailed a pass­ing cab. "Grand Cen­tral Sta­tion," I said. On ar­rival at the sta­tion, I paid the cab­bie out of the $20 bill I had and took a train to the Bronx.

I didn't go home. I felt both my moth­er's apart­ment and my fa­ther's home would be un­der surveil­lance, but I did call Mom and then Dad. It was the first time in more than five years that I had heard their voic­es, and in each in­stance, both Mom and I and Dad and I end­ed up blub­ber­ing with tears. I re­sist­ed their en­treaties to come to one of their homes and sur­ren­der my­self to of­fi­cers. Al­though I felt ashamed of my­self for break­ing my promise to the Mal­mo judge, I felt I'd had enough of prison life.

Ac­tu­al­ly, I went to the Bronx to see a girl with whom I'd stashed some mon­ey and some cloth­ing, one suit of which con­tained a set of keys to a Mon­tre­al bank safe-​de­posit box. She was sur­prised to see me. "Good lord, Frank!" she ex­claimed. "I thought you had dis­ap­peared for good. A few more days and I was go­ing to spend your mon­ey and give your clothes to the Sal­va­tion Army."

I did not stop to dal­ly. I wasn't sure how many of my girl friends and ac­quain­tances the FBI had been able to iden­ti­fy, or which ones, but I knew some had been fer­ret­ed out. I grabbed my clothes, gave her all but $50 of the mon­ey and grabbed a train for Mon­tre­al.

I had $20,000 stashed in a Mon­tre­al safe-​de­posit box. It was my in­ten­tion to pick up the mon­ey and take the soon­est flight to Sao Paulo, Brazil, where I in­tend­ed to go to earth. You pick up some in­ter­est­ing in­for­ma­tion in prison, and in the ward I had learned that Brazil and the Unit­ed States had no ex­tra­di­tion treaty. Since I hadn't com­mit­ted any crimes in Brazil, I felt I would be safe there and that Brazil­ian au­thor­ities would refuse ex­tra­di­tion even if I were caught in that coun­try.

I picked up the mon­ey. I nev­er made the flight. I was wait­ing in line at the Mon­tre­al air­port to pur­chase a tick­et when some­one tapped me on the shoul­der. I turned to face a tall, mus­cu­lar man with pleas­ant fea­tures, in the uni­form of the Roy­al Cana­di­an Mount­ed Po­lice.

"Frank Abag­nale, I am Con­sta­ble James Hast­ings, and you are un­der ar­rest," said the Moun­tie with a friend­ly smile.

The next day I was driv­en to the New York-​Cana­da bor­der and hand­ed over to the U.S. Bor­der Pa­trol, who turned me over to FBI agents, who took me to New York City and lodged me in the fed­er­al de­ten­tion fa­cil­ity there.

I was ar­raigned be­fore a U.S. com­mis­sion­er who bound me over for tri­al un­der a $250,000 bond and re­mand­ed me to the de­ten­tion house pend­ing a de­ci­sion on the part of pros­ecu­tors as to where to bring me to tri­al.

Two months lat­er the U.S. at­tor­ney in the North­ern Dis­trict of Geor­gia pre­vailed, and U.S. mar­shals took me to the Ful­ton Coun­ty, Geor­gia, jail to await my tri­al.

The Ful­ton Coun­ty Jail was a pest hole, a re­al roach pit. "It's bad news, man," said an­oth­er pris­on­er I met in the day room of our crud­dy cell­block. "The on­ly de­cent fa­cil­ity in the joint is the hos­pi­tal, and you have to be dy­ing to get in there."

The on­ly de­cent fa­cil­ity in the day room was a pay tele­phone. I plopped a dime in and di­aled the desk sergeant. "This is Dr. John Pet­sky," I said in au­thor­ita­tive tones.

"You have a pa­tient of mine as a pris­on­er, one Frank Abag­nale. Mr. Abag­nale is a se­vere di­abet­ic, sub­ject to fre­quent co­mas, and I would ap­pre­ci­ate it, Sergeant, if you could con­fine him in your med­ical ward where I can vis­it him and ad­min­is­ter prop­er treat­ment."

With­in thir­ty min­utes a jail­er ap­peared to es­cort me to the hos­pi­tal ward, leav­ing the oth­er in­mates who had heard my con­ver­sa­tion grin­ning in ad­mi­ra­tion.

A week lat­er a U.S. mar­shal ap­peared, took me in­to cus­tody and trans­ferred me to the Fed­er­al De­ten­tion Cen­ter in At­lanta to await tri­al. It was from this prison that I per­pe­trat­ed what has to be one of the most hi­lar­ious es­capes in the an­nals of prison his­to­ry. At least I thought it was fun­ny, and I'm still amused by the episode, al­though there're sev­er­al oth­ers who still hold an op­po­site view.

Ac­tu­al­ly, mine wasn't so much an es­cape as it was a co­op­er­ative evic­tion, made pos­si­ble by the time and the cir­cum­stances. I was en­sconced in the de­ten­tion fa­cil­ity dur­ing a pe­ri­od when U.S. pris­ons were be­ing con­demned by civ­il rights groups, scru­ti­nized by con­gres­sion­al com­mit­tees and in­ves­ti­gat­ed by Jus­tice De­part­ment agents. Prison in­spec­tors were work­ing over­time, and un­der­cov­er, and earn­ing the en­mi­ty and hos­til­ity of prison ad­min­is­tra­tors and guards.

I was brought in­to this at­mo­sphere un­der ex­act­ly the right cir­cum­stances. The U.S. mar­shal who. de­liv­ered me to the fa­cil­ity had no com­mit­ment pa­pers for me, but did have a short tem­per.

The ad­mis­sions of­fi­cer to whom I was of­fered had a lot of ques­tions for the U.S. mar­shal. Who was I? Why was I be­ing lodged here? And why didn't the mar­shal have the prop­er pa­pers?

The mar­shal blew his cool. "He's here un­der a court or­der," he snapped. "Just put him in a damned cell and feed him un­til we come af­ter him."

The ad­mis­sions of­fi­cer re­luc­tant­ly ac­cept­ed cus­tody of me. He re­al­ly had no choice. The mar­shal had stormed out. I think I could have fol­lowed him with­out any­one's stop­ping me, in light of what I learned. "An­oth­er damned prison in­spec­tor, eh?" mur­mured the guard who es­cort­ed me to my cell.

"Not me, I'm here await­ing tri­al," I replied truth­ful­ly.

"Sure you are," he scoffed, slam­ming the cell door. "You bas­tards think you're slick, don't you? You peo­ple got two of our guys fired last month. We've learned how to spot you."

I wasn't is­sued the white cot­ton uni­form the oth­er in­mates sport­ed. I was al­lowed to keep my reg­ular cloth­ing. I not­ed, too, that the cell in which I was placed, while not posh, was ex­ceed­ing­ly liv­able. The food was good and the At­lanta pa­pers were brought to me dai­ly, usu­al­ly with a sar­cas­tic re­mark. I was nev­er called by name, but was ad­dressed as "fink," "stoolie," "007" or some oth­er de­ri­sive term meant to con­note my as­sumed sta­tus as a prison in­spec­tor. Read­ing the At­lanta pa­pers, which twice the first week con­tained sto­ries re­lat­ing to con­di­tions in fed­er­al pe­nal in­sti­tu­tions, I re­al­ized the per­son­nel of this fa­cil­ity re­al­ly did sus­pect I was an un­der­cov­er fed­er­al agent.

Had I been, they would have had no wor­ries, and I v as puz­zled as to why large num­bers of in­flu­en­tial peo­ple thought Amer­ican pris­ons were a dis­grace to the na­tion. I thought this one was great. Not quite up to the stan­dards of the Mal­mo ward, but much bet­ter than some mo­tels in which I'd stayed.

How­ev­er, if the guards here want­ed me to be a prison in­spec­tor, that's what I'd be. I con­tact­ed a still loy­al girl friend in At­lanta. The prison rules were not over­ly le­nient, but once a week we were al­lowed to use the tele­phone in pri­va­cy. I got her on the phone when it was my turn.

"Look, I know what it usu­al­ly takes to get out of here," I told her. "See what you have to do to get in, will you?"

Her name was Jean Se­bring, and she didn't have to do much to get in to see me. She mere­ly iden­ti­fied her­self as my girl friend, my fi­ancee, in fact, and she was al­lowed to vis­it me. We met across a ta­ble in one of the large vis­it­ing rooms. We were sep­arat­ed by a three-​foot-​high pane of glass per­fo­rat­ed by a wire-​mesh aper­ture through which we could talk. A guard was at ei­ther end of the room, but out of earshot. "If you want to give him some­thing, hold it up and we'll nod if it's per­mis­si­ble," one guard in­struct­ed her.

I had con­coct­ed a plan be­fore Jean ar­rived. It might prove to be mere­ly an in­tel­lec­tu­al ex­er­cise, I knew, but I thought it was worth a try. How­ev­er, I first had to per­suade Jean to help me, for out­side as­sis­tance was vi­tal to my plot. She was not dif­fi­cult to per­suade. "Sure, why not?" she agreed, smil­ing. "I think it would be fun­ny as hell if you pulled it off."

"Have you met an FBI agent named Sean O'Ri­ley or talked to him?" I asked.

She nod­ded. "In fact, he gave me one of his cards when he came around ask­ing about you," she said.

"Great!" I en­thused. "I think we're in busi­ness, ba­by."

We re­al­ly were. That week, Jean, pos­ing as a free-​lance mag­azine writ­er, called at the U.S. Bu­reau of Pris­ons in Wash­ing­ton, D.C., and fi­na­gled an in­ter­view with In­spec­tor C. W. Dun­lap, pur­port­ed­ly on fire safe­ty mea­sures in fed­er­al de­ten­tion cen­ters. She pulled it off beau­ti­ful­ly, but then Jean is not on­ly tal­ent­ed, she is al­so chic, so­phis­ti­cat­ed and love­ly, a wom­an to whom any man would read­ily talk.

She turned at the door as she left. "Oh, may I have one of your cards, In­spec­tor, in case some oth­er ques­tion comes to mind and I have to call you?" she asked.

Dun­lap prompt­ly hand­ed over his card.

She laugh­ing­ly de­tailed her suc­cess dur­ing her next vis­it, in the course of which she held up Dun­lap's card, and when the one guard nod­ded, she passed it over the bar­ri­er to me.

Her vis­its on­ly bol­stered the guards' be­lief that I was a Bu­reau of Pris­ons prober. "Who is she, your sec­re­tary, or is she a prison in­spec­tor, too?" one guard asked me as he re­turned me to my cell.

"That's the girl I'm go­ing to mar­ry," I replied cheer­ful­ly.

Jean vis­it­ed a sta­tionery print shop that week. "My fa­ther just moved in­to a new apart­ment and has a new tele­phone num­ber," she told the print­er. "I want to present him with five hun­dred new per­son­al cards as a house-​warm­ing gift. I want them to look ex­act­ly like this, but with his new home tele­phone num­ber and his new of­fice num­ber in­sert­ed." She gave the print­er O'Ri­ley's card.

O'Ri­ley's new tele­phone num­bers were the num­bers of side-​by-​side pay tele­phones in an At­lanta shop­ping mall.

The print­er had Jean's or­der ready in three days. She passed me one of the cards on her next vis­it, and we fi­nal­ized our plans. Jean said she'd en­list­ed the aid of a male friend just in case. "I didn't fill him in on any­thing, of course; I just told him we were pulling a prac­ti­cal joke," she said.

"Okay, we'll try it to­mor­row night," I said. "Let's hope no one wants to use those phones around 9 p.m."

Short­ly be­fore 9 p.m. the fol­low­ing day, I hailed the cell­block guard, whom I had cul­ti­vat­ed in­to a friend­ly ad­ver­sary. "Lis­ten, Rick, some­thing's come up and I need to see the lieu­tenant on du­ty. You were right about me. I am a prison in­spec­tor. Here's my card." I hand­ed him Dun­lap's card, which bore on­ly his Wash­ing­ton of­fice num­ber. If any­one de­cid­ed to call the Bu­reau of Pris­ons, they'd be told the of­fices were closed.

Rick scanned the card and laughed. "By God, we knew we were right about you," he chor­tled. "Combs is gonna like this. Come on." He opened the cell door and led me to Lieu­tenant Combs' of­fice.

The lieu­tenant was equal­ly pleased to learn, as he al­so had sus­pect­ed, that I was a prison in­spec­tor. "We had you fig­ured all along," he growled ami­ably, toss­ing Dun­lap's card on his desk af­ter look­ing at it.

I grinned. "Well, it would have all come out Tues­day any­way," I said. "And I'll tell you now that you peo­ple don't have any­thing to wor­ry about. You're now run­ning a clean, tight ship, the kind the bu­reau likes to brag about. You'll like my re­port."

A pleased look be­gan to spread across Combs' face and I plunged ahead with my gam­ble. "But right now I've got some ur­gent busi­ness to take care of," I said. "I need to get hold of this FBI agent. Can you get him on the horn for me? He'll still be at his of­fice, I'm sure." I hand­ed over the doc­tored card bear­ing O'Ri­ley's name, his po­si­tion with the FBI and the two pho­ny tele­phone num­bers.

Combs didn't hes­itate. He picked up his tele­phone and di­aled the "of­fice" num­ber. "I've read about this guy O'Ri­ley," he re­marked as he di­aled. "He's sup­posed to be hell on wheels for nab­bing bank rob­bers."

The "of­fice" phone start­ed ring­ing. Jean an­swered on the sec­ond ring. "Good evening, Fed­er­al Bu­reau of In­ves­ti­ga­tion. May I help you?"

"Yes, is In­spec­tor O'Ri­ley in?" Combs said. "This is Combs at the de­ten­tion cen­ter. We've got a man here who wants to talk to him."

He didn't even wait for "O'Ri­ley" to an­swer. He just passed the phone to me. "She said she'll get him for you," Combs told me.

I wait­ed an ap­pro­pri­ate few sec­onds and then launched in­to my act. "Yes, In­spec­tor O'Ri­ley? My name is Dun­lap, C. W. Dun­lap, with the Bu­reau of Pris­ons. If you've got your list handy, my au­tho­rized code num­ber is 16295-A. . . . Yes, that's right. . . . I'm here now, but I've told these peo­ple who I am. ... I had to. ... Yes. . . .

"Lis­ten, In­spec­tor O'Ri­ley, I've come up with some in­for­ma­tion on that Philly case you're work­ing, and I need to get it to you tonight. . . . No, sir, I can't give it to you over the tele­phone . . . it's too sen­si­tive ... I have to see you, and I have to see you with­in the hour. . . . Time is im­por­tant. . . . Oh, you are. ... Well, look these guys won't blow your cov­er. . . . No, it'll on­ly take ten min­utes.

. . . Wait a minute, let me talk to the lieu­tenant, I'm sure he'll go along."

I cov­ered the mouth­piece of the tele­phone and looked at Combs. "Boy, these J. Edgar Hoovers are re­al­ly way out. He's work­ing un­der­cov­er on some­thing and doesn't want to come in­side . . . some kind of Mus­tache Pe­te job or some­thing," I told Combs. "If he parks out front, can I go out and talk to him in his car for about ten min­utes?"

Combs gri­maced. "Hell, why don't you call your peo­ple and spring your­self right now?" he asked. "You ain't need­ed here any­more, are you?"

"No," I said. "But we have to do these things by the book. A U.S. mar­shal will come for me Tues­day. That's the way my boss want­ed it done, and that's the way it'll be done. And I'd ap­pre­ci­ate it if you peo­ple wouldn't let on that I blew my own cov­er. But I had to. This is too big."

Combs shrugged. "Sure, we'll let you meet O'Ri­ley. Hell, spend an hour with him, if you like."

I went back to the tele­phone. "O'Ri­ley, it's okay. . . . Yeah, out front.... a red-​over-​white Buick. . . . Got it. ... No, no prob­lem. These guys are okay. I re­al­ly don't know why you're be­ing so damned cau­tious. They're on our team, too, you know."

Rick brought me a cup of cof­fee and stood by the win­dow while I sipped the brew and chat­ted with Combs. "Here's your Buick," Rick said fif­teen min­utes lat­er. Combs rose and picked up a large ring of keys. "Come on," he said. "I'll let you out my­self."

There was an el­eva­tor, used by guards on­ly, be­hind his of­fice. We rode it down and he es­cort­ed me past the guard in the small foy­er and un­locked the barred doors. I walked through as the guard looked on cu­ri­ous­ly but with­out com­ment, and strolled down the walk­way lead­ing to the curb and the parked car. Jean was be­hind the wheel, her hair hid­den un­der a man's broad-​brimmed hat and wear­ing a man's coat.

She gig­gled as I climbed in be­side her. "Hot dog! We did it!" she gur­gled.

I smiled. "See how fast you can get the hell away from here," I said, grin­ning from sheer ju­bi­la­tion.

She peeled out of there like a drag rac­er, burn­ing rub­ber and leav­ing tire marks on the pave­ment as a me­men­to. Away from the cen­ter, she slowed to avoid at­tract­ing the at­ten­tion of any cruis­ing ra­dio pa­trol­man, and then drove a me­an­der­ing course through At­lanta to the bus sta­tion. I kissed her good-​bye there and took a Grey­hound to New York. Jean went home, packed and moved to Mon­tana. If she was ev­er con­nect­ed with the ca­per, no one was in­clined to press charges.

It was a very em­bar­rass­ing sit­ua­tion for the prison of­fi­cials. It is a mat­ter of record in FBI files that Combs and Rick sought to cov­er them­selves, when they re­al­ized they'd been had, by re­port­ing I had forcibly es­caped cus­tody. How­ev­er, the truth, as the sage ob­served, soon out­ed.

I knew I would be the sub­ject of an in­tense man­hunt, and I re­solved again to flee to Brazil, but I knew I would have to wait un­til the hunt for me cooled. For the next few days, I was cer­tain, all points of de­par­ture from the Unit­ed States would be un­der surveil­lance.

My es­cape made the front page of one New York pa­per. "Frank Abag­nale, known to po­lice the world over as the Sky­way­man and who once flushed him­self down an air­line toi­let to elude of­fi­cers, is at large again . . ." the sto­ry com­menced.

I didn't have a stash of mon­ey in New York, but Jean had loaned me enough to live on un­til the hunt for me died down. I holed up in Queens and, two weeks lat­er, took the train to Wash­ing­ton, D.C., where I rent­ed a car and checked in­to a mo­tel on the out­skirts of the cap­ital.

I went to Wash­ing­ton be­cause I had sev­er­al caches in banks across the Po­tomac in Vir­ginia, and Wash­ing­ton seemed to of­fer a safe haven, with its huge and het­ero­ge­neous pop­ula­tion. I didn't think I'd at­tract any at­ten­tion there at all.

I was wrong. An hour af­ter I checked in­to my room, I hap­pened to glance out the win­dow through a part in the drapes and saw sev­er­al po­lice of­fi­cers scur­ry­ing to take up po­si­tions around this sec­tion of the mo­tel. I learned that the reg­is­tra­tion clerk, a for­mer air­line stew­ardess, had rec­og­nized me im­me­di­ate­ly and had tele­phoned the po­lice af­ter an hour of fret­ting and won­der­ing whether she should get in­volved.

On­ly one thing weighed in my fa­vor, and I didn't know it at the mo­ment. O'Ri­ley, on be­ing in­formed that I was cor­nered, had told the of­fi­cers not to move in on me un­til he ar­rived to take charge. O'Ri­ley, whom I had met briefly af­ter my ar­raign­ment, want­ed this col­lar him­self.

But at the mo­ment I was on the verge of pan­ic. It was late at night, but both the front and back of this sec­tion of rooms was well light­ed. I didn't think I could make it to the safe­ty of the dark­ness be­yond the light­ed park­ing ar­eas.

I knew, though, that I had to try. I slipped on my coat and fled out the back door, but held my­self to a walk as I head­ed for the cor­ner of the build­ing. I had tak­en on­ly a few steps, how­ev­er, when two of­fi­cers round­ed the cor­ner of the build­ing. Both point­ed pis­tols at me.

"Freeze, mis­ter, po­lice!" one barked in a com­mand right out of a tele­vi­sion po­lice dra­ma.

I didn't freeze. I kept walk­ing, right at the muz­zles of their guns, whip­ping out my bill­fold as I walked. "Davis, FBI," I said, sur­prised at my own cool­ness and the firm­ness of my voice.

"Is O'Ri­ley here yet?"

The pis­tols were low­ered. "I don't know, sir," said the one. "If he is, he's around front."

"All right," I said crisply. "You peo­ple keep this area cov­ered. I'll check and see if O'Ri­ley is here yet."

They stood aside as I passed them I didn't look back. I walked on in­to the dark­ness be­yond the park­ing lot.

Epi­logue

Not even the wil­iest fox can elude the pack con­sis­tent­ly, not if the hounds are per­sis­tent, and where Frank Abag­nale was con­cerned the hounds of the law were not on­ly per­sis­tent, they were ex­ceed­ing­ly an­gry. In­sult one po­lice­man and you have in­sult­ed all po­lice­men. Em­bar­rass the Roy­al Cana­di­an Mount­ed Po­lice and you have em­bar­rassed Scot­land Yard. Hu­mil­iate a traf­fic cop in Mi­ami and you have hu­mil­iat­ed the Cal­ifor­nia High­way Pa­trol. Frank Abag­nale, for years, had in­sult­ed, em­bar­rassed and hu­mil­iat­ed po­lice ev­ery­where with reg­ular­ity and mad­den­ing in­sou­ciance. And so po­lice ev­ery­where sought him day and night, with­out respite, and as much to vin­di­cate them­selves as to serve jus­tice.

Less than a month af­ter Abag­nale evad­ed cap­ture in Wash­ing­ton, D.C., two New York City de­tec­tives, munch­ing hot dogs in their parked squad car, spot­ted him as he walked past the un­marked ve­hi­cle and ac­cost­ed him. Al­though he de­nied his iden­ti­ty, with­in two hours Abag­nale had been pos­itive­ly iden­ti­fied and was giv­en in­to cus­tody of FBI agents.

With­in weeks, Abag­nale was in­un­dat­ed with state and fed­er­al com­plaints charg­ing forgery, pass­ing worth­less checks, swin­dling, us­ing the mails to de­fraud, coun­ter­feit­ing and sim­ilar of­fens­es, lev­eled by au­thor­ities in all fifty states. Var­ious U.S. at­tor­neys and state pros­ecu­tors vied for ju­ris­dic­tion, each claim­ing to have the most dam­ag­ing case or cas­es against the pris­on­er. All the liens against Abag­nale had va­lid­ity. Al­though the clev­er­ness and in­tel­li­gence Abag­nale had ex­hib­it­ed in the course of his crim­inal ca­reer was undis­put­ed, he had been more bold than de­cep­tive, more overt than dis­creet. A mul­ti­tude of wit­ness­es was avail­able to iden­ti­fy Abag­nale in one or the oth­er of his roles, to ac­cuse him in one or the oth­er of his trans­gres­sions. Had all the charges against Abag­nale been tossed in­to the air and one caught at ran­dom, the ev­idence in that case would have been over­whelm­ing.

Abag­nale was not un­aware of his predica­ment and the knowl­edge caused him un­due men­tal an­guish. He knew he was go­ing to serve time in some state or fed­er­al prison, per­haps sev­er­al terms in sev­er­al dif­fer­ent pris­ons. He could not ex­pect any Amer­ican prison to be as hu­mane as Mal­mo Prison. His great fear was that he might be in­car­cer­at­ed in an Amer­ican ver­sion of Per­pig­nan's House of Ar­rest. His trep­ida­tions were not al­layed when an ar­bi­trary de­ci­sion was made by fed­er­al au­thor­ities to bring him to tri­al in At­lanta, Geor­gia. More than in any oth­er U.S. city where of­fi­cials had cause to dis­like him, Abag­nale felt he was least pop­ular in At­lanta.

How­ev­er, he was rep­re­sent­ed by able coun­sel, and his lawyer struck a bar­gain with the Unit­ed States At­tor­ney that Abag­nale ea­ger­ly en­dorsed.

In April 1971, Frank Abag­nale ap­peared be­fore a fed­er­al judge and plead­ed guilty un­der Rule 20 of the Unit­ed States Pe­nal Code, a plea that en­com­passed "all crimes, known and un­known," that Abag­nale had com­mit­ted in the con­ti­nen­tal Unit­ed States, whether a vi­ola­tion of state or fed­er­al statutes. The pre­sid­ing judge en­tered an or­der of nolle pros­equi (no pros­ecu­tion) in all but eight of the hun­dreds of charges pend­ing against Abag­nale, and sen­tenced Abag­nale to ten years on each of sev­en counts of fraud, the terms to run con­cur­rent­ly, and to two years on one count of es­cape, the term to be served con­sec­utive­ly.

Abag­nale was or­dered to serve his twelve years in the Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al In­sti­tu­tion in Pe­ters­burg, Vir­ginia, where he was tak­en that same month. He served four years of his term, work­ing as a clerk in one of the prison in­dus­tries dur­ing those years at a "salary" of 20¢ per hour. Three times dur­ing that pe­ri­od, Abag­nale ap­plied for pa­role and each time was re­ject­ed. "If we do con­sid­er you for pa­role in the fu­ture, to what city would you like to be paroled?" Abag­nale was asked at one point dur­ing his third ap­pear­ance.

"I don't know," Abag­nale con­fessed. "I would not like it to be New York, since I feel that would be an un­healthy en­vi­ron­ment for me, con­sid­er­ing past events and cir­cum­stances. I would leave it to the pa­role au­thor­ities' dis­cre­tion as to where I should be paroled."

Short­ly there­after, and for rea­sons Abag­nale has nev­er at­tempt­ed to fath­om, he was paroled to Hous­ton, Texas, with or­ders to re­port to a U.S. pa­role of­fi­cer there with­in sev­en­ty-​two hours of his ar­rival and, if pos­si­ble, to find gain­ful em­ploy­ment with­in the same pe­ri­od of time.

Frank Abag­nale quick­ly learned, as do most freed pris­on­ers, that there is a post-​prison penal­ty so­ci­ety in­flicts up­on its con­victs. For some, this penal­ty is sim­ply a so­cial stig­ma, but for the ma­jor­ity such post-​prison pun­ish­ment com­pris­es much more than just slurs and slights. The ex-​con­vict seek­ing em­ploy­ment in­vari­ably finds his quest much more dif­fi­cult than does the hard-​core un­em­ployed, even though he may pos­sess a need­ed or want­ed skill (of­ten ac­quired in prison). The em­ployed ex-​con­vict is the first to lose his job dur­ing eco­nom­ic down­turns ne­ces­si­tat­ing work­er lay­offs. Too of­ten, the very fact that he is an ex-​con­vict is suf­fi­cient rea­son for fir­ing.

Abag­nale's post-​re­lease prob­lems were com­pound­ed by the fact that the bu­reau­crat se­lect­ed to su­per­vise his pa­role was hos­tile and an­tipa­thet­ic. The pa­role of­fi­cer blunt­ly ap­prised Abag­nale of his feel­ings to­ward his ward.

"I didn't want you here, Abag­nale," the hard-​nosed of­fi­cial told him. "You were forced on me. I don't like con men, and I want you to know that be­fore we even start our re­la­tion­ship. ... I don't think you'll last a month be­fore you're head­ed back to the joint. What­ev­er, you had bet­ter un­der­stand this. Don't make a wrong move with me. I want to see you ev­ery week, and when you get a job, I'll be out to see you reg­ular­ly. Mess up, and I'm sure you will, and I'll per­son­al­ly es­cort you back to prison."

Abag­nale's first job was as a wait­er, cook and man­age­ri­al trainee in a piz­za par­lor op­er­at­ed by a fast-​food chain. He did not in­form his em­ploy­er that he was an ex-​con­vict when he ap­plied for the job be­cause he wasn't asked. The job was col­or­less, un­ex­cit­ing, and made even less ap­peal­ing by the pe­ri­od­ic vis­its of Abag­nale's dour pa­role of­fi­cer.

Al­though he was an ex­em­plary work­er, and one of­ten en­trust­ed with the bank­ing of the firm's cash re­ceipts, Abag­nale was fired af­ter six months when com­pa­ny of­fi­cials, check­ing more close­ly in­to his back­ground in prepa­ra­tion for nam­ing him a man­ag­er of one of the chain's shops, learned he was a fed­er­al prison parolee. Abag­nale with­in a week found em­ploy­ment as a gro­cery stock­er with a su­per­mar­ket chain, but again ne­glect­ed to tell his em­ploy­er that he was an ex-​con­vict. Af­ter nine months, Abag­nale was pro­mot­ed to night man­ag­er of one of the firm's stores and top man­age­ment of­fi­cials be­gan to pay per­son­al at­ten­tion to the well-​groomed, hand­some and per­son­able young man who seemed so zeal­ous­ly ded­icat­ed to com­pa­ny af­fairs. Ob­vi­ous­ly he was an ex­ec­utive prospect, and the firm's di­rec­tors com­menced to pre­pare him as such. Abag­nale's groom­ing as a gro­cery gu­ru, how­ev­er, abrupt­ly end­ed when a se­cu­ri­ty check dis­closed his blight­ed past and he again was giv­en the boot.

In en­su­ing months, the dis­cour­ag­ing pro­ce­dure be­came repet­itive­ly fa­mil­iar to Abag­nale, and he be­gan to con­tem­plate a re­turn to his for­mer il­lic­it lifestyle, feel­ing now that he had a jus­ti­fi­able grudge against the es­tab­lish­ment. Abag­nale might ac­tu­al­ly have re­turned to his felo­nious ca­reer, as have so many ex-​con­victs frus­trat­ed by sim­ilar sit­ua­tions, save for two for­tu­itous cir­cum­stances. First, he was re­moved from the su­per­vi­sion of his an­tag­onis­tic pa­role of­fi­cer and placed in the hands of a more ra­tio­nal, un­bi­ased stew­ard. And sec­ond, Abag­nale short­ly there­after took a lengthy and in­tro­spec­tive look at him­self, his sit­ua­tion and what the fu­ture might or might not hold for him.

"I was work­ing as a movie pro­jec­tion­ist at the time," Abag­nale re­calls to­day. "I was mak­ing good mon­ey, but there I was, five nights a week, sit­ting in this small room, with noth­ing to do, re­al­ly, save to watch the same movie over and over again. I thought to my­self that I was smarter than that, that I was ig­nor­ing and wast­ing re­al tal­ents that I pos­sessed."

Abag­nale sought out his pa­role of­fi­cer and broached a plan he had for­mu­lat­ed in the lone­ly pro­jec­tion booth. "I think I have as much knowl­edge as any man alive con­cern­ing the me­chan­ics of forgery, check swin­dling, coun­ter­feit­ing and sim­ilar crimes," Abag­nale told the of­fi­cer. "I have of­ten felt since I was re­leased from prison that if I di­rect­ed this knowl­edge in­to the right chan­nels, I think I could help cer­tain peo­ple a great deal. For in­stance, ev­ery time I go to the store and write a check, I see two or three mis­takes made on the part of the clerk or cashier, mis­takes that a bum check artist would take ad­van­tage of. I have con­clud­ed that it is sim­ply a lack of train­ing, and I know I can teach peo­ple who han­dle checks or cash vouch­ers how to pro­tect them­selves against fraud and theft."

With the bless­ings of his pa­role of­fi­cer, Abag­nale ap­proached a sub­ur­ban bank di­rec­tor, out­lined what he had in mind and de­tailed his back­ground as a mas­ter bilk­er of banks. "At the mo­ment I have no slide pre­sen­ta­tions or any­thing," said Abag­nale. "But I'd like to give a lec­ture to your em­ploy­ees for one hour af­ter clos­ing. If you think my lec­ture is worth­less, you owe me noth­ing. If you think it is ben­efi­cial, you pay me $50 and make a cou­ple of calls to friends you have in oth­er banks to tell them what you think about my talk and what I'm do­ing."

His first ap­pear­ance as a "white-​col­lar crime spe­cial­ist" led to an­oth­er ap­pear­ance at a dif­fer­ent bank, and then to an­oth­er and yet an­oth­er. With­in months Abag­nale was in widespread de­mand by banks, ho­tels, air­lines and oth­er busi­ness­es.

To­day, three years lat­er, Frank Abag­nale is one of the na­tion's most pop­ular crime au­thor­ities, with of­fices in both Hous­ton and Den­ver, a high­ly-​trained staff, and gross rev­enues ap­proach­ing $3 mil­lion. He still leads a life on the fly, con­stant­ly criss-​cross­ing the na­tion to present sem­inars, give lec­tures or to ap­pear on var­ious tele­vi­sion pan­els. Frank Abag­nale leads a very sat­is­fy­ing life.

More im­por­tant­ly, he now re­al­izes why he first em­barked on a crim­inal voy­age and why he is not now adrift on that dis­mal cruise.

"If I did not do what I do to­day-if I had stayed a piz­za cook, a gro­cery ex­ec­utive or a movie pro­jec­tion­ist-I might very well be back in prison to­day," Abag­nale mus­es. "Why? Be­cause there's no glam­our, no ex­cite­ment, no ad­ven­ture and noth­ing to ful­fill my ego in those vo­ca­tions.

"What I do to­day, on the oth­er hand, ful­fills all my needs. I get up in front of thou­sands of peo­ple, and I know they're lis­ten­ing to what I say. That's an ego trip. I ap­pear on dozens of tele­vi­sion pro­grams an­nu­al­ly. To me, that's a glam­orous life. It's an ad­ven­ture­some life, be­cause I'm con­stant­ly be­ing chal­lenged by white col­lar crim­inals who come up with new gim­micks to de­fraud clients-and I know they're out to put me down as much as they are to make a bun­dle.

"Ac­tu­al­ly, I haven't changed. All the needs that made me a crim­inal are still there. I have sim­ply found a le­gal and so­cial­ly ac­cept­able way to ful­fill those needs. I'm still a con artist. I'm just putting down a pos­itive con these days, as op­posed to the neg­ative con I used in the past. I have sim­ply redi­rect­ed the tal­ents I've al­ways pos­sessed. To­day, if I walked in­to a crowd­ed room and want­ed to im­press the peo­ple there­in, I could im­press them more by say­ing, 'I'm Frank Abag­nale, the im­pos­tor,' than if I were to be the old Frank Abag­nale, pos­ing as a pi­lot, a doc­tor or what­ev­er."

Frank Abag­nale, in re­al­ity, is still a bum­ble­bee per­son­al­ity, fly­ing where he isn't sup­posed to fly at all, and mak­ing a pot of hon­ey on the side.