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