Catch Me If You Can Page 0,20
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