Catch Me If You Can Page 0,50
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,