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.