Catch Me If You Can Page 0,65

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,