Catch Me If You Can Page 0,67

wearily. "Get 'im out of here."

I was taken to the county jail in downtown Boston, which had all the appearances of a facility that should have long ago been condemned, and had been, and I was turned over to the booking sergeant.

"Damn me, what did he do?" he queried, looking at me.

"Just book him for vagrancy. Someone will pick him up in the morning," said the one trooper.

"Vagrant!" bellowed the sergeant. "By damn, if he's a vagrant, I hope you guys never bring in any bums."

"Just book him," grunted the one trooper, and he and his partner left.

"Empty your pockets, lad," the sergeant said gruffly, pulling a form in triplicate from a drawer. "I'll give you a receipt for your goods."

I started placing my valuables before him. "Listen, can I keep my ID card and pilot's license?" I asked. "Company regulations say I have to have them on me at all times. I'm not sure if being arrested is included, but I'd still like to keep them, if you don't mind."

The sergeant examined the card and the license and pushed them toward me. "Sure," he said kindly. "I'd say there's been some kind of mix-up here, lad. I'm glad I'm not involved."

A jailer took me upstairs and placed me in a dingy, rusty cell adjoining the drunk tank. "If you need anything, just holler," he said sympathetically.

I nodded, not replying, and slumped on the cot. I was suddenly depressed, miserable and scared. The game was over, I had to admit. The FBI would pick me up in the morning, I knew, and then it would be just one courtroom after another, I figured. I looked around the jail cell and hoped that prison cells were more tenable. Jesus, this was a rat hole. And I didn't have a prayer of getting out. But then no man has a prayer, I thought regretfully, when he worships a hustler's god.

Even a hustler's god, however, has a legion of angels. And one appeared to me now, preceded by a thin, wavering whistle, like a kid bolstering his courage in a graveyard. He hauled up in front of my cell, an apparition in a hideous, green-checked suit topped by a face that might have come out of a lobster pot, questioning lips punctuated by an odorous cigar and eyes that regarded me as a weasel might look on a mouse.

"Well, now, what the hell might you be doing in there?" he asked around the cigar.

I didn't know who he was. He didn't look like anyone who could help me. "Vagrancy," I said shortly.

"Vagrancy!" he exclaimed, examining me with his shrewd eyes. "You're a pilot with Pan Am, aren't you? How the hell can you be a vagrant? Did somebody steal all your planes?"

"Who're you?" I asked.

He fished in his pocket and thrust a card through the bars. "Aloyius James 'Bailout' Bailey, my high-flying friend," he said. "Bail bondsman par excellence. The cops bring 'em, I spring 'em. You're on their turf, now, pal. I can put you on mine. The street."

Hope didn't exactly spring eternal in my breast, but it crow-hopped.

"Well, I'll tell you the truth," I said cautiously. "There was this guy at the airport. He was getting pretty obnoxious with a girl. I racked his ass. They ran us both in for fighting. I should've stayed out of it. I'll probably lose my job when the skipper finds out I'm in jail."

He stared at me, unbelieving. "What the hell you sayin'? You ain't got nobody to bail you out? Call one of your friends, for Chris' sakes."

I shrugged. "I don't have any friends here. I flew in on a charter cargo job. I'm based in Los Angeles."

"What about the rest of your crew?" he demanded. "Call one of them."

"They went on to Istanbul," I lied. "I got time off due me. I was going to deadhead to Miami to see a chick."

"Well, goddamned! You have got your ass in a crack, haven't you?" said Aloyius James "Bailout" Bailey. Then he smiled, and his features suddenly took on the charm of a jolly leprechaun. "Well, my fighter-pilot chum, let's see if we can't get your butt out of this Boston bastille."

He disappeared and was gone for an agonizing length of time, all of ten minutes. Then he hove to in front of my cell again. "Goddamn, your bond is $5,000," he said in a surprised tone. "Sarge says you must have given the troopers a hard time. How much money you got?"

My hopes