Catch Me If You Can Page 0,85

two weeks, a month, it makes no difference to me. However, you will not be fed and you will have no water until you decide to confess. Why don't you just tell us what we want to know right now? We know who you are. We know what you have done. You will only inconvenience yourself.

"One other thing, Abagnale. If you force us to go to a lot of trouble to get the information you could give us at this moment, I will not forget it. And you will always remember the consequences, I promise you."

I looked at Gaston and knew he meant every word he had spoken. Marcel Gaston was one tough bastard.

"I'm Frank Abagnale," I said.

I never really gave them the kind of confession they wanted. I never volunteered any details on any of the offenses I'd committed in France. But if they knew of a particular caper and outlined it for me, I'd nod and say, "That's about the way it happened, all right," or, "Yes, that was me."

Gaston made up a document, setting down a lot of my crimes, the circumstances of my arrest and my interrogation, and let me read it. "If that is essentially correct, you will help yourself by signing it," he said.

I couldn't quarrel with the instrument. He'd even included the fact that he'd slapped me. I signed it.

The affidavit also disclosed how I'd been caught. Major airlines didn't serve Montpellier, but it was visited frequently by stewardesses and other flight personnel. An Air France flight attendant, visiting relatives in Montpellier, had spotted me shopping a couple of weeks past and had recognized me. She had seen me get into my car and had jotted down the license number. On her return to Paris, she had sought out her captain and told him of her suspicions. She was positive enough about her identification that her captain called the police.

"I'm positive it's him. I dated him," she insisted.

I never learned which Air France stewardess put the finger on me. No one would tell me. I had dallied with several, over the years. I hoped it wasn't Monique, but to this day I still don't know the informant's identity. I don't think it was Monique, however. Had she seen me in Montpellier, she would have confronted me.

I was kept six days in Montpellier, during which time several lawyers appeared to offer their services. I selected a middle-aged man whose mannerisms and appearance reminded me of Armand, although he frankly stated he didn't think he could win me my freedom. "I have gone over all the police documents, and they have you dead to rights," he commented. "The best we can hope for is a light sentence."

I told him I'd settle for that.

Scarcely a week after my arrest, to my astonishment, I was removed to Perpignan and the day after my arrival there I was brought to trial in a court of assizes, made up of a judge, two assessors (prosecutors) and nine citizen jurors, all of whom would jointly decide my guilt or innocence.

It wasn't much of a trial, really, lasting less than two days. Gaston listed the charges against me and the evidence he'd gathered to support the accusations. There were ample witnesses available to appear against me.

"How does the defendant plead?" inquired the judge of my attorney.

"My client will offer no defense against these charges," replied the lawyer. "In the interest of time, we would like to sum up our position now."

He then launched into an eloquent and impassioned plea for leniency in my behalf. He cited my youth-I was still not twenty-one-and portrayed me as an unfortunate and confused young man, the product of a broken home "and still more of a delinquent than a criminal." He pointed out that a dozen other European nations where I had perpetrated similar crimes had placed formal demands for extradition, once my debt to France was paid.

"This young man will, in all probability, never see his native land for many, many years, and even when he does return home, he will return in chains and only to face prison there," argued the lawyer. "I need not point out to this court the harshness of the prison life this young man will have to endure here. I ask the court to take that into account in setting a penalty."

I was adjudged guilty. But at the time I thought jubilantly that my attorney, if he'd lost a battle, had won the war. The judge sentenced me