Catch Me If You Can Page 0,9

most $20, and at first I conducted all my check transactions in a branch of the Chase Manhattan Bank. Then I learned that stores, hotels, grocery markets and other business firms would also cash personal checks, provided the amount wasn't overly large and proper identification was presented. I found my altered driver's license was considered suitable identification, and I started dropping in at the handiest hotel or department store whenever I needed to cash a $20 or $25 check. No one asked me any questions. No one checked with the bank to see if the check was good. I'd simply present my jazzed-up driver's license with my check and the driver's license would be handed back with the cash.

It was easy. Too easy. Within a few days I knew I was overdrawn on my account and the checks I was writing were no good. However, I continued to cash a check whenever I needed money to supplement my paycheck or to finance a gourmet evening with some beautiful chick. Since my paycheck seemed always in need of a subsidy, and because New York has more beautiful chicks than a poultry farm, I was soon writing two or three bad checks daily.

I rationalized my actions. Dad would take care of the insufficient checks, I told myself. Or I'd assuage my conscience with con man's salve: if people were stupid enough to cash a check without verifying its validity, they deserved to be swindled.

I also consoled myself with the fact that I was a juvenile. Even if I were caught, it was unlikely that I'd receive any stern punishment, considering the softness of New York 's juvenile laws and the leniency of the city's juvenile judges. As a first offender, I'd probably be released to my parents. I probably wouldn't even have to make restitution.

My scruples fortified by such nebulous defenses, I quit my job and began to support myself on the proceeds of my spurious checks. I didn't keep track of the number of bum checks I passed, but my standard of living improved remarkably. So did my standard of loving.

After two months of cranking out worthless checks, however, I faced myself with some unpleasant truths. I was a crook. Nothing more, nothing less. In the parlance of the streets, I had become a professional paperhanger. That didn't bother me too much, for I was a successful paperhanger, and at the moment to be a success at anything was the most important factor in the world to me.

What did bother me were the occupational hazards involved in being a check swindler. I knew my father had reported my absence to the police. Generally, the cops don't spend a lot of time looking for a missing sixteen-year-old, unless foul play is suspected. However, my case was undoubtedly an exception, for I had provided plenty of foul play with my scores of bad checks. The police, I knew, were looking for me as a thief, not a runaway. Every merchant and businessman I'd bilked was also on the alert for me, I speculated.

In short, I was hot. I knew I could elude the cops for a while yet, but I also knew I'd eventually be caught if I stayed in New York and continued to litter cash drawers with useless chits.

The alternative was to leave New York, and the prospect frightened me. That still-remote corner of the world suddenly seemed chill and friendless. In Manhattan, despite my brash show of independence, I'd always clutched a security blanket. Mom and Dad were just a phone call or a short train ride away. I knew they'd be loyal, no matter my misdeeds. The outlook appeared decidedly gloomy if I fled to Chicago, Miami, Washington or some other distant metropolis.

I was practiced in only one art, writing fraudulent checks. I didn't even contemplate any other source of income, and to me that was a matter of prime concern. Could I flimflam merchants in another city as easily as I had swindled New Yorkers? In New York I had an actual, if valueless, checking account, and a valid, if ten years off, driver's license, which together allowed me to work my nefarious trade in a lucrative manner. Both my stack of personalized checks (the name was real, only the funds were fictional) and my tinseled driver's license would be useless in any other city. I'd have to change my name, acquire bogus identification and set up a bank account under my alias before I could operate. It