Catch Me If You Can Page 0,90

used the tick again, although the guards continued providing it each night, in hopes, I supposed, that I would again use it and furnish them more sport.

In my fifth month in Perpignan 's House of Arrest (a fact established later) there was a tap on the outside of my cell door and then a portion of it slid open, admitting a weak, filtered light. I was astonished, for I had been unaware the door had a sliding panel, so cunningly was it contrived.

"Frank Abagnale?" asked a voice unmistakably American.

I floundered to the door and peered out. Standing on the outer side of the corridor, where he had recoiled from the stench, was a tall, skinny man with an equally bony face, in the act of putting a handkerchief over his mouth and nostrils.

"I'm Frank Abagnale," I said eagerly. "Are you an American? Are you with the FBI?"

"I'm Peter Ramsey, and I'm from the American Consulate in Marseille," replied the thin man, removing the handkerchief from his face. "How are you doing?"

I stared at him, astonished. My God, he acted like we were talking over a glass of wine in some Marseille sidewalk cafe. Words suddenly started cascading from my mouth like gravel from a sluice.

"How am I doing?" I repeated his query in near hysterical tones. "I'll tell you how I'm doing. I'm sick, I'm sore, I'm naked, I'm hungry and I'm covered with lice. I don't have a bed. I don't have a toilet. I don't have a wash basin. I'm sleeping in my own shit. I have no light, no razor, no toothbrush, no nothing. I don't know what time it is. I don't know what day it is. I don't know what month it is. I don't even know what year it is, for Christ's sake... I'm being treated like a mad dog. I'll probably go mad if I stay in here much longer. I'm dying in here. That's how I'm doing!"

I slumped against the door, exhausted from my tirade.

Ramsey's features, save for an obvious reaction to the odor emanating from my cell, did not change. He nodded impassively when I finished.

"I see," he said calmly. "Well, perhaps I should explain my visit. You see, I make the rounds of my district about twice a year, calling on Americans in this district, and I learned only recently that you were here. Now, before you get your hopes up, let me tell you now that I am powerless to assist you... I am aware of the conditions here and of the way you're being treated.

"And it's precisely because of that treatment that I can't do anything. You see, Abagnale, you're being treated exactly the same as every Frenchman who's confined here is treated. They're not doing anything to you that they're not doing to the man on either side of you, to the man in each cell in the prison, in fact. Each of them has the same accommodation as you. Each is living in the same filth. Each is eating the same food. Each is denied the privileges you're denied.

"You haven't been singled out for especially harsh treatment, Abagnale. And as long as they treat you as they treat their own, I can't do a damn thing about your predicament, not even complain.

"The minute they discriminate against you, or treat you differently because you're an American, a foreigner, then I can step in and complain. It may not do any good, but I could, then, intervene in your behalf.

"But as long as they mete out the same punishment to you as they do to their own, that's it. French prisons are French prisons. It's always been like this, to my knowledge, and it'll always be like this. They don't believe in rehabilitation. They believe in an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. In short, they believe in punishment for a convicted criminal and you're a convicted criminal. You're lucky, really. It used to be worse than this, if you can believe it. Prisoners were once beaten daily. As long as you're not being specifically abused by someone, there's nothing I can do."

His words fell on my ears like whip strokes across my back. I felt like a death sentence had been pronounced on me. Then Ramsey, with the ghost of a grin, handed me a reprieve.

"It is my understanding that you only have another thirty days or so here," he said. "You won't be freed, of course. I am told that authorities from another