Frank Abagnale - Catch Me If You Can

“I’ll cash it, if it’s not too much,” I said. “I’m sending my own check off tonight for deposit, and I can just run it through my bank. How much is it?”

I really didn’t care how much cash was involved. A real Pan Am check! I wanted it. I got it for $288.15, and stowed it carefully away. I never did cash it, although it netted me a fortune.

I liked Acapulco. It teemed with beautiful people, most of them rich, famous or on the make for something or other, sometimes all three. We stayed at a hotel frequented by airline crews, but I never felt in jeopardy. Acapulco is not a place one goes to talk shop.

I stayed on after the stewardess returned to her base in Miami. And the hotel manager became friendly with me, so friendly that I decided to sound him out on my dilemma.

He joined me at dinner one night and since he seemed in an especially affable mood, I decided to make a try then and there. “Pete, I’m in a helluva jam,” I ventured.

“The hell you are!” he exclaimed in concerned tones.

“Yeah,” I replied. “My supervisor in New York just called me. He wants me to go to London on the noon plane from Mexico City tomorrow and pick up a flight that’s being held there because the pilot is sick.”

Pete grinned. “That’s a jam? I should have your troubles.”

I shook my head. “The thing is, Pete, I don’t have my passport with me. I left it in New York and I’m supposed to have it with me all the time. I can’t make it back to New York in time to get my passport and get to London on schedule. And if the super learns I’m here without a passport, he’ll fire me. What the hell am I gonna do, Pete?”

He whistled. “Yeah, you are in a jam, aren’t you?” His features took on a musing look, and then he nodded. “I don’t know that this will work, but have you ever heard of a woman named Kitty Corbett?”

I hadn’t and said so. “Well, she’s a writer on Mexican affairs, an old dame. She’s been down here twenty or thirty years and is real respected. They say she has clout from the Presidential Palace in Mexico City to Washington, D.C., the White House even, I understand. I believe it, too.” He grinned. “The thing is, that’s her at the table by the window. Now, I know she plays mamma to every down-and-out American who puts a con on her, and she loves to do favors for anybody who seeks her out wanting something. Makes her feel like the queen mother, I guess. Anyway, let’s go over and buy her a drink, put some sweet lines on her and cry a little. Maybe she can come up with an answer.”

Kitty Corbett was a gracious old woman. And sharp. After a few minutes, she smiled at Pete. “Okay, innkeeper, what’s up? You never sit down with me unless you want something. What is it this time?”

Pete threw up his hands and laughed. “I don’t want a thing, honest! But Frank here has a problem. Tell her, Frank.”

I told her virtually the same story I’d put on Pete, except I went a little heavier on the melodrama. She looked at me when I finished. “You need a passport real bad, I’d say,” she commented.

“Trouble is, you’ve got one. If s just in the wrong place. You can’t have two passports, you know. Thaf s illegal.”

“I know,” I said, grimacing. “That worries me, too. But I can’t lose this job. It might be years before another airline picked me up, if at all. I was on Pan Am’s waiting list for three years.” I paused, then exclaimed, “Flying jet liners is all I ever wanted to do!”

Kitty Corbett nodded sympathetically, lost in thought.

Then she pursed her mouth. “Pete, get me a telephone over here.”

Pete signaled and a waiter brought a telephone to the table and plugged it into a nearby wall jack. Kitty Corbett picked it up, jiggled the hook and then began talking to the operator in Spanish. It required several minutes, but she was put through to whomever she was calling.

“Sonja? Kitty Corbett here,” she said. “Listen, I’ve got a favor to ask…” She went on and detailed my predicament and then listened as the party on the other end replied.

“I know all that, Sonja,” she said. “And I’ve got it figured out. Just issue him a temporary passport, just as you would if his had been lost or stolen. Hell, when he gets back to New York he can tear up the temporary passport, or tear up the old one and get a new one.”

She listened again for a minute, then held her hand over the receiver and looked at me. “You don’t happen to have your birth certificate with you, do you?”

“Yes, I do,” I said. “I carry it in my wallet. It’s a little worn, but still legible.”

Kitty Corbett nodded and turned again to the phone. “Yes, Sonja, he has a birth certificate… You think you can handle it? Great! You’re a love and I owe you. See you next week.”

She hung up and smiled. “Well, Frank, if you can get to the American Consulate in Mexico City by ten o’clock tomorrow, Sonja Gundersen, the assistant consul, will issue you a temporary passport. You’ve lost yours, understand? And if you tell anyone about this, I’ll kill you.”

I kissed her and ordered a bottle of the best champagne. I even had a glass myself. Then I called the airport and found there was a flight leaving in an hour. I made a reservation and turned to Pete. “Listen, I’m going to leave a lot of my stuff here. I don’t have time to pack. Have someone pack what I leave and store it in your office, and I’ll pick it up in a couple of weeks, maybe sooner. I’m going to try and come back through here.”

I stuffed one suitcase with my uniform and one suit, and my money. Pete had a cab waiting when I went down to the lobby. I really liked the guy, and I wished there were some way to thank him.

I thought of a way. I laid one of my phony Pan Am checks on him. On the hotel he managed, anyway.

I cashed another one at the airport before boarding the flight to Mexico City. In Mexico City, I stowed my bag in a locker after changing into my Pan Am pilot’s garb and walked into Miss Gundersen’s office at 9:45 a.m.

Sonja Gundersen was a crisp, starched blonde and she didn’t waste any time. “Your birth certificate, please.”

I took it from my wallet and handed it to her. She scanned it and looked at me. “I thought Kitty said your name was Frank Williams. This says your name is Frank W. Abagnale, Jr.”

I smiled. “It is. Frank William Abagnale, Jr. You know Kitty. She had a little too much champagne last night. She kept introducing me to all her friends as Frank Williams, too. But I thought she gave you my full name.”

“She may have,” agreed Miss Gundersen. “I had trouble hearing a lot of what she said. These damned Mexican telephones. Anyway you’re obviously a Pan Am pilot, and part of your name is Frank William, so you must be the one.”

As instructed, I had stopped and obtained two passport-sized photographs. I gave those to Miss Gundersen, and walked out of the consulate building fifteen minutes later with a temporary passport in my pocket. I went back to the airport and changed into a suit and bought a ticket for London at the British Overseas Airways counter, paying cash.

I was -told the flight was delayed. It wouldn’t depart until seven that evening.

I changed back into my pilot’s uniform and spent six hours papering Mexico City with my decorative duds. I was $6,500 richer when I flew off to London, and the Mexican federates joined the posse on my tail.

In London I checked into the Royal Gardens Hotel in Kensington, using the name F. W. Adams and representing myself as a TWA pilot on furlough. I used my alternate alias on the premise that London police would soon be receiving queries on Frank W. Abagnale, Jr., also known as Frank Williams, erstwhile Pan Am pilot.