O’Riley’s new telephone numbers were the numbers of side-by-side pay telephones in an Atlanta shopping mall.
The printer had Jean’s order ready in three days. She passed me one of the cards on her next visit, and we finalized our plans. Jean said she’d enlisted the aid of a male friend just in case. “I didn’t fill him in on anything, of course; I just told him we were pulling a practical joke,” she said.
“Okay, we’ll try it tomorrow night,” I said. “Let’s hope no one wants to use those phones around 9 p.m.”
Shortly before 9 p.m. the following day, I hailed the cellblock guard, whom I had cultivated into a friendly adversary. “Listen, Rick, something’s come up and I need to see the lieutenant on duty. You were right about me. I am a prison inspector. Here’s my card.” I handed him Dunlap’s card, which bore only his Washington office number. If anyone decided to call the Bureau of Prisons, they’d be told the offices were closed.
Rick scanned the card and laughed. “By God, we knew we were right about you,” he chortled. “Combs is gonna like this. Come on.” He opened the cell door and led me to Lieutenant Combs’ office.
The lieutenant was equally pleased to learn, as he also had suspected, that I was a prison inspector. “We had you figured all along,” he growled amiably, tossing Dunlap’s card on his desk after looking at it.
I grinned. “Well, it would have all come out Tuesday anyway,” I said. “And I’ll tell you now that you people don’t have anything to worry about. You’re now running a clean, tight ship, the kind the bureau likes to brag about. You’ll like my report.”
A pleased look began to spread across Combs’ face and I plunged ahead with my gamble. “But right now I’ve got some urgent business to take care of,” I said. “I need to get hold of this FBI agent. Can you get him on the horn for me? He’ll still be at his office, I’m sure.” I handed over the doctored card bearing O’Riley’s name, his position with the FBI and the two phony telephone numbers.
Combs didn’t hesitate. He picked up his telephone and dialed the “office” number. “I’ve read about this guy O’Riley,” he remarked as he dialed. “He’s supposed to be hell on wheels for nabbing bank robbers.”
The “office” phone started ringing. Jean answered on the second ring. “Good evening, Federal Bureau of Investigation. May I help you?”
“Yes, is Inspector O’Riley in?” Combs said. “This is Combs at the detention center. We’ve got a man here who wants to talk to him.”
He didn’t even wait for “O’Riley” to answer. He just passed the phone to me. “She said she’ll get him for you,” Combs told me.
I waited an appropriate few seconds and then launched into my act. “Yes, Inspector O’Riley? My name is Dunlap, C. W. Dunlap, with the Bureau of Prisons. If you’ve got your list handy, my authorized code number is 16295-A… Yes, that’s right… I’m here now, but I’ve told these people who I am… I had to… Yes…
“Listen, Inspector O’Riley, I’ve come up with some information on that Philly case you’re working, and I need to get it to you tonight… No, sir, I can’t give it to you over the telephone… it’s too sensitive… I have to see you, and I have to see you within the hour… Time is important… Oh, you are… Well, look these guys won’t blow your cover… No, it’ll only take ten minutes.
… Wait a minute, let me talk to the lieutenant, I’m sure he’ll go along.“
I covered the mouthpiece of the telephone and looked at Combs. “Boy, these J. Edgar Hoovers are really way out. He’s working undercover on something and doesn’t want to come inside… some kind of Mustache Pete job or something,” I told Combs. “If he parks out front, can I go out and talk to him in his car for about ten minutes?”
Combs grimaced. “Hell, why don’t you call your people and spring yourself right now?” he asked. “You ain’t needed here anymore, are you?”
“No,” I said. “But we have to do these things by the book. A U.S. marshal will come for me Tuesday. That’s the way my boss wanted it done, and that’s the way it’ll be done. And I’d appreciate it if you people wouldn’t let on that I blew my own cover. But I had to. This is too big.”
Combs shrugged. “Sure, we’ll let you meet O’Riley. Hell, spend an hour with him, if you like.”
I went back to the telephone. “O’Riley, it’s okay… Yeah, out front… a red-over-white Buick… Got it… No, no problem. These guys are okay. I really don’t know why you’re being so damned cautious. They’re on our team, too, you know.”
Rick brought me a cup of coffee and stood by the window while I sipped the brew and chatted with Combs. “Here’s your Buick,” Rick said fifteen minutes later. Combs rose and picked up a large ring of keys. “Come on,” he said. “I’ll let you out myself.”
There was an elevator, used by guards only, behind his office. We rode it down and he escorted me past the guard in the small foyer and unlocked the barred doors. I walked through as the guard looked on curiously but without comment, and strolled down the walkway leading to the curb and the parked car. Jean was behind the wheel, her hair hidden under a man’s broad-brimmed hat and wearing a man’s coat.
She giggled as I climbed in beside her. “Hot dog! We did it!” she gurgled.
I smiled. “See how fast you can get the hell away from here,” I said, grinning from sheer jubilation.
She peeled out of there like a drag racer, burning rubber and leaving tire marks on the pavement as a memento. Away from the center, she slowed to avoid attracting the attention of any cruising radio patrolman, and then drove a meandering course through Atlanta to the bus station. I kissed her good-bye there and took a Greyhound to New York. Jean went home, packed and moved to Montana. If she was ever connected with the caper, no one was inclined to press charges.
It was a very embarrassing situation for the prison officials. It is a matter of record in FBI files that Combs and Rick sought to cover themselves, when they realized they’d been had, by reporting I had forcibly escaped custody. However, the truth, as the sage observed, soon outed.
I knew I would be the subject of an intense manhunt, and I resolved again to flee to Brazil, but I knew I would have to wait until the hunt for me cooled. For the next few days, I was certain, all points of departure from the United States would be under surveillance.
My escape made the front page of one New York paper. “Frank Abagnale, known to police the world over as the Skywayman and who once flushed himself down an airline toilet to elude officers, is at large again…” the story commenced.
I didn’t have a stash of money in New York, but Jean had loaned me enough to live on until the hunt for me died down. I holed up in Queens and, two weeks later, took the train to Washington, D.C., where I rented a car and checked into a motel on the outskirts of the capital.
I went to Washington because I had several caches in banks across the Potomac in Virginia, and Washington seemed to offer a safe haven, with its huge and heterogeneous population. I didn’t think I’d attract any attention there at all.
I was wrong. An hour after I checked into my room, I happened to glance out the window through a part in the drapes and saw several police officers scurrying to take up positions around this section of the motel. I learned that the registration clerk, a former airline stewardess, had recognized me immediately and had telephoned the police after an hour of fretting and wondering whether she should get involved.
Only one thing weighed in my favor, and I didn’t know it at the moment. O’Riley, on being informed that I was cornered, had told the officers not to move in on me until he arrived to take charge. O’Riley, whom I had met briefly after my arraignment, wanted this collar himself.