SECRETS OF THE PAST
Chapter One
It was the winter of 1975.
Everything lay dormant on Third Avenue. A man snuggled closer to his wife.
Everything in the house was quiet. Silently, the snow fell on the dimly lit
houses, all the streets covered in white ice. The flower garden that had once had
flowers now had none. Everything on Third Avenue was tranquil and respectable.
There were no loud parties, and the neighbors never argued. It was the kind of
place that was peaceful and full of happiness.
Frank Abagnale awoke with a smile
on his face, remembering all the pretty women he had loved and wooed. He
remembered all his days of playing a Pan Am co-pilot, a lawyer, a supervising
resident pediatrician, and a sociology teacher. All those days were now far
behind him, and he was now leading the straight life. He had helped the FBI,
and to this day, he still was helping with security and seeing if anyone could
get away with what he had. He was loved and well-respected. Not even his wife
knew that he was a paperhanger, a fraud, a con man. Frank and his lovely wife
had met aboard a TWA flight to Paris. She was lovely. You could say it was love
at first sight.
He had asked her out during his
days of glory, and when he had left, he had vowed to himself to stay in touch.
It was not going to be like Rosalie, who had betrayed him. He would tell his
wife about his past, and hope that she wouldn't betray him like Rosalie had. He
remembered that day when he had told Rosalie. She could not believe that he was
a seventeen-year-old Pan Am pilot who was a fraud. He had taken her virginity,
and had told her many nights before that he was sorry. Even if he was going to
marry her, he wasn't going to lie to her. When he came back home on his bike,
he saw a police car in the driveway. From then on, he couldn't trust any woman.
He had made himself believe that
Angelina was different, that she wouldn't do the same thing as the other girl
had. He would tell her when the time was right. He lay back down beside lovely
Angelina. He caressed her shoulder.
"Frank?" asked
Angelina.
"Yes?" he answered.
"Did you have that dream
again?" She got up.
"The pilot dream?" He
wiped his forehead and yawned.
"Yeah. That's the one."
Angelina remembered that he had that dream almost all the time.
"Yeah, I did, Angie."
He sat up.
"Come on. Get back to sleep,
darling. We have a three o'clock board meeting with Atlantic Stationers."
She touched his shoulder.
"All right." He lay
back down and went to sleep.
Frank had always wanted his own
stationery store. He had even said it when he was papering the cities with his
funny paper. Angelina had owned a stationery store, and with Frank's help, in
the early days before he was caught, he had given her at least seventy-five
thousand dollars. He had paid with a cashier's check, and had given it to her,
no questions asked. She had vowed to pay it back, but Frank wouldn't hear of
it.
Angelina was a
twenty-one-year-old brunette. She was fine-looking, almost a model, but not
quite. She had owned her own company, something she had always wanted to do.
She had named the company F.W. Abagnale Stationers. Frank had never known this
until he had met her and asked her what she had named her company. He was
astonished at the name, and he knew that not only was she the woman for him,
but she was the right one, not because they had so much in common, but because
he had felt the vibe that they had connected.
They didn't have children yet.
They had only been married for three months. Frank had loved children all his
life. He remembered one time, when he had escaped from Carl Hanratty, the FBI
agent who had been taking him in to be arrested in New York, he had escaped by
going into the restroom and taking the service elevator, getting out of the
plane through the landing gear and running as fast as he could. He had run so
far, he didn't even know where he was at, until he ran into the backyard of a
home and saw in the window this little girl who was staring at him. He had gone
to the window to tap on it, just as she had to him. He had looked at her, so
innocent, and him as guilty as a rat. He had known by the time that he was in
Quebec that the gig was up.
When he had married Angelina, he
had used his real name, Frank William Abagnale. Angelina Rebecca Abagnale was
not aware that her husband Frank was the notorious James Bond of the Sky, also
known as the Skywayman. She had found his personality rather on the funny side.
After all, Frank did not allow a woman to be bored. Fine dining and rich hotels
were always Frank's style.
At the age of twenty-five, Frank
was still in his prime. He still had his looks, and he was still ready to play
another game, though not really restart where he had left off. He just wanted
to play one more con.
He had played so many alternate
impersonations that sometimes he was glad that he was leading the straight
life. He didn't see marriage as the usual ball and chain, but rather as an
adventure he was living, with only one woman to share all his adventures yet to
come.
His father, Frank, Sr., was now
living with his mother. They had reconciled, and they were happy when they had
learned about Frank's little white lie. They had been astonished at how well he
was able to keep up the charade, that no one knew he was a kid in disguise.
Frank's appearance had a mature look. He didn't look like a kid. He looked like
a man.
When Angelina had first seen
Frank, she had thought he was older than she was. He had laughed when she had
called him sir. He had seemed old when she called him that, but out of
politeness, he had understood.
He still kept a few of the checks
he had made from the late sixties. He kept them to remind himself not to pull a
scam ever again, but he was thick-headed. He preferred to pull just one prank,
although this time he wasn't going to move anywhere. He refused to go on the
run and play the mouse to the cat.