I vomited.
It was perhaps another hour before the guard returned. This time he opened the door. “Come with me,” he ordered. I scrambled from the foul cave without hesitation, experiencing shooting pains in my neck, shoulders, arms and legs as I straightened up for the first time since my arrival. I had difficulty walking, but I waddled after the guard like a half-drunk duck, sometimes steadying myself by putting a hand against the wall.
He led me downstairs and into a sparsely furnished room.
“Stand here,” he ordered, and disappeared through an open door that led to another chamber. I turned, inspecting the room, marveling at its size and spaciousness after so long in my moldy burrow, and then stopped as I suddenly confronted the most hideous creature I had ever encountered.
It was a man. It had to be a man, but God in heaven, what manner of man was this? He was tall and emaciated, his head crowned by a dirty, unkempt thatch of hair that spilled to his waist, his face hidden by a filthy, matted beard that fell to his belly. Spittle drooled from the slash that was his mouth, and his eyes were wildly glowing coals in their sunken sockets. He was naked and his flesh was coated with filth, sores and scabs, lending it a leprous appearance. The nails of his fingers and toes were grown out, elongated and curved like the talons of a vulture. Indeed, he looked like a vulture. I shuddered as I regarded the apparition. I shuddered again as recognition loomed.
I was facing myself in a mirror.
I was still horrified at my appearance when the guard returned, clothing draped over his arm and a pair of shoes in his hand.
I recognized the apparel as mine, the clothes I was wearing when I was received in the prison. “Put these on,” said the guard brusquely, handing me the garments and dropping the shoes on the floor. “Can’t I shower and shave first, please?” I asked.
“No, put on the clothes,” he said, giving me a malevolent look. I hurriedly garbed my filthy frame in the clothes, which were now several sizes too large for me. My belt was missing. I clutched the trousers around my wasted stomach and looked at the guard. He stepped into the next room and returned with a length of cotton rope. I cinched the waist of my trousers with that.
Almost immediately two gendarmes appeared, one of them carrying an array of restraints. One of them cinched a thick leather belt with a ringbolt in the front around my waist while the other fastened heavy shackles around my ankles. I was then handcuffed and a long, slender steel chain was looped around my neck and the handcuff chain, threaded through the ringbolt and fastened with a lock to the chain connecting my leg irons. Neither officer said a word as they trussed me. One then pointed toward the door and gave me a light shove as his partner led the way through the exit.
I shuffled after him, unable to walk because of the leg irons and fearful of my destination. I had never been chained like this before. I considered such restraints only for violent, dangerous criminals.
“Where are we going, where are you taking me?” I asked, squinting in the late afternoon sunlight. It was even more brilliant than the lights inside. Neither of them bothered to answer me.
Silently, they placed me in the back seat of an unmarked sedan and one climbed behind the wheel as the other seated himself beside me.
They drove me to the railroad station. The afternoon light, even sheltered as I was in the car, made me dizzy and nauseous. The nausea was not all due to my sudden exposure to daylight after all these months, I knew. I’d been ill-feverish, vomiting, diarrhea and racked at times by chills-for the past month or so. I had not complained to the guards in Perpignan. They would have ignored me, as they had ignored all my other pleas and protests.
At the railroad station I was taken from the car and one of the gendarmes snapped one end of a light chain onto my belt. He wrapped the other end around his one hand, and, leashed like a dog, I was led and dragged through the people assembled at the depot and shoved onto the train. The conductor showed us to a glassed-in compartment containing two benches, the door of which was adorned with a sign stating the booth was reserved for the Ministry of Justice. The other passengers looked at me in horror, shock or revulsion as we passed among them, some falling back in disgust as they detected my odor. I had long since lost all olfactory sensitivity to my own feculence, but I could sympathize with them. I had to smell like a convention of outraged skunks.
The compartment was large enough to accommodate eight persons and as the train filled and all the seats were occupied, several sturdy peasants, at various times, appeared and sought permission to ride in the compartment with us. They seemed oblivious to my malodorous condition. Each time, the gendarmes waved them on with a curt refusal.
Then three vivacious, pretty American girls appeared, dressed in a minimum of silks and nylon and festooned with shopping bags laden with souvenirs and gifts, wines and foods.
They reeked delightfully of precious perfumes, and with a broad smile, one gendarme rose and gallantly seated them on the opposite bench. They immediately tried to engage the officers in conversation, curious as to who I was and what my crime had been. Obviously, ensnared in chains as I was, I was some notorious, terrible murderer, on a par at least with Jack the Ripper. They seemed more fascinated than frightened, and animatedly discussed my offensive stench. “He smells like they’ve been keeping him in a sewer,” remarked one. The others laughingly agreed.
I did not want them to know I was an American. I felt degraded and ashamed of my appearance in their presence. The gendarmes finally made the three young women understand that they neither spoke nor understood English, and the three fell to talking among themselves as the train pulled out of the station.
I did not know where we were going. I had no sense of direction at the moment and I thought it would be useless to again seek my destination from the gendarmes. I huddled miserably between the officers, ill and despondent, occasionally looking out at the passing landscape or covertly studying the girls. I gathered from their conversational comments that they were schoolteachers from the Philadelphia area and were in Europe on a vacation. They’d been to Spain, Portugal and the Pyrenees and were now journeying to some other enchanted area. Were we en route to Paris, I wondered?
As the miles passed I grew hungry, despite my feeling of sickness. The girls took cheeses and breads from their bags, canned pates and wine, and began to eat, sharing their repast with the gendarmes. One attempted to feed me a small sandwich (my hands were restrained so that I could not have eaten had I been allowed), but one gendarme grasped her wrist gently.
“No,” he said firmly.
At some point, some hours after we left Perpignan, the young women, convinced that neither I nor the gendarmes could understand English, commenced discussing the amorous adventures they’d been having on vacation, and in such intimate detail that I was astonished. They compared the physical attributes, prowess and performance of their various lovers in such vivid language that I actually felt embarrassed. I’d never heard women engage in such locker-room tales, replete with all the four-letter words and lewd comments. I concluded I still had a lot to learn about women and at the same time I speculated as to my own standing had I been a participant in their sexual Olympics. I made a mental note to try out for their games should we ever meet again.
Our destination was Paris. The gendarmes hauled me to my feet, made their farewells to the ladies and hustled me off the train. But not before I’d said my own good-bye.
As I was pulled through the door of the compartment, I twisted my head and smiled lasciviously at the three young teachers.
“Say hello to every one in Philly for me,” I said in my best Bronx voice.
The expressions on their faces buoyed my sagging ego.
I was driven to the prefecture de police jail in Paris and turned over to the prefet de police, a plump, balding man with sleek jowls and cold, remorseless eyes. Nonetheless, those eyes registered shock and disgust at my appearance, and he set about promptly remedying my image. An officer escorted me to a shower, and
after I had washed myself clean of my accumulated filth an inmate barber was summoned to snave my beard and shear my mane. I was then escorted to a cell, a small and austere little cubicle in reality, but sheer luxury compared to my previous prison accommodations. amp;‹‹•
There was a narrow iron cot with a wafer of a mattress and coarse, clean sheets, a tiny wash basin and an honest-to-john toilet. There was also a light, controlled from the outside. “You may read until nine o’clock. The light goes out then,” the guard informed me.
I didn’t have anything to read. “Look, I’m sick,” I said. “Can I see a doctor, please?”
“I will ask,” he said. He returned an hour later bearing a tray on which reposed a bowl of thin stew, a loaf of bread and a container of coffee. “No doctor,” he said. “I am sorry.” I think he meant it.
The stew had meat in it and was a veritable feast for me. In fact the meager meal was too rich for my stomach, which was unaccustomed to such hearty fare. I vomited the food within an hour after dining.
I was still unaware of my circumstances. I didn’t know whether I would be brought to trial again in Paris, whether I was to complete my term here or be handed over to some other government. All my queries were rebuffed.
I was not to stay in Paris, however. The following morning, after a breakfast of coffee, bread and cheese which I managed to keep inside me, I was taken from my cell and again shackled like a wild animal. A pair of gendarmes placed me in a windowed van, my feet secured by a chain to a bolt in the floor, and started on a route that I soon recognized. I was being driven to Orly Airport.
At the airport I was taken from the van and escorted through the terminal to the Scandanavian Airlines Service counter. My progress through the terminal attracted a maximum of attention and people even left cafes and bars to gawk at me as I shuffled along, my chains clinking and rattling.
I recognized the one clerk behind the SAS counter. She’d once cashed a phony check for me. I couldn’t now remember the amount. If she recognized me, she gave no indication of it. However, the man she’d cashed a check for had been a robust two-hundred-pounder, tanned and healthy. The chained prisoner before her now was a sick, pallid-faced skeleton of a man, stooped and hollow-eyed. In fact, after one look at me, she kept her eyes averted.
“Look, it won’t hurt for you to tell me what’s going on,” I pleaded with the gendarmes, who were scanning the human traffic in the vicinity of the ticket counter.
“We are waiting for the Swedish police,” one said in abrupt tones. “Now, shut up. Don’t speak to us again.”
He was suddenly confronted by a petite and shapely young woman with long blond hair and brilliant blue eyes, smartly dressed in a tailored blue suit over which she wore a fashionably cut trench coat. She carried a thin leather case under one arm. Behind her loomed a younger, taller Valkyrie, similarly attired, also holding an attache case tucked under an arm.
“Is this Frank Abagnale?” the smaller one asked of the gendarme on my left. He stepped in front of me, holding up his hand.
“That is none of your business,” he snapped. “At any rate, he is not allowed visitors. If this man is a friend of yours, you will not be allowed to talk to him.”
The blue eyes flashed and the small shoulders squared. “I will talk to him, Officer, and you will take those chains off him, at once!” Her tone was imperiously demanding. Then she smiled at me and the eyes were warm, the features gentle.
“You are Frank Abagnale, are you not?” she asked in perfect English. “May I call you Frank?”
CHAPTER TEN. Put Out an APB – Frank Abagnale Has Escaped!
The two gendarmes were transfixed in amazement, two grizzly bears suddenly challenged by a chipmunk. I myself stood gaping at the lovely apparition who demanded that I be released from my chains and who seemed determined to take me from my tormentors.
She extended a slender hand and placed it on my arm. “I am Inspector Jan Lundstrom of the Swedish police, the national police force,” she said, and gestured to the pretty girl behind her.
“This is my assistant, Inspector Kersten Berglund, and we are here to escort you back to Sweden, where, as I am sure you are aware, you face a criminal proceeding.”
As she talked, she extracted a small leather folder from her pocket and opened it to display to the French officers her credentials and a small gold badge.
The gendarme, perplexed, looked at his partner. The second gendarme displayed the sheaf of papers. “He is her prisoner,” he said with a shrug. “Take off the chains.”
I was unshackled. The crowd applauded, an ovation accompanied by a whistling and stamping of feet. Inspector Lundstrom drew me aside.
“I wish to make some things perfectly clear, Frank,” she said. “We do not normally use handcuffs or other restraints in Sweden. I never carry them myself. And you will not be restrained in any way during our journey. But our flight makes a stop in Denmark and my country has had to post a bond to ensure your passage through Denmark. It is a normal procedure in these cases.
“We will be on the ground only an hour in Denmark, Frank. But I have a responsibility to the French Government, to the Danish Government and to my own government to see that you are brought to Sweden in custody, that you do not escape. Now, I can assure you that you will find Swedish jails and prisons far different from French prisons. We like to think our prisoners are treated humanely.
“But let me tell you this, Frank. I am armed. Kersten is armed. We are both versed in the use of our weapons. If you try to run, if you make an attempt to escape, we will have to shoot you. And if we shoot you, Frank, we will kill you. Is that understood?”
The words were spoken calmly and without heat, much in the manner, in fact, of giving directions to a stranger, cooperative but not really friendly. She opened the large purse she carried on a shoulder strap. Bulking among its contents was a.45 semiautomatic pistol.
I looked at Inspector Berglund. She smiled angelically and patted her own purse.
“Yes, I understand,” I said. I really thought she was bluffing. Neither of my lovely captors impressed me as an Annie Oakley.
Inspector Lundstrom turned to the clerk behind the ticket counter. “We’re ready,” she said. The girl nodded and summoned another clerk, a young man, from a room behind her. He led us through an office behind the counter, through the baggage area, through operations and to the plane’s boarding stairwell.
Save for the shabby clothing I was wearing, we appeared to be just three more passengers. And from the lack of interest in my appearance, I was probably regarded as just another hippie.
We were fed on the plane before we landed in Copenhagen. It was the usual meager airline meal, but deliriously prepared, and it was the first decent meal I’d had since being committed to prison. For me, it was a delightful feast and I had to force myself to refuse my escorts’ offer of their portions.
We had a longer layover in Denmark than was expected, two hours. The two young officers promptly escorted me to one of the terminal’s restaurants and ordered a lavish lunch for the three of us, although I’m sure they couldn’t have been hungry again. I felt it was strictly an attempt to appease my still ravenous hunger, but I didn’t protest. Before we boarded the plane again, they bought me several candy bars and some English-language magazines.
Throughout the trip they treated me as if I were a friend rather than a prisoner. They insisted I call them by their given names. They conversed with me as friends, inquiring about my family, my likes, my dislikes and other general subjects. They probed only briefly into my criminal career, and then only to ask about my horrible treatment in Perpignan prison, I was surprised to learn I had served only six months in that hellhole. I had lost all track of time.
“As a foreigner, you were not eligible for parole, but the judge had discretion to reduce your term, and he did so,” said Jan. I was suddenly grateful to the stern jurist who’d sentenced me. Knowing that I had served only six months, I realized I would not have l
asted a full year in Perpignan. Few prisoners did.
The plane landed in Malmo, Sweden, thirty minutes after leaving Copenhagen. To my surprise, we disembarked in Malmo, retrieved our luggage, and Jan and Kersten led the way to a marked police car, a Swedish black-and-white, parked in the terminal lot, a uniformed officer at the wheel. He helped load our luggage-the girls’ luggage, really, since I had none-into the trunk and then drove us to the police station in the village of Klippan, a short distance from Malmo.
I was intrigued by the Klippan police station. It seemed more like a quaint old inn than a police precinct. A ruddy-faced, smiling sergeant of police greeted us, Jan and Kersten in Swedish, me in only slightly accented English. He shook my hand as if he were greeting a guest. “I have been expecting you, Mr. Abagnale. I have all your papers here.”
“Sergeant, Frank needs a doctor,” said Jan in English. “He is very ill, I’m afraid, and needs immediate attention.”
It was nearly 9 p.m, but the sergeant merely nodded. “At once, Inspector Lundstrdm,” he said, beckoning to a young uniformed officer who stood watching the scene. “Karl, please take the prisoner to his quarters.”
“Ja, min herre,” he said and grinned at me. “If you will follow me, please.” I followed him in somewhat of a daze. If this was the treatment accorded criminals in Sweden, how did they treat honest folk?
He led me down the hall to a huge oaken door, which he unlocked, opened and then stood aside for me to enter. I was stunned when I stepped inside. This was no cell, it was an apartment, a huge, spacious room with a great picture window overlooking the village, a large bed with carved head and footboard and a colorful spread, rustic furniture and a separate bathroom with both a tub and a shower. Prints of gallant scenes from Sweden ’s past decorated the walls, and tasteful drapes, drawn at the moment, afforded privacy from outside passersby.
“I hope you will be well soon, min herre,” said Karl in his accented English before closing the door.
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