indignant attitude. “In the meantime, what do you do? Put me in jail? If you intend to do that, I have a right to call a lawyer. And I intend…”
He cut me off with a raised hand, palm outward. “Look, Mr. Williams, I know what the situation is, if you’re for real, and I have no reason to believe you are not. Listen, do you have any local superiors we can contact?”
I shook my head. “No, I’m based in L.A. I just deadheaded in here to see a girl, and I was going to deadhead back to the Coast Monday. I know a lot of pilots here, but they’re with other airlines. I know several stewardesses, too, but again they’re with other carriers.”
“May I see your credentials, please?”
I handed over the ID card and FAA license. He inspected the two documents and returned them with a nod. “Tell you what, Mr. Williams,” he offered. “Why don’t you give me the names of a couple of pilots you know here, and the names of some of the stewardesses, too, who can verify your status. I don’t know what this is about, but it’s obviously a federal situation and I’d like to resolve it.”
I fished out my book of facts and names and gave him the names and telephone numbers of several pilots and stewardesses, hoping all the while some of them were home and remembered me fondly. And as an actual pilot.
I really was a “hot” pilot at the moment, I thought wryly while awaiting the FBI agent’s return, but so far I’d been incredibly lucky concerning the situation. Obviously, the FAA tower operator in New Orleans had questioned my status and had made an effort to pursue his doubts. What had aroused his suspicions? I didn’t have the answer and I wasn’t going to seek one. The sheriffs office had committed a faux pas in bobbling the source of the inquiry, and the FBI agent was apparently compounding the error by ignoring the FAA as a source of information. That puzzled me, too, but I wasn’t going to raise the question. If a check with the FAA did occur to him, I would really be in the grease.
I spent an anxious forty-five minutes in the room alone and then the agent popped through the door. He was smiling. “Mr. Williams, you’re free to go. I have confirmation from several persons as to your status, and I apologize for the inconvenience and embarrassment I know we’ve caused you. I’m really sorry, sir.”
A Dade County sheriff’s sergeant was behind him. “I want to add our apologies, too, Mr. Williams. It wasn’t our fault. Just a damned mix-up. It was an FAA complaint from New Orleans. They asked us to pick you up when you got off the plane and, well, we didn’t know where to go from there, so I contacted the local FBI and, well, I’m just sorry as hell about it, sir.”
I didn’t want the FBI agent to pick up on the FAA bit. The sergeant had obviously corrected his department’s error. I spread my hands in a peace gesture and smiled. “Hey, don’t worry about it. I understand, and I’m glad you guys are doing your job. I wouldn’t want anyone flying around masquerading as a pilot, either.”
“We appreciate your being so nice about it, Mr. Williams,” said the sergeant. “Oh, your bag is over there by my desk.”
Obviously it hadn’t been searched. There was more than $7,000 in currency stashed in the bottom, among my underwear. “I gotta go, gentlemen,” I said, shaking hands with each of them. “I’ve got a girl waiting, and if she doesn’t believe this wild tale, I may be calling one of you.”
The FBI agent grinned and handed me his card. “Call me,” he said. “Especially if she has a beautiful friend.”
I split like a jack rabbit. Outside, I hailed a cab and had the driver take me to the bus station. “The company’s on an economy kick,” I said as I paid him off. A smile replaced the quizzical expression on his face.
I went into the bus station rest room and changed out of my uniform, grabbed another cab and went straight to the airport. The earliest flight leaving Miami, departing within thirty minutes, was a Delta hop to Atlanta. I bought a one-way ticket on the flight under the name Tom Lom-bardi and paid cash for it. But I didn’t totally relax until we were at cruising altitude and flying west. Once, during the short flight, I thought about the young FBI agent and hoped his boss didn’t find out how the kid had goofed. The agent didn’tseem the type who’d enjoy a tour of duty in Tucumcari, New Mexico, or Nogales, Arizona.
There was a girl in Atlanta, an Eastern stewardess. In any city, there was always a girl. I told this one I was on a six-month holiday, accumulated leave and sick time. “I thought I’d spend a couple months in Atlanta,” I said.
“Make that one month, Frank,” she said. “I’m being transferred to New Orleans in thirty days. But you can put up here until then.”
It was a very pleasant and relaxing month, at the end of which I rented a truck and moved her to New Orleans. She wanted me to stay with her there for the remainder of my “vacation,” but I didn’t feel comfortable in New Orleans. My instincts told me to get the hell away from the Crescent City, so I went back to Atlanta, where, for reasons I didn’t attempt to fathom, I felt hidden and secure.
The singles complex was a still-rare innovation in apartment construction at the time. One of the most elegant in the nation was River Bend, located on the outskirts of Atlanta. It was a sprawling, spa-like cluster of apartment units boasting a golf course, an Olympic-sized pool, saunas, tennis courts, a gymnasium, game rooms and its own club. One of its advertisements in the Atlanta
I don’t smoke. I’ve never had an urge to try tobacco. I didn’t drink at the time, and still don’t save on rare occasions. I didn’t have any quarrel with alcohol or its users. My abstinence was part of the role I was playing. When I first began masquerading as a pilot I had the impression that pilots didn’t drink to any great degree, so I abstained on the premise that it would reinforce my image as a flyer. When I learned that some pilots, like other people, get soused to the follicle pits under permissible circumstances, I’d lost all interest in drinking.
My one sensuous fault was women. I had a Cyprian lust for them. The River Bend ad had touted it as a “scintillating” place to live, and the builder was obviously a firm advocate of truth in advertising. River Bend sparkled with scintillators, most of them young, leggy, lovely, shapely and clad in revealing clothing. I instantly decided that I wanted to be one of the bulls in this Georgia peach orchard.
River Bend was both expensive and selective. I was given a lengthy application to fill out when I told the manager I wanted to lease a one-bedroom unit for one year. The form demanded more information than a prospective mother-in-law. I elected to stay Frank W. Williams since all the phony identification with which I had supplied myself was in that name. I paused at the space for occupation. I wanted to put down “airline pilot,” for I knew that the uniform would attract girls like a buck rub lures a doe. But if I did that I’d have to specify Pan Am as my employer, and that made me wary. Maybe, just maybe, someone in the manager’s office might check with Pan Am.
On impulse, nothing more, I put down “medical doctor” as my occupation. I left the spaces for relatives and references blank and, hopeful it would distract attention from the questions I’d ignored, I said I’d like to pay six months’ rent in advance. I put twenty-four $100 bills on top of the application.
The assistant manager who accepted the application, a woman, was inquisitive. “You’re a doctor?” she asked, as if doctors were as rare as whooping cranes. “What type of doctor are you?”
I thought I’d better be the kind of doctor that would never be needed around River Bend. “I’m a pediatrician,” I lied. “However, I’m not practicing right now. My practice is in California, and I’ve taken a leave of absence for one year to audit some research projects at Emory and to make some investments.”
“That’s very interesting,” she said, and then looked at the pile of $100 bills. She gathered them up briskly and dropped them into a steel cash box in the top drawer of her desk. “It’ll be nice having you with us, Dr. Williams.”
I moved in the same day. The one-bedroom pad wasn’t overly large, but it was elegantly furnished, and there was ample room for the action I had in mind.
Life at River Bend was fascinating, delightful and satisfying, if sometimes frenetic. There was a party in someone’s pad almost every night, and side action all over the place. I was generally invited to be a part of the scene, whatever it was. The other tenants accepted me quickly, and save for casual inquiries, easily handled, made no effort to pry into my personal life or affairs. They called me “Doc,” and of course there were those few who don’t differentiate between doctors. This guy had a complaint about his foot. That one had mysterious pains in his stomach. There was a brunette who had an “odd, tight feeling” around her upper chest.
“I’m a pediatrician, a baby doctor. You want a podiatrist, a foot doctor,” I told the first man.
“I’m not licensed to practice in Georgia. I suggest you talk to your own doctor,” I told the other one.
I examined the brunette. Her brassiere was too small.
