© Anna-Karin 2004
Author's disclaimer: The movie Catch Me If You Can belongs to Dreamworks and Steven Spielberg, and I am not making any money writing this story.
Author's note: This follows the movie Catch Me If You Can, and not the book. The story takes place prior to agent Hanratty's visit to Frank Abagnale jr in the American prison.
FBI agent Carl Hanratty sat at his desk at the FBI office. He looked at a transparent plastic folder. Inside were a pair of fake checks. They were forgeries, that was clear, but who had made them? The smooth surface and the neatly printed numbers on the check yielded no clues. He felt as if they were laughing at him. As if they were a personal insult. He didn't take insults easily.
Had it been only a few years ago, he would have said that they were made by Frank Abagnale jr. But the master forger, a young man in his early twenties, was behind bars in a safe prison. And therefore he could not have been the one to make them. Hanratty made a mental note to check if the kid had access to a printing machine. After all, this was Frank Abagnale jr, and the FBI agent would not put anything past him. That kid was way too clever and resourceful for his own good.
With a sigh the FBI agent rose from his desk and decided to go home for the day. He looked at the clock. Nearly eight o'clock in the evening. He looked around. He was alone in the office. Everyone but him had decided to call it a day before it got too late. He wondered if he was the only one who didn't have anyone waiting for him at home. He clocked in the overtime and left the office.
For some reason he thought that there were someone walking behind him in the hallway to the elevator. But when he turned around there was no one there. Just the bright sharp lights of the lamps in the roof. So, since he was a very rational man, he shrugged and decided to forget about it.
Agent Hanratty had done what he did every evening before going to bed. He had brushed his teeth, washed his face, and changed into a pair of pajamas. Yet he could not sleep. Those fake checks kept poking at his consciousness. He could make neither head nor tail of it. He kept twisting and turning, trying to find a comfortable position, but failed at it. In the end he resigned, and decided to lie on his back and watch the roof.
"You're not a cop", said a voice.
Hanratty sat up. What had he just heard? And who had gotten into his apartment?
"You're not a cop", the voice said again.
Gathering his courage, Hanratty looked around, peering into the shadows of his bedroom. There was no one there.
"Who is it?", said Hanratty, and noted, with some embarrassment, that his own voice wavered
slightly.
"Just me", said the voice.
"Who are you? What do you want?" Hanratty said and turned his head to se where the voice came
from.
"I'm me. Only me. You know me. We have met."
Hanratty frowned. The voice was familiar. The odd flow of words, the pauses between them, tugged at something in the back of his head. He felt that he should know who that voice belonged to.
"My son is good with fakes. He knows everything there is to know about forged checks", the voice said.
Hanratty shook his head.
"What use is it to me?" he said to the shadows.
No answer came.
Hanratty woke up the next morning with a headache. He didn't feel too well, but didn't want to stay at home, so he went to the office. When he arrived to his desk, he found a tall pile of folders and binders. He knew that there would be a lot of papers to go trough. He had left that pile there when he went home the evening before. But somehow the pile had grown to twice its original size overnight. Or was it just his memory that played a prank on him?
The explanation came when one of his underlings came by.
"Good morning, sir. I've been to the archive and taken out the files on known check forgers.
They're on your desk."
'One riddle solved', thought Hanratty. "I can see that", he said, "thanks."
With a glass of aspirin in one hand, and a coffee on its way, the agent began to look through the files.
Name after name were considered and discarded. Some were in prison, others were dead and some lived in the wrong place. And the whole time he kept thinking about that voice. He was certain that he knew who it was. Suddenly a memory of an apartment came to him. A table full of papers. A letter beginning with "dear dad"...
The voice had talked about a son.
Now he thought he knew who that voice had belonged to.
Quickly he pulled out the file on Frank Abagnale jr. In the file was a picture of two men, one young and one older. The younger man was Frank Abagnale jr. The older man was his father. Both had the same smile, but the older man was taller, with a thin face and graying hair. Hanratty nodded to himself. The voice had belonged to Frank Abagnale sr. He felt quite pleased with himself, to have remembered such an elusive thing as a voice.
Frank Abaganale sr had been a fast thinker, just like his son. He'd been able to spin a tale, about the boy going out in the world as a volunteer, when he had been asked about the whereabouts of his child. It was easy to see where the kid con-man had gotten his looks and his brains from.
Sitting down at the desk, Hanratty reached out for the cup of coffee that one of his underlings had put there. But then an unpleasant thought struck him. The old man was dead, wasn't he? Mr. Abagnale had fallen and broken his neck. And yet he could speak to an FBI agent on his son's behalf. That felt a bit uneasy for a man who did not believe in anything supernatural. He felt his heart beat slightly faster.
"Calm down", he said to himself. Then he closed his eyes and worked on a perfectly natural explanation. There were no such things as ghosts. But there were a subconscious, and there were dreams. He'd simply managed to fall asleep and his subconscious had worked with the problem of the forged checks on its own.
What was it the voice had said?
'My son is good with fakes. He knows everything there is to know about forged checks.'
It was then Hanratty decided to visit a certain young man, who was currently residing inside a certain American prison.
If maybe he saw, in the corner of his eye, a tall, thin man, he carefully did not think about it. And he most certainly did not say to himself that it looked just like the man in the photograph. After all, there were no such things as ghosts.
THE END