No one did. I smiled. “Okay, then, you’re on your own for the rest of the day and the night. But get a good night’s sleep. We leave tomorrow for London.”
We did, too, using tickets that had cost me a small fortune in cash. We landed in London in a clammy, predawn rain and I instructed the girls to change into their stewardess uniforms before we went to the hotel.
I was, understandably, nervous and apprehensive at the outset of my scheme, but I plunged ahead recklessly. I even checked us in at the Royal Gardens in Kensington, gambling that none of the employees would associate TWA Pilot Frank Adams with Pan Am First Officer Frank Williams. I hired a van to take us from the airport to the hotel, and the registration clerk, to my relief, was a total stranger to me.
“We’re Pan Am Flight 738,” I said. “We were diverted from Shannon and I don’t know if anyone made reservations for us or not.”
“No problem, Captain,” said the clerk. “That is, if the girls don’t mind doubling up. We’ve only five rooms available.”
The girls slept until nearly noon. Then I loosed them on the town by themselves, telling them I had “set up a photo session” with the local Pan Am office. What I did was to go through the London telephone book until I found what I was looking for, a commercial photography firm. I called the company and identified myself as a Pan Am public relations representative.
“I’ve got eight girls at the Royal Gardens, stewardesses, and what we need is some color and black and white shots suitable for advertisements and promotion brochures- you know, candid stuff of the girls at Piccadilly, some of them at the Thames bridges, that sort of thing,” I said. “Do you think you can handle it?”
“Oh, quite!” enthused the man to whom I spoke. “Why don’t I have one of our boys pop right over with some samples of our work? I’m sure we can do business, Mr. Williams.”
The firm’s representative and I had lunch and worked out a deal. I’d picked one of the better firms in London, it seemed. They’d even done some work in the past for Pan Am.
“Well, this is a little different, something new we’re trying,” I said. “One thing you’ll like, I’m sure, is that you’ll be paid in cash at the end of each day. Just give me an invoice for the amount.”
“What about the proofs?” asked the camera firm’s rep.
“Well, chances are we’ll be long gone to another city – we’ve got a hectic schedule-so just send them to the public relations and advertising department of Pan Am in New York,“ I said. ”If they decide to use any of your pictures, you’ll be paid again at your normal commercial rate for each picture selected.“
He whistled and raised his glass of beer. “That is a different way of doing things, and I like it,” he said, grinning contentedly.
The next morning, a three-man camera crew in a passenger van loaded with photographic equipment called at the hotel and picked up my eight fledglings. I didn’t go with them, but simply told the chief cameraman to use his own judgment and imagination and return the girls in a reasonably sober and presentable condition.
“Gotcha, guv’nor.” He laughed and shepherded the girls into the van.
I had business of my own to conduct. I had embarked on this illicit odyssey well provisioned with sinful supplies: counterfeit cashier’s checks (products of my own handiwork), Pan Am expense checks and regular paychecks (Papa Lavalier’s unwitting artwork) and Pan Am reimbursement authorization forms (pilfered from Pan Am’s own stores department), the last more for bluff than effect.
There were a lot of factors weighing in my favor. London, and most of the other major cities on out itinerary, was dotted with branches of major American banks.
The next morning I gathered the girls in my room and explained the hotel policy on airline crews, then spread out eight phony Pan Am “expense checks” for them to endorse. Each check, of course, was for much more than the hotel bill. “I’ll need your ID cards, too, and while I’m settling the bill, you’ll all have to stand in sight of the cashier,” I said. Not one of them questioned the amount of the check she signed, if any one of them bothered to notice.
The scam went off flawlessly. The girls clustered in a group in the lobby, in view of the cashier, and I presented the nine fake checks in payment for our lodging and other charges. The cashier raised the only question.
“Oh, these are rather high, Captain, I’m not sure I have enough American dollars to make change,” she said, inspecting her cash drawer. “In fact, I don’t. You’re going to have to take pounds in change, I’m afraid.”
I acted miffed, but accepted the decision, knowing the cashier would probably make a profit, or thought she would. The pounds she gave me, however, were real. The Pan Am checks weren’t.
We flew to Rome that afternoon, where, over the next three days, the procedure was repeated. The hotel cashier in Rome, too, questioned the amount of the expense checks, but was satisfied with my explanation.
“Well, I’m sorry about that,” I said. “But we’re on an eighteen-day tour of Italy, and, of course, you can give me change in lira if you like.”
He liked, since it meant a personal profit of some fifty American dollars for him.
I decided against jaunting around Europe by air, not because of the expense but because it would have exposed the girls constantly to other airline crews. That was my biggest problem in implementing my scheme-shielding the girls from other airline people. As I previously pointed out, airline people like to talk shop, especially if they work for the same carrier.
There was, naturally, some unavoidable contact with other flight crews, since the success of my check-cashing scam demanded we stay at hotels which catered to airline personnel. There was always the risk that one of the girls, while in uniform, would encounter another, actual, Pan Am stewardess, and a disastrous dialogue would ensue.
Actual stew: “Hi, I’m Mary Alice, out of L. A. Where are you based?”
My girl: “Oh, I’m not based anywhere. I’m just over here on a P.R. thing.”
Actual stew: “You’re not a stewardess?”
My girl: “Not really. There’re eight of us, and we’re doing some photographic modeling for promotion and advertising purposes.”
Actual stew (to herself): “Like hell. I’ve been with Pan Am for five years and I never heard of any such work. I’d better report this to the chief and see if these people are for real.”
I wanted to avoid any such scenario, so I would frequently reinforce my instructions to the girls with repeat lectures. “Look, when you’re out in civilian clothes and you meet a Pan Am flight attendant in uniform, don’t say you fly for Pan Am, too, because you don’t,” I’d warn them.
“If you’re in uniform and you encounter another Pan Am stewardess, just say you’re here on vacation if your status is questioned. You may feel that’s being deceptive, and it is, but we have a reason. We don’t want other airlines to find out about this venture, because they’d most likely, with some justification, put the word out in the industry that Pan Am isn’t using real stewardesses in our travel ads or promotional brochures. And we don’t really want our line stewardesses to know, as I’ve told you, because it would likely cause dissension. For a working stewardess, this would really be a choice assignment.”
The girls cooperated splendidly in that respect. And I rented a comfortable, almost luxurious Volkswagen bus for our meandering around Europe. At times my scheme seemed more like a leisurely vacation than a felonious venture, for we often spent days, sometimes a week or more, in colorful little out-of-the-way spots in this country or that one and during such detours I curbed my crooked activities. It was not part of my plan to shaft the peasants.
But my scam got back on the track in major cities. Before entering such a metropolis, we’d stop and change into our airline uniforms, and, on our arrival at the hotel of my choosing, the scheme would pick up steam and begin operating again.