Unauthorized Vacation: Damn Salesmen!

Hardly anybody at the Holiday Inn (airport-Charlotte, NC) paid any attention to him when he pulled in.  There were the usual Hispanic groundskeepers that stare at every car as if they might be undercover immigration officers but those guys are so ubiquitous that nobody pays attention to them.  He glanced around the front lot and definitely didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary; just the usual mix of mid-level business travelers and rental cars.  Some employees were coming and going on their menial errands but that is expected at a hotel that serves as a center for business meetings, luncheons, and the bustle of travelers to and from the airport.  There were no empty parking spots available in the front lot but he wouldn’t have chosen one there anyway.  He circled the hotel looking for anything out of the ordinary and, not finding anything, he chose a spot close to the lounge entrance of the hotel.

            He knew the layout of the hotel even though he had not been a registered guest in over fifteen years.  Some remodeling had occurred but the basic format had remained the same.  Due to his budget, he had spent the night at a motel further down the strip but the Holiday Inn, being neither a luxury nor a roach trap, provided the anonymity that he needed on that particular day.  His outward appearance was as usual which made him stand out at the motel that he could afford.  Casually dressed in a long-sleeved button down shirt, new pair of Levi’s jeans, and a comfortable pair of Hush Puppies, he was either suspected of being a police officer by the nefarious guests where he had been staying or, due to his clean-cut appearance, as an innocent traveler that would make a great target for a robbery.  Neither of these perceived roles suited his needs for the matter at hand. 

            Driving the white, four door Honda Accord completed the image of the casual traveler. He wasn’t going to register as a guest at the Holiday Inn however, he only stopped there on his way to Charleston, SC to make a last phone call to the mother of his children; another one to the journalist; and, possibly, a call to the Puerto Rican Department of Justice.  He certainly didn’t have time to be bothered by anybody else; he expected to go through the usual formalities with the front desk over using the house phone for the calls but felt that they would either imagine that he was a guest or a visitor of one of the guests and relinquish the phone to him without question.  He could have used one of the two cell phones that he had in his possession but was suspicious that the one actually belonging to him was being traced and he knew that the one stolen from the police officer when he escaped WAS being traced.  With his recently acquired ATT pre-paid phone card, he was just going in to make his anonymous calls with an anonymous card in an anonymous hotel located in an anonymous city.

           

Entering the hotel, he looked to his left to notice that the lounge wasn’t open yet but was being set up.  Good, I’ll have a drink when I finish these calls.  To his right were two college aged men dressed in clothing directly from the Prep School catalog and holding what appeared to be brochures in each one’s hand.  Except for the different colors of their Izod shirts, they were identical in appearance; more anonymity in the background of hotel life that lends itself to all sorts of characters that really don’t get paid much attention by anybody else.  He noticed them though and immediately ascertained that they were a distraction to be avoided, Goddamned magazine salesmen…probably gonna try to stop me and sell me a subscription to fucking ‘Boys Life’ or something to ‘help’ pay for their fucking cause whatever it is.

            He assumed the posture of a busy person that didn’t want to be bothered with peripheries.  Walking past them into the lobby area, one of the Prep School twins greeted him with “Good Afternoon”.  He grudgingly responded with a nod of his head.  Passing them, he couldn’t be sure if it was Tweedledee or Tweedledum that asked him for a moment of his time.  He responded that he was busy and one of the twins asked him what his name was.  What the fuck do these magazine salesman need to know my name for?  Something about their tone made him turn around.  One of the twins opened the brochure packet and showed him a flyer while the other pulled out a wallet with an encircled star pinned to it.  He rapidly comprehended that these were not ordinary magazine salesmen, especially as the flyer had his picture on it and was entitled “Wanted by the U.S. Marshal Service…James ‘Buddy’ Spratt…Fugitive From Justice”. 

            “Do you know this man?” one of the twins asked while the other was still holding the badge up halfheartedly as if to avoid attention from the other guests.  “Well, that would probably be me.” Spratt said.  The twin with the badge stated, “We are U.S. Marshals, could you please turn around and put your hands behind your back?”  The other twin pulled out something that looked like a badge in an almost forgotten attempt to prove that he too was a law enforcement officer.  Spratt turned around and allowed one of the twins to frisk him.  That twin removed everything from Spratt’s pockets and politely asked a hotel employee for a plastic bag to put his belongings in while the other finally found a pair of handcuffs and gently placed them on Spratt’s wrist.  One twin asked him to sit down on a nearby bench while the other made a discreet phone call.  The shorter twin sat down beside Spratt while the other just stood after the phone call.  There was no conversation between any of them.  Spratt sat there with his mind racing, trying to calculate the events that might immediately be forthcoming.  The twins seemed a bit nervous as if they were a little unsure of themselves.  Then, the fucking world exploded.

           

The quiet background noise of the hotel lobby was shattered with the ear piercing screams and wails of five police cars; federal and local; marked and unmarked, immediately followed by the door crashing entrance of eight adrenaline filled, husky men mixed with a couple of guns pointed at a casually dressed anonymous man that was already handcuffed, and in the custody of, one of the Prep School twins.  All of that testosterone and adrenaline with no venting point resulted in confusion of what to do next.  These hardened cops weren’t going to just stand there so it was decided that each one of them would go up to Spratt and introduce himself in the most vulgar way possible while letting him know that each had personally lost sleep looking for his ass and that he was now on his way to a lifetime in prison, if they had anything to do with it.  “Get this piece of shit out to my car,” screamed one of the Marshals who appeared to be in charge of the ‘operation’.

            Once in the police car and mostly away from the prying eyes of the hotel patrons and employees, the verbiage worsened.  There were eternal moments of quietness interrupted by shattering screams of several officers at once with all of them demanding answers to their separate questions at the same time until the Chief Dickhead in Charge calmed everybody down and informed them that he would be the official screamer of questions.  “You know how long we’ve been looking for you motherfucker!?!  I don’t give a shit!! Where is the gun at? What fucking gun!?!  Where is the girl at!?!  What fucking girl!?!  Where is the cop’s cell phone!?!  In your hand you stupid fuck!!  Where is his badge at!?!  Why did you beat up those two cops!?!  What the fuck are you talking about!?!  Dickhead slams the door and many moments of relative quiet passed while every one of the officers were on a cell phone walking around the parking lot like an army of robots with no pre-programmed destination.  Some were talking to their superiors…others to their wives…yet others to journalist giving ‘exclusive but confidential’ information regarding the arrest. 

            Suddenly the door opens and Spratt is assaulted by Dickhead’s screams once more, “How many felonies do you want me to charge you with motherfucker!?!  If it was up to me…none!  “Stolen car, stolen credit cards, escape, and assault on police officers…I could put you away forever!!”  Whatever, motherfucker!  The door slammed and dickhead leaves once more.  Dickhead and his partner, a Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Detective assigned to the Joint Fugitive Task Force, come back to the car and sit in the front seat.  Dickhead asks, “How the hell did a skinny fuck like you beat up two cops, steal their money and ID, and escape?”  “Didn’t happen that way!” Spratt proclaimed but Dickhead is accustomed to every prisoner crying innocence and changed the subject to the moment of arrest.

            “Those dumbfuck rookies got lucky as hell today…you did too Spratt.  If I had been the one to find you, I would have put a bullet in your ass.  Lucky motherfuckers…just standing in a goddamned hotel lobby when Spratt walks up to them and practically says, ‘Excuse me officer, could you please arrest me?”  “Don’t worry though, we got you and now your ass is mine!  I’m not going to charge you with the stolen car or the credit cards but I’m sending your ASS to Puerto Rico and you’re gonna have to deal with them about why you beat up two of their cops!”  Spratt was driven to the local jail and booked in as a fugitive from another jurisdiction to await extradition proceedings back to the State of Idaho.

Unauthorized Vacation: Fatalistic Decisions?

Spratt checked into the Charleston, SC hotel around 9:00am and took a nap for a few hours.  Upon awakening, he went to Toys-R-Us to buy the things that he had promised his children and stopped at a fast food restaurant for lunch.  He then picked up a case of beer and returned to the hotel room.  Sometime that afternoon, Spratt went to the hotel bar and had a few drinks with other hotel guests and a couple of locals.  He met another out of town contractor who offered Spratt a decent paying, albeit temporary, position on a construction project.  Spratt wanted the job but had a couple of things to take care of before he would be able to accept any employment (it’s one thing to know that there is a warrant for your arrest…quite another to know that the cops that may serve that warrant believe you to be a ‘dangerous’ fugitive.  Spratt had to get the ‘dangerous’ designation removed somehow before he would be able to even halfway concentrate on a job).  The contractor gave Spratt his phone number and told him he could start working the next week if he wanted to.  Spratt thanked him and went to his room to sleep for the night.

The next morning, Spratt went to the lobby and made himself a plate from the complimentary breakfast buffet and returned to his room to eat and wait for a good time to call the reporter back.  Finally, he placed the call and the reporter answered immediately.  The reporter told Spratt that he had been able to reach his contacts at the Puerto Rico Police Department and they had, officially, provided him with a version that was slightly different than what had been previously released but that it still was not exactly like Spratt’s version.  He stated that he was glad that Spratt had called because he was about to submit the story and wanted Spratt’s response to the newer version.

“What did they tell you this time?” asked Spratt.  “They admitted that they were not in the airport when the escape took place but that they had taken you to a hotel room for the night because of a delay in flights” the reporter responded.  He continued by reading from his notes, “They stated that you were duly chained and restrained with handcuffs and shackles and that they took turns sleeping with one officer constantly awake and watching you while the other slept.  Taking advantage of the fact that one of them was asleep, you were able to physically overcome the other officer and beat him up prior to stealing the handcuff key, removing your handcuffs and shackles, and then escaping through the door of the hotel.  They denied that any alcohol, whatsoever, was involved.”  The reporter stated that this revised version sounded a little more credible than Spratt’s version and the Police explained the discrepancies away by saying that they did not release the details of the hotel in the original version because they needed to keep extradition details and procedures a secret to prevent future escapes.

Spratt laughed out loud!  “Are you fucking kidding me?  Who the fuck would believe that story?” asked Spratt incredulously.  “Don’t you realize how SMALL a hotel room is?  If a chained inmate started struggling with a trained police officer who would win?  I must be one badass motherfucker to be able to beat up a cop with my hands and legs chained up!  Don’t you think that, once the struggle started, the cop would holler out to his partner who would then wake up and lend a hand in the fight?”  Spratt continued with, “I’m telling you the truth!  They got drunk and passed out!  There was no fight!”  Then Spratt remembered a detail that the reporter could use to verify his story with, “Look, the Sergeant paid for all of those drinks with the Police Dept. American Express card….surely you could get a copy of that bill.  It wouldn’t prove that he had a bottle of Smirnoff in his luggage but it would prove that drinks were consumed at the restaurant and, since they stated that absolutely no alcohol was involved, that should undermine their credibility.”  Spratt told the reporter the exact date and time that they were in the restaurant and the amount of the total bill.  The reporter said that he would look into it and then get the official response to this prior to publishing the story.  They hung up with Spratt promising to call back no later than the next day.

Spratt then called the Head of the Puerto Rico Department of Justice’s Extradition Division who would not speak with him about the details of the escape but told him that he was actively being hunted by the U.S. Marshal’s Service and that his wife’s phone was being tapped in order to find him.  Spratt believed the part about the phone being tapped (he didn’t care though because he felt secure with the process of using the AT&T card and also knew that he would immediately leave anywhere that he had called from) but called bullshit on the part about the U.S. Marshal.  To prove the point, she put him on a conference call with a guy that claimed to be a Marshal.  He told Spratt that he would hunt him down and Spratt asked why they were even involved since he hadn’t been a Federal inmate.  The ‘Marshal’ replied that they had jurisdiction due to Spratt’s designation as a violent fugitive.  “But I didn’t fight anybody goddamnit!!  Those cops got DRUNK…I just walked away!”  The ‘Marshal’ said that, regardless, he had that designation and that he was going to hunt Spratt until he was captured.  Spratt told him to fuck off and hung up.

Spratt then called the Idaho Department of Correction and spoke with their attorney who basically confirmed what the ‘Marshal’ had said.  Additionally, he told Spratt that there was a fugitive warrant from the State of Idaho and that he had been charged with escape by Idaho authorities in Ada County.  Spratt asked which other jurisdictions had charged him with escape and he was told that only Idaho had charged him.  “But, you can’t charge me with escape” stated Spratt.  “You don’t have jurisdiction.  A criminal charge has to be tried in the jurisdiction where the alleged crime occurred and I didn’t escape in Idaho!”  “Additionally,” Spratt informed him, “an inmate can only be charged with escape if he is in ‘lawful’ custody and there is no way that a person can be in the ‘lawful’ custody of two drunk, and passed out, cops!”  “Well, you can bring that up at trial” stated the attorney who advised him to turn himself in to the nearest law enforcement agency and hung up.

Spratt then called the front desk and requested a wake-up call for the next day before taking all of his belongings out to the stolen car and leaving.  Before leaving Charleston, he stopped at a Western Union and sent his wife some money.  In, North Charleston, he stopped at the U.P.S. facility and paid to have the children’s toys shipped overnight to Puerto Rico.  He used a local address as the return address in the hopes of throwing off the cops for a while.  He then drove up I-26 to I-95 North and kept driving until he reached Fayetteville, NC where he spent the night.

Upon waking the next morning, Spratt decided that he may continue heading north but needed to make more phone calls prior to doing so.  He was worried about having the U.S. Marshal’s looking for him and wanted to speak to the reporter and his wife again before leaving North Carolina.  His reason for wanting to call while in North Carolina were because he planned on making these the final phone calls and, if they were being traced, they would be traced back to this State instead of the actual State that he was going to; hopefully a dead end for the cops.  He didn’t want to call from his current location though since it was right on the main North/South Interstate on the east coast.  He wanted to keep them guessing about his direction of travel and decided to drive back to Charlotte, NC place the calls from there before heading north.  There was no Interstate Highway between Fayetteville and Charlotte so he had to take State highways which made him nervous since these were heavily patrolled by local Sheriff’s Departments.  He finally arrived without incident in Charlotte and checked into a cheap motel near the airport.  After checking in, he got some more food and some beer before unpacking his things and settling in for the night. 

The next morning, Spratt finally purchased a pre-paid cell phone so that he could make calls without being stuck in the motel room and started using his ‘minutes’ immediately.  He called his wife and made sure that she had received the money and the package.  She told him that she had received both but also informed him that she had told the prosecutor about it before picking up the money and accepting the package.  The prosecutor sent a couple of investigators to her house to take possession of the shipping label but ‘allowed’ her to keep the toys for the children.  Spratt hoped they followed up on the fake address just to waste their time but did feel as if the noose may be tightening a little.

The next round of calls were to the Puerto Rico Department of Justice, I.D.O.C., and the U.S. Marshal’s Office in Hato Rey, Puerto Rico but he didn’t glean any new information from those calls; just the same scripted bullshit of “We’re hunting you!”  “We will find you!”  “You’d better turn yourself in!”  Blah, blah, blah!

Finally he called the Puerto Rican journalist.  Again, he answered his phone pretty quickly and Spratt, out of paranoia now, asked if he was working with the cops to try to trace his calls.  The journalist reassured him that, although he was a crime reporter, he was not big fan of the cops and had written as many articles about police corruption as he had about criminals.  Spratt noticed that he hadn’t directly denied assisting them though.

The journalist told him that he was able to get a copy of the receipt from the hotel restaurant and confronted the Police Superintendent with it.  He said that the official response was “No Comment” but a press release given out later in the day stated that both officers had been suspended without pay pending official investigation of the incident.  This gave Spratt some measure of satisfaction and he was elated when the journalist told him that he would print Spratt’s version of events in the next edition of the newspaper.  Spratt thanked him and the reporter asked him to call back the next day after he was able to do some follow-up investigations into some other details of the story.  He promised that he would.

The cheap hotel that Spratt was currently staying in did not have a computer in the lobby for its guests so Spratt drove to a nearby Kinko’s and bought some computer time to access the online version of the Puerto Rican newspaper.  He was able to print out a copy of the latest story filed by the journalist and returned to the hotel room where he made another round of calls seeking vindication.

He called the Extradition Division of the Puerto Rican Dept. of Justice but they didn’t want to speak with him about the story.  Same thing at I.D.O.C.  He then called the Puerto Rico Police Department and spoke to the two cops’ supervisor who told him that Spratt was the most hated guy in Puerto Rico and he was going to ensure that Spratt and his family suffered greatly for putting the Sergeant’s and Hector’s careers in jeopardy.  “I didn’t put their careers in jeopardy!” screamed Spratt, “Those motherfuckers ruined it for themselves!  They’re the ones that got drunk!”  “Yeah,” said the Supervisor, “but you’re the one who escaped!”  “It was my fucking job to try and escape…I’m a criminal, not a choirboy!  Their job is to keep me from escaping; not get drunk like they were on vacation or something!”  “I’m just letting you know that, when you get to Puerto Rico, I’m going to personally fuck you up!  Those guys are my friends and you have fucked with their ‘rice and beans’!” said the Supervisor using a common Puerto Rican phrase to mean that somebody has interfered with another person’s ability to provide for their family (rice and beans being the traditional food in Puerto Rico).  Spratt told him to fuck off and hung up.

Spratt then called his wife who wasn’t impressed by the story in the newspaper even though it did give some credence to Spratt’s version.  She said that she didn’t want to be bothered with it anymore and the publicity was complicating her life.  She then went on to berate Spratt saying, “You didn’t have very much longer until you finished your sentence and you would have been released.  I have suffered the past couple of years waiting for you and then you went and fucked everything up by escaping!”  “What kind of future can I have now?” she asked.  “How can I expect to have a normal life with my husband?  How can the children expect to have a normal life with their father if you are either going to be continually ‘on the run’ or in prison for the next twenty years for escape?!”  “I don’t think that I can handle this anymore,” she continued, “maybe we should just go our separate ways and end it right now.”  Spratt was heartbroken.  He was mad that the cops had involved her so intimately in all of this but also realized that he wasn’t without blame either.  He was frustrated, though, that she didn’t act as he thought that she would and come to the defense of her husband.  He thought that she should see the justification in his escape but it appeared that she was swallowing the rhetoric that he was just a common criminal with no chance of redemption.  He told her that he would work everything out and they hung up with no expressions of endearment.

Spratt’s cell phone was almost out of minutes now so he left to go buy another card to ‘top up’.  On the way back, he bought a twelve pack of beer and drank six while contemplating his legal and personal situation.  He knew that he couldn’t be with his family while on the run but he certainly didn’t want to turn himself in after all of the threats from the Puerto Rican cops.  He couldn’t figure out a way to reconcile the two situations and became more angry with each beer.  He finally resigned himself to the fact that he would have to remain a fugitive and only send financial support to his family without ever being able to see them.  This pissed him off but his options were limited; he hoped that his children would understand when they became adults and wouldn’t hate him for not being there.  He knew that this hope was irrational (a child desires a father…a real father; not a figment) and the realization just angered him more.  He decided to call Hector again and hoped that Hector’s life was now as miserable as Spratt’s was.

Hector answered the phone with a tirade of Spanish cuss words that went on long enough for Spratt to wonder if he was reading from a dictionary of curses.  Spratt tried to interrupt several times but had to wait until Hector ran out of breath.  Finally Spratt was able to ask, “Hey, Hector…how does it feel to be unemployed?”  Hector repeated his list of cuss words in response and then said, “Let me tell you something ‘cabron’!  I have been a cop for 15 years!  Fifteen motherfucking years!  I have NEVER had an incident on my record and YOU have fucked it all up for me!  If I ever see you again, I will be the last thing you see before you die!  I’m going to KILL you motherfucker!”  Spratt screamed back, “YOU are the one who FUCKED up Hector!!  YOU!!  If you hadn’t gotten drunk then you wouldn’t be in this situation!!  Take some responsibility for your own actions!!”  “As a matter of fact,” Spratt continued, “you wouldn’t be in this situation right now if you hadn’t lied and said that I beat you up to escape!  I never would have told anybody about the drinking if you hadn’t lied!  Why didn’t you just say that I escaped while you were asleep?  Fuck you, Hector!  It’s your fault for getting drunk…your fault for passing out…your fault for lying about it!”  Spratt and Hector continued cussing each other out until Spratt’s cell phone cut off from exhausting the minutes that he had purchased.  “Fuck him!” Spratt said aloud as he remembered that he hadn’t used *67 to disguise his number prior to calling Hector.  He hurriedly packed his duffle bag and left Charlotte heading north in I-85.

Spratt didn’t drive very long before deciding to spend the night in Greensboro, NC.  He spent the night drinking and wondering what to do next.  He didn’t think he had enough money to continue north and support himself while looking for a job and he was concerned about the stolen car attracting attention.  He remembered the contractor in Charleston, SC and decided to return there to go to work.  He would be able to ditch the car somewhere, maybe Charlotte, and take a bus the rest of the way.  Spratt decided on this plan: he would drive back to Charlotte; make some final phone calls to use up the minutes on his AT&T calling card; leave the car there and take a bus back to Charleston, SC and begin a new life with the waiting job.  From that point on, he would just take a bus to some far away city to wire money to his family.  Hopefully, the cops WOULD trace his calls to Charlotte and, along with the discovery of the car, make them think that he was in North Carolina…surely they would abandon their search in Charleston with the newest evidence of his whereabouts!  He felt confident in his ability to divert their attention. 

Spratt started the next day with a return trip to Charlotte and tried to figure out a good location for his ‘intentional’ scent trail.  Downtown was not the best place due to the amount of traffic and the sheer amount of police in that area (it being the headquarters for the huge Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Dept.).  Spratt decided to stay in one of the cheaper motels on the ‘strip’ near the airport.  He felt this would be a good location and, if he actually WAS traced then it would give further distraction as to his true destination due to the proximity of the airport.  Spratt wasn’t sure if his calls were actually being traced but his plan was being implemented ‘just in case’.  He actually hoped that he was being able to make all of his calls anonymously and attached himself to that hope; the famous tactic of ‘hope for the best but prepare for the worst’.  With his money running low, he decided to check into one of the crappier motels but would dress in good clothes the next morning and go to a nicer place for his phone calls.

Unauthorized Vacation: Violent and Dangerous Criminal?

Spratt paced the room while drinking a few more beers before deciding to call his wife.  He dialed her number and she answered on the third ring.  It was very refreshing to hear her voice but it also filled him with a dreadful sense of loneliness.  Spratt started the conversation with, “How are you?”  His wife immediately replied, “Are you crazy!?  Calling this house!  You can’t call this house…they are looking for you!”  “Who is looking for me?” asked Spratt.  “The Cops are looking for you!  All of them!  Homicide Division, the Prosecutor’s Office, Department of Corrections, and the U.S. Marshal!”  She continued with, “They came to the house and took me to the prosecutor’s office in a police car the day that you escaped and told me how you beat up those two cops at the airport and ran away…they told me that if I had any contact with you they would arrest me!  You can’t call here anymore!”

“Wait a minute…wait a minute; just slow down,” Spratt said.  “What are you talking about?  I didn’t beat up any cops.”  “They said that you beat them up at the airport and stole the handcuff keys to escape with!  They have you listed as a violent and dangerous criminal and told me that you would spend the rest of your life in prison when they catch you!”  Spratt was incredulous; he hadn’t beaten anybody up and was not a ‘violent and dangerous’ criminal.  “Are you sure that is exactly what they said?” Spratt asked.  “They told me that you beat up those two cops and escaped.  They also told me that if I helped you at all then they would send me to prison and they said that I might as well divorce you now since you would be spending the rest of your life in prison!” “You even came out on TV and the Newspaper,” she said, “do you know how embarrassing it is for me to take the children to school now!” “Hey,” Spratt responded, “they are just trying to shake any loyalties that you might have in order to get any information out of you.  I’m NOT going to prison for the rest of my life; I promise you that!”  Spratt told her the real story of how he escaped so that she wouldn’t think she was married to some violent psychopath but wasn’t sure whether she believed his version or that of the cops.  It was clear that being driven to the Courthouse in a police car had caused a dramatic impact on her.

Spratt asked to speak to the children and she reluctantly allowed him to.  After chatting with them for a while, he asked to have their mother put back on the phone.  Spratt told her that he was going to send some toys to the children and some money to her via Western Union.  She immediately objected, “You can’t send anything!  The cops told me that I would be arrested!”  “Fuck them!” Spratt said, “I’m sure they told you that you can’t offer assistance to ME; they didn’t say anything about me assisting you!  You need the money for the children and this is money that I have earned…it isn’t stolen money!  Take it and pay some bills with it!”  She finally relented but told Spratt that she was going to have to inform them about the phone call to keep herself out of trouble.  Spratt didn’t like that idea but he also didn’t want her to have any problems.  “Whatever you have to do,” Spratt said, “tell them…I don’t give a shit.  They don’t know where I am anyway and can’t trace me.”  Spratt told her that he loved her and noticed that she didn’t reciprocate that sentiment before he hung up.

Spratt didn’t know what to do next so he opened another beer to contemplate the phone calls he had made that day.   He tried to interpret what little information he had gleaned.  He hadn’t beaten up any cops…they must be telling her that to make him look bad.  Then again, Hector did deny drinking in Atlanta; maybe that is the story they came up with to explain how he got away from them to avoid having to admit to getting drunk; they had to come up with some face-saving story but saying that Spratt is tough enough to beat up two trained police officers would still be kind of embarrassing to them…he guessed that getting beat up would be less embarrassing than admitting incompetence and drunkenness though.  If that is the story they gave though, it wasn’t good for Spratt; fugitives that are considered violent, especially violence against law enforcement, go to the top of the list as far as resources expended to hunt them down.  It also increased the chances of a violent arrest; he might even get shot if they found him.

Spratt went down to the lobby to use the computer and logged onto the Puerto Rican newspaper’s website.  He performed a quick search for his name and read the story filed about him.  Sure enough, it stated that he had beat up the two cops while waiting for a connecting flight at the Atlanta airport.  It stated that he was ‘duly’ restrained with handcuffs, waist chain, and shackles and that he stole the handcuff key from one of the disabled cops after the fight and removed the restraints prior to escaping.  He couldn’t believe it.  Who the FUCK would believe that story?  “Did anybody ask to see airport video?” Spratt wondered.  “Did anybody question how Spratt would be able to fight two cops in a terminal full of passengers and cops and the airport NOT get ‘locked down’?”  Since 9/11, airports got locked down for less serious reasons than this…surely they would lock one down if a prisoner had just beaten up two cops and escaped.  Surely the fellow passengers would help the cops to subdue the prisoner BEFORE he was able to take the chains off.  It was an unbelievable story and Spratt wondered how they got away with telling it.  He wrote down the phone number of the newspaper and decided to call that reporter.

Spratt returned to his room and called the newspaper.  The reporter was not on duty at the moment so he asked if they had a cell phone number for him.  The editor asked who he was and what it was about.  Spratt explained who he was and that he wanted to clarify a story published about him.  The editor told Spratt that she could take his number and then call the reporter and ask him to call Spratt.  Spratt told her that he was not in a position to give out his number and asked if she would call the reporter to see if it was okay for her to divulge the cell number to Spratt.  She said she would and hung up.  Spratt called back in twenty minutes and was given the reporter’s phone number; she said that the reporter was looking forward to speaking with him.

Spratt drank another beer before calling the reporter.  He finally dialed the number (again through the AT&T card system) and it was answered immediately.  Spratt introduced himself and immediately explained that the purpose of his call was to correct some errors in the reporter’s story.  The reporter stated that he didn’t believe the cops’ version entirely but that he rarely had the opportunity to get the criminal’s side of the story and he had to print what information was divulged to him regardless of how ‘one-sided’ it may be.  He told Spratt that he would listen to his version and investigate it if it was substantially different from the official version.  Spratt told his side of the story more so out of a desire to get his standing reduced from ‘violent and dangerous’ than to actually get the cops in trouble.  He DID promise the Sergeant that he would not tell anybody that they had been drinking but he felt that the Sergeant had released him from that commitment by lying about how the escape took place.  They could have just said that they went to sleep and woke up to find Spratt gone and Spratt wouldn’t have contested that story because it was mostly true.  To say that Spratt beat them up though…well he had to defend himself against that accusation!

Spratt told the reporter what REALLY happened and the reporter seemed to doubt some parts of the tale.  The reporter seemed to think that Spratt was exaggerating parts of it and may be outright lying about the alcohol.  However, the reporter stated that he would contact the Police Superintendent for a response to Spratt’s version since the information provided by them to the reporter never mentioned a hotel stay.  The reporter stated that they led him to believe that there was never an interruption in travel until Spratt beat them up and escaped.  Spratt reassured the reporter that HIS information was absolutely truthful and provided the name of the hotel that they had stayed in so that he could confirm, at least, that part of it.  The reporter said that he would perform due diligence and asked Spratt to call him later.  Spratt said he would and hung up.

Spratt knew that he had to leave now.  He was pretty confident that he couldn’t be traced by the phone calls but was still nervous.  Spratt felt that it would be wise to become mobile again and leave Orlando.  Where would he go?  How would he get there?  He decided to steal the contractor’s car and just head north.  Anywhere outside of Florida was the preferred location of the moment.  He packed his clothes and called the front desk to ask for a wake-up call for the next morning just in case the cops were able to trace his location (they wouldn’t find him there but may think that he would be returning since he asked to be woken up; that might buy some additional time).  He put his duffle bag in the trunk of the car and drove off in the direction of Jacksonville.  At some point, he decided to head towards Charleston, SC.  He knew Charleston intimately and he felt that he would be able to throw off the scent of his trail there.  That decided, he turned the radio up, cracked another beer, and drove all through the night.

Unauthorized Vacation: Puerto Rico Newspaper

Unauthorized Vacation: Phone Call To Hector

A bus station is a magnet for all types of seedy characters so Spratt didn’t want to spend much time there.  He walked through the terminal gate and out the front door where he hailed the first taxi that he saw.  Spratt had lived in Charlotte years ago and knew where most of the mid-range motels were so he directed the taxi driver to take him to Independence Blvd.  He saw a motel next to an ‘International House of Pancakes’ restaurant that advertised low weekly rates and checked in paying a week in advance.  When he got to his room, he realized that the hotel had certainly deteriorated since the last time he stayed there.  The room was dingy with very low wattage light bulbs; the heater was stuck in the ‘on’ position and felt like a furnace; the sink was dripping and the toilet was running.  A cockroach peeked out from behind a threadbare towel hanging on the rack.  The TV remote felt greasy in his hand!  “Yuck” thought Spratt, “but it’s better than being in prison!”

Spratt wasn’t sure what the North Carolina inmate uniforms were like so he didn’t want to spend too much time outside while the sun was still up.  He ordered some takeout food from the IHOP and returned to his room to watch TV until dusk when he would feel more comfortable walking to the nearby Wal-Mart to buy some clothes.  While he waited, the old fashioned phone rang three different times.  Spratt was startled at first but answered it thinking it might be the front desk.  It wasn’t the front desk…crackwhores wanting to come ‘visit’.  “Fuck Off!” Spratt told each one of them.  Spratt is not the stereotypical criminal and didn’t thrive off of the underworld of petty scams, drugs, and prostitutes; he despised them but usually just let them be figuring ‘to each, his own’.  In this situation though, he needed to make sure that everybody around knew to leave him alone because those types of people are ‘cop magnets’ and draw a lot of attention which was the last thing that Spratt needed.

At dusk, Spratt walked to the Wal-Mart and bought three pairs of jeans, three cheap Polo style shirts, socks, underwear, a pair of sneakers, a cheap ‘duffle’ type bag, a couple of packs of cigarettes, and a case of beer.  Spratt returned to his room, took a quick shower, changed into his new clothes, and drank a couple of beers before venturing out.  Spratt could see a bowling alley from his room window and knew they would have a bar in there.  He put his prison uniform in a trash bag and threw them in the hotel dumpster on his way to the bowling alley where he spent the next few hours talking, laughing, and drinking with the other patrons.  He almost felt normal.

The next couple of weeks were pretty much uneventful for Spratt.  He made a concerted effort to not contact anybody in his family until he could figure out what he was going to do in the long run.  He looked for employment but it was difficult since he didn’t have any valid identification.  He had once been married in South Carolina so he took a bus to Columbia in order to get a copy of his marriage license.  That in hand, he took a bus to Georgia (very nervously) to get a copy of his birth certificate hoping that these two documents would be sufficient to get a replacement social security card.  He took another Greyhound to Orlando, Florida and checked into another weekly motel to establish an address for the social security card to be sent to. 

While in Orlando, he met an out of town contractor who offered him a menial labor job which he took in order to sustain himself as his money (Hector’s money) was running out.  He had already sold the DVD player and was down to his last hundred dollars when he took the job.  He worked with the contractor for a couple of weeks and earned his trust.  The contractor decided to fly back home for a long weekend and asked Spratt to drive him to the airport.  He left Spratt the keys to his car and told him he could use it if he needed to go anywhere over the weekend.  He told Spratt to pick him up at the airport on Monday afternoon.  Spratt went back to the hotel, ate supper, had a few beers, and went to sleep.

The next morning, a Saturday, Spratt began drinking early.  He was bored since there was no work to do with the contractor out of town.  He started thinking about his situation and felt a strong desire to talk to his wife and children. Spratt went to Wal-Mart and bought an AT&T calling card.  He knew that there were anonymous pre-paid phones but he thought it would be more difficult to trace the calling card since you had to call through to an ‘800’ number, enter the card number, and have the computer place the call for you from a remote location.  He knew that the ‘Caller ID’ would display the number of the line from which the system placed the call and not the actual number that he was calling from.  He returned to the hotel with a one hundred dollar card and a cache of beer.  He locked the door and started drinking while contemplating whether or not he should make the call.

Spratt wasn’t even sure if his family knew that he had escaped.  He didn’t have a clue about what might have transpired after he left the hotel in Atlanta and wanted to get some idea of what the current atmosphere was prior to calling his wife.  Who could he call though?  It was Saturday and no government office would be open.  Anybody at Idaho Department of Corrections that would have details about the situation wouldn’t be back until Monday and any police officers currently on duty in any jurisdiction would only be able to confirm if there was a warrant or not…no specific information.  He didn’t have the personal numbers of anybody involved that he might be able to call on the weekend…or did he?  Spratt remembered Hector’s cell phone and dug it out of the duffle bag.

Spratt installed the battery in the phone and waited for it to power up.  When it finally booted up, he attempted to call a random number to check the service but it was still de-activated…if he called anybody, he would have to use the card that he purchased that morning.  He knew he couldn’t call Hector because he had Hector’s phone but maybe the Sergeant’s phone number might be in there.  Spratt opened the phone’s directory and searched for the Sergeant’s number while wondering if he would actually have the ‘balls’ to call him.  “Why not,” thought Spratt, “what the hell could he do to me?  He doesn’t know where I am!  Fuck it!  I’m gonna call him!”

Spratt knew the Sergeant’s first and last name but all of the numbers in Hector’s phone were listed under nicknames and he couldn’t figure out which one might actually belong to the Sergeant.  He did see one listed as ‘Querida’ which means ‘dear’ or ‘darling’ in English but surely that couldn’t be the Sergeant's number unless Hector had a strange sense of humor.  Spratt drank another beer while inspecting the numbers in the phone and looked at the call history.  The last call made prior to Spratt’s call to the grandmother in Puerto Rico was to ‘Querida’.  Spratt remembered Hector making a call to his girlfriend in the Atlanta hotel room and surmised that she must be ‘Querida’.  Spratt drank another beer wondering why this fraud ‘expert’ hadn’t locked his phone with a passcode to keep someone from accessing his information.  “Dumbass,” thought Spratt as he decided to call ‘Querida’.

Spratt dialed the number through the AT&T card system and a female answered on the third ring with a “Hello?”  “Could I speak with Hector?” Spratt asked in Spanish.  “Who is calling?” the female asked.  “This is Spratt” he told her.  “Who?”  “Just tell him that this is his favorite fugitive,” Spratt said as he popped open another beer.  A moment later, Hector was on the line!  “You Motherfucker!” screamed Hector.  “Who the fuck do you think you are calling my girlfriend’s cell phone!?!” he demanded.  “Well,” replied Spratt half laughing and trying to keep the beer from going through his nostrils, “I tried to call your number but nobody answered!  Oh, that’s right!  YOU don’t have your phone…I do!”  “I’m looking for you MOTHERFUCKER!” Hector gravely stated.  “For what?” asked Spratt amused at the statement.  “To kill you!” replied Hector. 

The last statement from Hector sobered Spratt up a little bit because he had first-hand knowledge of the corruption in the Puerto Rico Police Department and he knew that this threat was not meant in the figurative sense…Hector would try to kill him if he could; he had no doubt about that but was surprised at the viciousness and vehemence in Hector’s voice.  “What the fuck,” thought Spratt, “prisoners escape all the time and the people that they escape from don’t usually develop a murderous vendetta to achieve!”  This statement also angered Spratt and he decided to taunt Hector.

“Hector!  How did it feel to get home and find out that you didn’t have any money in the bank?”  Spratt continued with, “Did the big bad fraud expert have to borrow some cash from his girlfriend?”  “Look you son-of-a-BITCH…” replied Hector, “…I am a PROFESSIONAL police officer and I WILL catch your ass!”  Spratt laughed and told Hector, “If you were so goddamned professional, Hector, you would be talking to me through the bars of a Puerto Rican prison instead of on your girlfriend’s cell phone!  Ha Ha!  How professional can you be to get drunk and lose a prisoner!?”  “We didn’t have ANYTHING to drink you bastard!”  “What motherfucker?!  Are you trying to say that you didn’t drink anything in Atlanta?!” Spratt was incredulous!  “How the FUCK did I get away from you then?!” 

Hector changed the subject and tried to bluff Spratt by saying, “I KNOW that you have been in contact with your wife and that she is helping you out by sending you money!  I am going to arrest her and charge her with obstruction of justice if you don’t turn yourself in!”  This statement concerned Spratt.  He hadn’t had any contact at all with his family so he knew that Hector was just guessing but he wondered how vulnerable his wife was due to living in the jurisdiction of Puerto Rico and how much authority Hector might actually be able to wield over her.  Spratt told Hector in all seriousness, “Listen to me dickhead!  You don’t have a FUCKING clue where I am right now but I know EXACTLY where you live!  If you fuck with my wife or anybody else in my family…I will be the one doing the killing and YOU will be the first one on my list!”  Hector hung up.  Spratt tried to call back several times but nobody answered the phone.

Unauthorized Vacation: "A One Way Ticket To Freedom, Please!"

The cold chill of a February morning greeted Spratt as he walked outside.  He turned to his right and started walking down the sidewalk with his sights set on the parking lot exit.  Noticing that it was quite desolate at this time of the morning, he wondered if he would draw suspicion and also wondered where he would go; the immediate destination didn’t matter at the moment…he just had to get far away from this hotel.  As Spratt reached the end of the sidewalk, he heard the distinctive sound of a diesel engine and noticed a person inside the shuttle bus filling out some paperwork.  Spratt walked over and asked what time was the first run to the airport.  The bus driver stated, “We can go right now if you want”.  Spratt couldn’t believe his luck!  “Please, let’s go” he replied and got on the bus.

The driver finished filling out his log book and put the bus in gear.  Spratt kept expecting to see the two cops run out of the hotel but never did.  The bus left the parking lot and got on the main road putting much needed distance between Spratt and the hotel with each second.  Spratt pulled Hector’s wallet out and opened it up to inspect the contents: driver’s license, credit cards, and, what Spratt was most interested in, cash!  Spratt grabbed the bills and held them up to the window so that he could see their denominations with the help of the streetlights.  Three one dollar bills and a five!  “What!  That’s it?!?  Eight fucking dollars!” Spratt was pissed and searched the wallet again.  “Surely this motherfucker carries more than eight fucking dollars!”  Spratt couldn’t find any more money in the wallet and kicked himself mentally for not taking the Sergeant’s wallet too…”What the FUCK can I do with eight FUCKING dollars!”  “Nothing!”  Of course, there were credit cards in the wallet…maybe Spratt could do something with those.

Upon arrival at Hartsfield International Airport, Spratt got off the bus and tipped the driver with a one dollar bill while thanking him for the ride and apologizing that he couldn’t leave a better tip, “I don’t have much cash on me” Spratt said.  In his mind, he already felt superior to the Sergeant since that cheapskate didn’t tip anybody during the entire trip.

Spratt may as well have told the driver to take him to the police station as the airport at that time of the day is empty except for janitors and cops…lots of cops.  Spratt had never seen an airport so completely devoid of passengers.  Spratt was the only one in sight not wearing an official uniform.  Well, technically, he did have a uniform on but not like everybody else’s.  He saw armed security guards, Atlanta city police, TSA officers, a K-9 officer and his dog walking around sniffing things, and a couple of Customs agents.  He could only imagine how many were in back rooms that he couldn’t see but, with all of the cameras, could certainly see him.  “So much for trying to blend in” thought Spratt, “Holy Fuck!  So many goddamned cops!”

Spratt nervously walked up to a janitor and asked where the closest bathroom was.  He headed there immediately as he wanted to take the name tags off of his clothing and inspect the rest of Hector’s belongings in good light.  He entered the bathroom and quickly noticed there was somebody at the urinals…a cop!  “Son of a bitch!”  Spratt made his way to the stalls and chose the spacious handicap stall.  He heard the cop flush and walk away so he knew he was alone for the moment.  Spratt used Hector’s keys to cut into the thread holding the name tag to his jeans and then worked on the shirt’s tag.  Keys aren’t very sharp but he finally got them off and flushed them down the toilet.

Opening the shoulder bag, Spratt found exactly what he expected; a portable DVD player and two DVD’s (‘The Incredible Hulk’ and some kind of porn).  No money hidden in there anywhere.  He put the bag down and went through the Badge/ID holder…nothing in there but the badge, Hector’s official ID, and the handcuff key.  (Spratt thought it was kind of funny to be in the midst of all these cops; an escaped inmate sitting on the shitter with a badge and a set of handcuffs!)  Spratt went through the wallet once more and found several credit cards but no money.  Ironically, being an ‘expert’ on credit card fraud, they were of absolutely no use to him at the moment.  All of the stores and restaurants in this part of the airport were closed…certainly he could use them at a 24 hour store like Wal-Mart to get some civilian clothes but how would he get to one?  He didn’t even have enough money to take a cab to a store.  If he had all of his equipment with him, he could have sent himself some money through Western Union but, even if he could get that through, he only had an inmate ID and doubted that he would be able to pick the money up anyway.  Spratt gathered up his things and walked out of the bathroom towards the subway wondering if the trains were running at this hour.

The schedule showed the first train leaving towards downtown Atlanta at 5:00am so he bought a ticket for two dollars.  He boarded the waiting train and hoped he didn’t draw attention from the cops due to being the sole passenger.  Each moment that passed, he kept expecting a S.W.A.T. team or something to come rushing on board and take him into custody.  At the very least, his description may have already been broadcast and even a lone policeman could recognize him and his brief moment of freedom would be over.  Finally, the train doors closed and he was whisked out of the station without incident.

On the way downtown, Spratt got nervous at each stop expecting, still, police to come aboard at each station but nothing happened and he felt more comfortable as the train filled up with unsuspecting commuters.  Spratt opened up the wallet again and studied everything in it.  He memorized all of Hector’s personal information: date of birth, social security number, address, etc.  He knew that he couldn’t present the ID to anybody and have them believe that he looked even remotely like the man in the picture but maybe he could bluff his way out of a potential confrontation if he could rattle off personal stats without showing ID.  Nothing else in the wallet was of use to him at the moment except, possibly, a ‘Banco Popular’ ATM card but he doubted he could use that because he didn’t know the P.I.N. and it wasn’t a ‘branded’ debit card…just one that could be used to withdraw money from a machine.

Spratt got off at the Peachtree Center Station in downtown and rode the escalator to street level passing a sign proclaiming this particular escalator to be the steepest escalator in the country.  Or was it the steepest in the world?  Spratt thought that was interesting…they were pretty steep.  Leaving the station, Spratt noticed that it was still dark outside.  There was a newsstand open next to a convenience store and, though he was hungry, he didn’t want to spend all of the money at one time so he purchased a cup of coffee and a cheap brand of ‘generic’ cigarettes.  That left him with about two dollars and a little change.  He kept walking down the street and, with nothing better to do, he decided to try Hector’s ATM card but couldn’t find any machines.

Spratt walked inside the lobby of a luxury hotel and asked the front desk clerk if they had an ATM machine.  The clerk pointed him to an area off to the side of the front desk and Spratt walked over to give it a try.  Spratt stuck the card in, pressed the button indicating withdrawal and hesitated when the screen asked for the P.I.N.  Spratt punched in the last four digits of Hector’s social security card and the transaction was declined.  Spratt walked back out into the darkness.

Spratt’s mind began wandering.  Were the cops awake yet or were they still sleeping soundly?  Was there a manhunt for him right now or did he still have a little more time to try to get further away?  Spratt walked into another hotel lobby and found the ATM on his own.  Spratt inserted the card and entered the last four digits of Hector’s phone number as the P.I.N.  The transaction was declined.  Spratt didn’t really expect to get any money anyway since Hector had been a fraud investigator.  His P.I.N. wouldn’t be an easily accessible number.  He walked back into the street and saw that the sky was just a tad brighter meaning that the sun was trying to come up and the street was a bit more lively with pedestrians.

Spratt started walking towards the Greyhound station and noticed an ATM machine jutting out from the wall of one of the buildings.  Spratt knew that three failed attempts at a P.I.N. usually meant that the machine would confiscate the card but thought, “Fuck it.  I might as well give it another shot.”  He stuck the card in the machine and entered Hector’s birth year as the P.I.N.  Not surprisingly, the transaction was, again, declined but the machine didn’t keep the card (Spratt guessed that it might have to be three attempts at the same machine…good, now he would be able to try again later).  Spratt took the card once more and continued to the bus station knowing that he was running out of time since the cops had asked for a 7:30am wake up call.  If they weren’t awake yet, they would be soon.  Once they woke up, Spratt was sure that all of the cards in the wallet would be cancelled and they would be of no use to him; he wouldn’t even be able to buy any civilian clothes because the wake-up call was set to go off before ANY downtown stores opened.

Spratt walked inside the bus station knowing that it was not the best idea since this is the first place that cops go when they are hunting a fugitive but he needed to warm up a little bit.  He bought another cup of coffee (leaving him with exactly two dollars) and sat down in an area specifically reserved for ticketed passengers only; he hoped that his clean-cut appearance would prevent the security guard from asking to see a ticket.  Spratt decided to call his wife in Puerto Rico and pulled out Hector’s cell phone; he hoped it wasn’t too early and that he didn’t wake up her grandmother because she could be pretty feisty at times and he didn’t want any arguments.  He dialed the number and the phone was answered by the grandmother on the fourth ring.  She spoke something unintelligible in groggy Spanish and hung up.  He called back several times but there was no answer.  On the fourth, and every subsequent, attempt he got a busy signal and guessed that the grandmother had taken the phone off the hook.

Spratt didn’t know what to do now.  He hardly had any money and couldn’t get in touch with anybody that he knew.  His options were extremely limited at the moment but he knew that he would get caught if he stayed in Atlanta.  He couldn’t leave though because he didn’t have enough money for a ticket.  Wandering around the city would surely lead to somebody asking for some ID at some point and he didn’t have any that would be acceptable.  Plus, he felt that his picture would probably be in every police car soon so it was just a matter of time before he would be arrested again.  Spratt gave serious consideration to using his last two dollars to take the train back to the airport and returning to the hotel on the shuttle bus.  He thought it might be funny to be sitting in the lobby enjoying a continental breakfast when the two cops came running around the corner after discovering that he wasn’t in the room.  He had proven his point already!  He DID escape!  He just didn’t have anywhere to go now that he had accomplished this.  If they found him in the hotel lobby, they might not be able to charge him with escape.  Spratt wondered if he could make it back before they woke up or if it was already too late.

Now warmed and feeling nervous about being in the bus station, Spratt left to decide his next move and was immediately accosted by homeless people and drug addicts that hang around the station asking for money.  They didn’t believe he didn’t have any and he felt that he may be close to being robbed.  He needed to avoid any confrontation at all costs so as not to draw the attention of the police so he showed one guy his Idaho Inmate ID and told him that he had just gotten out of prison and didn’t have any money.  The guy finally relented and left.  Spratt continued down the street relieved that he hadn’t been assaulted.

Spratt entered yet another hotel and went directly to their ATM machine.  Going through the preliminaries again, the machine asked the amount of the withdrawal prior to asking for the P.I.N. and Spratt arbitrarily punched the button indicating twenty dollars.  When asked for the P.I.N., Spratt entered the month and day of Hector’s birthdate and the machine spat out a twenty dollar bill.  “Holy Shit!” thought Spratt.  He wasn’t expecting this and hurriedly grabbed the money and the receipt leaving the hotel immediately. 

Spratt was more paranoid than a crackhead now!  His mind began racing with all of the possibilities of why the machine had given him some money.  He knew that some of those machines go off-line for accounting reasons at certain times of the day and they will sometimes complete a transaction in that state if the amount of money is small even if they can’t communicate with the bank while reconciling the transactions.  However, the P.I.N. is encoded in the magnetic strip on the back of the card and even a machine that is off-line would know that the correct P.I.N. wasn’t entered!  Why did it give out the money?  Could it be that the cops were now awake and looking for him?  Could they have informed the bank to allow transactions so that they could trace where he was?  He had to get out of the area now! 

Still perplexed, Spratt went to another ATM machine at the Bank of America to see if the twenty dollars was just a fluke or if he could actually get some more money.  He entered the same P.I.N. and selected the button for ‘Balance Inquiry’.  The machine printed a receipt indicating the balance to be $609.32!  “Wow, Hector” thought Spratt, “is that all the money you have?”  Spratt tried again and found out the balance in the savings account was zero.  “Man!  This fucker’s poor!”  Spratt decided that if they were using the card to track him then they already knew his location so he decided to just get any amount of money that he could and asked the machine to give him six hundred dollars.  The machine didn’t respond immediately which made Spratt nervous and he was about to turn around and leave when the damn thing spit out a stack of twenty dollar bills and a receipt!  Spratt now had $622.00!!  He was richer than Hector at the moment! 

Spratt couldn’t help but grin as he was walking down the street!  Hector, the fraud security ‘expert’ had used his birthdate as P.I.N.!  That was the most basic admonition that all banks tell their customers!  The first thing you are told when you open an account is NOT to use your birthdate!  What a dumbass!!  Spratt didn’t really know what to do next but he knew one thing: “I’m not going back to the fucking hotel now!”

Spratt purchased another subway ticket and took the train to the furthest station from downtown.  He looked in the phone book and found another small Greyhound station in that suburb and took a taxi to it.  He purchased a ticket to Greenville, SC and sat down to wait for the bus which was supposed to leave at 9:00am.  A few minutes after eight o’clock, Spratt tried to call his wife again but the phone wouldn’t process the call.  He tried to dial random numbers but none of them went through…the phone had been cut off.  “Well, I guess those fuckers are awake now!” Spratt said to himself.  He turned the phone off and took the battery out of it so they couldn’t use it to track him.  He figured that if the phone was off then the credit cards had also been deactivated and he wouldn’t even bother trying to use them…doing so would only leave a trail to trace him with.

The bus left on time and without incident but Spratt didn’t relax until it crossed the State line into South Carolina.  As soon as he got to Greenville, he bought some food from Burger King and thought that he should get even further away so he immediately bought a ticket for the next bus to Charlotte, NC.  Charlotte is a good sized city and he figured, with it being two States away from where he escaped, he had a good chance at not being recognized.

On the bus to Charlotte, Spratt couldn’t help but to amuse himself with what might have happened in the hotel that morning when the cops woke up.  He could imagine the phone ringing with the wake-up call and one of the cops sleepily answering it then hanging it up and looking in the direction where Spratt was supposed to be but not finding anything.  He imagined the Sergeant would be the one answering the phone since it was closest to his bed.  Then he imagined him JUMPING out of the bed and shaking Hector awake, “Where the hell is Spratt!”  He imagined Hector jumping up looking confused and then suddenly realizing that their prisoner was missing and rushing to the bathroom praying to himself, “Please be in the bathroom!  Please be in the bathroom!  Please be in the bathroom!” and bursting through the door only to find a toilet, sink, and shower…no prisoner!  Oh, how he wished he could have been a fly on that wall at that moment!

Spratt wondered what would have happened next.  Would they rush down the hallway, guns drawn, to the lobby?  Would they scour the parking lot?  Would they call the local police?  Surely they would have to ask the front desk clerk if they had seen him and, thus, admit their incompetence to them.  Whatever they did was sure to be pure embarrassment for them!  Eventually, they would have to call their superiors in Puerto Rico and inform them that they no longer had custody of their prisoner.  Spratt knew that would be a difficult phone call for them.  Puerto Rican men, in general, are proud of being ‘macho’ and these two cops were part of an elite branch of the Puerto Rico Police called ‘Division de Extradiciones y Arrestos Especiales’ (Division of Extradition and Special Arrests).  These were the cops that considered themselves to be superior to the S.W.A.T. team since they hunted down notorious fugitives and brought them back to justice.  Spratt’s situation called for the ‘best of the best’ to be assigned to bring him back and, now, they didn’t have a prisoner to bring back.  “Those two fuckers are going to have a bad day”, Spratt chuckled to himself.  To add insult to injury, Hector didn’t even have any identification anymore AND he would soon find out that Spratt had drained his bank account!  “Stupid Fuckers!”  Spratt mentally laughed at them again as the bus pulled into the Charlotte terminal.