American Notes CRIME *

Bell Laboratories has long been proud of its thief-resistant pay telephone, boasting that the only way to break into it was to haul the whole contraption away and work on it with sledgehammers or explosives. According to the FBI, John Clark, 49, a former Ohio machinist who wears a shoulder-length ponytail and cowboy clothes, discovered otherwise. He is the only person known to have devised a tool that can pick pay-phone locks. It afforded him a comfortable, if itinerant, living. The FBI estimates that Clark, who sometimes used the alias Billy Bell, may have stolen as much as $1 million in some 32 states over the past eight years.

The only problem with Clark's pick was that it left distinctive marks, which enabled the FBI to follow his trail. His downfall came when he stayed too long in a residence in Buena Park, Calif. The feds caught up with him there last week and arrested him. They also confiscated his wondrous tool, and are hoping that he has not let anyone else in on his lucrative secret.