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One of Them

Nora McDonald

    “He’s definitely one of them!”
    Anne sighed. Aunt Harriet was pointing at the big, burly, tuxedo-dressed man standing in the hotel entrance.
    “I don’t like the look of him at all!”
    “Ssh! He’ll hear you,” said Anne.
    “I don’t care if he does. I’m not going to let any member of the mob intimidate me!”
    The man turned and stared at Anne and her aunt. There was no smile.
    He does look intimidating, thought Anne, reluctant to agree with her aunt.
    She felt herself flushing and hoped the man would put it down to the hot desert temperature.
    “He’s not in the Mob!” whispered Anne, steering her aunt deftly away from the man and into the hotel. The hotel is a perfectly respectable hotel built by Cleve Hudson, the Casino Resort Developer. That man on the door is probably just a bouncer - there to keep undesirables out – and if you don’t keep quiet – we’ll be out.”
    That’s all I’ll need, thought Anne. Evicted from one of the most prestigious hotels in Las Vegas. The final straw in a disastrous holiday.
    It was all her own fault. She should never have taken her aunt to America. Especially to Las Vegas.
    Folkestone, yes. Las Vegas, no.
    She’d felt sorry for her. Elderly. Single. Living alone and never seeming to go anywhere.
    I’ll be like that one day, thought Anne. With no one to go on holiday with. I’m like that now, she thought. And I’m only twenty eight.
    “He looks a bit like that no good boyfriend of yours,” said Aunt Harriet as they stood looking at the magnificent hotel lobby.
    That’s right. Dig the knife in, thought Anne, as though I wasn’t suffering enough already.
    “He looks nothing like Ron,” Anne said miserably.
    “Always said he was no good for you. Never liked him from the first day I met him. Best thing he ever did for you was dump you.”
    Anne’s depression deepened. She looked around. The hotel lobby was filled with people – happy people – enjoying themselves in one of the most exciting places on earth and here she was stuck with her elderly, critical, outspoken aunt.
    Why can’t she just enjoy herself? thought Anne. What was wrong with her? Probably comes of spending too much time on her own, she thought.
    She’d noticed that about single people. They got so fixed in their ways. They’d forgotten the value of adaptability or flexibility. Trouble was they became introverted and took it out on other people.
    I’ll be the same in a few years time, thought Anne.
    “I don’t expect you can even get a decent cup of tea here,” said Aunt Harriet.
    “How about a coffee instead?” said Anne, steering her aunt in the direction of the bar at the entrance.
    “This is a bar!” said her aunt.
    Anne sighed.
    Aunt Harriet should have been here through Prohibition, she thought.
    “Yes, I know, said Anne patiently, but I’m sure we can get a coffee.”
    “It’s not the same,” grumbled her aunt.
    Maybe I should order a Jack Daniels, thought Anne.
    “There he is again!” said her aunt, when they were seated and silently sipping coffee.
    Anne looked round.
    Sure enough, the same big, burly bouncer was standing in the middle of the hotel lobby.
    “He’s watching us!” said Aunt Harriet.
    “No, he’s not!” said Anne but, even as she spoke, the man’s head turned and Anne felt him looking directly at her.
    Anne flushed with an unexplained guilt and turned to her aunt.
    “I told you he was staring at us!” said her aunt triumphantly.
    “Well, stop looking at him!” said Anne.
    “I can’t. He’s quite good-looking in a sort of evil way,” said her aunt. “Of course, they always are.”
    “Who?” said Anne.
    “Them. The Italians.”
    Anne laughed.
    “How do you know he’s Italian?”
    “You can always tell. Dark and handsome in a brooding sort of way.”
    Anne laughed again.
    “What do you know about Italians?” she said.
    “I’ll have you know I was once married to one,” said Aunt Harriet.
    Anne looked at her aunt with surprise.
    Aunt Harriet married? The first she’d heard of that. How come no one had ever told her about that? To an Italian? She’d never have thought it. Maybe she’d misjudged her.
    “I didn’t know you were married!” Anne said, interested for the first time in what Aunt Harriet might say.
    An unexpected faraway look appeared in her aunt’s eyes.
    “It was a long time ago,” she said. “Here. In Las Vegas.”
    “Here?”
    Anne couldn’t keep the disbelief out of her voice.
    Her aunt had been to Las Vegas before? There’d been no mention of it when she had invited her to come along.
    “Well, we didn’t meet here. We met when I was on holiday in Italy. But we got married here!”
    Anne was about to ask more when the light in her aunt’s eyes leapt excitedly and she said, “Let’s go down there now and I’ll show you where we got our wedding licence.”
    Where you got a wedding licence? That was the last place Anne wanted to be. Surrounded by potential newly weds.
    But horror had barely time to register on her face. Her aunt was already pulling her up from her seat, all thought of tea totally turned to dust, just as the pianist on the piano stool started playing. A shiver slipped down Anne’s spine as the haunting strains of “Someone to Watch over Me” sniggered at her imminent departure.
    Someone to watch over me. It was what she had always wanted. But never achieved. Had she wanted it too much? Had that put potential suitors off? Was she too demanding? Or too desperate? She knew what Ron would have said. Ron. The very thought of his name brought a tear to her eye.
    Well, I guess I got what I deserved she thought.
    Sure, she had someone to watch over her.
    Her elderly aunt.
    As her aunt dragged her towards the hotel door, she tried to avoid studying the unending stream of cosy couples that cut their way through the crowds in the lobby of the hotel and tried to be glad they’d at least be avoiding the glaring glance of the bouncer.
    At least he’ll be glad we’re going, thought Anne.
    The marriage bureau was a taxi ride away. And a world. Anne shifted uncomfortably outside the building, not from the scorching sun or even the unending stream of sparkling eyed couples that came and went continually through its door. Not even from the fact her aunt was actually inside the building. Despite Anne’s admonitions and repeated refusals to accompany her. No, it was something even stranger.
    Someone was watching her. From a short distance away. But even from that short distance she was aware of who it was.
    It was the bouncer from the hotel.
    Oh, help! thought Anne. Maybe Aunt Harriet is right after all. Maybe the man is in the Mafia. Why else would he follow them?
    The appearance of an exceptionally excited Aunt Harriet extinguished any further thoughts.
    “It’s just like it always was!” she said. “It hasn’t changed one bit.”
    Anne thought that highly unlikely, the passage of time playing havoc not only with people but with places as well. However she didn’t want to ruin her aunt’s romantic reminiscences.
    “Maybe we should get out of here,” suggested Anne, wanting badly to escape from the bouncer that seemed to be bugging them.
    “Yes, of course, dear,” said Aunt Harriet. “It can’t be too comfortable for you here!”
    Anne looked at her aunt. Did Aunt Harriet mean the heat or was she intimating something quite different?
    “I’ll take you to the chapel now!”
    “The chapel!”
    Anne looked shocked.
    “The wedding chapel I got married in!” said Aunt Harriet, grabbing Anne by the arm and marching her towards a waiting taxi cab.
    A chapel! It was getting worse by the minute. The last thing Anne wanted to see was a wedding chapel with a happy couple! But Aunt Harriet had already crammed Anne into a corner of the cab and decided the destination.
    The cab driver found it funny.
    “You ladies getting hitched?” he said, a wry smile on his well-weathered face.
    “Been there. Done that!” said Aunt Harriet, like she’d learned the lesson.
    “Me, too, lady,” he said. “I can’t understand what all the desire to get hitched is.”
    At least you’ve done it, thought Anne. All she’d ever met was fruitcakes. Fruitcakes who’d never even asked her to get married.
    She contemplated a celibate life.
    It wasn’t cheering.
    Aunt Harriet was deeply engrossed in conversation with the cab driver re the pros and cons of marriage when she suddenly screamed.
    “There it is!”
    A fistful of dollars were flung at the driver and Anne was dragged from the cab into the searing heat and up the side of a wooden building.
    “It’s just like it was!” said Aunt Harriet. “Exactly as I remember.”
    It was cute all right. A cute, little chapel.
    Just the kind I’d like to get married in, thought Anne.
    The thought that that would never happen descended in a depression, deepened only by the doors of the chapel opening and a bride and groom appearing, followed by an ever increasing entourage of people throwing paper confetti at them.
    The confetti scattered skittishly and settled in a surge on Anne and Aunt Harriet who started screaming excitedly like the other guests.
    I’ve got to get out of here, thought Anne, making her escape back down the side of the building and taking refuge in the shelter of the sun-awning over the shop. It was then she saw him. He was sitting in the driver’s seat of a black-windowed sedan, dark shades covering his eyes, but she knew by his build who it was.
    It was the bouncer from the hotel.
    Anne turned abruptly back up the side of the chapel. She had to get Aunt Harriet. They had to get out of here. This was more serious than she had thought.
    But when she skirted the side of the chapel, the wedding party had gone.
    And so had Aunt Harriet.
    She wouldn’t have gone with them, would she? thought Anne. But she knew that with Aunt Harriet, the unlikely was more than likely. She rushed into the chapel. The minister was picking up hymn books.
    “Have you seen an elderly lady. About this high?”
    She waved her hand carelessly in the air. The minister looked bemused. He’d seen more than one.
    Seeing his vacant expression and already knowing the answer, Anne rushed back outside.
    Maybe she’d just missed Aunt Harriet. Maybe she was round the side of the chapel waiting for a cab. She rushed round the side for the second time.
    She wasn’t there.
    There was only one thing that worried her more.
    The bouncer in the black sedan wasn’t there either.
    He’s got Aunt Harriet, she thought. The mob have taken Aunt Harriet.
    She knew it sounded ridiculous. What would the mob want with a harmless, elderly woman?
    And yet what other explanation could there be?
    Her aunt was eccentric but not even she would wander off in a strange city without informing her niece.
    She had to go to the cops. She had to report her aunt missing.
    “They’re going to laugh at me, thought Anne. Think I’m over-reacting. Calm down, she told herself. Better to go back to the hotel and see if her aunt was there. There was probably some rational explanation.
    But all thought of rational explanations left her head as she got out of a cab at the hotel, just in time to see Aunt Harriet disappearing into a sleek black sedan, the door of which was being held open by the bouncer from the hotel.
    “Aunt Harriet!” she called but the big, black sedan had already snaked its way through the line of waiting cabs and down on to the Strip.
    There was no sign of the bouncer either.
    It was all her fault. She should never have taken Aunt Harriet to Las Vegas. Vegas was dangerous. Whatever had possessed her to take her frail elderly aunt to such a place? Pure selfishness. She’d only thought of herself. Thought of going somewhere she would enjoy herself. Somewhere she could forget about Ron. She’d never had one bit of consideration for her aunt!
    And now her aunt was gone! And she was responsible! She’d never forgive herself!
    I’m not going to let them get away with this! she thought. They can’t just kidnap people in broad daylight!
    She entered the hotel lobby. The bouncer was boldly standing there.
    Gathering courage, Anne marched up to him.
    “You won’t get off with this! Kidnapping an old lady in public! I saw you watching us! You’ve had this all planned! I don’t know what you hope to gain but it won’t be money. Neither Aunt Harriet or I have any! And if it’s the white slave trade or prostitution, Aunt Harriet won’t be a willing worker. She might be old but she’s got more spunk in her slight figure than you have in your———————-!”
    She hesitated. Aunt Harriet wouldn’t approve.
    She waited for the hand that would grab her and eject her forcibly from the foyer. Or worse. But it never came.
    The big, burly bouncer started laughing. Laughing loudly. The cosy couples who had stopped to stare at Anne’s over-the-top outburst started moving again, soothed by the sound.
    This was Vegas after all! Anything could happen!
    “It’s not funny!” fumed Anne. “You’ll be laughing the other side of your face when I call the cops!”
    “I am one!” said the voice.
    It wasn’t an American voice. Even through her anger, she could detect the British accent.
    “Or I was one prior to taking up this position.”
    “A bent cop!” went on Anne. They’ll nail you for that!”
    The burly bouncer laughed again.
    “Maybe,” he said. “If I’d done anything wrong!”
    “You’ve kidnapped my aunt!” said Anne, angry at the arrogant look on the bouncer’s face.
    No,” he said. “You’re quite wrong! Your aunt has gone to see my uncle!”
    Anne gasped.
    “You’ve taken her to see the Don!”
    What hope was there for Aunt Harriet now? She’d never see her again!
    Oh, Aunt Harriet I’m sorry! I treated you abysmally! And now you might be in a block of concrete at the bottom of the Hoover Dam!
    The bouncer laughed again.
    “No, he’s not called Don. It’s Antonio, actually. And he was once married to her!”
    “Married to her! Antonio! You mean she’s not dead!” said Anne.
    “No. You can rest assured. Your aunt is alive and well and meeting up with her former partner, my uncle. She’s a wonderful lady. She’d seen me following you and she started chatting to me at the chapel!”
    “Then you admit you were following us!” stated Anne.
    The bouncer nodded. Was there a slight high colouring in his cheeks? Or was Anne imagining it?
    “It turned out she’d been married to my uncle but they’d split up many years ago over some argument and she hadn’t seen him since. I told her he’s been living here ever since. I often wondered why he’d settled here.”
    Anne knew. The same reason Aunt Harriet had dragged her round the marriage bureau and the wedding chapel. Memories. Fond memories.
    Anne felt a tear forming in the corner of her eye. Wouldn’t she like to have fond memories like that?
    “I’ll take you to your aunt,” said the bouncer. “This is my day off. I only came in because of your aunt. And you can meet my uncle. He’ll love to meet you.”
    Anne blushed.
    Maybe this guy wasn’t as bad as she’d thought. Good-looking, sure. But what was that? Ron had been good-looking. And he had been intolerable. It was the kind smile on the bouncer’s face that kindled a warm glow in her.
    “Well, thank you,” she said, uncertainly. “but that doesn’t explain why you were following us in the first place.”
    The slight flush on the bouncer’s face filled out into a fiery red that was faintly endearing in an annoying way.
    “Well, everybody here is so wrapped up in themselves. You were different. Who else your age would take an elderly aunt to Sin City and spend time taking her round all the places she was obviously reminiscing about? I reckoned you were a very caring person.”
    He paused and stared straight in her eyes.
    “And I wanted to get to know you better. Following you was the only thing I could think of!”
    Anne flushed guiltily.
    She couldn’t let this man know she was a fraud.
    “I’m not what you think I am,” she said. “I’ve been moaning and complaining to myself and regretting taking Aunt Harriet here. I’m not that nice at all.”
    “But you took her nevertheless and you accompanied her everywhere. You could have refused to go. But you didn’t. I think that says something about you that you don’t know about yourself, doesn’t it? After all, none of us are perfect, are we?”
    Anne eyed the elegant wavy black hair of the bouncer, beautifully swept back from the bronzed brow below and smiled.
    She certainly wasn’t. She was only moderately good looking. As he was. Even Aunt Harriet hadn’t liked the look of him.
    But they’d both been wrong.
    Looks were deceptive. Take Aunt Harriet. Who would have thought there was a romantic under that eccentric exterior?
    And the bouncer. Who would have thought he was the kind of guy to follow a lady about?
    And herself? Who would have thought she’d be begging for a fresh beginning with a bouncer?
    She was really looking forward to discussing the possibility with him and with Aunt Harriet.
    She laughed inwardly to herself as she thought what Aunt Harriet would say in that acerbic voice of hers.
    “He’s definitely one of them!”

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