I Hung Out With an Extortionist

I grip my armrest. I don’t like flying. It’s 1980 and I’m eighteen.

“Where are you from?” the man next to me asks.

I’m happy I’m not sitting in the middle. I have the aisle seat.

“Chattanooga, Tennessee.”

He makes a show of looking at my feet.

“I’m surprised to see you have shoes on.”

I cringe inside. He’s rude.

“Where’re you from?”

“Washington DC. I’m an FBI agent. I’m coming to investigate the activities of an extortionist.”

No wonder he’s wearing a black suit. He looks like the agents I see on my favorite shows like Hart to Hart andThe Rockford Files. I look away from him as I try to figure out of what an extortionist is. I’m saved by the flight stewardess.

“Would you like something to drink?”

“A Coke, please.”

I release my hold on the armrest as she hands me my cup.

“I’ll have the same,” says the agent.

I don’t know what to say so I just sip my cola.

After a while, the announcement comes that we will be landing soon. The agent has his briefcase open even after we’re told to put our trays up and everything else under our feet.

I’m gripping my armrest as we descend. I yelp when the tires hit the ground, and it causes the agent to flip his briefcase as papers fly to the floor. I giggle inside. Take that.

Then I think about why I’m here. My boyfriend, who was one of my high school teachers, started freaking out when football season started up and wanted space. I’m giving him space all right. I’m using the excuse that I’m coming out here to get to know my birth father, Don, —and that’s true too.

I’ve been instructed to use a pay phone to let Don know I’ve arrived. I walk through the sounds of coins going in and out of the slot machines in search for a pay phone. I find one and let him know I’m here. My stomach tightens up as I realize I’m going to live with people I don’t really know. I met Don and his wife, Joanna, when I was thirteen. I’ve visited them twice since then—both times agains my will. He abandoned us after he finished his medical residency. I was three months old.

After a month in Las Vegas, I realize it was a good thing Don did not raise me. I feel like I need to tiptoe around him—especially after he quit talking to me for two weeks when I didn’t wash his van right away. He never apologized—just called me out of the blue one day to pick me up for a game of squash.

A few weeks after this incident, Don came to me with a question.

“Hey, Steph. Iain has some friends from Glasgow coming for a visit. They want to see California while they’re here, but Iain doesn’t have time to give them a tour. Would you mind showing them around California?”

My eyes bulge. Is he crazy? I’m eighteen and I’m from the South. What do I know about California?

“You can take the van, and I’ll give you a credit card. Neither of them drives, so you will have to do all that.?They’re twenty-one and twenty-nine.”

He is crazy.

“Okay.”

I meet Lesley and Heather the following week. Heather smells like perfume. She has a small face and puckered lips. Lesley is the older one. She is taller with jet black hair. I spread out a map of California on the carpeted floor of Iain’s apartment. I point to Hollywood, Laguna Beach, and Disneyland. I don’t know about Laguna Beach but they’re excited. I want to go to Hollywood and Disneyland. Since I’m driving…

Dad’s van is carpeted and Heather spreads herself out in the back. None of us wear our seatbelts. I push in my 8-track tape of Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young’s Déjà Vu and “Carry On” belts out through the door speakers. I sit high in the driver seat singing along as we leave Las Vegas behind. I look over at Lesley in the passenger seat and smile. We’re doing this. California, here we come.

As we pass through San Bernadino on Highway 15, the smog prevents us from seeing past the highway. It hangs like an orange fog thick enough to choke you. I’ve never seen anything like this. The air in Las Vegas is much cleaner. Disneyland doesn’t disappoint. We ride a tour cart that takes us where Jaws hides below the waters. Our cart drops down on a bridge and a mechanical shark snaps his teeth as he blasts up out of the water. I jump into the laps of the couple sitting next to me.

Lesley gets picked to be the bionic woman in another part of the park. She pulls seven men across the stage thanks to black-painted rope being pulled by hydraulics. In Hollywood, I manage to get tickets for the Mike Douglas Show. The guests are Sammy Davis Jr. and Mac Davis. I can’t believe I’m here. During the show, Lesley leans over and whispers in my ear, her Scottish brogue heavy.

“We’re bored. We want to leave.”

“No way. We’re staying. Don’t you know who these people are?”

“No.”

We stay until the end. I wasn’t going to miss one thing.

After a week or so of me finding motels and restaurants for us, we head back to Las Vegas. As soon as we enter Iain and his roommate’s apartment, we notice three more suitcases.

“I can’t believe it!” Lesley screams.

She jumps up and down and soon she and Heather are bouncing around the apartment. These are more Scotties from Glasgow. All males. I’ll meet them later. I’m ready to go back to Don and Joanna’s.

A few days later, Lesley calls.

“You have to come meet the guys. Can you come over and then we’ll go out to eat.”

Even though Heather drove me nuts on our trip, I still miss them. I meet Dennis, Iain’s roommate, Alan, Lawrence, and another Iain. Dennis reminds me of a wolf with his dirty-blonde hair and heavy beard. When we return from dinner, Dennis asks me if I would join him on Saturday when he takes his nine-year-old daughter to go bowling.

“It’s my weekend to spend time with my daughter. I think she would like you and you are closer in age to her.”

“Sure. I’d be happy to. I used to bowl in a bowling league.”

On Saturday morning, Dennis picks me. His daughter is cute and blond-headed. We bowl for a while and then eat junk food. I feel like an unpaid babysitter when Dennis leaves to make phone calls on the pay phone.

Back at home, Don has a talk with me.

“I don’t want you hanging around Dennis. There’s something I don’t like about him.”

“I just went bowling with he and his daughter. It was no big deal.”

“I don’t want you hanging around him.”

Is he trying to be a dad now? I don’t think he has earned the right.

I take the Scotties to Lake Meade the next week where I rent a boat. They want to water ski. I drive the boat while they take turns skiing. I’m glad I grew up skiing and being around boats. None of them seem to know much about driving the boat or pulling skiers behind it. We go out a few more times before they return to Glasgow. They were fun.

Three and a half months go by quickly. I’ve become a good squash player and have made lifelong friends at the Episcopal church I attend. I’m ready to be back South where my accent doesn’t get made fun of.

Three months after being back in Chattanooga, Don sends me a article from the Las Vegas Sun. In it, Dennis, Iain’s roommate, has been arrested for extortion. He had threatened five hotels, including the MGM, that he would set off bombs if they didn’t hand over $2 million dollars. Whoa. Dennis was the extortionist?! I wonder if the FBI agent I sat next to on the plane was the one who did the honors. Don’s gut was right. Huh. I never felt unsafe around Dennis. But then again, I didn’t own a major hotel in Vegas.