My Wife's Li'l Secret (14 page)

“Can I have some sugar please?” I asked.

“No, Chinese tea no sugar,” Girly replied. “Drink it. It’s good for you.”

I made a face. “Please?”

“Okay, fine,” Girly said with a smile, and she gave me a spoonful of sugar.

Harmony all round.

I still slept in one of the spare bedrooms. How could I possibly use
that
defiled marital bed of mine?  Rest my head on a pillow that was used by my wife’s lover? I made a mental note to destroy it all that weekend. Every single bit of it. Start a huge bonfire, regardless of fire regulations, burn the mattress, linen, headboard, carpet, whatever! It would be a purging, and I really looked forward to it.

As I fell asleep, I wondered, even if I burned everything in that room, scrubbed the walls with bleach, and replaced the door, would I still be able to sleep in that room after what I had seen in there? I doubted it.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Even though I was fast asleep, I heard the unmistakable cocking of a 9mm. My eyes flew opened and I found myself staring into the barrel of a Beretta Silver Pigeon.

What the…?

When I looked up from the gun, it was into the faces of four snarling men. The men from Dina Street. The house with the Rottweilers. The men Cruikshank had drunk with at the tavern days earlier.

Bear was right; they had come for the cocaine I stole from them. Probably had cameras that captured me sneaking in.

I’m a dead man.

Four pairs of eyes stared back at me as I thought about Ally and Becky in the next room.

The thought of them harming my daughters jolted me, and I found myself contemplating fighting back. Maybe I can take them, I thought, even though I was still in the haze of sleep, outnumbered and unarmed.

Fat chance of that – there was also a .38 Special pointed at my chest and a sawed-off shotgun pointed at my face.

Why the hell did I have to take their drugs?

“Hello, my friend,” a man wearing a black leather jacket and sporting a heavy Russian accent said. His hair was dark, his face was cherubic, and his crinkly eyes were shining in the dark.

If he hadn’t been pointing a gun in my face, I’d have mistaken his smile for genuine. Heavy-set, in his forties, with dark hair and a gut that entered the room before him, it was clear he was head honcho in his team of fucks.

I looked behind the Soprano wannabees – to my surprise, Olga and Cruikshank stood with arms folded, smug grins on their faces.

It wasn’t about the cocaine I stole after all; it was about Olga and Cruikshank.

I nodded slowly. That was the plan – get me back in my house then whack me in the middle of the night.

Fury propelled me into an upright position and I swung my legs off the bed.

Bad move. The butt of the .38 smashed into the back of my head.

When I crashed to the floor, the booting started. All three men laid into me for what seemed like hours.

Outnumbered, dazed, and unable to defend myself, I lay in fetal position with my arms shielding my face while they booted the crap out of me.

Finally, they stopped and I lay groaning in agony.

Leather Jacket dropped to his haunches. “Your wife and her boyfriend owe me money,” he said. “One hundred thousand dollars. You have to pay. It’s your responsibility.”

“What…the fuck…for?” I groaned, furious with their cowardice.

“Cocaine,” he said in a matter-of-fact voice. “What else?”

Even though I was injured and in pain, my mind raced. “I don’t have a h...undred grand on …me,” I said. “You k…kill me, you get…fuck…all.” It hurt to speak.

“Yes,” Leather Jacket said, his smile still firmly in place. “I understand that. That is why I am going to give you a chance to come up with the money. Today you
don’t
die.” He patted my face, his smile growing wider, his eyes becoming shiny slits. “Maybe soon, but not today, okay my friend?”

Don’t call me your friend!

“Now, this story about you going to the police with information on Cruikshank…” he shook his head in a sorrowful manner, "…that can’t happen. We all must…must...” he circled his hands in the air, “get along.” He jerked his head toward Cruikshank and Olga behind him. “They are family. You can’t put them out. Where do they go? Huh? Now they will come back to this house and you will
all
get along. If you don’t, I will be …
disappointed
, understand?”

Like fucking hell I was going to let them back in. I planned to call the cops the moment I could.

“Now, we don’t want to involve the police,” Leather Jacket said, as if reading my mind. “Because if you do,” he jerked his thumb towards his goons shadowing him, “they will pay you a visit at work.” His smile flashed so wide, I saw all his teeth.

I glanced at his henchmen. They snarled at me like three rabid pit bulls with dark wigs.

“Now if you want to be a hero, you can be a hero. But just remember you have two little daughters to protect,” Leather Jacket continued. “You don’t want to anger me in such a way that I must find a way to get my money, huh?”

At the mention of my daughters, the hairs on the back of my neck stood up and my cockiness vanished.

“They are so precious with their …their lovely blonde hair and pretty eyes…blue, just like their mother – someday they are going to be lookers when they grow up, my friend. You don’t want to wake up one day and find them gone now, do you?”

My mouth went dry at his insinuation.

“You’ll have to spend your whole life looking for them. What a way to live. Huh?”

Quickly, I nodded.

“Olga go to the cops, you go back to jail. You go back to the cops, you die, your family suffer. It can get very messy, no? Very messy.”

He sprung to his feet and looked at Olga. “For his court case, you don’t show up, his charges go away. Okay?”

“Yes, Aristov,” she answered in a meek voice, to my surprise.

“Why? Because he get criminal record, he can’t work, he can’t get bank loans, he can’t take care of his bills. I not be happy, okay? I
want
to be happy. He give me my money, I be very happy. Very!”

Aristov looked at Cruikshank.

“Yes, Aristov,” Cruikshank said, almost bowing before Aristov, his hands linked in front of him.

Aristov rubbed his hands together, then clapped twice. “Now, we go. But we visit soon to collect my money. Say…one month.”

“One month…” I shook my head.

“Hey, if you have a problem, you talk to me, we work out something, huh? I am reasonable man. Very reasonable. Ask them. I give them what they want when they have no money. Everybody love me because I am nice man. They call me ‘Family Man.’” With a broad smile, he pointed at me, then started to back out of the room. “You have a good night, now.” He nodded at his pit bulls.

They looked at me, smiled, then each one gave me a parting boot in the ribs.

“Hey! Hey! Hey!” Leather Jacket said, chuckling and putting his hands out to stop them. “No more. Leave some for tomorrow.”

Reluctantly, they shuffled out of the room.

I lay on the floor in agony, convinced I had sustained a concussion, some broken ribs, a sprained finger, and some heavy facial bruises. Two arse-kickings in one week.

Olga and Cruikshank followed the men out of the house, and I heard their cheerful goodbyes.

Of course they would be cheerful; they were back home with no chance of being kicked out.

The moment they left, Girly darted into the room, a horrified look on her face. “Pig!” she whispered. “Jesus God, Pig!”

“Girly, I …need my …phone…”

She looked around, found it at my bedside and held it up. “I call police?”

I shook my head and flicked my fingers at her. “No police.”

In spite of my pain, I dialed Bear, while Girly fetched some towels to clean the blood off my face.

He answered after two rings. “Big?”

“I need your help, Bear.”
Again
.

A short silence followed before he said, “Be there in two,” and hung up. Thankfully, he asked no questions, saving me from having to explain on the phone.

Olga and Cruikshank stayed in the main bedroom and did not emerge when Bear arrived.

“What the fuck, Ritchie?!” Bear said when he saw me, his arms flung out, his nostrils flaring.

I put my finger to my lip, then pointed toward my main bedroom.

He said nothing, but his hooded eyes and thin lips told me he wanted to kick some arse. Who dared lay a finger on Bear Shaw’s brother-in-law? He looked behind him, toward my bedroom, his eyes granite.

“Chill!” I muttered.

He shook his head from side-to-side.

“Later,” I placated. “Trust me.”

His nod was very slight.

As we travelled to the hospital, the whole affair with Cruikshank and Olga, which was up till that day a mere act of sheer betrayal and unrivaled deceit, suddenly took on a dangerous undertone. A drug dealer, a
Russian
one at that, had entered my home in the middle of the night, and not only was he exhorting money out of me, but he was threatening to harm my children if I didn’t play along.

Olga had an army of hoodlums behind her. There was absolutely no reason for me to be alive. If I was murdered, she’d have access to everything.

I was in deep, deep trouble.

“I fell down a flight of stairs,” I said to the emergency room nurse.

Her eyes narrowed.

I shrugged. Imagine if I told her that four Russian fucks bearing firearms stole into my home at 3 a.m. and kicked the shit out of me, while my wife and her lover, who lives with us because I was a dumbass to allow him into my home, watched on.

“Who is this man to you?” the nurse asked, as she placed a dressing over the gash on my forehead, her head jerking toward Bear.

“My…part…ner,” I replied as I winced in pain.

After that, they threw Bear a series of dirty looks and kicked him out of the room.

“Did he do this to you?” the head nurse asked.

“What do you...mean?”

“Mr. MacMillan, you’ve been assaulted twice in one week. Did your partner hurt you? If he did, it’s domestic violence, you know.”

I squinted at her. “Domestic …what? No! No! No! He’s my
brother
-in-law.”

“You said he was your partner?”

“My
business
partner.”

“Oh.” I swear she looked disappointed.

But Bear was allowed to sit with me again while they conducted tests on me.

“Should I hold your hand?” Bear asked. “Just to confuse them further?”

Even though I was hurt, both Bear and I cracked up laughing, causing me more pain from the broken ribs. That was the thing about Bear and I; we could find a laugh in the most serious of situations. Every day with Bear was a fun day.

He came across as quiet and sometimes intimidating to people who didn’t know him, but once you got to know him, he was one of the funniest and most playful guys around.

Anyway, besides having three cracked ribs, a concussion, and a sprained finger, I also had generalized cuts and soft tissue injury throughout my body. I resembled a boxer who was unfairly matched and who had lost the fight – a knockout.

I was bandaged, held for observation for a couple of hours, given no analgesics due to the concussion, and finally sent home at 9 a.m. with a mother of a headache.

As Bear drove me to his house, we fumed about the home invasion and the assault.

“Man, Bear, I would like to drive by their house and spray them with an AK47, Scarface style! Mow the motherfuckers down! Seriously.”

“Yeah,” Bear said in a pensive voice, “I would like to take them one on one. Lock the door, only the winner gets to leave.”

“Yeah, that leather jacket-wearing fuck, he kept calling me his friend.”

Bear looked at me. “He called you that?”

“Yeah.”

He shook his head. “That’s crossing a line.”

Again we cracked up laughing, and again I groaned in agony.

“But your coke is safe,” Bear said, pulling into his driveway.

“But my coke is safe,” I repeated, relieved that Leather Jacket had no idea they were under surveillance.

Since I knew my kids would be okay with Girly, I went over to Bear’s place where we talked over cups of coffee.

“You could leave home, move in here?” Arena said.

“Leave my home so that they are free to hock it? Because it’s clear that’s what she’s after. She can then sell it and snort the money. I will never leave my home. She must leave, not me.”

They nodded, worried looks on their faces.

To say I was disappointed that Olga could allow a thug like Leather Jacket to talk about our daughters like that was putting it mildly. I was gutted. How could she? What made her stop caring? How does a mother lose her maternal instinct overnight?

Again, loneliness and a sense of helplessness deluged over me.

“I need to know a little more,” I said in a grim voice. “Then I’m going to kill that Russian bastard.”

I meant every word, every threat. You come into my home, fuck with me, talk about my kids in that way and just walk away? No way! I am a man; I will protect my family at all costs. I won’t rest until I have the last word.

If I were Rambo, I’d gurgle, “He drew first blood.” I wasn’t Rambo, but I said it anyway – “He drew first blood!”

He may have drawn first blood, but I would draw
final
blood. That Russian bastard could count on it.

****

The charade was over, everything was out in the open, so there was no need for Olga and Fuckhead to pretend anymore or duck and dive anymore. They took full advantage of their freedom and made themselves at home once again, while I seethed.

Cruikshank strolled around my house relaxed and shirtless, a beer glued to his hand, a what-you-gonna-do? smirk on his face every time I looked at him. He probably felt untouchable, knowing that Leather Jacket and his henchman were at his beck and call and that I could do jack to him. It took a huge amount of restraint on my part not to lunge at him – concussion or no concussion – grab him into a headlock, and sledgehammer his fucking mug.

As for my booze – all that I happily purchased when they vacated my property was being guzzled at neck-breaking speed, and I silently cursed myself for stocking up.

Olga and her unemployed lover slept together in my bedroom, openly and without shame, without any thought for the children. If the children noticed, they said nothing to me.

Girly noticed and
tsked!
Often, she grew quiet, smoked more than she normally did, and clucked over me like a mother hen.

“I put sugar in it,” she said, handing me a cup of Chinese tea and patting my back in a comforting manner.

“Thanks, Girly,” I mumbled and accepted the tea from her.

Bear and Arena’s words gonged in my head:
Keep your cool, act meek, don’t let them get a whiff of your plans, then take them by surprise
.

If they hadn’t drummed that into my head, I think there would have been a tragedy.

I must have been a better actor than I thought, because both Olga and Cruikshank appeared happy and relaxed and seemed not to regard me as a threat.

My biggest fear?

I was going to knife one of them.

Or both.

But when I looked into the faces of my precious daughters, I calmed down –
what will become of them if I go to prison?

As for Girly, I expected Olga to send her packing now that she was back. But no, Olga was simply thrilled to have full-time help, someone to hand over the reins to. Finally, she could be responsibility-free.

Actually, her
only
responsibility was to have pleasure, and she did. Like a teenager, she awoke at midday, usually with a hangover, had a quick bite to eat, then she left with Cruikshank. She did nothing around the house and did not spare a thought for me or her little daughters. When she did talk to her kids, it was to ask them to fetch something for her, or to tell them to be quiet as Uncle Viggo was still sleeping.

I burned quietly and fantasized about her murder. I would slit her throat. In the bathtub of course, to prevent blood all over the house.

Choke her. Yes, maybe I'd choke her. It would be less blood. I didn't like the sight of blood.

I'd knock her over the head and then dismember her body. In the bathtub of course, to avoid blood all over the house.
Man
,
I hate blood!

Then I would strew the body parts all over Wolf Creek or some outback town full of dingoes.

Lure her to the beach, get her drunk, then drown her.

Push her off the balcony and say, “Oops!”

Yep, it was getting ugly.

I
was getting ugly.

****

A few days later, I was back at work in spite of the bruising on my face and the cracked ribs. Bear told everyone I had been involved in an accident, hence my absence from work.

But according to my secretary, clients were asking questions she couldn’t answer, employees were chirping about my absence, and Bear seemed to be struggling to cope.

With helpful and ever-watchful Girly around, I could go to work and catch up on the days I missed out on while she kept an eye on things. She promised to call me using her iPhone (with unlimited calls and texts, 2-gig data, and 300 minutes of international talk time, she proudly informed my girls and me) if anything went wrong.

Leaving my kids with shirtless Cruikshank who once was charged with human trafficking really bothered me, but I had little choice; I had to work to earn a living.

To keep my girls safe, I arranged for Girly and my daughters to spend just about all day at Arena's. In the early evening, Arena would drive them home.

It was after midnight when I drove home from work. On the way, I stopped at a service station and purchased bread, milk, M&Ms for my girls, and a box of cigars for Girly.

Exhausted, I parked the Jeep and dragged myself inside the house. I placed the shopping bag on the dining table and crept around.

On the kitchen table, a plate of noodles covered in cling wrap and a cup of cold Chinese tea waited for me. I ignored both and tiptoed around, not wanting to wake anyone up, especially my girls. They would have missed me and would be all over me if they awoke. From experience, I knew that it would be hard to get them to fall asleep again, especially if they managed to badger me into parting with the M&Ms.

“Work again?”

I whirled around in the direction of the voice to look at Olga, sitting on a couch in the TV room, glass in hand, staring at the TV, which was switched off. Next to her was an almost-polished bottle of Absolute Vodka.

Even though it was dark and I couldn’t see her properly, I could feel her glare. “Who works till midnight?” she slurred.

“I do,” I replied. “What’s it to you, anyway? You have your lover here for your amusement, you don’t need me.”

“Well, he’s not here right now,” she said. “Can you see him? No, you can’t see him, can you?”

She was right; I couldn’t see him. “Where is dipshit?”

She lifted and dropped her shoulders. “Out somewhere...” Bitterness oozed from her lips.

Trouble in paradise? Yes!

“Yeah, well, you picked him over me and my children, so you got what you deserve – lonely nights.” I reached into the fridge for a bottle of water. If the light was on, she would have seen the smug look on my face.

“Who wants to be with you?” she sneered. “You’re boring. That’s what you are.”

“And you’re a cheap slut,” I evened. “A tramp!”

“And you’re a lousy fuck,” she snarled, sitting up.

“And you’re a cock-sucking whore!” I said with smile, happy to be able to irk her. “When you wear that clownish make-up, it’s like you’re auditioning for
Drag me to Hell!

Childish trading of insults, sure, but logic, common sense, and respect for her was a thing of the past for me.

She suddenly laughed, to my disappointment. Obviously she was not that affected by my insults. But I, on the other hand, was deeply affected by her words.

Was I really a lousy fuck? Maybe she was right. I tried to think about my performance in bed. She never complained. Not once.

I made a mental note to assess my sexual prowess – being a lousy fuck was not an option. If I was indeed a lousy fuck, I would need to improve my game.

As I drank from the bottle, I eyed her in the dimly lit room. The thin straps of her white top had fallen onto her arms, exposing her black and red bra, her short denim skirt was hitched high up her thighs, her hair was stringy and messy, and her feet were bare.

At first I thought the marks on her face were shadows from the light, but when I looked closely, to my horror, she sported a black eye.

I quickly slapped at the light switch. What I saw made my jaw drop. Not only was she sporting a shiner, but her lip was split. Her face was bruised, and she had angry purple marks on her neck, shoulders and arms.