My Wife's Li'l Secret (19 page)

She clapped her hands with delight. “Yes! I would loooove that! Yes!”

Smiling at her childlike excitement, I reached into my wallet, removed one of the credit cards I had confiscated from Olga, and gave it to her. “Buy yourself the nicest wedding dress you can find. This time we
will
get our happy ending, okay?”

“Ohmygod!” Her eyes sparkled and she eyed the credit card as if it was a beautiful butterfly sitting on her hand. “I’m dreaming. I have to be. I’m dreaming!”

“Nope.” I kissed her forehead again. “It’s real, baby.”

She grabbed my hand with both of hers and clutched it to her chest. “Thank you for loving me the way you did, Ritchie MacMillan. For loving me the way you
do
. For forgiving me and for being such a stand-up guy. You saved me once, and now, you’re doing it again. Thank you! Thank you!”

“You are welcome,” I said. “For you, I will go to the ends of the earth.”

We hugged.

“Now send me positive vibes so I can handle Olga, Cruikshank, and Aristov. I’m going to need…”

“Please take care, Ritchie. Please, please!” she cried, throwing her arms around me and hugging me hard. “Don’t let anything happen to you. Please!” She placed her hands on either side of my face. “You are my hope, my rescuer. I don’t want to imagine a world without you. In fact, without you…I will just die.”

“No one is going to die. You take care of our baby, I’ll take care of things at home, and soon, our family will be together again.”

“You promise, Ritchie?”

“I promise. I want my family back,” I said, planting little kisses all over her face like I used to do in the past.

After hugging little Gareth several times, I said my final goodbyes.

By the time I left Cape Town, Liefie, my little treasure, was happy and excited about our upcoming nuptials. I was pleased that I was going to get my wife back – and the future looked bright once again.

I bought a one-way plane ticket from Johannesburg to Sydney, and while in Johannesburg, I placed a reverse call to Olga.

“Why are you placing a reverse call?” she asked. “What’s wrong with your phone?”

“Oh, for some reason I lost my roaming signal,” I lied. “You know how Johannesburg can be. How’s the kids?”

“Okay – what time you arriving?”

“Well, I had to cancel my flight and rebook my ticket,” I grumbled. “The airlines messed up big time. First they…”

“Okay, whatever!” she said, and hung up on me.

While I was at the airport lounge, I looked up Celine Dion’s song on YouTube, “I Know What Love Is.” According to Liefie that song summed up her feelings for me.

I was forgotten, until you called my name…

That would be our wedding song, I decided as I listened to the sad lyrics.

After all, like the song said, I would
always
be there to catch her if she should ever fall.

****

The moment I reached Sydney, I called to speak to Bear and Arena. On speakerphone, I filled them in.

“Are you serious?” Arena said in an incredulous voice. “They are
twins
?”

“Yep, I’m serious.”

“Olga is not your wife?” Bear said.

“Nope.”

“You have a son? Seriously,
boet
?”

“Dead serious. And…I
may
have a son, Arena.”

“Your cousin is a lesbian?”

“She sure is.”

“Whoa!” Bear said. “I can’t believe it, man! This is like a low-budget Ukrainian movie.”

“More like a
no
-budget Ukrainian movie,” I said with a laugh.

“So…so…so Ritchie,” Arena finally asked. “Did you two like…you know…?”

“Huh?”

“I mean, I know it’s premature and all but…?”

Bear stepped in to help out Arena. “She means, did you fuck Nadia or whatever you call her now?”

“Bear!” Arena cried.

“What? No!” I said. “It wasn’t like that. It’s like…no, no…not yet. I mean, we hugged and cuddled, held hands and stuff, but no, nothing else. Too soon.”

“Okay, I get it,” Arena said in an understanding voice. “Too much going on, right?”

“Yeah, that’s it. But I do want her back, and I so much want my family whole again.” I told her about the wedding, about Nadia buying her wedding dress.

“Ohmygod! That sounds wonderful!” she gushed.

“I told her we’d have a garden wedding. Your garden. Since it’s heaps better than ours.”

“My garden? Of course! I can really dress it up and get it to look perfect,” she said in an excited voice. “We can hire caterers and waitstaff and…”

“Okay, cool. That’s sounds awesome. I’ll leave it with you.” I thanked my sister, who lived for stuff like that.

After having met Liefie in Ukraine, getting answers to my questions, and knowing that the woman in my home was the enemy and not my wife, knowing that my real wife loved me and my kids and wanted to be with us, my spirits were buoyant once again.

I felt I could handle anything.

First person to handle? Aristov. That nagged like a toothache. He was the head of the snake, and we all know that if you remove the head of a snake, the body is useless. I had some serious beheading to do.

As I drove home, I mentally made my To Do list.

1) Kill Olga.

2) Kill Cruikshank.

3) Kill Aristov.

4) Kill Aristov’s rabid thugs.

5) Get away with the murders.

6) Buy milk, bread, fresh orange juice, M&Ms for Ally and Becky, and cigars for Girly.

****

When I arrived home, my kids, as usual bounded toward me.

I dropped my keys on the counter, then quickly picked them up and stuck them in my pocket again. I no longer trusted anyone around. Not even with my car keys.

“Daddy,” Ally said, “we played with the hula-hoop and I went for…for…
fifty
thousand minutes!”

I smiled and pulled both my girls to me. “Is that true? Fifty thousand minutes?”

She nodded, her eyes darting all over the place.

I looked at Becky, with my eyebrows raised. She nodded her confirmation.

“You little fibbers, you!” I said, crushing them to me.

I was dying to tell them that Olga was not their real mother, and that their biological mother loved them with all her heart, and that they had a baby brother who was ridiculously beautiful for a boy, and that they were going to see both of them soon.

But of course, I couldn’t.

“We drew you some pictures,” Ally said, squirming out of my embrace. “Let me fetch them for you!”

Becky stayed in my arms.

“Come Becky! Let’s go get the pictures!” Ally said.

Becky shook her head and melted into me.

“You don’t want to go, Becky?” I asked, kissing the top of her head several time.

She shook her head. “Wanna stay with you, Daddy,” she said in a soft voice as she tried to wrap her little arms around me.

I looked at Ally and shrugged.

“Fine!” Ally said, and ran off without Becky.

“You okay, hon?” I asked.

“I missed you so much, Daddy,” Becky said, resting her cheek on my chest.

“Did you now?” I hugged her hard. “How much?”

After some thought, she moved her palms away from each other, then stopped.

“That’s all? That’s too little. I need more.”

She looked up at me and smiled, and her eyes, they twinkled like little turquoise stars. She babbled away, but I didn’t hear what she was saying; her angelic smile, her unconditional love for me, her
need
for me, brought on a deluge of love for her. Just the thought of her not being mine caused a spray of shrapnel to lodge around my heart.

If she wasn’t mine, if she wasn’t
my
baby, this beautiful angel I fell in love with just over two years ago, how would I live?

What if they took her away from me?
Managed
to somehow take her; what would become of her?

Deep in my reverie, I didn’t notice Olga standing at the entrance to the TV room eyeing us both.

“What a loving picture, a father and his daughter. Precious!” Every word she uttered through her scarlet-outlined mouth was mocking and filled with innuendo.

As my eyes swept over her, took in her white skirt that ended inches away from her crotch, her clingy white top that looked more like beachwear, her greasy, limp, bottle-blonde hair, her painted face with its black, heavy eye-liner that nobody I knew wore during the day – I had the urge to sanitize my house. Walk behind her with some heavy-duty antibacterial spray and wipe down everything her dirty fingers touched.

I thought about her hurting Nadia, having her own brother killed, hurting me for no reason, treating my kids with such contempt, and my anger threatened to explode. I had the urge to jump up from the couch and slam her head into the wall until she lay lifeless – an urge I had never experienced before.

“Where’s the money?” she snapped.

“Is that all you’re interested in?” I had to say something within character.

“What else is there? You?” Her arms were folded across her chest as she scoffed at me, and images of her lying lifeless on the floor floated in front of my jetlagged eyes. I could picture her brain – grey and pink matter splattered against the lounge feature wall.

“Where’s my money?” she repeated.

I didn’t answer her question. Instead, I shook my head and mouthed, “What a piece of shit you are.”

Just then, Girly appeared behind Olga and put her finger to her lips. Immediately, I clammed up. Girly jerked her head toward my bedroom. I got up, put Becky aside, and made my way to my bedroom. Girly followed and shut the door.

With my eyebrows raised, I looked at her, bracing myself for her complaints about Olga.

With her finger to her lip, she reached inside her pocket and withdrew a pin cushion in the shape of a doll.

“What?”

She jerked her head toward Olga downstairs.

I squinted at the little rag doll in her hand. “Is that…Girly, is that a Voodoo doll?”

With a secret smile, she wriggled her eyebrows at me.

“Christ, Girly! You serious?”

“Very serious,” she mouthed.

“I…I…wow, Girly, if I pissed you off, what would you do?”

She removed a pin from the back of the doll and stuck it firmly between the legs of the doll, her eyes bulging.

“Ouch!”

She grinned briefly, then leaned in and whispered. “He use your towels, he drink your whisky, he smoke inside the house, he take the TV away from the children to watch man programs, he don’t let me watch
Bold and The Beautiful
…” As she spoke, she counted on each of her fingers. “She tell the children, ‘Shut up! Shut up! Go play on the patio, you make too much noise inside the house!’”

I sighed and ran my hand slowly over my face.

“She very big bitch, Pig.”

I was too exhausted and jetlagged to fight with Olga over this.

“I know, I know! Soon, it will all be over, Girly. She’ll be gone very soon. Just be patient.”

She nodded, her lips pressed together.

Then in a loud voice she threw open my room door and walked out. “I bring you Chinese tea!”

Alone in my room, I thought about Girly and burst out laughing. A Voodoo doll. I couldn’t believe it.

I’d better not piss Girly off, or she’d create me out of fabric and stick pins in me, I told myself.
Warned
myself.

“Say that again, Maxine,” I said to my bank’s financial consultant seated across from me.

Maxine played with the pearls around her neck. “Ritchie, you have to understand…”

“No, y
ou
have to understand, Maxine; I have a home worth $1.5 million, a holiday house worth $750,000, and a business worth about $450,000, of which I own fifty percent, and EasyBankers is turning me down on a loan of …how much?”

“Hundred grand – I know, Ritchie, I know!" she said as she wheeled her chair around her desk and over to me. “But the problem is you’ve recently been issued with too many credit cards, maxed them out, and you’re behind in your payments…”

“You don’t value my business, Maxine. When this shit is over, I’m going to take my account away. Move my
business
account away as well, Max—”

“You should,” she whispered.

“Huh?”

She moved back her chair slightly and stared at me. Slowly, she uncrossed then crossed her legs, flashing a huge amount of silk-clad thigh that had me staring like an adolescent.

When I looked at her face, she had something between a pleased and a coy smile on it.

Maxine was around forty, of mixed descent – Egyptian mother, English father– information she had volunteered to me at our first meeting. She was a looker and she knew it – large, honey-colored eyes, straight black hair that hung around her shoulders, legs that should never be covered with
anything
. Her fitted, grey uniform skirt and jacket could not hide her sexiness.

She leaned in, put her hand on my arm, and looked deep into my eyes. “I’m moving to Eastwood Financial Services in a month’s time. Let’s talk over drinks and dinner about moving your account over to them, shall we?”

She was so close, I could smell her musky perfume, feel her warm, minty breath on my face, and I wondered what would happen if someone walked into her office at that moment and saw her in the throes of seduction.

“My treat.” She flicked a piece of lint from my suit jacket. “Mm?” Her voice was soft and throaty. “I have your back, you must know that.” As she said the word ‘back,’ her hand travelled slowly down my spine.

She was sexy all right. Drinks and dinner would no doubt lead to a wild, unrestrained fuck in the backseat of her car, I could just tell.

My eyes slid down to her left hand and spied a solitaire with a gold band on her ring finger.

Did I mention I hated cheats? Well, I do. Loathe them. After believing my wife cheated on me and the pain that I felt over the deception, I hated cheats with a vengeance.

“Yeah, okay. Sure.” I jerked to my feet and got the hell out of there, feeling sorry for her husband.

I should tell Bradley Murdoch about her, I thought. He was into cheating, and maybe he would find her offer appealing.

Not me. I was staying far away from her.

But her overtures distracted me from my main gripe – Olga had ruined my credit, and I wasn’t able to secure a loan to pay off Aristov. The time was getting closer to payday, and I knew he would come calling.

I was banking on borrowing against my property, but now that the loan was declined, I was in a quandary.

Damn
!

****

“Dadda, look!” Ally said, showing me a family of stray cats they discovered living under our house. A mother and her four pretty grey kittens. Girly fed all five cats and soon the cats were playing and even sleeping
inside
the house. Like Cruikshank, they made themselves at home.

I didn’t mind. I was an animal lover, so I welcomed them and even bought cat food.

“What’s the mother's name?” I asked Ally, watching the mother cat weave between Girly’s legs.

“Mother Cat,” Ally replied without hesitation.

“Ah. Nice name. Original.” I smiled. “What are your kitty’s names, then?”

“Ally Cat,” she replied.

I laughed. “What? You can’t name your cat…”

“And this one here is Becky Cat.”

I laughed harder.

“What about these two?”

“That one is…this one is…
Other
Cat, and this one here is…” she scratched her head, then turned and looked at Girly. “
Girly
…Cat…?”

I shook my head. “Girly will kick your butt if you disrespect her like that,” I whispered.

She shrugged, not seeming in the least bit concerned.

With a smile, I moved away from my kids to call Bradley Murdoch. Even though Bradley Murdoch wasn’t
my
attorney, I was upfront about a lot of things with him. He was my close friend and someone I could trust.

The first thing I wanted was for him to pull some strings so that I could get Girly her permanent residence in Australia. He had contacts in immigration and I really needed him to call in some favors. I got into my car and drove to see him.

“It’ll cost you,” he said as I took a seat across from him in his offices.

“How much?”

“’Bout thirty grand and no guarantees. None whatsoever, so it’s a risk.”

I didn’t have thirty grand, and I no longer had a credit line thanks to Olga ruining my credit, so how I was going to pay Bradley, I had no idea.

“Done,” I heard myself say.

“Thirty grand is a huge amount for this chick,” Bradley said, his eyes narrowing.

I shrugged.

“Wife on one side, Geisha girl on the other…” he wriggled his eyebrows at me. “You dog, you!”

“Whaaat? Girly’s not a Geisha girl. You’re fucking nuts to think that!”

“Hey, I’m proud of you, so chill!”

Since he was in the midst of a torrid affair, I guess he expected all men to have a piece of pie on the side.

“How much do I owe you for this consultation?” I asked, changing the subject.

He blinked rapidly as he looked at me. “Mate, this is not a consultation, so you owe me nothing. This is just two friends chatting.”

What a friend. I considered myself lucky to have someone like Bradley Murdoch in my life.

I said what I always said when I left Bradley’s offices. “I owe you, big time.”

“You sure do!” he said with a laugh. “I’d ask for your firstborn, but I already have two.” He pointed at a row of photo frames of his family.

As I walked to my car, I smiled to myself as I pictured the look on Girly’s face the day I got to tell her that she had permanent residence in Australia.

If
we got it.

Thirty grand. Where the heck do I get thirty gs from?

****

“My friend, it is good to hear from you!” Aristov seemed really pleased to hear from me, as expected. You got my money, right?”

Please don’t call me your friend, you slime ball.

“Eh, no. I need more time,” I said. “At least another two weeks. The banks have turned me down because of my ruined credit. I’m liquidating some assets in South Africa, but that’s taking time, so now I’m trying to secure a private loan.”

“Sure thing,” he said in his thick Russian accent. “No problem. But my friend, I have to charge you interest for the delay, you do understand that, right?”

“Interest?”

“Yes. Five grand per week. It’s fair, right?”

“No, it’s not! Five grand…”

“My friend, this is business. It’s the way it’s done.” His pleasant demeanor vanished and his voice turned sharp.

“Fine, fine, whatever!” I hung up.

Five grand a week. If I didn’t work fast, I would probably owe him two hundred grand in no time. Quicksand – that’s how it felt.

****

Back home, I surreptitiously took notice of Cruikshank.

The bastard resembled me more than I had noticed. His hair, which had been dark brown and slightly curly, had suddenly become light brown and straight – just like mine.

He wore a grey, long-sleeve formal shirt with embossed stripes, even though he was not at work. I wondered what he’d been up to that day to need a formal shirt. His shoes, his pants – all formal and similar to the type I wore to work every day. If I was a bank teller or airline security and he presented my passport, I think I would have accepted him as the person in the passport. That troubled me even more.

As for Olga, I kept my distance from her and pretended to be distracted with work. All along, I kept an eye out for signs of them missing Nadia and Gareth.

Days passed and nothing. How come? I wondered. Surely they’d be missed by now?

A spark of worry ignited in me. Had Nadia lied to me?

I needn’t have worried – things changed the following day. Olga and Cruikshank began to whisper between themselves. It had to be about Nadia, I thought, and quickly switched to watching them on my laptop.

I was right, it was about Nadia. They paced and called Ukraine about fifty times.

“Still no answer,” I heard Olga say from time to time.

Cruikshank threw his hands in the air. “Where can she be?” For the first time I saw him looking stressed and agitated.

Olga shook her head, her thumbnail in her mouth. “Aristov is going to be so mad.”

I smiled when I saw them steal into the room I slept in and riffle through my work case, which I had deliberately left behind. As expected, they were probably searching for my passport to find out if I had been in Ukraine recently. Unfortunately for them, I had anticipated their move. I had Bear lock away my passport in his safe and got rid of every bit of evidence of my trip to Ukraine.

In anticipation of them contacting my bank and fraudulently requesting credit card statements which placed me in Ukraine, I had used my company’s credit card to fund my trip.

There was no chance of them gaining access to any of those statements at all. As for the card I left with Nadia, I had called at the bank, met with the manager, and requested a sixty-day statement issue bar. 

What I left behind for Olga and her side-kick was a copy of my used plane ticket from Johannesburg to Sydney, purchased with my personal credit card, and receipts for a drink and a meal at the airport terminal in Johannesburg.

“Why is it not a
return
ticket?” Cruikshank demanded as he waved my plane ticket at Olga.

“He said something about an overbooked flight – had to cancel his flight and buy another ticket.” She shrugged.

Cruikshank flung my ticket onto the bed. “She’s gone to South Africa!”

My heart lurched.

“But how? She has no money, Cruikshank.”

“It’s Ritchie, he’s helping her.”

Shit! Shit! Shit!

“No way!” Olga said. “He doesn’t know anything. He’s too stupid to figure things out, Cruikshank. You need to relax.” She walked up to him and put her hands on his waist. “I have her passport. Besides, she’s too scared to run away. She knows I will kill her! First I will kill her baby in front of her, then I will kill her! She knows not to cross me.” Her lips thinned, her nostrils grew large, and she was evil personified.

Jayzus!

Cruikshank shrugged her off and began to pace. “What do we tell Aristov?”

“Nothing,” Olga said. “I have a plan.”

They switched to Russian so I logged off and went to bed, mortified that Olga could talk so openly about killing a baby and convinced that I had done the right thing by shipping off Nadia and little Gareth to Cape Town.

Olga’s fury and malevolent comments earlier on made me toss and turn in bed.

What was next?