White Diamonds

by Lyn, K.

  “You wanted to prove that you could make it here in Michigan, didn’t you, because your mother couldn’t?”

  Wilson leaned against the living room window and set his beer can on the ledge. “You think you have all the answers, don’t you?”

  “Not all of them, but we’re not that different. My parents were killed in a car accident when I was still in college, and who knows, maybe if they had lived I wouldn’t have married into the mafia.” Vicki raised her beer can in a toast, “To two lost souls.”

  “Shiiiit, Vicki, you landed on your feet.”

  Vicki walked over and joined Wilson on the window ledge. “You can start over.”

  “Honey, you’re living in a white bread world.”

  “But you have a great education and you had a good job.”

  “I had both of those in a white man’s world.”

  Vicki was not giving up. She welcomed this fight. “Don’t you think I would have a better job if I were a man? Of course I would. No one takes me seriously. I’m just the dumb blonde who married a mobster, and my past will never stop hurting me or the people around me.” She looked at Wilson as if to challenge him, but he looked away. It was her mafia ex-husband who was determined to take his home. He got up and walked toward the kitchen.

  “So, what are we going to do, Vicki?”

  Vicki didn’t follow him this time. She sat on the window ledge and waited for him to return to her. She could hear him rummaging around in the kitchen as if he were looking for something. Vicki didn’t know what she was going to do for herself, much less what she could possibly do for Wilson. They barely knew each other, but she had never been happier than she was when she was with him. They had met under very strange circumstances, so that had to mean something, didn’t it?

  “Shit!”

  Vicki heard something hit the floor and she ran to the kitchen. “Wilson, what did you do?”

  “I sliced my damn hand.”

  Blood was everywhere and Vicki nearly fainted. She wrapped a towel around Wilson’s hand and led him to a chair. He had been making a sandwich when the knife slipped. “How bad is it?” He uncovered his hand and Vicki could see that the cut was deep. “You need stitches.”

  In obvious pain, Wilson managed to gasp the words, “No insurance.”

  “It doesn’t matter. We’ll make payments. Please, Wilson. Let me take you.”

  He closed his eyes and laid his head on the table. If he lost consciousness, Vicki didn’t know what she would do. She ran back to her house, got her purse and keys, and headed back to Wilson. Sweating and dizzy, he could barely stand, and Vicki feared that he would pass out. “Come on, Wilson. Let’s go.”

  With a stitched hand and a sore arm from a tetanus shot, Wilson agreed to stay with Vicki. “Mmm, couldn’t wait to get me into bed again,” he mumbled as she pulled back the covers.

  “I only have one bed,” she smarted back.

  The soft sheets and heated mattress felt good to Wilson, and Vicki helped him off with his shirt and then she unbuckled his jeans. “Woman, I just went through major surgery and you’re trying to get into my pants?”

  “I’m just making you comfortable, and you didn’t have major surgery. You want me to get your pajamas?”

  “Pajamas? I’m not a child. I sleep in the nude.”

  Vicki ignored him and eased the zipper down and slid his jeans down and off.

  Wilson teased her by opening his shorts. “Just making room for my buddy.”

  Vicki pulled the covers over him. “Don’t tempt me.” She kissed him softly on the lips. “Get some sleep. That pain pill the doctor gave you should keep you out for a while.” She looked back when she reached the doorway, and Wilson was sleeping soundly.

  Vicki tiptoed down the stairs, quietly begging them not to creak. She went into the hidden room at the far end of the living room and looked at the names that were barely visible on the cement wall. Running her hands along the wall, she touched each name with the tip of her fingers. They were more than just names to her now. Each name represented a real person, a life with its own story, and a family that was torn apart. It had been so easy for her to exist, taking everything she had for granted. Seeing the world through the eyes of a black man made her ashamed of her country. What have we done to you, Wilson? And now she was personally responsible for his pain. If he moved in with her, she knew that it would only be a matter of time before her ex-husband would try and take her house, too. He was determined to hurt her for the rest of her life. With a group of mobsters backing him, the man could do anything and no one could touch him.

  Vicki went upstairs to check on Wilson who was still sleeping soundly in her bed. She stood in the doorway and watched him sleep. He seemed troubled even as he slept. When she turned to walk away, she thought she heard something coming from the lower level. If someone was breaking in, she didn’t know what she would do. She grabbed the rifle from the closet in the kitchen and slowly made her way to the front door. When she heard a scuffling noise behind her, she turned on her heel, but no one was there. “I know you’re there. Show yourself or I’ll shoot.” She followed the sound to the door to the basement. Opening it slowly, she turned on the dim light and walked downward into the smelly underground room. She had only been down there one time, when she had inspected the house prior to buying, and she didn’t want to go there again. She felt along the side of the wall until her right foot was on the cement floor. It was dusty and threw her into a sneezing fit, nearly causing her to drop the rifle. She could still hear it, the unsettling rustling sound, as if someone was going through her stuff. But there was nothing down here. Vicki didn’t need the extra space, so she had installed a lock on the door to keep out the ghosts that her overactive mind had created. Now she wasn’t so sure that they didn’t truly exist. She lifted the rifle and aimed toward the sound. She screamed as a mouse ran out from behind an old table that had been mounted to the floor in the corner. She set the rifle down and decided to check out what the mouse had discovered that made so much noise.

  The table was open on the side that faced the wall and Vicki reached inside, hoping that something wasn’t waiting to bite her. She pulled out cash and lots of it. Stacks and stacks of U.S. currency had been stashed inside the table and Vicki pulled out as much of it as she could. When the light from the room was sufficient enough to see the money, she began counting it. In one stack she counted ten thousand dollars. She was no genius when it came to math, but she guessed there to be nearly a million dollars hidden inside of the old table. She carried the stacks of bills up the stairs and into the kitchen where she crashed into Wilson.

  “Wilson, what are you doing?”

  “Your scream woke me. What’s with all the cash, Vicki?”

  “I heard something in the basement. It was a mouse and there’s a table with stacks of cash inside it.” She was talking so fast that she wasn’t sure she was making any sense.

  “Really?” Wilson sat down at the table, looking at her in disbelief. “Tell me another one.”

  “Seriously, Wilson. You don’t think I have this kind of money, do you?”

  “I don’t know, but it does seem that you’ve got a lot of big plans involving money.”

  “I’ll prove it. Come with me.”

  Wilson followed Vicki down the stairs into the dark basement where eerie shadows seemed to assume the shapes of various haunting figures along the walls.

  “What is this, anyway?”

  “A wet stinky basement.”

  Wilson tried to pull the table from the wall, but it had been well mounted. “This thing was not meant to be removed, or perhaps it was not meant to be found.” He eyed her somewhat suspiciously and Vicki bristled.

  “I didn’t even know it was here until today,” she denied.

  “Take it easy. There’s probably enough blame to go around. Got a flashlight?”

  Vicki took the stairs two at a time and fished a flashlight out of the back of a kitchen drawer. Nearly tripping on
the way back down, she took a step back when she saw Wilson with her rifle in his hand.

  “What are you doing with a loaded gun?”

  “I…I guess for self-defense.”

  Removing the bullets, he put them into his pocket and set the gun aside. “It’s not staying here. I’m locking it up…at my house.”

  Vicki wanted to argue with him, but she could tell by the look on his face that it wouldn’t help. When they had finally scooped out the stacks of money, they took the loot upstairs and laid it out on the kitchen table. “Who do you think put it there?”

  “Couldn’t say, but it’s old, and damn, there’s a lot of it.”

  “Who left it here?”

  “Oh, Vicki, stop trying to make this into some teen mystery novel. This is a butt load of money and it has probably been in your basement for centuries, or at least decades.” Wilson fanned a stack of bills and peered through them like some kind of mad man.

  “You’re a nut.”

  “I’m a nut you like to crack.”

  Vicki took the stack of bills from his hand. “Get serious. What are we supposed to do with this?”

  “Hmm, possession is nine-tenths of the law, so I would say it’s yours.”

  “And I’m supposed to believe that?”

  “Yes, Vicki. Look how old it is. This house has been home to many families and it probably didn’t belong to any one of them. Maybe it was left behind by a gangster couple, you know, like Bonnie and Clyde.”

  Vicki looked at some of the money more closely. It was fragile and the scent of money had been replaced by the pungent aroma of dust. “It is pretty old. How much is here?”

  Wilson stacked the cash into neat piles. “I’d say close to a million.” Vicki could only imagine having a million dollars. “If I were you, I would put it in a safe place, especially with your ex-husband hanging around.”

  “He’s not hanging around, but you’re probably right about putting the money in a safe place. There’s a cabinet in my bedroom closet.”

  Wilson piled the stacks of cash into a laundry basket and carried it up the stairs. When Vicki opened the closet door, she felt sick about the deed of sale she had found there earlier.

  “What’s the hold up, Vicki?”

  She turned around. “Oh, nothing. There’s not much in the closet.” She took the basket from him and set it down inside the closet, sliding the door closed.

  The following week was a long one for Vicki. The days seemed never ending at her dead end job and she couldn’t wait to get home at night to see Wilson. She knew he was bored at home all day, though he tried to keep it from her. He cooked for her and they dined by candlelight at his tiny kitchen table, but it was the nights that Vicki looked forward to the most. Careful of Wilson’s wrapped hand, she convinced him that he should not do a thing and let her take charge. She couldn’t get enough of him. Kissing him for hours led to overpowering lovemaking that lasted until the wee hours of the morning. They didn’t discuss the money they had found. They had made a pledge to each other not to speak of it for a week, when Wilson’s bandages came off, but they both thought about it. It was all that Vicki could think about during her days at work and she knew that the large sum of money had to be on Wilson’s mind too. A million dollars was difficult to ignore.

  Vicki took Friday afternoon off from work so that she could take Wilson to get his stitches removed, and it was at that time when they once again spoke of the wealth that sat idle inside her closet.

  “Are we paying cash?” Wilson tried to lighten the somber mood.

  “I don’t think we have a choice.”

  The two of them felt like outlaws when they deposited one stack of the bills into Wilson’s account at the bank, hoping that the carefully stashed piles weren’t counterfeit. But it would seem suspicious taking a wad of cash into the doctor’s office. They left the bank, still fearful that they had done something illegal, paid Wilson’s medical bills, and returned to the neighborhood with Wilson’s stitches removed and his hand moving freely.

  “This calls for a celebration!” Wilson uncorked a bottle of wine he had chilling for this very night while Vicki tried to prove to her lover that she wasn’t entirely devoid of culinary skills. Steak and wine was perfect to begin a new weekend for the couple, but neither could wait to share another night together.

  Vicki was a little buzzed when Wilson carried her up the stairs to his bed. “Aren’t we going to my place?”

  “Tonight you will share my bed,” he replied.

  Where she spent the night mattered little to Vicki. All she wanted was to share her nights with Wilson. In his arms she felt as though she could do anything. He kissed her ever so lightly before laying her down upon his bed. She reached for him, but he stood by the side of the bed and undressed while she watched his every seductive mood. He was hard and Vicki stared at the prize that she had in some strange way won. He undressed her slowly, kissing his way down along her body, until she lay naked beneath him. When he looked at her, she was begging him with her eyes, and this woman he could never deny. He entered her slowly, filling her just as she remembered, and she pulled him down to her. Vicki wrapped herself around him, drawing him deeper inside of her, as they moved together. She felt the warmth of his seed inside of her and he held her face in his hands.

  Kissing her passionately, he stopped and looked into her eyes. “I love you, Vicki,” he said.

  Vicki closed her eyes. She had wanted to hear those very words, and she rolled her lover onto his back, spreading her legs across his beautiful body. She lay on top of him and pulled his left earlobe into her mouth, sliding her tongue around it, and letting it back out. With her mouth over his ear, she breathed the words, “I love you, too.”

  The unexpected sensation aroused Wilson again. “You know how to get things started, don’t you?”

  “Only with you,” she whispered. She leaned up and smoothed her hands along his broad chest, feeling him harden inside of her once again. He bent his knees and began bucking into her and Vicki leaned forward and let him have his way. She wanted to do everything with this man and be everything he wanted her to be. She would be his lover, his wife, and the mother of his children if he wanted her to be. Vicki was in love. She slept in his bed that night, with his arms around her and the scent of his body mingling with her own.

  After a month of living in blissful ignorance, Wilson received the final foreclosure note ordering him to vacate his home in thirty days. Vicki had come home from work and found him on his third beer, holding the piece of paper in his hand. “Wilson, this doesn’t matter now. You can buy your house.”

  Wilson pulled her into his arms and kissed her lips. Vicki tried to resist him so they could discuss the matter, but her body wasn’t willing. His hand was inside her slacks and he began a slow rhythmic stroking of her clitoris as she tried to talk. She closed her eyes and he asked, “You were saying something?”

  “Oh, Wilson, you know we…have…to…” She slowly began to move with him as he did what he always did to her. He laid his hand on her pelvis as he continued to pleasure her. “Mmm, my cooking is giving you some curves,” he said, as he forced her slacks down her legs. He unbuttoned her blouse with his mouth and pulled her dark nipples one after the other into his mouth. “The little white tits aren’t so little. Got me a mouthful now, woman.”

  Vicki was as horny as hell and she pulled herself up and maneuvered her wet vagina down over the thick cock she had forced out of Wilson’s tight jeans. Taking him by surprise, she couldn’t get enough. She ran her hard nipples through the curly hairs on his chest and held her full breasts to his open mouth. She watched as he took one large brown nipple into his mouth followed by the other and she too thought they were larger. She felt more like a woman that Wilson deserved…a sexy, voluptuous woman to satisfy his hunger.

  “What got into you?”

  “You’re irresistible, Wilson.”

  He slapped her on the bottom. “Got more to hold onto.”


  “I know you like it,” she teased.

  While he was still vulnerable and his dark thickness buried deep inside of her, she laid her head on his shoulder, kissed his neck, and spoke softly. “Let’s buy this place.”

  After the words were out, Vicki felt the tenseness within the man she loved. “With the stolen money?”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “I know I didn’t earn it.”

  “You proud, proud man. Perhaps it was a gift.”

  Wilson took Vicki’s face into his hands and looked into her eyes. “I don’t think so.”

  Vicki couldn’t break the steel armor of this man and she didn’t know if she wanted to. She would never break his spirit, so she decided to leave it alone, for now. Anyway, she wouldn’t waste a moment of her evenings with Wilson. It was the time of day when she felt most alive. There were no distractions, no television because Wilson thought it was an unconstructive waste of time, and no telephone ringing because they turned the phones off when it was just the two of them.

  A week later Vicki was struggling to zip her slacks when Wilson stood in the doorway with a stack of steaming hot pancakes. “Breakfast is served,” he said as he poured syrup over the cakes.

  Vicki stopped and stared at him. “I am officially on a diet. I’m serious. It’s nothing but fruit and vegetables for me, and not a lot of those either.”

  “Suit yourself,” he said as he filled his mouth with a hot bite.

  In her stretchy pants and an oversized sweater, Vicki went off to work. When one of her coworkers asked her for a tampon, Vicki’s eyes grew wide.

  “Oh, no!”

  “Hey, no problem, I’ll ask someone else.”

  “Cheri, no, it’s not you. I haven’t needed a tampon for over two months.”

  “You think you’re pregnant? I didn’t know you were seeing someone. This is fantastic.”

  Vicki pulled her aside. “You can’t tell anyone. This was not supposed to happen.”

  Cheri agreed to keep Vicki’s secret, shrugged her shoulders, and walked off, but Vicki was devastated. Wilson would dump her for sure. She had no money, or did she? If only she could convince him to pay off his mortgage. This could be the perfect incentive for him to spend the hidden cash.