The Cleaner

by Paul Cleave

  “And how are you, Joe? Are you better now too?”

  “I’m coping. Time heals all wounds-that’s what my mom says,” I say, wondering if my mom had a ripped-off-testicle kind of wound in mind when she said it.

  “That’s right. Look, Joe, remember that if you need anything, if you want me to help with. . your mother. . then just let me know.”

  Of course the kind of help I really need with my mother isn’t the type she would actually be able to offer. Still, if more people were like Sally, maybe the world would be a better place. The problem though is that she sounds like we’re both in on the big secret, the one where Joe woke up one morning in a park after having his testicle flattened in a pair of pliers and had to make his own way home.

  “Joe?”

  However, I can’t imagine there ever being a secret both Sally and myself were in on. This is just Sally being Sally. Just trying to help me out with my mother the same way she helps me out by making me lunch. She’s just trying to get on the inside track to getting me into bed.

  “Joe? Are you okay?”

  “Always,” I tell her.

  “Okay, Joe, but we need to talk about. . about your mother being sick. Do you understand what I’m saying? I’m worried about you. I’m worried that your mother. . she may get sick again.”

  “My mother is as healthy as an ox,” I tell her. “I wouldn’t worry. I have to get back to work, Sally.”

  “Okay,” she answers, but doesn’t move. She stares at me and I end up staring at the floor, not wanting to make eye contact with her in case she takes it as a sign to start undressing.

  “Can I ask you something personal, Joe?”

  No. “Yes.”

  “Do you find murder fascinating?”

  Yes. “No.”

  “What about the ongoing investigation?”

  “Which one?”

  “The Christchurch Carver.”

  “He must be intelligent.”

  “Why do you say that?” she asks.

  “Because he hasn’t been caught,” I say. “Because he keeps getting away. He must be really smart.”

  “I guess he must be. Does that interest you?”

  I act as if I have to think about it, then slowly shake my head. “Not really.”

  “Have you. . looked at any of the folders? The photographs of the dead women? Anything like that?”

  “I’ve seen pictures on the wall in the conference room. That’s all. The pictures are horrible.”

  “If somebody forces you to steal because they’re hurting you, then it isn’t really stealing. And the best thing to do would be to go to the police.”

  I don’t know what leap she’s just made, but it makes no sense at all. She’s rehashing the sort of Christian morality bullshit that somebody has force-fed her. She’s no idea what we’re even talking about now. She could be saying that killing is bad, that vengeance belongs to God, that using his name in vain is bad, that selling your daughter into slavery isn’t frowned upon. All these things are in the Bible and for some reason she thinks we’re debating it. She could easily have just told me that drowning the elderly is bad.

  “You’re right, Sally. If somebody was forcing you to do something you didn’t want to, that would be bad. The police help people when things happen to them,” but of course they don’t. I can vouch for that. I can even show pictures.

  Then I start to wonder-is somebody doing something mean to Sally?

  She seems to take that as some sort of answer to some half-formed dilemma going on inside her head, because she smiles, tells me she should get back to work, and leaves.

  Sally disappears, but my paranoia remains, my earlier thought that she could have come to my house is enough to make me nauseous. If Sally did come to my house, then I might have to repay the favor. There are things she might have seen, things I might have told her that would mean a visit to her house in the middle of the night would be in order.

  I sit on the bunk in the cell I’m cleaning and lean my forehead against the broom handle. Over the following minutes, I slowly convince myself that I’m going crazy. No way could Sally have come around to my apartment. If she had, she wouldn’t be able to shut up about it. She would be asking me how my testicle was. She would think that the very fact that she saw me naked meant we were engaged to be married. Sally is too dim-witted to have helped me, too innocent not to have called the police, too in love with me not to have stayed by my side every minute of the week I was laid up in bed. She’s too many lots of things. And I can’t imagine Sally getting hold of any antibiotics. No, it had to have been Melissa. Which means she is still up to something.

  Before lunch I spend twenty minutes in the conference room studying the information and swapping my tapes while I clean the windows and wipe down the blinds. I’m reading statements, studying photographs, making sure nobody is watching me. The sky outside the conference room window is getting darker, and as it does it feels like it’s getting closer, like the world is closing in on me.

  I discover several local prostitutes have been approached in connection with the deaths. Hmm. . interesting. Questions have been asked about their clients. Is there anybody who has a bizarre fetish? Somebody who enjoys perverse sexual acts? Somebody abusive with unusual requests? It’s a feeble and wasted effort. They’re hoping that at some point in my life I’ve vented my sexual aspirations on a whore. I’d never do that. I mean, I’d never do that and keep one alive.

  The prostitutes have provided a list to the police. An extremely short list. Not many names and, so far, not many leads.

  Before my workday ends, I successfully get four color photographs, one each of the four men on my list. Schroder and McCoy each have recent photographs in their files, but it’s a struggle to get current pictures for the other two-until I realize they’ve most likely been photographed by journalists and cameramen over the last few weeks. While I vacuum a room upstairs, I use the Internet and search through newspaper sites until I find pictures of a high enough standard I can print out.

  When I leave work Sally offers me a lift home along with the chance to talk about my mother, and I decline. I forgo my usual bus, and stop at a bank and draw out some cash, figuring I’m going to need it over the next few nights. Melissa took all the cash I was using a few weeks ago, along with my ATM card. Stepping into the bank is like stepping into a small nature reserve. With a few floor-to-ceiling potted plants brightly lit under the glare of halogen lights, and several small ones crammed into most available spaces, it wouldn’t be a surprise if there were wild animals living in here. Standing in a line from the counter to the wall is a line of people I don’t want to join, but I have no choice. We stand waiting together without daring to make conversation because if any of us did, we’d look like freaks. Eventually the line shuffles forward a few times, and I make it to the teller. She is a tall, masculine woman with large hands who smiles at me a lot, but no amount of smiling would ever get me to sneak through her front door late at night.

  From the bank I walk over the road to a supermarket, since most of the food in my house has expired. I walk around, allowing myself to limp slightly now that I’m away from work. It seems strange being here, as if I’ve slipped into a slice of life that I shouldn’t be allowed in, as if the supermarket for serial killers and men who have been assaulted with pliers is the supermarket down the road next to the deli. I stare at beautiful women as I shop, and I begin to feel ill. These women would laugh at me if I attacked them. They would call me Numb Nuts, or maybe even One Nut.

  The girl working the checkout smiles at me and asks how my day is going. I want to unzip my fly and show her just how okay it’s going. I’m angry as hell. The left one was my favorite.

  I climb on the bus and the bumpy bus ride threatens to tear my testicle open. When I reach home it takes me five minutes to climb the stairs. Much harder than climbing down them. I enter my apartment. The light on the answering machine is flashing. A sliver of sunlight arcs through the window as
part of the sky clears up. At least the place doesn’t smell of disinfectant and stale piss. I can smell the food that has started to go off, though. I open a window before throwing out the old food and replacing it with the new. I sit down on the sofa and try to relax, to regain some energy. Pickle and Jehovah swim for me after they swallow every grain of fish food in sight.

  I push play on the answering machine, fearful of what Mom will have to say, but it’s the woman from the vet. Jennifer. And she has good news, and good news is something I haven’t had in a while. She tells me the cat has made a full recovery. The owners haven’t contacted them. She wants to know exactly where I found poor little puss, wants to know if I know anybody who wants a cat. Tells me to call her when I get in tonight. She’ll be at work until two o’clock.

  Do I want a damn cat? Not really, but I’ve become somewhat responsible for it. I wonder if I could give the thing to Mom. It would keep her company. Might mean she won’t feel the need to call me every two minutes to ask why I don’t love her. Hell, she can even cook the fluffy bastard meatloaf every day.

  Only she would think I was somehow trying to kill her-the cat would give her allergies, or would suffocate her during the night, or pour rat poison into her coffee.

  After four rings, Jennifer answers, and her voice suddenly takes on an excitable tone when I identify myself. She explains in her seductive voice everything she already explained on the answering machine. She makes cat surgery sound sexy. She wants to know if I want to keep the cat, the whole time sounding as though she is only a step away from asking me if I’ll sleep with her. I tell her I’ll think about the cat and contact her tomorrow night. We wish each other a good night and hang up. I’m expecting her to say No, you hang up first, and when she doesn’t it makes me a little sad.

  At six o’clock, I arrive at Mom’s. We make the sort of conversation that makes me wonder how the hell she really could be my mother. We eat dinner, and then I have to watch her do some of her jigsaw puzzle for thirty minutes before we catch up with her soap-opera friends. I feel violently ill and manage to excuse myself from Mom and her Monday night and, amid the complaints of how I never treat her right, I make my way outside.

  It’s starting to rain. I catch a bus back into town, keeping my hand on my briefcase the entire journey, staring out the window as fat drops of rain smash against it, the attack lasting only five minutes. I take a detour past Daniela Walker’s house and she doesn’t seem to mind. Two blocks away I steal a car. It’s nearly ten o’clock when I reach Manchester Street, armed with photographs and cash. Hookers are walking the streets, some starting work, others back from ten- or fifteen-minute gigs sitting in parked cars in dark alleyways. In the back of my mind I keep asking myself whether this is a valid line of investigation. It didn’t work for the police. Why would it work for me? For a start, I have photographs to show them. The detectives didn’t. Prostitutes probably need visual stimulation to jog their memories. I watch as two of them get into a shoving match, which is broken up by a third, then a moment later it’s hugs all around. Within a minute all three have been picked up by three different cars, making me think their fight was a show for the kind of people who like picking up hair-pulling, palm-slapping girls.

  I forgo the massage parlors where the women are monitored by violent men with dirty money and bad reputations. The men who frequent them, if not regulars, are caught on surveillance or, at the very least, remembered. This isn’t the kind of place a policeman visits unless he’s swapping sex for leniency. The other factor I have to consider is the availability of women prepared to be paid to live out the perverted fantasy of the killer. That sort of thing doesn’t happen in parlors without a lot of people knowing about it. A policeman doesn’t want a lot of people knowing about it. He doesn’t want repercussions such as blackmail and extortion.

  The first hooker I talk to has a deep voice that’s almost scary. I don’t get a name from her and don’t want one. Even after I’ve identified myself as a policeman, she still asks me if I want to fuck her. I say no. She shows me some nipple, and I still say no. Even if my testicles were intact I wouldn’t put them near her. She doesn’t recognize any of the photos.

  The second hooker doesn’t either. At this point I’m deciding not to say I’m a policeman, but a concerned citizen, and she asks me anyway if I’m a cop. She wears a red wig large enough to conceal a small handbag.

  I go from slut to whore, hooker to skank, showing them the pictures and getting no helpful response from any of them. My ball starts throbbing as I walk from corner to corner. Of the prostitutes I talk to, none definitely recognizes any of the four men. Some of them find it hard to remember. I give them money, and it doesn’t help. I’m having a bad run. The handgun. The knife. Now I’m paying for information that I’m not even getting, and getting wet in the process.

  Monday night is less than an hour from Tuesday when my luck starts to change.

  I encounter two prostitutes who I believe actually do recognize one of the four photographs, silencing the small voice in the back of my mind telling me this was a waste of time. It speaks again, though, when each of the two women recognizes a different picture.

  The first woman, Candy (that’s right-sixty hookers, maybe seven names), points to the photo of Detective Inspector Schroder. Carl. I can’t be sure she isn’t just recognizing him from being interviewed last week for the same reasons. For only four hundred dollars, Candy will show me what she let Schroder do to her.

  The second woman, Becky, points to one of the out-of-town cops. Detective Calhoun. From Auckland. Robert. I ask what he’d wanted. She says for two grand, I can find out. Two thousand dollars compared with four hundred. I figure for a street hooker to claim two grand for a performance it has to be one hell of a repertoire.

  Two grand. Sure. Why not. I have the money.

  I walk Becky to my car and drive her to the Walker residence. I was here earlier in the evening, just after I stole the car. I removed the police tape from inside and hid away any evidence markers. I checked at work today to see if the house was still under surveillance. The answer was no. I open the door and the smell hits me again. The place needs some fresh air.

  Becky doesn’t mention the smell. Perhaps she doesn’t notice.

  We walk into the kitchen and make small conversation as I offer her a drink, then I remember I’ve taken all the beer already. I open the fridge and it’s been cleaned out, all the expired food has gone, just empty shelves now.

  “Just water,” Becky says, and I feel relief.

  Becky looks like she’s in her early twenties, but I imagine her life has given her the maturity of somebody twice her age. She has black hair that is completely straight and hangs over her shoulders. Her eyes are slightly bloodshot, but in them flicker the signs of a sad intelligence. They’re pale green and look like they’d make a nice set of marbles. She’s wearing a tight, black, short leather miniskirt. Knee-high leather boots. No bra, and a dark red camisole does little to hide her firm breasts. She wears a thin, black leather jacket that rides up her back and has about a million tassels hanging from it. I like the touch of irony in the small silver crucifix hanging around her neck. The selection of cheap jewelry across her fingers looks plastic. Her diamond studs are cubic zirconia or possibly even glass. She has a small handbag that’s probably full of condoms, money, and tissues.

  My legs are sore from walking around and, more importantly, my crotch is killing me. I sit down at the kitchen table opposite her and slowly start drinking from a glass of water. As requested earlier, I open my wallet and produce two thousand dollars in cash. I’d withdrawn three grand from the bank. Right now, I hand two-thirds of it over to Becky.

  I figure I’ll be getting it back.

  She sits opposite me and, while drinking her water, she counts through the money twice, as if she thinks she’s being ripped off. I watch her face as she studies each of the notes. Her lips are moving as she counts. A smile flickers across her mouth. I’ve already paid her,
and she hasn’t done a thing yet. I can see her thinking she’ll shorten her version of the erotica she possibly shared with Detective Robert Calhoun. I can also see her already spending it. She’s thinking about taking the week off, or buying a trip to Fiji.

  “Shall we?” I ask.

  She takes her jacket off. “You want to do it here?”

  “Upstairs.”

  I pick up my briefcase and walk upstairs. At the top I head for the master bedroom then stop, turn back, and head for the kids’ bedroom instead.

  “Hot up here,” she says.

  “I hadn’t noticed.”

  I walk into the children’s bedroom.

  “In here?” she asks, tossing her handbag onto the first of two single beds.

  “You need more room?”

  She shakes her head. “Kind of kinky.”

  “Kind of,” I agree.

  Here will be good for two reasons. First, I want some variety with this house. Life is a routine and all that stuff. Second, the smell of death isn’t embedded in the sheets.

  We sit down on opposite beds. She begins by leaning back so I can see up her skirt. She’s wearing no underwear for quick access.

  “What can you tell me about him?” I ask.

  “Who?”

  “The man in the photograph.”

  “What do you want to know?”

  “Everything.”

  She shrugs. Looks disappointed, though I don’t know why. Wouldn’t she rather be paid for talking than acting?

  “Well, he paid me two thousand dollars to let him do pretty much what he wanted.”

  “Two grand buys that?”

  “Two grand will buy a lot, honey.”

  I guess it does. “How often have you seen him?”

  “Just the once.”

  “When?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, think.”

  “Could have been a month ago. Maybe two.”

  For a woman like this, time doesn’t have too big a meaning. She probably has a baby back at home, being looked after by some drug-infested friend who has got off the game but is too damn lazy to make the effort to get her friend off too. Becky will be spending her money on cigarettes and weed, and she’ll be sitting back in one of her tie-dyed dresses, smoking in front of the baby. She’ll be girlfriended to three or four guys-each with criminal convictions for burglary, drug possession, and assault. There’ll be bruises on her thighs that will never heal, but the pain is masked by the drugs. She’ll have no long-term goals other than to stay alive and stay inside a drug-afflicted world. To wake from the nightmare she lives in would be to wake to a reality that as a little girl she never believed could exist. Life wasn’t supposed to be like this.