by Matt Ruff
Monkey noises?
Yeah. Literal monkey noises, I thought at first, like maybe he had a pet chimp in there with him. Farfetched, I know, but who can tell with pot-smokers? So I took a peep around the doorframe to see what kind of sideshow I was about to burst in on.
The janitor was over by the windows. He had a telescope set up, and his face was mashed down over the eyepiece like it had been glued there. His left arm was curved above his head, like this, holding a joint in the air, and his right arm was curved down towards his waist, like this, holding…Well, I couldn’t see exactly what he was holding, for which thank God, but from the way his elbow was pumping it wasn’t hard to guess.
As for the monkey noises, that was actually two sounds in one. He was grunting, of course, but also, to sort of brace himself, he’d pulled a pupil’s chair up sideways behind him and planted his butt on the armrest, and the feet of the chair were going squeak-squeak-squeak in time with the grunts: voilà, instant chimp sounds. Which, all things considered, wasn’t too far off the mark.
So I’m watching this, and I’m like, yuck, but at the same time, I still really wanted some dope. I definitely had the goods to blackmail this guy now, but the idea of confronting him in the act was too gross to contemplate, so I decided to wait him out and see if he’d leave the roach behind when he was done with his business. That was something Moon and I used to do at her parents’ parties, go around collecting leftovers out of the ashtrays and recycling them into bong hits. It was a great way to get high without actually having to talk to any freaks.
I hid in another classroom across the hall and prayed for a quick finish. The monkey noises got louder—they were more gorilla than chimp towards the end—and then there was a bang as the desk fell over, then silence, and then, very faint, the zip of a zipper. And then footsteps, going out and down the hall, not running but hurrying, like he’d suddenly remembered an appointment he had to get to.
When I was sure the coast was clear I came out of hiding. I was out of luck on the dope: he’d left something behind, all right, but it wasn’t marijuana.
I took a look through the telescope to see what he’d been spying on. I was expecting the girls’ locker room, something like that, but the guy’s tastes turned out to be weirder than I’d thought. The telescope was aimed at this little picnic area about a quarter mile south of the school. It was nothing fancy, just a turnaround by the side of Route 99 with some wooden tables and a tire swing. The place doubled as a make-out spot, and on a Friday or a Saturday night I suppose there’d have been plenty to keep a Peeping Tom interested, but at the moment the only people there were this tourist family: Mom, Dad, two boys, a golden retriever, and an RV plastered with Disneyland stickers.
I didn’t see the attraction. I mean, there’s no accounting for perverts, but this family just didn’t strike me as, you know, masturbation material. So I was trying to puzzle it out—was it the mom that turned him on? Was it the dog?—when I heard a door slam. And I’m like, oh crap, he’s coming back, but it wasn’t the door in the hall, it was the school’s front door. I looked out the window and saw the janitor down in the parking lot. He walked over to this brown van, got in, started up the engine…and just sat there, idling.
Then after another minute I noticed smoke wafting out of the driver’s-side window: the son of a bitch had fired up another joint. That got me mad, because I was already thinking of it as my dope, so I started sending out mental vibes to any of Officer Friendly’s country cousins who happened to be in the area, begging them to drive by and bust this guy.
Well, of course that didn’t happen. But who did drive by, a few minutes later, was the family in the RV. And no sooner had they passed the school than the van’s taillights finally winked out; the janitor pulled onto the highway right behind the RV and started following it.
Was that when you began to suspect that the janitor was the Angel of Death?
No. The guy was a creep, obviously, but at that point I was still thinking voyeur, not psycho killer. I figured he was tailing them because he wanted to whack off some more—or maybe he was hoping to steal some panties, or a chew toy.
Then the next morning, I went out to catch my ride and Señor Diaz was driving the car, which had never happened before.
“What’s going on?” I said. “Is it the Rapture?”
“The death angel,” said Carlotta. “He grabbed another kid yesterday, right outside Modesto.”
Modesto was north, the same direction the RV had been headed. That should have been enough to start me thinking, but the lightbulb didn’t go on until Carlotta said: “Get this. He didn’t just take the kid this time. He killed the kid’s dog, too.”
“Dog?” I said. “What kind of dog?”
“I don’t know, a big one I guess. They think the dog tried to protect the kid, so the angel, like, gutted it.”
“What about the boy? Did they find his body yet?”
“Yeah.”
“Where?”
Carlotta looked excited. “You’ll see.”
A half mile out from school, we hit a traffic jam. This was something else that had never happened before—the road was usually empty at this hour—but when I saw the flashing lights up ahead, I immediately understood.
“The state police found him around two in the morning,” Carlotta said. “Mrs. Zapatero from the motel was coming back late from visiting her sister and saw them roping off the crime scene. She said the kid was laid out on one of the picnic tables, like a human sacrifice.”
As we got closer to the turnaround, Carlotta and I rolled our windows down and leaned out, hoping to catch a glimpse of the corpse. Señor Diaz yanked us back into the car and gave us each a swat on the head. “Show some respect!” he demanded, adding, to Carlotta: “You see why I don’t want you walking?”
Did you tell Señor Diaz about the janitor?
No. I know I should have, but I was pissed at him for hitting me. Besides, telling what I’d seen meant explaining how I’d happened to see it, and I didn’t think he’d appreciate the part about me looking to get stoned. I needed time to come up with a sanitized version of the story—one that would stand up to questioning.
Meanwhile, I decided to ask some questions of my own. When we finally got to school that morning, I quizzed the librarian about the janitor. She didn’t know much. His name was Whitmer, Marvin or maybe Martin, and like me he was new; she’d heard he’d worked at another school before this one, but she couldn’t say where.
“So you wouldn’t know whether this other school was also by the highway?”
“No, dear.”
I thanked her and sat down. Then Carlotta started interrogating me: “What are you so interested in the janitor for?”
“It’s nothing,” I told her.
“Like hell it’s nothing. Hey, I’m not stupid like Felipe.”
“OK, it’s not nothing. But I’m not ready to talk about it.” I didn’t think Carlotta would care about the dope—at least, not enough to give me shit for it—but she would care that I’d gone into the closed wing without her.
Of course, now she was mad at me anyway: “What do you mean you’re not ready to talk about it? Since when do we keep secrets?”
“Carlotta…It’s not a secret, exactly, it—”
“You asked about the highway,” she said. “You think the janitor had something to do with that kid who got killed?”
Good guess; maybe there was something to the Bobbsey Twins after all. “Yeah, I do.”
“But why would you think that? What happened? Did you see something?”
“I told you, I’m not ready to talk about it…Look, Carlotta, I promise I’ll tell you later, OK? But first…I need your help with something. I want to search the janitor’s van after school today, and I need you to be my lookout.”
Now, I came up with this purely as a way of stalling, but when I thought about it, I realized it wasn’t a bad plan. If I did find incriminating evidence in the van, I could turn the jan
itor in for that, and forget about the other thing.
Wouldn’t you still have to explain your decision to search the van?
Well, that was the beauty of it: if I found proof that the janitor was a serial killer, people would be so excited they’d accept pretty much any explanation. At that point I could just say I had a hunch, and even Carlotta would probably buy it.
So after final bell that day, instead of going back to the library, we went to the lobby and waited for the other students to leave. Not long after the last of them had cleared out, the janitor passed through, pushing a cartload of garbage bags towards the rear of the building.
“What do you think?” I asked Carlotta, once he was out of earshot.
“I think this might not be such a smart idea, Jane. What if he really is the death angel? If he catches you—”
“He won’t. You just stay here, and if you see him coming back, stick your head out the front door and yell something.”
“What should I yell?”
“Anything but my real name.”
The teachers had all taken off too by now, so aside from the librarian’s Volkswagen, the janitor’s van was the only vehicle left in the lot. It was a utility-style van, with no windows in the rear side panels; the windows in the back doors were small, and tinted so you couldn’t see in. Add a little soundproofing, I thought, and it’d be perfect for kidnappings.
Its doors were all locked, but like Nancy Drew I’d come prepared: during lunch period, I’d stolen a coat hanger from the closet in the teachers’ lounge. I slipped it in at the base of the driver’s-side window and fished around until the lock button came up.
The inside of the van smelled like cleaning products. I was struck right away by how tidy it was. I mean I guess it’s no surprise that a janitor would be a neat freak, but still: the dashboard was completely clear, with none of the crap that usually collects there, and there wasn’t a scrap of trash on the floor or under the seats. Even the ashtrays were empty. There was nothing in the glove compartment but the van’s registration papers.
The back of the van was a similar story. The floor was covered with a blanket that looked like it had just come out of a washing machine, and there was a gray metal toolbox stowed away neatly in one of the back corners. Other than that, I couldn’t see so much as a stray gum wrapper.
Did you look inside the toolbox?
Yeah. I almost let it be—it seemed obvious now that the janitor wasn’t the kind of guy to leave body parts lying around—but I decided I’d better be thorough.
The blanket crackled when I stepped on it. I crouched down and lifted up a corner; underneath it was a double layer of plastic sheeting. Then I lifted that up, and found a set of luggage straps, pre-positioned for easy bundling.
I smoothed the blanket back in place and turned to the toolbox. It was padlocked; my coat hanger was no help here, but I had a couple different-sized paper clips, too, and one of them did the trick. I slipped off the padlock and lifted the lid.
And? What was inside?
Tools. A pair of handcuffs, for starters; a fat roll of electrician’s tape; gloves. Also four sets of pliers, three ice picks, and a loop of piano wire.
Oh yeah, and one more thing: a hunting knife. It was a foot long, with a jagged-edged blade. Like the pliers and the ice picks it was shiny clean and smelled like it had been soaking in detergent, but when I took a closer look at it I saw that there was a hair stuck to the handle. A golden hair. I couldn’t tell whether the hair was from a person or a dog, but I was pretty sure the police would be able to.
“Got you,” I said, and that’s when I heard footsteps outside the van.
For a moment I hoped it might only be Carlotta, bored with sentry duty and come to help me search, but then I heard keys jangling and knew I was in trouble. Dumping the garbage must have been the janitor’s last chore for the day; instead of coming back through the building afterwards like I’d expected him to, he’d walked around the outside, bypassing my lookout.
As he fumbled with his keys, I packed the knife away in the toolbox and got ready to make a run for it. But when I reached for the back-door handle to let myself out, the handle wasn’t there.
The janitor opened the driver’s door. I froze. I was totally exposed; there was no way he wouldn’t see me.
Then Carlotta called out from the front steps of the school: “Guadalupe!”
The janitor paused with one foot in the van and looked to see who she was yelling at. That bought me an extra few seconds. I did the only thing I could: moved up into the blind spot directly behind the driver’s seat and made myself as small as possible.
The janitor slid behind the wheel. I crossed my fingers that he’d hang out for a while, maybe give Carlotta a chance to start lobbing oranges onto the van’s roof, but not today: quicker than you can say “Guadalupe!” we were on the road. The janitor drove north again, away from Siesta Corta.
I couldn’t see out, so I passed the time by staring at the toolbox. Although I’d closed the lid, I’d forgotten to latch it, and every time we hit a bump it threatened to fly open and dump its contents. Also, I’d left the padlock lying in plain view on the blanket; I kept waiting for the janitor to notice it in the rearview mirror and pull over to investigate.
After we’d gone about fifteen miles, he did pull over. I raised my head up as high as I dared, trying to get a sense of whether we were coming into a gas station or some other place where people would hear me if I screamed. It didn’t look like it. It looked like we were in another roadside turnaround.
The janitor set the parking brake and killed the engine. He didn’t get out. He rolled his window down, dug around in his pockets for a moment, and lit a joint.
Today I didn’t begrudge him. Let him smoke all the dope he wanted; as long as he didn’t come in back and kill me, I’d be totally cool with it.
I listened to the cars buzzing past on Route 99. Come on, Officer Friendly, I thought. Get your vice detector working… There was a lull in the traffic, and I heard a new sound: voices.
Voices approaching the van?
Voices off in the distance. Boys’ voices, shouting, excited, like in a playground. Then I heard a wooden crack!, and I thought, ball field, and I thought, oh shit.
I really didn’t want to die, you know? But I didn’t think I could just sit quiet if the janitor started with the monkey noises again. If it came down to that, I thought I was probably going to have to bash him over the head with the toolbox.
But he kept his fly zipped. Maybe he was worried this spot was too public, or maybe he was storing up images for later. Whichever, he just sat and watched, and smoked—first the joint, then half a dozen cigarettes.
Finally he’d had enough, and got moving again. He drove another three or four miles up the highway before turning off on a side road. The road was in bad shape, and the toolbox lid started jumping again—and just to make things more exciting, we were going uphill, so the blanket kept sliding underneath me. I had to hook my hands under the bottom of the driver’s seat and hang on.
We made a last turn, onto gravel, and pulled into a garage. The janitor parked and got out. My adrenaline level spiked as he walked to the back of the van, but he continued around to the passenger’s side without stopping, jangling his keys. There was a hum of an electric motor as the garage door rattled shut, followed by more key jangling, and the squeak of another door opening and closing. And then, incredibly, I was alone. He hadn’t even come close to discovering me.
I crawled back to the toolbox and got the knife. I thought about taking everything, but I didn’t want to overload myself without knowing how far I might have to run. I figured the knife was the most important piece of evidence, not to mention the most useful if I happened to get cornered.
I got out of the van on the passenger’s side and looked for the button that activated the garage-door opener. I couldn’t find it, but on the wall right where you’d expect the button to be, I saw a small metal panel with a keyhole
in it. I whipped out one of my paper clips and with a couple deft moves managed to break off the tip in the keyhole.
Shit. A quick check of the garage door confirmed that I’d need superstrength to open it by hand. I thought seriously about trying to crash the van through it, but it looked sturdy enough to withstand a collision, and anyway, my j.d. skill set didn’t extend to hot-wiring.
I was going to have to sneak out through the house. Worse, now that I’d jammed the garage-door opener, I was going to have to do it soon, before the janitor decided to go out to dinner or another Little League game.
I went and pressed my ear to the house door, and when I didn’t hear heavy breathing on the other side, I tried the knob. I expected it to be locked, which was going to create additional problems, but I guess the janitor wasn’t a total security fanatic after all. The knob turned, and I opened the door a sliver.
Water was running somewhere in the house. I opened the door wider, and the running-water noise resolved itself into the sound of a shower.
I couldn’t believe my luck. I didn’t believe it: as I slipped through the door, I held the knife at the ready.
I found myself in a little alcove equipped with a washer and dryer. The alcove opened into a kitchen. To my left as I came out of the alcove was another doorway; it led into a bedroom, which led, in turn, to the bathroom with the shower. I hovered at the bedroom doorway, listening.
The janitor was definitely in the shower stall; I’ll let you guess how I knew that. My nose wrinkled in disgust, but at the same time I relaxed, sure that I was safe now for at least the next few minutes.
Relief made me stupid. Instead of beating it for the front door, I started snooping around, opening drawers and cabinets. I was over by the pantry, trading glances with the Trix rabbit, when the phone on the kitchen table rang.
I reacted as if a burglar alarm had gone off. I dropped the knife in a panic, and snatched at the phone before it could ring a second time.
The shower kept on running. I raised the phone to my ear.