Paul Cleave - The Cleaner

Sally opens the window. The air outside has cooled off. The warm air from the bedroom starts to waft out as fresh stuff replaces it. She wishes her dad’s disease could be swapped just as easily. She would happily take it into her own body to relieve him of it if she could. It would be the least she could do after what happened to Martin.

“I’m sorry,” her mother says, looking up and releasing her grip on a damp handful of tissues. “I used to be stronger than this.” She starts rubbing the silver crucifix hanging at her neck between her thumb and forefinger.

“It will be okay, Mom,” Sally answers, staring at the crucifix coming in and out of view, the okay word hanging in the room in the thick air. “You’ll see.”

Of course her mother has said those same words many times since the day when Martin’s doctor gave them the news that led them to start thinking about where they wanted to bury their son. Strangely, it was Martin who suffered the least, because he didn’t understand he was dying. Even at the end he thought he was going to be getting better. Didn’t they all think that?

Yes. Life was always going to get better.

All they have to do is remember that. All they have to do is have faith.

Her mind slowly turns toward Joe. She wonders if he believes in God, and assumes that he does-he’s too good-natured not to. Still, she decides to find out, because God may be the one thing they have in common.

I’m not actually sure where ideas come from, whether they’re just floating around out there in some dimension close to but not quite of this world, where our minds can reach out and pluck them, whether a series of firing synapses in our mind weigh up cold data into cold possibilities, or whether it comes down to a simple train of thought riding through Lucksville. Ideas come at any time, often when you’re not expecting them. I’ve had them in the bathroom, cleaning floors. I’ve had them when dreading the walk from the sidewalk to my mother’s front door. The spontaneous ideas are often the best. Sometimes they shock you into making a decision. Only hindsight tells you whether it was good or not.

The only light coming into the room now is from the streetlights outside. I turn the duvet over to hide the splashes of blood. I pick up the plastic markers and throw them into the closet along with the evidence bags, next to a shoe rack and a pile of old clothes. The room no longer looks like a crime scene, but something out of Poor Housekeeping. I wipe away the fingerprint dust with the husband’s shirt, then I close the curtains knowing that when I come back I’m going to have to turn on the lights. I make my way downstairs in the dark and do the same thing. By the time I finish up and get outside it’s after nine o’clock.

I walk down the sidewalk to the Honda and climb inside, tossing my briefcase onto the passenger seat. From the moment I first saw this car, I’ve been wearing latex gloves. My fingers are sweating beneath them, but it’s better than leaving fingerprints. I pull them away from my hands. They’re like an extra layer of skin. I don’t put on a replacement pair and make a mental note to remember to wipe down every surface I touch. I drive toward town. I have a job to do, but I don’t want a particularly late night. Rather than looking for an innocent victim, I decide to look for somebody who will gladly be one for a price.

I find her standing on a Manchester Street corner in town. A skirt so short it’s more of a thick belt than anything else. Low-cut top. Fishnet stockings. Costume jewelry on her fingers. A small tattoo on her neck and another at the top of her left breast. Other hookers are hanging around trying to attract business, women who look like they’ve been dragged out of a trailer park by their teased hair. If her pimp is nearby he may or may not note down the registration plate of my stolen car, but in this city I can’t imagine pimps caring enough. It doesn’t matter either way.

Before the car comes to a complete stop, she opens the passenger door and offers up today’s specials as if reading from a menu. I accommodate her by clearing the seat. She tells me what I can get for twenty dollars, sixty dollars, and even a hundred. I ask her if there’s a cash discount and she gives me a confused look until I tell her I’m just joking. She doesn’t laugh. Then I ask her what I can get for five hundred.

“Is that you still being funny?” she asks.

I reach into my pocket and pull out my wallet. I show her what five hundred dollars looks like.

“You can have whatever you want, baby,” she says, and I’ll certainly hold her to that.

She closes the door and the interior light blinks out, but not before I end up taking a longer look at her than I would like. She’s in her late twenties, though that’s really just a guess. She’s underweight, which isn’t a guess, and looks like an ad for starving children in Third World countries. She has blond hair with black roots and so much hair spray the strong nor’westers we’ve been getting wouldn’t budge it. Her brown eyes reveal nothing, as though her mind is somewhere else, maybe in a world where she doesn’t have to wrap her thighs or lips around men for money. When she smiles at me, her swollen lips glisten with either moisture, or her last client.

I head back to Daniela’s house. We make small talk on the way, mostly about the weather. I’m sure she’s heard the news and knows what’s been happening to all sorts of women in the city, but she doesn’t look nervous sitting in a car with a man she’s known all of two minutes. She can’t afford to be nervous. I have no interest in what she does outside working hours. She doesn’t care who I am. Then we start setting the mood. She tells me I have a nice car. I tell her she has a great body. She tells me she’ll be an awesome fuck. I tell her for five hundred dollars she ought to be. We reach the house and I don’t bother driving around the block, but opt to park up the driveway. If anybody is around they won’t be able to get a good look at me. Even if they do take a peek, they’ll think it’s the husband returning home to quench his sexual thirst.

“Can you grab my briefcase from behind you?”

“Sure thing, sugar.”

The evening has dropped a few degrees since I left the house. We reach the front door, my guest walking a little slower than me, and not in the same straight line. I left the door unlocked earlier, but I lock it behind us once we’re inside.

“Would you like a drink?”

“Sure is hot in here.”

“So that’d be a yes?”

“Sure.”

She follows me through to the kitchen. I don’t need the map of the house to know where I’m going. I turn on the light knowing it can’t be seen from the front of the house, but it can be from the back if the neighbor over the fence is a practicing Peeping Tom. I open the fridge and grab a couple of beers. She is halfway through hers before I even manage to pry the top off mine. I leave the bottle opener and the caps on the bench. I’ll pick them up on my way out. I keep making a list of surfaces I’ve been touching. Fridge. Door handle. Drawer handle. What else?

She finishes her beer and I start mine. The more light we have the worse she looks. She looks drugged up. Maybe if she hadn’t spent too long focusing on sleeping with her step-father, dropping out of school early, getting pregnant, having an abortion, and getting pregnant again, then she could be living a more respectable life. I’m not saying prostitutes aren’t respectable-they fulfill a societal need. Where else can you get somebody to kill on such short notice and have nobody care? They’ll willingly go with you wherever you want to go. It’s crazy. They take their lives in their hands every night, and offer them up to their johns to take away. The only other easy victim, but not as readily available, is the hitchhiker. The trick is to pull up alongside her and glance at your watch, giving the impression that you’re due somewhere, perhaps at a meeting, and mumble that you only just have time to drop her off close to where she wants to be. It lulls her into a wonderful sense of false security, then lulls her into your car. Only I didn’t pass any hitchhikers on the way into town. I looked, but didn’t see any.