Paul Cleave - The Cleaner

I lean against the kitchen bench, pulling at my beer, and the hooker in front of me is available and so used looking that instead of her looking better with every sip I take, she just keeps on looking worse. Her makeup has been caked on thickly. I have an idea why her lips are swollen, and know it costs sixty bucks.

“What’s your name?” I ask.

“Candy.”

Candy. Sure. Why not. “Call me Joe.”

“I will be,” she says, stepping closer to me. “So what’s it to be, Joe?”

I shrug, pretty sure if I told her what it was exactly I was after, she’d make a run for the door. “Let’s go upstairs.” She’s still carrying my briefcase for me as I lead her upstairs. I sip at my beer. It’s nice and cool. Refreshing. I’ll take the rest with me.

“So how long you been doing this, Candy?” I ask, always willing to expand my knowledge of how things work.

“Six months. I’m just trying to earn enough so I can afford to go through university.”

I take a slight pause on the landing, her answer throwing me a little, until I realize she’s just saying something she thinks I want to hear. Telling her clients she was trying to raise enough money to bail her boyfriend out of jail for selling drugs is no doubt a real turnoff.

I decide to play along with the game. “What do you want to study?”

“I want to be a lawyer. Or an actor.”

“Same thing, isn’t it?”

When we reach the bedroom she tosses my briefcase onto the bed. The contents jingle.

“What you got in there? Whips and stuff?”

I’m smiling, because she really has no idea. “Something like that.”

She smiles, and small cracks appear in the makeup around her eyes and mouth. “I like whips and stuff, only it’ll cost extra if you wanna use them.”

I doubt she’ll like my definition of whips and stuff. She starts loosening my tie. She unbuttons my shirt. “You’ve got a great chest.”

She leans forward and starts kissing it. This is great. I’ve never done anything like this before. I reach forward and start pushing at her breasts. She starts moaning. Sounds like a shampoo commercial. Can she really be enjoying it that much?

She starts fumbling with my belt, like she wants to get this over with and say next please to the next guy driving along. This makes me realize she’s faking her moans, that she’s not enjoying this at all. I’m just another customer. Well, for me, she’s just another tool. Like Fluffy the Floppy Cat.

“So what’s it gonna be?”

I swallow. Hard. “Go back to the bed.”

She starts walking backward, at the same time pulling her top up over her head. Her breasts are small. I’m looking at them and thinking that padded bras have a lot to answer for. The tattoo she has there is of a small dragon. It could symbolize something, or maybe it’s her only friend. I walk with her. She sits on the edge of the bed and continues undoing my pants. It doesn’t take her long. The buckle on my belt rattles.

I’ve had sex before, but never with somebody consenting, and this makes me nervous. What if she doesn’t enjoy it? What if she thinks I’m no good? Will she laugh? None of the others laughed. Why would they? The enjoyment quickly fades.

I can think of only one way to bring it back.

I slam my fist into the side of her head. She jerks backward and tries to stand, but hits the edge of the bed and ends up falling onto her ass, her hands going behind her to break her fall. She looks up at me and I can’t tell behind all her makeup if she’s frightened or annoyed, but know it has to be at least one of them. There are tears in her eyes and for the first time she looks at least a little attractive.

“That’ll cost you extra.”

“I thought I could do what I wanted.”

“If you want to beat me up, it’ll cost you a grand.”

I shrug. Lean forward. Pull her back up by her arm. “Then I better get my money’s worth.”

I try to drag her onto the bed, but it ends up getting difficult because my pants fall around my ankles. I grab her arm, roll her over, and twist it up her back, trying my best not to break it-but these things happen. She begins screaming, so I push her face into the bed to muffle her, and it works pretty well. I let go of her arm. It doesn’t move. Just juts out at an angle I’ve never seen on an arm before. Her other arm is pinned beneath her. When I try to move the broken one, it grates where the bone has snapped. The pain is too much for her to struggle, so she stops fighting back.

I kick my pants off. The romance is quick and fulfilling, only it seems I keep too much pressure on the back of her head, because when I finish and pull away, I’ve suffocated her. It seems I can’t get anything right these days. At least I’ve saved five hundred dollars. Or was it a thousand?

I start to get dressed. It’s been a big night for me, and the effects of the combined excitement are starting to wear off, and by the time I’ve got my shirt buttoned up I’m starting to feel tired. The plan to kill Candy where Daniela Walker died has worked without a hitch. It will leave a message to the original killer. I can study the policemen at the station, watch them closely. One of them will become nervous. One of them will know that somebody else knows. He’ll wonder what they want. He’ll react. He’ll be an absolute nervous wreck. He’ll be easy to spot. I decide to grab the pen after all to highlight the message.

Of course it could be a matter of days, maybe weeks, before she’s found, and this is a problem. If I let it go that long, then bringing Candy back here would have been for nothing. Wrinkling my shirt and getting blood on it would have been for nothing. I grab my briefcase and head downstairs first to the fridge, then to the front door, using Candy’s bra to wipe down any surfaces I’ve touched. Tomorrow I’ll phone in an anonymous tip from a pay phone, telling the police there’s a body here.

It hasn’t gotten any darker or any colder since spending quality time with Candy. A million stars shine down on me, making my pale skin look even paler. I park the Honda just outside of town and wipe it down. The breeze blows against my face as I turn toward home. I dump Candy’s bra in a trash can outside a corner store. I pass other women on the way, most of them streetwalkers, but I don’t give them a second look. I’m not an animal. I’m not going to kill somebody just because they are there. I hate guys like that. That’s what makes me different from anybody else. That’s my humanity.

My apartment is the size of a closet compared to the house I’ve just visited. Sometimes it’s all I need. Other times it’s not enough. Can’t complain. Who’d listen? Well, who’d listen and still remember five seconds later?

The first thing I do when I get inside is open my briefcase and dump the folder on the table with the others I’ve taken over the last few months. These others are souvenirs, but I hadn’t taken Daniela’s folder before because there was never any point. Why keep a memento of another man’s crime? I have yet to get a copy of the two victims’ folders from yesterday. And one for tonight’s murder won’t be available for a few more days.

I watch Pickle and Jehovah for a few minutes, wondering what they are thinking, before heading to bed. I set my internal alarm clock to seven thirty and am just in the process of climbing beneath the sheets when I notice it-the answering machine. The message light is flashing. Great. I’m in my pajama shorts and not really in the mood to hear what anybody has to say to me, but I figure it’s probably Mom. If I don’t see what she wants, she’ll only keep calling me back.

Six messages. All from her. If I don’t show up, my life is going to be hell. Last time I didn’t show up for dinner when it was planned, she spent all week on the phone to me, crying her heart out and forcing me to admit I’m a poor excuse for a son. I decide to take my punishment and head over there tonight.