Paul Cleave - The Cleaner

The Oxford Terrace line of bars and cafés is known as The Strip. It’s a meat market where skanky girls tease a few dozen men for every one they end up sleeping with. Seven or eight of these bars are packed tightly within this block, all of them with a riverside view. On the other side of the river and on a slight diagonal, a few hundred feet away from the closest bar, is the police station. On a Friday night the urine-water mix in the Avon is about fifty-fifty. Eels float along belly up. Ducks pick at used condoms left on the banks. Small fish flop from the water figuring they have a better chance in the air than they do breathing in the same stuff they’re swimming in. Every ten meters or so somebody has passed out drunk. As I get closer to The Strip, I take the gun from my waistband and zip it inside my jacket pocket, then take off my jacket and carry it. The night isn’t as hot as it’d been over the last week, but sweat still trickles down the sides of my body. I’ve applied enough aftershave and deodorant to hide any smell my body can come up with, though there’s more than enough aftershave and perfume already hanging in the air. Walking down this street has me scented for free within seconds.

It’s after midnight and The Strip is getting livelier. All week long women are heading straight home from work and locking their doors, afraid that what has been happening to their counterparts in the news might happen to them. Any other day of the week, there is a general awareness that things are not as safe as they ought to be. Yet come Friday and Saturday nights, all those fears are pushed aside so that the good times can roll. Here, most of the women are young and underdressed. They try to cram their way into clubs they think must be popular because of the lines of people waiting outside. Bouncers stand with their arms crossed and their muscles bulging. They have attitude problems they like everyone to know about.

The Strip is the highlight of town for most locals. Already the drum ’n’ bass, the techno, and the hip-hop deafen me. The only thing I know about hip-hop is that I hate it, and I figure that’s all anybody knows about it. We may have evolved from something that crawled out of a swamp and continued to evolve as monkeys became men, but boy-racers and hip-hop music are proof we’ve hit our peak and are now heading backward.

It could take at least thirty minutes to get inside any of these places, so I head deeper into the city, walking down Cashel Mall passing shoe shops and clothing stores in search of another club or bar. Perhaps one that’s quieter. I find it eventually-a club with an open front where the music isn’t quite so loud and a lot more bearable and there’s room to sit. The crowd seems to be made up of people from their midtwenties through to their late thirties. Guess that makes me average.

I make my way inside, sidestepping the bouncer with a smile and without a comment from either of us. There’s a sea of people to greet me, but not an ocean. I push my way through, keeping a tight grip on my jacket. At the bar I’m served by a delicious blonde-tight white top, short black skirt, great tits. I order myself a gin and tonic. Expensive, but you can’t go into town on a Friday or Saturday night and not expect to spend a small fortune. I could have stayed at home and had the same drink for a quarter of the price, but there would be nobody to watch. I sit at the bar, nurse my drink, and watch the crowd around me. Mostly men wearing expensive clothing they can’t afford, attempting to look richer and more impressive than they really are. Caretakers, laborers, plumbers, shop assistants-all dressed to look like lawyers. Whereas the lawyers are at other bars, dressed to look like casual guys. The women, even the fat chicks, dress to look like sluts. Not that I’m complaining. It’s here where men flock to get a glance at potential bedtime stories to tell their friends on Monday morning. Women come here to be easy. To be free.

From all corners of the club, lights flicker and dance and throb and pulse at my eyes. I finish my drink, order another. I look up at the roof and check for any surveillance cameras covering the bar. Nothing. The music is getting louder. My ears are humming.

In a place like this, women only speak to you for one of three reasons: you’re either extremely good-looking, you look extremely rich, or they’re telling you to get lost and stop bothering them. Tonight I’m wearing expensive clothing. Money’s no object when it comes to clothes, because a few of my victims have had husbands my size. I’m also wearing a rather expensive wristwatch-a Tag Heuer that cost victim number three’s husband three thousand dollars. It has a sapphire crystal face that can’t be scratched and a metal bracelet strap. Not as costly as a Rolex, but Rolexes don’t retain a high market value; they’re ugly, worn only by old men and Asians.

It takes thirty minutes and three drinks for a woman to come up to me. Out of the overalls, I don’t look like the simple guy the guys at the station think I am. Clothes make all the difference. She forces her way to the bar and stands next to me. She turns and smiles. Acknowledges my existence. A good start. She orders a drink. Just one.

“Hi there.” I have to shout to be heard over the music.

“Hi.”

I peg her to be around twenty-seven, maybe twenty-eight years old. Five feet six, slim. Like the chick behind the bar, she has a nice pair. In this light she looks like she has purple skin. Maybe she does. Her hair looks purple too. I can’t tell what color her eyes are.

“How’s it going?” I shout.

“Good,” she says, nodding. “Good. And you?”

“Yeah. Good,” I say, then suddenly realize I don’t know what to say next. That’s always been my problem. Social skills don’t come easy to me. If they did, I wouldn’t have to break into women’s homes; I’d be able to talk my way in. So. . Come here often? No, I’m not going to ask that. “Boy, I wish I could come up with something that made me sound impressive.”

She laughs, and maybe that’s because she’s heard the line before, or knows how quickly our conversation became awkward. “I was hoping you’d be impressive.”

This is a good sign. Funny. Good sense of humor. Great smile. And she’s still here, hasn’t told me to get lost. I study her outfit. A short black skirt. A dark red top that shows the tops of her firm breasts. The back of the top shows most of her back, except where the material strings across to hold it in place. She isn’t wearing a bra. Black leather shoes that have finger-width strands of leather crisscrossing over them. She’s wearing a thin gold necklace, and a gold watch that looks like an expensive Omega.

I shrug. “I was kind of hoping for the same thing.”

The other thing I keep in mind is that even though women who frequent these places may look like sluts, and may in fact be easy, going home with one takes a mighty amount of skill, charm, persuasion, or dumb luck-none of which I have in spades. It’s all about salesmanship. Here you have a good-looking woman, wanting to make a purchase, just looking for the right guy, and knowing that if you’re not it, there’s another one a few feet away.

She smiles at me. The biggest tool you can have in your armory, besides being good-looking and rich, is humor. If you can make her laugh right away, then you have a chance. If she really laughs-not one of those stupid, polite laughs because you think you’re funny-then you’re definitely in. At some point in the evening you’re assured of at least a friendly grope in the bathroom out back.

I’m hoping for a friendly something else.

“You look familiar,” she says.

I smile at her, not really sure how to respond.

“You work at the police station, right?”