Paul Cleave - The Cleaner

Tonight I’m going to offer her an escape from the pain of life.

That’s my humanity.

The children’s bedroom has all that happy jolly stuff I never had as a kid. Posters of cartoon characters are stapled to the walls; they chase each other with stupid smiles and homosexual gestures. Even the bedspreads can’t just be normal. They too have characters running across them, frozen in a moment of excitement. The clock radio on the small blue desk is in the shape of a clown. The eyes move back and forth, counting the minutes that have passed since the occupants of this room lost their mother. But the clown doesn’t know it. He’s still smiling, his bright red lips almost the same shade as Becky’s, his eyes looking back and forth, back and forth, searching for something he’ll never find. Colorful toys are scattered across the floor. Stuffed teddy bears look like they have been massacred by toy soldiers, their bodies dumped in this battlefield of chaos. Piles of plastic board games are stacked in one corner. One is open on the floor and the pieces inside are strewn over the carpet. A bookcase containing more toys than books is pushed against the wall.

The main colors of the room are blue and light pink. Relaxing colors, or so they believe. They’ve spent thousands of dollars on case studies to prove this. Happy colors mean happy kids. As a kid, I had gray walls in my room. Put a poster up, and I got grounded. Yet look how happy I am. I could have saved those researchers all that money if they’d come to me first.

“You think you last saw him two months ago?” I ask, confirming her guess.

“Yeah. I suppose so.”

“Thought you’d remember a client who was paying two thousand dollars.”

She shrugs. “Go figure. I remember the money more than anything else.”

“What was his name?”

“His name? What’s in a name?”

“Everything,” I say, wondering if she’s trying to quote Shakespeare. I decide I can’t credit her with that intelligence, and chalk it up as a fluke. Still, I find it unsettling.

Could a whore actually be that clever?

She shrugs. “He didn’t tell me.”

“What did he tell you?”

“Just what he wanted.”

“And what was that?”

She tells me. It’s so graphic I nearly blush. “And you gave him that for two grand?”

“Yeah.”

Can’t quite discern if that had been a bargain or not. What I do understand is the similarity between this encounter and the death of Daniela Walker. Same signature.

“Where did he take you?”

“I thought I just explained all that.”

I shake my head. “I mean did he take you back to his house, or to your house, or to a motel room, or what?”

“Oh, that. Well, it was a motel room. We don’t usually go to the john’s house.”

“Can you remember the motel?”

“Some seedy joint across town. The Everblue. Heard of it?”

I nod. Never been there, but driven by it a few times.

“He booked a room while you were there?”

“No. He already had one. We drove straight there and went directly to his room.”

“Was he living there?”

“Huh?”

“Did you see any suitcases? Any extra clothes?”

“No, but I wasn’t looking for any.”

I figure he wasn’t staying there. The Everblue is a dive that charges for rooms by the hour, not overnight, just for people like Becky and her colleagues. Becky seems eager to tell me more now. Before she was defensive, guarded about everything. Now she senses she’s going to make two grand for talking, and after her candid explanation of the perverse sex Calhoun ordered, she has no reason to hold back.

“Where did he pick you up?”

“Same place you did.”

“Anybody else around?”

“Nobody.”

“Pimp?”

“Are you a cop or something?”

It is a question I can see she was tempted to ask immediately. Her greed stopped her then, but now that she has the money, and perhaps a switchblade in her purse to protect it, she can ask whatever she wants.

“Or something.”

“If you’re a cop, this is entrapment.”

Great. A Goddamn scholar. “I’m not a cop.”

She doesn’t look disappointed or relieved at this confession. “Are you going to have sex with me or what?”

“Not sure yet.”

“’Cause I should be charging you extra for these questions.”

“Fine. Two grand for the answers. If I want sex, I’ll pay normal rates.”

She seems happy with this.

“So, did your pimp see him?” I ask.

“I don’t have a pimp.”

“You serious?”

“Yeah. Used to, but he was pretty violent.”

“I thought girls without pimps got hassled by the girls that do have them,” I say, but to be honest I don’t really have any understanding of the pimp-whore world, only what I’ve seen on TV.

“This guy was worse than the girls.”

“So nobody knows you went with him?”

“Just him, me, and God.”

God. Huh. I find it interesting she mentions Him. Like He would take the time to look over a piece of trash like her. Like anybody would take the time. Yet she wears the crucifix around her neck because she is a God-luvin’ Christian. It doesn’t make sense. The good news is she’s just told me that only God and I know she’s here.

“So you got no name at all from him.”

“Listen, honey, nobody gives me names, and those who do are lying. Apart from that, names and faces I forget. It’s the sex I remember, and only then if it’s something out of the ordinary. Which this was.”

“Is there anything you can tell me about him? Type of car? Where he dropped you off? Anything at all that might help?”

“Help what? Why are you looking for this guy?”

“I’d think for two grand, only I should be asking the questions.”

“Whatever.”

“So, can you remember the car?”

“Sort of. It was nice. Late model.”

“That’s pretty detailed.”

“Don’t be a smart-ass.”

“You think it was a sports car?”

“No. A sedan. I remember thinking he was going to want me to blow him in the backseat.”

“Did you?”

“No.”

“What about the front seat?”

“Does it really matter to you?”

It really doesn’t. “What color car?”

“Can’t remember. It was dark. What I remember most is how the sex was so violent and strange, and afterward he was real nice to me.”

I can imagine. “Did you let him drop you back off at home?”

“Shit, no. I didn’t want a sicko like that knowing where I lived. I got him to drop me off at an apartment complex and waited for him to go before finally going home.”

“How much did he hurt you?”

She shrugs. “I’ve been hurt before.”

“How much?”

“I couldn’t walk home, had to get a taxi. Could hardly walk for three days.”

I know what that’s like. “How bad was it?”

“God, it wasn’t as though he raped me, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

Prostitution and rape. Two things that closed-minded people think go hand in hand. Some people think prostitutes even deserve it. Some people think a lot of stupid things. Some even think that raping a prostitute isn’t rape at all, that the only difference is whether you fork out your fifty bucks.

“You’ve experienced the difference, huh?”

She doesn’t answer. Instead just looks at me and uses her hands to fish a cigarette packet from her purse so fluidly that one second her fingers are empty, the next they’re holding on to it.

“You mind?” she asks.

I shrug. Think about how the smoke is only going to help mask the smell that’s coming from a few rooms down. “Go to it.”