Paul Cleave - The Cleaner

I notice her hands are shaking slightly. “He told me if any cops wanted to know about him, I was to keep my mouth shut. Said he’d kill me if I didn’t.”

I can’t figure why he just didn’t kill her anyway. It’s the best way to keep somebody quiet. Maybe he hadn’t reached that point in his life.

“So why are you talking to me?” I ask.

“I’ve got bills to pay.”

Sure, that and the fact that money will always win out over fear, loyalty, truth, or whatever other bullshit shoves its way into a prostitute’s life. She pulls the cigarette from her pack, bites on the end of it, and pulls out a lighter. She’s still silent, just giving her cigarette head. She lets three smoke rings fall from her dry lips.

“Have you got an ashtray anywhere around here?”

“Below your feet. The maid will get it.”

She taps the ash onto the red carpet.

“I keep thinking I’m going to give up one day,” she says, looking at the cigarette, but I bet she’s thinking about the hooking.

“It’ll kill you,” I say.

“Everything will kill you these days.”

She’s so right. “So do you think he was a cop?” I ask.

She shrugs. “Acted like a cop.”

“Acted how?”

“You know. Kind of reserved. Always looking around to see who was watching. Stiff body action. Knew what he was doing. Decisive like.”

“You can tell he’s a cop from that?”

“In my line of work, you get a gut feeling for that kind of thing. When he first pulled up I wasn’t going to go with him. Thought I was going to be arrested for something, though I don’t know what-it’s not like what I’m doing is illegal.”

“It is if you’re not paying your taxes,” I tell her, which is true.

“Yeah, well, anyway, my point is he was a cop. I could tell.”

“You asked him if he was a cop?”

“Does it matter? He would have lied. Anyway, so we drive directly to the Everblue and I’m starting to freak out a little because I’m thinking maybe he wants more than he’s told me, but he’s paid me up front and no matter what you think, I’m a professional and it felt too late to back out. I figured a motel was still safer than the bush, and I figured it’d be better than telling him I’d changed my mind. Some people don’t like that.”

“Where do you normally go, if not back to a motel?”

“Not far from where you picked me up. I generally just sort them out down a nearby alleyway.”

From what she said a few minutes ago about Calhoun’s preferences, an alleyway would have been far from sufficient. With the type of noise they needed to make, I’m surprised the motel room had been adequate. Then again nobody’s going to complain about the noise because people in twenty other adjoining rooms are also making it. There’s even a chance Calhoun booked the two adjoining rooms, just to make sure not as many people heard him having the time of his life.

I take the photograph out of my jacket pocket. “Are you sure it was the same guy as the photograph?” I ask her this without showing her the picture.

“Positive.”

“What does he look like?” I ask. I hold the picture facing away from her. I’m basically testing her memory, even though she saw it half an hour earlier.

“Like that,” she says, nodding toward the photo.

“Describe him.”

“Huh?”

“Describe him. Tell me what he looks like.”

“Well, he was wearing a white shirt. Light-brown sports jacket. Black trousers.”

“Not what he was wearing, bitch. .”

“Hey.”

“Tell me what he looked like.”

“Don’t call me bitch ,” she says.

“Just answer the fucking question.”

“Fuck you.”

Where is all this coming from? Why the sudden hostility?

I open the briefcase. Take out a knife.

“Hey, what are you doing?”

“Listen very carefully, bitch, because I don’t have time to mess around. If you don’t tell me what I want to know, I’m going to start cutting you up. By the end of the night nobody is going to pay shit to screw you. The only way you’ll ever score another client is if you’re wearing a paper bag over your head.”

I study her face, waiting for a reaction. I’m expecting surprise, right? Or for her to even be stunned. Scared maybe. But she starts yawning. When she finishes she puts the cigarette back into her mouth and sucks in another mouthful of cancerous smoke, like she doesn’t even care. Becky has obviously been threatened before.

“You think you scare me?”

Yes. Yes, I do think I scare her. I tell her this.

“You like that?” she asks.

“Huh?”

“Scaring people.”

“It’s what I do.”

“Oh.”

I’m holding the knife so the blade is pointing toward her. For the first time, I’m beginning to doubt that I’ll use it. There’s something about her I’m starting to like. No, I’m not going soft, and I’m certainly not going to propose to her, but I’m starting to wonder if it’s really necessary to cut her open.

I’m not sure how to carry on, which is probably what she wants.

“So what are you going to do with this information?” she asks, ignoring the knife.

“What’s it to you?”

“I’d think a man in your position would be a bit friendlier.”

A man in my position. What position? I’m the one with the knife. She’s going nowhere unless I allow her to. What she doesn’t understand is that my threat is no empty one, unlike those made by the losers she’s screwed.

I consider apologizing, but don’t want to.

“I think he killed somebody,” I confess.

“Jesus, you sure?” she asks, no doubt thinking he could have just as easily killed her.

“Pretty sure.”

“You think he killed Lisa Houston?”

“Who?”

“Lisa Houston.”

I have to think about it for a few seconds, and then it comes to me. “You mean the pro from a week or so ago?”

“Yeah.”

I glance back at the door into the hall, remembering Lisa carrying my briefcase for me on the way, then I imagine Lisa being carried on her way out. “I think so.”

“You’re saying a cop killed her?”

Sure. Why not? There’s nothing she can do with the information. “That’s the way it’s looking.”

“Unbelievable.”

“You knew her?”

“We all know each other, honey.”

“You liked her?”

“Couldn’t stand her. Didn’t mean I wanted her dead, but since she is, I guess I’m happy about it.”

“Happier than Lisa, anyway.”

“Huh. I guess you’re right.”

I am right. I’m in the ideal position to make a solid comparison. “So what can you tell me about him?”

She gives me a detailed description. Nails him to a T.

I show her the photograph for the second time. She confirms it’s him. In a matter of maybe an hour, I’ve narrowed my list down to one suspect. Detective Robert Calhoun. Father to a dead boy. Husband to a disappointed wife. Partner to his morbid desires.

We talk for a bit more. I put the knife back into the briefcase and close down the lid. She doesn’t look relieved to see it gone. It’s like she never even cared. Just sits there, sucking on her cigarette and talking. And thinking about her money. I’m picturing my two grand in her purse. I don’t want her to have it anymore. I glance at my watch.

“Getting late, honey?”

I look up at her. “Yeah.”

I still have plenty to do tonight, including picking up the cat.

“So now what?”

I shrug. If I’m not going to get my money back, I may as well get my money’s worth.

“Is there anything you would like to do?” she asks.

I nod. I have aspirations. My life is full of things I’d like to do.