Paul Cleave - The Cleaner

“Yeah? What?” she asks.

“Well, I suppose we could make use of the bedroom.”

But I don’t feel like making use of her, let alone the bedroom. The clown clock with the big moving eyes keeps looking at her, then at me, then at her again. All I feel like doing is going home and hitting the sack. I yawn. Wipe my fingertips at my watering eyes.

“Maybe I’ll take a rain check.”

“You sure?” she asks.

“Positive.” I stand up and grab my briefcase.

“Sure thing, sugar. You ever want to do this again sometime, feel free to call me.”

I turn off the lights on the way out. I don’t lock the front door behind me. It’s stopped drizzling and the wind is cool. Easily the coldest it has been all year. People are all inside, wrapped up in sheets and blankets. In their dreams, people like me are chasing them. Drops of water reflect the streetlights off leaves and fences and my car for the evening.

We head for town. I can’t be bothered making conversation and she doesn’t seem that eager either, so I turn on the radio. There’s some crappy song on, but I don’t care enough to change stations. “Where do you want me to drop you off?”

“Wherever.”

Should I or shouldn’t I? I still don’t know. Killing her will get me my two thousand dollars; letting her live still offers her up as help should I need any more information. It’s nothing like the dilemma I had at the gay guy’s house, but it’s still a dilemma. What would God want me to do? He’d probably want me to smite the whore, but she’s too likable for that.

I pull into an alleyway between a couple of shops, the headlights picking out dozens of cardboard boxes, chunks of white Styrofoam, and bags of trash. There are small puddles that have rainbows in them caused by exhaust fumes. I smile at her, lean over, and open the door like a gentleman. This woman has narrowed my list down to one suspect, and for that I’m truly grateful. She smiles back at me, and thanks me for a pleasant evening.

“You’re welcome,” I say, and thirty seconds later, after her body lands on the cold concrete with a slight thump, I tuck the two thousand dollars into my jacket pocket. I wipe the knife clean on her short skirt, then lean back into the car.

Always the gentleman till the end.

The money feels good inside my pocket. It makes me feel like I’m worth something, that I’m somebody important. The only thing I’m carrying that doesn’t feel so good is the guilt I feel about killing Becky. I can’t believe how quickly it’s hit me. It’s like snapping Fluffy’s neck. The only way I can balance the scales is if I’m driving home tonight and I come across a hooker that’s been hit by a car.

As I back away from the alleyway, my headlights washing across her crumpled body, the pain starts to fade. By the time I get stuck at my first red light, I don’t feel bad at all.

I try to figure out why Calhoun did what he did, and the answer is actually pretty simple. His problem was that sex with Becky the prostitute couldn’t live up to the fantasy he’d imagined. He thought he could quash his desire for rough sex by having it with Becky, but because he was paying her, and she was only pretending to be afraid, it took away the realism. Becky didn’t fear for her life, and Calhoun knew that. It may not have sunk in for a few days, or maybe longer, but in the end he was left needing far, far more. Daniela Walker gave him his fantasy. In the process he knew the differences between right and wrong, gambled with the consequences, and decided the risk was worth it.

I don’t bother questioning why he would kill an innocent woman and pass up on the opportunity to kill the hooker, especially when the innocent woman was a harder target. It’s all part of the game, part of the fantasy. It’s a pure rush to be completely superior, so powerful, so unbelievably dominant. Following Daniela home, confronting her, breaking her, would have been one hell of an ego rush.

The car has a weighty feel, but that’s because Candy version two, the four-hundred-dollar hooker, is lying in the trunk where I put her not long ago. I pull over outside the park where Melissa changed my life with a pair of pliers, and walk around to the back of the car.

Candy’s short blouse is covered in blood. Her puffy eyes are open and staring at me, through me, and I wonder exactly what it is she’s trying to focus on. Her skin is so pale she looks as though she could have been locked in the trunk for the last six months. In contrast, her painted lips are a vivid red, the color of blood. I close the trunk.

There are no lights on in any of the houses, and just under half of the streetlamps are busted. I can see the dark outlines of the trees in the park, but none of the details. No traffic. No pedestrians. No signs of life.

I open the trunk and look down at the dead girl. With my hands gloved, I roll her body over. The pool of blood beneath her looks like oil. Again I look around. When I slammed the trunk on Candy earlier, she was alive. I slam it on her again, only this time she’s dead.

I did not kill her .

I walk back to the side of the car knowing there can only be one person who’s done this to me: Melissa. I’m not sure exactly when, or why. The same reason she came to my apartment and helped me with the injury. She’s playing with me. Toying with me. She’s setting something up of which I have no idea at all.

I’m inside and just shutting my door when a movement to my right stops me. I twist my head to see an old man stepping out of the dark toward me.

“My God, is that you, Joe?” He gets a few steps closer, and I give him a casual look up and down, as if I’m out shopping for victims. He looks in his late sixties-his gray hair is combed back at the front, but standing up at the back. His face is a collage of wrinkles that are long and deep. He wears glasses that are broken in the middle, and look to be held together with Velcro dots. They’re covered in a thin layer of dust, and I can’t pick the color of his magnified eyes. He’s holding a hand toward me, not quite pointing, but in a gesture that makes me aware he’s about to put his hand on my arm. The sad part is I’m about to let him. He’s wearing a flannel shirt and brown corduroy pants. He looks vaguely familiar. I say nothing. I’m in no mood for conversation.

“Little Joe? It is you, isn’t it?”

I strain my memory, and in that same moment his face seems to shimmer into focus, along with a name. “Mr. Chadwick?”

“That’s right, son. My God, I can hardly believe it.” He starts shaking his head. “If it isn’t little Joe. Evelyn’s boy.”

He offers me his right hand. For a second I imagine it sitting in my briefcase along with a small chunk of his wrist. I step out of the car and shake his hand, hoping he doesn’t pull me into an embrace.

“How’s your mother, Joe?”

I shrug. Mr. Chadwick has always been a nice enough guy, I suppose, once you get past the liver spots and wrinkles, and he certainly seems pleasant enough at the moment. At his age, he must contemplate death quite a lot. I ought to ask him.

“She’s fine, Mr. Chadwick.”

“Call me Walt.”

“Sure, Walt. Mom’s just Mom, if you know what I mean.”

“She still doing those jigsaw puzzles?”

“Yep.” Standing outside of my car, I begin to shiver. A quick glance upward at the covered stars suggests there may be more rain on the way. If so, it’s going to ruin my plans.

“She’s been doing those as long as I remember.”

“Yeah, she really likes her puzzles.”

“I bet she’s good at them too. Damn good.”

“So, um, Walt, what brings you out so late?”

“I’m walking my dog,” he says, showing me the leash.