Paul Cleave - The Cleaner

I quickly duck back into my office and watch from the corner of the door. As she stands there, Detective Landry walks from the elevator. In his hand, sitting across the bottom of a clear plastic bag, is a knife. Not any knife, but my knife. One of my favorites. He’s carrying it as though he’s just found the Holy Grail. Nobody could mistake the look of pride on his face. Melissa and Calhoun head toward him and the elevator, and they pause to talk. I’d love to know what they are saying, and if things go as planned, soon I will. Then Calhoun steps with her into the elevator and the doors slide shut. I rush for the stairwell and race my way to the ground floor, ignoring the throbbing from my groin. And it’s worth it, because I’m quick enough to see Melissa as she leaves the building. She’s alone now. I head to the door. Nobody puts their hand on my shoulder.

I turn right. Melissa is heading toward the Avon River, so I take the same route, cross the same road, avoid the same people. The sun has come out overhead, but it doesn’t look like it will be for long, and it’s not helping me feel any warmer. When Melissa reaches the grassy bank, she turns right and keeps moving, staying parallel to the dark water. I do the same, but keep a good fifty yards behind her. I have to be careful, because if she runs from me, I’m in no condition to chase her.

A few moments later she swerves toward a nearby park bench, takes a position sitting at the far end, and looks directly toward me. I stop walking, study the ground like there’s something interesting there. I can feel her still looking at me. When I look up again, she smiles.

The long summer is finally coming to an end, but that’s okay, because she loves autumn. She can’t think of anything better than being outside in a nice nor’west breeze as the leaves are changing color, but as much as she loves it, she dreads the months that are to follow. Winter brings with it a grimy film of depression that settles down over the city and soaks into the buildings and the plants and the people, everything touched by rain and the cold wind and the smog.

Sally is confused. About Joe. About his lies.

She understands why he lied about his mother being sick. That was a lie she was happy to go along with, because it protected him. Joe didn’t want to be known as the man who had a testicle pulped by a pair of pliers. If something like that had ever happened to Martin, well, she would have wanted somebody like her to have looked out for him. All she can do now is hope the penicillin she gave Joe will help the healing process and fight off any infection. It should. If not he’ll have to go to a hospital. He won’t have a choice.

She had shown up the day he had been attacked, and each of the following three days-on one of those occasions she had found him passed out on the floor. She wanted to go back the next day too, but her father had had a bad fall and she’d been forced to weigh up her priorities. Family had to come first. She’d still gone to work-she had no more sick days-but from there she’d gone straight home and helped with her father. He’d dislocated a hip and broken a collarbone, but he was mending.

She was going to go back and see Joe on Monday-he still had stitches that needed removing-but he’d shown up at work. They didn’t speak directly of the attack. She wants to talk him into going to the police for help, but not at work.

She doesn’t like the fact that he lied to her about only seeing the crime-scene photographs in the conference room. He knows it’s stealing, but he’s obviously reluctant to open up to her about it. The man with the big smile looks so innocent that she can’t imagine him deliberately lying, but the man who smiled at her between the elevator doors two weeks ago, well, that was a different Joe, wasn’t it? That was a Joe that looked capable of. .

Of what? Of anything? No. Not anything. But he looked capable of lying. He looked smooth, he looked calculating, as if he knew exactly what was going on. She reminds herself it was a fluke smile, that Joe isn’t like that at all.

But why the lies?

Every time she stirs around the possibilities in her head, one keeps on coming up to the surface: Joe is being forced to do something he doesn’t want to do. Therefore somebody needs to help him, and it’s up to her. It’s her Christian duty to make sure no harm comes to him.

Joe has been nervous and anxious most of the day, more so this afternoon, and she suspects why: the person pressuring him to bring home information has asked him for more. Of course she still can’t figure out why the folders would still be in Joe’s apartment and not in the possession of the man who attacked him, but she figures it must have something to do with timing. Perhaps Joe forgot to take the folders with him to a meeting and made the man angry. Perhaps those folders aren’t at Joe’s anymore, but with the man who is threatening him. The only way to know for sure is to keep an eye on Joe. The same way Joe seems to be keeping an eye on the woman who has come to talk to the detectives-which, if Sally is truthful, makes her feel a little jealous. It isn’t only Joe keeping an eye on her-it’s most of the men in the department.

Like everybody else, Sally has heard the rumors flying around the station. This woman has seen something that might bring the case to a close. Perhaps then Joe will be safe.

Watching Joe watching the woman was unnerving. His fascination was so obvious that at one point Sally was sure he must have known her. But of course he was just learning what he could, so he would have something to tell his tormentor to save him from another attack.

Standing outside, watching Joe from the corner where he can’t see her, she cannot understand why he would have approached the woman, but she will keep on watching until she can finally help Joe out of whatever mess he has got into.

The Avon is full of ducks, beer cans, and empty chip bags. Friday night’s urine has drifted to wherever the hell urine drifts to. Patches of riverweed float among the litter. Somebody-the guy with the worst fucking job in the world-has come along and picked up all the used condoms. Strangely, the view is still pleasant. The dark water reflects the sunlight and plays with the shadows, though I’m not really a nature lover. You could pave the whole river in concrete and I wouldn’t care.

As I approach her, Melissa stops watching me, as if I’m not even important enough for her to keep an eye on, and she doesn’t look back up at me until I’m only a meter away. I become aware of how painful my crotch still is. Like the remaining testicle is feeling pangs of loss, and is now feeling fear being in the presence of the woman who took away its brother. She remains sitting. My heart is beating hard, in time with my throbbing testicle. I can’t fathom why I’m suddenly so afraid.

“Take a seat, Joe.” She keeps a tight hold of her smile.

I shake my head. “Next to you? You’re kidding.”

“You still upset with me? Come on, Joe. It’s time to move on.”

Move on? I heard that after Dad died. People hear it all the time. Calhoun probably heard it after his son hanged himself. Are we living in such a throwaway society that we’re not even allowed to hang on to our hatred and remorse? I want to leap forward and show her that I’ll move on once I’ve taken care of a few things. But I can’t. Too many people around. Too many risks. Even if I could break her neck and get away, I have no idea where my gun is. I’m guessing it’s with somebody who will send it to the police if something ever happens to her.

“Quite the job you have, Joe.”

I shrug. I see where she’s going with this, but force her to carry on.