Paul Cleave - The Cleaner

“The cleaner at the police station. That must allow you access to some privileged information-evidence, reports, photographs. It must be fun seeing where the investigations are going. Tell me, did you ever want to become a cop? Did you try and fail? Or not try because you knew they’d realize what sick thoughts you harbored?”

“How about you, Melissa? Did you ever try?”

“Do you ever try to contaminate the evidence?”

If this is all she has to say, then I’m not in any trouble. “You’re jealous.”

“Of you?”

“Of me working among all those cops, all that information.”

She raises her left hand to her lips and begins rubbing her finger slowly back and forth, the same way she did the other night. She moistens her finger and keeps rubbing. Then she quickly pulls it away, brushes it against her chest on the way down, and rests it in her lap.

“We’re not that different, you and I, Joe.”

“I doubt that.”

“Do you notice the smell in there?”

“What smell?”

“Working there every day, you’re probably used to it. But there’s this smell in there. Smells slightly like sweat and damp blood, but it’s power. Power and control.”

“It’s the air-conditioning.”

“It was fun in there today, Joe. I got to see something you see every day. Seems like menial work for somebody like yourself.”

“I do it for the love of the job.”

“Does it pay well?”

“Does it need to?”

“You know what confuses me?” she asks.

“Several things?”

Her smile stretches. “How you can afford an expensive gun, nice clothes, a good watch, yet you live in a rat hole of an apartment.”

I hate the fact that she’s been in my apartment. I hate the fact that this is the woman who tidied up my messy wound. No way in hell am I going to thank her for that. “I have a good accountant.”

“Being a cleaner pays well, huh?”

“It pays the bills.”

“Lucky you earn cash from other areas.”

“What’s your point?”

“My point is you must have some money stored away.”

“I have a couple of hundred dollars. Why?”

“Bullshit, Joe. How much you got?”

“I just told you.”

“No you didn’t. It’s time you were honest with your partner, Joe.”

“What?” I ask, and suddenly I know what game we’re playing.

“You heard,” she says.

“Obviously I didn’t.”

She rolls her head back and laughs. Hard. This really pisses me off. Nobody’s laughed at me like that since those days at school when the laughter accompanied the words Numb Nuts everywhere I went. Other people are looking around. Nothing I can do but wait her out. Finally she finishes. “We’re partners, Joe, whether you like it or not. Especially after what I’ve just done for you.”

“And what’s that?”

“Given the police a composite of what you look like.”

I tighten my fists.

“Calm down, big guy. I gave them a description of somebody else.”

“Why?” But I know the answer: it’s because she wants money.

“Why not?”

“Stop being so damn evasive,” I say.

“You don’t like it? What do you like, Joe?”

“How about I tell you what I’d like to do?”

“I can imagine. You know,” she says, “it was nice to go in there and talk to the detectives, to see for myself just how smart they really are, or, in this case, just how smart they aren’t. They’re easier to fool than I could ever have imagined. I always saw them differently, I guess. But they’re just people, Joe. Real people, like you and me. I guess that’s why you’re so successful. It was disappointing, really. In a way.”

“I’m not sure there’s anybody like you and me,” I say.

Slowly she nods. “I guess you’re right.”

“So why did you do it? Why go in there?”

“For the money.”

“We’re back to that, huh? You really ought to start listening. Let me explain it a little slower for you. I. Don’t. Have. Any. Money.”

“Come now, Joe, don’t be so modest. I’m sure that if you don’t have any money, a man of your abilities would be able to get money. A hundred grand should do.”

“You’ve seen my place. How do you suggest I get that kind of money?”

“You seem to be full of questions, Joe, when you should only be full of answers. Yes and no. That’s all I want to hear from you.”

“Look, it just isn’t possible to raise that kind of cash.”

“You could always turn yourself in. That’d cover half.”

Melissa is referring to the fifty-thousand-dollar government reward available to whoever provides the information that gets me caught. I can’t believe it’s so little, and surely it can’t stay that way. If Melissa wanted that kind of cash, she would have turned me in already. Either it isn’t about the money, or she’s waiting for it to climb up in value before she turns me in. She’ll just torment me and make some cash on the side first. I’m just an investment for her. It’s like she’s buying a piece of stock.

“I’m going to kill you. You do know that, don’t you?” I tell her.

“You know, Joe, I’m going to enjoy working with you. You really are quite a laugh.” She stands up, straightens her tailored outfit, sweeps her hair back. She’s so beautiful it’s heartbreaking. I wish she were dead. She hands me a box.

“What’s this?”

“A cell phone. Keep it on you, because I’ll be calling in a couple of days.”

“When?”

“Five o’clock. Friday.”

I look at the box. The phone is brand new. I wonder if she bought it with cash she stole from the dead hooker.

“You know, Joe, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful relationship. Isn’t that what they say?”

It isn’t what I say. So I tell her to go to hell.

“Obviously, it goes without saying that if anything should happen to me, the remaining evidence I have on you goes directly to the police, along with a detailed statement.”

Sure. It isn’t the only thing that goes without saying. Obviously I’m going to kill this woman at some point. I just need to do my homework first. That’s something I’m good at. Life’s all about homework. And I have until Friday at five o’clock to get my assignment done. She starts telling me the rules of her game. I’m to charge the phone when I get home because she’ll be in touch. She reminds me that she still has my gun, which has my fingerprints on it. It can be used as a future murder weapon. She tells me she wiped my fingerprints off the knife before telling the police where they could find it, but it doesn’t brighten this nightmare.

After she walks away, I stare at the water, drumming my fingers against the top of my briefcase while watching the birds. I tap some rhythm that I’ve never heard before. It seems my life is following that rhythm. Some of the ducks look back at me. Perhaps they want money too.

One hundred thousand dollars is an amount I can’t fully comprehend, and I already know I’ll never be able to raise it. Does Melissa know that too? Even if by some miracle I could get the money, nothing is stopping her from asking me for more in another year, or another month, or even another day.

The bus driver is some bored forty-year-old guy who wears a hearing aid and yells Hello at me as I get on, and Have a nice day when I leave, even though the day is winding down. When I get home the light on my answering machine is flashing. I push it, only to hear my mother’s voice, insisting I go around there for dinner tonight. When she insists, it’s best I go. She also tells me Walt Chadwick called and asked her out for dinner. She’s accepted, and tells me of their entire phone call until my machine eagerly runs out of tape.