Paul Cleave - The Cleaner

The door automatically locks behind me when I leave.

It looks like the maid has struggled to escape from her bindings, but has failed. Pretty much what I expected. I move into the kitchen and find a third identical knife, which I put into a different plastic bag.

Back in the bedroom, I tell the maid to shut up and to keep facing away from me. Then I untie the sheets, put my arm over her shoulder, and hand her a thousand dollars. This will definitely buy her silence, and I still consider myself up a grand after not paying Becky the other night. Plus it’s good not to make another crime scene. I feel her eyes scanning over the money, her mind already spending it. I can see her thinking what she has to do to earn more. I tell her to stay where she is for another five minutes. If she understands, she’s to nod. She nods vigorously while still looking at the money. I toss her key card onto the bed (a hard decision because I could have a fun time going from room to room), turn my back, and walk away, closing the door behind me. She’s probably thinking that unless there’s a report of a crime, there’s no reason for her to tell anybody what happened. The knife from Calhoun’s room feels heavier than the one I took there, even though it’s identical. His fingerprints are weighing it down.

Sometimes it’s embarrassing to be so competent. Back in my room, I put my knife back in the kitchen, then clean the one I got from the room with the maid, slipping it back into a bag.

There is still plenty to do. Life would be easier if I could go back to the car I parked with the dead woman in the back. Sure, I could throw the murder weapon in the trunk, then call the police, but I never actually stabbed her, and by stabbing her now, well, any pathologist with enough knowledge to identify an arm from a leg will realize the wounds are postmortem. Especially after all this time. No, I need somebody new. Somebody fresh.

I’ll go out tonight and do some window-shopping. There won’t be any homework involved, because I can’t base spontaneity on homework.

Tonight should be fun.

Tonight should bring a smile to my face.

After all, I haven’t been shopping in ages.

The biggest crime in Christchurch-apart from fashion and Old English architecture, glue-sniffing, too much greenery, bad driving, bad parking, lack of parking, wandering pedestrians, expensive shops, the winter smog, the summer smog, kids riding skateboards on sidewalks, kids riding bikes on sidewalks, old guys yelling Bible passages at anybody passing by, stupid policemen, stupid laws, too many drunks, too few shops, barking dogs, loud music, puddles of urine in shop doorways in the morning, puddles of vomit in the gutters, and the gray décor-is burglary. Burglaries occur every few minutes. Mostly thanks to teenagers who will grow up to become armed offenders who shoot people to get enough money to buy their daily prescription of drugs. Up there with burglary is car theft. Cars are stolen almost as often as homes are broken into. Therefore, you’d think more people would have car alarms. But they don’t. They prefer to spend their money on expensive car stereos, which end up in cheap pawnshops. Therefore, stealing another car is not difficult. Not when you know how. Not when you’re as good at it as I am.

I’m driving around the outskirts of town in my new car, a Ford something or other, browsing for merchandise, looking for somebody who’ll take my liking, or perhaps a house that looks reasonably unsecured, when it comes to me. An idea. As I know from experience, spontaneous ones are sometimes the best. I have to remind myself that sometimes they’re not.

My briefcase sits on the passenger seat, loaded with knives, scissors, and a pair of pliers. The briefcase is the toolbox for the modern serial killer.

I head toward one of the nearby movie-theater complexes, which seem to be springing up all over the city at the rate of about one a year. I park this car among the many others. Here I wait, idly scratching at my crotch, flicking the window wipers every thirty seconds or so to clear the view. The flow of people is interrupted by the sessions starting and stopping and by the slow, the gossiping, and the disabled taking the longest to make their way to their cars. Finally, I spot the perfect victim. In her thirties, I guess. Long blond hair, high cheekbones, shiny wheelchair. I figure a person like this has nothing to lose, so killing her won’t really be a crime-hell, she won’t even feel half the things I’m planning to do to her.

I watch as the breathing corpse courageously makes her way into her car, using her arms to transfer her weight from the chair to the driver’s seat. Then, with a skill only cripples can acquire, she swings the chair onto the roof of her car and clips it down. Amazing. It will be the last time she ever does it.

I follow her home. The Ford is a late model and handles nicely. I turn on the air-conditioning and listen to the stereo. Quite the relaxing drive. I pull up outside a house a few down from hers, and give her twenty minutes to get inside and get herself settled. I’m guessing she lives alone. First, she’s a cripple and nobody would want to love her; second, if she has a partner, then he would have been with her at the movies. Until now I never considered there was a use for the disabled, the retarded, and the crippled.

The house has a single story-can’t expect more for somebody in her condition. The garden is poorly looked after. The wheelchair ramp leading to the front door has a welcome mat at the bottom of it. I walk up just after eleven o’clock. Fumble with the lock. For somebody who lives inside a wheelchair, she has poor security. Life’s like that. Those most prone to being attacked-the old, the weak, the beautiful-generally have maybe a chain across their door and a safety lock. Not much. Not much at all to somebody like me.

The first port of call is the kitchen, where the appliances are all at waist level. I open her fridge and examine the contents. I do this not because I’m hungry, or thirsty, but because I’ve done it at many of the other victims’ houses. The fridge offers nothing exciting to choose from. It appears she’s a vegetarian. I don’t get vegetarians.

I select a carton of milk, drink directly from it, and set it down in the middle of the table. I wipe my arm across my mouth to get rid of the milk mustache, then make my way down the wide, uncarpeted hallway to her bedroom.

No time for mucking around. Don’t want to risk having her scream. So it’ll have to be straight in there, and straight into it.

I’m in her room and subduing her before she’s even aware of what’s happening. I stop hitting her when a sudden searing pain appears in my hand. It feels like my little finger has been broken. I pray it hasn’t, figuring that since God didn’t help me out with my testicle, He owes me one. I just hope He’s in a good mood.

I won’t need to worry about binding the woman’s legs. No point. Just her hands. I use the cord from her phone next to the bed. She isn’t going to be needing it. When I have her secure, I start massaging my finger. Feeling begins to seep back into it, and I breathe a sigh of relief. God loves me after all.

The padding on my testicle will stop me from doing what I’d normally do, but at least I can do us both a favor and save us some time. Careful not to get my hands too bloody, I use the knife I cleaned last night and, when I’m done, I pack it away and take out the one with Calhoun’s fingerprints on it. The risk of smudging the prints now that the victim is dead is minimal. Even so, I’m careful when I slip the blade into one of the already open wounds.

When I’m finished, I go through her cupboards and drawers, and end up borrowing some gear that she won’t be needing anymore. I’m about to leave when I hear a humming coming from her living room. It’s a fish tank. I stand silently and watch perhaps two dozen fish moving back and forth in the blue light. Immediately I think of Pickle and Jehovah. Immediately I wish I had picked another woman to have killed and not a fellow fish lover. The temptation to select two fish from this tank to keep is powerful, but I know I can never replace the two I’ve lost. No. The emptiness in my life must remain-at least until I’ve had the chance to mourn. The joy of having two new fish will only taste like ashes.