Paul Cleave - The Cleaner

“Yeah, I know.”

“Good. Then let’s get a few of the ground rules out of the way. First of all, you’re all alone. Help isn’t coming, and you have no way to escape. However, don’t let this get you down. You’ve probably figured out that if I wanted you dead, you’d be dead already, right?”

He nods. He probably knew that from the moment he came to.

“Because if you agree to what I want, which is most likely, you’ll not only get out of here with your own life, but you’ll get paid an income for surviving.”

At this, he slowly starts nodding-at the word income, not life. Suddenly he not only survives, he becomes richer. This is sounding like a pretty good deal to him. He’s already paying for more hookers and he doesn’t even know yet how much he’s earning.

“The second thing is that I ask the questions, and you answer them truthfully. Failure to do so will jeopardize both aspects of the first ground rule. Any questions?”

He opens his mouth, but nothing comes out. Yes, he understands. Perfectly.

“I suppose you want to know how much money and what you need to do for it?”

“Please.”

“Twenty thousand dollars, and it’s simple to earn. You don’t need to kill anybody for it, because you’ll be leaving that to me.”

He nods at this. Thinks twenty grand isn’t a lot of money to get tied up for, but it’s better than getting tied up and shot. Twenty grand is a lot of money to earn for doing nothing. This is the part of the plan he likes. The part of the plan I knew he would like.

“I don’t want anybody to die,” Bob starts, as if he really means it, and as if I’d really care even if he did. People dying isn’t a relevant factor for him, or for me. Under other circumstances-better circumstances, he’ll be thinking-we could have laughed at his joke.

What is relevant is Daniela Walker.

I lean back on my elbow. If I smoked, now would be the time to casually light up an expensive cigarette. If I were an evil mastermind, now would be the time I started petting my white Persian cat. But I’m just a cleaner with no goldfish to feed. An average, everyday Joe. If I had my mop, then maybe I would stroke it. If I had my metal bucket, I could beat out a rhythm. All I can do is turn the knife over and over in my hands, watching him watching the blade.

“Come now, Bob, you’ve killed before. I don’t see how you can feel bad about somebody else dying.”

“I haven’t killed anybody.”

I shake my finger back and forth. “No, no, no. I said no lying. Do you remember what I said would happen if you lied?”

He nods. He remembers.

“Good. I know of a couple of ways we can do this,” I say, reaching into my briefcase and rummaging around. “I can start by using these,” I pull out a pair of sharpened gardening shears, “on your fingers. For every answer I don’t want to hear, I’ll remove one finger.”

Actually, I won’t. I’m not going to remove any of them, but as long as he believes I’m going to, that’s all that really counts. This is where his assumptions are going to lead him astray. I watch his face as he studies the gardening shears. It takes no effort to imagine how they can wrap around any one of his fingers, how the blades can sink through his flesh, and how with a little bit of extra effort I can get them to snap through the bone. His imagination already has all his digits scattered across the floor behind his chair.

I’m capable of this. Melissa would be too. And so is he.

The three of us have all killed.

“You did kill her, didn’t you?”

He nods.

“Can you tell me why?”

He shrugs. “I’m still not sure.”

Not a detailed answer, but I believe it to be the truth-at least as far as he understands it.

“Would you like me to help you understand why?”

He does the wise thing and nods.

“It’s because you can,” I start. “The ability is inside you. You’ve always wanted to feel the power. What would it be like to kill somebody? Imagine the control! You imagined it, but of course it’s only a fantasy. You couldn’t admit to yourself that it’s something you’d actually like to try. In your mind you think about the outcomes, of how you could escape the blame, of how to make yourself look like the innocent party. Plenty of ways of doing it, but why explore them? After all, you’re only thinking about it, you’re not exactly considering it. Then one day the fantasy is no longer enough. Not the fantasy of killing, but of sex. Violent sex. So you hire a whore, but it isn’t the same, because she isn’t a real victim. You want to kill her, because that’s ideally where the violent sex leads, but you know there’s no point in killing a whore because they’re already dead. They’re zombies tanked up on bad luck and bad breeding. You needed to kill a better class of person, and then along came Daniela Walker. A victim of domestic abuse who refuses to follow through with laying charges against her husband.”

He says nothing. I think about the indications in the pathology report that said Daniela had previous injuries. If she’d left her husband, she’d still be alive. And somebody else wouldn’t be. Calhoun surely would have found somebody else.

“She threatens him, she even goes to the police, but at the end of the day her fear of him and her love for him prevent her from acting. This woman is a loser. You can’t understand how she could even have married a guy like that, let alone have his children. But you forget he’d been charming when she met him, the same way you were charming when you met your wife.”

I look at him. My speech hasn’t made any impact. If it’s true, and I believe most of it is, then he isn’t going to let me know. This annoys me, but not enough to jump up and cut his throat. I sit and wait.

“You’re new in the city,” I continue, “so the opportunity to act out is irresistible. You know her address and learn the pattern of her movements. Her husband’s at work, her children are away at camp, so what could be better? Before you attack her, you decide to frame the husband, because what possible candidate could look any more attractive as her killer? Then you answer the question. One person fits the bill perfectly, and that person is me. So what do you do? You frame me for a murder I didn’t commit, and to be honest, Bob, I never really appreciated it. But you’re lucky, because you’re being given the chance to change the way I feel about you. You can either leave this house a richer man, in terms of both money and character, or you can leave inside a body bag on your way straight down to hell. Of course, needless to say, punishment down there will be eternal, and eternity, Bob, is a very long time.”

I start wondering what I’m talking about. Hell? Who gives a damn about Satan? The limp-wristed, red-skinned motherfucker is a figment of the Christian imagination, designed solely as a deterrent for killers, thieves, rapists, liars, hypocrites, and mime artists-yet a lot of bloody good that’s done.

“Whether you rot in hell or not isn’t my concern. What is my concern is what you did to poor Daniela Walker. From what I’ve learned, and from being here,” I spread my arms out to encompass the room, “I’ve come to some expert and insightful conclusions.”

“Good for you.”

I smile. “You broke into her house during the late afternoon, climbed upstairs while she was showering, and waited for her in the bedroom. In this bedroom.”

It’s a familiar scenario.

“She had no chance. After all, you had the element of surprise on your side, as well as being bigger and stronger. Her fear, her imagination, made her react, but not quickly enough to escape you. You struggled with her, managed to force her onto the bed, and she managed to reach to the bedside table and clutch at the only weapon she could find.” I point to the table for effect. “She fought with you and managed to stab you with the pen she’d been using to fill in her crossword puzzles. The wound wasn’t deep, but it was enough to piss you off. You tossed it away, then got back to business. Except the pen was your mistake, Bob, but you know that, don’t you? At the time, after you killed her, nothing else mattered. The pain was gone, as was any concern of being caught. The pen was the furthermost thing from your mind. Until you came back. Then it became the biggest thing on your mind, and it was only a matter of good luck that you were able to swap it unnoticed. At least unnoticed by everybody except me.”