Paul Cleave - Collecting Cooper

He swings the door the rest of the way open. The light coming into the hallway through the upstairs windows makes no effort to enter his room, it’s as though the spoiled air and smell of sex is scaring it away. Melina is lying in bed facing the TV set. The curtains are closed so most of the light coming into the room is from the TV. Ritchie takes a few steps backward and his movement creates a draft, which ripens the stench. I almost gag.

“Melina?” I say, stepping toward her, but then I don’t say anything else.

“Ask her your questions,” Ritchie says.

I turn back toward him. “She your alibi?”

“Why you asking me?” he asks. “She’s the one telling you we were here.”

I look back down at Melina, but Melina is still looking at the TV, completely ignoring me as she stares at it with glazed-over eyes made from plastic. Her entire body is made from rubber and plastic and must weigh around fifty or sixty kilograms. As far as companion dolls go, she certainly looks like a high-end model. I bet that makes her high maintenance.

“See?” Ritchie says.

“What?”

“See, I told you I was here all day yesterday,” he says, looking at me. He looks down at Melina. “I know,” he says. “I’m sorry, but it isn’t my fault. He just showed up. He has money.”

He turns back toward me. “I told you she doesn’t like strangers. You’ve got what you came for and, like the lady said, it’s time you leave.” He looks back down at her. “I know, honey, I know.”

He leads me to the door and I’m happy to be led. “Sorry about that,” he says, in a conspiratorial whisper.

“It’s hard to find the perfect woman,” I say. “You know, with a thousand bucks you could buy her a few nice dresses.”

“I guess I could.”

“But there are a few things you need to tell me.”

“Like what?”

“Tell me about the Scream Room.”

“Who told you about that?”

“Another patient. You ever have to spend time down there?”

“What, me? No, never. But I never. . never, you know, hurt anybody. That room was for the bad people and I’m not a bad people. Money?”

“Not yet. What about the Twins?”

He looks down. “Why do you have to talk about them,” he whispers. “I’m a better person now. I don’t want nothing to do with them.” He sniffs loudly and starts to cry.

“I’m sorry, I really am,” I say, and it’s true. “Listen, are any of your friends from Grover Hills in the habit of killing cats and digging them back up?”

“I have to go,” he says, and starts to close the door. “You can keep the money.”

I push my hand against it. “Ritchie. .”

“But Melina. .”

“Melina can wait. Give me a name, Ritchie.”

“I can’t. He’s my friend. My best friend.”

“Who?”

“Nobody.”

“He killed my cat,” I say. “And he killed Nurse Deans.”

“She was a hard woman,” he says.

“What’s his name?”

“I can’t,” he says.

I hold the money back up. “You can spend this on Melina,” I say. “You going to choose friendship over love? Is that it? You’re going to choose to protect a killer instead of buying your girl something she deserves?”

He looks down and starts opening and closing his lips like a goldfish, no sound coming out.

“Ritchie. .”

“His name is Adrian Loaner, but he doesn’t live here anymore. He used to, but then I taught him to drive and he left. He was young when he went to the Grove, real young, and he was there for twenty years maybe.”

“When did he leave here?”

“A week ago. That’s all I know,” he says, and when he looks back up there are tears running down his face.

“You’ve done the right thing,” I tell him.

“Melina. . she isn’t, she isn’t. . you know. . and I know she isn’t, but. . but it’s better than being alone.”

“It’s hard being alone,” I say.

“I’m sorry about your cat,” he says.

“So am I.”

“Please, please don’t kill him.”

I show him the sketch from the newspaper. “Is this Adrian?”

He looks at it, then tilts his head to change the angle first one way, then the other. “Kind of,” he says. “I mean, maybe.”

“Which bedroom was his?”

“Right opposite,” he says, pointing across the hall. “But it’s empty. He’s my best friend but I don’t know where he’s gone.”

I hand over the cash and enter the bedroom across the hall. The curtains are open and the sun falls across floorboards thick with dust. There’s a bed with the sheets and blankets and pillow missing. The bedroom drawers are all open and each of them empty. There isn’t anything laying around the room light enough to be lifted in one hand. Adrian Loaner isn’t coming back. I do a customary check, looking under the bed, I search for loose floorboards, I check underneath and behind the drawers but nothing has been left behind.

Adrian moved out a week ago and started a new life out at Grover Hills. Only something spooked him into leaving today.

I head back into the hall. I can hear Ritchie talking to his girlfriend but the conversation is muffled. When I get downstairs the Preacher is waiting for me by the door.

“One more thing,” he says. There’s a fresh cigarette in his hand and also beer. “How was prison, Detective?” he asks, and the smile he gives me has no warmth.

Back at the car, all four tires have been slashed. I call the rental agency and keep my hand on my gun as I wait for a tow truck to arrive.

Adrian stalls the car twice as he backs down the driveway from their new, temporary home. He’s excited with the new accommodations and frustrated that he had to leave the Grove, making him happy one moment and sad the next, and that makes driving a whole lot harder to focus on. At least the day is starting to cool down somewhat, and he’s finding he’s having more energy because of it. His head snaps forward the third time he stalls the car so he comes to a stop, gets out, and leans against it for a minute while rubbing his neck. He needs to concentrate.

He drives into the city, the traffic around him thick with people coming home from work. He doesn’t like driving at this time and tries to avoid it, but sometimes he can’t. People drive differently at this time of the day. They’re more aggressive. They honk their horns more and the cars are closer together, the front of them almost touching the back of the car in front. He hates it. Sometimes he’s thankful he’s not part of the crowd. Families and funerals, taxes and TV shows, planning holidays and painting houses-the thought of that scares him.

He has the phone book in the front seat, the phone book he took from the halfway house, it’s covered in pen marks and the covers are torn and the Preacher would be disappointed in him for taking it. He hated living there. If it wasn’t for Ritchie he’d have tried to move out three years ago, though he doesn’t know where he would have gone without the ability to drive. The problem with Ritchie was once he met Melina, he started to change. He wasn’t the same guy that taught him how to drive. He didn’t have much time for Adrian anymore. It’s sad, because if Ritchie were here then all of this would be going easier. It would also be a lot more fun.

He looks up Cooper’s mother in the phone book. He doesn’t have any intention of adding her to his collection, and he isn’t sure why he lied to Cooper about it. More so Cooper wouldn’t be able to predict what he would do next. Adding the mother would be another mouth to feed, another unhappy person to have around, just more negativity, and like his mother used to say, “A sad man is a bad man,” and that would go the same for a woman too, he guesses. The idea of collecting the mum certainly does excite him, though, there is no denying that, but the reality is just too complicated. Still, he wants to see her house, just to satisfy his curiosity. He looked her address up before, only he forgot to write it down. He knows the direction, and he rechecks the address against the map and confirms he’s going the right way.