The Cleaner (10 page)

I lean against the kitchen bench, pulling at my beer, and the hooker in front of me is available and so used looking that instead of her looking better with every sip I take, she just keeps on looking worse. Her makeup has been caked on
thickly. I have an idea why her lips are swollen, and know it costs sixty bucks.

“What’s your name?” I ask.

“Candy.”

Candy. Sure. Why not. “Call me Joe.”

“I will be,” she says, stepping closer to me. “So what’s it to be, Joe?”

I shrug, pretty sure if I told her what it was exactly I was after, she’d make a run for the door. “Let’s go upstairs.” She’s still carrying my briefcase for me as I lead her upstairs. I sip at my beer. It’s nice and cool. Refreshing. I’ll take the rest with me.

“So how long you been doing this, Candy?” I ask, always willing to expand my knowledge of how things work.

“Six months. I’m just trying to earn enough so I can afford to go through university.”

I take a slight pause on the landing, her answer throwing me a little, until I realize she’s just saying something she thinks I want to hear. Telling her clients she was trying to raise enough money to bail her boyfriend out of jail for selling drugs is no doubt a real turnoff.

I decide to play along with the game. “What do you want to study?”

“I want to be a lawyer. Or an actor.”

“Same thing, isn’t it?”

When we reach the bedroom she tosses my briefcase onto the bed. The contents jingle.

“What you got in there? Whips and stuff?”

I’m smiling, because she really has no idea. “Something like that.”

She smiles, and small cracks appear in the makeup around her eyes and mouth. “I like whips and stuff, only it’ll cost extra if you wanna use them.”

I doubt she’ll like my definition of whips and stuff. She starts loosening my tie. She unbuttons my shirt. “You’ve got a great chest.”

She leans forward and starts kissing it. This is great. I’ve never done anything like this before. I reach forward and start pushing at her breasts. She starts moaning. Sounds like a shampoo commercial. Can she really be enjoying it that much?

She starts fumbling with my belt, like she wants to get this over with and say
next please
to the next guy driving along. This makes me realize she’s faking her moans, that she’s not enjoying this at all. I’m just another customer. Well, for me, she’s just another tool. Like Fluffy the Floppy Cat.

“So what’s it gonna be?”

I swallow. Hard. “Go back to the bed.”

She starts walking backward, at the same time pulling her top up over her head. Her breasts are small. I’m looking at them and thinking that padded bras have a lot to answer for. The tattoo she has there is of a small dragon. It could symbolize something, or maybe it’s her only friend. I walk with her. She sits on the edge of the bed and continues undoing my pants. It doesn’t take her long. The buckle on my belt rattles.

I’ve had sex before, but never with somebody consenting, and this makes me nervous. What if she doesn’t enjoy it? What if she thinks I’m no good? Will she laugh? None of the others laughed. Why would they? The enjoyment quickly fades.

I can think of only one way to bring it back.

I slam my fist into the side of her head. She jerks backward and tries to stand, but hits the edge of the bed and ends up falling onto her ass, her hands going behind her to break her fall. She looks up at me and I can’t tell behind all her makeup if she’s frightened or annoyed, but know it has to be at least one of them. There are tears in her eyes and for the first time she looks at least a little attractive.

“That’ll cost you extra.”

“I thought I could do what I wanted.”

“If you want to beat me up, it’ll cost you a grand.”

I shrug. Lean forward. Pull her back up by her arm. “Then I better get my money’s worth.”

I try to drag her onto the bed, but it ends up getting difficult because my pants fall around my ankles. I grab her arm, roll her over, and twist it up her back, trying my best not to break it—but these things happen. She begins screaming, so I push her face into the bed to muffle her, and it works pretty well. I let go of her arm. It doesn’t move. Just juts out at an angle I’ve never seen on an arm before. Her other arm is pinned beneath her. When I try to move the broken one, it grates where the bone has snapped. The pain is too much for her to struggle, so she stops fighting back.

I kick my pants off. The romance is quick and fulfilling, only it seems I keep too much pressure on the back of her head, because when I finish and pull away, I’ve suffocated her. It seems I can’t get anything right these days. At least I’ve saved five hundred dollars. Or was it a thousand?

I start to get dressed. It’s been a big night for me, and the effects of the combined excitement are starting to wear off, and by the time I’ve got my shirt buttoned up I’m starting to feel tired. The plan to kill Candy where Daniela Walker died has worked without a hitch. It will leave a message to the original killer. I can study the policemen at the station, watch them closely. One of them will become nervous. One of them will know that somebody else knows. He’ll wonder what they want. He’ll react. He’ll be an absolute nervous wreck. He’ll be easy to spot. I decide to grab the pen after all to highlight the message.

Of course it could be a matter of days, maybe weeks, before she’s found, and this is a problem. If I let it go that long, then bringing Candy back here would have been for nothing. Wrinkling my shirt and getting blood on it would have been for nothing. I grab my briefcase and head downstairs first to the fridge, then to the front door, using Candy’s bra to wipe down any surfaces I’ve touched. Tomorrow I’ll phone in an
anonymous tip from a pay phone, telling the police there’s a body here.

It hasn’t gotten any darker or any colder since spending quality time with Candy. A million stars shine down on me, making my pale skin look even paler. I park the Honda just outside of town and wipe it down. The breeze blows against my face as I turn toward home. I dump Candy’s bra in a trash can outside a corner store. I pass other women on the way, most of them streetwalkers, but I don’t give them a second look. I’m not an animal. I’m not going to kill somebody just because they are there. I hate guys like that. That’s what makes me different from anybody else. That’s my humanity.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

My apartment is the size of a closet compared to the house I’ve just visited. Sometimes it’s all I need. Other times it’s not enough. Can’t complain. Who’d listen? Well, who’d listen and still remember five seconds later?

The first thing I do when I get inside is open my briefcase and dump the folder on the table with the others I’ve taken over the last few months. These others are souvenirs, but I hadn’t taken Daniela’s folder before because there was never any point. Why keep a memento of another man’s crime? I have yet to get a copy of the two victims’ folders from yesterday. And one for tonight’s murder won’t be available for a few more days.

I watch Pickle and Jehovah for a few minutes, wondering what they are thinking, before heading to bed. I set my internal alarm clock to seven thirty and am just in the process of climbing beneath the sheets when I notice it—the answering machine. The message light is flashing. Great. I’m in my pajama shorts and not really in the mood to hear what anybody
has to say to me, but I figure it’s probably Mom. If I don’t see what she wants, she’ll only keep calling me back.

Six messages. All from her. If I don’t show up, my life is going to be hell. Last time I didn’t show up for dinner when it was planned, she spent all week on the phone to me, crying her heart out and forcing me to admit I’m a poor excuse for a son. I decide to take my punishment and head over there tonight.

I climb off the bus a couple of blocks before her house, go into a twenty-four-hour supermarket, and do some quick shopping. The guy behind the counter is so tired he shortchanges me, but I’m having such a good day I don’t point it out. Heart racing, I walk to Mom’s house. Standing on the sidewalk I suck in a deep breath. The air tastes like salt. I look up at the dark sky. Is there any way of avoiding this? Short of hospitalization, the answer is no. I knock on the front door. Two minutes go by, but I know she’s not in bed because the lights are on. I don’t knock again. She’ll open it when she’s ready.

After a few minutes I hear footsteps approaching. I straighten up, not wanting her to correct my slouch, and start smiling. The door shudders, the hinges squeak, and a small gap appears.

“Do you know what time it is, Joe? I got worried. I nearly called the police. Nearly called the hospital. Do you not care about my broken heart?”

“I’m sorry, Mom.”

The safety chain stops the door from opening any further. My mom, God bless her, put the safety chain on her door four years ago when the “neighborhood kids” stole her money. But she put the chain going up and down, not side to side, so all any intruder needs to do to unhook it is put his finger inside and lift. She closes the door, removes the chain, and opens it back up. I take a step inside, bracing myself, because I know it’s coming.

She clips me around the ear. “Let that be a lesson to you, Joe.”

“I’m sorry, Mom.”

“You never come and see me anymore. It’s been a week since you were last here.”

“I was here last night, Mom,” I say, and I’ve had conversations like this with her before, and will have more of them until the day she dies.

“You were here last Monday.”

“And it’s Tuesday now.”

“No, it’s Monday. You were here last Monday.”

I know better than to argue, but I do point out once more that today is Tuesday.

She clips me around the ear. “Don’t talk back to your mother.”

“I’m not talking back, Mom, I’m just telling you what day it is.”

She raises her hand and I quickly apologize, and she finally seems appeased by the gesture. “I cooked meatloaf, Joe,” she tells me, lowering her hand. “Meatloaf. That’s your favorite.”

“You don’t need to remind me.”

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing.” I open up the supplies I brought with me, and pull out a bunch of flowers. I hand them to her. No thorns this time.

“They’re beautiful, Joe,” she says, her face beaming with excitement.

She leads me through to the kitchen. I set my briefcase down on the table, open it up, and look at the knives inside. Look at the gun too. My hand rests on the handle of the Glock, and I try to take some strength from it. Mom puts the flowers into a vase, but doesn’t put in any water. The rose from yesterday is gone. Perhaps she thought it was a week old. She reaches up into a cupboard and grabs hold of a packet of aspirin, and drops one into the vase.

“It keeps them alive longer,” she says, turning and winking at me, as if she’s letting me in on a family secret. “I saw it today on a TV show.”

“You still have to add water,” I point out.

“I don’t think so,” she says, frowning.

“I’m sure of it,” I tell her.

She looks uncertain. “I’ll try it my way this time,” she says, “and your way next time if it doesn’t work. How does that sound?”

I tell her it sounds fine. I don’t tell her that adding aspirin to flowers in water doesn’t make a lick of difference anyway.

“I brought something else for you, Mom.”

She looks over at me. “Oh?”

I pull out a box of chocolates and hand it to her.

“You trying to poison me, Joe? Are you trying to put sugar into my cholesterol?”

Oh, Christ. “I’m just trying to be nice, Mom.”

“Well, be nice by not buying me chocolates,” she says, looking really annoyed at me.

“But Coke has sugar in it, Mom.”

“Are you being smart?”

“Of course not.”

She throws the box at me and the corner bounces off my forehead. I see stars for a few seconds. I rub my head where it hit. The box has left a small impression, but no blood.

“Your dinner’s cold, Joe. I’ve had mine.”

I put the chocolates back into my briefcase as she dishes my dinner. She doesn’t offer to heat it for me, and I’m too frightened to ask. I head over to the microwave to do it myself.

“Your dinner’s cold, Joe, because you let it get cold. Don’t think you’re going to use my electricity to warm it up.”

We walk into the living room and we use her electricity to get the TV working and we sit in front of it. There’s some show on—I’ve seen it before, but don’t know what it’s called. They’re all the same. Bunch of white guys and girls living
in an inner-city complex, laughing at everything that goes wrong for them, and there’s a lot that goes wrong. I wouldn’t be laughing if those things happened to me. I wonder if there’s a complex like that in this city, or even in real life. If so, I wouldn’t mind finding it. According to the TV the women in those complexes are damn sexy. I seem to recognize this episode but can’t be sure it’s a repeat since they do the same thing every week.

Mom doesn’t talk to me while I eat. This is a surprise, because I generally can’t shut her up. She always has something to complain about. Normally it’s the price of something. I’m grateful for the silence, so much so that I consider maybe I should be late more often. The downside is her disappointment hangs over the room. I’m so used to it it’s almost part of the furniture. As soon as I throw the last cold scoop of meatloaf into my mouth she uses the remote to kill the TV, then turns toward me. Her mouth sags open, she bares her teeth, and I can see the start of a sentence forming.

“If your father knew you treated me like this, Joe, he’d be rolling in his grave.”

“He was cremated, Mom.”

She stands up and I shrink back, expecting her to tell me off, but instead she puts her hand out for my plate. “I may as well clean up for you.”

“I’ll do it.”

“Don’t bother.” She grabs my plate and I follow her into the kitchen.

“Do you want me to make you a drink, Mom?”

“What, so I’ll be up all night running back and forth to the toilet?”

I open up the fridge. “Anything in here you want?”

“I’ve had dinner, Joe.”

I need to cheer her up, so I turn the subject toward something in her element. “I was at the supermarket, Mom, and I saw they have orange juice on sale.”