The Cleaner (30 page)

I turn right. Melissa is heading toward the Avon River, so I take the same route, cross the same road, avoid the same people. The sun has come out overhead, but it doesn’t look like it will be for long, and it’s not helping me feel any warmer. When Melissa reaches the grassy bank, she turns right and keeps moving, staying parallel to the dark water. I do the same, but keep a good fifty yards behind her. I have to be careful, because if she runs from me, I’m in no condition to chase her.

A few moments later she swerves toward a nearby park bench, takes a position sitting at the far end, and looks directly toward me. I stop walking, study the ground like there’s something interesting there. I can feel her still looking at me. When I look up again, she smiles.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

The long summer is finally coming to an end, but that’s okay, because she loves autumn. She can’t think of anything better than being outside in a nice nor’west breeze as the leaves are changing color, but as much as she loves it, she dreads the months that are to follow. Winter brings with it a grimy film of depression that settles down over the city and soaks into the buildings and the plants and the people, everything touched by rain and the cold wind and the smog.

Sally is confused. About Joe. About his lies.

She understands why he lied about his mother being sick. That was a lie she was happy to go along with, because it protected him. Joe didn’t want to be known as the man who had a testicle pulped by a pair of pliers. If something like that had ever happened to Martin, well, she would have wanted somebody like her to have looked out for him. All she can do now is hope the penicillin she gave Joe will help the healing process and fight off any infection. It should. If not he’ll have to go to a hospital. He won’t have a choice.

She had shown up the day he had been attacked, and each of the following three days—on one of those occasions she had found him passed out on the floor. She wanted to go back the next day too, but her father had had a bad fall and she’d been forced to weigh up her priorities. Family had to come first. She’d still gone to work—she had no more sick days—but from there she’d gone straight home and helped with her father. He’d dislocated a hip and broken a collarbone, but he was mending.

She was going to go back and see Joe on Monday—he still had stitches that needed removing—but he’d shown up at work. They didn’t speak directly of the attack. She wants to talk him into going to the police for help, but not at work.

She doesn’t like the fact that he lied to her about only seeing the crime-scene photographs in the conference room. He knows it’s stealing, but he’s obviously reluctant to open up to her about it. The man with the big smile looks so innocent that she can’t imagine him deliberately lying, but the man who smiled at her between the elevator doors two weeks ago, well, that was a different Joe, wasn’t it? That was a Joe that looked capable of . . .

Of what? Of anything? No. Not anything. But he looked capable of lying. He looked smooth, he looked calculating, as if he knew exactly what was going on. She reminds herself it was a fluke smile, that Joe isn’t like that at all.

But why the lies?

Every time she stirs around the possibilities in her head, one keeps on coming up to the surface: Joe is being forced to do something he doesn’t want to do. Therefore somebody needs to help him, and it’s up to her. It’s her Christian duty to make sure no harm comes to him.

Joe has been nervous and anxious most of the day, more so this afternoon, and she suspects why: the person pressuring him to bring home information has asked him for more. Of course she still can’t figure out why the folders would still be in
Joe’s apartment and not in the possession of the man who attacked him, but she figures it must have something to do with timing. Perhaps Joe forgot to take the folders with him to a meeting and made the man angry. Perhaps those folders aren’t at Joe’s anymore, but with the man who is threatening him. The only way to know for sure is to keep an eye on Joe. The same way Joe seems to be keeping an eye on the woman who has come to talk to the detectives—which, if Sally is truthful, makes her feel a little jealous. It isn’t only Joe keeping an eye on her—it’s most of the men in the department.

Like everybody else, Sally has heard the rumors flying around the station. This woman has seen something that might bring the case to a close. Perhaps then Joe will be safe.

Watching Joe watching the woman was unnerving. His fascination was so obvious that at one point Sally was sure he must have known her. But of course he was just learning what he could, so he would have something to tell his tormentor to save him from another attack.

Standing outside, watching Joe from the corner where he can’t see her, she cannot understand why he would have approached the woman, but she will keep on watching until she can finally help Joe out of whatever mess he has got into.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

The Avon is full of ducks, beer cans, and empty chip bags. Friday night’s urine has drifted to wherever the hell urine drifts to. Patches of riverweed float among the litter. Somebody—the guy with the worst fucking job in the world—has come along and picked up all the used condoms. Strangely, the view is still pleasant. The dark water reflects the sunlight and plays with the shadows, though I’m not really a nature lover. You could pave the whole river in concrete and I wouldn’t care.

As I approach her, Melissa stops watching me, as if I’m not even important enough for her to keep an eye on, and she doesn’t look back up at me until I’m only a meter away. I become aware of how painful my crotch still is. Like the remaining testicle is feeling pangs of loss, and is now feeling fear being in the presence of the woman who took away its brother. She remains sitting. My heart is beating hard, in time with my throbbing testicle. I can’t fathom why I’m suddenly so afraid.

“Take a seat, Joe.” She keeps a tight hold of her smile.

I shake my head. “Next to you? You’re kidding.”

“You still upset with me? Come on, Joe. It’s time to move on.”

Move on? I heard that after Dad died. People hear it all the time. Calhoun probably heard it after his son hanged himself. Are we living in such a throwaway society that we’re not even allowed to hang on to our hatred and remorse? I want to leap forward and show her that I’ll move on once I’ve taken care of a few things. But I can’t. Too many people around. Too many risks. Even if I could break her neck and get away, I have no idea where my gun is. I’m guessing it’s with somebody who will send it to the police if something ever happens to her.

“Quite the job you have, Joe.”

I shrug. I see where she’s going with this, but force her to carry on.

“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.