The Cleaner

by Paul Cleave

  Calhoun is pleading with his eyes, and as Melissa takes the knife away from his throat, his pleading moves to relief-then to horror as he sees the knife plunge back into sight on the way toward his chest. His eyes sparkle with fear, then all the sparkle evaporates in an instant as the knife punches into his body.

  A sound, which is both gurgle and grunt, comes from him at the same time, and he struggles harder against the rope, as if the metal blade that has punctured his chest isn’t a knife, but a high-voltage battery from which he’s drawing power. Even so, it’s not enough to give him the strength to break the rope and tape that bind him. The chair dances back and forth as his body weight waltzes it across the floor. Blood squirts up from his chest. It pools around the blade of the knife and quickly blossoms over his shirt. Melissa leaves the knife in him, then steps away to watch. Blood has splashed onto the mirror, and even the ceiling. He begins trying to cough more of it up, but because of the tape across his mouth it becomes impossible. He begins choking, his face turns red, and I’m not sure if he’s choking or bleeding to death. The front of the duct-tape gag turns red. His face turns from red to purple, the same purple the sky was when I viewed it from the park with my testicle turned to pulp. The chair waltzes faster over the linoleum floor, the legs tap-dancing to some dying rhythm. His eyes are as wide as they can be, and in them I can see all sorts of fear and knowledge. Fear of dying. Knowledge that his last few seconds in this world are happening right now.

  He looks at me and I think he wants me to help, but I can’t be sure. I stand motionless, unable to do a thing to save him. His throat begins to swell and his mouth is full of blood. It’s a race to see which will kill him-the stab wound or the choking-and when he stops moving, his head slumped forward and his ragged breathing eerily silent, I can only guess.

  I stand with my mouth open and my tongue nearly hanging out, sweat dripping down my forehead. “You stupid bitch,” I manage to whisper. “How could you do such a thing?”

  She reaches over to him and pulls away the duct tape. Blood gushes from between Calhoun’s lips and spills over his shirt. “I’m surprised that you thought I wouldn’t. I told you no tricks, Joe.”

  “No, you didn’t.”

  “Well, you should have assumed it. I still want my money.”

  “I don’t have it.”

  “Get it.”

  I look back at the body. “Maybe he’s still alive,” I whisper. I’m about to move forward to check when she interrupts me.

  “Maybe,” she agrees, and she grabs hold of the knife and pulls it away.

  “Don’t. .” I say, letting my voice trail off.

  She leans in close and listens for a pulse. Whether she hears one or not, I can’t know. What she does do is drag the knife across his throat. Then she steps back. Dips a finger into the wound and puts that same finger into her mouth. She sucks on the blood.

  “If he wasn’t dead, he sure as hell is now. And unless you want the police busting your ass on Monday, I suggest you give me my money.”

  “Give me four hours.”

  Melissa looks down at her jacket and sees a few splotches of blood. She takes it off. Her nipples are standing out as if she’s got small coins tucked in the front of her bra. She drags the knife over the dead man’s throat once more, making a squelching sound that reminds me of walking in wet shoes. Then she steps around behind him to cut the ropes and tape. After she drops the knife to the floor, she raises one of Calhoun’s arms and places his hand on her right breast. Softly she moans.

  When she looks over at me, she is smiling. “You want to try it?”

  “You promise not to slap me?”

  “No, you idiot. Do you want to see how he feels?”

  “He feels dead.”

  “If you can get the money that quickly, Joe, we’ve still got a deal.”

  “Where and when?”

  She drops the arm and takes a look at her watch, mentally studying her schedule. “Ten o’clock. Our park. Don’t be late.”

  Our park. Sure, I won’t be late. “I’ll be there.”

  “No tricks, Joe.”

  “No tricks.”

  With that, she turns to leave and I’m left alone with a useless corpse.

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  Be prepared. That’s the Boy Scout motto. It applies to anything in life. It’s like doing your homework. I simply can’t stress enough how important that is.

  I stand at the window for a few more minutes watching in case Melissa comes back. It’s a clear evening, a few stars are out already, a faded moon growing in strength. Melissa disappears between streetlights and reappears at the following one until she reappears no more. When I’m satisfied she’s gone, I point the remote control at the wardrobe. With the push of one button I turn off the video camera that’s running in there. The crippled chick’s video camera.

  I rewind the tape, then sit on the edge of the bed to watch tonight’s footage through the small viewfinder. I hadn’t started the unit recording until I moved over into the corner of the bedroom. The lens was zoomed out to capture most of the room, which included the bed. I continue watching the tape. I can see Melissa stroking the covers, then, soon after, opening the bathroom door and murdering the policeman. Because of the angle of the lens I’ve managed to stay out of the footage. If I was in it, I would have edited it out. Seems I don’t need to.

  I take the dead detective’s gun out of the waistband of my pants and set it on the bed for easy access. The gun’s ready to fire, has been the entire night. It was my protection against Melissa in case anything went wrong.

  As it turned out, everything went perfectly.

  Melissa didn’t cut all the bindings away from the policeman, so I grab a knife and finish the job. He smells of piss and death as I drag his heavy corpse into the bedroom, careful not to get any blood on me. When I dump him on the bed, he bounces once before becoming still.

  I look around the room for something I can use to wrap the body. The blood will just soak through the sheets, so I go back into the bathroom and rip down the shower curtain, scattering the plastic rings to all four corners. I roll it around him. The end result is an odd-looking cocoon, which looks ready to hatch a being from some 1950s B-grade sci-fi movie. His blood smears across the inside of it, painted on the curtain of this womb. I use duct tape and his shoelaces to secure the curtain. Back in the bathroom I wash down the knife Melissa used to kill him, dry it, and put it back into my briefcase.

  I drag the cocoon downstairs by the feet, its head thudding on every step, then across the floor and into the adjoining garage. He leaks from the shower curtain where I haven’t done the best of wrapping jobs (men can’t wrap-simple fact) and stains the carpet. I dump him on the garage floor, turn on a light, and look around. The tools of my trade are here. I pick up a plastic can of gas from next to the lawn mower and shake it. Seems mostly full. Perhaps around three gallons. I carry it back into the house.

  The idea is simple. Fire isn’t a foolproof way of destroying all evidence, but it sure is a hell of a lot better than cleaning the house from top to bottom. Even then, if anything was suspected, chemicals can be used to show washed-away blood, and from there a link to Calhoun could easily be made. Fire is a far greater guarantee that nothing will be found.

  Naturally, burning the corpse here isn’t such a good idea. It takes extreme heat to burn through bone, and depending on how quickly the neighbors contact the fire department, the chances of the body burning into dust before they arrive or of the house burning down completely are about as great as my testicle growing back. The pathologist will study the body, the damage to the severed throat, the bruised jaw. He may even find tape residue on the face and rope burn on the ankles and hands. Even if it’s burned to a skeleton he’ll find serrated edges in the sternum from the knife. They’ll know Calhoun was murdered and framed.

  I take the lid from the gas can and begin splashing it across the carpet and bed. The smell of gas quickly fills my nostrils. At first,
maybe for a few seconds, I like it, but then it quickly becomes nauseating and I want to throw up. When the room’s wet enough to burn quickly, I make my way through the other upstairs rooms, leaving a trail of gas as I go. Downstairs I do the same, leaving a trail on the stairs. I save some for the trip.

  I grab my briefcase and head outside. I suck in a few deep breaths of air to clear my lungs, then spit the taste of gas from my mouth.

  I go for a walk. The car I stole yesterday after work is still where I left it a few blocks away. I drive it to the house, back it into the garage, close the door, then stuff the body in the trunk. I didn’t want to risk driving a stolen car tonight, but now I can’t risk not to. Carrying a limp body draped in a shower curtain over my shoulder and walking through town with it would look suspicious, even for this city.

  I look for a match and can’t find one. Again the cigarette lighter from the car comes in handy. Thirty seconds later it’s glowing red. I hold it onto a rag in the garage, then throw the burning rag into the house. Fire spreads across the floor and climbs the walls, racing quickly up the stairs. Born from nowhere and now it’s alive everywhere. Alive and hungry. I don’t need to supervise it. The rest should be child’s play.

  I open the garage door and drive out into the street. I glance back at the house through the mirrors but can’t see any signs of fire. I don’t bother to wait around. It’ll happen.

  As I drive away from the city, I turn the stereo on to hear the same song that was playing in Angela’s bedroom the day I killed her. It seems so long ago. It must be an omen, and I take it to be a good one. I can’t help but sing along as I head north. My spirits are high, the evening is warm, and things are going well. Life is good.

  Tonight I’m looking for an ideal place to dump a body. I can’t afford for this one to be found. I drive through the plains that make up Canterbury, searching for one of those crazy dirt roads that take you approximately nowhere. After an hour, I find one. A wire fence closes it off from the public. I fumble with the lock.

  When I’ve eventually driven far enough, I stop the car, open the trunk, and drag the cocoon through the trees. I spend half an hour digging a pit knee-deep with a shovel I borrowed from the garage. I am still wearing gloves. My fingers are wet-rubber damp again. When the hole’s deep enough, I kick the side of the corpse and it rolls into the grave with a thud.

  This is option country. If I leave the pit open, the body will rot quickly beneath the sun, and the small animals that live out here will make sure any evidence is quickly gnawed away. However, this is risky. Should some hick farmer wander by, he’ll be making the most exciting discovery of his life. Plus there probably won’t be a lot of sun over the following days and weeks.

  I climb into the pit and, using a knife, I slice the cocoon open. With the gardening shears, some pliers, and the hammer, I start removing his teeth and his fingertips. A grisly job, but I whistle as I work and the mess isn’t as bad as I would have thought. I keep things pointed away from me to lessen the chances of getting blood on myself, but I still fail. After a while I get into the swing of things and the time goes quickly.

  I dump the teeth and fingers into a separate plastic bag, along with his wallet and identification. Then I douse the rest of the corpse with the last of the gas, use the car lighter again to light another rag, then toss it in with the corpse. It smells like a barbecue. After fifteen minutes most of him has burned away and I’m feeling hungry. Whistling again, I fill the hole in, stamp it flat, then drag some leaves and dead grass over it. I walk back to the car and toss Daniela Walker’s spade into the trunk.

  I stop a half mile or so from home, soak the car in gas, and set it on fire. In this part of town nobody will care enough to call the fire department. I walk the rest of the way to my apartment, carrying the video camera and the plastic bag.

  It’s nine thirty. I still have half an hour.

  I make two copies of the videotape, though I need only one. I store one in my apartment. The second I put in my briefcase to store later in a safe place. I strip the detective’s wallet of cash and fold it into my pocket, then toss the wallet into the plastic bag. The fingers I’ll grind up later and feed to the neighborhood dogs. The teeth I’ll take a hammer to.

  At nine fifty, I walk to the park. It’s still a warm night and the moon is out in full and the stars unusually bright, but maybe I’m just seeing things clearer now. What’s definitely clear is that it’s a perfect evening for romance and death. In the waistband of my pants is the dead man’s firearm, which I’ve no intention of using. Also tucked into a sheath in the back of my pants is my small knife with the two-inch blade.

  The park is completely empty when I get there. I step onto the grass and walk to the place where I lost my testicle. It feels colder here. The trees stand out in the moonlight and point at me with dark fingers, covering most of the stars. I stand by the patch of grass where my life changed forever. I wonder if it’s still stained with my blood, but it’s too dark to tell.

  At ten o’clock, a lone figure walks toward me.

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  She’s in bed when they come for her. In bed thinking about Joe. Wondering where he was tonight when she went to his apartment and knocked on the door. She hadn’t gone inside. Hadn’t driven to his mother’s in case he was there. Hadn’t driven to the house where she saw him last night, even though she supposed she should’ve.

  The last time the police came to her house was five years ago. They came two days after Martin had died. Back then it had been one police car. They had come to take statements in the most gentle way they could. This time several of them are parked right outside. They have their lights flashing, but their sirens are muted. The banging on the door, however, is not. The lights send red and blue patterns racing left and right across her wallpaper through thin gaps around the curtains. There is nothing gentle about this.

  She hears her mother and father asking what’s going on, then her name. She climbs out of bed and puts on a robe just as the door opens. Detective Schroder is there, looking stressed and tired and pissed off. He’s looking at her as if she’s guilty of something.

  “What’s going on?”

  “You’re going to have to come with us, Sally,” he says, and she’s never heard him sound like this.

  “What?”

  “Come on, Sally.”

  “Can I change?”

  He stalls, obviously wanting to say no, but then calls for a female officer, who comes into the room. “Make it quick,” he says, then closes the door behind him.

  The officer doesn’t talk to her as she changes into a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. She recognizes the woman, has seen her around at the station and even spoken on occasion, but right now this woman is acting like a stranger. She tugs on a jacket, some socks, and her shoes.

  “Let’s go,” the woman says, and opens the door.

  Half a dozen policemen stand in the hallway. They’re asking her parents questions and not answering the questions her parents are asking them. She tries to tell them everything’s okay, but she doesn’t know if that’s true. They don’t handcuff her, but they put her in the back of a squad car and rush her away. She notices that over half of the police cars stay at her house. If they’re searching her room, she hopes they’ll tidy it up afterward. Almost all her neighbors are standing on their front lawns watching. She doesn’t know what’s going on. She’s scared and confused. Has she done something wrong at work? Do they think she’s stolen something? Have they decided, five years later, to charge her for her brother’s death?

  The drive to the police station is the quickest she’s ever had. The urgency to get her there seems undermined when they take her into an interrogation room, leave her alone, close the door, and disappear for half an hour. She paces the room, sits down, then paces it again. Her heart’s racing, her hands are shaking slightly, and she’s becoming more frightened with every passing minute She’s never been in here before. The room is cold and she’s thankful for her jacke
t. The chairs are uncomfortable. The table is marked with the passages of other people’s time. Fingernails, keys, coins, anything they could find to scrape messages into the wood.

  She doesn’t know the man who comes into the room at the thirty-minute mark. Just an average-looking guy with average features, but he frightens her. He asks her to hold out her hands and she does. He takes swabs of her skin and when she asks why, he doesn’t tell her. Then he leaves.

  It’s another ten minutes before Detective Schroder comes into the room, by which point she’s crying. He sits down opposite her and places a folder on the desk. He doesn’t open it.

  “Sorry for all the drama, Sally, but this is important,” he says, and smiles at her as he slides a coffee across the table toward her. It’s as if he’s suddenly become her best friend. But there isn’t any trace of warmth in that smile.

  “What’s going on?”

  “How well do you know Detective Calhoun?”

  The detective who went missing? What has that got to do with her? “Not well. Why?”

  “Do you ever socialize with him?”

  “Socialize with him?” She shakes her head. “Never.”

  “Never been for a drink with him? Never run into him at a restaurant? At a shopping mall?”

  She glances at the coffee, but doesn’t touch it. “I already told you never,” she says, annoyed that Schroder thinks she’s lying.

  “Ever been in his car?”

  “What?”

  “His car, Sally. Ever been for a ride with him?”

  “No. I’ve never seen him outside of this building. I’ve never had dinner with him, never had a drink with him,” she says, her voice growing a little stronger now, but inside she’s just about ready to break down.

  “Seen him today at all?”

  “You asked me that this morning.”

  “I’m asking you again.”