The Cleaner

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

At two minutes past eight I’m sitting on the edge of my bed covered in sweat. For the first time in years, I’ve dreamed. Though the sensation wasn’t entirely unpleasant, the dream certainly was. I was a policeman, investigating myself for murder. Attempting to coerce a confession, I played good cop, bad cop. Yet I wouldn’t give in. Instead I suggested and then mimed a rather lewd act to myself, which was followed by a demand for a lawyer. When a lawyer did arrive, it was Daniela Walker. She looked exactly as she had in her photograph. The bruises around her neck were like a string of black, deformed pearls. She never blinked, not once, her glazed-over eyes staring at me the entire time. Her only words were to tell me to confess to her murder. She repeated them over and over like a mantra. I was confused and confessed to a whole bunch of murders. Then the walls of the interrogation cell slid away as if I were in a game show, revealing a court of law. There was a judge and a jury and a lawyer. I recognized none of them. There was even a band. One of those old swing-time bands with guys dressed in suits. They were holding up freshly polished brass instruments but none of them were playing. Even with a guilty plea on offer, there was still a jury, and the jury found me guilty. So did the judge. The judge sentenced me to death. The band started playing the same song I’d heard on Angela’s stereo, and as they played, the two businessmen I saw on the bus yesterday rolled in an electric chair. I woke just after the clamps of the electric chair locked my arms and legs into place.

I can smell burning flesh even now as I sit on the edge of my bed. This is the first time my internal alarm clock has ever let me down. I close my eyes and try to push the big buttons inside to reset it. Why did I dream? How is it I’ve slept in? Because I’m trying to do something good? Could be. I’m trying to give Daniela Walker’s family closure, and that doesn’t feel right. I must suffer for my humanity.

I don’t want to miss my bus, so I skip breakfast. Can’t make myself lunch either, so I toss some fruit into my briefcase, then race out the door. I don’t even have time to feed my fish. The day is overcast and muggy. Warm and lethargic. This is worse than a sun-shining-hot day. I’m already sweating by the time Mr. Stanley refuses to punch my ticket.

I walk down the aisle and sit behind the same businessmen who were in my dream, making me suspect for a moment that I’m still in it, and I watch the walls of the bus to see if they give way to another court of law and another swing-time band. They don’t. The businessmen are already talking loudly. Business this. Money that. I begin to imagine what they do in their spare time. If they’re not sleeping with each other, they’re probably married to women who are having affairs. I doubt they would have the courage to dump their bitches if they found out they were being cheated on. And I don’t mean divorce.

Sally is waiting for me outside the police station. No shimmering heat today. Just wet heat, helped by the thick clouds above that are light gray over the city, but black out to sea. Still no signs of rain, though. Sally looks as though she’s trying to figure something out, as if she knows me, but can’t place exactly who I am. Then her face brightens and she reaches out and touches me on the shoulder. I don’t feel the need to pull away.

“How are you, Joe? Feeling up to another hard day at work?”

“Sure. I like working here. I like the people.”

She seems about to say something, then closes her mouth and opens it again. She’s fighting with something, and ends up losing the battle. Her arm falls back to her side.

“I’m sorry, Joe, but I didn’t get to make you lunch today.”

I’m not sure whether she makes the lunch, whether she buys it, or whether her mom makes it for her not knowing it’s for me, but when my face sags a little at the news, it’s genuine. “Oh. Okay, then,” I say, not knowing what I’m going to do. No breakfast. No made lunch. Just some crappy fruit in my briefcase to last me all day. Why the hell did I think two days of her bringing me food was the start of a pattern?

“It’s my dad’s birthday today.”

“Happy birthday.”

She smiles. “I’ll pass that along.”

The air-conditioning is working in the foyer. One day it does, the next it won’t. The old maintenance worker who used to work here must have died: I haven’t seen him for a while. Sally used to work for him, doing things like grabbing rags and washing tools. The sort of thing that warms people’s hearts, seeing the trolley-pushers of this world given a low-paying, shit-eating job that gives them a place in society.

“What did you do before you came to clean here, Joe?” she asks.

“Ate breakfast.”

“No, I mean a few years ago, before you started this job.”

“Oh. I don’t know. Not much. Nobody wanted to give somebody like me a job.”

“Somebody like you?”

“You know.”

“You’re special, Joe. Remember that.”

I remember that the whole way up to my floor in the elevator, and I keep remembering it as I say good-bye to the woman who didn’t bring me any lunch today. Even when I ignore the conference room and go straight to my office I keep thinking about how special I really am. I have to be, right? That’s why I’m down to five suspects and the rest of the department is throwing darts at a phone book.

Five suspects. Travers, McCoy, and Schroder are the local three. Then there are the two that have come from out of town-Calhoun and Taylor. These two are going to be the harder ones to figure out. Calhoun has come from Auckland, and Taylor from Wellington. I’m still doubting Schroder is the guy after the speech from yesterday morning, but I can’t be hasty. And I think I have a way to cross Travers off my list. But until then all five of them will have to remain suspects.

The day drags on, the daily routine cometh. I spend it learning nothing I don’t already know and not eating the sandwiches Sally didn’t make. I clean and mop and vacuum. Live to work. Work to live. McCoy’s coffee cup had it wrong.

When four thirty comes around, rather than going home, I wait for Travers. He’s out in the field interviewing witnesses and doing what he can to find a killer. He’s due back around six o’clock, so rather than sitting outside the station, I head off to a nearby food court. I’m absolutely starving, since I’ve only eaten fruit today. I have Chinese. Flied lice. The guy who serves me is Asian, and must figure I am too, since he speaks to me in his language. I feel a little silly still wearing my overalls as I sit eating my chicken fried rice, the food court full of moms with strollers and school students eating the kind of food that will have many of them fifty pounds overweight by the time they hit their twenties.

When I’m done I head into the nearest parking building and I steal a car. I consider a late-model Mercedes, but you can’t steal expensive European cars and sit around in them outside a police station. I go for a nondescript and hopefully reliable Honda that takes me less than a minute to break into and hotwire. I adjust the seat and open my briefcase and pull out a baseball cap and put it on. When exiting the building I hand over the ticket that was on the dashboard along with some loose change to the guy at the booth on the way out. He hardly notices me.

The car I’ve selected is one of the dirtiest I could find. I drive to a supermarket and use one of the knives in my briefcase to remove the license plates. I switch them with a Mitsubishi, then drive to a nearby service station and take it through the car wash. When the car is clean, I drive back to the police station, satisfied I have taken most-if not all-of the risk out of being caught. No risk means no excitement, but I’m not looking for excitement right now.

It is six sixteen when Travers arrives back. It is another thirty-five minutes before he leaves. I follow him home thinking about the list, the all-important list. He lives in a nice neighborhood. The houses aren’t rusting and the gardens are alive. Shiny homes with clean windows and nice cars parked up paved driveways. His house is a single-story place that’s probably around thirty years old, aluminum windows, well looked after. I wait outside for an hour before he leaves again. He has changed into red jeans and a yellow polo shirt that looks like casualwear for Ronald McDonald. He tosses a sports bag into the passenger seat and pulls out onto the street. Over the last twenty minutes or so the last of the daylight has gone, and it’s almost dark now.

I knew Travers was going out tonight-I’d heard the message on his answering machine. I follow him through a couple of suburbs until he finally arrives outside an attractive two-story house in Redwood, where the houses are shinier and the cars slightly more expensive. He parks in the driveway, drags out his sports bag, and locks the car.

A guy, also in his midthirties, answers the door. When Travers is in, his friend-a fellow with dark brown hair and a small, trimmed mustache-scans the street, like he’s looking for something or somebody. If it’s me, he doesn’t find it. Playing with the collar of his lime silk shirt, he turns and whisks the door closed behind him.

They’re having dinner in tonight.

I’ll have to wait a few hours. I have brought Daniela’s crossword magazine to fill the time and to keep my mind ticking over, using a nearby streetlight so I can see. Four down. An omniscient being. Three letters. Middle letter, O.

Joe.

Time dribbles. I look for, but can’t find, any active life in this well-kept suburb, and I wonder where everybody is. Maybe they’re all dead. I polish off a few crosswords before the lights finally come on upstairs in the house and the ones downstairs disappear. I wait another ten minutes until the upstairs lights twinkle off. A smaller and dimmer version replaces them. A bedside lamp is my guess. Travers is still inside.

I open my briefcase. Take out the Glock. I stuff the gun into the pocket of my overalls. Ideally I would like to scale a nearby tree to see, unfortunately, what needs seeing. I’ve seen some pretty strange things in my time, but never this. I suck in a deep breath. Focus on the job at hand. I only have to see it.

You don’t need to do it. It’s my mother’s voice, coming from nowhere.

Fumble with the lock. My hands are shaking. Fifteen seconds.

The house is so neat it looks like a show home. I walk softly through the downstairs living area, pausing at the big-screen TV, wishing there was a way I could take it home. I’d like to take the lounge suite too, if I could fit the damn thing in my apartment. The large rug in the middle of the room ties everything together and would tie everything together back at my place too. Everything in here is colorful: the sofas are bright red, the carpet tan brown, the walls a sunburst orange. I realize I’m stalling for time.

Gun pointing ahead, I make my way to the stairs and slowly start climbing. I keep my feet near the carpeted edges to minimize any sound and it works well. When I get to the top the grunting I hear means any sound I would have made would have gone unnoticed. I stand still and think of the list. Five names. A simple peek into the bedroom will make it four. The grunting gets louder.

The hallway branches into maybe four rooms up here, but it’s the closest one I’m concerned with. I reach the master bedroom where the sounds are coming from. It sounds like somebody is having a pillow stuffed down their throat. The door is slightly ajar. Doesn’t matter. If it had been closed I could have opened it undetected. If not, I still have my gun. I poke my head forward and try to see through the small gap. All I need to do is take a glimpse, and then I’m out of here. Downstairs and into the night, and my list will be smaller. But I can’t see much. The bed isn’t in sight. I lean further around until things come into view.

Suddenly I feel sick. Nauseous. I pull away, nearly dropping to my knees. I suck in a deep breath and try to control the urge to vomit, but I’m not sure I can. My legs become jelly, and my mind is spinning. I saw what I expected to see, but I didn’t count on feeling this way. My stomach is trying to escape up through my throat. I push a hand against it and lean against the wall. More deep breaths, then I hold it for half a minute. The urge to throw up on the carpet slowly fades.

I’m down to four suspects, but it doesn’t make me feel any better.

I hobble to the stairs and grab hold of the banister to keep myself from tumbling to the ground floor. I pause to think about what I’ve just seen. I think of my mother and how she keeps asking me if I’m gay. Is this why I feel sick? Because she thinks that what I just saw is the sort of thing I do?

Something else is banging around in my thoughts too. Something I can’t quite get a firm grip on. I can see the edges of it floating back there, but when I try to haul the damn thing in, I lose my grip on it and it falls completely away. Will it come back if I take another peek? No way in hell am I going to find out.

I raise my hand to my mouth and bite my knuckle. I can hardly feel a damn thing. My hand tastes of sweat. I wonder if Dad ever thought I was gay.

Should I go back and shoot these two men for making me feel this way? I look up at the ceiling and nearly lose balance. My knuckle is still in my mouth. What would Jesus do? It would be rather Christian of me to go in there and shoot them. Abnormal acts like that only mock Him.

What would Dad want me to do?

I have no idea why I even consider his outlook on this. So now I’m standing here with another dilemma. I’m sure God won’t mind if I shoot them, but Dad will. In fact, God’s probably urging me to. I’ll be doing both Him and humanity a favor. But do I feel like doing God a favor? I try to think of one favor He’s done me, but all He’s ever done is take away my father and give me my mother. No, I owe Him nothing.

I turn back toward the bedroom. I can hear Dad telling me that they’re just people doing what people do, and I should leave them be. People are allowed to be happy. Nobody has the right to judge people who fall in love with the same gender. That’s what he’d say. Only I’m not listening to him, because he’s dead, and dead people’s opinions don’t really account for much, and even so Dad is wrong because this isn’t what people do.

That’s enough for the night. It’s time to focus on the positives. It’s time to be Optimistic Joe. When I call in Candy’s body tomorrow there will only be four people to watch closely. It’s getting late. If I don’t get home soon, I might sleep in again tomorrow. I should have been out the damn door by now.

But this is an opportunity. I’m already inside the house. I already have a gun. And neither of them is aware of my presence. They’re both too wrapped up in each other. Does that mean they deserve to die? The only thing I know for sure is they’ve brought this confusion over me, this nausea, and for that I should get even. Nobody does this to me. Nobody.

Yet is it really their fault?

My God! How can I even question this? What sort of person am I becoming?

I’m Joe. J is for Joe. J is for judge. I’m strong and I’m in control, and what I decide is my decision-not God’s. Not Dad’s. I don’t care what either of them thinks.

I make my way to the bedroom. Stop at the door. Point my gun directly ahead. But I’m not pulling the trigger. Instead I’m thinking about the technical side. The ballistics of the bullets will match against one of the victims I shot. The serial killer strikes again, and this will confuse them. It will blind them to any real motive. Why has the killer targeted a gay policeman? But how ideal is it if the other detectives become conscious that somebody is after them? How easily could I go through their houses if I needed to? Or their motel rooms?

I take a step back just as the grunting from the bedroom gets louder, as if I’ve given the sound waves more room to travel and amplify. The creaking bedsprings sound like they’re screaming in fear. I push my hands against the sides of my head, but it isn’t working. I jam the barrel of my Glock into my right ear, and stuff my middle finger into my left, but it doesn’t help me think. The sound is still there. And the only way to get rid of it is to either shoot myself, or to shoot them. But I don’t have to shoot them. I’m not an animal. I have the ability to think this out. I know right from wrong. I’m not insane. An insane person would jump in there and start firing because they wouldn’t be able to control themselves. The interesting thing about insanity is that Insanity is strictly a legal term, not a medical one. Patients like me are not insane-we just plead it if we’re caught. The reality is if we really were insane, we wouldn’t be trying to evade conviction-we’d be caught at the scene smeared in blood and peanut butter and singing Barry Manilow tunes.

I lower my gun. I could kill them just for the hell of it, just because I’m here. In life you take what comes along in this crazy mixed-up world. Other times you need to let it pass you by in case something better comes your way. Life is like a highway with many dirt roads veering off it.

I’m at a junction right now, standing in the hallway of some guy I have never met. A memory in my mind that I can’t reach. A headache coming on. Pounding. Sweat running down the sides of my body. Trickling. Grunting filling my ears. Pounding. Do I kill them? Throw a few of those red herrings into the investigation? Or does it only make things worse?

I make my way downstairs. The kitchen is full of stainless-steel appliances that cost more than I make in a year. I sit at the breakfast bar on a bar stool and rest the Glock in front of me. Tagging Travers for gay was simple-it was the calendars. Overcompensation was the key word there. Knowing I’ll think better on a stomach that isn’t so empty, I open up the fridge and rummage around inside for some food. I end up making myself a corned beef sandwich-Travers’s boyfriend is an excellent cook. I grab a can of Coke-it’s on special after all-to wash it down. The fizz burns away any fantasy I hold that what I am listening to could be anything other than two men having the time of their lives.

Upstairs, the bed is slamming the bedroom wall, like it too wants to have bolted out the front door half an hour ago. I sit down at the bar and start tracing my finger along the edge of it, flicking some of the crumbs from the sandwich while doing my best to dismiss the thought that because I ate from the same food these people ate from that I’m gay now, but of course that’s silly, it’s silly, but the thought stays with me as I consider what to do next.