The Cleaner

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

The following morning my internal alarm clock doesn’t let me down. Things are getting back to as normal as they can be for a guy missing his left testicle. I’m still dreaming, though, which is a concern. Last night I was talking to Dad. The dream was disjointed, but I can remember fragments where he was asking me what I was doing. I guess he was asking me because I was stuffing him into the front of the car he was found in. I’d wrapped foam around his wrists, foam and padding, so the rope wouldn’t leave bruises. He couldn’t wind down the windows or open the doors. He couldn’t adjust the air-conditioning or turn off the engine as the carbon monoxide flooded in. He turned blue as he asked me over and over to stop. Mom wasn’t there. She was playing bridge down at the local bingo hall. In fact, that was the last time she ever played. He stopped asking me to stop, then told me that he loved me. Then he died. One moment he was my dad. The next moment he was nothing.

I’m not growing at all accustomed to dreams and I’ve woken from this one feeling shaky and ill. Of course I didn’t kill my father. I loved him dearly and, like my mother, I’d never have done anything to harm him. Walt mentioning my father’s suicide must have given me the imagery. Nobody knows why Dad did what he did. Why he sat himself inside the car parked in the garage and pumped carbon monoxide through the side window with a hose. He didn’t even leave a note.

I give the cat explicit instructions not to claw the furniture or walls. He doesn’t. He looks around for a few seconds before deciding the best way to take a break from being locked inside the bathroom is to hide beneath my bed. I feed my fish, make a mental note to buy some food for the cat, go through the usual routines, then fight the cat back into the bathroom with the aid of a broom.

I turn the radio on, listen to the news.

The fire from the car spread, as I predicted, but the rain over the last day stopped it from spreading far. They say this as if anybody could care about trees and crops, as if the country’s running low on them. The news guy makes no mention of the dead hookers. Instead he moves on to a report about sheep. Tells us that we’re now outnumbered by them ten to one. He doesn’t mention anything about a revolt, doesn’t explain why we need to increase their numbers by cloning them.

The walk downstairs is easier than yesterday. The bus ride is also easier. The weather a little worse. It’s raining steadily. I learn nothing at work except that the people I work with have no Goddamn idea what they’re doing.

“I’ve made you some sandwiches,” Sally says, when she meets me outside my office just before lunch.

“Thanks.”

I eat her sandwiches and take another of the pills. It feels like it goes down my throat sideways, and I don’t feel any better for it. I think about my dream, and wonder why I’m having so many these days. I put it down to the fact that at the moment I’m not getting to do all the things other people only fantasize about.

A few hours after lunch I’m carrying my bucket and mop when I see her: Melissa, sitting at a desk. For a second, perhaps even two, the world comes to a complete standstill. I can hear blood pulsing in my head, which is a neat trick because I can swear my heart stops beating. She turns to me and winks. I start toward her, then begin to back away, so I end up motionless. I want to look around at the police who are going to start jumping on me, but I can’t look away from her. After all she’s done to me, there’s something about her I can’t help but admire.

Today she’s wearing an expensive light gray suit that makes her look like an overpaid lawyer. Her hair is pulled back neatly, and she is wearing little makeup. She looks like a woman any man would desperately want to believe.

She flashes a smile at me before turning her attention back to Detective Calhoun. Are they working together?

“Afternoon, Joe. How’s it going there?”

I jump and turn and see Schroder standing next to me, sipping from a cup of coffee that I haven’t made. He’s smiling at me. “Fine, Detective Schroder.”

“You know her?”

“Huh?”

He nods his head toward Melissa. “Looked like you recognized her.”

I shake my head. “No.”

He grins. “Just staring, huh? Don’t blame you, and don’t feel bad for being caught out.”

“Caught out?” I say. Oh, Jesus, it’s come to this, it’s finally come to this and my gun is in my office. I can’t believe it. Weirdly, I feel like crying.

“You’re not the only one,” Schroder says.

“What?”

“Half the men in here are staring at her.”

He’s right. Half the men in here are staring at her.

“Just don’t let her catch you,” he says, and it’s good advice-better advice than he really knows.

He disappears back in the direction he came from, as if he’d only shown up to make chitchat. I’m still standing in the same place I was when I saw Melissa, only now I’m feeling more obvious about it. I need to leave. Do I go for my briefcase in case I need to shoot my way out of here, or do I just head for the door now?

I carry the bucket and mop back to my office, close my door behind me, and grab my briefcase and at the same time I’m opening it, I remember I don’t have my gun anymore. I slump into my chair. I don’t know what to do, with a little more distance between Melissa and my remaining testicle, I can think a little clearer.

Melissa didn’t point me out. That’s not why she’s here. She’s here because, just like my gun, she owns me too. This is her game. She’s come here today to make sure I know who’s in control.

I get out of my chair. I stare down at the city for a few seconds, the people out there moving quickly through the cold. I take one of the knives out of my briefcase. It’s small and easy to conceal, but I figure if I’m going down I can take one, maybe two people with me. I slip it into my pocket. When I head into the hallway with the vacuum cleaner, Melissa and Calhoun have gone. They’ll be in the smaller of the two conference rooms up here. It’s similar to an interrogation room, but with nicer décor, designed to get information from nice people in a comfortable way. There will be tea and coffee and a light lunch, nice music. It’s foreplay where the goal is catching a killer. I wish I could be in there listening, and at the same time, I wish I could be a thousand miles away. When I open the door of the main conference room, I see a gaggle of detectives standing around, staring at the board. I expect them to all turn in unison toward me, like I’m a gunslinger entering the local saloon, but only Detective Landry comes over. He’s somewhere in his forties. Has those rugged good looks of a movie actor playing a policeman. His clothes are wrinkled, his sleeves are up, and he looks like the sort of guy about to make a breakthrough. He smells of cigarette smoke.

“This probably isn’t a good time, Joe.”

“Oh?”

“The room’s pretty clean. Probably won’t need going over for a few more days.”

“Okay, then.”

He pats me on the shoulder. Does he leave his hand there for a second too long? Is he looking at me differently?

“Thanks, Joe.”

I turn toward the door, fighting the temptation to run. I remind myself that I’m the one in control, that I’m the one running this show, but if that were true, I wouldn’t have this God-awful sick feeling in my stomach. Throwing one last glance at the board before I step into the hallway, I see a photograph of a burned car. Christ. I’m learning nothing. I’m out of the loop.

Then suddenly a chance appears to learn at least something: Detective Wilson Q. Hutton is blubbering toward me, a chocolate bar clutched in his sweaty hand like it’s a tube of insulin. It’s obvious the Q doesn’t stand for quitting. He’s wearing a black turtleneck sweater. Fact is I’ve never seen him wearing anything else. I don’t get the look he’s going for, and I figure he doesn’t know either. Maybe it makes him feel as though he looks important. Or less fat.

“Afternoon, Joe.”

“Hi there, Detective Hutton. Looks pretty busy. There something going on?”

He smiles at me with the same pity in his eyes he always has. “You haven’t heard?”

“Heard what?”

“We’ve got a description of the guy.”

I feel as though I’ve just been punched in the stomach, but I force myself to play Slow Joe. Are these people just playing with me? Is this an elaborate trap to call me out? I reach into my pocket and feel for the knife. A guy like Hutton, I just don’t think the blade is long enough.

“How?” I ask, trying to keep my voice under control.

“There was another victim last night, Joe. Another prostitute. This time a witness saw him driving away from the alleyway where she was dumped.”

Jesus, I wonder how Calhoun is feeling now that the woman he paid for sex two months ago has been killed. Is he feeling worse than me? He’ll make the connection with the dead hooker, but will he believe it?

“Have you caught the bad man yet?”

Hutton shakes his head. “Not yet. The car used was stolen.”

“You know that already? Wow, you’re smart.”

“The car was used to dump another body later in the evening.”

“Another prostitute?”

“I can’t say too much, Joe.” He pauses to take a bite from his chocolate bar, like he needs the energy to come up with the words that he can’t tell me. Chocolate-stained teeth begin mincing the confectionery. A few tiny pieces flake onto the collar of his turtleneck. I’m not sure why he doesn’t just swallow the whole damn thing in one go.

“Any suspects?”

He shakes his head and keeps chewing. “Better carry on, Joe.”

“Sure thing.”

I head back to my office. My hands are trembling slightly. Calm down. Calm down.

It’s easy to think, but hard to do. I need to create order from this Goddamn confusion that Melissa has dropped me into. The only problem is I’m coming up with nothing, only more excuses to hurt her. In the end I sneak open my office door and glance into the hallway. It’s empty. Could I just leave and follow her? Is it that simple? Will the police let me leave?

I wait for thirty minutes, peering out from my office every few minutes or so, watching for Melissa, watching for the police escort to take me away. It doesn’t happen, and I start holding out hope that it isn’t going to. I grab the vacuum cleaner and let myself be seen. I mooch around the hallway, sucking dust mites and food crumbs from the carpet, biding my time. Occasionally one or two detectives will come from the conference room and head either to their cubicle, or out to the street, but they don’t glance at me. Other times they simply come to get coffee. They nod and smile at me without really seeing me.

The day starts to drag. I keep looking at my watch, almost accusing it of lying. I don’t feel so good, and every time I clean a bathroom, I sit in one of the stalls for a few minutes with my face resting in my hands and my fate resting in the hands of those who have sat here before.

I keep an eye out for Melissa, but can’t find her. I don’t see Calhoun either. Or Schroder.

All the regulars are gone, or maybe they aren’t-maybe they’re just waiting around the corner, watching and waiting. Except for Sally. She’s always there. Just milling around, asking me how I am, how my mother is, asking me if I would like a lift home.

I don’t know how, but four thirty eventually arrives. The relief is almost nonexistent, because I have no idea how far I’ll get before somebody calls my name and tells me to stop walking, to get the hell down on the ground, to put my arms behind my back. Back in the hallway, with my briefcase, my hands still trembling, I am barely in time to see that Melissa is only just leaving, being escorted by Detective Calhoun, and I wonder if she has waited around for me to finish. Nearly three hours she’s been here, talking to detectives. What in the hell has she been saying?

I quickly duck back into my office and watch from the corner of the door. As she stands there, Detective Landry walks from the elevator. In his hand, sitting across the bottom of a clear plastic bag, is a knife. Not any knife, but my knife. One of my favorites. He’s carrying it as though he’s just found the Holy Grail. Nobody could mistake the look of pride on his face. Melissa and Calhoun head toward him and the elevator, and they pause to talk. I’d love to know what they are saying, and if things go as planned, soon I will. Then Calhoun steps with her into the elevator and the doors slide shut. I rush for the stairwell and race my way to the ground floor, ignoring the throbbing from my groin. And it’s worth it, because I’m quick enough to see Melissa as she leaves the building. She’s alone now. I head to the door. Nobody puts their hand on my shoulder.

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.