The Cleaner

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

A life without Mom. I refuse to think about it. She’s the most important person in the world to me, and to think that something could be wrong. . well. . well, it hurts. More than having my testicle crushed into pulp and juiced. To imagine her gone. .

I simply won’t imagine it.

Simply can’t imagine it.

A woman at Christchurch Hospital answers the phone and tells me I’ve just called Christchurch Hospital. I appreciate her insight. I ask for Costello and a long minute later he comes to the phone, bringing with him a deep, concerned voice.

“Ah, yes, Joe. Listen, it’s about your mother.”

“Please don’t tell me anything’s wrong with her.”

“Well, actually, nothing is wrong with her,” he says, and for some reason I can’t explain I feel disappointment. “You can speak to her yourself. She’s right here.”

“But you’re at a hospital,” I say, as if I’m accusing him of something-perhaps of being a doctor.

“Yes, but your mother’s fine.”

“Then why didn’t she call me?”

“Well, she’s fine now, and since she’s not going home tonight, this was the only way she could speak to you. She said the only way of getting hold of you was if I called. She’s quite an insistent woman, your mother,” he says, without any humor.

“What was wrong with her?”

“I’ll let you talk to her.”

The line goes quiet as the phone changes hands. A mumbling of voices and then, “Joe?”

“Mom?”

“This is your mother.”

“What’s wrong? Why are you in the hospital?”

“I chipped a tooth.”

I sit there gripping the phone, pretty sure she’s told me she just chipped a tooth, but knowing that’s not what she said because. . well. . “A tooth? You chipped a tooth and you’re at the hospital?” I shake my head, trying to make her words make sense. If she chipped a tooth, then wouldn’t she be. . “At the dentist. Why aren’t you at a dentist?”

“I’ve been to the dentist, Joe.”

She says nothing then. My mother, a woman who probably won’t even stop talking when she’s dead, offers me no explanation. A couple of weeks ago she was happy to tell me she was shitting water. So I have to ask. “Why are you at the hospital?”

“It’s Walt.”

“He’s sick?” I ask, perhaps a little too hopefully.

“He broke his hip.”

“Broke his hip? How?”

“He slipped in the shower.”

“What?”

“He was having a shower, and he fell. Broke his hip. I had to call an ambulance. It was scary, Joe, yet exciting too, because I’ve never been in an ambulance. The sirens were loud. Of course, Walt kept on crying. I felt so bad for him, but he was so strong. The ambulance driver had a mustache.”

Uh huh. Uh huh. “You were at his house when he was showering?”

“Don’t be silly, Joe. I was at home.”

“Why did he call you?”

“He didn’t need to call me. I was already at home. It was me who called the ambulance.”

“Yeah, but why didn’t Walt call?” I ask, somewhat confused-perhaps not as confused as I’d like to be, because there is a scenario being built here.

“Because he was in the shower,” Mom says.

“Then how did he call you?”

“I was already there, Joe. What are you getting at?”

“I’m not sure,” I answer, happy to let it go.

“We were getting ready to go out, so we decided. .” She pauses, but I’ve already heard her mistake. “He decided to take a shower.”

“He was at your house? You had a shower with him?”

“Don’t be so rude, Joe. Of course I didn’t.”

Images start going through my mind. I squeeze my eyes shut. I’d tear them out if it’d help. The images don’t budge. I’m sweating like a pig. I push my fingers at my closed eyes and thousands of colors appear-like in the chandelier downstairs-and I try to follow the colors with my eyes as they float across my mind. I’m happy to believe they didn’t take a shower together. If she says so, then I’m happy to believe it. Happy to forget she said we instead of he. Happy to forget this entire conversation. She just has to tell me that. .

“So, Mom, how did you chip your tooth?”

“It happened when Walt fell over.”

“What?”

“It happened when-”

“I heard you, Mom,” I say, trying to squeeze my eyes closed even tighter. “But I thought you said you weren’t taking a shower together.”

“Well, Joe, we’re adults. Just because we were taking a shower together doesn’t mean anything of a sexual nature was happening. Just because in this day and age young people can’t keep their hands off each other doesn’t mean we were acting just as immorally. We’re pensioners, Joe. We can’t afford to leave hot water running all day. So we took a shower together. Now don’t you go making a big deal out of nothing.”

“So how did you chip your tooth? He knocked you over?”

I open my eyes, because if they’re open, I see this lovely hotel room wall and not my mother taking a shower with some old guy. I don’t want to question her. She has explained things in enough detail for me, yet the question has left my mouth before I could stop it. I didn’t want to ask-God knows I didn’t. Eyes open, I see a couple of chairs, some paintings, and I can see the hotel room door. Maybe I should run for it.

“No, no, he kicked me in the mouth. His foot slipped out from beneath him, and the heel of his foot kicked me in the mouth.”

Don’t ask, Joe. Just don’t ask. “But how did his foot reach so high?”

“Oh, I wasn’t standing. I was kneeling. I was. . um. . well, it just happened, Joe, okay? He kicked me in the mouth.”

It just happened. What just happened? Oh God, please don’t show me. .

Only my mind does show me. My entire shirt is wet. I become so scared that she might confirm exactly what she was doing that the moment she starts talking again I put the phone down and run to the bathroom, reaching the bowl only just in time.

A hiccup, a convulsion of my stomach, the taste of bile. Vomit explodes from me in a roar and splashes into the water, while drops of water and puke flick onto my face and roll down onto my chin. I keep coughing it up until I have no more to cough, but I keep coughing anyway, watching it form a yellowish soup in the bottom of the toilet. As my body shudders, all I can picture is my mother in the shower. My throat quickly becomes raw, and my stomach shrinks into a small ball of pain. I can taste blood as it drips off my lips and plinks into the syrup below. There is something floating in there that looks like one of my dead goldfish.

My mind is spinning and I feel light-headed. I reach out and slap the lever and the mess that surely couldn’t have come out of me, but did anyway, is flushed away.

It hasn’t stopped flushing before I kneel back over the bowl, trying to throw up once again. Now I’m only gagging. Blood clots land in the water and spread out into rose petal shapes. I flush, but the toilet hasn’t regained pressure, so the petals don’t disappear. They just swirl around the edges of the bowl. Strands of drool hang from my bottom lip. They stick to the rim of the bowl, and they stretch when I lean back, eventually breaking. The tops of the strands swing down onto the black linoleum. Thinking about the thousands of people who have sat here and pissed and shat is better than thinking about Mom and her broken tooth.

When I was in the faggot’s house, I tried thinking of other things to take my mind away from what was going on, and in the process I thought about Dad and what he would say. Bending over the toilet, I start to remember something I saw. Something Dad was doing. I wasn’t supposed to be home. I can’t remember why, but what I can remember is coming home early and finding. .

Oh God.

I start to gag, but I have nothing left to cough up except blood. I keep my eyes closed so I don’t have to see the red water below, but behind my eyes the memory is playing. Images of Mom and Walt in the shower fade in and out, replaced slowly with images of Dad in the shower. Only he’s in there with somebody else. Who? And why in the hell did I walk into the bathroom when I heard the damn shower going in the first place?

That somebody else was another man.

Oh Christ. I open my eyes. My lungs hurt and my stomach is hot. My throat feels as though it’s closed over. I try my best to shake the images away. Dad’s trying to calm me as the naked guy dresses and leaves, and Mom isn’t there to hear it because she is playing bridge at the local bingo hall. It was the last time she ever played.

I think back to the policeman and his boyfriend pounding the bedroom wall, and this helps to take away the memory, this false memory, because surely that never happened.

Of course! I’m remembering a dream. Dad wasn’t gay. Of course he wasn’t. And I never killed him. I loved him. Dad was as straight as they came, and why he decided to take his own life, I’ll never know. And maybe I don’t want to know.

I stand up, my legs like rubber. I wash my face and rinse out my mouth, but can’t get rid of the taste. I pick up one of the complimentary soaps and take a bite. A white lather mixed with blood foams from my mouth.

Tastes like chicken.

Actually it’s the vomit that tastes like chicken, and as I chew further into the soap, my mouth starts closing over and my throat starts to burn. My remaining testicle starts to throb, though more than anything it is itching. I wash the soap from my mouth and stumble back to the phone. Unbelievably, Mom is still talking.

“Okay, Mom, I’m glad you’re okay,” I interrupt. “And yes, I’ll come and visit Walt while he’s in the hospital, but my taxi’s just arrived. I’ve got a meeting with a client. Got to go. Love you.”

I glance at my watch as if she can see me, send a kiss down the phone, and have the phone halfway back on the hook when one of her words stops me from hanging up.

“What was that?” I ask, pressing the phone firmly against my ear.

“We had a nice talk. She really loves you, Joe.”

“Who?”

“Your girlfriend. I’m never that good with names. There was an s in there somewhere. Maybe it started with one.”

“You don’t mean Melissa?”

“Melissa? Yes, that was it. I remember telling her she had a beautiful name.”

“She came around?” I ask, deciding not to point out that Melissa has two s’s in her name.

“That’s what I was saying. Joe, you really need to clean out your ears.”

“She came around last night?”

“Joe. Do you ever listen to anything I say?”

I tighten my grip on the phone. I can hear my breathing getting out of control. “I listen, but Mom, this is important. What did she say?”

“Only that she was worried about you. And that she thought you were a really nice person. I liked her, Joe. I thought she was lovely.”

Yeah, well, she wouldn’t think Melissa was lovely if she knew what she was capable of. Why would she go and see my mother? Just to prove her control?

“I had no idea you had such a lovely woman in your life, Joe.”

“I’m just lucky, I suppose.”

“When will I see more of her?”

“I don’t know. Look, Mom, I gotta go.”

“Did you know her brother was gay?”

“What?”

“She told me.”

“What?”

“That he was gay.”

I have no idea what she’s on about. It’s as if she’s picking up on another conversation somewhere, perhaps a faulty phone connection.

“Seriously, Mom, I really have to go. I’ll talk to you soon.”

I don’t wait for a response. This time I hang up.

I walk to the window and look out at the city. I want to jump out and crash into the sidewalk below. My mind is churning with images of my mother and Walt, but they’re only shadows now. The day is winding down. Daylight is being replaced by streetlights and headlights. Hardly anything happens on a Wednesday night. Garbage trucks are rolling up and down the streets, taking away the trash left by shop owners and businesses. I wipe at the tears running down my face with no idea why I’m even crying. Finally I start to focus on why I’m here. I turn on the hotel room light, then start to make myself familiar with my surroundings, doing what I can to forget about my mother. It’s a distraction, but it works. I go back into the bathroom. I flush the toilet and spray some air freshener about the place. Only the distraction ends up pissing me off. It makes me think of what I have at home, or, more accurately, what I don’t have. It’s like being married, and then buying a swimsuit calendar. Thinking of my little apartment without the minibar and soft bed makes me want to start crying again.

I walk into the kitchen area-or kitchenette, as gays and hippies would call it. I rummage around in the drawers, searching for a knife that looks mean enough to do a rather mean job. I find one, walk to the bed with it, and study it beneath the bedside lamp. The blade isn’t long; it’s bigger than a fruit knife, but smaller than the standard issue given to horror movie directors. I sway my hand up and down, feeling the knife’s weight and the balance, learning its specifications and limitations. It isn’t something I’d pay for, and it’s the first thing I’ve seen in this hotel that doesn’t look horribly expensive. It will take either some serious amount of stabbing, or some serious accuracy.

I can do both.

I open my briefcase and take out a cleaning rag to remove my fingerprints from the knife. This isn’t essential, but it’s better to be safe than jailed. I slip on a pair of latex gloves, clean the knife once again, then slip it into a plastic bag from my briefcase.

I grab the list of phone numbers from my briefcase. Look up Detective Inspector Calhoun’s and dial it from the cell phone Melissa bought me. Since it’s a prepay, if the number shows up on Calhoun’s caller ID display, it can’t be traced back to me. Because of the latest break in the case, many of the detectives are putting in extra hours, and from what I can make out Calhoun is one of them. After six rings I’m beginning to doubt he’s there. If he isn’t at his desk the phone automatically switches through to his mobile, which these guys carry with them every moment of the day.

Finally he answers. “Detective Inspector Calhoun,” he says, and I can picture him standing on a street somewhere with the phone pressed tightly against one ear and his finger jammed in the other.

“Evening, Detective.”

“Evening, sir. How can I help you?”

“No, it’s how I can help you.”

“Who is this?”

“That’s not really important, but what is important is what I know.”

“I don’t have time for any games,” he says, and I picture him the same way as a few seconds ago, only now looking pissed off.

“This isn’t a game. I know something.”

“And what is that?”

I’m grinning, yet I’m also nervous. I can’t remember the last time I had a reason to grin. I can remember the last time I was nervous, though. “I know that you’re a killer.”

Silence. Then, later than he should have replied, he says, “What the hell are you on?”

“I’m not on anything.”

“Then what are you talking about?”

“Do you know who this is, Detective?”

“How the hell would I know?”

“I’m the person you’re looking for.”

“Look, if this is a joke, I’m not laughing.”

I’m nodding down the phone line, like people do even though nobody can see them. At least I’m not waving my hands around. “You know I’m not joking.”

“How did you get this number?”

“We’re getting off track, Detective. Now, let’s get to the point,” I say, scratching at my testicle. The itch is getting worse.

“What point is that?”

I walk over to the window. Look out at the city. “Tonight’s point, or moral, is that I know you have a sexual dysfunction that you attempt to put right by using prostitutes, and that that dysfunction has led to murder.”

Rather than denying anything, or abusing or threatening me, he says nothing. We both stay that way for almost half a minute. I know he’s still there: the sound of the open phone line hums loudly.

“This is bullshit,” he eventually says, but doesn’t hang up.

“That’s not what Charlene Murphy thought when you took her to the Everblue. And I’m sure Daniela Walker would say differently too. Well, if you hadn’t killed her.”

He’s silent for a few more seconds while he absorbs the fact that I know exactly what he’s done. “What is it you want?” he finally manages to ask.

“Money.”

“How much?”

“Ten grand.”

“When?”

“Tonight.”

“Where?”

“Cashel Mall.”

“I can’t risk being seen paying somebody off. How about somewhere more secluded?”

“Like where?” I ask, knowing he would ask this.

I can imagine exactly what he’s thinking. His speedy answers are proof of that. He’s suddenly inside that game he told me he didn’t have time for. Like chess, he’s setting me up, but again like chess, I can see it coming. I’m half a dozen steps ahead of the guy. Nobody’s going to have ten thousand dollars on them, ready to make a payoff in thirty minutes, and nobody is going to want to make that payoff a few hundred meters from the police station in which they work. But he’s seeing an ideal opportunity to eliminate me as a risk. Because I’ve sprung this on him pretty quickly, he hasn’t had long enough to think it through properly. He thinks he’s doing a pretty good job. Being clever. Being smarter than me. But I’ve been thinking through this all day. He’s going to ask for somewhere way less public and much more secluded.

“You know where the Styx Bridge is?” he asks.

“Out Redwood way, right?” I ask. I went over it the other night to reach the highway when I took Walt for a drive.

“Meet me at ten o’clock underneath it. Don’t try anything funny.”

I’m no comedian. “I won’t.”

“How do I know ten grand buys your silence?”

Good question. I’m surprised he’s asked this, considering he can’t afford to fuel me with any suspicion that he’s preparing to kill me. Again, I’ve been thinking about this all day knowing he had no choice but to ask it.

“For ten grand, I’ll give you both the photographs and negatives of you at the Everblue. I’ll give you the negatives and photographs of you leaving Daniela Walker’s house on the night she died. And on top of that, if I wanted more money, I’d be asking for more. I just want enough to get out of the city before the cops close in on me.”

“Ten o’clock then.” He hangs up without waiting for a response. He’s realized I’m cleverer than he first thought, I’m clever enough to have photos of him from the crime scene, and he’ll wonder how this is even possible. It’ll take him a while, but in the end he’ll conclude that I’m lying. I look at my watch. I have more than three-quarters of an hour not to show up. Plenty of time not to do several things.

Plenty of time not to kill.

I reach down and scratch at my testicle through the padding, realizing it isn’t my remaining testicle that has me in discomfort, but the missing one. The itch is where the skin is mending. Melissa left me some disinfectant and some talcum powder. I grab them from my briefcase and sit down on the edge of the bed. I remove the padding-it pulls at the hairs and I have to stifle a scream-then clean the area and sprinkle on the talcum powder. By the time I’m done, my testicle looks as though it’s been dusted for fingerprints. I replace the padding and lie down on the bed and focus on not falling asleep. The problem is the bed is so comfortable I’m wondering if I can somehow steal it.