The Cleaner

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

I decide to pass the house and keep walking. It’s five forty-five. I walk to the end of the block, then come back. I don’t spot any odd-looking vehicles. No signs of a stakeout. No Melissa. It’s suburbia at the height of normalcy.

Walking the front path to the doorstep feels like coming home. I’ve been here so many times over the last few weeks it’s becoming a regular part of my life. The husband of the dead woman will probably start charging me rent. At least this will be my final time here. I take the sights in without any feelings of nostalgia. No tears to be shed.

The house is still warm. Seems it will stay that way until winter kills off every green thing in sight. If the police have been here today, now will be the time they burst in to apprehend me. Not that they will, of course. They’re not here. I’m sure of it. However. .

I close my eyes. Wait. Count off a slow minute in which I listen to every sound in the house and in the street. A lawn mower, some woman shouting to her son to hurry up, a car moving by. Inside all I can hear is my own breathing. If the cops are here, I’ll tell them that I thought it was part of my job to clean this place. That I thought it was an extension of police headquarters since dozens of detectives have been here a few times now. I’ll mispronounce extension and pause for a few seconds looking for a replacement.

I open my eyes. Nothing. I’m still alone.

When I reach the bedroom I move straight through to the bathroom and smile at the man bound to the chair inside. At some point during the night, or perhaps today, he has pissed himself. The room stinks and he’s a mess, the whole scene is somewhat sad and pathetic.

I meet his eyes and see the hatred I saw last night. They’re red and puffy as though he has been rubbing them, but I know he hasn’t. He looks like he hasn’t slept since I saw him yesterday. His shirt is hanging out, and the collar is stained with blood. His arms are red from trying to break the tape and rope. Even his short hair looks ruffled. Flecks of blood have dried on the surface of the duct tape. The right side of his jaw has turned a dark gray. A large bump has risen on the front of his forehead. He must know they’re there, since he can get a good view of himself in the mirror.

“No, no, don’t get up,” I say, putting out my hand. He doesn’t laugh, or for that matter, even attempt to make conversation.

“Okay, Detective Inspector, here’s the deal. Twenty grand buys your ears and your mind, okay? Just don’t forget I have the gun, and I also have a tape of last night’s conversation.” I show him the tape recorder that’s been living inside a potted plant for months. “You try anything, or anything happens to me, that tape goes to your colleagues. Nod if you understand.”

He understands.

“Here’s the thing. In another,” I glance at my watch, “five minutes, we’re going to have a visitor. She’s going to be coming up here, and she’s going to be blackmailing me. However, like you, she’s also a murderer. I imagine you’ll recognize her. It’s your job to remain quiet here in the bathroom. Once she’s confessed, I’ll open up the door, she’ll see you, and she’ll be just as incriminated as you and I are. What we’ll have then is a three-way stalemate. Agreed?”

He grunts.

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

Another grunt. He shakes his head, perhaps seeing a problem with the plan, but it doesn’t matter. I close the door, then wait on the edge of the bed with my briefcase and without the eighty thousand dollars.

Ten minutes later I hear the front door downstairs open. I stay where I am. She’ll find me without too much difficulty.

This is it. This is where my phases and plans have led me.

I hear Melissa walk into the kitchen. The fridge door opens. Then it closes. Are we really that alike? I hope not.

A minute later she comes up the stairs.

“Damn hot up here, Joe.”

I shrug. “No air-conditioning.”

“I’m surprised there’s still any power to this place. That the money?” she asks, nodding toward the briefcase.

“Uh huh.”

I keep staring at her. She’s more beautiful than the night we met. More beautiful than the day she blackmailed me. Her black miniskirt is showing long, tanned legs. She’s wearing a dark purple jacket, which matches her purple shoes. Her blouse is silky black. She is going for some type of power dressing look, and succeeding. She steals a look at her expensive-looking watch. Once again I wonder what she actually does, and how she gets her money. Maybe she really is an architect.

“Got a date?” I ask.

She laughs. “You can always make me smile, Joe.”

“I try.”

“Actually I was just seeing how long it was going to take you to cut the crap and give me my money.”

I lean back on the bed. “I still have some concerns.”

“Oh, is that so. Well, poor little Joe, tell Melissa all about it.”

“Once I give you the money, what’s stopping you from going to the police anyway?”

“I’m a lovely person, Joe. I’d never lie.”

Yeah. Damn lovely. “You lied to me.”

“You’re lie-worthy.”

“You haven’t answered my question.”

“Come now, Joe. What you’re buying here is trust. What kind of world is this if we can’t all trust one another? Once I have the money, everything I have on you, Joe, goes in a safe place so if something should happen to me,” she waves her hand around in the air, “oh I don’t know-maybe something along the lines of having my throat cut-then what I have on you goes to the cops. And only then.”

“And how do I know you won’t keep coming back for more?”

She shrugs. “I guess you don’t.” She lets her words hang in the air. She’s thinking she’ll be back for more money at some point.

“So how does it feel to be up here,” I ask, “in the presence of death?”

“There’s nothing dead up here.”

“There was.”

“Where did you kill them?”

I stand up and walk to the opposite corner, so now I’m standing along the same wall as the bathroom door, but at the other end. “I killed each of them on the bed,” I say, taking the credit for Daniela Walker’s death.

“This bed?”

It’s unmade, the blankets and sheets wrinkled from use. You can still see dried drops of blood. “That’s the one.”

She makes her way toward it. I can clearly see the Glock in her hand. My Glock. Even as she studies the bed she keeps the weapon pointed at me. Steadily.

“How did it feel?” she asks.

“You ought to know.”

She turns to me and smiles. “That’s true, Joe. You know, sometimes I feel as though we have something special between us.”

“Blackmail?”

“No.”

“We’re both killers?”

She shakes her head. “No, not that either.”

“What then?”

“I think it’s our love of life.”

“Poetic.”

“If you insist.”

I haven’t insisted on anything. “So how did it feel for you, Melissa?”

“How did what feel?”

“Killing.”

“I’ve done it before.”

“You’re kidding me.”

“Only a couple of times. Nothing as fun as the other night, though.”

I have to agree. “They are kind of fun, aren’t they?”

“See? We’re sharing. We aren’t so unalike, Joe.” She begins rubbing her free hand over the bed, as if she’s trying to feel the death that took place here, trying to soak it up into the pores of her skin.

“I think we’re more similar than you really know.”

Hand still on the bed, she turns to face me. The gun is still pointed in my direction. “And how’s that?”

“Because I also find you lie-worthy.”

She straightens up, glances at the briefcase.

I nod toward it. “Go on, open it.”

Keeping the gun on me, she reaches over and snaps the left clip, then the right. Looking back to me, she opens the lid, then turns to look inside.

“What the hell are you up to, Joe? Where’s my money?”

“You’re not getting any money, Melissa.” She looks genuinely surprised. It seems she never thought I wouldn’t actually pay her. “If that’s the way you want to play it, then I’m going directly to the police.”

“Oh? And how are you going to explain your involvement?”

“I won’t need to.”

“Think again, bitch.” I nod toward the bathroom.

“You got a video camera set up, Joe? Come on, don’t be so childish. I’ll just take the tape with me now. Then I’m going to shoot you in the balls. Oh, what I mean is ball.”

“What I have is even better than a video camera. Why don’t you check it out?”

She moves toward the bathroom door, keeping the gun pointing ahead of her. When she reaches it, she opens it slowly. She peers inside, then laughs. Maybe she thinks I’ve bought her the ultimate gift.

“A cop? You’re going to kill a cop?” she asks.

“I’m not going to kill him. He’s too valuable for that.”

Behind her, I can see Calhoun’s eyes wide open in surprise at seeing Melissa. He recognizes her from the station. His eyes dart from left to right, deciding which of us is more dangerous. This is the woman who gave him a description of the killer. This is the woman who has me at gunpoint, yet I’m the man who knocked him out and tied him up. What in the hell, he’s wondering, is going on? And when will he be getting his money?

I can also see the thoughts going through Melissa’s mind. She likes collecting police things, and she’s wondering if she can collect this guy. She’s measuring him up to see if she has room for him in her house. Perhaps the corner of the living room, or next to the fridge.

“I don’t understand what you’re playing at, Joe,” she says.

“He’s my witness to what you really are.”

“Oh? And what do you have on him?”

“Enough.”

She looks around the room. It’s obvious that she hates losing. Slowly she begins shaking her head. I can hear her teeth grinding. She looks angry. “You’re forgetting one thing, Joe.”

“And what’s that?”

“I don’t need him.”

Before I can react, she grabs a knife from my briefcase and runs into the bathroom. She stands behind Calhoun and his eyes widen in fear because he knows as well as I do what’s about to happen. The chair jerks beneath him as he tries to pull away, but it’s no good. She holds the knife to his throat and watches my eyes. I look from the eyes of the detective, who has just become as still as stone, to the eyes of the woman behind him. Hers reflect amusement, a sense of enjoyment. Not for what she’s about to do to the cop, but what she’s about to do to my witness. I’ve hardly taken a step, but now I don’t dare move any closer.

“Think about this, Melissa,” I say, my words almost flustered. I put my hands ahead of me, palms outward. “Think about what you’re doing.”

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.