The Cleaner (21 page)

“I’m old enough to drink, if that’s your point.”

“How long you been a cop, Joe?”

She knows I’m not a cop. Probably has known from the moment we met.

“About as long as you’ve been an architect.”

She laughs. “I bet the police would love to get a look at this knife. They could probably connect it to a few bad things that have happened lately.”

“You’re talking about my salads?”

She ignores my quip and carries on. “I bet the gun has quite a history too.”

“Everything has a history,” I say. “What’s yours?”

She walks up to me and tosses my wallet—now empty—onto the ground. She stuffs my money into my jacket pocket, telling me I can say good-bye to my jacket too. “I told you my history,” she says. “I used to live here, I moved away, and now I’m back.”

Melissa, if that’s her name, crouches next to me, the gun in her left hand, the knife in her right. I remember thinking of them as the essential weapons before I left home, which starts me reflecting on the previous ten minutes that have brought me here, but my chance of stopping whatever is about to happen ended when I snapped those handcuffs on my wrists. Maybe this was meant to happen all along. In this crazy, mixed-up world. I spend another moment wondering why handcuffs aren’t called
wristcuffs,
then I start considering my options. Once again God is doing nothing to help me out, so there’s no point in even praying to the guy. I’ll leave the toga-wearing hippie alone and keep my prayers to myself.

“Do you really want me to tell you more?”

She holds the knife above me, not in the dagger-plunge style of a virgin sacrifice, more in the way of slicing the top layer off a roast chicken. She rests the side of the blade against my stomach. It’s colder than the rest of my shivering body. My erection is lying on the bottom of my stomach. The tip of the knife is only a couple of inches away. Now I do start praying to God, the same God Sally prays to, the same God she wants me to come along and visit on Sunday mornings—and I’ll go too, I promise, if He gets me out of this in one piece.

“No,” I answer, shakily. No, I don’t want to know her history. It will only scare the shit out of me. I don’t need to know why she left Christchurch or why she came back. I don’t want to know how she has treated some of the men in her past. I show the same respect to the women I mess with. It’s my good nature.

It’s my humanity.

She tilts the knife so the tip of the blade touches my stomach just above my belly button. Then she pushes down. My stomach offers the same resistance as the skin of a less-than-ripe tomato, then surrenders. The knife cuts into me, but only enough to draw blood. A warm stinging rather than hurting. As I watch, straining my neck to look, she starts running it up my body. I’ve been cut before. I know what to expect.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

I’m getting the view thousands of homeless people across the country are getting: a cloudless sky, with fading stars barely twinkling like holes in a purple curtain covering Heaven. If God is up there looking through one of those holes with His large knowing eyes, I wonder what He’s thinking. Can He see me? If He can, does He care?

“Are you scared, Joe?” Melissa asks, playing the knife along my body.

I am scared, but I try not to show it. “Do you want me to be scared?”

“It’s up to you.”

“Should I be scared?” I ask, trying to control my voice.

When the knife reaches my chest, it has formed a reasonably straight line up to the center of my body, spotted only where the skin hasn’t broken. The line is red.

“I know I’m not,” she says.

“No? What are you then?”

“I’m the one with the knife and the gun.”

“Want to swap?”

“No, thank you.”

“I’ll let you have the knife after we’ve finished. As a keepsake.”

“You’re so generous, Joe, but I already have the knife. And the gun. What more could I want?”

I’m not sure, and that’s the problem. She traces a finger down the cut on my body, moving it at the same slow pace she was running it over her lips. It tickles and feels kind of nice, yet my skin is crawling. The blood smears into the width of her fingertip.

“How’s that feel, Joe?”

“I can show you.”

She gets to the end of the line and takes her finger to her mouth, then sucks on the end. She closes her eyes and starts to moan. Then she pulls her finger out, opens her eyes, and smiles. Her blue eyes are locked on mine. I wonder what she sees behind them. In a quick movement, she folds her body so her face is above my chest. Slowly she angles her tongue to touch the cut. Just as slowly, she runs the length of the cut as though she were licking the inside flap of an envelope. Her face moves down to my crotch, but stops right where she really should keep going.

She looks up at me and shudders. “Tastes good.”

“I try to eat well.”

I’m aroused again. The evidence is plain.

She stands up and looks down at me.

“I know who you are, Joe.”

“Oh?”

“The gun. The knife. The scars. I’d have to be stupid not to know. You’re him.”

“Who?”

“The Christchurch Carver.”

I shake my head. “No,” I say. Mom’s advice about lying hasn’t been forgotten, it’s just been relegated to the bottom of my priorities.

She gives a small giggle, the type a schoolgirl would give when confronting her rock idol. She points the gun at me. “Pow!”

I flinch and the handcuffs dig into my wrists and ankles. She laughs. “You’re him all right. I know it. I was going to be your next victim.”

“Don’t flatter yourself.”

“I’m not flattering myself, Joe. I’m nobody special. Just a girl who likes the night. Just a girl who knows the police don’t use Glock twenty-sixes. They use the seventeen.”

“You’re basing it on that?”

She smiles. “You’re just too smart, Joe, aren’t you? Would you like to know more?”

“Not really.”

“It wasn’t pure luck I stood next to you, Joe. I recognized you. I’ve seen you come and go from the police department because sometimes I like to follow cops home. I’ve seen you coming and going in your overalls. What are you, a janitor? I still thought you might be interesting to talk to, that maybe you could amuse me for a few moments. Then you said you were a cop and I was curious as to where you were going with it. Then we talked about the case. Your case. You had too many insights, knew too much about the murders, way too much for a guy who shows up and leaves work in a pair of overalls and catches the bus. I hadn’t even finished my second drink when I started to suspect who you were. I’m good at reading people, Joe, really good. I didn’t used to be, and it’s gotten me into trouble in the past, but people learn faster when the mistakes and consequences are bigger, which makes me an expert these days. I just needed to test you. And that was easy. All I had to do was tell you I wasn’t from around here, and right away you saw me as a perfect victim. Someone nobody would miss right
away. And this,” she says, shaking the gun a little, “this just confirms everything I thought about you.”

“You’re wrong.”

“I’m not wrong, Joe.”

“You don’t know enough about police work to make these assumptions. You don’t know enough about serial killers.”

“Don’t I? You know, Joe, I love cops. I love things that cops do. I also like going through houses. Call it a fetish, call it whatever you want, but I like being inside a place when people are sleeping. Especially a cop’s place. Like I said, that’s why I recognize you.”

“So?”

She raises one leg at a time and pulls off her shoes. I try to get a glimpse of her panties but can’t see anything.

“I think it’s the control. You know all about control, don’t you, Joe? That’s part of who you are. Don’t you love the way cops can order you around? When they tell you to jump, you jump. The police are the ultimate in control, Joe, the ultimate. We know it. They know it. I like to collect police things. I’ve got all these books at home on cops, both New Zealand police and overseas. I’ve got posters, documentaries, movies. I’ve even got one of these,” she shakes the Glock, “but mine’s made from plastic. Different model too, but this will replace it nicely. I even have a Ford Falcon. Same model as the police use. I’ve got the uniforms, the badges, the batons, and the handcuffs, but you already know about the handcuffs.”

“So you’re a buff. Fine. Some people collect shells. You collect police stuff. Big deal. You want recognition? Write in to the
Woman’s Weekly.
”

She puts the gun and the knife down and uses both hands to pull her underwear from beneath her skirt. She lifts one leg up at a time. A G-string, I note, with definite approval. She turns her back, bends down to pick up the knife and gun, then walks over to me.

“I’m more than a buff, Joe. I know everything about police
procedure and law. I even had a German shepherd for a few months. Named her Tracy. She’s this big dog that loved me and hated everybody else.”

Loved? Hated? Did she handcuff the dog and kill it too? “Dogs will do that.”

“At night I like to walk around in my house wearing the uniform, but with no underwear. I like the way the shirt feels against my skin, Joe.” She rubs her hands slightly over herself. “You have no idea how good it makes me feel.”

Oh God. I swallow. Hard. What’s she doing to me? Now she laughs again. I mean, really laughs. She steps over me, one leg on each side, then slowly lowers herself down to straddle my waist.

“Open your mouth.”

“Why?”

She puts the barrel of the gun into my eye, pushing it hard enough to make both of them water. I open my mouth. A second later the barrel of the gun is in there. It’s like sucking on a metal lollipop that can destroy the back of your skull.

She lifts her body up, then, with her other hand, slips my erection inside her. She slides down onto it, tight at first, and painful, but only for a second. She takes me as far into her as I can get. I don’t know whether to be my usual optimistic self, afraid, or thankful, and if I’m thankful, I can’t be sure what for. I try to move my pelvis upward.

She leans forward and whispers. “You know what else I like about the police, Joe?”

“Ugh,” I say softly, whispering the word around the gun.

She slowly begins rocking back and forth, moaning. I keep my eyes on the gun, and it hurts them to focus on something so close. Her finger is locked around the trigger. If she becomes too excited, she may squeeze it. Maybe she’s planning to anyway. This has to be the most surreal moment of my life. Am I really here? It seems so.

What’s that Latin saying?
Carpe diem
?
Seize the day
? That’s
what I need to do now: seize the day—or, more specifically, the moment. Why miss the enjoyment of now, if this is going to be my last moment? I’m no martyr. I’m the condemned man. Melissa is my last meal. As she rocks back and forth, I’m getting hungrier.

“I like sneaking into their houses, Joe. I like to walk around inside, while they’re asleep with their families, and sometimes I like to take things away from their homes as mementos.”

I do what I can to join her momentum. She speeds up. Her moaning gets louder. The gun rattles against my teeth. Her lack of a condom is both arousing and scary. For all she knows I could have syphilis. Or she could.

Have to concentrate.
Carpe diem.
It’s my new motto.

“I have a lot of books about serial killers too,” she says, keeping her eyes locked on mine. “About what they do. About what makes them tick. Tell me, Joe, do you have a dominating mother, or an aunt? Are your victims surrogates for her?”

I shake my head. An image of my aunt flashes into my mind but just as quickly I push it aside, a memory showing up that I don’t want to think about.

“Enjoying it so far?” she pants, looking down at me.

The gun is restricting my freedom of speech.

Suddenly she stops, and stands up, as if she’s suddenly become bored with me. My penis slaps against my stomach.

“You’re a killer, Joe, and I really wanted you to be a cop. I really wanted to have sex inside your house, in your yard, in your car. I wanted you to take me every way you could imagine. Not here, though. Not in a park. And now I’m not going to fuck you at all.”

The gun is no longer in my mouth, but I can only think of one thing to say. “Huh?”

She screws her face up into a ball and spits on my chest.

“You’re just a murderer, and now I’ve wasted my time.” She bends down and strokes the knife where knives shouldn’t be stroked.

This can’t be good.

She puts her hand around me where hands should be put, but grips me in a way I shouldn’t be gripped. She places the edge of the blade against my shaft. I feel like crying when I’m hit with the thought she might be getting ready to take a memento. I go completely still.

“Do you know what I think we should do with rapists?” she asks.

I shake my head. I stop when she jams the gun barrel back into my mouth. It grates against my teeth and is cold on my tongue.

I try to ask her not to do anything, but the gun gags me.

I instantly break into a sweat as I feel the blade run a tight circle around the base of my penis. Oh God. Oh Jesus Christ. I look up at the sky, but neither of them are coming to help me.

I tighten my fists and pull at the handcuffs, but they won’t break, and the damn tree won’t fall over. I tilt my head up and I don’t know whether to be relieved that I can’t see what she’s doing. I want to buck my hips and start kicking at her, but at the moment it’s one hell of a bad idea.

I try to scream, but the damn gun is pushing at the back of my throat and I want to be sick. My scream is a gurgling, gagging sound, accompanied by the sound of my teeth chattering against the barrel. The skin all over my body is shriveling away from her, and I feel so damn cold even though I’m sweating. Tears are springing from my eyes and they tickle the side of my face. The pressure on the knife becomes harder, but I can’t do anything about it. This is crazy. I’m the one who decides who lives and dies. I try to push my ass further into the ground but it won’t go.