The Oculus Heist

by Alex Moss

  He enters the house into a large living room. The décor is traditional, opulent, some of the furniture covered with dustsheets. He handles the objets d’arts on display, impressed by their weight and shiny bits. He’s tempted, but re-positions them and moves on. He exits through the ornately framed doorway on the opposite side of the living room, into a grand hall with a wide flowing staircase.

  “Are you coming up?” Anna shouts from the next level.

  Stelson ascends. On the way up, there is a painting that Stelson double-takes–it’s a portrait of a young woman, kneeling down and tying up some old running shoes, with a pensive expression. Stelson is intrigued. He should ask her about it. Anything to take his mind away from what just happened by the pool. He steps onto the landing of the second floor.

  “Where are you?”

  He hears footsteps from a bedroom down the hall. He heads that way. The door is open so he goes straight in and then he sees her under the sheets on a large sleigh bed, glaring at him, expectant. Her wet clothes are piled on the floor. His mouth drops, more confused than anything.

  “You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” she says.

  Anna does in fact look ghost-like, laying on her side, her head resting on one hand, the silky linen draped over her curves. The seriousness of her expression, face pale in the low light. Stelson’s pale green eyes seem to brighten and intensify–a snake eyeing up its prey, something different, something more carnal washing over him now.

  The effect on Anna is disarming and she seems to relax and loosen up, now laying flat on the bed, her now dry glossy black hair flowing around her like peacock feathers. It seems unreal and fantastical to Stelson. She beckons him toward the bed.

  “I really like what you did for me back there today. You saved my life.”

  “It was worth saving.”

  “How do you know? You don’t know me.”

  “I know enough.” He catches his reflection in a full length mirror. He looks and feels unworthy to be going down this track, starting to undress. Shame starts to overwhelm him as he gazes back at himself. “We’re too different. You can see that, can’t you?” he inquires.

  “Course. It’s so obvious,” she says.

  “Look at me.” But he’s only looking at himself, disgusted.

  “We’re all different, Stelson. But with you, it’s just more obvious, more extreme. I guess folks are afraid of you, right?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Well, I’m only a little afraid but there’s nothing wrong with that. I want to understand who you are even though I think I know.”

  Stelson is now half-undressed. He’s still unsure what to do. He’s clearly insecure and feeling vulnerable, which is not like him. The mirror, her gaze, his gaze back at him all adding up to a self-conscious state that he’s always aimed to avoid.

  “Come here,” she says.

  Stelson approaches the bed and climbs under the sheets.

  They simulate the most carnal pleasure, rutting against each other. It seems a little awkward, but the pleasure is etched on both their faces. Anna gazes toward the bedroom door expectantly as though someone should catch them, but then after a moment her face slowly fills with shame. Her eyes glistening, she buries her fingernails into Stelson’s back. He arches it in reflex, a mixture of tension, pleasure, and some confusion on his face–the opposing forces of his mind toying with him. They lock eyes and exchange hateful, self-destructive glances as though they were denying each other of the real deal–a mutual short-change during a phony pleasure-fest. Stelson rolls onto his back, takes a deep breath, and closes his eyes.

  He is laying on his belly and Anna, now dressed in a light summer cotton dress, is on the bed caressing the back of his head.

  “Wake up, sleepy head. I have something to show you.”

  Stelson stirs. There is a large birthmark on the back of his head just below his hairline and Anna is studying it, her index finger following its outline.

  “It’s like a great lake.”

  Stelson’s eyes open.

  “Which one?” he asks, his voice partly smothered by a pillow.

  “Are you testing me?”

  “No. I’ve never thought about it like that.”

  “Lake Superior.”

  Stelson laughs, slyly.

  “It matches your ego.”

  Stelson turns over and looks at her with severity. Anna, transfixed by those molten green eyes that would seem perfect on a dragon, drops her sense of calm, tensing up.

  “My mama used to say that it’s a patch to cover up three sixes,” Stelson says, dryly, searching for a reaction.

  He gets nothing back and then looks ashamed with himself.

  Anna turns away, climbs off the bed, and pads bare-footed across the room.

  “I want you to leave,” she says, leaving the room and turning down the hall.

  Stelson, confused, takes in his surroundings, first by looking under the sheet to get a view of his naked body–she must have undressed him. He considers it as though he has no idea how he got like this. He drops the sheet and surveys the bedroom–the high ceilings and intricate detailing, the art deco furniture, and the wet rain-soaked patches on the deep pile carpet. His shirt, pants, and jacket have been neatly hung on a clothes horse next to a central air vent. He climbs out of bed and retrieves the clothing. He leaves blood stains on the sheets from the open but now fast-healing nail scars on his back.

  By the time he finds Anna, she is cross-legged on the bare wooden floor of a child’s bedroom, an antique luggage trunk next to her and she’s rummaging through it. She senses him watching her.

  “You still here?”

  “I’ll go when I’m ready.”

  “This is my home.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Family money. Made when LA was mostly just dust.”

  “Why don’t you live here?”

  “Bad memories.” She looks at him for a reaction as though he was part of them.

  “The painting on the staircase–who is it?”

  Anna dips her head in disappointment as she studies some old photos of her as a young girl, about seven or eight, with a woman, who looks similar to how Anna looks now.

  “This is what I wanted to show you,” she says.

  Stelson gets closer and glances over her shoulder.

  In the photo, the woman wears a track-suit and has a medal around her neck, holding a bouquet. She is probably the same woman as the one in the portrait on the staircase. There is plenty of other junk in the trunk to shuffle through–medals, trophies, athletic wear.

  “My name is Anna Fayne, and this was my mother, Martha.”

  Anna looks Stelson in the eyes.

  He’s blank-faced.

  “I know it’s you, but you’re hiding it too well,” she says to Stelson. “You saw something outside, by the pool? I was watching. All spooked out and shit.”

  Stelson turns away, uneasy with her questioning. Too personal and manipulating.

  “It was nothing.”

  “You are nothing, then, to me.”

  He looks angry, a dark intensity brewing, and Anna smiles when she sees it, aware that she has a firm grip on his psyche. She could make him do anything if she wanted to.

  “Come on, Stelson. Smash the shit out of this place.”

  Stelson is standing in the grand hallway at the bottom of the palatial winding staircase, considering his options, all wound up like a ball of cannon fodder, his mind half-way out the door and rid of this out-of-shape crazy day. Anna is at the top of the staircase looking down on him. She has the antique luggage trunk next to her, about to push it down the stairs. “All I need is in this trunk.”

  Stelson steps toward the front door and Anna tips the antique trunk so that it teeters over the edge of the first step and slides, crashing
into the wall at the edge of the first landing, cracking the plaster. Stelson turns around.

  “Come on, Stelson.”

  “You really want me to do it?”

  “Yeah. I don’t need this fucking house and all this shit. Let’s go wild. Go crazy.”

  Stelson clenches his jaw and fists and wanders over to an art deco, parquet-covered long cabinet adorned with sculptural ornaments, heavy-legged table lamps, and opulent oriental vases. He picks up one of these vases, considers its form and weight like a baseball pitcher with a ball, and hurls it at the wall. It smashes into pieces, scattered about over a twelve-foot radius. Anna seems stunned, mouth slightly open and amazed. This gives Stelson motive to continue, so in turn, he grabs items from the cabinet and hurls them in random directions across the entrance hall.

  The room starts to fill with a strobing light emanating through the windows on either side of the main door to the mansion. The sound of a car door slams out front. Stelson pauses reluctantly. Anna skips down the stairs and across the entrance hall to get a view through the window.

  She peers through the glass–a brown sedan with a single flashing blue and red light on the roof, half up on the curb and two plainclothed men striding up the path to the mansion. They’ve seen Anna, and one of the men peels off and circumvents the property.

  “Shit! Cops!”

  Anna turns and grabs Stelson’s hand to lead him away. He stays put and she lets go and moves quickly out of the hall to the rear of the house.

  “Run, Stelson.”

  This time he follows. They exit via the French doors, Stelson a few meters behind Anna, and bolt across the garden toward the pool. One of the men is already in the garden and giving chase. Anna is picking up speed, bounding around the pool, and flies full bore at the rear fence, vaulting it with relative ease, her sweat pants catching the top and tearing a shred, but she’s in the next garden. Stelson emulates her and vaults the fence too. He uses more strength compared to Anna’s agility, and he too is over.

  The man chasing is losing ground, struggling but managing to bowl himself over the top and into this neighboring garden which is as equally well manicured as the Fayne mansion, but populated by well-heeled folks engaged in a convivial garden party. Anna is heading straight for the gaggle of chattering Hollywood types and white-coated catering staff teetering canapés and Bellini’s on silver trays. The look in her eyes suggesting every intention to disrupt and create mayhem and she does so in a flash as she enters the throng, causing shouts and screams of confusion as she pushes anyone who crosses her path, knocking them off balance, food and drink scattershot, dappling pale suits and sports jackets.

  Stelson reaches the aftermath, pulls his hood up over his head, and jogs lightly between folks, glaring up at them with pale green eyes that send a chill or two down weak and out-of-shape spines. Someone lashes out to grab Stelson’s arm but he turns and glares and sort of snarls at the assailant–some fat dude in aviators, too chickenshit to say a word to him.

  “Hey, shithead,” the man, giving chase, calls after Stelson. He has his badge out, showing it to the throng as though he had the head of Medusa to brag about.

  Stelson runs off, Anna long gone.

  Stelson exits via a side-alley to the house that has been opened up to let party-goers onto the property. On the street now and he can see Anna up ahead and looking out for him. She turns and keeps running, crossing the next street at an unrelenting pace. Stelson goes after her, soon breathing heavy with the occasional gasp for more air and he hits the corner of Rossmore Avenue and Fourth Street–but this is also the path of the other cop, who tackles Stelson, bringing him down to the ground in an awkward graceless fashion that twists Stelson’s left wrist and right ankle.

  He’s on the sidewalk grimacing, the plainclothed cop roughing him up a little to make sure his intent is cut off. The other pursuing cop arrives and helps his buddy out. Stelson is locked down with his arm behind his back, looking down the street at the girl that got away.

  Up ahead, Anna slows to a halt on seeing Stelson held by the two cops. She’s over a three hundred feet down the street, impossible to make out her exact facial expressions but they are probably mixed, fuelled by this irritating dilemma.

  “Man, she must really like you,” says the cop who first tethered Stelson. Like his buddy, he’s a jaded pro in a leather bomber jacket and a holstered standard issue piece attached to his belt.

  “I’m Detective Kenny Hackett and this is my partner, Detective Tilman Greenburg. Who the hell are you?”

  Stelson just looks at them. He fumbles for his shades but it’s too late. He leaves them in his pocket. Kenny and Tilman consider him and nod at each other. They don’t say anything, for now. They remain calm and cool as though they were approaching wild game, not wanting to scare the animal away–instill that false sense of security.

  Glances are exchanged. Somebody has to say something. “We work for Anna’s pop. Guess you’d like to know that you’re mixing with a cop’s daughter.”

  “So? I’m down with that. I’ve got nothing to hide.”

  Kenny and Tilman grab him. A couple of shallow kidney punches follow, and Stelson falls to the ground in pain. They the start to kick him while he’s bent double on the ground.

  A crowd from the party spill onto the street behind them, uttering disgruntled moans of distaste.

  Anna can’t leave him. Her face shows sadness and concern and the knowledge of what these men are capable of. She runs back to him so that she can nullify the violence.

  Stelson and Anna are seated in the back of Kenny and Tilman’s brown sedan, driving east. Stelson is cuffed. Anna’s antique luggage trunk is propped up between them. Kenny Hackett eyes them both via the rearview mirror.

  “You’re in a whole heap of trouble, Anna,” says Kenny.

  “Is Victor okay?”

  “Physically, yeah.”

  “Does he want to see me?”

  “Where is the item?”

  “It’s safe.”

  “So why didn’t you make the drop?”

  Anna looks across at Stelson, accusingly.

  “Where are you taking us?” Stelson asks.

  “There’s this sweet motel to hole up in until our associates can be reasoned with. If Anna could retrieve the item that would help matters.”

  Stelson glares back at Anna. He would love to know what the hell they are talking about, but he wants to hear it from her.

  “That and my mother’s things are all I have. I need some collateral too. I ain’t stupid.” Anna hugs the big old trunk next to her.

  “What shall we do with this son-of-a-bitch?” asks Tilman.

  “He stays with me,” demands Anna.

  Kenny seems frustrated and he directs this at Stelson. “If it was any other time and place you would be hunted, my freaky friend. There is a market for your kind, but not necessarily in a fully intact state, if you get my drift?”

  Tilman shakes his head. Kenny acknowledges that he’s said too much and shrugs, anxiously.

  “I feel sick.” Anna looks green around the gills.

  Stelson just stares at Kenny via the rearview mirror, predatory and menacing, wanting to attack, but he stays still and says nothing. He’s not scared of them, his survival instincts on high alert.

  They pull into a motel lot and a parking bay outside Room 109 and Kenny and Tilman jump out and hold the door for Anna as if she’s their royal subject. Stelson raises his arms together to remind them about the cuffs and his general discomfort.

  Stelson sits on a chair facing the bed in a cheap but reasonably spacious motel room. Anna steps out of the bathroom, her hair wet from a quick wash and rinse, and kneels on top of her trunk at the foot of the bed. They both stare at the sickly-patterned comforter. Anna’s pained look and the dourness of the room makes things worse.

  “You still don
’t remember what you’ve done,” says Anna.

  “Tell me.”

  “I want you to say it. So that I know that you know and it hurts you to say it to me. I think that’s fair?”

  Stelson shrugs. “Clearly you have me mixed up with someone else.”

  “Let me show you something.” Anna gets off the trunk, opens it up, and removes the contents, neatly piling the keepsakes up on the desk stool. Once empty, she tinkers with a catch on the bottom of the trunk and then removes the entire panel–a false bottom. Inside the cavity is the red shoulder bag. She pulls it out, unzips the bag, and draws out the pearl necklace that was taken from the downtown jewelry emporium. The oversized orbs look ridiculous and obscene.

  Stelson squints. “So this is ‘the item’?”

  “If I could, I’d give them to Mom.”

  Stelson looks at her blankly.

  “I stole them. That’s what I do. I steal. I’m a thief.”

  He studies Anna’s sad, beautiful face for a moment, and then looks at the bed.

  “Tell me about Victor, your father?”

  “Now you’re trying to make small talk?”

  “Just trying to know you better. Find some common ground.”

  Anna tuts. “Our common ground? Does your back hurt from where I scarred you ‘cause I still got your blood under my fingernails. That’s some common ground.” She shows him. They look dirty from where Stelson sits. “Did you enjoy the pain?”

  “I didn’t notice,” Stelson says with bravado.

  “Bullshit.”

  “You are crazy.”

  She grins in her best mockingly insane way. “You know we can never really be together, don’t you? For a billion reasons.”

  Stelson turns away, somewhat saddened that Anna has every intention of inflicting pain. He’s taken her words to heart, his tough exterior pierced.

  Anna is curled up asleep on the bed, laying on her side, the pearls entwined in her arms. It’s dark outside and Stelson’s eyes seem to glow as he watches her from the chair by the bed. He’s looking at the pearls that also seem to glow, or maybe it’s just the fact that their potential value is calling out to him. There is a turmoil going on inside Stelson–he seems fidgety and frustrated here in the darkness. Something inside is winning out and he gets up and climbs onto the bed. He gets close, hovering panther-like over her in the way that maimed prey gets considered before the final death lunge. He sniffs her, breathing in her scent, and then he fiddles with the pearls, testing their slackness around her forearms, and he unwraps and draws them away as she stirs and mumbles. And he is gone.