The Oculus Heist

by Alex Moss

  “Not so full of yourself now, huh?”

  “I’m tired, Ma. I need to sit down.”

  “You got cheek.”

  “Just let me sit down and rest.”

  “Are you not a little worried about Bobby and what he’ll do to your sorry skin and bones?”

  “Bobby ain’t here.”

  “So sure of yourself, boy.”

  “He never stays for too long. You always forget that about him.”

  Mimi stops smiling and swallows the hard truth in a gulp that makes her eyes water. She’s embarrassed and uses it as an excuse to step aside and let Stelson cross the threshold. He edges inside the house and heads straight for the comfort of the lounge and the muted TV flickering away in the dark.

  Stelson falls into the couch like a zombie with paralysis. He takes a moment to absorb the uneven softness of the padding and then looks at the man in the armchair nearby–his father, Ellis, who has a bandage taped to his right ear and stares at a flickering, hypnotic effect on the TV.

  “Are you okay, son?” Ellis asks.

  Stelson turns to stare at the screen–this is their campfire and it brings them together. “I’m just really tired, Dad. I need to rest for a while.”

  “Okay, son.”

  Mimi peeks in the door to the lounge and watches them for a moment. Her arms are crossed and she shows little sign of emotion. She moves away and retreats to her brightly lit, spotless kitchen. Days seem to pass as the light changes from night to day and different hues of white, yellow, orange, pink, and back to black. Mimi is either there or she isn’t in body and spirit apart from a couple of phone calls which always conclude with her leaving a garbled message on an answer phone for Bobby.

  But in the middle of the day on a Wednesday, Mimi is alerted in a way that suggests she has been pricked in the ass by a hypodermic needle of great length and velocity. There is loud music coming from the lounge and the TV set.

  The lyrics are a bastardization of a popular hip-hop track, and both Ellis and Stelson are watching the accompanying music video produced by Bobby Floyd.

  Bobby is walking through a tropically planted garden surrounded by forty-something big-chested housewives who all seem to admire the inherent rottenness of this freak and his warped face and piercing hateful gaze. The punch-line, or rather, call to action for this twisted promotion of sorts is, “Call Bobby Floyd’s Better Zen-Grown Garden Landscaping & Design ### 1-800-555-3737 ###”

  Ellis points the remote at the screen and pauses it and then looks at Stelson. He waits for Mimi to say something first but all she does is suck up the unflattering frozen image of Bobby and move away, despairingly. Ellis whispers, “He’s out of control.”

  “What’s new?”

  “It’s worse than it looks.”

  “How could it be worse than that?”

  “He’s using my old landscaping business as a front.”

  Stelson looks at Ellis and frowns.

  “He’s up to no good.”

  “A front?”

  “He’s a goddamn terrorist.”

  “A terrorist who makes shitty TV ads?”

  “Yeah. That’s legit cover for him.”

  “I wasn’t kiddin’ when I asked him about the bombs he was building with the chemicals out back.”

  Ellis nods. “He’s working with someone. To finance all of this he must be working with someone. He ain’t no fancy landscape gardener that’s for sure. You need to do something.”

  “I ain’t doing anything for a while. I’m so tired.”

  Ellis looks disappointed with him.

  “Look at me, Dad. I nearly died.”

  Ellis presses stop on the remote to get rid of the frozen picture. He switches over to the Weather Channel. “You’re my favorite little monster, son. You ain’t going to die.”

  TEN

  Xander Grant passes through the hectic hospital admissions area of Mount Sinai, his pager still bleeping. He’s shielding the cigarettes with his palm, conscious that he’ll be frowned upon, with a lowered gaze that suggests a desire to blend in and not be noticed. He steps through the maelstrom of activity and the usual kind of scenes typical of a busy hospital, waiting patients looking at him searchingly, as though he was passing through to hand out magical healing powers to the neediest among them. He aims for an exit that seems littered with obstacles, both living, dead, and somewhere in between.

  Someone comes up from behind and tugs his right elbow. He turns. A nurse, petite, Latino, not too shy to say what she thinks. “You shouldn’t ignore your pager for any reason, Doctor.” But she does look concerned, aware of his circumstance.

  “What? I was just about to take a break,” he says in a way that doesn’t feel comfortable to him. He’s never really ever taken a break. There’s always something else to move onto, another patient, mentorly support, an opinion on a procedure, diagnosis, or theory. Damn, he feels foolish. “Okay, so?” He focuses on the nurse.

  “So, there is a blind guy, over there, he asked specifically for you, Doctor Grant. He must’ve been blinded recently because he’s all bandaged up and what-not.”

  “Over where? I can’t see him.” Xander is scanning the room, corridors, in an almost frantic way. The nurse looks toward an area of seating. “That’s loco. He was sitting right here. He got wheeled in by Christopher.” She looks around. Xander mouthing, “Christopher?”

  “I dunno, maybe he went outside for a cigarette, lemme take a look.”

  Xander lightly grips her arm. “I’ll go.” He shifts away from her and nods appreciatively. She backs away to help an elderly patient toward the reception desk.

  Xander passes through sliding doors, exiting the south tower into the valet area besides Gracie Allen Drive, the North Tower of Cedars just opposite. He shoots a glance left and there, leaning up against the wall, is a man smoking a cigarette next to an empty wheelchair. He has bandages covering his eyes and wrapped around the back of his head. Xander pulls out a stick from his cigarette pack and steps toward the man who is recognizable now.

  Kenneth Molloy.

  The bloody cross has been cleaned from his face, but the bandages are speckled with dried blood. Kenneth senses the presence of someone nearby. “Need a light?” he asks, lifting an electronic cigarette to his mouth.

  “Why do you people keep coming to me?” asks Xander. He shifts his eyes left and right, but it’s too chaotic around here to notice whether he is being watched.

  “Hope, I guess.”

  “I keep telling you, there is no hope. It’s too late. You’ve been conned. Somebody has exploited you for whatever reason. The procedure you signed up for. Only specialists such as myself are able, and even then, subjects go through a selection process to get on my table. Besides, it’s not public knowledge, so I don’t quite understand how you know anything about me. All of this, everything you think you know, you need to forget about it and move on.”

  “Can’t you make it right, or just get me my eyes back?”

  “Who is paying you?” Xander asks. He knows he’s foolish to pry and immediately regrets his line of questioning.

  Molloy just looks at him, a blank look on his face.

  “Somebody paid you something for your eyes and I bet they paid you to come and see me. Are you wearing a wire?”

  “No, sir.” His reponse is too flat and monotoned to sound convincing.

  “Fuck.” Xander grits his teeth and pauses for a moment. He doesn’t want to make a big deal of the situation. “All we can do here is give you something temporary. Like we’ve done with all the others that have come before you. Fill the voids.” He sounds exasperated.

  “What if I got my eyes back, could you help me?”

  “You know the score, my friend, if you’ve got the money, we can do pretty much anything. Now go back inside, wait your turn, and the paperwork
will be handled so that you get seen to. Afterwards, you will return to your other Saints and survive the best you can, because I’m telling you, my friend, you are owed nothing. You made the choice to go through with the backstreet therapy and now you have to deal with the consequences.”

  Kenneth gulps and fumbles his way into the seat of the wheelchair and sits there, pondering. He looks sad and sorry for himself, like some old war veteran who just pissed himself.

  “Need a push?”

  Kenneth shrugs.

  Xander pockets the pack of cigarettes that he never got the chance to smoke, and wheels Kenneth Molloy toward hospital admissions.

  ELEVEN

  Stelson wears new threads for manual graft, aviator sunglasses, and a backpack over his shoulder. He’s been working a new job for a few days now–the boredom and routine of it all is already ingrained into his manner and demeanor.

  He follows the dark flowing hair of a girl along a spotless commuter train platform at Chinatown on the Metro Gold Line. There’s a sense he might recognize her if she turned around to look at him, but she continues the stroll to kill time.

  A Siemens P2000 passenger train pulls up beside and they both continue walking until they align their bodies with an open set of doors and slide into the fluorescent warmth. Stelson, a few steps back, takes a breath to catch the lingering scent of her perfume and finds a seat near a window behind an open LA Times. He can eye her slender legs. She’s seated diagonally across from him. He starts to peer around the newspaper but it drops in a lap and so does Stelson’s face by a barely noticeable fraction. It’s a beautiful girl but it’s not Anna–who he thought it was, but she’s looking in his direction, her black sunglasses hiding her gaze. She half-smiles and then looks down into her lap as the train picks up speed.

  By the time the trains ushers itself quietly into Memorial Park station in Pasadena, Stelson has forgotten all about the girl on the train. His mind is elsewhere, but he’s been doing this trip long enough to program himself to alight here. He seems to follow the girl. He looks intense. The girl senses the intensity and is clearly fazed by it. Onto the platform and through the ticket barrier and up the stairs to street level and the girl is now panicked. Stelson just catches up with himself and notices the girl ahead of him and for one moment he thinks it’s Anna and then realizes that he’s made the same mistake. He shakes his head, troubled by his lack of focus and dulled senses. Onto East Holly Street, which is light on pedestrians and traffic at this early hour.

  Stelson glances at his watch: 8:05 a.m. He’s late so he strides faster. The girl heads for a beat up 1996 Honda Accord that’s parked up ahead with its tail lights on and engine turning over in neutral, the front right wheel up on the curb, suggesting a don’t-give-a-shit attitude from the five occupants who are sat deathly still inside.

  She rat-a-tat-tats on the rear passenger window that winds downs a second later, crack-pipe smoke bellowing out in polite wafts. Stelson stops to watch, unclear on her motive and potential predicament. It’s soon apparent.

  “Help me out, this pathetic fuckin’ creep is stalkin’ me,” the girl shouts to the car’s occupants, but the intonation of her request flattens as she realizes that the bigger creeps are inside. She backs away. Too late. They pile out of the shit heap. They’re a bunch a white trash tweakers, skipping, twitching, sniffing, and snorting phlegmatically–one grabbing the girl, detaining her against the car while the others take an aggressively mannered beeline toward Stelson. Initially, Stelson goes with what they have to give in terms of their version of an assault. One of them kicks the back of his left calf to destabilize and force him to collapse and then all three grab him around the shoulders and arm pits and drag him over to a gateway into Memorial Park.

  Once inside the park, they start with the body blows. Stelson has lost sight of the girl. He is deeply concerned but remains apathetic–for now. Their aggression toward him is drug-fueled. They’re lost in a haze of euphoric violence that draws upon catabolic reserves of energy. Whooping, hollering, cat calls–the cries of a wolf pack. Strangers stride past the park but do nothing.

  The other two tweakers must have the girl.

  Stelson fights back. He has to dig deep to find an opposing force of energy that counter-balances them and knocks the odds back in his favor, and for a moment his kicks have some effect as a couple of them are knocked back into the dirt–but they don’t stay down for long enough for Stelson to get the better of the other whacked out zombie who is grappling his head, tearing off his aviators, and poking thumbs into his eye sockets.

  A brief respite and regroup and Stelson climbs onto his knees and then he sees her–caught, on her back, behind some park shrubs in a space littered with rubbish–with the other two, one on top of her. The unthinkable is happening and there is nothing he can do.

  The moment of horror ends with the impact of a blunt object above the left eye and the world goes dark once again.

  Stelson’s eyes flicker open, the bright sun showing off the green disconcerting wells of his being. He’s laid out on a bench, a bloody cut above his left eye that is as fresh as steak tartar. The girl is sitting on the bench next to him. She is dirty and disheveled but Stelson doesn’t register this. All he sees is that black hair again and his mind is only operating with vague lucidity.

  “Anna?”

  The girl coughs.

  Stelson comes around a little more and props himself up enough to get a better look at her. “Shit.”

  She has eyes like his, green and molten, but more subtle and soft. Not so intense. And they’re still intact. The tweakers obviously didn’t care, or notice, or know the value, thank God.

  “What happened?” she says. “What happened to me?” She has dirty human paw prints all over her. She knows.

  Stelson can’t say a word.

  The girl slopes off. She hobbles ever so slightly.

  He lets her go until she’s out of sight and around the corner and then he gets up off the bench, stiff from the beating he took.

  He catches up with her heading north toward the Ventura Freeway. She even smiles at him.

  “Hey,” he says.

  “Hey.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Just walking.”

  “Do you mind if come with?”

  “Why would I mind?”

  Stelson knows there is something not right about her–something out of character for their kind. She’s behaving irrationally. This is a good girl who’s been trampled, ruined, and spat out.

  “Do you like to take chances?” she asks him.

  “Yes. All the time.”

  She bolts. “Catch me if you can!”

  Again, he stays calm and lets her go until she’s fifty meters ahead and then she turns in the same way Anna did once, to goad him, and now he goes after her. But it’s too little, too late. The Avenue bridges the Ventura Freeway and the girl knew this all along. She climbs the fence overhanging the inside lane heading East and she hurls herself over the top without hesitation–as though he was meant follow her.

  This could all be in his head because it’s an expected consequence, but the friction of metal, human tissue, and rubber follows immediately and Stelson feels every bit of it down the length of his spine. He is stunned, unsure how to feel, so he decides not to carry the burden of guilt or blame or anything that will hold him back. It was her choice to jump off the bridge and she had so many other survivalist options.

  Stelson looks down at the freeway below out of dark curiosity, and for some reason, there is nobody to be seen. There is a pile-up of cars, a blocked freeway, but also some head scratching. People claiming they saw a jumper hit the deck, their car.

  The girl has simply vanished.

  There is silence from where Stelson waits below the crest of the bridge, a soccer ball in the gutter across the street–just like the old one he used to ow
n.

  He waits until the street is clear from traffic and crosses over to fetch it. He is hesitant about picking it up and what it will lead to. Could it be a turning point or a continuation of a tumultuous path? He sits on the curb next to the ball.

  The sound of police sirens converging on a single point.

  He looks at the ball again. Traffic backs up around him as the voyeurs make a slow crossing of the bridge over the Ventura Freeway. A Metro bus crawls past Stelson part-way and then screeches to an abrupt halt, jolting the passengers from their seats. Stelson looks up and the face of Anna is staring right at him. She’s the face of the advertisement on the bus’s side paneling. Her expression is purposeful and she’s wearing sleek athletic wear. The line of copy reads:

  The FAST in her BreakFAST is Milk. Get some.

  In much smaller copy is the line:

  Anna Fayne—Track Star // Model

  Stelson seems impressed and a little proud that he knows the beautiful girl in the ad. The bus pulls away with Anna to accompany it over the bridge.

  He watches it go, seemingly enlightened by the sign, and steps away from the forgotten soccer ball and heads south, back toward the Metro Gold Line station at the now more aptly named Memorial Park.

  TWELVE

  Later that evening, Xander Grant drives his wife south down Western Avenue in a BMW X6. They’re both dressed for dinner, he’s in a white Dior shirt and suit trousers, and her, a mix of Lacroix and Gucci. He has an air of stressful concern etched all over his mildly tanned face, while she is positively radiant and gorgeous, perhaps a few years younger than him, silky black hair, pearlescent white skin, classy, thin, ageing gracefully. The clear beneficiary of a lush life.

  They hit Koreatown.

  “Where in God’s name are you taking me?” she says.

  “To dinner, like we agreed.”

  “I thought we were heading west. Felt it in my bones you were taking me to Nobu Malibu.”