by Alex Moss
“Go back to bed,” she says to belittle him and drifts away without a glance.
“What’s your problem?” he asks.
“Do I need to spell it out?”
“It would help.”
“You murdered my mother. You are a monster, Stelson. You get that, don’t you? I know you do. You need to hide it all the time, and that birthmark your mother jokes about—”
Stelson takes his place at the edge of the pool. He feels like sticking his head under the surface.
“Anyhow, I’ve already seen blood on your hands. That night at the motel. What did you do, Stelson? Did you kill someone that night? I mean, what exactly are you capable of?”
Stelson clenches his fists. He’s bottling it all up and has no intention of analyzing himself at this point in time.
“You have some big obligations to fulfill, Stelson. Stay with us and you are protected. If you leave, you are more vulnerable than ever, and we will come after you, just so you know.” She heads back to the house.
He stares at the pool water, then kneels and leans forward and sticks his head under. He opens his eyes and looks, blurry eyed. A brownish effluence seems to cloud the water around him, the water slick with oil.
He’s held his breath for long enough and lifts his head out of the water. He gasps. The effluence is no longer there.
“Little clown-face.”
This is a whisper in the rain–a female voice.
He looks over his shoulder but there is no one there. Anna has gone.
He looks back at the surface of the pool, and amongst the rain dots and ripples he sees the segments of a warped and troubled face reflecting back at him–a face like his brother’s. He jolts back and staggers away from the pool, rising gradually to his feet, mimicking an evolving homo sapien.
SEVENTEEN
The rain has stopped by the morning, but Stelson’s clothes are still soaked. They’re piled up on the floor beside the bed and he’s nudging them with his toe. He kicks them away to reveal a damp patch on the rug. He grabs the red bag at the foot of the bed and rummages through it.
All the clothes are a shade of midnight blue. Two stay-pressed shirts and a tie, trousers, two hoodies, sweat pants, socks, tees. Two of everything weaved from the same synthetic fiber, giving off a crisp yet comfortable sheen.
Stelson studies Anna from the entrance to the kitchen. She’s watching TV and eating breakfast and dressed, like him, in midnight blue sweat clothes.
“Come and eat.” It’s a command. Her eyes stay fixed on the TV. Some early news plays out. Something light and inoffensive to ease people into the day.
Stelson heads straight for the small dining table where she is seated. The kitchen is too compact for this mansion. The high ceilings make it seem taller than its breadth. A dated feature of a home where this room was just a place to cook and the soul of the place had to reside somewhere else. Only the appliances look up to date, while the fittings are plain and worn.
He sits opposite her, keen on distracting her attention away from the TV set perched on the counter top. He has something serious that he wants to say.
“I’m a good person.”
She pauses for thought and looks sideways, but not at him. “Truth is, Stelson, there’s a part of you I can’t resist, even if you are a murdering son of a bitch. Weird, huh?”
“You got me mixed up with somebody else, Anna.”
“We’ll see.”
Stelson scavenges for breakfast and settles for what she’s having. The healthiness seems alien and he makes an odd face as he shovels it onto his tongue.
Neither of them look at each other until Kenny and Tilman enter the kitchen, both perspiring and out of breath in Adidas athletic wear. They both sense the conversational cold war, but don’t have time to jest or make small talk.
“The house is being scoped. Fifty meters south on the same side of the street,” Kenny exclaims.
“Are you positive?” asks Anna.
“We did three laps of the block, and by the third, the driver had moved the car ten meters and flipped it to face north. A modified grey Ford Taurus with privacy glass.”
“So what do we do?”
Kenny sits down at the table. “First we need to work out who it is.” He pauses. “Anna?”
“Why are you asking me?”
“Because you should know the consequences of your actions. We are selling to the same assholes whose time we wasted last go-round. We still got ahold of their dollar deposit for christsake.”
“The money got passed to the vendor.”
“So you still have the item?”
“Yes. I needed to keep it. It’s our insurance and I needed to use it as collateral to set things up.”
“Past tense–you set it up already. What and how did you set it up?”
“I’m not sharing that with you. I need to talk to Victor about it.”
“So the score is marked whether we like it or not?”
Anna nods.
“Shit. This could end badly, and when Victor finds out that you went ahead on your own he’s going to freak out.”
“I don’t give a shit.”
“Great, that’s great, you don’t give a shit. Must be great to be young and beautiful with a goddamned death wish and no responsibilities. We’re hooking up with Victor today and you can tell him all about it.” Kenny gets up and paces around the kitchen.
Tilman eats something that he just found at the back of the refrigerator.
Stelson interrupts. “So when push comes to shove, the car down the street could be either one or the other. You got the valuable shit and the vendor and buyer ain’t got a thing except a broken supply chain.”
They all just look at him.
“There’s got to be some mad-as-hell people out there.” Stelson is throwing himself into this now. It’s a far cry from his day-to-day life. He looks at Anna, concerned.
Anna tries to be reassuring. “It’s Victor they’re looking for. Nobody knows about my involvement.”
“But you said as much, you’ve been doing the legwork to set things up,” Tilman points out.
“I made out to be Victor.” She glances at Stelson. “Don’t worry about me. I’ve been smart.”
“So who is scoping out the house?” asks Kenny.
“It’s probably the vendor,” Anna responds.
“Is probably going to be okay for everyone?”
“It has to be the vendor. We have the item and given no assurances.”
Kenny corrects her, “You have the item.”
“But why now? After a whole year these assholes are onto you?” Kenny asks. He continues to pace around the kitchen. “I guess we’ve been kinda sloppy.” He looks at Tilman and they nod at each other. “There is also that.”
“What?” asks Anna.
“The two-fifty grand we took from the poker game at Live Girls.”
Stelson looks at Anna. In fact, they all look at her, apprehensively knowing that she’s going to bite their head off. Anna doesn’t react immediately. She thinks and ponders this bombshell and she’s calm with her response.
“Who told you to do that?”
“Victor asked us to raise some investment collateral. He knows we have marks to collect from, but we don’t talk too much about the how’s and when’s.”
Anna smiles. “Perfect.”
Kenny and Tilman raise their eyebrows.
Anna seems smug. “I’m going to need that two-fifty.”
Kenny rolls his eyes, while Tilman looks at his watch. “We need to go.”
“What about the car down the street? They’ll just follow us, right?” Stelson asks.
“Don’t you worry about that. Tilman will drive like a son of a bitch.”
Tilman pulls on a pair of leather driving gloves while standing on the sidew
alk outside the Fayne mansion and staring down the street at the grey Ford Taurus. Kenny sidles up next to him.
“Why doesn’t he just come after us?” Kenny rubs his chin, a worried look on his face.
“Maybe they got something else planned,” suggests Tilman.
“Well, we’re about to find out.” Kenny signals to Anna and Stelson with a tip of his imaginary hat. They stride out to the Dodge Charger from the house.
Stelson carries a red shoulder bag by his side that’s been made to look weighty and full. This is the bait. His shades are on and his sweat top collar is up, sleeves rolled up to his elbows.
Anna looks more demure. They both get in the back of the car, buckle up, and wait for Kenny and Tilman, who are still both eyeing the Ford Taurus.
Anna applies some make-up. She stays quiet. Stelson watches her. Once she’s done, she purses her lips and looks at her watch.
“Okay, here we go,” she says, as the digital display on her watch hits 10:25 and Tilman and Kenny jump in and the V8 starts up with mechanically butterflied reverberations.
They pull away from the curb and roll down South Muirfield Drive. Tilman is checking his rearview.
“He’s not moving. He’s letting us go.”
Tilman takes a left onto Sixth. There’s no sign of the Ford Taurus.
“I don’t get it. I thought we had him made.”
“Is there anything in the house he might want?” Kenny asks, directing that toward Anna.
Anna shakes her head. “Whatever he’s after, he won’t find.”
“Fuck, Anna. You damn sure about that?”
Anna looks at her watch. Tilman glances at his. “If we don’t carry on, we’ll miss Victor and he’ll be gone for good.”
Tilman turns left and accelerates. The engine growls. He checks the rearview again and he sees it. A Grey Ford Taurus closing in like a missile, only ten or so meters–BANG! They all jolt forward, whiplashed back into their seats.
“How the hell did he pull that on us?” Tilman seems stunned as the Ford backs off for a moment. That was just a warning. It closes in again as Tilman floors it. Their heads roll back as the Charger’s needle jumps and they’re weaving between cars, buses, and trucks heading north.
“There are two identical cars.” Stelson seems to have figured it out and he looks so cock-sure of himself. “You can always see one but not the other. It’s a clever way of fooling people into thinking you got limited resources and that you’re just some dumbass, lone con with a grudge. They probably put a tracking device on this car too.”
Anna seems impressed. “Not bad, Stelson. Not bad at all,” she says, getting tossed around by Tilman’s mad-capped maneuvers.
They try and lose the Taurus under the 101 by feigning a turn and ducking between oncoming traffic to confuse the hell out of them, but the skills of the Taurus driver are too sharply honed and the car has been modified to stay on rails under pressure. They push on.
“If there’s another car, wouldn’t we have seen it by now?” suggests Kenny.
“I bet he’s on Hollywood. Look hard enough down the cross streets and we might catch a glimpse.” Stelson is looking hard to confirm his theory. They cross Van Ness Avenue. The Hills loom above them, a light heat haze softening the edges of the high up homes with their glorious vantage points and guarded lives. Their drive only adds to this layer, the V8 spewing out dirty vapors every time Tilman ups the ante in line with their schedule.
They take a left that turns into Los Feliz Boulevard and then swing across four lanes of traffic for a leftward sliding drift into Griffith Park.
“This could be testy for him.” Tilman relishes the road as it starts to snake upwards and back on itself a few times before entering a tunnel that takes them toward the other side of the park and down. The Taurus is still on them.
“Can you see the other tail back there?” Kenny asks.
“Hard to say. If the boy is right, all they need is a sat nav and a tracker and they can stay permanently out of sight. Only hope is they get collared.”
“Can we call in a favor?” Anna asks.
Kenny looks at his watch. “We’re all out of those.”
They’re doing about one thirty down a sleepy residential street in Los Feliz. Stelson knows the area well–it’s right on his doorstep and he seems uncomfortable, but more likely car sick.
They follow West Sunset Boulevard into a sweeping bend that’s reasonably free flowing, the Taurus still tracking them. This part of town is colorful in many ways. The stores are bohemian or ethnic and there’s artistic graffiti and gangland tags marking up walls and buildings. It’s as though these streets were designed for car chases. Slower movers seem to make way for the rush and then carry on. Checking rearviews is a local habit.
They take a right onto a road that undulates, but on average, falls down toward the edge of the 101 freeway to an avenue named Bellevue. Stelson recognizes the aspect of the street, perhaps some of the houses. He was drifting down it with his soccer ball that day. Playing that game of chance leading to Anna. It’s odd that he’s back here. Kenny turns and looks at Stelson and grins.
“There will be a car waiting on the other side of the 101. The rear passenger door will be open. Pretend like you jumped in but don’t. Drop down the other side where Douglas Street starts again. You got it?”
Stelson is speechless. Trying to take it all in. He has to do this over again. “Shit.”
“You got the bag?”
Stelson nods and grips it tight. He looks at Anna but she’s too busy thinking about what she has to do next, whatever the hell that is. Stelson has no time to inquire.
“The bag stays with you. Run with it, soldier.”
The car screeches to a halt on Bellevue, tucked up against the curb that borders the escarpment down to the 101. The downtown skyline seems beautifully iconic but distant–Stelson has an ocean of moving metal to cross.
“Go go go.” Kenny is looking at the seconds on his watch.
Stelson jumps out as the Taurus pulls up. He mad dashes through the bushes and trees, the red bag dangling from his left arm like a ball and chain.
Someone from the Taurus is chasing him down.
He catches a glimpse over his shoulder. The person seems dark like a shadow, the sun behind him. Stelson hesitates at the edge of the freeway but not for too long. The shadow is nearly upon him.
He runs across the first three lanes to the central reservation. Colored metal blurs past, horns fading in and out, far too close, his body tissue close to being ripped and crushed. Stelson hangs there for a moment. He doesn’t want to look back.
The stream of vehicles going east is a constant flow without any lulls. A black Chrysler 200 pulls into the hard shoulder on the far side. He leapfrogs the reservation and bolts across the eastbound lanes one at a time, sucking in his breath while teetering on the lane markers.
A car swerves and hits another while changing lanes. Stelson watches the ricochets from vehicle to vehicle; the random luck and skill of each driver preventing a freeway pile up of gross magnitude.
Relieved, he dashes around the Chrysler to find an open passenger door. He climbs in. The driver doesn’t look at him. He just stares straight ahead. This is the fellow cop’s favor, no more, no less–to fake a getaway and be the red herring in the game.
Through tinted glass, Stelson watches the shadowy figure seriously consider a crossing of the freeway, pacing back and forth at its edge like a panther on the bank. Stelson doesn’t spend any time looking at the man’s face. Something is preventing him from wanting to know who this aggressor is. Perhaps it’s a fear that yesterday’s confrontation with Benjamin Koit was just the start and maybe he is the decoy, not the red bag he grips so tightly.
He shuts his eyes in hope that the nightmare will go away. The moment is quickly interrupted by the horrendous cacophony of
warping metal and glass. He opens his eyes to chaos on the westbound side of the freeway. He can’t see the shadowy figure, his hope maintained for now.
Stelson crawls out of the car with the bag and closes the passenger door, scurries through shrubbery, hurling the red bag over the wall and flipping his own body over the edge of the freeway overpass and dropping the thirty feet or so to the continuation of Douglas Street. He lands more comfortably this time, but the height can’t prevent the impact from folding his body into a hunched up mess on the dirty dead-end street below. He keels over and lays on his side.
He’s not in pain, but nevertheless breathless. He looks at the bugs and ants in the dirt, the small scrubby patches of dried up grass. The ants seem to be drawn to him with offerings of green leaf clippings and broken thorns.
A blurred round object rolls into his line of sight at a distance. He focuses his pale molten green eyes and then sits up. It’s his soccer ball–the one that he abandoned in favor of helping Anna. There is no mistaking it. It has all the marks and shoe rubber bruises.
He looks around and Victor is standing in the shadows of a palm tree. The sound of sirens from emergency vehicles on the freeway above gets louder and more intrusive.
“I heard the crash and hoped it wasn’t you. Well played for getting this far,” Victor shouts.
Stelson gets on his feet, grabs the red bag, and brings it to Victor. “I guess you’ll be wanting this?”
“Thanks, but you can keep it.”
“No, take it. I just risked my life to get it here.”
“Aren’t you going to get your ball?”
Stelson shakes his head. “It’s not mine.”
“Whatever you say.”
“You think you’re smart, having me followed without me knowing. How long’s it been going on?” Stelson asks.
“Years, months; you figure it out, smart ass. Does it really matter?”
“Yeah, it matters. But why?”
“You are a person of interest, like your brother.”
Stelson drops the bag and shoves Victor against the wall. He stands prone, ready to fight hand to hand.
A screech of tires and a throaty V8 engine roar.
