by Alex Moss
“You’re taking a big risk, eyes on the road and on me. Sooner or later, somethin’ will bite back at you,” Stelson says with a cool confidence. “Don’t you want to know what’s in the bag? Whether it’s really worth the bother?”
The cop is accelerating in line with the power-ups of adrenaline in his system. His left hand releases the wheel and his knees keep the car on track. He teases the zipper on the bag and draws it back enough to plunge a hand inside. He immediately withdraws and the car swerves. The gun in his right hand wobbles. Stelson studies it with concern. Repulsed, the cop grips the wheel again with his left hand and smears it with the gunk and blood from the inside of the bag, keeping one eye on Stelson.
“Not what you were expecting?”
The cop takes his foot off the throttle and slows the vehicle into a cruise and returns his left hand to the bag and pulls out one of the items. He holds it up so that he can get a good look at it alongside the road ahead and Stelson’s deep pale green eyes in the rearview mirror. “What in god’s name is this?”
The oversized pearl-like orb is smeared with a bloody residue and the cops hands are shaking with nerves. His eyes are off the road for a moment too long. He runs a red crossing on Larchmont Boulevard.
Stelson sees expanding silver chrome out of leftf--
BOOM!
The cop’s gun and the item are jettisoned from his hands and everything inside the vehicles is flung sideways. Stelson and Anna are crumpled together against the caved in passenger door and the cop is whiplashed against the glass roll-down window.
The black and white police car has been T-boned by a silver SUV. Both cars spun out in pieces across lanes. Debris all around–mostly headlamp glass and external trim.
The mild traffic comes to a halt on Beverly and Larchmont. Some drivers get out of their cars and approach both vehicles. The driver of the SUV is stunned but okay. He stays seated, his hands firmly gripping the wheel.
Stelson is rubbing and rolling his head, trying to smooth out the throbbing migraine induced by the impact. He unravels himself from Anna. Her neck is bent forward, chin to chest, and she’s looking right at him, wide-awake and breathing deeply, but in a state of blissful shock, as though she had just given birth to a beautiful baby boy.
“Sorry I woke you.” Stelson’s amazed by Anna and her response mechanisms but he knows he needs to move fast. On with the next.
He climbs over her shoulder through the shattered passenger window and onto the street to face a couple of concerned drivers coming his way, but as they get closer the Glock falls out of Stelson’s waist band and clatters onto the tarmac. All parties stop and stare at the firearm. The drivers of neighboring vehicles retreat on a whimsical judgment of Stelson, their interference aborted.
He crouches down and picks up the Glock and then pulls open the driver’s door. The cop flops sideways and Stelson releases his seat buckle and drags him out onto the ground and jumps back inside the car and re-starts the stalled engine. He fires it up and he turns the car around and points it west, side-winding between other vehicles.
He can see the smart asses noting anything that is descriptive and identifiable but he doesn’t give a shit. He has one thing on his mind and that’s to get Anna home.
He’s almost forgotten–his molten eyes scatter about the inside of the car. The red shoulder bag is trapped under his seat so he leaves it there.
Stelson hasn’t seen it yet, but the item rolls freely in the passenger foot-well next to him. The ricochets of the impact must have cracked its surface–slivers and fragments of the pearlescent coating are broken off to reveal the organic tissue beneath.
THIRTY-FIVE
Stelson pulls up to the Fayne mansion on South Muirfield Drive and cuts the engine. It takes him a few goes to apply the parking brake.
This enclave of LA is far removed from the mayhem that they just left behind and he feels self-conscious in this busted up police car. The warblers are singing from the manicured shrubs and trees, and the grass looks greener than ever in the mid-afternoon sunshine.
A passing driver in a Mercedes CLS second-glances him but keeps on going. There are no pedestrians or neighbors in sight so he jumps out, grabs the red bag and slings it across his shoulder, and heaves Anna from the back seat and carries her across the front lawn to the main entrance like a fallen maiden returning to her fairy-tale castle.
The oak door sucks in and out a couple of inches. It’s unlocked and free to inhale and exhale the draft circulating inside the house. He nudges the door with his toe and swings it wide enough to lift Anna across the threshold. He closes the door behind him but the locks are jammed so he chains it–the best he can do.
The evidence is subtle, but the place has been ransacked. In the hallway–a mahogany picture frame, an overturned side table with missing drawers, a silver box that contained only candles. Stelson moves Anna swiftly upstairs.
Her eyes skim over the portrait of her mother on the stairwell. She seems to roll her eyes back to get another look at her and the way she is knelt down and tying her running shoes. There’s some new feeling here–a realization or a revelation. It could even be a restored memory. Like the ransacking of the mansion, it’s too subtle to deduce the origin without a diligent inquiry.
On the landing, he carries her down the hall to her bedroom, stepping lightly over broken glass and torn drapes and lays her down in her bed. It’s still unmade from when she last slept there, but it’s surrounded by the contents of her closets and drawers–streams of cotton and synthetics, faux fur, and a little bit of silk, her clothes formless and anonymous in this random pattern of violation.
He pulls off the red bag and shoves it under the bed and pulls out the Glock from his waistband and places it on a nearby chest of drawers.
Anna is watching him, observing the way he cares for her. Ripping and pulling off the items of clothing that are bloody and stained. She manages a half-smile when he curses himself for getting dirt on the bed linen, which is almost impossible not to do in this situation. He should have just dumped her in the bath for a good soak, but he doesn’t have the nerve, and the weight of tepid water could shock her into reversing a remissive state. He finds a silky nightdress in a nearby drawer and hands it to her and she puts it on.
He leaves her bedroom and returns with a warm, damp towel, a jug, and a bucket, which he uses to clean her up and wash her hair over the side of the bed while she is laying on her side in a fetal position.
Once he is satisfied, Stelson sits next to her and strokes her forehead and hushes her to sleep. There is a newfound maturity in the way he is with her and she likes it. He seems to know what’s best for her. He knows her strength and resilience. He knows that she just needs to be calm and rest. Nothing more. Anna drifts off to sleep, and as soon as her eyes close, Stelson leaves the bedroom and goes to work.
The first task is to get rid of the cop car parked outside. He returns to the vehicle and starts it up and drives down South Muirfield past the imposing mansions set back from the street and beyond the Hancock Park boundary across Wilshire Boulevard. On this south side of Wilshire, the houses get smaller and closer.
He turns down Eighth Street and locates a service alley running between Muirfield and Mullen and he parks it down there amongst the garages and waste bins.
As he struggles with the parking brake, he spots the shattered item in the passenger foot-well. He pauses to consider and recalls the moment when the cop got distracted by it, enough to collide with crossing traffic. He leans over and picks it up and examines the broken shell of pearlescent. He finds a flake of this shell on the floor and holds it up to the light.
“It’s just a coating,” he mutters to himself.
He then examines the mucus and membrane under the shell, bloody and blotchy white, and rotates it in his hand until his finds a tiny patch of green pigment. His hands start to shake from nerves and fr
om the heat it gives off. He peels the coating away in the same fashion as peeling a soft-boiled egg and reveals the eyeball, its snake-like pupil, and the bright green molten energy behind it. As the light hits, it glows brighter, pulsing ever more intensely.
It mirrors that of his own.
His own kind.
Stelson spasms in disgust and shock, and slings the item in the same way as it got jettisoned during the earlier collision.
A RAT-A-TAT-TAT on his window.
He bolts around with a shocked momentary glance at the bemused face peering at him through the window and then rams open the door, hurling the person backwards, hard to the ground. Stelson jumps out and looks at the guy–a gardener or maintenance man. Not a bad bone in his body. It takes a nanosecond for Stelson to make that judgment, but he panics, and kneels down and grips the man by the collar and shakes him in a pent up frustrated fit of rage for a few long painful seconds before shoving him back to the dirt and dust.
“Say nothing!” Stelson commands in parting, and leaves the man to recover from the ordeal, alone and confused.
He runs for a while, and then slows to a steady jog, punctuated by a stroll to regain composure.
Stelson has time to think on the way back. He’s lucky to be alive and it’s not just about this day. It’s the luck he’s carried with him for all of his damned life. It seems he has always been fair game for certain people out there. The cold discovery of the item confirmed it–presented to him like a head on a plate. He toys with the idea of going back to the abandoned police car to retrieve the eye, but thinks better of it. His thoughts turn back to Anna, so he picks up the pace–get back to her and complete what he set out to do.
He checks on Anna. Her hair is still damp. She’s so still he has to feel for her pulse and prove he made the right judgment call. He knows where it’s strongest. His face relaxes with relief. She sleeps deeply.
Stelson retreats from the bed and begins tidying her room and once he’s done he goes from room to room, doing what he can to make the house look presentable, while excluding the circulating draft by sealing windows and broken doors with drapes and plastic sheeting.
He handwashes her clothes and hangs them out to dry in the garden in the dark. He can see the moon shimmer on the pool and he pauses to moisten his eyelids.
It’s quiet, just the rustle of palms.
The peaceful moment is shattered when Anna screams.
The sound is so unnerving it almost seems to turn the shimmering surface of the pool to glass.
Stelson turns and runs back inside.
He’s moving too fast to notice that the chain on the front door has been broken.
Up the stairs, down the hall, he plunges into the dark borders of her bedroom.
Her door is wide open.
Anna is sat bolt-upright, bathing in a patch of moonlight, her eyes rolling.
“Anna?” Stelson confirms his presence and approaches the bed. She beckons him to sit and when he does she latches onto him for a brief moment of security and then releases and looks him in the eyes.
“About as close as you are now,” she says vaguely.
“What?”
“The clown-face. The one that haunts me. The murderer.”
“A nightmare, Anna. That’s all.”
“It seemed…” She shakes her head, confused.
Stelson reaches for her hand, and as his eyes scan the bed linen searching for her flesh and bone, he notices streaks of fresh blood. “Anna?” His mind races and then he looks behind him and the bedroom door squeaks on its hinges to reveal a dark shadow behind the door.
The shadow cackles disgustingly, but with a degree of pain and discomfort which only makes him sound worse.
Bobby Floyd steps out from behind the door, the gunshot wound darkening a patch on the right side of his collar-bone, his face still in the shadows.
“Who the hell are you?” Anna asks, concealing her fear.
“Isn’t it amazing, Stelson? You and I can bleed and bleed and not fall down. Have you ever wondered why that is?”
“Get the hell away from us, Bobby.”
“Can’t, bro.”
Anna looks at Stelson, confused.
“Newsflash. Stelson has a brother. Bet he kept that quiet, eh, sweetheart?” Bobby steps closer revealing his warped twisted face. He has Stelson’s Glock 19 hanging from his right arm and the red shoulder bag in his left.
Any color that was left in Anna’s face is now draining away until she becomes a cursed spirit, rejected by Stelson’s kindness and loyalty.
“Anna, I never wanted...”
“What did you never want? To tell the truth and nothing but the truth?”
“Lies, deceit. Stelson, you gotta roll with the punches of being in love,” says Bobby.
“Shut up,” he shouts.
Bobby points the Glock at Stelson. “You shot your own flesh and blood, bro. I. Can. Put. You. Down.”
“Do it!” He looks back at Anna and clenches his jaw, bracing himself for the inevitable. “I never wanted you to meet him, Anna. You don’t deserve that.”
Bobby steps right up to him and connects the end of the Glock’s muzzle with the birthmark on Stelson’s head. Bobby’s breathing deeply, almost snorting like a bull.
“He’s the one.” It’s dawning on Anna. “He killed my mother, Stelson.” But she doesn’t seem sad. Just an overwhelming sense of relief washes over her.
Closure.
Bobby can’t help himself and cackles again. He needs Anna to know what really happened. He’s too proud. “Oh, but it wasn’t me pretty lady. I was witness but I didn’t commit this terrible act. I was too young and feeble at the time. Ain’t that right, Stelson.”
“Don’t listen to him, Anna. He lies all the time.”
“No. Wait. I want to hear what this freak has to say.”
“Do you even know why you and I were ever here in this fine and fancy place?” Bobby challenges Stelson.
Stelson shakes his head. “No. I can’t remember.”
“Dad’s business. We were his little helpers, making rich people’s gardens looks swell, cleaning bird shit outta swimming pools. I was the shy one. Funny, eh? That’s why she don’t remember me. And we looked the same. Dad made us wear masks as though Halloween was every day of the goddamn week. To disguise our affliction. We were his little green-eyed monsters.” He opens his eyes wide as if nobody was smart enough to know what the hell he was referring to. “Do you know why you can’t fucking remember, bro?”
Anna is looking at Stelson, studying the flavors of emotion washing over his face–part guilt, fear, frustration, and rage. But she’s looking at him with concern and an expression that reads: it’s okay. Whatever the truth is, it’s okay.
Bobby slings the red bag over his left shoulder and yanks Stelson by the collar so that he topples backwards off the bed and onto the floor.
Anna reaches for Stelson. “Let go of him!”
But Bobby aims the Glock at her head. “Stay back.”
Anna snarls and retreats like a maimed panther.
With the Glock still aimed at Stelson’s head, Bobby drags him halfway across the floor. “Get up. I ain’t got the strength to drag you all the way with your wretched bullet in me.” Stelson is pulled up onto his feet, out of the bedroom, and down the hall to the top of the stairway.
Anna is a shadow in the background, unsure and fearful as to how this feud will play out.
“Do you see?” Bobby pushes Stelson’s head toward the portrait of Anna’s mother halfway with the muzzle. “See the bitch you killed? You killed that bitch. That’s why you can’t remember. Daddy still loved you after. Forgave all the bad memories away. Locked them up someplace else. You were still his little favorite. And me. Well look at me?” Bobby flips Stelson around to look him in the eye.
“How? How could I kill someone like her?” Stelson concedes. “Why would I?”
“This might unlock the box,” Bobby gives him a shove that causes Stelson to take one step and another and lose balance and fall backwards down the stairs, “or kill ya.”
Stelson’s arms flail and he almost seems to run backwards down the first few steps but then the weight of his head and torso get ahead of the curve and he cracks and slides his back along the next few steps. He tumbles into a backwards roll and an eventual inverted rest, just shy of the downstairs hall.
His eyes are scattering in an alert state of shock–as though he is looking at everything and nothing–his view switching from one thing to another, in picosecond beats.
He gets glimpses of Anna at the top of the stairs and he can hear her shouting his name in a distraught, shrill tone that seems to distort, echo, and then fade to a murmur.
Eventually the scattered beats of imagery slow down and it’s obvious that there is a lingering view on the portrait of Anna’s mother that turns to a zombiefied gaze and he manages to mutter: “A woman walks into a bar and leaves without her mind.”
Stelson seems surprised at his instant recall of a line that could be part of a badly phrased joke. He smiles and then all goes dark. Lights out.
THIRTY-SIX
The prosecutor drives his golden brown sedan down Wilshire Boulevard at well over the speed limit, weaving between slower moving traffic. He seems unusually disheveled, as though he hadn’t slept for a couple of days. He’s smacking the steering wheel in frustration, and then the horn when he needs to.
He slides left onto South Muirfield and then right and slows until he finds the service alley. He turns into it and there are two black and white cop cars halfway down. The first is the one Stelson dumped, the other has flashers going and is new on the scene.
The prosecutor leans forward and looks up at the dark blue sky–a police helicopter hovering above.
Two uniformed cops prowl around the dumped vehicle. He parks behind them and they look at him. He hastily unbuckles and joins them, keen to get their take on the scene. The prosecutor doesn’t need to ID himself. The sound of the helicopter drowns them out so they need to shout.
