The Oculus Heist

by Alex Moss

  In the morning, Anna wakes to find Stelson. She seems indifferent to his presence in her bed and she watches him until his eyelids begin to flicker more actively as consciousness returns.

  She thinks about putting her hands around his neck, but at the same time, she imagines kissing the birthmark shaped like Lake Superior at the top of his nape and running her hands through his hair. She’s not forgotten the more carnal moments that they had together but she’s put those feelings away in some other compartment in her brain–a man’s talent or perhaps something else that she doesn’t understand. Another force driving her needs and desires.

  Later, Stelson looks up at her and holds his breath, waiting for the dice to roll over. She smiles at him and he lets out a sigh.

  “You still have your clothes on,” she says.

  He thinks before he says anything, so there is a long uncomfortable pause. “I was cold.”

  “You have blood on your top.”

  Stelson looks at the sleeve nearest his head. He stays cool. Only his eyes move to the location on his hoodie that Anna seems to be assessing. “It’s just a speck.” Then he looks at her, nonchalantly, to gauge her reaction.

  “Whatever you’ve done, I don’t wanna know.” She climbs over him, her hair and warmth sweeping across his neck, and he can’t help but admire her toned thighs and calves, and that ass in blue panties, leaving him now as she finds her clothes and slips them on.

  “It was nice what you said on the bus,” she whispers, reticently. “It made me feel better.”

  “Well, you’re worth fifty-five.”

  “I knew what you meant.”

  “I assume we are talking fifty-five million bucks?”

  Anna smiles, knowingly. She bunches her hair into a ponytail and threads it through a bobble.

  “What did Victor mean about the risks you are taking?”

  “There’s always risk with big reward. You know that.” She leaves the room, keen to stem the conversation. Once again, Stelson is alone. He dives his head under the covers to seek out the scent in the bed linen she has left behind.

  Anna dives into the pool.

  She does laps before duck-diving under the surface at the deep end and glides to the bottom to touch the mosaic floor. She looks up from the bottom to see the dark figure of a young boy standing at the edge of the pool. Holding her breath, she maintains neutral buoyancy and listens to the beat of her heart pulsing in her ears. She seems pained and deeply troubled and the light deficient depth draws the color from her skin.

  The deep of this pool is a shrine to bad memories, it would seem, and one that she can’t help coming back to in the same way any dark place or raging fire draws us in. She closes her eyes for a moment and when she opens them, the boy’s figure is now a man. She glides to the surface where Kenny Hackett is waiting with a towel. He hands it to her.

  Stelson watches them from a second floor window. He doesn’t like how Kenny is looking her over as she pushes herself out of the pool. He seems to linger for too long before turning back to the house. He hates it more that Anna doesn’t say anything, but it’s clear she has something else on her mind. Stelson focuses on the surface of the pool and the way it shimmers. He expects it to reveal something about her.

  His eyes are back on Anna.

  She is looking right at him with daggers. He steps away from the window and shakes his head. He feels foolish and goes to the window again.

  As before, molten green interference disrupts his viewpoint to create a brief glimmering vision of the past–Anna has gone but there is something at the deep end of the pool.

  A body under the surface.

  The body of a woman fully clothed, a dress wallowing and ebbing like a jellyfish.

  He senses a presence behind him, and by its sudden chill, constricts his breathing. “Anna?” He whips around to find no one there.

  The body in the pool is also gone.

  The vision is over.

  He’s in the bedroom that used to be Anna’s as a child and the antique luggage trunk is there, open and inviting to be rummaged through. Stelson can’t help himself. The same junk that Anna showed him before is inside–medals, trophies, athletic wear, a few photos of Anna’s mother, Martha, at athletic events either running or receiving medals and bouquets of flowers for her achievements.

  It all seems contrived.

  There isn’t a single photo of Anna with her mother. The collection of memories just seems too sparse to be real. Stelson brushes the junk aside and removes the false bottom hoping to find the item but the cavity is empty. He wasn’t really expecting to find it. He replaces the panel and re-arranges the contents of the trunk and leaves the room, frustrated by the dried specks of blood on his hoodie.

  “This may sound like a coincidence, but there was a recovery vehicle loading a grey Taurus with privacy glass just now. Same model, modified, but different plates,” Tilman says as he walks into the kitchen from the hall. Stelson observes from the foot of the stairs. He has damp patches all over his hoodie from where he’s scrubbed out dried blood.

  “No shit,” says Kenny. “Car was empty?”

  Stelson frowns and moves rapidly across the hall but stops upon entering the kitchen where Anna is padding herself down with a towel, fresh from a morning swim.

  “Good morning, everyone.” Stelson over-eggs his chirpiness. They all pause the conversation and look at him with suspicion.

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt,” Stelson says, keeping up the buoyant tone.

  “No, it’s okay,” Tilman says.

  Anna is glaring at him.

  “What was that about a Taurus?” Stelson inquires while pretending to hunt for breakfast things in places where breakfast things don’t typically live.

  “What are you doing?” asks Anna.

  He ignores her.

  “Will you get this guy?” Kenny asks. “The son of a bitch thinks he got it right about the second car.”

  “Like I said, it’s just a frickin’ coincidence,” Tilman reiterates.

  “So was the car empty?” Stelson asks.

  Tilman shrugs. “There’s nothing more to say about it.”

  “Are you sure? What if whoever the hell was in that car is now inside the grounds or even inside this house or whatever they got planned next for us?”

  “You’re getting all worked up over nothing, kid,” Kenny says. “You’re safe. Don’t worry.”

  Stelson smiles.

  Anna is still glaring at him. “What are you doing?”

  “Trying to find a knife to butter some toast,” Stelson retorts, sarcastically.

  Tilman helps him out and hands Stelson what he needs. Stelson sits down as Anna wraps herself in the towel.

  “Stelson is right. It’s not safe here. We need a new location and we need it fast,” Anna says.

  TWENTY

  A brown sedan pulls up to the Beverly Boulevard entrance of Cedars-Sinai Hospital. The driver impatiently taps his pale, smooth, cuticle-free fingers on the steering column and tuts to himself.

  About thirty seconds later, Doctor Xander Grant jumps in the back and the driver pulls away.

  “You’re about the only State prosecutor I know who looks like a limo driver,” says Xander with a touch of sarcasm.

  The driver–the pale elderly man who delivered the fallen Senator to the Doctor–looks at him via his rearview mirror. Doctor Grant looks tired and disheveled.

  “You’re not sleeping?” asks the prosecutor.

  “Tell me about it.”

  “You look goddamn awful.”

  “This going to take long?”

  “How about breakfast?”

  “I’m not eating.”

  “That’s what I thought.” They take a right onto San Vicente Boulevard heading south-east. “If you can’t take the shit with t
he shovel, then be straight up about it. You’re not my only go-to guy. I’ve got other therapists and some are willing to take on more subjects. The funding’s in place. They can name their price and I wouldn’t choke.”

  “That’s bullshit. There’s possibly two neuro-surgeons in California who can proceed with an acceptable success rate. I know everyone there is to know and their skill sets so don’t give me that ‘you’re expendable’ detail. Do you want me to ask for more compensation?”

  “If it makes you happy, yeah, ask away. You want a bigger house, car, whatever?”

  Xander pauses for thought. He looks reminiscent, running his fingers over the past. “How about getting my wife back?”

  “Like I said, there’s always shit with the shovel.”

  “I’m trying so goddamned hard to deal with it, but someone I knew and respected just murdered his wife and kids and now the slate has been wiped clean. He gets to carry on living in the free world as a Saint.”

  The elderly man speeds up and takes a sharp right. “That’s the deal. You know the deal. He was granted extraction. He will now do Saint’s work to redeem himself without an ill will in his body. His innocence has been restored. I mean, I shouldn’t even be having this conversation with you. It’s not up to you. You’re just fulfilling the process and serving the State. I don’t give a rat’s ass that this has some emotional play on your late wife’s memory. That shit’s going to happen all the time because there are bad people who do bad things. Too many people who do bad things and that’s exactly why this policy has been adopted. The prison and penitentiary system can’t cope with the volume so it’s a solution. For better or for worse.”

  They take a left onto Jefferson and head east, parallel to the Metro rail expo line. A passenger train out of Culver City starts to overlap them, heading Downtown, can-filled with early morning commuters.

  Xander studies the faces inside each passenger car as they stream by. Mainly blank morning zombies, a couple of dudes reading newspapers or tapping on smart-phones. The road seeps left and they peel away from the edge of the Expo line, the faces in the commuter train becoming specks of insignificance as it straight-arrows into the city’s hustle and flow.

  A right turn onto La Brea and the same train is stationary at an elevated station at a junction where they swing a hard left.

  The left edge of this street is an endless row of mainly anonymous commercial units and storage facilities. Faceless and low key, the LA sunshine is the street’s only savior. The same train catches up as the elevated section of the line declines back to street level. The Doctor become fixated by one of the passengers inside the car as they stay level and equidistant but with a minor yo-yo in speed.

  “I recognize you,” Xander says, directing his comment at a person inside a passenger car. He’s staring at a blind man with ghostly glass eyes, holding a white stick. He seems to have his nose virtually pressed up against the glass of the train exit doors.

  “Who?”

  “A man on the train. He was a subject.”

  “Are you sure? The odds are slim.”

  “So the odds are slim. So what?”

  “If it were true, he shouldn’t be here. He’s out of bounds. Saints don’t get to stay in the municipality.”

  The train accelerates and they lose sight of the passenger of interest.

  “Maybe I was wrong but I don’t think so. I could feel it in my lower spine. When I get that feeling, I’m usually right.”

  “Okay, just drop it. We’re nearly here.”

  “This looks like nowhere we should be.” Xander seems apprehensive. Something’s not right.

  The brown sedan pulls up to a car impound lot. The commercial unit next door to the high entrance gate to the lot says:

  Swanney & McDonald

  Towing Specialists

  The prosecutor turns off the engine and unbuckles. He gets out and enters the office of Swanney and McDonald. Seconds later, the black gate slides open electronically to reveal a large car lot filled with impounded motor vehicles.

  The prosecutor jumps back in, holding a second set of car keys and drives them into the lot. The gate closes behind and he pulls into a free bay and cuts the engine.

  “Prepare to see something disturbing. I need your take on it and I’m asking you to take a look because I used to be able to trust you.”

  Xander can’t look at him. “You still can.”

  They get out and the prosecutor leads the way down a row of vehicles until they get to a grey Ford Taurus with privacy glass. He scans the lot, checking that there are no other eyes on them. Satisfied, he unlocks the trunk with the set of keys he collected from the office, and flips the lid up.

  Two bodies curled up next to each other, drained blue.

  Kenneth Molloy and the driver of the Taurus.

  Stelson’s victims.

  “Whoa, what the hell is this?” Xander stands back as though he were disassociating himself while his mind runs for the exit.

  “It’s a blood bath inside the car,” says the prosecutor.

  “What’s it doing here?”

  “Strictly off the books. In about an hour or two all this will be the size of a can of tuna.”

  “Why?”

  “Take a closer look.”

  Xander is uneasy about stepping forward to get a better view but he does it anyway. “This guy bled out through the stomach and the other...” His voice trails off as he cranes his head downwards to get a close look at Kenneth Molloy’s neck and face.

  “What?”

  Xander steps back and stares blankly at the prosecutor. “Nothing.”

  “Nothing?” The bond of trust has gone and the prosecutor smells the lie in an instant.

  “What do you want me to say?” Xander is trying his best to seem unfazed and detached.

  “The bloody cross painted over the man’s face. His glass eyes. What do you think we got here?”

  “Perhaps someone trying to copy my work?”

  “Our work.”

  “Yes, of course. Our work.”

  “The cross could be the mark of a Saint?”

  “Yeah, I guess it could.”

  “You’ve seen this before, perhaps a few times?”

  Xander nods.

  “So why did you lie?”

  “I didn’t. I just chose to say nothing.”

  “In my look, that’s a lie. I deal with that crap every day of the week. The eyes are usually a dead giveaway.”

  “I said ‘nothing’ because I don’t know what I’m dealing with here. A steady flow of these blind men show up, specifically asking for me in person. Their appearance totally freaks out the hospital orderlies on duty, tending to be admitted in the small hours of the morning, which is one consolation. They want their sight back, but what amazes me most is that someone has done a hatchet job on them and they’re still alive. So I just clean them up and send them on their way. What else can I do?”

  “You did the right thing.”

  “I’m trying to get to the bottom of why they would sell their eyes to the highest bidder.”

  The prosecutor is now looking concerned. Xander knows too much and it’s hurting both of them. He’s going to have to do something, but the guy keeps yapping.

  “And then this young man shows up. A wanderer in the night. Like a ghost.”

  The prosecutor smiles and lifts his eyebrows. “Young man. What young man?”

  “He had these incredible eyes. Filled with something alive. Inhuman. A freak. He was one of them. His survival abilities confirmed it. Totally astounding.”

  “Them? You have a theory, don’t you?”

  Xander is analyzing the way the prosecutor is standing and he gets that sick feeling in his stomach and an ache in his lower spine and his face drops.

  “You should have volunteere
d this information a long time ago. The first time these freaks show up you should have called me. Beats me how they found out about you. Can you see me scratching my head?”

  “I think people who need me just find me. Some celestial intervention or something.”

  “You really believe in that kinda shit or is this your ego on overdrive?” The prosecutor is venomous now in the way he speaks to Xander.

  “You’re part of this circle aren’t you? You’re exploiting them to get rich. There’s some scam you’ve got going on, you corrupt piece of shit.” But all Xander can see is the gun aimed at him from the prosecutor’s hip at point blank range–the silencer over the muzzle. The regret of his lies comes around to bite him in the ass.

  POP

  POP

  Xander starts falling slowly and the prosecutor pushes him to accelerate the drop into the open trunk of the Taurus to join the other dreamers.

  It’s early morning and the prosecutor stands facing the rocky boulder-laden jetty and breakwater at Redondo Beach. There is no sea mist this morning, just a solid gale force on shore wind. The still weak sun makes the crashing white water glisten like the shards of a shattered mirror, but the audible boom defines the sheer volume rolling over the rocks and compressing in jets through the fissures and blow holes.

  The gulls are playing. Upshots of cold Pacific water reach out like icy fingers and they hover close to a potential saturation that could send them plummeting toward the hard boulders. The prosecutor absorbs some of the salty spray.

  He’s watching someone in the water.

  Between urgent undulating swells, the high arm rotations of a lone swimmer can be seen dangerously close to the rocks but moving parallel and toward the shore. Power strokes and rapid leg kicks are drowned out by the white water noise.

  Just before reaching the shore the swimmer is buoyed sideways into the rocks by converging breaks on a sandbar. The swimmer recovers half-hearted and lets himself get washed ashore, landing on his hands and knees and shakes out the ice-cream pounding headache he must have.

  The swimmer gets up and walks up the beach toward the prosecutor.

  It’s Benjamin Koit.