The Oculus Heist Read online

  Stelson climbs back through the fence and locks his eyes back on the soccer ball–still rolling, only just in sight. He picks up pace, the skyline of downtown in the distance–the ball now swept underneath a moving car on a cross street and jettisoned out the other side as if to say to Stelson “keep chasing me and I’ll show you where to go today, my friend.” He’s torn, though. He wants to spend time coaching the kids, but he knows today is going to be different.

  At about the same time in downtown LA, Detective Victor Lesko skips down a stationary escalator at an underground shopping mall on Figueroa. He wears Wayfarer sunglasses and he’s approaching fifty. Tall, angular, lean, and dressed down but not scruffy. Functionally smart, you could call it, and unconsciously fashionable for a man of his age.

  It’s still too early for anything to be open, or for workers to be cashing up for a day’s worth of trading. There’s not a savory soul in sight–the odd vagrant troughing from a doggy bag or lucky dipping a filthy public waste bin.

  Anna Fayne is watching Victor from a street level bench. Anna’s about eighteen with long dark hair tied back in a ponytail. She’s wearing loose fitting jogging pants and a silky skin-tight thermal top with a hood, all black. She’s not like other young women her age–she has no belief in wearing make-up, instead leaving it all to the way she wears her clothes and accessories, the way she moves, talks, gestures. For Anna, beauty is shown through action, behavior, and emotion.

  She puts on her Persol sunglasses as the sun lights her space. She gets up and steps over to the edge of the shopping mall. Victor is out of sight by the time she gets there and she peers over the wall to the subterannean levels and meandering escalators.

  Then a cop walks behind and body checks her from head to ass. “Up early this morning.”

  “So whatta you gonna do, arrest my sweet ass, officer?”

  Anna turns to face him a second before he looks up.

  “I just might do that.”

  He nervously tips his hat and steps over to the top of the escalator. He scans the next two floors. Seeking suspicious activity. Then moves away and continues on down Figueroa, turning back four times to glance at the girl. When he finally turns a corner, Anna dips her arm into the bin next to her and pulls out a lipstick red lightweight canvas shoulder bag and pads toward the stairs.

  The inside of the jewelry emporium on floor B3 is partially lit by the dazzle of the display cases and their over-powering spots and shards of refracted light crossing paths in mid-air. Victor dissects one of these shards and heads toward a display case with just one full pearl necklace resting on a bed of ruffled black silk.

  It looks old fashioned, classic but stunning. The pearls are the size of fairground pin-balls and flawless to the eye.

  Victor opens the unlocked display case with leather gloved hands and delicately removes the necklace, unzips his jacket, and feeds it into an inside pocket. At the same time, from the opposite inside pocket, he pulls out a clear plastic case with what seems to be an identical set of pearls. He removes the identical necklace from the case and places it down on the ruffled silk, arranging it as neatly as he can in a near perfect circle. He judges the luster of the pearl for a moment in the unforgiving light of the display case and appears satisfied. He closes the display case and turns and walks toward the exit of the emporium. The ease and lack of procedure required to carry out this task seems strange by the average standards of daylight robbery.

  Victor gently closes the heavy oak doors of the jewelry emporium and draws out the pearl necklace from his inside jacket pocket and turns, handing them to Anna–standing ramrod straight and patient with a red shoulder bag at her feet. She stares at their surface color and plays with them like a set of worry beads as Victor studies the intense expression on her face for a moment. He nods at her and takes the pearls back. He kneels down and deposits them in the red shoulder bag, zipping it up purposefully and checking the zip is clasped securely from end to end. He stands up and faces her.

  “Same drill?”

  Anna nods.

  “Are you okay with this?” asks Victor.

  “Of course.” Anna looks at him in a way that would suggest she’s holding something back.

  “You seem spooked,” says Victor.

  “There was a cop.”

  “And?”

  “He coulda come down here to check things out, but the coin toss floated in our favor.”

  “Just one cop? That all you’re worried about?”

  “There’s always just one cop and then another and another until–”

  “Stop. I got it covered.”

  “Do you?”

  Victor nods. “Remember who I am.”

  “Luck always runs out sooner or later.”

  “We’ll stop before sooner or later.”

  “Which?” Anna asks.

  “You decide.”

  “Ok. What if?” She hesitates.

  “What if what?”

  “Rather than be middle-men, we own the score. An elaborate and beautiful heist with the biggest shittin’ payday you ever seen.” She giggles with excitement. “One time and it’s enough to up sticks and leave this city for good.”

  “A commendable vision, Anna, but there’s a lot to consider. What’s really at stake, risk…” Victor’s tone swings to the negative.

  “I have a plan, great ideas…”

  Victor looks at his watch.

  “Talk later?”

  “Sure.” Victor forces a smile.

  Anna goes blank-faced. As though her persona had found a shroud to hide its fears and intentions. She picks up the red shoulder bag and pads lightly toward the escalator. She pauses and looks at her cheap plastic Casio watch: 7:42 a.m. The escalator starts to roll. She steps on and elevates like a dark angel ascending from these modern catacombs.

  “See you under the 101. Eight sharp,” Victor says.

  He watches her head toward the morning light. Once gone, he puts his hands in his pockets and steps away into the shadows as a few early bird workers descend into the mall bleary eyed, cradling specialty coffee in eco cups.

  Anna sprints north up Figueroa wearing the red shoulder bag like a backpack to keep it securely pressed against her body, weaving through a current of ordinary people heading to their place of work. She runs as a free spirit would, for these moments at least. She has a job to do and the look of determination on her face suggests that it would be foolish to get in her way. Passers-by either look at her suspiciously or not at all, sensing something otherworldly must have just missed them by inches.

  She takes a left on Second Street and under a freeway over-pass that marks the protective border to the modern high-rise offices of downtown. Once out of the shadows, she slows down, hardly out of breath, and turns to look at the LA skyline. Anna uses the perspective to make her feel lost and alone–the skyline looms like a mountain range with the Harbor Freeway overpass, sending hunks of metal to and fro across the vista, the noise overbearing and smothering any sense of presence she could possibly give off. She seems at peace. But the moment is spoiled by an executive in a late model 7-series BMW with tinted glass pulling over to check her out. It crawls beside her a moment, waiting for a signal. Anna ruffled and embarrassed approaches calmly and kicks the front passenger door. The driver chooses to speed off, his vehicle’s blackness absorbed by the shadows under the freeway, heading toward an ivory tower somewhere downtown.

  “Sick lowlife bastard, what’s wrong with you? Shit.”

  Anna runs down Second Street again. She cuts a lone figure as she searches for the next turn, taking a right on a cross street with a slight incline toward a welcoming edge of oasis-like greenery.

  And at about the same time not far away, Stelson Floyd kicks the soccer ball like he never kicked a ball before. He’s invented a new game–let the ball decide where to go. Every time he’s pr
esented with a choice–left, right, straight on–he will kick the ball and use whatever objects or property that surround him to define a pattern of ricochets. But whatever it determines, it can’t be Stop or Reverse. Stelson is in no mood to go backwards today, not towards home, not his usual routine. He seems optimistic that today is a day of discovery.

  The ball rolls to a halt under a parked SUV. Nothing new about that, but the choice of route is clear: head south down Douglas Street. He switches to a more controlled style, working his way along the sidewalk down a residential street not far from Echo Park. There is a gentle incline that makes it harder. There are moments when the ball nearly escapes him sometimes and it is frustrating. He’s beating himself up under his breath. Cool, cruel mutterings and a frown combined with a preoccupation that also compromises the delicate control of the ball. Perhaps that’s why it escapes him sometimes–a momentary lapse in concentration and he’s forced to rescue it–but he does it with great care to prevent it from ever leaving the sidewalk, safe from the perils of a morning delivery truck or newspaper boy. Douglas Street crests and then descends slightly until Bellevue Avenue opens up with a view of the downtown skyline in the distance.

  The hum of road noise beyond the traffic on Bellevue is deafening. Stelson dribbles the soccer ball to the other side. He glimpses through some weeds and bushes to catch a view of the 101 Freeway. He seems perturbed by this barrier to progress, a stop to his day, a choice taken away from him, a sign that he should perhaps turn back and just go home or play soccer with his buddies.

  “Screw this,” he says.

  So Stelson waits a moment before Bellevue is clear, trots into the middle of the avenue, turns back toward the hum of the freeway, and kicks the ball like a sporting god with all the faith he can muster. The ball sails over the 101. Drivers passing under the projectile who revel in conspiracy theories and UFO paranoia have new hope today, but Stelson has no choice now–follow the ball. That’s the rule he’s set himself to obey and live by. He climbs down through the weeds and bushes of the embankment that borders the 101 and takes a big gulp of smoggy air.

  Seconds later, he’s bolting across the first lane.

  Car horns are blaring. He balances on the dividing line between this and the next lane, cars and trucks flying past in a blur of hot dusty metal within inches. A truck mirror nearly clips Stelson’s wings forever. Some breathing space and he is across that lane into the next and he keeps going across the fourth and can’t help himself–staring head on at the upcoming speeding car, the whites of the driver’s eyes, the alarm, as though the driver had just seen the devil cross his path. Now straddling the concrete wall of the central reservation, catching his breath but not for long, a highway patrol car slows but does Stelson a huge service by slowing all the traffic down on the south side of the freeway and he’s able to jump the lanes in a more fluid fashion without the blood and bile taste of heart in mouth.

  Bursting through shrubbery, flipping over the edge of the freeway overpass, and dropping the thirty feet or so to the continuation of Douglas Street gives Stelson some sore knees, ankles, and butt as he lays on his side, reeling, his sunglasses missing, gritting his teeth in agony until the acuteness subsides and he spots the soccer ball dutifully abutting a telephone pole. He gets up and searches for the sunglasses first. They must have got caught in the shrubs thirty feet above him as they are nowhere to be seen.

  Anna runs along the southern edge of Vista Hermosa Park, a high fence along its border separating the urban from the lushness. There are football and soccer fields on the other side, empty but well manicured. It follows an off-ramp to the right hand side of First Street, which is elevated and continues west. Anna then takes a right at the park corner, dashing to Douglas Street, which goes north-west at a tangent, rather than following Toluca along the west edge of the park. Her pace is constant, breathing steady.

  Stelson is oblivious to Anna running at him until he sees a long shadow within his eyeline, washing over the soccer ball as he taps it onwards, but it veers left as though it were drawn to the shadow and Stelson goes with it.

  Anna runs full force into Stelson. His right shoulder clips hers and for both the world slows down as Stelson is knocked sideways into the street and Anna against a steel railing. She recovers herself quickly and gets up to confront him.

  Stelson stays down. He feels he should. It would be less threatening, and he doesn’t want to encourage eye contact. He scans the area for his soccer ball–but no sign of it.

  “Are you going to apologize?” demands Anna.

  Stelson looks elsewhere, but he can’t help notice her slender legs from the corner of his eye.

  “Well, shy boy? What do you have to say?”

  Anna squats down to his level. She is sensitive and observant enough to understand Stelson’s reticence to engage with her. “Look at me,” she says in a softer, flirtatious tone.

  Stelson looks at Anna with a piercing gaze, his pale green eyes brightened and intensified by the morning light, and it is plain to see that the color is highly unusual. Stelson’s gaze lingers on her dark flowing hair, then her neck, shoulders, hips, ankles.

  “Are you done gawking?” Anna’s mood has completely changed. She seems disarmed and fascinated by him. The truth is, she doesn’t mind his admiration of her–the predatory study of her body.

  Stelson then looks her in the eyes and smiles, and the smile seems to break the proverbial spell.

  “You’ve made me late, freak.” But she seems ashamed after she says it, as if she didn’t mean to use that word.

  “What can I say, I’m sorry,” he says, getting up somewhat pained and now feeling the bruises from his earlier fall from the 101 overpass.

  Anna takes in those pale green, molten eyes and something else unnerves her. It could be a hint of recognition on Anna’s face and she’s about to ask if they know each other but she holds back. Instead she shakes her head in disbelief, unsure as to what her next move is. She turns away.

  “Are you okay?” Stelson asks.

  “What’s your name?” she says with her back to him but with a side-view of her face.

  “Stelson Floyd. What’s yours?”

  The name doesn’t register with Anna. It’s meaningless. “What kind of a name is Stelson? Who’s ever heard....”

  “There aren’t many people like me.” He winks, no longer ashamed at being exposed without a pair of shades to hide behind.

  Stelson moves closer to her strutting from side to side, and she senses him and she’s oddly fearful of the young man with newfound bravado.

  She starts moving down Douglas Street again because she feels that she needs to back away from this encounter to carry on with the plan. Anna’s already off track and she knows it so she shoots a cold glance back at Stelson, scanning those pale green eyes one last time before she runs off at full stretch.

  Stelson doesn’t go after her but he watches her until she’s out of sight, the red canvas shoulder bag like a target on her back long after the blackness of her athletic outfit melds into the surroundings.

  Anna slows when she sees the indoor complex for Echo Park Deep Pool on the corner of Douglas. She stops and focuses on the stenciled Deep Pool. She gets closer and the words seem to shimmer, her vision becoming bleary. She staggers a little, unstable on typically sure feet. She has to crouch down. The words Deep Pool more foreboding now and she topples backwards onto her bottom. Her eyes are tearful. She rubs the moisture away as quickly as she can, somewhat shameful in exposing this sign of weakness, and she gets up again and crosses the street. She looks at her watch: 8:10 a.m.

  “Victor. Shit. Shit.” She was meant to be under the 101 Freeway. She’s too late. The moment has passed.

  She doesn’t know what to do, hands on hips, cussing under her breath, offending two women heading across the street for a morning swim. But then she knows exactly what to do and marches back to
the corner of Douglas Street and hollers in the direction of where she collided with Stelson.

  “I know you. You haunt me. Damn. How dare you come back into my life. After all these shitty years, you piece of crap. I know I know you. I’m not crazy. This is real.”

  A rusty Oldsmobile Cutlass drives by with two dudes hanging out the back laughing their asses off, muttering, troll-like, “crazy bitch” and “whore” until they fade away and Anna can calm down and gather herself.

  She looks at her watch again, the time ticking on. She undoes the buckle and lets it drop to the sidewalk and she stamps on it and kicks it away. She’s lost her sense of purpose and ambles back to Echo Park Deep Pool, scans those stenciled words again, passes in a daze, and heads toward Glendale Boulevard. For now, she’s happy to walk and take in the meaning of the day and perhaps the consequences of not getting to Victor on time with the pearls. Her day has been jolted and she’s on another track heading elsewhere and she knows it. This dark day has finally come, sooner rather than later.

  Victor Lesko is standing next to an abandoned shopping cart underneath the 101 overpass on a traffic-snarled Alvarado Street. There are some stairs that lead up to the 101 Freeway to his right–an obvious exit route. He looks at his watch then south down Alvarado. He seems desperate and wanting. He turns his head northwards–a Dodge Charger parked down the street flashes its headlights. Victor raises an arm and beckons it as he pulls out a cell phone and speed dials. The Dodge pulls into the inside lane and melts into morning traffic.

  “I can’t make the drop. No goods. Understand?” he says into the cell-phone.

  Whatever the response is, it’s not good and Victor grimaces and ends the call. He’s stunned for what seems like an age but it’s only a couple of seconds. He snaps out of it as the Dodge pulls up. Victor climbs in and they speed off south down Alvarado.

  Moments later, a blacked out Cadillac Escalade SUV screeches and snakes its way from the exit ramp of the 101 and pulls up to the curbside where Victor was waiting for Anna. It rumbles up, an Asian man in shades behind the wheel, belligerent in blocking the lane, cars behind blaring their horns.