Double Image

1

IN A CITY OF IMITATION, the house was unique. Designed by Lloyd Wright, the son of Frank Lloyd Wright, it had been constructed in 1931 for a movie producer whose films were unoriginal but who knew enough to let an original-minded architect do his job. In an area prone to earthquakes, it was made from reinforced concrete. Its staggered three stories created a castle effect. Glinting windows dominated the upper rooms, which were flanked by shrub and flower-filled terraces. Pounded copper sheets displaying pre-Columbian designs that resembled arrowheads led up each corner and along the parapets.

In Packard’s photograph of it. But Coltrane had no idea if the house still existed. Using his Thomas Guide and information from one of Packard’s biographies, he approached the area via a densely built, narrow, tree-lined street that curved up one of the numerous hills near the Hollywood Reservoir. Doubt made him uneasy, but as he crested the hill, peering over and down toward the middle of the congested area across from him, he felt his heart beat faster when he recognized what he was looking for.

His breath was taken away. This was one case where Packard’s photograph didn’t do justice to its subject. For one thing, the house had a presence, a solidity, an immediacy that the photograph, even using tricks of perspective and shadows, only hinted at. For another, Packard’s photograph had been in black and white, leaving Coltrane unprepared for the greenish blue of the hammered copper trim along the corners, or for the coral tint of its stucco and the red and yellow of the flowers on the terraces.

After so much effort trying to find the sites from which Packard had photographed the other houses, he had chanced upon the exact spot he needed for this house on his first try. He couldn’t get over it. Excitement swelling in him, he got out of his Blazer, opened the back hatch, and arranged his equipment. Waiting for a truck to pass, he set up the view camera in the street (he was amazed by how efficiently he was now able to handle it), made the necessary adjustments to match the image with the perspective in Packard’s photo, inserted an eight-by-ten-inch negative, and took the picture.

His chest relaxed with satisfaction. To make sure there hadn’t been a mechanical failure, he decided to take a dozen more exposures, but basically he had gotten the job done – and there wasn’t any need to find details that commented on the difference between the past and the present, because in this case there wasn’t any difference. Although the neighborhood had become overgrown, the house had been maintained exactly as it had once looked in Packard’s photograph. It was as beautiful as ever.

A horn sounded behind him. He waved for a station wagon to squeeze around him, then redirected his attention to the house below him. After retrieving the exposed negative, he decided to check that the camera hadn’t shifted slightly, and he stooped to peer beneath the black cloth, concentrating on the upside-down image on the focusing plate.

Movement caught his attention – someone coming out of the house’s front door, a portly man carrying a large cardboard box to a Mercedes sedan, then returning to the house. The man wore a green sport coat and had a distinctive rolling gait.

No. Coltrane frowned. It can’t be.

2

HE WAS WAITING AT THE MERCEDES when Duncan Reynolds again came out of the front door, carrying another cardboard box. As heavy as the last time Coltrane had seen him, his face as ruddy, Duncan set down the box beside an azalea, closed the door behind him, picked up the box again, and only then noticed Coltrane at the curb.

Duncan hesitated, concealing his surprise, then walked down a sloping concrete path to the street. “I don’t suppose I need to ask what you’re doing in the neighborhood.”

“Want some help?”

“Why not? Since you’re here.” Duncan, his eyes a little bloodshot, surrendered the box and unlocked the Mercedes’s trunk.

When Coltrane set the box inside next to three others, he got a look past an open flap, seeing binders of sleeve-protected photographs and negatives.

Coltrane stepped back from the car. “So we know why I’m in the neighborhood…”

“I’m just taking care of the final details,” Duncan said.

Coltrane shook his head, not understanding.

“The movers were here earlier, carting away the furniture. But I didn’t trust them to handle the photographic materials.”

Coltrane continued to look perplexed.

“Of course.” Duncan gestured with realization. “You didn’t know.”

“Know?”

“This house belonged to Randolph.”

“Belonged to… This was his?”

“After Randolph photographed it, he couldn’t get it out of his mind. He was so haunted by the unusual design that he bought it.”

Coltrane continued to feel amazed. “None of his biographers ever mentioned that.”

“Well, as you must have gathered by now, Randolph liked to keep many details about his life confidential. He bought the house through an intermediary and put the title in the name of one of the corporations he inherited from his parents. Sometimes, he came here to reminisce about his youth. Mostly, though, he used it as an office, an archive, and a darkroom. Would you like to see the inside?”

3

A BROAD CHECKERED SKYLIGHT BATHED THE ENTRYWAY IN brilliance. Stairs led down and up, the areas beyond as bright as the entryway. Coltrane had never been in a house that collected so much light. Following Duncan, he climbed the steps and faced a white room with a wall of windows that looked down on a garden. The room’s lack of furnishings made its clean lines even more elegant.

“Bedroom and bathroom to the right.” Duncan pointed through a corridor into another sunlit area. “Dining room to the left. Note that its walls are draped with chromium beads. Original Art Deco design. The kitchen’s beyond it.”

As the stairs continued upward, Coltrane’s movements made a hushed echo. The next level was equally sunlit.

“A bathroom, a bedroom, and a study. Another balcony.”

One final set of stairs, and Coltrane reached a single room with four walls of windows and a skylight. A glass door in the middle of each wall led onto a flower-filled terrace.

“The master bedroom.”

Coltrane pivoted, spellbound.

“But I haven’t shown you the most important section,” Duncan said.

Curious, Coltrane followed him back down to the entryway, from where they descended toward the lowest level. In back, past a darkroom, windows looked out onto a narrow pool, its water reflecting the house’s coral stucco. Beyond was a flower garden.

But Duncan paid no attention to the view and instead guided Coltrane to the left, toward a white door within a white wall. When Duncan pulled at a recessed latch, he revealed not another room but another door, and this one was metal. He unlocked it. “This area used to be another bedroom. Randolph converted it into…” Beyond the door was an area more murky than the darkroom. “… a vault.”

Cool air spilled out, making Coltrane step back.

When Duncan flicked a light switch, a harsh glare exposed a windowless area that was filled with librarylike metal shelves, all but one of which were empty. “This is where Randolph stored all his important negatives and master prints.”

For no reason Coltrane could understand, he didn’t want to enter.

“A separate air conditioner keeps the area cooled to a constant fifty-five degrees.” Duncan’s footsteps scraped as he walked along the concrete floor.

Reluctant, Coltrane followed, the cool air making him shiver.

“The area is reinforced by steel to withstand earthquakes,” Duncan said. “It’s insulated against fire and sealed against flood. As a further precaution, a halon-gas fire-extinguisher system is recessed into the ceiling.”

What’s the matter with me? Coltrane thought. There’s plenty of space in here. Why do I feel smothered?

Hearing a metallic click, he turned, to discover that the door had swung shut. “Does the lock work from the inside as well as the out?”

“Of course. There’s no danger of being trapped in here. Randolph thought of everything.” Duncan reached the only shelf that wasn’t empty. “I have only a few more boxes. If you’ll give me a hand.”

“Gladly.”

In truth, Coltrane couldn’t wait to get out. He breathed normally only after he and Duncan carried the boxes into the soul-warming light and Duncan locked the darkness behind them. The change was immediate. Again, Coltrane felt at one with the house.

4

OUTSIDE, AT THE CURB, he helped Duncan put the boxes into the Mercedes. Turning, he peered toward the property and recalled the almost-mystical quality of brightness in it.

Except for the vault, he reminded himself.

But the vault doesn’t count, he thought. It was never intended to be part of the house.

“So what happens now?” he asked Duncan. “Where are you taking those boxes?”

“UCLA. Randolph established a special collection there. For the past few days, I’ve been making trips back and forth. It’s time-consuming. Maybe I could have trusted someone else to do the job. But somehow it gave me a sense of peace.”

“And the house?”

“Will go on the market.” Duncan hesitated. “You know, it’s odd. Randolph didn’t particularly care for where he lived in Newport Beach. You saw how badly maintained it was. But here, where he came only occasionally, he kept this house in perfect shape.”

“It’s being put up for sale?”

“That’s what the trustees of his estate have decided to do. Randolph willed the Newport Beach house to me, but he made no provisions for this one.”

“Duncan, would you do me a favor?”

“That depends.”

“Ask the trustees to delay putting the house on the market.”

5

“YOU WANT TO BUY A HOUSE?” Jennifer asked in disbelief.

Daniel looked astonished. It was Saturday, 2:30 in the afternoon. They were in Coltrane’s Chevy Blazer, heading past Christmas decorations on Hollywood Boulevard.

“That’s what all the mystery’s about?” Daniel asked. “You’re taking us to look at a house?”

“You ought to feel complimented. I wouldn’t think of taking a drastic step like this without some input from the two of you.”

“But you’re out of town a lot – sometimes for months,” Jennifer said.

“Maybe not anymore.”

“I’ll believe that when I see it. When would you find time to look after a house?”

“I could hire people to maintain it.” Coltrane steered left onto Beachwood Drive, heading up into the tangle of streets in the Hollywood Hills.

“But right now, if you need to leave in a hurry, all you have to do is lock your place and drive away,” Daniel said. “No muss, no fuss. Not to mention, you’ve got me next door to come over and check on things. And you’ve got Jennifer. Why on earth do you want to complicate your life?”

“I was hoping to simplify it.” Coltrane steered to the right, heading up a eucalyptus-lined zigzag road. “I want to put down roots.”

“Then plant a tree,” Daniel said. “I’m telling you – this could be a mistake.”

Coltrane crested a hill. Excitement made him smile as the house appeared below him. He had been afraid that upon returning to it, he wouldn’t feel the same magic. But if anything, it gripped him more strongly.

“There.” He stopped in front.

The car became silent.

“So what do you think?”

Neither Jennifer nor Daniel said a word.

“Well?” Coltrane asked.

“Shit,” Daniel said.

“What’s the matter?”

“It’s fantastic.”

“What about you, Jennifer?”

She still didn’t say anything.

“Jennifer?”

“… It’s one of the houses Packard photographed.”

“Right.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t want you to have preconceptions.”

Jennifer raised a hand to shield her eyes from the sun. “I wouldn’t have believed it. As impressive as it is in Packard’s photograph, he didn’t do it justice.”

“Then you understand why I’m tempted to buy it,” Coltrane said.

“The question that comes to mind is how. Have you got an oil well or something I don’t know about?”

“Exactly what I was thinking,” Daniel said. “This is a major piece of real estate. The asking price must be over a million.”

“And a half,” Coltrane said.

“How the… What makes you think you can afford…”

“My father’s going to buy it for me.”

They looked at him as if he’d lost his mind.

“Your father?” Jennifer asked.

“The son of a bitch had twenty dry-cleaning shops,” Coltrane said. “After he shot my mother and himself, the shops were sold. The proceeds were put in a trust account that my grandparents managed while they were raising me. Except for feeding and clothing me, paying my medical bills and my college expenses, the money was never used. Until I was twenty-one, I didn’t even know the account existed. I thought my grandparents were paying the bills. If I’d known where the money was coming from… Several times, I almost gave it away. What stopped me were my grandparents. They didn’t want the money, either, but I kept worrying that if something terrible happened to them, if they had catastrophic medical bills or… I wanted to be in a position to pay them back for all the years and the love they put into raising me. So I let the money stay – in case. The last thing I expected was to use it for myself.” Coltrane tasted something bitter. “But finally the asshole who called himself my father is going to do something for me.”

An emotional silence was broken by the stutter of a hard-to-start lawn mower down the street.

“Okay,” Jennifer said. “I can see you’ve got your mind made up.”

“Why are the two of you being so negative?”

They looked at each other.

Daniel glanced down in embarrassment. “I guess we do sound negative. The truth is, I enjoy having you as a neighbor. The last thing I want is for you to move.”

“But it’s not like I’d be moving to another city. We’d still see each other.”

“It wouldn’t be the same, though.”

“No.” Coltrane felt a twinge of melancholy. “No, it wouldn’t.”

“All we want is what’s best for you,” Jennifer said. “Don’t you think you should at least check to make sure the house doesn’t have structural damage from the last quake? Maybe it’s about to fall over. Or maybe its plumbing is all messed up, or the house is sitting on a swamp.”

Coltrane chuckled. “I sort of planned on getting it inspected.” He pulled out a key that Duncan had lent him. “Would you like to see for yourself about the swamp?”

6

“THE VAULT,” Daniel said when they came out.

“I know,” Coltrane said. “But there’s an easy way to fix the problem.”

“I don’t see how.”

“Rip the damned thing out. Restore the house to its original condition.”

“You sound as if…”

“I’ve made up my mind. I’m going to buy it.”

“Let me ask you something, and then I’ll shut up,” Jennifer said.

“Okay.”

“If you just happened to be driving along that street and the house had no association with Packard and you noticed it was for sale, would you have suddenly wanted to buy it?”

Coltrane thought a moment. “Probably not.”

“So you’re buying the place because Packard photographed the house and made it famous?”

Coltrane hesitated. “I don’t think so.”

“It’s because Packard owned the house? You want to identify with him that much?”

Coltrane didn’t answer.

7

“I’VE GOT SOMETHING ELSE I WANT TO SHOW YOU,” Coltrane said.

They looked puzzled as they got out of his car in his garage.

“But I confess I’m a little nervous about it. Lord, I hope you’re more enthusiastic.”

“About what?” Jennifer asked.

“You have to wait here until I get everything ready.”

They looked even more puzzled when he disappeared upstairs.

Two minutes later, Coltrane called down to the garage, “Okay, you can come up now.”

He had put on a CD of Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue. He had glasses of chilled chardonnay ready when they reached the top of the stairs.

“What’s this all about?” Daniel asked.

“Well, I figured if I was going to have a showing, I might as well set the mood.”

“Showing?” As Jennifer sipped the wine, she peered into the living room and was momentarily frozen.

Coltrane didn’t need to explain. What he wanted to show them was obvious, everywhere, on the walls, the bookshelves, the furniture, any place he could hang them or set them: eight-by-ten-inch mounted photographs.

“My God, Mitch.”

“That’s why I didn’t want to go out to dinner last night,” Coltrane said. “I was working like crazy to finish the prints.”

“They’re…” Words failed her.

Coltrane’s updates of Packard’s photos were eerily suggestive of the originals. “Time warps,” he had called them as he worked on them. He had done his best to replicate the texture of Packard’s photographs, down to the slightest shadows and subtlest streaks of light. Juxtaposed, his images and Packard’s evoked powerful emotions within the viewer, creating the illusion of being in two time frames simultaneously.

Jennifer and Daniel seemed spellbound, moving from photograph to photograph, studying them while Coltrane didn’t say a word but merely sat on a stool at the entrance to the living room, sipping wine, studying them.

But the project was devoted to more than just Packard’s houses. Interspersed among the time warps were other mounted photographs, which – beginning with the heartbreaking depiction of Diane – recorded the emotional encounters Coltrane had experienced while retracing Packard’s steps.

Jennifer shook her head in wonder.

Daniel looked at Coltrane, as if seeing him with new eyes.

“This is the best stuff you’ve ever done,” Jennifer said. “I have a hunch you won’t mind talking about these pictures.”

“No,” Coltrane said, relief ebbing through him. “I won’t mind talking about them at all.”

“Well, I was wrong about one thing,” Jennifer said. “I thought this would be suitable for a feature in the magazine.”

“You’ve changed your mind?”

“Definitely. There’s too much here, and I don’t want to leave anything out. For the first time, there’s going to be a special issue.”

“… I don’t know what to say.”

“I do,” Daniel said. “Where’d you put the wine?”

Coltrane laughed.

Jennifer kissed him. “I’m so proud of you.”

As she and Daniel returned to the photographs, Coltrane noticed the red light blinking on his answering machine. He pressed the play button.

His stomach tightened when a chorus sang mournful classical music.

“Again?” Jennifer looked up from a photograph he had taken of the elderly black woman at the trailer court. “This is annoying.”

“I can think of less polite ways to put it,” Coltrane said. “I wish I had one of those machines that shows the number of whoever’s calling. Then I could phone the jerk back and play music to him – except I’d have trouble finding music as weird as this.”

“Verdi isn’t what I’d call weird.” Daniel didn’t glance away from the photo of the young black woman pushing a boy in a swing. Coltrane had juxtaposed it with the faded photo of his mother pushing him in the same swing twenty-four years earlier.

“Verdi?”

“You ought to get more culture. If you listened to something other than jazz, if you went to those classical concerts I invited you to… The music on your answering machine is by Verdi.”

“Italian. That’s why I can’t understand what they’re singing.”

“Well, in this case, what they’re singing isn’t Italian – it’s Latin. Let me hear the music again.”

Coltrane pressed the repeat button.

“No doubt about it,” Daniel said. “That’s from the Requiem.”

“The music for a funeral mass?” Jennifer asked.

“Hear what they’re singing? ‘Dies irae.’ ‘Day of wrath.’ That’s definitely from the Requiem.”

Coltrane gestured in frustration. “But why would anybody phone me every day and play music for a funeral?”

“A prankster with a sick sense of humor.”

“‘Dies irae.’ What’s that mean?”

“Something about a day,” Daniel said. “If you’re really curious, I can go next door and get my copy of the Requiem. The liner notes have a translation.”

It was a vinyl LP, Coltrane saw when Daniel returned. Daniel was fond of lecturing that vinyl had a richer, more lifelike sound than the CD format. “Bernstein conducting. Domingo soloing. This is one of the best-”

“Just tell us what the Latin means, Daniel.”

“Right.” Daniel looked mischievous, as if he knew he was making them impatient. “It should be…” He unfolded the double-platter album and ran his index finger down the translation on the inside. “Here. ‘Dies irae.’

Daniel lowered the album. “Well, I guess a little fear of the Lord is a good thing at a funeral. Keeps our priorities straight.”

“But there’s no hidden message that I can figure out,” Coltrane said. “What about you, Jennifer?”

“The only message I get out of it is that I’d better say my prayers more often. We were right the first time. It’s just a prankster with a weird sense of-”

The phone rang.

“Hello.”

Verdi’s Requiem blared at him again.

8

“YOU’RE NEVER HOME,” a thickly accented, gravelly voice said.

Coltrane’s skin tingled. “What? Who is this?”

“The judge.”

“Mitch?” Jennifer was alarmed by the look on Coltrane’s face. “What’s the matter?”

“Now listen to me, you sick bastard,” Coltrane said into the phone. “Quit calling me and-”

“There’ll come a time when you’ll wish with all your heart that the only thing I had done was phone you.” The voice sounded like pebbles being rattled in a cardboard cup. “Jennifer is correct about saying her prayers more often.”

Coltrane’s scalp prickled. “How did you know she said-”

“The day of wrath will dissolve the world in ashes when I appear and all things are scattered.”

Coltrane’s entire body felt as if an electrical current had surged through him. He spun to stare at the living room, his alarmed expression making Jennifer and Daniel more startled. “You’ve got a microphone in here?”

The voice chuckled, its crustiness reminding Coltrane of a boot stomping dried mud. “Oh, I’ve got much more than that in your apartment. Go up to your bedroom. I’ve left you some souvenirs.”

The connection was broken.

9

COLTRANE FELT SUSPENDED BETWEEN HEARTBEATS. Abruptly he dropped the phone and raced toward the stairs in the kitchen.

“Mitch, what’s the matter? Who was that?” Jennifer’s urgent questions overlapped with Daniel’s, their footsteps pounding on the stairs behind him.

He reached the upper corridor and ran past the door to his darkroom, then the door to the bathroom, at once slowing, afraid of what he would find in his bedroom. When he looked cautiously in, what greeted him made him feel as if a hand was pressed against his chest and was shoving him backward.

The bedroom was arranged in a parody of the display he had set up for Jennifer and Daniel downstairs in the living room. Photographs were everywhere, on the floor, the bureau, the bedside tables, the bed itself. Eight-by-tens, the same dimension as the photographs from Packard’s view camera. But even at a distance, Coltrane could tell that these photographs were too grainy to have been taken with a view camera. They were blowups from a 35-mm negative. What they depicted, though, made up for their lack of detail.

Jennifer and Daniel crowded behind him.

“What’s going on?” Daniel asked. “Who was that on the phone?”

Coltrane didn’t answer. Muscles compacting, he entered, stepping between photographs, staring down, then all around.

“This is insane,” Jennifer said.

Image after image showed Coltrane setting up the view camera, taking photographs of the houses in Packard’s series or of the people and places he had encountered as he followed Packard’s route. There was even a photograph of him and Jennifer saying good-bye to Diane in the rhododendron-lined driveway of her parents’ estate. Another showed Coltrane at the trailer court in Glendale as he photographed the young black woman pushing the boy in the swing. Wherever he had gone in the last two weeks, someone had been following him, taking his picture.

“When we said good-bye to Diane, I didn’t notice anybody on the street taking pictures of us,” Jennifer said.

“With a telephoto lens, the camera could have been a block away.”

He turned toward the bed, toward images of a backhoe dropping jumbled bones into a rock pulverizer while a bandy-legged, barrel-chested, beefy-faced man watched, his huge hands braced on his hips, his drooping mustache raised in a smile of satisfaction.

“These are the photos I saw in Newsweek,” Daniel said.

“No,” Coltrane said. “You never saw these photos. This set was never published.” Fearing he might throw up, he took a tentative step toward a dismaying object braced against the bed’s headboard – all the photographs seemed to be arranged to draw attention to that spot. “They couldn’t have been published. The negatives were in a camera I lost on a cliff while I was trying to escape from… This camera. Someone found it and developed the negatives.”

He stared again at the photographs of the barrel-chested man watching with delight as the rock pulverizer spewed out chunks of bones. The freshly healed wound in his side throbbed.

“Dragan Ilkovic,” Coltrane said.

“What did you say?” Daniel asked.

Fire seemed to shoot through Coltrane’s nervous system. “We have to hurry. Jennifer, grab all these photos. Daniel, get the ones downstairs. Now! It isn’t safe in here! We have to get out!”

10

THE CRIMSON RAYS OF SUNSET haloed six sweat-slicked men playing basketball. They dodged, ducked, and pivoted with amazingly deft precision, throwing, leaping, dunking, matching one another’s points. Four of the men were black. All were approximately Coltrane’s age – mid-thirties. They played with such concentration and enthusiasm that the past and the future didn’t matter, only now and only the game.

Coltrane watched from concrete bleachers on the street side of one of the many basketball courts at Muscle Beach in Venice. Behind him, bicyclists and roller skaters floated by. Ahead, the sunset-tinted ocean silhouetted the players. It was like watching expressionistic dancers on a stage. A moment later, the sun slipped a degree too low, shadows deepened, and the players faced one another, bending forward, hands on their knees, chests heaving as the ball rebounded off the backboard, missed the hoop, and bounced among them.

“Can’t hit a hoop I can’t see.”

“Never mind the hoop. I can’t see the ball.”

“Hey, you can’t quit now. We’re only two points from beating you.”

“Next time, bro. It’s your turn to buy the beers.”

“It’s always my turn.”

As the group headed past a palm tree toward the walkway, one of the black men said, “Go on without me. There’s a guy over here I have to talk to.”

“See you next week.”

Joking with one another, comparing shots, the group avoided two skateboarders and headed toward a café along the walkway.

Coltrane stood from the empty bleachers and approached.

The black man reached into a gym bag, pulled out a towel, and dried the sweat on his face.

“Greg.”

“Mitch.”

They shook hands.

Coltrane was six feet tall. The man he had come to see was two inches taller. They were both about the same weight – two hundred pounds. Coltrane’s hair was curly and sand-colored, long enough in back that it hung to his collar. In contrast, the man he spoke to had wiry dark hair cut close to his scalp. Both had strong, attractive features, but the black man’s were broader and gave the impression of having been carved from ebony, whereas Coltrane’s seemed chipped from granite.

“Just happened to be passing by?” Greg looped the towel around his neck and tugged his sweatshirt from his chest.

A cool December breeze gusted off the ocean and made Coltrane shiver. “Don’t I wish. I phoned your house. Your wife told me where you’d be.”

“I get the feeling you didn’t drop by to catch up on old times.”

“Afraid not.” Coltrane held up a box. “Got something I want you to look at.”

Greg frowned at the box, redirected his attention toward Coltrane, and sighed. “Come on up to the house. Lois will be glad to see you again. You can stay for supper.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Oh?”

“The kind of trouble I’ve got, you don’t know what I might bring with me to your house.”

11

GREG’S LAST NAME WAS BASS. He was a lieutenant in the Los Angeles Police Department. Coltrane had met him two years earlier when the L.A. Times Sunday Magazine had asked him to do a photo essay on the police department’s Threat Management Unit, the only law-enforcement squad in the United States devoted exclusively to stalkers. What had attracted the L.A. Times was that, because of the clandestine nature of their harassment, stalkers were sometimes described as “invisible criminals.” The idea was that a photographer as inventive and accomplished as Coltrane could perhaps make some stalkers very visible.

Coltrane’s liaison at the Threat Management Unit had turned out to be Greg, and over the course of the assignment, they had developed a friendship, Coltrane earning Greg’s respect by being of considerable help to one of the many terrified women the Threat Management Unit was trying to protect. By lying in the bushes outside the woman’s home several nights in a row, Coltrane had managed to capture a picture of the woman’s heretofore-unknown harasser – a man she had dated twice five years earlier – as he dumped gasoline on the woman’s lawn at three in the morning. The stalker had gone to prison for eighteen months. Since then, Coltrane had helped Greg on three other cases.

They sat facing each other in the back booth of a tavern. Both of them sipped Budweiser, neither of them speaking, while Greg finished assessing the last photograph, thought about them, stacked them, and put them back into the box.

“So basically you’re telling me that this guy thinks it’s cool to tie people’s hands behind their back with baling wire, line them up facing a pit, and shoot them in the back of the head so they topple forward into the pit and nobody has to move the bodies to bury them. Sounds like he and Hitler would have been pals.”

“Except that Hitler was a Nazi. Ilkovic came out of the Communist system when Bosnia was part of Yugoslavia, so Stalin would probably be closer to his ideal.”

“Politics as an excuse for mass murder.” Greg shook his head.

“Ilkovic worked his way up through the Communist system, learned English, and was trained to be a diplomat. For a time, he was stationed at the Yugoslavian consulate in London. As thugs go, he’s very sophisticated. Not to mention calculating. As soon as the Soviet system collapsed, he went back to what is now Bosnia and took advantage of the civil war. He gained his power base by urging the Serbs not to just win the war but to exterminate the enemy. I suppose he figured that after the Serbs killed all the Muslims, he could get them to eradicate the other ethnic group in the region, the Croats. Then the Serbs would control all of Bosnia, and since he controlled the Serbs… Meanwhile, Bosnia became his private killing field.”

“I bet he loved every minute of it. Dragan Ilkovic. Quite a mouthful. And you’ve got this bastard after you because you took pictures that linked him to war crimes and ruined his chances of controlling Bosnia’s government.”

“It’s kind of hard to rule a country when you’re in prison because of crimes against humanity,” Coltrane said.

“Except he isn’t in prison,” Greg said. “He’s here in Los Angeles, looking to pay you back.”

12

AMBULANCE ATTENDANTS HURRIED TO PUSH A YOUNG MAN ON a gurney into the emergency ward. The young man had an oxygen mask over his face. His chest, which wasn’t moving, was covered with blood.

Coltrane got out of their way, then followed through electronically controlled glass doors that hissed shut behind him. Two nurses and a physician rushed to the young man on the gurney, guiding him into a cubicle, tugging a curtain shut, casting urgent shadows as other nurses and physicians worked on other patients in other cubicles and more patients huddled on benches along the walls.

“Can I help you, sir?”

Coltrane turned toward a weary-looking bespectacled woman who wore a green hospital top and held a clipboard.

“Are you hurt? Do you need…” Her voice dropped as she studied him and couldn’t see anything obviously wrong.

“I’m looking for Dr. Gibson.”

At that moment, Daniel – his red hair emphasized by the greens he wore – came out of a cubicle and walked quickly toward a counter in the middle of the area.

“There. I have to see him for a moment.”

“Sir, you’ll have to wait your turn. There are patients ahead of you who-”

“Daniel.”

Hearing his name, Daniel turned. “Mitch?” Frowning, he came over. “What are you doing here?”

“I need to talk to you.”

Daniel’s frown deepened with puzzlement. “I just finished with a patient.” He cocked his head toward the approaching wail of an ambulance outside. “Typically busy Saturday night. This’ll have to be quick.”

Daniel guided him through a door and into a stairwell. The door banged shut, echoing.

“I won’t be home for the next couple of days. Maybe weeks,” Coltrane said. “I wanted you to know so you wouldn’t worry.”

“A photo shoot?” Daniel sounded hopeful.

“No, the guy who broke into my apartment while we were out this afternoon.”

“I was afraid you’d say that.”

“I just got finished talking to a friend who’s with the LAPD antistalking unit. He says if this guy could plant a bug in my living room, what’s to stop him from planting a bomb? I’m not supposed to go home – not until this creep is caught.”

“But who knows how long… Where will you go?”

“I’m not sure. If I need to reach you, I’ll leave a message for you here at the hospital. The reason I didn’t leave a message this time, Daniel, is that my friend also had some advice for you. I wanted to give it to you in person.”

Daniel looked uneasy.

“I don’t think you should go back to your apartment,” Coltrane said. “This guy can as easily break into your place as mine. He might decide to pay you a visit and find out where I’ve gone.”

“But you haven’t told me where you’re going.”

“He doesn’t know that. Tell the hospital you need some time off. Take a lot of streets at random and watch for any headlights following you. When you’re sure you’re safe, get out of town. Maybe in a couple of days my friend will have caught him, and you can come back. But Daniel, listen to me. No matter how much you’re tempted, don’t stay with a friend.”

Daniel paled as he understood the implications.

“I didn’t do anything wrong,” Coltrane said. “But I can’t tell you how sorry I am that I put you at risk.”

The stairwell door banged open. “Doctor, we need-”

“Yes.” Daniel hurried back to the din of the emergency ward. “Jennifer.” He looked back. “What about-”

“I’m on my way to warn her.”

13

WHEN THE HEADLIGHTS OF A CAR VEERED OFF BEVERLY GLEN Boulevard onto Knob Hill Drive, Coltrane watched from where his Blazer was parked among other cars in the darkness at the side of the road. In this secluded residential area of Sherman Oaks, there was almost no traffic at 10:00 P. M., even on a Saturday. This was only the third set of lights in the past fifteen minutes. Identifying Jennifer’s BMW as it slowed on a curve and passed him, Coltrane redirected his attention toward the entrance to this street. One minute became two, then three. After five minutes, Coltrane decided that if Ilkovic had been following her, other headlights would certainly have appeared by now. Picking up his car phone, he pressed the numbers for Jennifer’s car phone, let it ring three times, and broke the connection, the signal to Jennifer that it was safe for her to keep descending into the valley and wait for him at the Sherman Oaks Recreation Center. He didn’t speak on the car phone because Greg had emphasized how easy it was for someone to use an audioscanner to overhear conversations on that type of phone.

The recreation center’s arc-lit parking lot was almost deserted as Coltrane pulled up next to Jennifer’s BMW. Her blond hair was suddenly visible, catching the glare of the security lights as she scrambled into his Blazer.

She hugged him tightly. “You’ve got me scared to death. What’s going on? Why the pay phone? Why did you ask me to meet you here?”

Coltrane had called her at home in Marina del Rey and told her to go to a specific phone booth near the docks, where he had gone earlier and noted the number. When she’d had enough time to get there, he had called from another pay phone in the area, telling her the route he wanted her to drive.

“You think my phone’s tapped?”

“I assume mine is,” Coltrane said. “Hell, my apartment’s bugged, so why not my phone? Why not Daniel’s? Why not yours?” Coltrane summarized his conversation with Greg. “We’re away from our homes so much, getting in and bugging our phones wouldn’t be hard to do. It’s a logical thing for Ilkovic to try, to keep pressure on me by knowing everything I’m up to.”

Hating what he had to say next, Coltrane hesitated. “Greg says that Ilkovic might be tempted to use you to get at me.”

Jennifer looked at him sharply.

“He thinks you’re at risk. He says you ought to stay away from your condo for a while.”

“What?”

“He says we ought to keep away from each other. When Ilkovic can’t figure out where I’ve gone-”

“Where you’ve gone?”

“I’m going to disappear, Jennifer. When Ilkovic can’t figure out where, he’ll probably follow you, hoping that you’ll lead him to me. Or he might decide to do worse, to force you to tell him what you know, even if it isn’t anything. There isn’t a choice. You’ve got to disappear, too.”

Jennifer pressed her hands against her stomach. “I thought I was scared driving over here, but that’s nothing compared with what I’m feeling now. My God, there’s got to be a… Where do you plan to hide?”

Coltrane didn’t answer.

“I’m going with you,” Jennifer said.

“But you just heard me explain-”

“It makes more sense for both of us to disappear together. That way, we don’t have to worry if he’ll be following me. He won’t be able to use me to get at you. We’ll both be safe while your friend tries to catch him.”

“I’m not sure that…”

“Mitch, this isn’t about crowding you. It’s about survival.”

14

JENNIFER RUSHED INTO THE AIRPORT. While she bought tickets for America West’s 11:45 shuttle to Las Vegas, Coltrane left his car in the parking garage. Out of breath, they met at the gate as the straggle of late-night passengers was boarding. Placing himself at the end of the line, Coltrane checked to make sure that no one followed them into the aircraft. Only after the jet pulled away from the terminal did he breathe easier.

“I need a drink,” Jennifer said.

“Me, too. But I’m afraid I’ll have to settle for coffee. We need to be awake for quite awhile.”

The jet arrived in Vegas at 12:44. They hurried to the America West counter and bought tickets on the next flight back to Los Angeles. By the time they reached the gate, the 1:45 shuttle was already boarding.

“Lord, I hope this fools him,” Jennifer said.

“I don’t see why it won’t work,” Coltrane said. “If Ilkovic did manage to follow us to the airport, we know he didn’t get on the plane with us. He has no way of figuring out we caught the next flight back to L.A. As far as he’s concerned, we’re in Vegas, and that’s where he has to search for us.”

“But what about when we get to L.A.?” Jennifer’s usually bright eyes dimmed with exhaustion. “Where will we hide? A hotel?”

“That’s the logical choice.”

But Coltrane had another idea, although he didn’t tell her. Their plane reached LAX at 2:41. A van took them to the Avis lot, where a weary clerk gave Coltrane documents to sign.

“A midsize car. Nothing flashy,” Coltrane said.

“A Saturn all right?”

“Perfect.” With so many Saturns on the road, nobody would notice another one.

The dashboard clock showed 3:31 as they drove out of the lot. The streetlights hurt Coltrane’s eyes. Using La Cienega Boulevard, he headed into the heart of the temporarily quiet city.

Jennifer yawned. “What hotel are we going to use?”

“Greg doesn’t want us to go anyplace that’s fancy, where we’ll attract attention when we check in without luggage. I know a couple of quiet places in West Hollywood.”

Jennifer yawned again. “As long as it’s got a decent bed.”

“We’ll be a little while getting there. Why don’t you close your eyes and go to sleep?”

Without traffic, Coltrane made good time, reaching his destination at 3:54. He got out of the car, unlocked the front door, and pressed buttons on an entryway monitor that disarmed the security system. To the left, he stepped into the single-stall garage and pressed a button that activated the door opener. As the overhead motor rumbled and the door rose, he returned to the car, pausing when he saw that Jennifer had wakened.

Groggy, she rubbed her eyes. “Are we there? Is this the hotel?”

“Yes, but it’s not exactly a hotel.”

Jennifer concentrated to focus her vision, gaping through the windshield when she realized what she was seeing. The glare of the headlights revealed a house that resembled a castle, its coral-colored stucco lovely even when harshly lit, the edges of its parapets trimmed with green copper strips that glinted in the shape of pre-Columbian arrowheads.

“Here?” she asked in disbelief.

“Yes,” Coltrane said. “Packard’s house.”