Double Image

by David Morrell

  “Packard phoned fifteen minutes ago.”

  “What? You’re kidding me.”

  “He got your number from the magazine photographers directory. He thought you’d be back by now. When I told him you weren’t, he talked about you. You made quite an impression on him.”

  Coltrane felt a dizzying sense of unreality.

  “He said he hasn’t met anybody as honest as you in a long time. What on earth did you say to him?”

  Coltrane sank onto a kitchen chair. “Actually, I insulted him.”

  Jennifer’s mouth hung open.

  “I told him I thought his photographs at the exhibition were ugly.”

  “You certainly know how to win friends and influence people.”

  “Believe me, I wasn’t exaggerating about his photographs. They’re as ugly as the ones I’ve been taking.”

  “And the ones you removed from your wall?”

  Coltrane turned toward his living room. During the day, he had taken down all his framed photographs. His Time cover of an American soldier spooning food into a skeletal child’s mouth in Somalia, his two Newsweek covers (one of which showed a widow keening, holding her dead daughter in one arm and her dead husband in the other after a rocket attack in northern Israel), and his much-reprinted Associated Press photo of the first wave of American helicopters to invade Panama. These and other sensational highlights of his career were now stacked on a closet shelf. “It takes one shitty photographer to recognize another.”

  “Maybe that’s why he wants to do a project with you,” Jennifer said.

  Coltrane wasn’t sure he’d heard her correctly. “Do a project with . . .”

  “He says he knows your work and thinks it’s impressive.”

  “You’re making this up.”

  “Not at all. But he says you’ll be putting in most of the effort. He’ll supply the advice and the original photographs for a photo essay in Southern California.”

  “What are we talking about?”

  “His famous series of L.A. houses in the twenties and thirties.”

  Coltrane straightened. That series of twenty photographs was a masterpiece. Packard’s depiction of various styles of houses in widely separated areas of the not-yet-overgrown city not only had been hauntingly beautiful but had seemed to mourn the impending loss of the innocence it celebrated.

  “Packard thinks they ought to be done again,” Jennifer said. “Go back to the same neighborhoods. Find the same spots where he set up his camera. Choose the same angles. Shoot what’s there now. He says he’s been thinking about a continuation of the series for a long time, but now he isn’t well enough to do it.”

  “All he’s asking me to be is his assistant?”

  “More. Even if he could take the photographs, he says he wouldn’t. He agrees with your opinion of his recent work—he can’t see beauty anymore. He’s hoping, if you take the photographs, the same places all these years later, maybe you’ll find the beauty he can’t find.”

  “I’ll be damned.”

  8

  S OMETIME IN THE NIGHT , Coltrane woke to find himself reaching for her. His lips touched hers, but as he continued to roll onto his injured side, he winced from pain. “Lie still,” she whispered. “Let me do the work.” He felt her warmth when she leaned over him, kissing his neck. She trembled from the brush of his hands against her breasts. Floating. Flowing. Pain stopped. So did time.

  9

  W E SHOULD NEVER HAVE SPLIT UP ,” he said.

  The bedside lamp was on. They had just returned from the bathroom. Naked, Jennifer sat next to him on the bed, her legs curled under her.

  “I didn’t give you a choice,” she said.

  His emerald eyes studied her. “I didn’t pay enough attention to you.”

  She shook her head. “We both know the truth. I crowded you until you had to back off.” She looked at her hands. “There’s something I never told you.”

  Coltrane frowned, wondering what she was getting at.

  “This is hard for me to . . . I was married once.”

  He turned his head in surprise.

  “Ten years ago. I found out later he’d screwed my best friend the night before the wedding. That was after I found out he’d been screwing every woman he could all the time he was married to me, which wasn’t long, just under a year.”

  “Why on earth didn’t you tell me?”

  “It’s not something I’m comfortable talking about. All the story proves is that I’m a fool.”

  “But why did he marry you if he didn’t intend to be faithful?”

  “He said he loved me.” Jennifer’s tone was filled with self-mocking. “Lord knows, I loved him. I think being married to me gave him the chance to play the field and have an excuse why he couldn’t marry those other women. I was compliant enough to give him a home and make his meals and not pester him when he said he had to work late and wouldn’t be home.”

  “I can’t tell you how sorry I am.”

  “Not as much as I was. The point is, I had a hard time trusting men after that. I kept suspecting that anybody who showed an interest in me was really trying to take advantage of me.” Jennifer bit her lip. “I guess that’s another way of saying I didn’t believe I could be special enough to any man that he’d never look at another woman. So . . .” She shrugged fatalistically. “I overcompensate. I wanted you to love me on an impossible level. But I swear that won’t happen again. Word of honor. I won’t make demands.”

  “You should have told me about this before. It helps me understand a lot of things.”

  “That’s why I’m telling you now. I lost you once, Mitch. I don’t want to lose you again.”

  10

  P ACKARD ’ S ADDRESS WAS IN N EWPORT B EACH . Coltrane’s Thomas Guide led him to a Spanish-style mansion partially concealed by a high stucco wall. Both the wall and the house were pale pink, severely sun-faded, although the clouds from Friday night’s storm lingered, cloaking everything in gray. Driving through an open iron gate, Coltrane saw pools of water around cracks in the driveway’s blacktop. Shrubs needed trimming. Avocados rotted on the ground.

  The overweight, colorfully dressed man who had wheeled Packard away at the reception answered the doorbell. He looked as if he’d had a hard night. His red sport coat matched the flush of his heavy cheeks. His gray-and-white mustache seemed to push down his mouth. He was holding a half-finished glass of what Coltrane assumed was a Bloody Mary. “I’m not convinced this is a good idea,” the man murmured.

  Coltrane couldn’t tell if he meant drinking his lunch or inviting Coltrane in.

  “The reception was very hard on him,” the man said.

  “I wouldn’t have guessed. He seemed to be in fine form.”

  “Because he was spirited? That’s when you know he feels most vulnerable.” The man shifted his Bloody Mary to his left hand and offered his right. The hand was cold from the ice in the glass he’d been holding. “Duncan Reynolds.”

  “Mitch Coltrane.”

  “I know. A word to the wise. Watch him carefully. I haven’t the faintest notion what he’s up to this time.”

  When Coltrane frowned, Duncan frowned in return. “Something the matter?”

  “I guess I’m not used to someone’s friend warning me about the other friend. At least not the first time we have a conversation.”

  “Friend?” Duncan tucked in his chin, creating wrinkles in his puffy neck. “You think Randolph and I are friends? Good God, no. I’m his assistant. Chief cook and bottle washer. His private nurse.”

  From somewhere in the house, a bell rang.

  “I wouldn’t keep him waiting,” Duncan said.

  Throughout this exchange, the front door had remained open. Now, when Duncan shut it and Coltrane followed him along a muffled corridor, he realized how dark the interior was. Dense draperies covered the windows in several indistinct rooms he passed. By comparison, the last room had muted recessed lights that seemed almost bright. The furniture was surp
risingly sparse—a few padded chairs, a coffee table, and a sofa, all showing signs of wear. There was nothing on the walls. The draperies had been parted, but not the lace curtains behind them. Past a wall of windows, filtered gray daylight showed a strip of lawn littered with leaves. Beyond was a yacht moored at a dock, both looking in need of maintenance. Even the water seemed dingy.

  Coltrane heard a subtle hissing sound. At first, he thought it came from a pump on a fish tank, but when he finished taking in the room and focused on Packard, who sat in his wheelchair next to a fireplace, Coltrane saw plastic prongs in the old man’s nostrils, connected to a tube that led to a small oxygen tank at the back of the wheelchair. Packard seemed to be drowning in a pair of green silk pajamas and a matching robe. His narrow face looked more shrunken than the previous evening, his eyes filmy, his white hair sparse, his skin mottled with brown. When he coughed, the sand that had seemed wedged in his throat at the reception no longer bothered him. His present problem was a lot of phlegm.

  Coltrane looked discreetly away while the old man used a handkerchief. “Perhaps if I came back another time . . .”

  “Nonsense,” Packard whispered hoarsely. “I asked you to lunch.”

  Barely able to hear him, Coltrane stepped closer.

  “I rarely invite anyone to the house.”

  Now Coltrane was close enough that, if he wanted to, he could touch him. There was something oddly intimate about Packard’s forced whisper.

  “And I certainly don’t go back on offers I make.” The old man cleared his throat with difficulty. “But I’m afraid my appetite isn’t what it should be.” The oxygen continued its subtle hiss. “No doubt something I ate at the reception last night. I hope you don’t mind if I don’t share the meal with you.”

  “Since you’re not feeling well, why don’t we do this another time?”

  “I won’t hear of it. Duncan, bring our young man something to eat. Is there anything you particularly enjoy?”

  “A sandwich is fine. Whatever.”

  “I was thinking of something a little more elaborate than a sandwich.” Packard cocked his wizened head. “If the Dom Pérignon is properly chilled, Duncan, would you bring it out now?”

  Duncan saluted with his Bloody Mary and left.

  11

  T HE ROOM BECAME SILENT , except for the hiss of oxygen. The contrast between this conversation and the one the previous evening was more striking. Coltrane decided that Packard not only had worn makeup at the reception but had been energized by some kind of drug. The drug must have put him on edge. That would explain why his present tone was so agreeably the opposite of the one he had used at the reception.

  “I see you brought the collection for me to sign. Which one is it?”

  “ Reflections of the City of Angels. ”

  Packard sounded oddly sad. “That has always been my favorite. How on earth did you find a copy? It’s very rare. And very expensive.”

  “I spent a lot of time haunting rare-book stores.”

  “You certainly must have.” Packard took the oversized book and the fountain pen Coltrane offered him. When he opened the cover, he drew his spindly hand affectionately along a page. “I got older. This paper, the finest I could find, remains the same as when the book was printed in 1931. A lifetime ago.” With a nostalgic shake of his head, he uncapped the pen and managed the strength for a solid flourish of a signature.

  “There.” He looked mischievous as he returned the pen and the book. “Now it’s even more rare and more expensive. While you’re holding that pen, I wonder if you’d return the favor and sign something for me.”

  Coltrane didn’t understand. Baffled, he watched Packard reach into a pouch on the side of the chair and bring out a copy of Through a Lens Darkly, Coltrane’s only collection of photographs, images from war zones.

  “You do know my work,” he said in amazement.

  “A Pulitzer Prize–winning photographer has a way of attracting my attention,” Packard said. “You’re very good.”

  “Thank you.” Coltrane’s voice thickened. “Coming from you, that means a great deal.” He managed to control his hand when he signed the book. “But I wish I’d devoted my career to something besides war and pain. I’ve been having a lot of second thoughts.”

  “The day you’re satisfied with your work is the day you’ll stop being an excellent photographer,” Packard said.

  The old man suddenly coughed.

  The cough increased alarmingly.

  “Is there anything I can . . .”

  “No.” Packard strained to speak through the handkerchief pressed to his mouth.

  Coltrane felt helpless, wanting to pat him on the back but afraid the old man was so frail that he might injure him.

  At last, Packard straightened. “It’s this weather. The chill in the air. I shouldn’t have gone out last night.”

  “Then why did you?” The abrupt voice was Duncan’s. He entered with an ice bucket, a champagne glass, a white towel, and the Dom Pérignon.

  “To remind myself of how blind people are,” Packard said. “The only person who recognized the inferiority of my recent photographs is our young man here.”

  “Or maybe everyone else was being polite.” Duncan popped the champagne open and poured the glass for Coltrane.

  “That still makes Mr. Coltrane the only credible person at the reception.”

  “Except me. I always tell you what I think.” Duncan set the bottle into the ice bucket, placing the towel next to it.

  “And what are you thinking now?”

  “That I’ll prepare lunch.” His lips barely revealing a smile, Duncan left.

  Coltrane felt the champagne bubbles touch the tip of his nose when he sipped.

  “I see you also brought . . .” Packard gestured toward the Nikon that hung from a strap on Coltrane’s shoulder. “‘To stop time,’ you said.”

  The change of subject threw Coltrane off.

  “I asked you why you became a photographer. That was your answer. Then you added, ‘Things fall apart. . . . And people die.’”

  “Yes.”

  “Who?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Who died?”

  12

  C OLTRANE LOOKED AT THE FLOOR .

  “My question makes you uncomfortable?”

  “. . . Yes.”

  “At my age, I find that it saves time”—Packard paused to catch his breath—“if I ask new acquaintances to tell me the most important thing I need to know about them.”

  “A lot of people don’t like to be reminded of the most important thing about them,” Coltrane said.

  The oxygen hissed.

  “Was it a sister?”

  The champagne suddenly had an acidic edge.

  “A brother?”

  Coltrane set down the glass. “My mother.”

  “I see.”

  “And my father.”

  “When you were young? My own parents died when I was young. Not far from here. In a boating accident off Santa Catalina.”

  “Yes, when you were sixteen.”

  Packard didn’t seem surprised that Coltrane knew any detail of his life.

  “My parents died when I was eleven,” Coltrane said, “although really both of them were dead a long time before—it just took several years to work it all out.”

  Packard frowned.

  “My father beat my mother.”

  Packard didn’t move, didn’t speak. If he had reacted in any way, Coltrane would have ended the subject right there. But Packard seemed to sense Coltrane’s ambivalence. The old man’s presence was hypnotic. As the silence lengthened, except for the hiss of the oxygen, Coltrane found himself wanting to continue.

  “My father didn’t beat my mother because he was a drunkard or because he was worried about his job or any of the other excuses you sometimes hear. I never saw him take a drink. He had his own successful business, a chain of dry-cleaning shops that kept expanding every year. Maybe it was work p
ressures I didn’t know anything about. Or maybe his father liked to beat his mother. Maybe that’s why he did it. Maybe he thought it was normal. For a while, I thought it was normal. I thought every kid’s father beat up . . .”

  Coltrane felt taken back in time. He blinked, coming out of a trance, and picked up the champagne. Regardless of how much the acid of his memories tainted it, he took a long swallow. He felt an odd need to keep explaining, as if Packard, more than anyone else in the world, would understand.

  “One night, after my father had given my mother an especially thorough work-over, he did something he’d never done before—he started on me. He knocked out one of my teeth. The next morning, he said he was really sorry and it wouldn’t happen again and I should tell my teacher I’d fallen off my bike and that was how my face got messed up and honest to God he would make it up to me for hurting me. Then he drove off to work. The minute his car disappeared around a corner, my mother rushed me upstairs and helped me throw clothes into two suitcases. Then she filled two suitcases of her own, and I remember all the while she was glancing frantically out the bedroom window, afraid that my father might drive back.”

  Coltrane studied the bubbles in his champagne glass. They seemed to get larger. Again he was tugged back into the past. “She must have been planning it for a long time. She kept the garage door closed while she put the suitcases in her car—so the neighbors wouldn’t see. Then she and I drove to the bank. After that, she drove to a bus station and made me wait there with the bags while she left the car somewhere else—at a train station, she later told me, so my father would think that was how we’d gotten out of town. An hour later, she came back to the bus station, and for the next three years we were on the run, stopping in towns across the country, where my mother worked at any job she could find until she had enough money saved to keep running. I later reconstructed the route. From New Haven, Connecticut, to Trenton, New Jersey, to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, to Youngstown, Ohio, to Sedalia, Missouri, to Boulder, Colorado, to Flagstaff, Arizona, and finally to Los Angeles.”