Double Image by David Morrell Page B

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