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cooler.
    “Don’t let me keep you, if you have better things to do.”
    “Thanks. I do.”
    I turned back to the stairs.
    “Wait.”
    I waited.
    “What’s your name?”
    “Benjamin Justice.”
    His soft, pink mouth curled at the corners.
    “That’s it. That’s where I know you from. The Pulitzer business.”
    “I didn’t know actors paid attention to such things.”
    “How do you know I’m an actor?”
    “Aren’t you?”
    “At the moment, I’m in a one-act at the West Hollywood Playhouse.”
    “Drama school?”
    “Yale.”
    “Which means you probably make a living waiting tables.”
    It stung; his nostrils flared.
    “I park cars, actually. Parties, mostly. It allows me to audition during the day—take time off if I get a role.”
    “You sound very committed, Teal.” I started down.
    “Maybe we could have a drink.” He said it quickly, giving more away, I suspected, than he wanted to. “Talk a little. See what develops.”
    I looked him over the way a picky shopper sizes up the hothouse tomatoes.
    “I’ve had more to drink than I need. And we have talked a little.”
    Half a dozen steps separated us when he spoke again.
    “Fuck you, Justice.”
    When I looked back up at him, his hands were thrust into his pockets and his eyes fixed on mine with a look that was part glare, part seduction.
    I stepped back up to the landing, grabbed him roughly by one arm, and hustled him toward a closed door at the end of the hallway. With any luck, it would be unlocked, with a big bed behind it.
    I shoved him against the door, grabbed his hair, and pressed my mouth against his, hard enough to bruise his pretty lips. My other hand went directly to the fiont of his pants, where I found a lump that was alive and moving.
    “Justice!”
    I turned to see Templeton standing at the top of the stairway. She moved down the hallway toward us.
    “I hate to interrupt a tender courtship,” she said. “But we’ve discovered Raymond Farr; down on the terrace.”
    “It’s about time someone found him.”
    “Justice—he’s dead.”

Chapter Five
     
    Except for scattered whispers, a hush had fallen over the party as Templeton and I reached the bottom of the stairs.
    People moved aside to let us pass.
    “I called 911 before I went looking for you,” Templeton said. “Cantwell’s down on the terrace, attempting CPR.”
    She led me across the patio and yard to the steps where I’d last seen her disappearing with Cantwell.
    “I couldn’t find a pulse. His skin was on the clammy side. I think he’s been dead awhile.”
    “You OK?”
    “A little queasy.”
    The steps were brick, bordered on each side by low, Oriental-style lamps. They lighted our way through a break in the cactus hedge to a thick stand of oleander that opened up to a terraced patio not visible from the house.
    Cantwell knelt on the bricks, frantically attempting CPR on a lean young man who stared into the starless sky with dead eyes.
    The amber glow from a circle of Malibu lights was dim, but I could make out certain features—a clean-shaven, sharply angled face with a shadow of heavy beard; long, straight dark hair fanned out behind the head; eyes as black as coal; thick hair on the forearms and upper chest, where two buttons were open Hollywood-style. Greek, Spanish, Middle Eastern, Italian—I couldn’t tell which. But rather good-looking, for a dead man.
    Cantwell tilted back the young man’s head and blew four blasts of air into his mouth. When he was done, he placed his hands on the man’s belly, just below the rib cage, and pushed forcefully several times.
    “How are you doing?”
    Cantwell looked up at me with anxious eyes. He was breathing hard and his ruddy face glistened with sweat.
    “I could use a break, to be honest.”
    I knelt down and took over.
    Christine Kapono appeared and immediately pushed aside a couple of patio chairs to make more room.
    Down the darkened canyon, flashing blue lights could be seen snaking up the road while