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been trying desperately to lure readers away from television and the more staid but substantial style of the Los Angeles Times.
    Harry was right. Alex Templeton, though just out of graduate school, was a good reporter, with the potential to be very good.
    “Benjamin Justice,” Harry said, as Templeton entered the office, “meet your new partner in crime.”
    Alexandra Templeton looked me up and down slowly and critically before uttering a word.
    She was a tall, sinewy woman, one or two inches shorter than my six feet, with an almost regal presence. Her beauty was startling: vaulting cheekbones; frank, almost fierce dark eyes; braids of black hair draped dramatically down a long, slender neck; flawless skin as dark and rich as deep obsidian, suggesting the force of volcanic fire beneath.
    I put out my hand. She squeezed it perfunctorily, riveting her eyes to mine.
    “I understand you’re going to work with me on the Billy Lusk story,” she said coolly.
    “On an informal basis.”
    “Informal or not, I hope you’ll get your facts straight.” She narrowed her eyes. “Because making things up isn’t my style.”
    “Templeton, cut the crap,” Harry said. “We already talked this over.” He gathered up some papers from his messy desk. “I’ve got a meeting. Get along, OK?”
    On his way out, he stuffed some cash into my shirt pocket. “And, you. Get a phone.”
    When he was gone, Templeton slipped into the big chair behind his desk, leaving me to face her from the smaller visitor’s chair.
    Behind her, the latest editions of the Los Angeles Times were draped over racks for Harry’s perusal, along with the New York Times , the Washington Post , The Wall Street Journal , the Christian Science Monitor , USA Today , the Orange County Register , and the Los Angeles Daily News , which was actually the newspaper of the city’s San Fernando Valley.
    Templeton looked quite comfortable in a newspaper setting. Barring the obstacles typically faced by those of her race and gender, she could no doubt rise to Harry’s level and beyond, if she so desired, at one of the fifteen or twenty major newspapers around the country. That was assuming that printed newspapers survived long enough in the new age of video-shortened attention spans and electronic transmission. But Templeton was also exceptionally attractive, which probably meant she’d follow the dollars and the glory to television, reporting stories in a fraction of the time allowed by print, with a fraction of the depth and complexity, the way most of the world was already getting its information.
    “Where should we begin?” she asked, with feigned politeness, folding her long, slender fingers across her lap.
    “Why don’t you fill me in on the case?”
    “There’s really not much of a case.” She turned each word crisply, with the perfect articulation of someone educated at high-class prep schools. “They have their suspect and a plausible motive. Witnesses have placed him at the crime scene. He’s confessed and intends to plead guilty. Open and shut, all the way around.”
    “You believe that?”
    “The police certainly do.”
    “That’s not what I asked.”
    She hesitated; her eyes flickered, suggesting a mind racing back through a notebook full of details.
    Finally, she said, “I don’t see much reason to doubt that Gonzalo Albundo committed the murder.”
    I wasn’t sure if the tone in her voice was smug or just supremely confident.
    “Weapon?”
    “They haven’t found one. He apparently disposed of it after fleeing the crime scene.”
    “Previous record?”
    Once again, she hesitated. Then: “I don’t believe so.”
    “You don’t ‘believe’ so?”
    She flinched.
    “The police didn’t mention a criminal record,” she said tightly. “Perhaps it was automatically erased when he turned eighteen a few weeks ago. I’ll check.”
    “What about the gang Albundo mentioned?”
    “What about it?”
    “That’s what I’m asking