I Dreamed I Married Perry Mason

by Susan Kandel

  When I was a little kid, my mother told me I’d learn how hot the fire was only by burning my finger. I remember thinking that she wanted me to burn my finger. Perhaps my ambivalence toward her dated back that far. But she’d been right, of course, and I’d tried to impress the same thing on Annie. There is no substitute for experience. It is possible to get smarter, to do better, to figure out a thing or two. I’d learned something valuable by walking a couple of weeks in Perry Mason’s shoes. I’d learned that guilt is not the issue. Everyone’s guilty of something, for god’s sake. What matters is that someone is innocent. And that that person not suffer more than he is supposed to, by which I mean we all suffer, to one degree or another. That’s just the way it is.

  I still didn’t know exactly what had happened all those years ago in that bungalow in Ventura. But as of a couple of hours ago, I had a good idea. What I did know for sure was that Joe had suffered enough. And that I would be able to help him. I didn’t have proof, not exactly, but I had enough to shed doubt on his guilt.

  Of course, it wasn’t over yet. Only Monday would tell, and there was still Sunday and Burnett’s party to get through before that.

  38

  Let’s say you’re Clark Gable, and you need a new suit. Do you grab Carole Lombard and head on over to Sears? I don’t think so. Off-the-rack is not your style. This is what you do. You take Carole by the arm and walk through the silvery starburst doors of the Oviatt Building. You linger in the lobby for a moment or two, admiring the très moderne appointments. Then you take the elevator up into the waiting arms of James Oviatt, haberdasher to the stars. And you settle Carole on the divan with a Manhattan and some cocktail nuts.

  Which is to say it didn’t much surprise me that one of the most beautiful buildings in Los Angeles started its life as a shrine to the well-cut trouser. James Oviatt was an aesthete. He went to the 1925 Paris Exposition and flipped out. So when it came time to build the headquarters of his prestigious haberdashery, Alexander & Oviatt, nothing less than a gothic deco skyscraper with thirty tons of glass by Lalique would do.

  The place almost put my dress to shame. Almost, but not quite. I was a vision. Carlos the hairdresser had said so, and the man never lies. His Russian assistant, Annie, confirmed it. I’d given myself over to them. They were gifted, that pair. Burnett gasped when he saw me open the door. Not that I cared. My mind was on Gambino. And vanity is a deadly sin. Still, that kind of appreciation nourishes the soul. I felt like Annie after a pot of Kombucha mushroom tea.

  Burnett took my hand as we stepped into the elevator. “Hold the door for Louella Parsons!” bellowed a heavily made-up woman in a broad-shouldered suit and an even broader-shouldered fox-fur jacket. It looked like a chubby Bridget owned, from Yves St. Laurent’s forties-inspired collection of 1970. A chubby is a garment, not a person. You learn that sort of thing over time.

  “Happy birthday, Burnett!” she rasped, her voice laced with nicotine. “You’ve aged divinely.”

  “Where’s Hedda Hopper?” I cracked.

  “Hedda who? I work for William Randolph Hearst, toots, and I wear the pants around here. If I don’t like you, you might as well hop on the bus back to Podunk, because you’ll never be anything more than a waitress or a hooker!” She gave me the once-over. “But you’re good, honey. Oh, yes, you’ll more than do.”

  Some of us were more into this than others.

  The elevator doors opened onto the penthouse. Soft music was playing and cocktail glasses were clinking and tall men in slouchy suits were lighting cigarettes for sleek women with crimson lips. A burled mahogany hatrack stood in the corner of the living room. Someone had tossed a fedora onto it. I picked it up and glanced at the label. Mossimo for Target.

  “This place was acquired by a developer in the late seventies,” Burnett explained. “He restored it, but the penthouse isn’t entirely finished. It was originally decorated by Saddler et fils, a French interior design firm. Lots of mahogany, very masculine. Look at the floor.” It was parquet, laid out in wild geometric patterns.

  “Can you imagine living like this?” I asked him, wide-eyed. Wrong question. He did live like this.

  “Oviatt was a longtime bachelor. He got married at fifty-one,” Burnett said, “so I’ve got six years to go.”

  Six years to go? That meant he was turning forty-five. The man was older than I was! How the hell could I have gotten that wrong? At least it made my crow’s feet seem less egregious.

  We wandered into the formal bathroom, which featured carved maroon plaster walls depicting jungle scenes. “This room makes me want to hunt wild game or something.”

  “I didn’t know you had it in you,” he said.

  “Remember, you’re not supposed to underestimate me.”

  “Why is that, again?”

  I was getting the distinct feeling I had gotten more than one thing wrong lately.

  “Burnett, finally! The photographers are waiting for us. You will excuse him, won’t you, dear?”

  My visual field was obfuscated by a swath of black satin. It was Meredith Allan, who insinuated herself between us. No wonder the man had never married. He belonged to his mother and, if you asked me, wasn’t putting up much of a fuss.

  She looked extraordinary. I needed Bridget to be sure, but her dress looked like vintage Balmain. It was a one-shouldered creation with a flirty peplum falling over a sleek column of black. She was wearing diamonds: in her ears, up and down her bare arms, and on her shoulder, a huge diamond-encrusted pin in the shape of an octopus. Its tentacles slithered down her back. Must’ve been a family thing.

  “Good evening, Miss Allan. Why is it we’re always meeting in bathrooms?”

  “I can’t say I detected a pattern, dear.”

  “Well, before you get away, I have something I need to return to you. I feel terrible about it.” I reached into my purse for her gold bracelets.

  “Not now,” she said, taking her son by the arm. “We have a few things to attend to. I’m sure it can wait. Why don’t you pop downstairs and check out your table? Everyone at Table Eleven despises each other. Except you, of course. No one knows you. It’ll be fascinating.”

  They went off to immortalize themselves. My plan was to start drinking.

  Out on the terrace there was caviar, mountains of it, and waiters bearing flutes of champagne. Champagne flutes always made me think of chimney flues. They should’ve called them champagne piccolos. Anyway, I got one, and then another. The waiter was looking at me funny.

  “Do I remind you of someone?” I asked, hoping he’d say Dorothy Lamour.

  “No, not really, but I love your dress! I go to FIT,” he said. “The Fashion Institute of Technology? I’m into surf-wear, neoprene, that kind of thing, but you’re making me think more broadly about synthetics.”

  “That’s quite a compliment.”

  He was the only person who had spoken to me, so I felt a pang of regret when he moved on to a guy in a zoot suit. He had the whole thing down perfectly, that guy: swooping chains, high-waisted pants, and a jacket hanging down to his knees. Talk about attention-getting fashion. Of course, the original zoot-suiters learned the hard way that self-expression can be a dangerous thing.

  I walked over to the buffet and downed as many caviar-smeared blinis as I could without attracting attention. A dark-haired woman engaged me in a scintillating conversation about period makeup. Apparently, it was all about Revlon’s Cherries in the Snow. I was trying to figure out how to make my escape when someone tapped me on the shoulder.

  “I didn’t mean to startle you,” Burnett said, “but they’re serving dinner downstairs now.”

  “Honey, I’ve been startled by experts.” I stole that line from a Barbara Stanwyck movie. I guess Burnett wasn’t a fan. He looked bemused, like he had no idea what to do with me, but that worked out just fine because his thoughtful mother had arranged for us to be sitting in opposite corners of the room.

  Burnett walked me over to the dread Table Eleven and intr
oduced me around. My tablemates were already slurping up their oysters Rockefeller. They certainly didn’t appear to despise each other. Maybe it was the calm before the storm.

  I sat down in an empty chair. Burnett promised to check on me before the floor show began. Yes, there was going to be a floor show.

  “And what do you do, Cece?” asked Phoebe Something-or-other, who was seated to my right.

  I tore apart a warm dinner roll and spread butter all over its plush interior. I was starved.

  “I’m a biographer,” I answered, taking a bite.

  “William,” she said turning to her husband, “they’ve seated me next to a pornographer.”

  “No, no,” I sputtered, spraying little bits of roll around. “I’m a biographer. I write biographies. Stories of people’s lives.”

  “I collect photographs of Gypsy Rose Lee and Sally Rand, the bubble dancer,” offered Samuel, a distinguished-looking gentleman from across the table. “Do you ever publish those?”

  “I have no involvement in pornography, personally or professionally,” I insisted.

  “Excuse me,” Samuel said, “but my pictures are very tasteful. I just had an appraisal last year. Worth a bundle. Very rare. I have one of Sally posing with officials from the War Department. She fronted the money so they could develop a transparent balloon sixty inches in diameter. The biggest ones up to that point were thirty inches in diameter and used by the army for target practice.”

  I think Hedy Lamarr was also some sort of scientific genius. You never know. Meanwhile, I was getting worried about the fate of my dress. What if I left perspiration stains? Would I have to pay for it? Maybe I could stuff some Kleenex under my arms.

  I downed my glass of Merlot. “I’m off to powder my nose before the beef Wellington arrives,” I announced to no one in particular. On my way out to the foyer, I stopped at the head table.

  “Miss Allan,” I began.

  “Your food will get cold, dear,” she said, barely turning around.

  “Yes, but I don’t know when I’ll have another chance to return these.”

  I reached into my purse and pulled out the bracelets.

  “Here,” I said, handing them to her. “My apologies.”

  She took one look at them, and the color, natural and otherwise, drained from her face.

  “Why are you showing those to me?” she whispered. “What do you want from me?”

  “Nothing,” I said, puzzled. “I just—”

  “You just what? You’ve been out for blood from the moment you laid eyes on me, you and that ridiculous story you concocted to get in to see me! And now this. What are you planning to do?” she asked, her eyes wild.

  The floor show was about to begin. The emcee was making his way to the stage, and the eight-piece jazz band was warming up.

  “Planning? I’m not planning anything,” I said, my voice low. “I want to return these to you. I took them by accident the other day, and I’m giving them back.”

  Why was she acting like this? I didn’t get it.

  “Meredith, is there a problem?”

  Pale skin, crooked teeth, impeccable Savile Row suit. This had to be Burnett’s father, Mason Fowlkes. I recognized him from Burnett’s description the other afternoon. No costumes for this fellow. No sense of humor, either. He looked down his nose at me and placed a proprietary arm on Meredith’s shoulder.

  “No, no, Mason dear.” She was putting tremendous effort into unclenching her teeth. As the woman smiled up at her ex-husband, her face softened into something that resembled beauty. That trick must’ve taken years of practice.

  I closed my purse. Whatever. I could give the bracelets to Burnett later. There was a line a mile long at the powder room, so I gave up on that, too, and headed back to my table.

  I was just in time for the comedy routine. The top banana was in tie and tails—his sidekick, too.

  “I’m going to Tampa with your daughter,” the first guy said.

  “You tamper with her and I’ll break your neck.”

  Bada-bing.

  “Actually, it looks like you’re already pretty messed up.”

  “I was living the life of Riley,” he answered. “Then Riley came home.”

  Next up was the Oyster Girl. She came on wearing a white chiffon robe. After some tasteful writhing the robe came off, then the marabou-trimmed negligee. When she was down to her bra and panties, she stepped into an enormous oyster shell, wheeled in by the comedians. A classic from the great age of burlesque, I guess.

  The finale was an explosion of feathered headdresses, fringed skirts, and beaded gloves, which were removed from female bodies of every possible configuration in synchronized beats. Then, the ladies did an energetic cancan. My eyes were glued to the tassels on their pasties, which were whipping around as if powered by turbo engines. One poor girl, however, had made the mistake of settling for a cheap pair instead of the high-end models favored by her coworkers. They wouldn’t stay in place, and, in despair, she finally ripped them off.

  “So, what do you think?” murmured Burnett, who had pulled up a chair next to me.

  “She should have shopped at TwirlyGirl.net, home of extraordinary pasties for the discriminating nipple.”

  “Are you kidding?” he said, laughing. “Is there such a place?”

  “That’s for me to know and you to find out.”

  Burnett thanked everyone at Table Eleven for coming to his party and sat through a long-winded toast by Samuel. Then he whispered, “Finish your glass of wine and then let’s get out of here. I want to show you something.”

  He took my hand and led me to the elevator.

  “Next stop, the thirteenth floor.”

  39

  That would be the roof.

  It was just another night in downtown Los Angeles. The only thing marring the quiet was the sound of helicopters making a drug bust somewhere nearby. When you’ve lived in L.A. long enough, you learn how to tune the whirring out.

  We walked over to the edge. Burnett stood behind me as we gazed at the city lights.

  “Look at that view,” he said with a sigh. “I love the city after dark. In the day, it’s so benign somehow. But at night! At night, I can feel the electricity shooting through my veins, can’t you?”

  “Burnett, we have to talk.” I had to explain about Gambino.

  “Not now, Cece. Everything’s the way it should be.”

  “Burnett—”

  “Sssh. Don’t say a word.” He wrapped his arms around my waist, and I felt something hard poke into my back.

  “Is that a gun in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?”

  “I’ll bet you say that to all the guys.”

  I tried to extricate myself, but he held on tight. I felt like I had led him on, but people change their minds.

  “Burnett, I’m sorry, but this isn’t going to happen.”

  “Yes, Cece, I’m afraid it is.”

  Surprised, I wheeled around and saw something shiny and black pointing at my gut. Jesus. The one time I utter that stupid line, and it really is a gun. Why does that figure? I got ahold of myself. Now was not the time for irony.

  “Everybody’s waiting for us downstairs, Burnett. It’s time to cut the cake. They’ll wonder where we are.”

  “Relax, Cece. This isn’t going to take long.”

  “What isn’t going to take long?” I asked, willing myself not to panic.

  Burnett pushed me a little closer to the edge. I looked up and saw the neon numerals of the clock tower. It was a quarter past nine. All over the city, mothers were putting their children to bed. Truck drivers were crowding onto the I-10, heading for destinations unknown. Waitresses were serving that last cup of coffee. Friends were becoming lovers. Lovers were figuring out how to stay friends. I looked down and everything was sparkling, from the tips of my sandals, covered in tiny copper beads, to the sidewalk a hundred feet below, still slick from the brief afternoon rain. How beautiful it all seemed. The colors were vibra
ting, pulsing, spinning in circles. Fuschia, chartreuse, midnight blue. It was 9:16 P.M. now. Burnett Fowlkes was going to push me off of the roof of an art deco landmark before another minute passed, and I was going to fall through the night sky into nothingness.

  Like hell I was.

  “You’re too smart to do this, Burnett. Stop while you’re ahead. Or not too far behind. Dozens of people saw us leave the party together. And besides, I have evidence, and it’s in a safe place. The police know what to do in case anything happens to me.”

  I could feel my sweat stains spreading from tiny half-moons into something the size of buffet plates.

  “You have nothing, Cece. You have some wild ideas about a murder that’s half a century old and has nothing to do with me. I wasn’t even born yet.”

  “You were born in plenty of time to kill Theresa Flynn,” I said, shaking my head at my own blindness. It had been him all along. Him stalking that poor woman; him breaking in to her house to look for her sister’s lockbox; him there, in the backyard, the night Lael and I had broken in; him in the black SUV. He was on to me from that very first day, when I showed up at his mother’s house on my cockamamie quest to save a condemned man. The minute his mother told him I’d been asking about the Albaccos, he’d known they were in for trouble. God, had he seen me go into the locksmith’s shop? Had he been following me for weeks? What a fool I must’ve seemed, kissing him that day in the car.

  “Why would I kill a woman I don’t even know?” he asked calmly.

  “To protect your fortune. To finish up what your family started fifty years ago.”