An Inconvenient Woman

by Dominick Dunne

  “She wants to know all about my clients too. She won’t make a decision about anything until I tell her that someone very social she’s read about in Cyril Rathbone’s column has exactly the same sofa, or exactly the same fabric, and then she wants it. I kind of like her though.”

  “I do too.”

  “She must be kept by someone very very rich,” said Nellie.

  “For sure,” replied Petra.

  “Does she pay her bills?”

  “On the dot. Doesn’t even wait until the first of the month.”

  Without the blond wig, blue eye shadow, and blue contact lenses she wore in her secret nightclub life as Marvene McQueen, Hortense Madden, the much-feared literary critic of Mulholland magazine, reverted to her real life, heaping her contempt on commercial success. Her hair was pulled back in a spinster bun, and she wore glasses so thick they magnified her eyes. Her mouth was set in a puckered expression to conceal her protruding teeth, an expression that she did not relax even when chewing her omnipresent chlorophyll gum, which turned her tongue green.

  There was that day a further deepening of the perpetual look of discontent on her face. Unhappiness oozed from her every pore. Not even the devastating review she had just completed of the latest work of a popular novelist—which would most certainly wound the author, as it was intended to do, so personal had she made it—could erase her troubled look, as her devastating reviews often did, or bring momentary surcease to her inner torments.

  In her hand was a letter of rejection, made more painful by the fact that it was a form letter, from a disc jockey on an FM station, along with the tape of sad songs of lost love that she had so painstakingly recorded at her own expense. The disc jockey, who was named Derrick Lafferty, worshiped at the shrine of what he called “the long-gone enchantresses of the supper-club circuit,” like Libby Holman, Mabel Mercer, Spivvy, and Bricktop, but he had found her tape unfit to be played on his program, even though she sang the same songs as the ladies he venerated. The rejection of her artistry was more painful than she could have imagined.

  In the next office, through the paper-thin walls, she could hear Cyril Rathbone, the gossip columnist for Mulholland, laughing and chatting on the telephone, accepting invitations, getting tips for his column, and arranging lunch dates at fashionable restaurants. Hortense Madden loathed Cyril Rathbone, whom she considered a philistine.

  Just as she was about to pick up her telephone and order a sandwich to be sent in for another lunch alone at her desk, her telephone rang. She allowed her bad mood to permeate her “Hello,” which sounded like the bark of an angry dog.

  “Hortense?” asked the voice on the other end.

  “Who is it?” she replied, with no lessening of hostility.

  “Casper Stieglitz.”

  “Oh, hello, Casper.”

  “What the hell’s the matter with you?”

  “Nothing is the matter with me.”

  “You scared the shit out of me.”

  Hortense hated that expression. “I’m working, that’s all.”

  “Who are you crucifying today?”

  She ignored his question. “Is there a purpose to this call, Casper?”

  “I’m calling to invite you to dinner on Sunday night. A little party at my place.”

  Like everyone else in town, Hortense knew that Casper Stieglitz was on the skids and no longer held in high regard, and she was about to decline.

  “Jules and Pauline Mendelson are coming, and a few others,” said Casper, not waiting for her reply. There was no mistaking the note of elation in Casper’s voice as he dropped the Mendelson names.

  Hortense was stunned. She could not believe that she was being asked to a party where the Jules Mendelsons would be. In the next office she could hear the cackling laugh of Cyril Rathbone, as he received some bit of gossip about someone. She knew how Cyril longed to get to know Pauline Mendelson, and she knew that Pauline Mendelson resisted him and never invited him to cover her parties. The prospect of letting Cyril know of her invitation was so delicious to her that, for the first time since the mail had arrived with her letter of rejection from Derrick Lafferty, she felt lighthearted.

  “Let me check my book, Casper,” she said. She didn’t have to check her book, because she had no plans whatsoever, except for her singing engagement at Miss Garbo’s, but she allowed a sufficient time to go by before she said, “When is it?”

  “Sunday,” said Casper.

  “I’ll have to juggle, but I can,” said Hortense.

  “Eight o’clock. We’ll be running a film after dinner.”

  “Marvelous, Casper.”

  Flo March lay on a brand-new lounge chair by her pool, part of a set of brand-new poolside furniture that Nellie Potts, her interior decorator, had told her was the same outdoor furniture that Pearl Silver had at her pool. Flo had taken the bra of her bathing suit off. She lay so that her back and shoulders would get the late afternoon rays, when the power of the sun had lessened a bit. On the table by her side was a timer set to ring after twenty minutes, which her trainer and aerobics teacher told her was the limit. There was also a white telephone on a long extension cord in case Jules called, which she knew he certainly would, as well as an ice bucket, several cans of Diet Coke, suntan lotion, a copy of the latest issue of Mulholland open to Cyril Rathbone’s column, her gold cigarette case with FLO written on it in sapphires, her matching gold lighter, and her latest purchase, a pair of binoculars. Flo, who was more lonely than she would ever admit, had taken to watching her neighbors farther up the hills on Azelia Way.

  She was somewhere between being asleep and awake when the sound of a small dog crying startled her. Opening her eyes, she removed her large dark glasses and saw staring up at her a white West Highland terrier.

  “Why, hello,” Flo said to the dog. “What in the world are you doing here? Who do you belong to?” She clapped her hands, and the dog hopped up on the lounge chair with her. “What a sweet little doggie you are. Are you lost?” She sat up and put back on the bra of her bathing suit. “Are you thirsty? Do you want some water?” she asked. She got up and went over to the side of the house, where her new Mexican gardener had neatly rolled up a garden hose. She ran some water into the red clay saucer of one of the potted geranium plants that the gardener had placed around her terrace. “Here’s some water,” she called out to the dog. When the dog came over to where she was, Flo sat down on a chair and watched it while it drank. Finished, the dog jumped up on Flo’s lap again, and she held it to her, as if it were a baby she was burping. “Oh, you sweet little thing,” she said. She sat there with the dog, feeling content.

  “Par’me, ma’am,” came a voice through the tall hedges separating Flo’s house from her neighbor’s house. For a moment, Flo did not answer, never having been called ma’am before, although she listened.

  “Ma’am?” The voice repeated the word.

  “Are you calling me?” called out Flo, although she could not see anyone through the thick hedge.

  “Have you seen our little dog?”

  “Why, yes, she’s here,” said Flo.

  “You mind if I come ’round by the front way and pick her up, ma’am? Miss Converse is going to be upset with me if she runs away again. Supposed to be my job to mind her, but I can’t run this house for Miss Converse and keep my eye on that little Astrid at the same time.”

  “No, no, come around,” said Flo. She rose from her chair and walked back to where she had been lying on the lounge chair and put on her terry cloth robe from Porthault, which matched her Porthault pool towels.

  “There you are, you naughty little dog,” said the maid from next door when she came around to the garden from the front of the house. “I’m sorry she’s been botherin’ you, ma’am.”

  “Oh, no, don’t scold her. She hasn’t been bothering me at all. She’s a wonderful little dog, so friendly, aren’t you, my darling? What did you say her name was?”

  “Astrid,” said the maid.

 
; “What a strange name for a dog,” said Flo.

  “Named after some ice skating star, who died, something like that. I got enough on my mind without having to remember a dog’s history. Anyway, Miss Converse, who’s my boss, got her from Mrs. Rose Cliveden, the socialite, after Mrs. Cliveden broke her leg falling over Astrid at the funeral lunch, right after she inherited her from Hector Paradiso, who shot himself five times, although they say it was a suicide. Or something like that. I can’t keep it all straight with those people.” The maid shook her head in an exasperated fashion.

  Flo looked at her, fascinated.

  “Do you mean this was Hector Paradiso’s dog?” she asked.

  “Be careful of her, because she bit off some young man’s finger too,” said the maid. “I forgot his name.”

  “But she’s the sweetest little dog I ever saw. I can’t believe she’d ever bite anyone,” said Flo. She held the dog in her arms. “What’s your name?” she asked.

  “Glyceria, ma’am. I’m sorry we’re botherin’ you like this.”

  “Oh, no, you’re not bothering me,” said Flo quickly. Flo had not spoken to anyone, except Jules, since Nellie Potts had been there two days earlier to supervise the hanging of the new forty-thousand-dollar curtains. “Could I get you a drink?” she asked Glyceria, not wanting her to leave.

  “A drink? Oh, no, ma’am,” said Glyceria.

  “I didn’t actually mean a drink drink. I meant, you know, a Diet Coke, or an ice tea, or something like that.”

  “Well, maybe an ice tea would be nice, only I won’t be able to hear Miss Converse’s telephone if it rings, and she won’t like that,” said Glyceria.

  “Which Miss Converse is that?” asked Flo, cautiously.

  “Why, Miss Faye Converse, of course,” said Glyceria.

  “Faye Converse?” cried out Flo. She could hardly contain herself. “The movie star? Faye Converse lives right next door to me beyond that hedge?”

  “You didn’t know that? You didn’t notice the tour bus going by every day?”

  “No. No, I didn’t. I can’t get over it. Faye Converse is my next-door neighbor. I can hardly believe it.”

  She rushed into the house, singing happily, to open a can of iced tea for Faye Converse’s maid. “You can leave little Astrid here any time,” she called out. “I’ll take care of her if you’re busy. All my life I wanted to have a dog.”

  Jules Mendelson had seen Astrid for the first time when he went to Hector Paradiso’s house after receiving the early morning telephone call telling him that Hector was dead. He did not share that information with Flo, nor did he share Flo’s enthusiasm for Astrid, and the little dog, in turn, developed an instant antipathy to Jules. Although Astrid did not bite Jules, as she had bitten Kippie, she barked at him in such an angry fashion when he came to see Flo that Jules became enraged, in a way that Flo had never seen him before.

  “I come up here to relax. What I do not need is that angry little shit barking at me like that,” said Jules, staring at the dog and breathing heavily.

  “She’s Faye Converse’s dog, Jules. She’s just here visiting,” said Flo, as if identifying its illustrious owner would lessen the anger of both her lover and the dog. Flo loved being able to use Faye Converse’s name in her conversation, now that she had discovered that Faye was her next-door neighbor. It didn’t matter to her that the great star wouldn’t know who she was in return. “Come up here, you naughty dog, and stop all that barking,” Flo said to Astrid, patting a place beside her on her newly upholstered sofa, which Nellie Potts told her was the same gray satin that Rose Cliveden used in her drawing room.

  “Get her out of here,” said Jules fiercely, pointing to little Astrid. “I don’t want that dog around.”

  After that, as soon as Flo heard Jules’s car in the driveway each afternoon, she sent Astrid back through the hole in the hedges, fearing that Jules would forbid her to see Astrid altogether. The little dog had become an important part of Flo’s life. Each morning, after she came back from her AA meeting, she whistled what she called her Astrid whistle, and Astrid made her way through the hole in the hedges that separated her property from Faye Converse’s property and came to call. The dog could not get enough loving, and Flo never tired of holding her, petting her, and talking to her. She purchased a dog’s dish and bought all sorts of treats for her. She loved to break cookies in half and toss them in the air for Astrid to catch.

  Often Glyceria came around by the front way to have a glass of iced tea or a cup of coffee, depending on the weather, and a little conversation. Flo, hungry for news of her celebrated neighbor, listened, rapt, to the tidbits of information that Glyceria told her about Faye Converse. Sometimes at night, when she was alone, Flo trained her binoculars on Faye Converse’s house and watched the great star, when she was in the city, as she held forth with a constant stream of guests. Flo March longed to mix in the world of famous and fashionable people, but she came to understand that there was nowhere she fit in, except as Jules Mendelson’s secret mistress.

  Flo’s Tape #13

  “I also took up tennis. I didn’t grow up in the kind of background where you play golf and tennis. But there was something about tennis that I always thought was kind of classy. And I liked the outfits, the short shorts and the hats with a visor. So I took lessons at the Beverly Hills Hotel three mornings a week. And guess what? I was pretty good. The pro at the hotel told me he never had a pupil who picked up the game as fast as I did.

  “When Faye Converse went on location to make her comeback picture, Glyceria said she didn’t think there would be any problem in my using Faye’s court, as it was just sitting there. It would have been like having my own tennis court. The only problem was, I didn’t have anybody to play with.”

  14

  It would have been incomprehensible for Hector Paradiso ever to imagine that he had not been remembered, as he was in his time such a vivid figure, always present, always talked about, and both liked and disliked in more or less equal proportions. But it was a fact that he soon faded from memory after his expiration, leaving nothing behind to remind people of him: no heirs, as he had never married; no business, as he had never seriously worked; and no family except his niece.

  Rose Cliveden, in bed, ill, never stopped talking on the telephone; it was impossible to get her off. Only the sounds of ice cubes against her wineglass competed with her monologues. “The other day someone said to me, ‘Do you remember Hector Paradiso?’ Good heavens! Imagine if darling Hector had ever heard anyone ask, ‘Do you remember Hector Paradiso?’ Are you listening, Camilla?”

  “Yes, I’m listening, Rose,” answered Camilla.

  “Then say something.”

  “I’ll repeat what I said five minutes ago, Rose. I have to hang up now.”

  Philip kissed Camilla good-bye.

  “I wish I could go with you,” said Camilla.

  “Not a good idea,” said Philip.

  “I’d just like to see what a porn star looks like,” said Camilla.

  “My, my, how you’ve changed, Mrs. Ebury,” said Philip.

  When Lonny Edge agreed to meet Philip Quennell at the Viceroy Coffee Shop on Sunset Strip, he made only one request: he did not want to talk about Hector Paradiso, and Philip agreed. “It’s that manuscript you have. Basil Plant’s manuscript,” said Philip. “Why don’t you bring it along?”

  “I’m not lettin’ that manuscript outta my sight, man,” said Lonny. Ever since Philip Quennell had given him the idea that it might be worth a lot of money, he had begun to look on the tattered pile of pages as a sort of nest egg. Famous fornicators in the age of AIDS were in less demand than before, and Lonny, approaching thirty, had begun to think of his future. He had removed the manuscript from the table in his front room, boxed it, and hidden it behind a stack of Lacoste shirts in the back of his closet.

  Curly, who had managed the Viceroy when Flo worked there, nodded at Lonny when he entered. “Long time no see,” he said.

 
Lonny nodded in return. “I’m lookin’ for a Mr. Quennell,” he said, scanning the premises with a practiced eye.

  “He’s waiting for you in booth number thirteen,” said Curly.

  “Flo’s old booth,” said Lonny.

  “Right. I miss the redhead. She got rich, I hear.”

  When Lonny was seated at Philip’s table, they both ordered coffee from the waitress. “Would you like some breakfast?” asked Philip.

  Lonny, born poor, was not one to pass up an offer for anything free, even if he’d already eaten, which he had. “Sure,” he answered. “Gimme some pancakes and eggs sunny-side up and bacon, crisp. That’s all.”

  “You didn’t bring it?”

  “What?”

  “The Basil Plant manuscript.”

  “I told you I wasn’t letting it out of my sight.”

  “But I can’t tell you if it’s worth anything unless I read it,” said Philip.

  “I thought you read it in my house when I was taking a shower that day.”

  “I glanced at it for a minute and a half. I think it’s what I think it is, a famous missing manuscript, but I have to be sure before I go out on a limb. Did you notice, are there any notations on any of the pages?”

  “What’s notations?”

  “Notes? Insertions? Things like that. Like anything handwritten in the margins?”

  Lonny shrugged. “I don’t know. I never actually read the goddamn thing. What kind of money do you think it’s worth if it does turn out to be what you think it is?”

  “I can’t tell you that. They published three chapters of it, and they could never find the rest after Basil died.”

  “Basil was a bad drunk. Turned mean. Rest of the time, he was the nicest guy in the world. Like approximately, what do you think it’s worth?”

  “I don’t know. I could find out. It could be a lot, but I have to make sure it’s not a hoax before I get involved.”

  As Philip started to explain to Lonny the complexities of identifying the missing manuscript, he looked up and saw Jules Mendelson walk into the Viceroy Cofffee Shop, carrying a copy of the Wall Street Journal. Lonny, seated with his back to the entrance, did not see him. Philip watched Curly speak to Jules in a familiar but respectful manner and lead him to a table in the window. When he sat down, Jules spread the Journal out in front of him on the Formica-topped table and began to read. He did not look up to acknowledge the waitress who set a cup of coffee on the table in front of him.