An Inconvenient Woman

by Dominick Dunne

  “Do you want me to take you to a meeting?” he asked.

  “Hell, no. I’m not about to stand up in some hall and reveal all my troubles to the world. I can deal with this myself,” said Flo.

  “This is dealing? Lying in a darkened room with a bottle of wine?”

  “Don’t blow my low, Phil.” She lit a cigarette and let it dangle from her lips. He sat down in the darkened room and watched her.

  “Do you want me to turn on the lights?” he asked.

  “No,” she said. She inhaled and exhaled her cigarette without touching it with her fingers. She started to cry. “I’m scared, Phil. I’m just so damn scared.”

  She got up from her sofa and walked over to the bar in a weaving fashion. She reached into her refrigerator and took out another bottle of wine. She put a corkscrew into the cork, but her hand slipped, and the corkscrew cut her finger. “Do this for me, will you?” she said, holding out the bottle and the corkscrew to him.

  “No,” he answered.

  “There’s something you don’t understand, Philip,” she said. “I’ve gotten used to living like this. I didn’t have a pot to pee in or a window to throw it out of until I met Jules. I was with the guy for five years. It was more than the clothes and the jewels and the car and the house. He protected me. He paid my taxes. He paid my medical insurance. He covered my overdrafts. He was good to me. I couldn’t go back. I couldn’t. They’re going to take everything away from me.”

  “Who is?”

  “Pauline and Sims.”

  “But what did you think was going to happen?”

  “I thought the merry-go-round was never going to end. That’s what I thought. I thought Jules Mendelson was immortal. That’s what I thought. Oh, for God’s sake, open this fucking bottle for me, Philip. I need a drink.”

  “Look, I can’t deal with you when you’re drunk,” said Philip. “I have no patience with people who are drunk. I feel no sympathy for them. I have come here to help you, but you are too drunk to understand what I am telling you. If you should pull yourself together, call me. Otherwise, I won’t bother you again.”

  He walked toward the front door.

  “How’s Camilla?” called out Flo.

  “Fine.”

  “Tell her Flo says thanks.”

  Philip stopped and turned back to Flo. “Thanks for what?”

  “She’ll know.”

  “I want to know.”

  “She was nice to me at Jules’s funeral.”

  “She never told me that.”

  “The girl’s got class, Philip.”

  When she ran out of things she needed, like frozen dinners and sanitary napkins, she started to shop at all-night grocery and drug stores. She would leave her house at two o’clock in the morning, when she knew she would run into no one she knew or who would know her. She wrapped her hair in a scarf and wore wraparound dark glasses and drove to the Hughes Market at the intersection of Beverly Boulevard and Doheny Drive. It was when she was pushing her cart through the aisles, past the magazine rack holding the magazine on which her picture was on the cover, that she came upon Lonny Edge, whom she had not seen since her days as a waitress at the Viceroy Coffee Shop. He was dressed in black, as always, leaning against a counter, reading the article about her in Mulholland. To avoid him, she quickly reversed her course, but in turning, her cart accidentally bumped Lonny, and he looked up from the magazine. He recognized her immediately, even though she thought she was unrecognizable.

  “Flo! What a coincidence! I was just reading about you,” said Lonny.

  “Hold it down, will you, Lonny?” said Flo, looking around to make sure no one heard him, even though it was after two in the morning and there was hardly a soul in the market.

  “You’re a full-fledged celeb,” said Lonny.

  “That’s not the kind of celeb I ever wanted to be, Lonny,” said Flo.

  “You’re out late,” said Lonny.

  “So are you.”

  “You know my kind of life, Flo. Normal hours were never part of my trade.”

  “Are you still making those dirty videos?”

  Lonny smiled and shrugged. “They keep telling me I’ve got star quality.”

  Flo laughed. “I remember hearing about your star quality.”

  “Good to see you laugh, Flo. Want a cup of coffee? Or a drink, or something?”

  “No, I have to get back,” said Flo.

  “Sure.”

  “Good seeing you, Lonny.”

  “Listen, Flo. I didn’t know Jules Mendelson was your, you know, whatever, boyfriend? Until I heard about this piece in Mulholland.”

  “No reason why you should have known,” said Flo. “Not many people did.” She turned to go.

  “Did you ever meet his son?” Lonny asked her retreating figure.

  “His son?” asked Flo, stopping. “Jules Mendelson didn’t have a son. I think you’ve got the wrong guy, Lonny.”

  “Stepson, I mean,” said Lonny.

  “I don’t think he had a stepson, either,” replied Flo. “I mean, it’s the sort of thing I would have known. I was with the guy for five years.”

  “Spoiled kid. Snotty kid. Named Bippie, or Kippie, or some name like that?”

  Flo, hearing the name Kippie, stopped again and looked at Lonny.

  “A lot of people thought I was the one who killed Hector Paradiso that night, including that dickhead Manning Einsdorf, because I left Miss Garbo’s with Hector. I went home with him, sure. I balled him, sure. I even hit him around a little, because that was what he wanted. But I wasn’t the last one to see him that night. The Mendelson stepkid came there before I left, looking for money, a lot of money, and Hector wanted me out of there quick.”

  Flo stared at Lonny. “Kippie Petworth? Was that his name?”

  “Yeah, Kippie Petworth. Snobby little prick.”

  Thoughts began racing through her head. She remembered the boy called Kippie. Jules had arrived at her house before the sun was up, and woken her. “There is a young man here with me,” Jules had said. “Let him sleep on your sofa for a couple of hours. I’ll be back to get him.”

  “But who is he, Jules?” Flo had asked.

  “He’s the son of some friends of mine.”

  “Is he in some sort of trouble?” asked Flo.

  “Nothing serious. Some kid stuff.”

  Flo pushed her shopping cart back to where Lonny was standing. “Are you trying to tell me that Kippie Petworth killed Hector Paradiso?” asked Flo, looking about her at the same time and speaking in a low voice, although there were no other customers in the aisle of the market at the time.

  “Somebody did. And it wasn’t me. And it certainly wasn’t suicide, like your friend Jules Mendelson wanted everyone to believe,” said Lonny. “You can’t shoot yourself five times. Any asshole knows that.”

  Flo nodded. “I often wondered about that myself. Listen, I have to be off, Lonny. How do I get hold of you if I have to?”

  Lonny took out a ballpoint pen from his jacket and wrote a telephone number on the cover of Mulholland magazine and then tore the corner off and gave it to Flo. Then he repositioned the magazine back into the rack, putting another issue in front of it so that the torn corner wouldn’t show.

  On the way back to Azelia Way, Flo thought back on the early morning that Jules had brought the young man called Kippie to her house. Until minutes before, when she met Lonny Edge at the all-night market, she had not thought of him again.

  “I can’t remember your name,” the young man had said the next noon after he had awakened and she came into the living room. She had wanted to go to an AA meeting early that morning, but she wouldn’t leave her house with the young stranger in it.

  “Flo. Flo March,” she had answered.

  “Right. Flo March,” the young man repeated.

  “And I’m not sure I got yours. Kippie? Was that it?”

  “Kippie. Right.”

  “Kippie what?”

  “Petworth.�
��

  Flo laughed. “That’s what I call a pretty fancy name. It’s not a name you hear much in the Silverlake district.”

  “No, no. It’s strictly Blue Book,” he said and laughed.

  When he laughed, it was the first time she had noticed that one of his front teeth was missing.

  “I’m afraid I dripped some blood on your sofa,” he said.

  “Oh, my God,” she said, rushing over to pick up one of the cushions of her gray satin sofa. It was covered with blood. “This is a brand-new sofa. It was only delivered yesterday. Do you have any idea how much this fabric cost? It cost ninety-five dollars a yard.”

  “Just have to have it recovered, I guess,” he said. “Jules will pay for it.”

  “But I’ve only had it one day,” she repeated. “It’s brand-new.”

  “In the meantime, you just turn it over like this, with the blood side down, and nobody will notice the difference.” He turned over the cushion and patted the clean unspotted side. “See? Only you and your decorator can tell the difference.”

  “Yeah,” she answered, shaking her head. She was crestfallen that her beautiful new sofa was marred. She was annoyed with Jules that he had brought this careless stranger to her house, especially as he seemed unconcerned with the damage he had done, as if he were used to having things taken care of for him.

  “Look, it’s pointless to spend time worrying about something so unimportant as the cushion of a sofa,” Kippie said, when he realized that she was truly upset over the stains he had made.

  She had to admit he had charm and style, the kind of charm and style that is not acquired but innate. She tried to think of a word to describe him. “Adorable” was the word that came to mind. She wondered what he was doing in her house. She wondered why Jules had delivered him to her at six o’clock in the morning and said, “Keep him here until I come back for him. Don’t ask any questions.”

  “Mind if I smoke a joint?” Kippie had asked, taking a joint from his pocket. He reached for a package of matches without waiting for an answer.

  “Yes, I do mind,” she had answered. “I don’t want you to smoke a joint in my house.”

  He looked at her, surprise on his face. “Isn’t that funny? I wouldn’t have taken you for a lady who would object,” he said.

  “There was a time when I wouldn’t have, but I do now,” Flo said.

  “Because I rooked your new sofa?”

  “No, because I don’t want any dope smoked in my house.”

  He shrugged and put the joint back in his pocket. “Have you got any orange juice then?”

  “I’ll squeeze some.”

  “And coffee?”

  “I’ll put some on. But don’t talk to me like I’m the maid. This is my house you’re in, and I’m apparently doing you some kind of favor by letting you stay here,” said Flo.

  “Did I sound like that? I’m sorry.” He covered his mouth with his hand and smiled at her. She could see that he was used to getting his own way, especially with women.

  She poured him coffee at the kitchen table, where he seized the Los Angeles Tribunal that she had read earlier and left on the table. He seemed inordinately interested in the morning paper. He turned the pages very quickly, scanning each one as if he were looking for something specific. Finally, he pushed the paper away and drank his coffee.

  “What are you to Jules Mendelson?” Flo asked.

  Kippie Petworth looked at Flo March, but he didn’t answer her question. He realized that Jules had told her nothing.

  “I asked you a question,” said Flo.

  “What are you to Jules Mendelson?” he asked in return.

  Each stared at the other. Neither replied to the other’s question. Kippie Petworth had a pretty good idea who Flo March was, but Flo March had no idea who Kippie Petworth was.

  Later Jules picked him up, and they left together without exchanging a word between them. Jules never brought up his name. Neither did she. Then, in the excitement of the death of Hector Paradiso, which consumed everyone’s conversation for days afterward, she forgot about the young man called Kippie Petworth who had spent six hours in her house, and she never, for even an instant, formed a connection in her mind between him and the death of Hector.

  When she had called Nellie Potts to tell her that she needed more of the gray satin fabric to recover one of her cushions on the new sofa, Nellie told her that the fabric company was temporarily out of stock, but she would let her know when it became available again.

  • • •

  The next morning Flo checked her date book. The day that Jules had brought Kippie to her house at six o’clock in the morning was, indeed, the same day that Hector Paradiso was found dead. She remembered also that Jules had been annoyed with her for attending Hector’s funeral. She realized that if she had not gone to the all-night market and run into Lonny Edge, whom she had tried to avoid, she might never have realized that it was Pauline Mendelson’s son by a previous marriage who was hidden in her house while Jules made the arrangement to cover up the murder he had committed. She remembered the young man’s charm and style, the kind of charm and style he could only have inherited from his mother. The knowledge was comforting to her.

  “There’s something I want you to do for me, Sims,” said Flo, when she called Sims Lord later in the day.

  “What’s that?” asked Sims. The tone of his voice was chilly.

  “I want to meet with Pauline Mendelson,” she said.

  “Oh, come on, Flo. Be practical. Pauline Mendelson will never meet with you,” said Sims.

  “Perhaps you should tell her that I have some information that might be of great interest to her,” said Flo.

  “Forget about Pauline. That’s a hopeless cause. She thinks you ruined her life. She’ll never let up on you.”

  “Tell the great lady she’s going to be very very sorry if she doesn’t come and see me, Sims.” When he did not reply, she added, “Tell her it has to do with Kippie.”

  “What about Kippie?” he asked. In the years he had been the lawyer and confidant of Jules Mendelson, he had been involved in getting Kippie Petworth out of a great many scrapes.

  “I’m not talking to you anymore, Sims. She’s the one I want to talk to.”

  “Never. Never, never, never,” said Pauline. “There is no way I would meet with her. With people like that, it’s blackmail. It’s all about money.”

  “She said—” said Sims.

  “I don’t care what she said,” said Pauline.

  “She said it had to do with Kippie,” continued Sims.

  There was a silence. “With Kippie?” she replied. Pauline Mendelson was not the type of woman who perspired, but she felt moisture in her armpits when she heard her son’s name, as having come from the lips of Flo March. She remembered the last thing she had said to Jules before he died. “Does anyone else know, Jules?” she had asked, but he had died without answering her. She remembered Kippie’s telephone call after Jules had died. “I know everything,” she had said to him. “About Flo March?” Kippie had answered.

  That afternoon the Reverend Doctor Rufus Browning, of the All Saints Episcopal Church in Beverly Hills, came to have tea with Pauline in the library at Clouds. She could not bring herself to tell anyone what she knew about her son, not even her father, whom she trusted implicitly, or either of her sisters, or Camilla Ebury, and certainly not Rose Cliveden. Rufus Browning was a great admirer of Pauline Mendelson’s, and relished his role as her spiritual adviser. On those occasions during the year when she attended his Sunday services, she always called him Dr. Browning when they spoke on the steps of the church after the service, but in her library, on those occasions when he came for tea, she always called him Rufus. It was not lost on either Blondell or Dudley that Mrs. Mendelson had been crying during the hour and a half that she remained behind closed doors in the library with Dr. Browning. Afterward, she telephoned Sims Lord at his office.

  “I’ll see her,” said Pauline. “But not
in my house. I do not want her here. And I will most certainly not go to her house.”

  “We can meet in Jules’s office,” said Sims.

  “I will go to court, Mrs. Mendelson,” said Flo. “I have these papers that Jules signed. You will notice on these photocopies that they were witnessed by Olaf Pederson and Margaret Maple, and Sims Lord’s name is right here in the letter.”

  “Those papers were delivered within hours of my husband’s death and will not stand up in court. I have been assured of that by some of the finest legal minds in the country,” replied Pauline. The words she said were the words Sims Lord had coached her to say, but even she could hear that the force and power she had acquired since Jules’s death were missing from her tone. “My husband was coerced by you into signing those papers. You insinuated your way into the hospital, first pretending to be his daughter, and then dressing yourself up as a nurse. There are ample witnesses at the hospital who will testify to that. I hold you responsible for my husband’s death.”

  Flo nodded, calmly. The two women whom Jules had loved stared at each other. Flo realized that she had the upper hand. “Jules’s health had been failing for more than a year, Mrs. Mendelson,” said Flo. “And you know that to be true as well as I do. So don’t blame me for his death. In case you’re interested, which I’m sure you’re not, the ambulance attendants will tell you I saved his life. And if you’re looking for someone to blame, blame Arnie Zwillman for telling Myles Crocker about the girl who went off the balcony in Chicago in nineteen fifty-three, and blame Myles Crocker for telling Jules that the Brussels appointment was off, about two hours before his heart attack.”

  Pauline remained silent, devastated that Flo knew more about her husband than she did.

  Flo rose, as if she were about to leave. “I know a great deal about Jules, Mrs. Mendelson,” she said to Pauline.

  “Ignore her, Pauline,” said Sims. His tone of voice was icy. “This is a woman who was paid handsomely for sexual favors and is looking for a free ride for life.”

  “I’m not talking to you, Sims,” said Flo. She made no effort to hide the contempt in her voice. “I’m on to you. I’ve been on to you ever since you pulled out your dick after Jules died, and thought I was the kind of girl who’d drop to my knees.”