An Inconvenient Woman

by Dominick Dunne

  “You can’t walk, Miss. It’s pitch dark, and it’s almost two miles up Coldwater to the Azelia Way turnoff.”

  “Listen, driver. I don’t have enough money with me to go any farther. I didn’t realize that when I got into the cab. I’m very sorry. I was supposed to get a ride home with the person who brought me to the studio, but something came up and I had to take a cab, and I didn’t realize I didn’t have enough money with me.”

  The driver snapped his fingers. “The Chateau Marmont, on Sunset Boulevard. That’s it, right?”

  “What?”

  “Didn’t I drive you once from a steak house in the Valley to the Chateau Marmont? You were crying and upset about something?”

  Flo smiled. “And you’re the same driver? You seem to catch me on my peak nights.”

  “You tipped me ten bucks that night. I never forgot that. Most people, it’s fifteen percent of the fare, if that, no more. You didn’t even think about it. You paid, and then you handed me ten bucks. I thought, this lady has class. I’m not letting you out on the street, lady. I’m taking you all the way home.” He turned off the meter. “This ride’s on me.”

  “That’s very nice of you,” said Flo.

  “Some private detective came after me a few days later. Did you know that? Wanted to know where I took you. I had it all on my call sheet. This address on Azelia Way, where you first told me to take you, and then that was crossed off, and the Chateau Marmont was written in.”

  Flo looked at the driver’s permit in the cab and saw his name. “Hussein? Is that right?”

  “Hussein. That’s my name.”

  “I want you to know I really appreciate this, Hussein. Not too many classy guys around these days.”

  When the cab turned right off Coldwater Canyon to Azelia Way, a car came down toward them. As it passed, Flo looked out the window and saw that it was a gold Rolls-Royce. Two men were seated in the front seat. They did not look in her direction. A chill went through her. As the cab proceeded up the hill toward her driveway, Flo looked out the back window toward the Rolls.

  “You wouldn’t do me a favor, would you, Hussein?” she asked, as the cab pulled into her driveway.

  “What’s that?”

  “Would you just wait here until I get in my house?”

  “I’ll go to the door with you,” he said. He got out and opened her door, as if he were a chauffeur rather than a cab-driver.

  At the front door, as Flo took out her keys to unlock the door, she saw that the door was pulled to, but open.

  “Maybe you forgot to close your door when you went out,” said Hussein.

  “Maybe,” said Flo. She pushed it open.

  “Want me to go first?” asked Hussein.

  “Would you mind?”

  Inside the house, Flo looked around her. Everything seemed to be in order. She looked in her kitchen, in her unused maid’s room, and finally in her bedroom. She opened one of the drawers of the wardrobe in her dressing room and felt behind some boxes for the Louis Vuitton jewel case that she was photographed carrying out of the Meurice Hotel in Paris during the fire. When she opened it, she was relieved to see that her yellow diamond earrings, which she considered to be her last gift from Jules Mendelson, were still there.

  “Everything okay?” asked Hussein.

  “Seems to be,” said Flo.

  “Are you going to call the police?” he asked.

  “No, nothing seems to be missing. I want to thank you a lot. I really appreciate this. If you give me your address, I’ll send you the money after I go to the bank tomorrow.”

  “This was on me,” said Hussein. “Good luck to you. You seem to have a lot of difficulties in your life for such a young lady.”

  Flo smiled. “Good luck to you, Hussein.”

  When she was alone, she put the chain lock and dead bolt on the front door. She walked through her house and pulled down the shades and blinds and closed all the curtains. She turned on every light. In her bedroom, she began to undress, taking off the Chanel suit that Pooky had thought was the right one for her to wear on the Amos Swank show. She sat down at her dressing table and rubbed cold cream on her face to remove the television makeup that Jess had been putting on her when the page asked her to go up to Mr. Marcuzzi’s office. As the thought of what she had almost done on the fifteenth floor of the West Building in the Valley Studios went through her mind, she felt faint again. She went into the bar and looked for a long time at the gallon bottle of Soave from the Hughes Market. She pulled out the cork and then emptied the wine in the sink, turning her head away so that she would not be attracted by the heady aroma. Then she reached into the refrigerator and took out a can of Diet Coke. She opened the tab on the top and started to drink it from the can. Looking at herself in the mirrored wall of the bar, she remembered how Jules had hated her to drink from the can and poured the liquid into one of her Steuben glasses. “I’m still trying to do things your way, Jules,” she said into the mirror. “And it’s getting me absolutely nowhere.”

  As she turned to walk back into the living room, her stockinged foot stepped on a hard object. Looking down, she noticed Cyril’s tape recorder on the floor of the bar. She leaned down and picked it up. It had been smashed with a hammer. The microcassette that had been in it was gone.

  She could not sleep. She brought the pillows from her bed into the living room and lay on her gray satin sofa, with a package of cigarettes and a few magazines. Every time she heard a car go up Azelia Way, she stopped to listen until she was sure it had passed her driveway.

  She picked up Mulholland. There was Hortense Madden’s article about the missing manuscript of the late writer Basil Plant, which had been located, possibly, at the bungalow on Cahuenga Boulevard of Lonny Edge, the pornography star.

  She looked at her watch. It was two o’clock in the morning. She knew it wasn’t too late to call. She wondered if he would even be home yet. She dialed the number.

  “It’s Lonny. I can’t come to the phone now. Leave your name and number, even if you think I already have it, and the time you called, and I will get back to you as soon as possible. Wait for the beep.”

  She did not wish to leave her name on his machine. Just as she started to hang up, she heard Lonny’s voice. “Hello? Hello?”

  “Lonny?” she said.

  “Ina Rae?” asked Lonny.

  “No, it’s Flo.”

  “Flo?” She could tell that he did not recognize her.

  “From the Viceroy. From the newsstand at the Hughes Market.”

  “Flo, my God. How are you? I was expecting someone else.”

  “I gather. Ina Rae. Who’s Ina Rae?”

  “Oh, don’t ask.”

  There was a silence.

  “Are you all right, Flo?” asked Lonny.

  “Sure.”

  “What’s up? It’s two o’clock in the morning.”

  “Are you still looking for a place to live?”

  “Yeah. I sure am. They’re kicking me out of here. I was gonna move in with this friend of mine, Ina Rae, but it’s not gonna work out. Why?”

  “How much are you prepared to pay?”

  “Six, seven hundred a month. Why?”

  “You can’t get much for six or seven hundred a month these days, Lonny. Can you swing a thousand?”

  “Maybe. Why? Do you know a place?”

  “I have a maid’s room in my house you could move into, as a temporary measure,” she said.

  “Really? You mean at your house in Beverly Hills?” There was excitement in his voice. “That would be great.”

  “Now, listen. No monkey business between us. No turning tricks in my house. No dirty videos. Strictly a roommate proposition. And two months’ rent paid in advance.”

  “Why would you want a guy with a reputation like mine living in your house for, Flo? Are you that broke?”

  “Yes. I’m that broke, Lonny. They’re about to turn off my telephone.”

  “Why do I think there’s more to t
his two A.M. call than that you’re broke,” said Lonny.

  “Because I’m scared, Lonny. I’m scared to be alone here.”

  Flo’s Tape #25

  “I was like a feather in the breeze. Except for Phil, this friend of mine from AA, I didn’t know who to believe. I really had nowhere to turn. I suppose that’s how I ended up with Lonny for a housemate. Lonny Edge, imagine. The thing is about Lonny, he’s actually a nice guy, but he’s in a line of work that most people don’t have much truck with, at least publicly. My God, the stories he used to tell me about some of those famous people he visited in Bel Air and Holmby Hills, the kind of people you’d read about in the papers as being oh-so-proper. Lonny told me everything about Kippie and what happened that night at Hector’s. It was all about money again. Kippie needed money, and his mother wouldn’t give it to him, and neither would Jules, apparently. So he went to Hector’s and surprised him with Lonny. I mean, what are those people hanging on to all that money for? Is it worth it, to cause all the trouble they cause, just to hang on to all the money?

  “Probably the only smart thing I ever did was to go to the Wells Fargo Bank the morning after Cyril tried to talk me into jumping out the window of the Valley Studios and get the tapes and bring them back here to the house.”

  26

  Cyril Rathbone, awakening, remembered with regret what he had said and done the night before. He knew only too well that the impulse that had driven him to seize the moment of Flo March’s despair and urge her to jump out of the window on the fifteenth floor of the administration building of the Valley Studios—which seemed logical to him at the time, promising him personal headlines as well as a spectacular finish for his book—had severed forever her association with him. He was not able to erase from his mind the combined look of fear and hatred on her face when she had told him to stay away from her. Even so, he tried to reach her by telephone and then by a Federal Express letter, explaining his act, in a revised version of the facts and thoughts that had flashed through his mind at the time; but there were no replies, and he knew there never would be. He was history, as far as Flo March was concerned.

  The thirty-nine hours of microcassette tapes that she had recorded were in a safety deposit box at the Wells Fargo Bank in Beverly Hills, for which they both had keys. When he went to the bank several days after the evening of her dismissal from the Amos Swank show, he found that the safety deposit box was empty. Without Flo, his dreams of expanding his career from social columnist to book writer were dashed.

  In his column, Cyril Rathbone began writing of the widowed Pauline as Pauline, Mrs. Mendelson, the sort of style used for dowager peeresses of the realm. Pauline had started to go out again in the city, appearing at small dinners of close friends and at cultural events, but at all times she avoided the cameras of the social and fashion press, which had followed her for so many years. “Pauline, Mrs. Mendelson, arrived for the opening of the ballet after the curtain had gone up. These days she guards her privacy,” wrote Cyril in one column.

  Although it appeared to be an accidental meeting, it was no accident that Cyril Rathbone should happen to pass Pauline Mendelson on Bedford Drive at the precise moment she left Pooky’s salon, after having had her hair done and nails manicured, beauty chores that were usually performed at her home. That morning at breakfast at the Viceroy Coffee Shop, Pooky had told Blanchette, the manicurist, that Mrs. Mendelson would be coming into the shop at eleven and, no matter what, she must not be kept waiting, even if it meant canceling the previous appointment, as she had to leave the salon by eleven-fifty in order to be back at Clouds for a lunch she was giving for a visiting ambassador. Pauline Mendelson was the kind of customer for whom such adjustments were made. Cyril, in the booth behind the hair stylist, could not help but perk up his ears.

  At eleven forty-five Pauline’s chauffeur, Jim, parked the Bentley directly in front of the entrance of Pooky’s salon and stood holding the car door open for her. Exactly at eleven-fifty the doorman opened the red lacquer door of the hairdressing salon, and Pauline emerged, in the rushed manner of a celebrity. Her hair was covered with a scarf, and she walked with rapid strides across the sidewalk, looking neither left nor right, hugging her bag to her, as both the doorman and the chauffeur tipped their hats. Cyril, carrying a briefcase in one hand, affected a rapid walk himself, looking neither left nor right, as if he were on his way from one important meeting to another and time was of the essence. Midway in the sidewalk they collided, and both almost lost their balance. Pauline’s bag fell to the ground. Cyril’s briefcase fell to the ground.

  “Good God,” he said, with a trace of annoyance in his florid English voice, as if the fault were not his own. He picked up his briefcase.

  Jim, the chauffeur, rushed forward and grabbed Pauline’s arm to keep her from falling, and then reached down to pick up her bag. “Are you all right, Mrs. M.?” he asked.

  “Yes, Jim, fine. The thing is, I wasn’t looking where I was going.” She turned to apologize to the man. “I’m terribly sorry,” she said. “I’m afraid it was my fault.”

  “No, no, please,” said Cyril. “Forgive me. My mind was a hundred miles away. Did I hurt you? Oh, my word, Pauline. I didn’t realize it was you.”

  Startled, she nodded in a distant manner when she realized that the man she had collided with was Cyril Rathbone.

  “This is too extraordinary,” he said. His voice took on its psychic tone of wonderment. “I have been thinking of you. But then, as I’m sure you know, there are no accidents, even though we seem to have had a minor collision.” He smiled, as if he had made a joke.

  Pauline did not wait for him to continue. She proceeded over to her car and entered the backseat. As Jim was about to close the door, Cyril stepped over, held it open, and leaned into the car. No such proximity to her would come his way again, and he knew it. “It is urgent that I speak with you, Pauline. Urgent.”

  “I’m afraid that I am terribly late,” she said, retreating into the far corner of the Bentley.

  He wanted to say, “Yes, I know, the ambassador is coming for lunch,” but he didn’t. Instead he said, “You will be very grateful to me for what I have to tell you. It is of the utmost importance to you.”

  She looked at him, without replying.

  “It concerns Miss March. I have heard her tapes,” he said.

  Pauline shook her head, not wanting to listen. Jim, the chauffeur, moved around the driver’s side of the car and opened the front door. Pauline did not want Jim to hear what Cyril Rathbone was about to say.

  “I’m in a frightful hurry,” she said, holding up her hand at the same time to forestall any further conversation.

  “So am I,” he replied. “I’m late for an appointment.” He patted his briefcase, as if it contained state secrets. “But you must hear me out.”

  “We’ll go straight home, Jim,” she said to her chauffeur.

  “Please, Pauline,” insisted Cyril.

  She spoke without looking at him. “Call Miss Maple, my husband’s secretary. Ask her to set up an appointment.”

  For nearly three decades Arnie Zwillman, about whom there was much media speculation, had managed to elude the photographers, journalists, and investigative reporters of the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Los Angeles Tribunal. As story after story appeared over the years on mob activities in trucking, in Las Vegas, in the record business, in the motion picture industry, in drugs, in prostitution, in pornography, in everything, his name came up time and time again, but always as a mysterious figure, an éminence grise, rarely seen, never photographed, inaccessible in the extreme, except for occasional forays to the Friars Club for cards, which were his passion. His social life was limited to his current wife, whom, with the diminishment of desire, he changed with regularity every seven years, and to the company of such celebrated cronies as Dom Belcanto, the ballad singer, and Amos Swank, the late-night talk show host, and their current wives.

  It was to
Amos Swank that Arnie Zwillman had made the call the night before, after his program was on the air, during the first commercial, to request that his last guest of the evening, Flo March, be dropped from the lineup.

  “Dump the cunt,” he said.

  “Roseanne? Dump Roseanne?” replied Amos, horrified by the thought.

  “Not Roseanne. Flo March.”

  “That puts me in a real bind, Arnie,” said Amos. “We’re on the air. I can’t get a replacement.”

  “Tell Dom I said to sing a few more numbers,” answered Arnie. “The public’s tuning in to see him, not the March broad.”

  Later, when Arnie listened to the only tape that had been found in Flo March’s house, his face was a study in displeasure. The encounter that had taken place between Jules Mendelson and him in the den of Casper Stieglitz’s house, while the rest of the party was watching a movie, was recounted in detail, as told to Flo by Jules himself. The words “laundering money” appeared frequently, as well as the methods for doing so during Jules’s tenure in Brussels, as suggested by Arnie to Jules.

  It was Arnie’s firm belief that only the unexpected interruption of Pauline Mendelson, who had been offended by a lesbian reference made by the drugged Casper Stieglitz, had prevented the deal from being solidified, there and then.

  “Christ, this March dame should have been a secretary. She must have taken down everything Jules told her in shorthand while she was taking down his pants to blow him,” said Arnie. His remark caused loud laughter in the room, but Arnie Zwillman was in no mood for laughter. He raised his hand and the laughter curdled. “Where’s the rest of the tapes?

  There’s supposed to be forty hours. This is only an hour. I want to hear the rest of the Kippie stuff.”

  “That’s all we could find,” said Jo Jo, his aide.

  “They’re probably in some safety deposit box. Get that fruitcake, Cyril Rathbone. Scare the shit out of him,” said Arnie.

  “It’s Mr. Rathbone. I am expected,” said Cyril, sounding more English than ever, as he peered up into the camera of the closed circuit television at the gates of Clouds. Dudley, looking back at him in the monitor in the butler’s pantry, was not kindly disposed toward the writer from Mulholland magazine, after what he considered to be the shameful and traitorous article he had written about Jules Mendelson and the woman called Flo March, an article that he knew had caused mirthful glances and suppressed laughter in the butlers’ pantries of the other important houses of the city. Dudley went so far as to express disapproval to the lady of the house when she had told him that Cyril Rathbone was expected, but Pauline Mendelson had merely shrugged and not replied, as if it were an occasion over which she had no control.