An Inconvenient Woman

by Dominick Dunne

  “Lonny, is that you?” she asked, even though she knew it wasn’t Lonny. Her voice was tinny and high-pitched. She could feel the frightened beating of her heart pounding against her chest. Her fingers stiffened. Her lips, her nose, even the follicles of her hair began to tingle with fear. “What are you doing in my house? Why are you ripping those cartons and bags apart? Who are you? What are you looking for?”

  The man did not reply. Very quietly, he stood up. She saw in his hand one of the brass candlesticks from China with the dragon crawling up the side, and a red tag on it to identify it as one of the pieces to go into the moving van for storage the next morning.

  “That’s Chinese,” said Flo. She was breathing very heavily. “That’s an antique. One of the dynasties, Jules told me. Ming, maybe. I could never get it straight. What are you doing with it? Why are you coming toward me like that? Please. Don’t. Is it the tapes? Is that what you want? Those damn tapes. Is that it? Take the tapes. They’re in the other room. Oh, no.”

  She watched the brass candlestick descend to bash in the side of her head. “Oh, dear God,” she said. She raised her hands to cover her face. “No, not my face. Please don’t hit me in the face, please, mister. Not my face, please.” The sapphire in the diamond-and-sapphire ring that Jules had given her, which she told Cyril Rathbone would be on her finger when she died, smashed from the force of the next blow. Her lip-sticked lips moved again, but her attacker knew that she was only saying a prayer. “Oh, dear God, help me, help me” were her last audible words. The sounds that came from her mouth through the next eight blows were prayers, “HailM​aryfu​llofg​racet​helor​diswi​ththee,” indecipherable to her attacker, asking God to forgive her sins, asking her mother for help, asking Jules to let her die before she was hit again, because she knew, before the first blow landed, that there was no rescue for her.

  Flo’s Tape #28

  “I know I should be thinking about this damn book, but all that I can think of these days is what’s going to happen to me. It’s a terrible feeling to think that the best things that have happened to me have already happened, and everything else is going to be downhill from here. But no matter how hard I try to visualize what my life will be like from here on, I can’t seem to come up with a picture. What the hell does that mean?”

  29

  “Philip. Once you said to me that you had caused a girl to be paralyzed and that it had changed your life forever,” said Camilla.

  Philip Quennell’s romance with Camilla Ebury had lasted the better part of a year. During that time she had given thoughts to marriage, but he consistently made it clear that he resisted permanence in love. In his past there was a nameless girl whose life he had thwarted, for whom he felt a responsibility that precluded such thoughts, and Camilla learned to accept what she had for as long as it lasted. They had loved and fought and parted and made up and loved again, and the arrangement, finally understood by each of them, brought pleasure to both.

  On their last night together before Philip returned to New York, they dined alone in Camilla’s house and then made love with the same ferocity and frequency as they had on their first night, following their meeting at Jules and Pauline Mendelson’s party on the evening of his arrival in the city.

  Philip got up from the bed. Camilla watched him as he opened the door of her closet and took out his blue-and-white-striped dressing gown and put it on. He walked over to her dressing table and pulled the chair from its place so that the back of it was facing the bed. Then he straddled it and looked at her as he started to speak.

  “Her name was Sophie Bushnell. Her name is Sophie Bushnell, I should say. She is alive, but alive in a wheelchair because of me.”

  “I want to hear, Philip,” said Camilla.

  With his finger he traced the design on the back of the chair as he talked, looking at it. “We were in her car, but I was driving, too fast, over a causeway that separated the part of town where she lived from the part of town where I lived. We had been drinking. I hit an abutment. She broke her neck.”

  He raised his eyes and looked at Camilla.

  “Is there more?”

  “Yes.”

  “What?”

  “I was trouserless at the time.” He rose from his seat and walked into her bathroom.

  “Is that why you’re so afraid to commit?” she asked when he came out.

  “Pretty good reason, don’t you think?”

  “I’ll miss you,” she said later, laying her head against his chest.

  “Me too,” he answered. He placed both his arms around her.

  “You’ve turned me into a wanton woman.”

  “It’s what you were born to be.”

  “It won’t really be over, will it?”

  “You know it won’t.”

  “There’ll be other times.”

  “Of course.”

  “You’ll come out?”

  “Sure.”

  Philip could not bear leave-takings. It was arranged between them that there would be no morning farewells. When he kissed her good night, he told her he would be gone before she awoke in the morning. Philip was always up before six to attend his AA meeting at the log cabin on Robertson Boulevard, and Camilla, more often than not, slept late; so the morning of his leaving was no different from their usual routine, except that she did get up and make him a cup of coffee while he was shaving and showering. Their last kiss was just a peck, as if he were off to the office for the day or, with his packed bags, off on a business trip, although he would not have honked his horn twice at the end of the driveway if he were just off for the day or for a business trip.

  He planned to see Flo March at the meeting and take her out for a cup of coffee afterward, before he left for the airport.

  “You don’t have to worry about me,” Flo had said to him at the meeting the day before, when they made their coffee date.

  “I do worry. You’re the most fragile tough girl I ever knew,” he answered.

  “Is that good?” she asked.

  “I don’t know.” He had an urge to kiss her.

  “How’s Camilla?” she asked, understanding his urge.

  He laughed.

  “You don’t think my life is complicated enough?” she asked. “I’ll give you a nice AA hug, though.”

  They both laughed.

  “Listen, there’s something I want to talk to you about before you go,” she said. “Of a business nature.”

  Driving toward West Hollywood, he imagined that what she wanted to talk about had to do with the book that she had been writing with Cyril Rathbone before his death. His plan was to advise her to leave Los Angeles and start anew someplace else, where her name was less well known.

  He saved a seat for her by putting his car keys on the chair next to his, but Flo March did not appear at the meeting. When the room became crowded, and there were not enough seats for all, he picked up the keys and relinquished the chair. Every time a latecomer entered the room, he looked anxiously toward the door. A feeling of unrest came over him. He tried to focus his attention on the talk being given by a former surgeon who told of operating on a patient while he was drunk, but he could not concentrate on the man’s pain. Halfway through the talk, he rose and went outside. There was a public telephone on the corner of the street. He dialed Flo’s number. The ring had a peculiar tone, and then the recorded voice of an operator came on and said that the number he was dialing was no longer in service. He wondered if the telephone company had disconnected her phone for nonpayment of her bill, or if she had ordered it to be disconnected because she was moving. His feelings of unease about Flo returned.

  When he got into his car, he found that it was blocked by the cars in front of him and behind him, both of which had parked too closely, and he could not get out. He knew he would have to wait for the end of the meeting for the occupants to come and move their vehicles. Just then a yellow cab turned the corner to drop off a latecomer in front of the log cabin. Philip recognized that it
was Rose Cliveden, hiding behind dark glasses and a head scarf that were meant to disguise her, although no one at the meeting would have known who she was, even if she announced her name and bank balance.

  He ducked down into his car, not wanting to be waylaid by Rose. In her sobriety, she talked as much as she had talked when she was drinking. Turning, she saw him and waved as she approached his car.

  “I need your advice, Philip,” she said. “I’m scheduled to speak tomorrow on my three-month anniversary, and I have the most awful confession to make.”

  “Rose, I’m in rather a hurry this morning,” answered Philip.

  “You see, I never heard the word grandiosity until I came into the program, and I’m afraid I’ve been very guilty of it,” she said, as if Philip had not spoken. “For years, almost thirty, I’ve always told people I had an affair with Jack Kennedy, in the Lincoln Bedroom in the White House. I think I even discussed it with you on the first night we met. Do you remember? You said to me, ‘What kind of a fuck was Jack Kennedy?’ And I told you he was a marvelous lover until he came, and then he couldn’t stand to be touched, because of all that Irish Catholic guilt. Do you remember all that?”

  “Yes, Rose, I remember, but—”

  “Well, I just made it all up.”

  “Rose, please, I must go,” he said, but there was no getting rid of Rose Cliveden when Rose was discussing herself.

  “It wasn’t true. I never went to bed with Jack Kennedy. But I told it so many times I began to believe it. I thought it made me a more interesting woman. How do you think that would sound when I speak on my anniversary tomorrow? Is that the sort of thing they like to hear?”

  Philip looked outside the car as the taxi that Rose had gotten out of began backing up in order to turn around. He began to talk very quickly. “That’s not really the point, Rose, whether they would like to hear it or not. You see, it’s not an entertainment when you speak. You only have to say that you made up stories to enhance your importance during the years you were drinking,” said Philip. “But I really must go, Rose. I have to be somewhere.”

  “Do you think I should write Jackie and apologize for telling that awful story?”

  “No. Good-bye, Rose. I’m going to try and grab your taxi. I can’t get my car out of here.”

  As Rose disappeared inside the log cabin, he opened the door of his car and ran after the cab, waving his arms to attract the attention of the driver.

  “Please,” he said, when he got to the cab. “Can you take me to Azelia Way? It’s halfway up Coldwater Canyon.”

  “Can’t, fella. I’m a Beverly Hills cab in West Hollywood. I’m not supposed to pick up customers off the streets out of my own district, or I could get a fine. Sorry.”

  “This is important,” said Philip. He didn’t understand why he felt a sense of urgency. He took a twenty-dollar bill from his pocket and handed it to the driver. “Nobody’s looking. Nobody’s going to report you. It’s only twenty minutes past seven. The streets are still empty.”

  “Does the fare come out of the twenty?”

  “No. The twenty’s on top of the fare.”

  “Hop in.”

  When they turned off Coldwater Canyon onto Azelia Way, the taxi driver said, “Oh, Azelia Way. That’s where Faye Converse lives.”

  “The house I’m going to is the first house past Faye Converse’s house,” said Philip.

  “I know her maid,” said the driver.

  “Uh-huh,” said Philip.

  “Glyceria.”

  “What?”

  “Her maid’s name is Glyceria. I drive her to the bus station every night. Faye pays.”

  “It’s right here,” said Philip. “Turn here.”

  “Oh, no, fella. That driveway’s too steep. I’ll never be able to turn around up there. You can get out here.”

  Philip paid the driver. He hopped out of the cab and ran up the hill. The grass had turned brown and had not been cut. The shrubbery along the path to the front door looked ragged, in need of clipping. When he got to the door, he rang the bell. There was no answer. Then he rang again. He tried the front door, and it was unlocked. When he opened it, he called out, “Flo?” He waited a moment. Then he called again. “Flo? Are you here, Flo? It’s Philip. Can I come in?”

  There was no answer. He peered inside. There were cartons and packing cases and shopping bags along the walls of the hallway, in preparation for moving, but they had been torn apart, and the contents were scattered. He wondered if there had been a robbery, or if vandals had gotten into the house. As he walked in, he saw that the living room was in shambles. He walked down the hallway to the bedroom. The bed had not been slept in, and there were half-packed bags on it. The door to the elaborate dressing room that Flo had had built was open. All the drawers were pulled out, and blouses and sweaters and stockings and belts and lingerie were hanging out of them, as if the place had been ransacked.

  “Flo?” he called out again.

  Slowly he walked out of her bedroom back into the living room. The back of the gray satin sofa was facing toward him. There was a pair of her shoes on the floor, one halfway under the sofa, the other by a chair. A brass candlestick with a dragon crawling up the side had been dropped on the floor, its bloody base staining the white carpet. He leaned down and picked it up. There were pieces of red hair mixed in with the blood. He rose and walked very slowly over to the sofa and, with dread, looked down at the body of Flo March. Her red hair was matted with blood. Her hands covered her face, as if to protect it, and the sapphire in her ring was smashed, as was the finger on which it was worn. There were contusions on her forearm.

  All the blood drained from Philip’s face as he looked down at his beautiful friend. “Oh, Flo,” he breathed out. On the bar was a telephone. When he picked it up, there was no dial tone, and he remembered that it had been disconnected. He ran out of the house. In order to get to Faye Converse’s house next door, he had to run down the long steep driveway to Azelia Way and then run up the driveway next door. He rang and rang the bell, but there was no answer. He called out her name, “Miss Converse!” and then called out the name of Glyceria, the maid, but the house was closed up. Faye Converse had gone to New York to promote her new perfume, and Glyceria had not arrived yet for work.

  He ran down to Azelia Way and then up to Flo’s house again, hoping that the keys to her car would be in it, but they were not. Again he ran down the driveway and then down Azelia Way to Coldwater Canyon. He was sweating from all the running. The heavy morning traffic down the canyon had started. He tried to hail a ride, but the cars passed him by without stopping. He began to run frantically. A passing motorist dialed the Beverly Hills police on his cellular telephone.

  “There’s a crazy guy running up and down Coldwater Canyon,” he said.

  • • •

  Blondell, Pauline Mendelson’s maid, who had been with Pauline for over twenty years, tapped on the door of her bedroom and entered without waiting for a reply. She was carrying a small tray with a cup of tea, which she placed on a table by Pauline’s bed. She went over to the curtains and pulled them back to let in the morning light.

  “For heaven’s sake. What are you doing, Blondell? What time is it?”

  “Early. Are you awake?” asked Blondell.

  “Just slightly,” said Pauline. “Come back in an hour. I’m going to try to sleep some more.”

  “I thought you would want to know—”

  “I’ve had a terribly sleepless night again.”

  “—that that woman who was in the church at Mr. Mendelson’s funeral—”

  “Oh, puleeze. I don’t want to be awakened to hear anything about her,” said Pauline.

  “She’s dead, Mrs. Mendelson.”

  “What?” Pauline sat up in bed.

  “Murdered,” replied Blondell.

  “What?” Pauline said again.

  “It’s on the news.”

  “How?”

  “Beaten in the face and head with a brass
candlestick.”

  “Good God. Do they know who did it?”

  “They’ve arrested a man who was running wildly away from the house down Coldwater Canyon.”

  “Do they know who it is?”

  “They didn’t give his name.”

  In the old Charles Boyer house, Arnie Zwillman was doing laps on his treadmill when he watched the same newscast that Blondell had seen. He was not bewildered by the reports of the death of Flo March, that troublesome creature—or fucking cunt, as he was more likely to call her—but he was utterly bewildered by the reports of an unidentified man running wildly away from the scene of the crime. It bothered him enough to turn off the treadmill and go to the telephone in his workout room.

  “What the fuck is going on?” he asked when the person whom he dialed answered.

  “They arrested the wrong guy,” was the answer he received.

  • • •

  Philip Quennell, in custody in the Beverly Hills police station, remained totally calm as he was fingerprinted and booked. His attitude and demeanor were a source of immense annoyance to the policeman, Officer Whitbeck, who had picked him up on Coldwater Canyon and arrested him fleeing from the scene of the crime.

  “You’re in deep shit, fella,” he said more than once.

  “No, I’m not,” replied Philip. He knew that in time it would be ascertained that Flo March had been dead for several hours by the time he arrived at her house. He knew that Camilla Ebury would give evidence that he had spent the night at her house. At least fifty people would remember that they had seen him at the early morning AA meeting on Robertson Boulevard. Rose Cliveden would swear that she had talked to him on Robertson Boulevard at seven-twenty. His car would be discovered parked on Robertson Boulevard, and the taxi driver of the Beverly Hills cab would be located and have on his log the hour that he had driven Philip to the house on Azelia Way.