An Inconvenient Woman (21 page)

“Is that all, Mr. Quennell?”

“I believe that, for some reason I do not understand, there is a cover-up going on, and that your newspaper is a party to that cover-up.”

“Ludicrous, and libelous,” said Sandy Pond. All trace of pleasantness had vanished from his voice.

Philip, fearing that Sandy Pond would hang up on him, began to speak very quickly. “Isn’t it a fact that Jules Mendelson went to see you on the morning that Hector Paradiso was murdered? I beg your pardon, on the morning that Hector Paradiso committed suicide.”

“Good-bye, Mr. Quennell.”

That evening at a dinner party at the home of Ralph and Madge White in Hancock Park, Sandy Pond motioned to Jules Mendelson to follow him onto the lanai after dinner, when the other guests were having coffee in the living room.

“Have you ever heard of someone called Philip Quennell?” he asked. “He wrote that book on your friend Bulbenkian.”

“Yes, I have. He’s seeing Camilla. Why?” asked Jules.

“I had a most upsetting call from him this afternoon.”

•   •   •

That same night, in a different part of the city, Miss Garbo’s was mobbed. Miss Garbo’s was mobbed every night. Marvene McQueen, the chanteuse, was in the middle of her set.

“You are not my first love. I’ve known other men,”
she sang.

She stared straight up into the spotlight. Her lips puckered over her protruding teeth. Tears filled her eye-shadowed eyes as she moaned out her signature number. One of the shoulder straps of her black evening dress dropped down on her arm. She allowed her hair to fall over one eye, like a forties film star. It was a wasted performance. No one in the crowded bar paid the slightest bit of attention to her.

“Zane,” called out Manning Einsdorf to the bartender. Manning sat on a high stool where he could survey the entire room. “Don’t serve any more drinks to Mr. Coughlin and guest at table twenty-six. They’ve had enough. And tell the parking boy to call a cab and not let him drive home either. I’m not going to have the West Hollywood police closing down my place because of a couple of drunks.”

“Calm down, calm down, Manning,” said Zane. “It’s all taken care of.”

“Miss Einsdorf is very jumpy lately,” said Joel Zircon, who was standing at the bar listening to the exchange.

“Miss Einsdorf has been very jumpy ever since you-know-who left here with you-know-who and ended up with five bullets in him. She bites my head off ten times a night,” said Zane.

Philip Quennell walked into the club. For several minutes he was unnoticed in the packed and noisy room. Making his way through the crowd, he found himself a space at the bar by standing sideways. Joel Zircon, who had been introduced to Philip at Le Dôme by Mona Berg, looked down the bar at him in surprise and then stared at him through the blue mirrored wall behind the liquor bottles. Philip, waiting to be served, concentrated on Marvene McQueen’s set.

“You better go now, because I like you much too much, you better go now,”
she sang.

“Beer?” asked Zane, when he found time to approach Philip.

“Soda water,” answered Philip.

“Lemon? Lime?” asked Zane.

“Lemon.”

Zane filled the glass from a rubber tube attached to a spigot and placed it in front of Philip.

“Who’s the singer?” asked Philip.

“Marvene McSomebody,” replied Zane.

“Drag queen?”

“No, real girl.”

“Buckteeth.”

“You can say that again.”

“I’m looking for someone called Manning Einsdorf,” said Philip. He leaned forward on the bar toward Zane so that he would not have to raise his voice.

Zane looked at Philip. “He’s the fella sitting on the high stool at the end of the bar. He’s pretty busy tonight. Is he expecting you?”

“No.”

“Who shall I tell him wants to see him?”

“I’ll tell him myself,” said Philip. He pulled out from his position at the bar and walked down to where Manning Einsdorf was surveying the activity in his club.

“Zane!” hissed Joel Zircon. When Zane turned around, Joel signaled for him to come over to where he was standing at the bar. “What did that guy want?”

“Asked for Manning. Who is he? Doesn’t look like our crowd, if you know what I mean,” said Zane. “But you never know these days.”

“No, no. Definitely not our crowd. He’s writing a documentary for Casper Stieglitz so Casper won’t have to go to jail for being caught with ten pounds of cocaine,” said Joel. “Mona Berg told me all about it. What the fuck do you suppose he’s doing here?”

“Who?” asked Manning Einsdorf, leaning down from his high stool and putting his hand to his ear.

Philip repeated the name. “Lonny.”

“I never heard of such a person,” said Manning.

“Blond, handsome, apparently.”

“That could be any of a couple of hundred guys who come in here nightly.”

“The name means nothing to you?”

“That’s right.”

“I see,” said Philip. “Did you know Hector Paradiso?”

“I didn’t, no,” replied Manning Einsdorf. He turned away and called out to the bartender. “Zane, they need drinks at table twenty-two. And send Marvene a glass of champagne.

Tell her she was terrific tonight. Tell her not to forget ‘Moanin’ Low’ in the next set.”

Philip, dismissed, remained. “You say you didn’t know Hector Paradiso?” he asked.

“I already told you I didn’t.”

“But you went to his funeral.”

“Who said I went to his funeral?”

“No one said.”

“So, where did you get such an idea?”

“I sat in the row behind you. You were with Joel Zircon, the agent who works with Mona Berg, and Willard, Casper Stieglitz’s butler.”

Manning Einsdorf began to feel uncomfortable.

“Well, of course, I knew Hector slightly,” said Manning. “I mean, everyone knew Hector Paradiso, God rest his soul, but he wasn’t a close friend.”

“I understand he was here in your club on the night he was murdered.”

“He wasn’t murdered.”

“I beg your pardon. I understand he was here in your club on the night he committed suicide.”

“No. I don’t recall that he was.”

“Think.”

“Look around you. The place is packed like this every night. I can’t remember everyone who comes in here. Miss Garbo’s wasn’t Hector’s sort of place, you know. Hector was a high society sort of person.”

Philip persisted. “He came here that night in a dinner jacket straight from a party at Pauline Mendelson’s. People tell me he even described to you what Pauline was wearing that night.”

“I don’t remember any of that,” said Manning.

“And you don’t remember his leaving with a young blond man called Lonny?”

“How many times have I got to tell you that I never heard of anyone called Lonny, and I didn’t see Hector in here that night?”

“Thanks.”

“Stick around. My new singer’s going to go on again.”

“I heard enough of your singer.”

In the parking lot, Philip Quennell handed the parking boy his ticket. “Beige Le Sabre,” he said.

A back door of the club opened. Zane stuck his head out
and, seeing Philip, whistled between his fingers. When Philip turned around to respond to the whistle, Zane signaled with his head for him to come over.

“I’m on a piss break. I gotta talk quick,” he said.

“Your boss does not exactly dwell in the palace of truth,” said Philip.

“No, no. Truth was never Manning’s long suit,” replied Zane.

“What’s up?” asked Philip.

Zane looked behind him into the club before he spoke. “You’re looking for Lonny?”

“Yes, I’m looking for Lonny, and I don’t even know Lonny’s last name.”

“Edge. His name is Lonny Edge. Lives on Cahuenga Boulevard—7204¼ Cahuenga—near Ivar. I don’t know the phone number, and he’s unlisted, but he left here with Hector about two-thirty that night.”

“What’s your name?” asked Philip.

“Zane.”

“Thanks, Zane. How come you’re telling me this? Your boss could fire you.”

“Hector Paradiso was a good guy to me, and I don’t buy this suicide story. There was no way he was on his way to committing suicide the last night he was in here. No way. Someone’s covering up his murder.”

Philip nodded. “That’s exactly what’s happening. What’s this Lonny Edge like?”

“You’ll see for yourself. He’s what’s known in the trade as a famous fornicator. Men, women, you name it. He doesn’t care if the price is right. Rich guys fly him to New York or Hawaii for the weekend. Like that. He does scenes, in groups, if you know what I mean. And he’s a minor porn star in video. Listen, I gotta get back. Miss Einsdorf will have a shit fit. She’s very jumpy lately.”

“Thanks, Zane.”

“You never talked to me, right?”

“Never saw you before, Zane.”

As Philip got into his car, he noticed Marvene McQueen leaving the club by the same door that Zane had used. She was wearing dark glasses, as if she were a film star. She walked across the parking lot to an old Honda and got in.

Flo’s Tape #11

“The trouble is, you can’t talk to a Chanel suit. Except for Glyceria, who was Faye Converse’s maid, and Pooky, who did my hair, and, I suppose, Nellie Potts, who was the decorator, I never had anybody to talk to. Sometimes I’d call up Curly, who was the manager of the Viceroy Coffee Shop, and we’d laugh a little like old times. Actually, I bought my grass from Curly, if the truth be known.

“One day I realized, between the grass and the white wine from the Bresciani auction that Jules insisted on my having on hand for him always, I was stoned almost every afternoon. When I was stoned, I didn’t mind so much having no one to talk to. But my skin began looking not so hot, and, without bragging or anything, I happen to have beautiful skin. Everybody tells me that. So I just stopped both the wine and the grass. It was tough, though. Pooky, the hairdresser, who used to do a lot of coke, told me about AA. I mentioned it to Jules. He freaked out. He hated things like that. ‘You can’t be seen in there,’ he said. Pooky told me about the early morning meeting in the log cabin on Robertson Boulevard at seven
A.M
. From my waitress days, I was used to getting up at that time anyway. That’s where I met Philip Quennell.”

S
omehow—no one actually saw it happen, as it happened in the ladies’ room—Rose Cliveden fell down and broke her leg at the Los Angeles Country Club during the luncheon she gave following Hector Paradiso’s funeral. Madge White swore Rose tripped over Astrid, Hector’s little dog, named after the ice skating star he had once been engaged to decades before. He had left Astrid to Rose in his will, although she did not know the dog had been left to her at the time it tripped her, if, indeed, it did trip her. With Rose, when she had her many mishaps, nothing was ever quite crystal clear.

Rose, who loved dogs, would not have a word said against Astrid as the cause of her fractured leg. Not only was the creature her final remembrance from Hector, but, as Rose announced to one and all, she gave great sums each year to the animal shelter. Rose blamed her fall on Clint, the bartender at the Club, whom she claimed made the Bloody Marys entirely too strong, especially for a funeral lunch. She told Madge White she intended doing something about it, like making a complaint to the house committee about Clint. Rose had had it in for Clint ever since it had been repeated to her that he had called her Old Rosie, during a previous mishap, when she dislocated her shoulder, and he had carried her to the ambulance.

When Madge White repeated the story to Pauline Mendelson, Pauline asked, “Why in the world would Rose have had the dog at her lunch at the Los Angeles Country Club in the first place?”

“Wearing a black mourning bow, if you please,” said Madge. Pauline laughed. Like all Rose Cliveden’s friends, Pauline was both amused and exasperated by Rose’s behavior.

“That Astrid is a mean little dog,” said Pauline. “You
wouldn’t believe the way she attacked Kippie after Camilla brought her up here to give to Rose right after Hector died. None of us could believe it. She made a beeline for him when he came up from the tennis court and bit off the tip of his forefinger, right up to here. There was blood everywhere.”

Then Pauline remembered that Madge White would have no sympathy for Kippie, no matter how much of his forefinger Astrid had bitten off. Although Madge was one of her best friends, she never mentioned Kippie to her, ever since, years earlier, when they were both fourteen, Kippie had gotten Madge’s daughter, little Madgie, pregnant.

“Anyway,” said Madge, changing the subject, “Rose gave the dog away already.”

“No!”

“She gave it to Faye Converse. Faye always takes in stray dogs.”

Pauline returned the conversation to Rose—poor Rose, as they had all started to call her—whose drinking had begun to worry all her friends. “She’s getting worse and worse,” said Pauline.

Of course, Rose was in deep mourning for her lifelong friend, but her friends knew that if Hector hadn’t died, there would have been another reason for her to give as an excuse for her self-indulgence with spirits. Even before Hector died, Rose had said to Pauline, “Oh, what difference does it make if I smoke too much, or drink too much? I’m a sixty-year-old woman, and no gentleman wants to fuck me anymore.”