An Inconvenient Woman (25 page)

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.”

I
t 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.

“Excuse me,” said Philip to Lonny when the waitress arrived with Lonny’s breakfast. “I’ll be right back.”

“It’s over there, with the orange door, by the cash register,” said Lonny, pointing to the men’s room.

Philip nodded and went to the men’s room. When he came out a minute later, he walked over to Jules Mendelson’s table.

“Mr. Mendelson,” he said.

Jules looked up from his paper but did not acknowledge Philip.

“It’s Philip Quennell,” said Philip.

“Yes,” he said, looking back at his paper in a dismissive manner. He had taken a dislike to Philip Quennell since the day the statue of the Degas ballerina had been knocked over and cracked, and he blamed Philip for the accident although it was his own anger that had caused it.

As if reading his mind, Philip said, “I’m sorry about the accident with the Degas ballerina. I wrote Mrs. Mendelson a note of apology.”

“She told me,” said Jules, not raising his eyes.

“This is not the sort of place I would expect to be seeing you having breakfast,” said Philip.

“I’m not having breakfast. I’m having a cup of coffee,” said Jules. “I come in here at this time to read my paper.” He tapped the newspaper on the table in a gesture meant to dissuade Philip from staying.

“Quite a clientele this place gets,” said Philip. “See that guy over there, scarfing down the hotcakes? Jeans, T-shirt, windbreaker?”

“What about him?”

“Hustler. Porn star.”

Jules nodded, indicated disinterest, and looked back at his paper. “I didn’t realize that was your inclination,” he said, chuckling.

Philip smiled and started to move on. “You know what they say about him, don’t you?”

“Of course I don’t know what they say about him. I never laid eyes on the man.”

“They say he’s the guy who killed Hector Paradiso.”

Jules smiled wearily. “Oh, that old chestnut. Hector Paradiso was a suicide, Mr. Quennell.”

“No, he wasn’t, Mr. Mendelson.”

“You have only to check the police report.”

“Hector went to a bar called Miss Garbo’s after he left your party that night. It’s the kind of bar where rich johns make arrangements of a financial nature to meet young companions. There are several witnesses who will tell you that Hector left Miss Garbo’s in the company of that young companion. I’ve checked the police report. None of those facts are in it. Do you still want to tell me that Hector Paradiso went straight home from your party that night to shoot himself five times?”

“Playing sleuth may be the most important thing that ever happened in your life, Quennell, but it’s a matter of absolutely no importance to me,” said Jules. He slowly turned the page he was reading and continued to read the story about the release from prison after five years of the Wall Street financier Elias Renthal.

“This thing doesn’t have one goddamn thing to do with my life,” said Philip. “Why the hell should it matter to me whether or not they catch the killer? If I hadn’t been at your house that night and gone home with Camilla Ebury and been with her when you called to say that Hector was dead and then gone with her to Hector’s house to identify the body, I probably wouldn’t give it another thought, because it doesn’t involve me. What
I’m
interested in is why it is being covered up. Chances are it was what the supermarket tabloids refer to as a gay murder. He picked up a trick at Miss Garbo’s. He took home the trick. He got into a fight with the trick, probably
over money—they say he was tight—and he got killed. Not a particularly uplifting scenario, but it is not a particularly original one either. There was that big decorator in New York it happened to last year. Bertie Lightfoot? Do you remember? I’m sure Pauline knew him. And in San Francisco. The gallery owner. What was his name? Ludovic Cato, wasn’t it? Same story. Stabbed to death by a mysterious stranger, all trussed up. But why the cover-up here in Los Angeles? Do you think the people in your privileged group really didn’t know Hector was gay? I don’t think so. Your kind of group might not have talked about it, but they knew it. Who are you all trying to protect? He had no family who might be embarrassed by such a revelation. Only a niece, with whom I am involved, and she would now like to have it solved.”

“Hey, Quennell,” said Jules, looking up from his newspaper finally. His voice had turned harsh. He was not used to people who did not treat him with deference.

“Yes?”

“Read my lips, asshole. You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”

“Ah, the great art collector and philanthropist has spoken,” said Philip.

The two stared at each other, and Philip moved on.

Sometimes, after they finished making love, Jules—still nude, still in bed—would pick up the telephone and call his office to check with Miss Maple for his messages. Twice he spoke to the President, in the White House, while lying in Flo’s bed, with the telephone sitting on his chest. Once Flo heard him say, “Best to Barbara,” in a matter-of-fact way, as if, as she told it later to Glyceria, it was no big deal. On this day he signaled Flo with a drinking gesture to bring him something cool to drink, without interrupting his train of thought. Flo was fascinated by the way Jules was able to conduct business involving great sums of money over the telephone. Sell this. Buy that. She felt important just hearing such large sums discussed over her telephone in her house. She grew to know that Sims Lord was Jules’s lawyer and closest associate, that Reza Bulbenkian was his contact in New York, and that Miss Maple, whom Jules sometimes called Syrup, was his secretary and had been his secretary for over twenty years. It was Miss Maple, whom Flo had never met, who paid all her bills and mailed her her allowance.

Flo handed Jules a can of iced tea. “I hate canned iced tea,” said Jules. “In fact, I hate drinks out of cans, period.”

“Oh.” Flo always felt hurt if Jules criticized the way she did things.

“Look,” said Jules, taking her hand. “What’s the name of that decorator you’re using?”

“Nellie Potts?” asked Flo.

“Right, Nellie Potts. Tell her to call Steuben in New York. Tell her to order some decent glasses for you. Twelve of each. Water goblets, highball, old-fashioned, the red wine, the white wine, the champagne. Drinks taste better out of good glasses.”

“Wow,” said Flo, impressed. “Should I get them monogrammed? You know, like FM? I read somewhere that Dom Belcanto has his glasses monogrammed.”

“No, no, monograms are tacky,” said Jules. “And they take too long. Just order the glasses. Have them sent out by Federal Express. They’ll be here in a couple of days. And then you can serve me my drinks in some decent glasses.”

“I’ll call Nellie later,” said Flo. She was delighted when she had projects to fill up her time.

“Speaking of Nellie Potts,” said Jules, reaching out behind him in the bed and grabbing a handful of Flo’s new curtains. “Have you any idea how much these curtains cost?”

“Yes, I do, Jules,” answered Flo.

“That’s a great deal of money, Flo, for some curtains. Did you inquire first about the cost?”

“Yes, I did, Jules.”

“And you didn’t question such an exorbitant amount?” he asked.