An Inconvenient Woman (8 page)

“What’s that?” asked Captain Mariano.

“What?” answered one of the policemen.

“Like crying?”

“Oh, my God,” said Camilla. “Astrid.”

“Who’s Astrid?” asked Philip.

“Hector’s dog,” said Camilla. She called the dog several times. “Astrid. Astrid.”

The sounds of crying became louder as Camilla went into the library. She knelt down on the floor and peered under the sofa. “Astrid, come out, you sweet thing,” she said in a gentle voice. She reached under the sofa and pulled the small West Highland terrier out. The dog appeared terrified, and Camilla clutched it in her arms, kissed its head, and petted it. “Rose gave Hector this dog,” she said to Philip. “I’m going to bring it back to Rose.”

“That little dog knows who killed Hector Paradiso,” said Philip.

“Too bad Astrid can’t talk,” said Captain Mariano.

“I don’t give a shit if Mr. Einsdorf left strict orders he did not want to be disturbed until noon or not,” yelled Joel Zircon into the telephone. “Wake him up!”

Several minutes later Manning Einsdorf, enraged that his sleep had been disturbed, came to the telephone. “This is outrageous, Joel. I need my rest. I didn’t close the club last night until four.”

“Have you heard about Hector Paradiso, Manning?” asked Joel.

“Oh, my God. AIDS?”

“No, Manning. Shot five times.”

“What?”

“That’s right.”

“Dead?”

“Of course dead.”

“Oh, my God. You don’t think that Lonny … oh, my God. Is it on the news?”

“No, not a word so far.”

“How’d you hear?”

“A sometime trick of mine was working on the ambulance. He called me.”

“Oh, my God.”

“You said ‘oh, my God’ three times now, Manning. You better get your ass in gear and get over to the place and destroy any records or phone numbers you have of hustlers and Johns or you’re going to be in deep shit.”

“That fucking Lonny,” said Manning Einsdorf.

“What was that lousy singer’s name with the buckteeth?”

“Marvene McQueen.”

“Tell Marvene she didn’t see Hector Paradiso in your place last night. And Zane too.”

“Don’t worry about Zane,” said Manning.

Flo’s Tape #4

“
Jules used to say that if you could visualize yourself as something, you could become it. I can’t tell you how much that meant to me when he said it. You see, I always thought I would be famous, only I never could visualize what I would be famous at. He knew, he always knew, he told me, that he would become an important person, and he certainly did
.

“
When I visualized myself as famous, it wasn’t this kind of fame
.”

L
ater that day, Philip Quennell returned to the Chateau Marmont, an apartment hotel on that part of Sunset Boulevard known as the Strip that was frequented by the movie and art crowd. Casper Stieglitz’s secretary, Bettye, had booked him a room, or, as Bettye described it, a junior suite. A junior suite, Philip discovered, was a bedroom and sitting room in one.

“Perfect for your writing,” Bettye had told Philip when she called him in New York to confirm his reservation. “All the writers who come out from New York stay there.” Philip, who was not a chatterer on the telephone, even with a full-time chatterer like Bettye, said the arrangement sounded fine, but Bettye sensed a dissatisfaction, where there was none, and added, as a further enhancement of the charms of his future lodging, “It’s the place where John Belushi OD’d.”

“Oh, right,” Philip had added.

“But that was in one of the bungalows. Not the room where you will be.”

“Right,” said Philip.

The lost luggage had been returned by the airline to the hotel, and Philip showered again and changed the clothes he had worn since the morning before when he boarded the plane in New York, and had then worn to the Mendelsons’ party the night before, and on the mission that morning to Humming Bird Way to identify the body of Hector Paradiso, and then back to Clouds at the top of the mountain to deliver Camilla Ebury into the comforting hands of Pauline Mendelson.

That time no butler or maid opened the door to receive them. Pauline herself was standing in the open door waiting for them when Philip drove his rented car into the courtyard.
She walked to Camilla’s side of the car and opened the door. When Camilla got out, the two women embraced.

“So awful,” said Pauline.

“Poor Hector,” answered Camilla. “What a good friend you were to Hector, Pauline. He adored you.”

“And I him. I’m livid with myself that I didn’t let him stay on last night after everyone left. He wanted to talk over the party, and I said no.”

“Oh, Pauline, it’s not your fault,” said Camilla. “Anyway, I heard that Kippie was back, and of course you wanted to be with him.”

Pauline smiled distantly in acknowledgment of the mention of her son’s name, but did not reply.

Camilla continued. “How is he?”

“Oh, coming along,” said Pauline. In the short silence that followed, the sound of a tennis ball being hit with great force against a backboard issued from an unseen court somewhere behind the house. Pauline was wearing a cashmere sweater over her shoulders, and she pulled it together in front of her as if she were chilly, although it was not cold. Instinctively, both Camilla and Philip realized that the player was probably Kippie. Turning, Pauline greeted Philip warmly. If she was surprised to see him in the company of Camilla, wearing the same clothes he had been wearing the night before, she gave no such indication.

“I don’t see Jules’s car,” said Camilla.

“He went out very early this morning, as soon as he got the call, and he’s not back yet,” said Pauline.

“Who called him?” asked Camilla.

“I don’t know. The police, I suppose.”

Camilla and Philip looked at each other.

“Is Rose still here?” asked Camilla.

“Heavens, yes. On her second Bloody Mary already and her fortieth cigarette. I’m always afraid she’s going to burn down my house,” replied Pauline. She was back to being herself again, charming, and in charge.

“How’s she taking the news?”

“In absolute despair, calling everyone. Blaming herself for everything. If only they’d been speaking, this never would have happened, that kind of talk.”

“Like most lifelong friends, they were always not speaking,” said Camilla, and both she and Pauline laughed.

From within the car, the dog started to whine.

“What in the world is that?” asked Pauline.

“Oh, my God, I forgot,” said Camilla. “It’s Astrid. We brought Astrid. I couldn’t leave her in that house. Poor little thing, she was hiding under the sofa in the library. I thought Rose might want her back, as she gave her to Hector in the first place.”

“That will be just what she needs,” said Pauline. “She’s planning the funeral already. High Mass at Good Shepherd in Beverly Hills. She wants Archbishop Cooning to officiate, can you imagine, and she’s going to give a big lunch after the funeral at the Los Angeles Country Club. Are you going to mind that she’s taken over completely?”

“Hell, no,” said Camilla. “Rose is at her best when she’s planning a party, and that’s exactly what she’ll turn this into.”

“Now, come in, the two of you,” said Pauline.

Philip, who had been watching Camilla and Pauline, said, “The papers are going to have a field day with this story. I’m surprised they’re not buzzing your bell down at the gates now.”

“Oh, no, I shouldn’t think so,” said Pauline.

“I mean, it has all the elements, doesn’t it? Land Grant family. Prominent social figure. Millionaire, or at least one presumes. Uncle of Camilla Ebury. Close personal friend of Mrs. Jules Mendelson. It all sounds very front page to me.”

“Oh, no. I shouldn’t think it would be played up,” repeated Pauline, shaking her head.

“But why not?” asked Philip.

“That’s what Jules said when he called. He was at Sandy Pond’s office at the
Tribunal
.”

“But, Pauline, they took Raymundo away in handcuffs,” said Camilla. “I saw him with my own eyes.”

“They’ve let him go by now. A mix-up, apparently. Anyway, come in. Rose will be having an anxiety attack.”

Philip, a newcomer and an outsider in the group, declined. Twenty-four hours earlier he had not known any of these people, and now he felt awkward among them in such personal moments. “I won’t come in, Pauline. I’d better get back to the hotel and check on my luggage and call Casper Stieglitz to tell him I’ve arrived.”

Pauline looked at him and smiled. “Happy birthday,” she said.

Philip smiled back, touched that she had remembered.

“I didn’t know it was your birthday, Philip,” said Camilla.

“So much has happened since last night, I’d forgotten it myself,” he said.

“How old are you?” she asked.

“Thirty,” he answered.

“I’m thirty-two,” she said.

“I like older women.”

Camilla laughed. “I can’t thank you enough for seating me next to this wonderful man last night, Pauline,” she said. “I don’t know what I’d have done without him.”

Camilla and Philip looked at each other.

“I’ll call you,” he said.

As Philip was driving out of the courtyard, Jules Mendelson came up the driveway in his dark blue Bentley. He stopped the car by the front door and got out. Walking over to where Pauline and Camilla were standing, he put his arms around Camilla and hugged her. To Philip, leaving, he appeared weary.

When Philip Quennell told Jules Mendelson the night before, after refusing his Château Margaux wine from the Bresciani auction, that he did not have anything so dramatic as a drinking problem—“simply no taste for it”—he was not telling the truth, but it was an untruth with which he had long since come to terms. There had been in his past a problem, one with dire consequences, and as a result part of his life, a part that he never discussed with anyone, was spent in atonement. Twice each year he returned to the small town in Connecticut where he was born. He was the son of the town doctor, long dead, and had gone to good schools on scholarships. Across the causeway that separated Old Saybrook from Winthrop Point, an enclave for wealthy summer residents from Hartford and New Haven, was Sophie Bushnell, who had lived her life in a wheelchair since the accident that crippled her.

At seven o’clock on the morning following Hector Paradiso’s death, Philip was seated in a small hall on Robertson Boulevard in West Hollywood, reading the
Los Angeles Tribunal
and drinking coffee from a cardboard container while waiting for the AA meeting to start. He tore through the paper looking for news of the violent event in which he had become involved. It surprised him that it was not mentioned on the first page, or in the first section. It surprised him
more that it was not mentioned in the section known as the Metro section, which covered local news. Finally, on the obituary page, he found it in an inconspicuous position, quite easily missable, a small announcement of the death of Hector Paradiso. He folded the paper in half and then refolded it in quarters in order to read the item again to see if it bore some clue.

“Something fishy there,” said a girl on a chair next to him, who was reading his newspaper over his shoulder.

“Hmmm?” said Philip.

The girl, who smelled of expensive bath oil and perfume, tapped a beautifully manicured fingernail on the story of Hector Paradiso’s death.

“I said there’s something fishy about that story,” she repeated.

Philip turned to look at her. She was young and very pretty, with dark red hair and vividly blue eyes that met his with a look that hovered between flirtatious and humorous. Although she was fashionably dressed, her manner, her voice, and her way of sitting were at odds with her expensive clothes. She exuded sensuality rather than fashionableness and seemed to Philip a curious but dazzling presence at such an early hour in the drab surroundings of an AA meeting on Robertson Boulevard.

“I was thinking the same thing,” he said.

“Want to know how I see it?” she asked.

“Sure.”

“He went to Pauline Mendelson’s party, right?”

“How do you know that?”

“He always goes to Pauline Mendelson’s parties. He was her pet. You know how all those society ladies have their pets?”

Philip smiled. He liked her. “But how do you even know Pauline Mendelson had a party?”

“I read it in Cyril Rathbone’s column in
Mulholland
,” she answered, shrugging. “I always read the society columns.”

“Go on.”

“In my scenario, on the way home he stops at Miss Garbo’s.”

“What’s Miss Garbo’s?”

“You new in town, or something?”

“I am. Yes.”

“It’s a bar, with a cabaret. It’s a place where well-to-do
gentlemen of a certain persuasion go on their way home from fashionable places, like a Pauline Mendelson party, if you get my drift.”

Philip, nodding, got her drift. “How do you know so much?” he asked.

“My last job. I used to know guys like that.”

“Like Hector Paradiso?”

“Yeah. I even knew Hector.”

“What was your last job?”

“We’re talking about Hector, not me,” she said.