American psycho: a novel

"No!" I shout. "Now, Carnes. Listen to me. Listen very, very carefully. I-killed-Paul-Owen-and-I-liked-it. I can't make myself any clearer." My stress causes me to choke on the words.

"But that's simply not possible," he says, brushing me off. "And I'm not finding this amusing anymore."

"It never was supposed to be!" I bellow, and then, "Why isn't it possible?"

"It's just not," he says, eyeing me worriedly.

"Why not?" I shout again over the music, though there's really no need to, adding "You stupid bastard."

He stares at me as if we are both underwater and shouts back, very clearly over the din of the club, "Because… I had… dinner… with Paul Owen… twice… in London… just ten days ago."

After we stare at each other for what seems like a minute, I finally have the nerve to say something back to him but my voice lacks any authority and I'm not sure if I believe myself when I tell him, simply, "No, you… didn't." But it comes out a question, not a statement.

"Now, Donaldson," Carnes says, removing my hand from his arm. "If you'll excuse me."

"Oh you're excused," I sneer. Then I make my way back to our booth where John Edmonton and Peter Beavers are now sitting and I numb myself with a Halcion before taking Jean home, back to my place. Jean is wearing something by Oscar de la Renta. Nina Goodrich was wearing a sequined dress by Matsuda and refused to give me her number, even though Jean was in the women's room downstairs.

Taxi Driver

Another broken scene in what passes for my life occurs on Wednesday, seemingly pointing to someone's fault, though whose I can't be sure. Stuck in gridlock in a cab heading downtown toward Wall Street after a power breakfast at the Regency with Peter Russell, who used to be my dealer before he got a real job, and Eddie Lambert. Russell was wearing a two-button wool sport coat by Redaelli, a cotton shirt by Hackert, a silk tie by Richel, pleated wool trousers by Krizia Uomo and leather Cole-Haan shoes. The Patty Winters Show this morning was about girls in the fourth grade who trade sex for crack and I almost canceled with Lambert and Russell to catch it. Russell ordered for me while I was in the lobby on the phone. It was, unfortunately, a high-fat, high-sodium breakfast and before I could comprehend what was happening, plates of herbed waffles with ham in Madeira cream sauce, grilled sausages and sour cream coffee cake were set at our table and I had to ask the waiter for a pot of decaf herbal tea, a plate of sliced mango with blueberries and a bottle of Evian. In the early morning light that poured through the windows at the Regency I watched as our waiter shaved black truffles gracefully over Lambert's steaming eggs. Overcome, I broke down and demanded to have the black truffles shaved over my mango slices. Nothing much happened during the breakfast. I had to make another phone call, and when I returned to our table I noticed that a mango slice was missing, but I didn't accuse anyone. I had other things on my mind: how to help America's schools, the trust gap, desk sets, a new era of possibilities and what's in it for me, getting tickets to see Sting in The Threepenny Opera, which just opened on Broadway, how to take more and remember less…

In the cab I'm wearing a double-breasted cashmere and wool overcoat by Studio 000.1 from Ferré, a wool suit with pleated trousers by DeRigueur from Schoeneman, a silk tie by Givenchy Gentleman, socks by Interwoven, shoes by Armani, reading the Wall Street Journal with my Ray-Ban sunglasses on and listening to a Walkman with a Bix Beiderbecke tape playing in it. I put down the Journal, pick up the Post, just to check Page Six. At the light on Seventh and Thirty-fourth, in the cab next to this one sits, I think, Kevin Gladwin, wearing a suit by Ralph Lauren. I lower my sunglasses. Kevin looks up from the new issue of Money magazine and spots me looking over at him in a curious way before his cab moves forward in the traffic. The cab I'm in suddenly breaks free of the gridlock and turns right on Twenty-seventh, taking the West Side Highway down to Wall Street. I put the paper down, concentrate on the music and the weather, how unseasonably cool it is, and I'm just beginning to notice the way the cabdriver looks at me in the rearview mirror. A suspicious, hungry expression keeps changing the features on his face – a mass of clogged pores, ingrown hairs. I sigh, expecting this, ignoring him. Open the hood of a car and it will tell you something about the people who designed it, is just one of many phrases I'm tortured by.

But the driver knocks on the plexiglass divider, motions to me. While taking the Walkman off I notice he's locked all the doors – I see the locks lower in a flash, hear the hollow clicking noise, the moment I turn the volume off. The cab is speeding faster than it should down the highway, in the far right lane. "Yes?" I ask irritably. "What?"

"Hey, don't I know you?" he asks in a thick, barely penetrable accent that could easily be either New Jersey or Mediterranean.

"No." I start putting the Walkman back on.

"You look familiar," he says. "What's your name?"

"No I don't. You don't either," I say, then, an afterthought, "Chris Hagen."

"Come on." He's smiling like there's something wrong. "I know who you are."

"I'm in a movie. I'm an actor," I tell him. "A model."

"Nah, that's not it," he says grimly.

"Well" – I lean over, checking his name – "Abdullah, do you have a membership at M.K.?"

He doesn't answer. I reopen the Post to a photo of the mayor dressed as a pineapple, then close it again and rewind the tape in my Walkman. I start counting to myself – one, two, three, four – my eyes focus in on the meter. Why didn't I carry a gun with me this morning? Because I didn't think I had to. The only weapon on me is a used knife from last night.

"No," he says again. "I've seen your face somewhere."

Finally, exasperated, I ask, trying to appear casual, "You have? Really? Interesting. Just watch the road, Abdullah."

There's a long, scary pause while he stares at me in the rearview mirror and the grim smile fades. His face is blank. He says, "I know. Man, I know who you are," and he's nodding, his mouth drawn tight. The radio that was tuned into the news is shut off.

Buildings pass by in a gray-red blur, the cab passes other cabs, the sky changes color from blue to purple to black back to blue. At another light – a red one he races straight through – we pass, on the other side of the West Side Highway, a new D'Agostino's on the corner where Mars used to be and it moves me to tears, almost, because it's something that's identifiable and I get as nostalgic for the market (even though it's not one I will ever shop at) as I have about anything and I almost interrupt the driver, tell him to pull over, have him let me out, let him keep the change from a ten – no, a twenty – but I can't move because he's driving too fast and something intervenes, something unthinkable and ludicrous, and I hear him say it, maybe. "You're the guy who kill Solly." His face is locked into a determined grimace. As with everything else, the following happens very quickly, though it feels like an endurance test.

I swallow, lower my sunglasses and tell him to slow down before asking, "Who, may I ask, is Sally?"

"Man, your face is on a wanted poster downtown," he says, unflinching.

"I think I would like to stop here," I manage to croak out.

"You're the guy, right?" He's looking at me like I'm some kind of viper.

Another cab, its light on, empty, cruises past ours, going at least eighty. I'm not saying anything, just shaking my head. "I am going to take" – I swallow, trembling, open my leather datebook, pull out a Mount Blanc pen from my Bottega Veneta briefcase – "your license number down. . ."

"You kill Solly," he says, definitely recognizing me from somewhere, cutting another denial on my part by growling, "You son-of-a-bitch."

Near the docks downtown he swerves off the highway and races the cab toward the end of a deserted parking area and it hits me somewhere, now, this moment, when he drives into and then over a dilapidated, rust-covered aluminum fence, heading toward water, that all I have to do is put the Walkman on, blot out the sound of the cabdriver, but my hands are twisted into paralyzed fists that I can't unclench, held captive in the cab as it hurtles toward a destination only the cabdriver, who is obviously deranged, knows. The windows are rolled down partially and I can feel the cool morning air drying the mousse on my scalp. I feel naked, suddenly tiny. My mouth tastes metallic, then it gets worse. My vision: a winter road. But I'm left with one comforting thought: I am rich – millions are not.

"You've, like, incorrectly identified me," I'm saying.

He stops the cab and turns around toward the backseat. He's holding a gun, the make of which I don't recognize. I'm staring at him, my quizzical expression changing into something else.

"The watch. The Rolex," he says simply.

I listen, silent, squirming in my seat.

He repeats, "The watch."

"Is this some kind of prank?" I ask.

"Get out," he spits. "Get the fuck out of the car."

I stare past the driver's head, out the windshield, at gulls flying low over the dark, wavy water, and opening the door I step out of the cab, cautiously, no sudden moves. It's a cold day. My breath steams, wind picks it up, swirls it around.

"The watch, you scumbag," he says, leaning out the window, the gun aimed at my head.

"Listen, I don't know what you think you're doing or what you're exactly trying to accomplish or what it is you think you're going to be able to do. I've never been fingerprinted, I have alibis–"

"Shut up," Abdullah growls, cutting me off. "Just shut your fucking mouth."

"I am innocent," I shout with utter conviction.

"The watch." He cocks the gun.

I unhook the Rolex and, sliding it off my wrist, hand it to him.

"Wallet." He motions with his gun. "Just the cash."

Helplessly I take out my new gazelleskin wallet and quickly, my fingers freezing, numb, hand him the cash, which amounts to only three hundred dollars since I didn't have time to stop at an automated teller before the power breakfast. Solly, I'm guessing, was the cabdriver I killed during the chase scene last fall, even though that guy was Armenian. I suppose I could have killed another one and I am just not recalling this particular incident.

"What are you going to do?" I ask. "Isn't there a reward of some kind?"

"No. No reward," he mutters, shuffling the bills with one hand, the gun, still pointed at me, in the other.

"How do you know I'm not going to call you in and get your license revoked?" I ask, handing over a knife I just found in my pocket that looks as if it was dipped into a bowl of blood and hair.

"Because you're guilty," he says, and then, "Get that away from me," waving the gun at the stained knife.

"Like you know," I mutter angrily.

"The sunglasses." He points again with the gun.

"How do you know I'm guilty?" I can't believe I'm asking this patiently.

"Look what you're doing, asshole," he says. "The sunglasses."

"These are expensive," I protest, then sigh, realizing the mistake. "I mean cheap. They're very cheap. Just… Isn't the money enough?"

"The sunglasses. Give them now," he grunts.

I take the Wayfarers off and hand them to him. Maybe I really did kill a Solly, though I'm positive that any cabdrivers I've killed lately were not American. I probably did. There probably is a wanted poster of me at… where, the taxi – the place where all the taxis congregate? What's it called? The driver tries the sunglasses on, looks at himself in the rearview mirror and then takes them off. He folds the glasses and puts them in his jacket pocket.

"You're a dead man." I smile grimly at him.

"And you're a yuppie scumbag," he says.

"You're a dead man, Abdullah," I repeat, no joke. "Count on it."

"Yeah? And you're a yuppie scumbag. Which is worse?"

He starts the cab up and pulls away from me.

While walking back to the highway I stop, choke back a sob, my throat tightens. "I just want to…" Facing the skyline, through all the baby talk, I murmur, "keep the game going." As I stand, frozen in position, an old woman emerges behind a Threepenny Opera poster at a deserted bus stop and she's homeless and begging, hobbling over, her face covered with sores that look like bugs, holding out a shaking red hand. "Oh will you please go away?" I sigh. She tells me to get a haircut.

At Harry's

On a Friday evening, a group of us have left the office early, finding ourselves at Harry's. Group consists of Tim Price, Craig McDermott, myself, Preston Goodrich, who is currently dating a total hardbody named, I think, Plum – no last name, just Plum, an actress/model, which I have a feeling we all think is pretty hip. We're having a debate over where to make reservations for dinner: Flamingo East, Oyster Bar, 220, Counterlife, Michael's, SpagoEast, Le Cirque. Robert Farrell is here too, the Lotus Quotrek, a portable stock-quotation device, in front of him on the table, and he's pushing buttons while the latest commodities flash by. What are people wearing? McDermott has on a cashmere sport coat, wool trousers, a silk tie, Hermès. Farrell is wearing a cashmere vest, leather shoes, wool cavalry twill trousers, Garrick Anderson. I'm wearing a wool suit by Armani, shoes by Allen-Edmonds, pocket square by Brooks Brothers. Someone else has on a suit tailored by Anderson and Sheppard. Someone who looks like Todd Lauder, and may in fact be, gives thumbs-up from across the room, etc., etc.

Questions are routinely thrown my way, among them: Are the rules for wearing a pocket square the same as for a white dinner jacket? Is there any difference at all between boat shoes and Top-Siders? My futon has already flattened out and it's uncomfortable to sleep on – what can I do? How does one judge the quality of compact discs before buying them? What tie knot is less bulky than a Windsor? How can one maintain a sweater's elasticity? Any tips on buying a shearling coat? I am, of course, thinking about other things, asking myself my own questions: Am I a fitness junkie? Man vs. Conformity? Can I get a date with Cindy Crawford? Does being a Libra signify anything and if so, can you prove it? Today I was obsessed with the idea of faxing Sarah's blood I drained from her vagina over to her office in the mergers division at Chase Manhattan, and I didn't work out this morning because I'd made a necklace from the bones of some girl's vertebrae and wanted to stay home and wear it around my neck while I masturbated in the white marble tub in my bathroom, grunting and moaning like some kind of animal. Then I watched a movie about five lesbians and ten vibrators. Favorite group: Talking Heads. Drink: J&B or Absolut on the rocks. TV show: Late Night with David Letterman. Soda: Diet Pepsi. Water: Evian. Sport: Baseball.

The conversation follows its own rolling accord – no real structure or topic or internal logic or feeling; except, of course, for its own hidden, conspiratorial one. Just words, and like in a movie, but one that has been transcribed improperly, most of it overlaps. I'm having a sort of hard time paying attention because my automated teller has started speaking to me, sometimes actually leaving weird messages on the screen, in green lettering, like "Cause a Terrible Scene at Sotheby's" or "Kill the President" or "Feed Me a Stray Cat," and I was freaked out by the park bench that followed me for six blocks last Monday evening and it too spoke to me. Disintegration – I'm taking it in stride. Yet the only question I can muster up at first and add to the conversation is a worried "I'm not going anywhere if we don't have a reservation someplace, so do we have a reservation someplace or not?" I notice that we're all drinking dry beers. Am I the only one who notices this? I'm also wearing mock-tortoiseshell glasses that are nonprescription.

On the TV screen in Harry's is The Patty Winters Show, which is now on in the afternoon and is up against Geraldo Rivera, Phil Donahue and Oprah Winfrey. Today's topic is Does Economic Success Equal Happiness? The answer, in Harry's this afternoon, is a roar of resounding "Definitely," followed by much hooting, the guys all cheering together in a friendly way. On the screen now are scenes from President Bush's inauguration early this year, then a speech from former President Reagan, while Patty delivers a hard-to-hear commentary. Soon a tiresome debate forms over whether he's lying or not, even though we don't, can't, hear the words. The first and really only one to complain is Price, who, though I think he's bothered by something else, uses this opportunity to vent his frustration, looks inappropriately stunned, asks, "How can he lie like that? How can he pull that shit?"

"Oh Christ," I moan. "What shit? Now where do we have reservations at? I mean I'm not really hungry but I would like to have reservations somewhere. How about 220?" An afterthought: "McDermott, how did that rate in the new Zagat's?"

"No way," Farrell complains before Craig can answer. "The coke I scored there last time was cut with so much laxative I actually had to take a shit in M.K."

"Yeah, yeah, life sucks and then you die."

"Low point of the night," Farrell mutters.

"Weren't you with Kyria the last time you were there?" Goodrich asks. "Wasn't that the low point?"

"She caught me on call waiting. What could I do?" Farrell shrugs. "I apologize."

"Caught him on call waiting." McDermott nudges me, dubious.

"Shut up, McDermott," Farrell says, snapping Craig's suspenders. "Date a beggar."

"You forgot something, Farrell," Preston mentions. "McDermott is a beggar."

"How's Courtney?" Farrell asks Craig, leering.

"Just say no." Someone laughs.

Price looks away from the television screen, then at Craig, and he tries to hide his displeasure by asking me, waving at the TV, "I don't believe it. He looks so… normal. He seems so… out of it. So… undangerous."

"Bimbo, bimbo," someone says. "Bypass, bypass."

"He is totally harmless, you geek. Was totally harmless. Just like you are totally harmless. But he did do all that shit and you have failed to get us into 150, so, you know, what can I say?" McDermott shrugs.

"I just don't get how someone, anyone, can appear that way yet be involved in such total shit," Price says, ignoring Craig, averting his eyes from Farrell. He takes out a cigar and studies it sadly. To me it still looks like there's a smudge on Price's forehead.

"Because Nancy was right behind him?" Farrell guesses, looking up from the Quotrek. "Because Nancy did it?"

"How can you be so fucking, I don't know, cool about it?" Price, to whom something really eerie has obviously happened, sounds genuinely perplexed. Rumor has it that he was in rehab.

"Some guys are just born cool, I guess." Farrell smiles, shrugging.

I'm laughing at this answer since Farrell is so obviously uncool, and Price shoots me a reprimanding look, says, "And Bateman – what are you so fucking zany about?"

I shrug too. "I'm just a happy camper." And I add, remembering, quoting, my brother: "Rocking and a rolling."

"Be all that you can be," someone adds.

"Oh brother." Price won't let it die. "Look," he starts, trying for a rational appraisal of the situation. "He presents himself as a harmless old codger. But inside…" He stops. My interest picks up, flickers briefly. "But inside…" Price can't finish the sentence, can't add the last two words he needs: doesn't matter. I'm both disappointed and relieved for him.

"Inside? Yes, inside?" Craig asks, bored. "Believe it or not, we're actually listening to you. Go on."

"Bateman," Price says, relenting slightly. "Come on. What do you think?"

I look up, smile, don't say anything. From somewhere – the TV? – the national anthem plays. Why? I don't know. Before a commercial, maybe. Tomorrow, on The Patty Winters Show, Doormen from Nell's: Where Are They Now? I sigh, shrug, whatever.

"That's, uh, a pretty good answer." Price says, then adds, "You're a real nut."

"That is the most valuable piece of information I've heard since" – I look at my new gold Rolex that insurance paid for – "McDermott suggested we all drink dry beers. Christ, I want a Scotch."

McDermott looks up with an exaggerated grin and purrs, "Bud. Long neck. Beautiful."

"Very civilized." Goodrich nods.

Superstylish English guy Nigel Morrison stops by our table and he's wearing a flower in the lapel of his Paul Smith jacket. But he can't stay long since he has to meet other British friends, Ian and Lucy, at Delmonico's. Seconds after he walks away, I hear someone sneer, "Nigel. A pâté animal."

Someone else: "Did you know that caveman got more fiber than we do?"

"Who's handling the Fisher account?"

"Screw that. What about the Shepard thing? The Shepard account?"

"Is that David Monrowe? What a burnout."

"Oh brother."

"For Christ sakes."

"…lean and mean…"

"What's in it for me?"

"The Shepard play or the Shepard account?"

"Rich people with cheap stereos."

"No, girls who can hold their liquor."

"…total lightweight…"

"Need a light? Nice matches."

"What's in it for me?"

"yup yup yup yup yup yup…"

I think it's me who says, "I have to return some videotapes."

Someone has already taken out a Minolta cellular phone and called for a car, and then, when I'm not really listening, watching instead someone who looks remarkably like Marcus Halberstam paying a check, someone asks, simply, not in relation to anything, "Why?" and though I'm very proud that I have cold blood and that I can keep my nerve and do what I'm supposed to do, I catch something, then realize it: Why? and automatically answering, out of the blue, for no reason, just opening my mouth, words coming out, summarizing for the idiots: "Well, though I know I should have done that instead of not doing it, I'm twenty-seven for Christ sakes and this is, uh, how life presents itself in a bar or in a club in New York, maybe anywhere, at the end of the century and how people, you know, me, behave, and this is what being Patrick means to me, I guess, so, well, yup, uh…" and this is followed by a sigh, then a slight shrug and another sigh, and above one of the doors covered by red velvet drapes in Harry's is a sign and on the sign in letters that match the drapes' color are the words THIS IS NOT AN EXIT.