American psycho: a novel

"It's called California classic cuisine," Scott is telling me.

"Why don't we all go to Zeus Bar next week?" Anne suggests to Scott. "You think we'd have a problem getting a table on Friday?" Scott is wearing a red and purple and black striped cashmere intarsia sweater from Paul Stuart, baggy Ralph Lauren corduroys and Cole-Haan leather moccasins.

"Well… maybe," he says.

"That's a good idea. I like it a lot," Anne says, picking up a small violet off her plate and sniffing the flower before placing it carefully on her tongue. She's wearing a red, purple and black hand-knitted mohair and wool sweater from Koos Van Den Akker Couture and slacks from Anne Klein, with suede open-toe pumps.

A waiter, though not the hardbody, strides over to take another drink order.

"J&B. Straight," I say before anyone else orders.

Courtney orders a champagne on the rocks, which secretly appalls me. "Oh," she says as if reminded by something, "can I have that with a twist?"

"A twist of what?" I ask irritably, unable to stop myself. "Let me guess. Melon?" And I'm thinking oh my god why didn't you return those goddamn videos Bateman you dumb son-of-a-bitch.

"You mean lemon, miss," the waiter says, giving me an icy stare.

"Yes, of course. Lemon." Courtney nods, seeming lost in some kind of dream but enjoying it, oblivious to it.

"I'll have a glass of the… oh gosh, I guess the Acacia," Scott says and then addresses the table: "Do I want a white? Do I really want a chardonnay? We can eat the redfish with a cabernet."

"Go for it," Anne says cheerily.

"Okay, I'll have the… oh jeez, the sauvignon blanc," Scott says.

The waiter smiles, confused.

"Scottie," Anne shrieks. "The sauvignon blanc?"

"Just teasing," he snickers. "I'll have the chardonnay. The Acacia."

"You complete jerk." Anne smiles, relieved. "You're funny."

"I'm having the chardonnay," Scott tells the waiter.

"That's nice," Courtney says, patting Scott's hand.

"I'll just have…" Anne stalls, deliberating. "Oh, I'll just have a Diet Coke."

Scott looks up from a piece of corn bread he was dipping into a small tin of olive oil. "You're not drinking tonight?"

"No," Anne says, smiling naughtily. Who knows why? And who fucking cares? "I'm not in the mood."

"Not even for a glass of the chardonnay?" Scott asks. "How about a sauvignon blanc?"

"I have this aerobics class at nine," she says, slipping, losing control. "I really shouldn't."

"Well then, I don't want anything," Scott says, disappointed. "I mean I have one at eight at Xclusive."

"Does anyone want to guess where I won't be tomorrow morning at eight?" I ask.

"No, honey. I know how much you like the Acacia." Anne reaches out and squeezes Scott's hand.

"No, babe. I'll stick to the Pellegrino," Scott says, pointing.

I'm tapping my fingers very loudly on the tabletop, whispering "shit, shit, shit, shit" to myself. Courtney's eyes are half closed and she's breathing deeply.

"Listen. I'll be daring," Anne says finally. "I'll have a Diet Coke with rum."

Scott sighs, then smiles, beaming really. "Good."

"That's a caffeine-fine Diet Coke, right?" Anne asks the waiter.

"You know," I interrupt, "you should have it with Diet Pepsi. It's much better."

"Really?" Anne asks. "What do you mean?"

"You should have the Diet Pepsi instead of the Diet Coke," I say. "It's much better. It's fizzier. It has a cleaner taste. It mixes better with rum and has a lower sodium content."

The waiter, Scott, Anne, and even Courtney – they all stare at me as if I've offered some kind of diabolical, apocalyptic observation, as if I were shattering a myth highly held, or destroying an oath that was solemnly regarded, and it suddenly seems almost hushed in Deck Chairs. Last night I rented a movie called Inside Lydia's Ass and while on two Halcion and in fact sipping a Diet Pepsi, I watched as Lydia – a totally tan bleached-blonde hardbody with a perfect ass and great full tits – while on all fours gave head to this guy with a huge cock while another gorgeous blonde little hardbody with a perfectly trimmed blond pussy knelt behind Lydia and after eating her ass out and sucking on her cunt started to push a long, greased silver vibrator into Lydia's ass and fucked her with it while she continued to eat her pussy and the guy with the huge cock came all over Lydia's face as she sucked his balls and then Lydia bucked to an authentic-looking, fairly strong orgasm and then the girl behind Lydia crawled around and licked the come from Lydia's face and then made Lydia suck on the vibrator. The new Stephen Bishop came out last Tuesday and at Tower Records yesterday I bought the compact disc, the cassette and the album because I wanted to own all three formats.

"Listen," I say, my voice trembling with emotion, "have whatever you want but I'm telling you I recommend the Diet Pepsi." I look down at my lap, at the blue cloth napkin, the words Deck Chairs sewn into the napkin's edge, and for a moment think I'm going to cry; my chin trembles and I can't swallow.

Courtney reaches over and touches my wrist gently, stroking my Rolex. "It's okay Patrick. It really is.…"

A sharp pain near my liver overcomes the surge of emotion and I sit up in my chair, startled, confused, and the waiter leaves and then Anne asks if we've seen the recent David Onica exhibit and I'm feeling calmer.

It turns out we haven't seen the show but I don't want to be tacky enough to bring up the fact I own one, so I lightly kick Courtney under the table. This raises her out of the lithium-induced stupor and she says robotically, "Patrick owns an Onica. He really does."

I smile, pleased; sip my J&B.

"Oh that's fantastic, Patrick," Anne says.

"Really? An Onica?" Scott asks. "Isn't he quite expensive?"

"Well, let's just say…" I sip my drink, suddenly confused: say… say what? "Nothing."

Courtney sighs, anticipating another kick. "Patrick's cost twenty thousand dollars." She seems bored out of her mind, picking at a flat, warm piece of corn bread.

I give her a sharp look and try not to hiss. "Uh, no, Courtney, it was really fifty."

She slowly looks up from the corn bread she's mashing between her fingers and even in her lithium haze manages a stare so malicious that it automatically humbles me, but not enough to tell Scott and Anne the truth: that the Onica cost only twelve grand. But Courtney's frightening gaze – though I might be overreacting; she might be staring disapprovingly at the patterns on the columns, the venetian blinds on the skylight, the Montigo vases full of purple tulips lining the bar – scares me enough to not elaborate on the procedure of purchasing an Onica. It's a stare that I can interpret fairly easily. It warns: Kick me again and no pussy, do you understand?

'That seems.…" Anne starts.

I hold my breath, my face tight with tension.

"…low," she murmurs.

I exhale. "It is. But I got a fabulous deal," I say, gulping.

"But fifty thousand?" Scott asks suspiciously.

"Well, I think his work… it has a kind of… wonderfully proportioned, purposefully mock-superficial quality." I pause, then, trying to remember a line from a review I saw in New York magazine: "Purposefully mock…"

"Doesn't Luis own one, Courtney?" Anne asks, and then tapping Courtney's arm, "Courtney?"

"Luis… owns… what?" Courtney shakes her head as if to clear it, widening her eyes to make sure they don't close on her.

"Who's Luis?" Scott asks, waving to the waitress to have the butter the busboy recently placed on the table removed – what a party animal.

Anne answers for Courtney. "Her boyfriend," she says after seeing Courtney, confused, actually looking at me for help.

"Where's he at?" Scott asks.

"Texas," I say quickly. "He's out of town in Phoenix, I mean."

"No," Scott says. "I meant what house."

"L. F. Rothschild," Anne says, about to look at Courtney for confirmation, but then at me. "Right?"

"No. He's at P & P," I say. "We work together, sort of."

"Wasn't he dating Samantha Stevens at one point?" Anne asks.

"No," Courtney says. "That was just a photo someone took of them that was in W."

I down my drink as soon as it arrives and wave almost immediately for another and I'm thinking Courtney is a babe but no sex is worth this dinner. The conversation violently shifts while I'm staring across the room at a great-looking woman – blonde, big tits, tight dress, satin pumps with gold cones – when Scott starts telling me about his new compact disc player while Anne unwittingly prattles on to a stoned and completely oblivious Courtney about new kinds of low-sodium wheat-rice cake, fresh fruits and New Age music, particularly Manhattan Steamroller.

"It's Aiwa," Scott's saying. "You've got to hear it. The sound" – he pauses, closes his eyes in ecstasy, chewing on corn bread – "is fantastic."

"Well, you know, Scottie, the Aiwa is okay." Oh holy shit, dream on, Scot-tie, I'm thinking. "But Sansui is really top of the line." I pause, then add, "I should know. I own one."

"But I thought Aiwa was top of the line." Scott looks worried but not yet upset enough to please me.

"No way, Scott," I say. "Does Aiwa have digital remote control?'-"

"Yeah," he says.

"Computer controls?"

"Uh-huh." What a completq and total dufus.

"Does the system come with a turntable that has a metacrylate and brass platter?"

"Yes," the bastard lies!

"Does your system have an… Accophase T-106 tuner?" I ask him.

"Sure," he says, shrugging.

"Are you sure?" I say. "Think carefully."

"Yeah. I think so," he says, but his hand shakes as it reaches for more of the corn bread.

"What kind of speakers?"

"Well, Duntech wood," he answers too quickly.

"So solly, dude. You've got to have the Infinity IRS V speakers," I say. "Or–"

"Wait a minute," he interrupts. "V speakers? I've never beard of V speakers."

"See, that's what I mean," I say. "If you don't have the V's, you might as well be listening to a goddamn Walkman."

"What's the bass response on those speakers?" he asks suspiciously.

"An ultralow fifteen hertz," I purr, enunciating each word.

That shuts him up for a minute. Anne drones on about nonfat frozen yogurt and chow chows. I sit back, satisfied at having stumped Scott, but too quickly he regains his composure and says, "Anyway" – trying to act blissfully uncaring that he owns a cheap, shitty stereo – "we bought the new Phil Collins today. You should hear how great 'Groovy Kind of Love' sounds on it."

"Yeah, I think it's by far the best song he's written," I say, blah blah blah, and though it's finally something Scott and I can agree on, the plates of blackened redfish appear and they look bizarre and Courtney excuses herself to the ladies' room and, after thirty minutes, when she hasn't reappeared I wander into the back of the restaurant and find her asleep in the coatcheck room.

But at her apartment she lies naked on her back, her legs – tan and aerobicized and muscular and worked out – are spread and I'm on my knees giving her head while jerking myself off and in the time since I've started licking and sucking on her pussy she's already come twice and her cunt is tight and hot and wet and I keep it spread open, fingering it with one hand, keeping myself hard with the other. I lift her ass up, wanting to push my tongue into her, but she doesn't want me to and so I raise up my head and reach over to the Portian antique nightstand for the condom that sits in the ashtray from Palio next to the halogen Tensor lamp and the D'Oro pottery urn and I tear the package open with two shiny slick fingers and my teeth, then slip it, easily, onto my cock.

"I want you to fuck me," Courtney moans, pulling her legs back, spreading her vagina even wider, fingering herself, making me suck her fingers, the nails on her hand long and red, and the juice from her cunt, glistening in the light coming from the streetlamps through the Stuart Hall venetian blinds, tastes pink and sweet and she rubs it over my mouth and lips and tongue before it cools.

"Yeah," I say, moving on top of her, sliding my dick gracefully into her cunt, kissing her on the mouth hard, pushing into her with long fast strokes, my cock, my hips crazed, moving on their own desirous momentum, already my orgasm builds from the base of my balls, my asshole, coming up through my cock so stiff that it aches – but then in mid-kiss I lift my head up, leaving her tongue hanging out of her mouth starting to lick her own red swollen lips, and while still humping but lightly now I realize there… is… a… problem of sorts but I cannot think of what it is right now… but then it hits me while I'm staring at the half-empty bottle of Evian water on the nightstand and I gasp "Oh shit" and pull out.

"What?" Courtney moans. "Did you forget something?"

Without answering I get up from the futon and stumble into her bathroom trying to pull off the condom but it gets stuck halfway and while easing it off I accidentally trip over the Genold scale while also trying to flip on the light switch and in the process stubbing my big toe, then, cursing, I manage to open the medicine cabinet.

"Patrick what are you doing?" she calls from the bedroom.

"I'm looking for the water-soluble spermicidal lubricant," I call back. "What do you think I'm doing? Looking for an Advil?"

"Oh my god," she cries out. "You didn't have any on?"

"Courtney," I call back, noticing a small razor nick above my lip. "Where is it?"

"I cannot hear you, Patrick," she calls out.

"Luis has terrible taste in cologne," I mutter, picking up a bottle of Paco Rabanne, sniffing it.

"What are you saying?" she cries out.

"The water-soluble spermicidal lubricant," I shout back, staring into the mirror, searching her counter for a Clinique Touch-Stick to put over the razor nick.

"What do you mean – where is it?" she calls out. "Didn't you have it with you?"

"Where is the goddamn water-soluble spermicidal lubricant?" I scream. "Water! Soluble! Spermicidal! Lubricant!" I'm shouting this while using some of her Clinique cover-up over the blemish, then combing my hair back.

"Top shelf," she says, "I think."

While looking through the medicine cabinet I glance over at her tub, noticing how plain it is, which moves me to say, "You know, Courtney, you should really get your act together and get your tub marbleized or maybe add some Jacuzzi jets." I call out, "Can you hear me? Courtney?"

After a long while she says, "Yes… Patrick. I hear you."

I finally find the tube behind a huge bottle – a jar – of Xanax on the top shelf of the medicine cabinet and before my dick totally softens place a small dab of it inside the tip of the condom, slather it on the latex sheath and then walk back into the bedroom, jumping onto the futon, causing her to snap, "Patrick, this is not a fucking trampoline." Ignoring her I kneel over her body, sliding my cock up into Courtney and immediately she's pushing her hips up to meet my thrusts, then she licks her thumb and starts rubbing her clit. I watch as my cock moves in then out then into her vagina with long fast strokes.

"Wait," she gasps.

"What?" I moan, puzzled but almost there.

"Luis is a despicable twit," she gasps, trying to push me out of her.

"Yes," I say, leaning on top of her, tonguing her ear. "Luis is a despicable twit. I hate him too," and now, spurred on by her disgust for her wimp boyfriend, I start moving faster, my climax approaching.

"No, you idiot," she groans. "I said Is it a receptacle tip? Not 'Is Luis a despicable twit.' Is it a receptacle tip? Get off me."

"Is what a what?" I moan.

"Pull out," she groans, struggling.

"I'm ignoring you," I say, moving my mouth down on her small perfect nipples, both of them stiff, sitting on hard, big tits.

"Pull out, goddamnit!" she screams.

"What do you want, Courtney?" I grunt, slowing my thrusts down until I finally straighten up and then I'm just kneeling over her, my cock still half inside. She hunches back against the headboard and my dick slides out.

"It's a plain end." I point. "I think."

"Turn the light on," she says, trying to sit up.

"Oh Jesus," I say. "I'm going home."

"Patrick," she warns. "Turn on the light."

I reach over and flip on the halogen Tensor.

"It's a plain end, see?" I say. "So?"

"Take it off," she says curtly.

"Why?" I ask.

"Because you have to leave half an inch at the tip," she says, covering her breasts with the Hermès comforter, her voice rising, her patience shot, "to catch the force of the ejaculate!"

"I'm getting out of here," I threaten, but don't move. "Where's your lithium?"

She throws a pillow over her head and mumbles something, retreating into a fetal position. I think she's starting to cry.

"Where is your lithium, Courtney?" I calmly ask again. "You must take some."

Something indecipherable is mumbled again and she shakes her head – no, no, no – beneath the pillow.

"What? What did you say?" I ask with forced politeness, jerking myself feebly back to an erection. "Where?" Sobs beneath the pillow, barely audible.

"You are crying now and though it sounds clearer to me I still cannot hear a word you're saying." I try to grab the pillow off her head. "Now speak up!"

Again she mumbles, again it doesn't make any sense.

"Courtney," I warn, getting furious, "if you just said what I think you said: that your lithium is in a carton in the freezer next to the Frusen Glädjé and is a sorbet" – I'm screaming this – 'if this is really what you said then I will kill you. Is it a sorbet? Is your lithium really a sorbet?" I scream, finally pulling the pillow from her head and slapping her hard once, across the face.

"Do you think you're turning me on by having unsafe sex?" she screams back.

"Oh Christ, this really isn't worth it," I mutter, pulling the condom dowp so there is half an inch to spare – a little less actually. "And see, Courtney, it's there for what? Huh? Tell us." I slap her again, this time lightly. "Why is it pulled down half an inch? So it can catch the force of the ejaculate!"

"Well, it's not a turn-on for me." She's hysterical, racked with tears, choking. "I have a promotion coming to me. I'm going to Barbados in August and I don't want a case of Kaposi's sarcoma to fuck it up!" She chokes, coughing. "Oh god I want to wear a bikini," she wails. "A Norma Kamali I just bought at Bergdorf's."

I grab her head and force her to look at the placement of the condom. "See? Happy? You dumb bitch? Are you happy, you dumb bitch?"

Without looking at my dick she sobs, "Oh god just get it over with," and falls back down on the bed.

Roughly I push my cock back into her and bring myself to an orgasm so weak as to be almost nonexistent and my groan of a massive but somewhat expected disappointment is mistaken by Courtney for pleasure and momentarily spurs her on as she lies sobbing beneath me on the bed, sniffling, to reach down and touch herself but I start getting soft almost instantly – actually during the moment I came – but if I don't withdraw from her while still erect she'll freak out so I hold on to the base of the condom as I literally wilt out of her. After lying there on separate sides of the bed for what might be twenty minutes with Courtney whimpering about Luis and antique cutting boards and the sterling silver cheese grater and muffin tin she left at Harry's, she then tries to give me head. "I want to fuck you again," I tell her, "but I don't want to wear a condom because I don't feel anything," and she says calmly, taking her mouth off my limp shrunken dick, glaring at me, "If you don't use one you're not going to feel anything anyway."

Business Meeting

Jean, my secretary who is in love with me, walks into my office without buzzing, announcing that I have a very important company meeting to attend at eleven. I'm sitting at the Palazzetti glass-top desk, staring into my monitor with my Ray-Bans on, chewing Nuprin, hung over from a coke binge that started innocently enough last night at Shout! with Charles Hamilton, Andrew Spencer and Chris Stafford and then moved on to the Princeton Club, progressed to Barcadia and ended at Nell's around three-thirty, and though earlier this morning, while soaking in a bath, sipping a Stoli Bloody Mary after maybe four hours of sweaty, dreamless sleep, I realized that there was a meeting, I seemed to have forgotten about it on the cab ride downtown. Jean is wearing a red stretch-silk jacket, a crocheted rayon ribbon skirt, red suede pumps with satin bows by Susan Bennis Warren Edwards and gold-plated earrings by Robert Lee Morris. She stands there, in front of me, oblivious to my pain, a file in her hand.

After pretending to ignore her for close to a minute, I finally lower my sunglasses and clear my throat. "Yes? Something else? Jean?"

"Mr. Grouchy today." She smiles, placing the file timidly on my desk, and stands there expecting me to.. . what, amuse her with vignettes from last night?

"Yes, you simpleton. I am Mr. Grouchy today," I hiss, grabbing the file and shoving it in the top desk drawer.

She stares at me, uncomprehending, then, actually looking crestfallen, says, "Ted Madison called and so did James Baker. They want to meet you at Fluties at six."

I sigh, glaring at her. "Well, what should you do?"

She laughs nervously, standing there, her eyes wide. "I'm not sure."

"Jean." I stand up to lead her out of the office. "What… do . . you… say?"

It takes her a little while but finally, frightened, she guesses, "Just… say… no?"

"Just… say… no." I nod, pushing her out and slamming the door.

Before leaving my office for the meeting I take two Valium, wash them down with a Perrier and then use a scruffing cleanser on my face with premoistened cotton balls, afterwards applying a moisturizer. I'm wearing a wool tweed suit and a striped cotton shirt, both by Yves Saint Laurent, and a silk tie by Armani and new black cap-toed shoes by Ferragamo. I Plax then brush my teeth and when I blow my nose, thick, ropy strings of blood and snot stain a forty-five-dollar handkerchief from Hermi's that, unfortunately, wasn't a gift. But I've been drinking close to twenty liters of Evian water a day and going to the tanning salon regularly and one night of binging hasn't affected my skin's smoothness or color tone. My complexion is still excellent. Three drops of Visine clear the eyes. An ice pack tightens the skin. All it comes down to is: I feel like shit but look great.

I'm also the first to make it to the boardroom. Luis Carruthers follows like a puppy dog at my heels, a close second, and takes the seat next to mine which means I'm supposed to take off my Walkman. He's wearing a wool plaid sports jacket, wool slacks, a Hugo Boss cotton shirt and paisley tie – slacks, I'm guessing, from Brooks Brothers. He starts rattling on about a restaurant in Phoenix, Propheteers, that I'm actually interested in hearing about but not from Luis Carruthers, yet I'm on ten milligrams of Valium and for that reason I can manage. On The Patty Winters Show this morning were descendants of members of the Donner Party.

"The clients were total hicks, predictably," Luis is saying. "They wanted to take me to a local production of Les Miz, which I already saw in London, but–"

"Did you have any trouble getting reservations at Propheteers?" I ask, cutting him off.

"No. None at all," he says. "We ate late."

"What did you order?" I ask.

"I had the poached oysters, the lotte and the walnut tart."

"I hear the lotte is good there," I murmur, lost in thought.

"The client had the boudin blanc, the roasted chicken and the cheesecake," he says.

"Cheesecake?" I say, confused by this plain, alien-sounding list. "What sauce or fruits were on the roasted chicken? What shapes was it cut into?"

"None, Patrick," he says, also confused. "It was… roasted."

"And the cheesecake, what flavor? Was it heated?" I say. "Ricotta cheesecake? Goat cheese? Were there flowers or cilantro in it?"

"It was just… regular," he says, and then, "Patrick, you're sweating."

"What did she have?" I ask, ignoring him. "The client's bimbo."

"Well, she had the country salad, the scallops and the lemon tart," Luis says.

"The scallops were grilled? Were they sashimi scallops? In a ceviche of sorts?" I'm asking. "Or were they gratinized?"

"No, Patrick," Luis says. "They were… broiled."

It's silent in the boardroom as I contemplate this, thinking it through before asking, finally, "What's 'broiled,' Luis?"

"I'm not sure," he says. "I think it involves… a pan."

"Wine?" I ask.

"An '85 Sauvignon blanc," he says. "Jordan. Two bottles."

"Car?" I ask. "Did you rent while in Phoenix?"

"BMW." He smiles. "Little black beamer."

"Hip," I murmur, remembering last night, how I lost it completely in a stall at Nell's – my mouth foaming, all I could think about were insects, lots of insects, and running at pigeons, foaming at the mouth and running at pigeons. "Phoenix. Janet Leigh was from Phoenix…" I stall, then continue. "She got stabbed in the shower. Disappointing scene." I pause. "Blood looked fake."

"Listen, Patrick," Luis says, pressing his handkerchief into my hand, my fingers clenched into a fist that relaxes at Luis's touch. "Dibble and I are having lunch next week at the Yale Club. Would you like to join us?"

"Sure." I think about Courtney's legs, spread and wrapped around my face, and when I look over at Luis in one brief, flashing moment his head looks like a talking vagina and it scares the bejesus out of me, moves me to say something while mopping the sweat off my brow. "That's a nice… suit, Luis." The farthest thing from my mind.

He looks down as if stunned, and then blushing, embarrassed, he touches his own lapel. "Thanks, Pat. You look great too… as usual." And when he reaches out to touch my tie, I catch his hand before his fingers make it, telling him, "Your compliment was sufficient."

Reed Thompson walks in wearing a wool plaid four-button double-breasted suit and a striped cotton shirt and a silk tie, all Armani, plus slightly tacky blue cotton socks by Interwoven and black Ferragamo cap-toe shoes that look exactly like mine, with a copy of the Wall Street Journal held in a nicely manicured fist and a Bill Kaiserman tweed balmacaan overcoat draped casually across the other arm. He nods and sits across from us at the table. Soon after, Todd Broderick walks in wearing a wool chalk-striped six-button double-breasted suit and a striped broadcloth shirt and silk tie, all by Polo, plus an affected linen pocket square that I'm fairly sure is also by Polo. McDermott walks in next, carrying a copy of this week's New York magazine and this morning's Financial Times, wearing new nonprescription Oliver Peoples redwood-framed glasses, a black and white wool houndstooth-check single-breasted suit with notch lapels, a striped cotton dress shirt with spread collar and a silk paisley tie, all of it designed and tailored by John Reyle.

I smile, raising my eyebrows at McDermott, who sullenly takes the seat next to mine. He sighs and opens the newspaper, silently reading. Since he hasn't offered a "hello" or "good morning" I can tell that he's pissed off and I suspect that it has something to do with me. Finally, sensing that Luis is about to ask something, I turn to McDermott.

"So, McDermott, what's wrong?" I smirk. "Long line at the Stairmaster this morning?"

"Who said anything's wrong?" he asks, sniffing, turning pages in the Financial Times.

"Listen," I tell him, leaning in, "I already apologized about yelling at you because of the pizza at Pastels the other night."

"Who said it was about that?" he asks tensely.

"I thought we already cleared this up," I whisper, gripping the arm of his chair, smiling over at Thompson. "I'm sorry I insulted the pizzas at Pastels. Happy?"

"Who said it's about that?" he asks again.

"Then what is it, McDermott?" I whisper, noticing movement behind me. I count to three then whirl around, catching Luis leaning toward me trying to eavesdrop. He knows he's been caught and he sinks slowly back into his chair, guilty.

"McDermott, this is ridiculous," I whisper. "You can't stay angry at me because I think the pizza at Pastels is… crusty."

"Brittle," he says, shooting me a glance. "The word you used was brittle."

"I apologize," I say. "But I'm right. It is. You read the review in the Times, right?"

"Here." He reaches into his pocket and hands me a Xeroxed article. "I just wanted to prove you wrong. Read this."

"What is it?" I ask, opening the folded page.

"It's an article on your hero, Donald Trump." McDermott grins.

"It sure is," I say apprehensively. "Why didn't I ever see this, I wonder."

"And. . ." McDermott scans the article and points an accusatory finger at the bottom paragraph, which he's highlighted in red ink. "Where does Donald Trump think the best pizza in Manhattan is served?"

"Let me read this," I sigh, waving him away. "You might be wrong. What a lousy photo."

"Bateman. Look. I circled it," he says.

I pretend to read the fucking article but I'm getting very angry and I have to hand the article back to McDermott and ask, thoroughly annoyed, "So what? What does it mean? What are you, McDermott, trying to tell me?"

"What do you think of the pizza at Pastels now, Bateman?" he asks smugly.

"Well," I say, choosing my words carefully. "I think I have to go back and retaste the pizza… ." I'm saying this through gritted teeth. "I'm just suggesting that the last time I was there the pizza was…"

"Brittle?" McDermott offers.

"Yeah." I shrug. "Brittle."

"Uh-huh." McDermott smiles, triumphant.

"Listen, if the pizza at Pastels is okay with Donny," I start, hating to admit this to McDermott, then sighing, almost unintelligibly, "it's okay with me."

McDermott cackles gleefully, a victor.

I count three silk-crepe ties, one Versace silk-satin woven tie, two silk foulard ties, one silk Kenzo, two silk jacquard ties. The fragrances of Xeryus and Tuscany and Armani and Obsession and Polo and Grey Flannel and even Antaeus mingle, wafting into each other, rising from the suits and into the air, forming their own mixture: a cold, sickening perfume.

"But I'm not apologizing," I warn McDermott.

"You already have, Bateman," he says.

Paul Owen walks in wearing a cashmere one-button sports jacket, tropical wool flannel slacks, a button-down tab-collared shirt by Ronaldus Shamask, but it's really the tie – blue and black and red and yellow bold stripes from Andrew Fezza by Zanzarra – that impresses me. Carruthers gets excited too, and he leans into my chair and asks, if I'm listening correctly, "Do you think he has a power jockstrap to go along with that thing?" When I don't answer he retreats, opens one of the Sports Illustriateds that sit in the middle of the table and, humming to himself, starts to read an article on Olympic divers.

"Hello, Halberstam," Owen says, walking by.

"Hello, Owen," I say, admiring the way he's styled and slicked back his hair, with a part so even and sharp it… devastates me and I make a mental note to ask him where he purchases his hair-care products, which kind of mousse he uses, my final guess after mulling over the possibilities being Ten -X.

Greg McBride walks in and stops by my chair. "Did you watch the Winters Show this morning? Riot. Total riot," and we give each other high-five before he takes a seat between Dibble and Lloyd. God knows where they came from.

Kevin Forrest, who walks in with Charles Murphy, is saying, "My call waiting is busted. Felicia screwed it up somehow." I'm not even paying attention to what they're wearing. But I find myself staring at Murphy's vintage owl cuff links with blue crystal eyes.

Video Store then D'Agostino's

I'm wandering around VideoVisions, the video rental store near my apartment on the Upper West Side, sipping from a can of Diet Pepsi, the new Christopher Cross tape blaring from the earphones of my Sony Walkman. After the office I played racquetball with Montgomery, then had a shiatsu massage and met Jesse Lloyd, Jamie Conway and Kevin Forrest for drinks at Rusty's on Seventy-third Street. Tonight I'm wearing a new wool topcoat by Ungaro Uomo Paris and carrying a Bottega Veneta briefcase and an umbrella by Georges Gaspar.

The video store is more crowded than usual. There are too many couples in line for me to rent She-Male Reformatory or Ginger's Cunt without some sense of awkwardness or discomfort, plus I've already bumped into Robert Ailes from First Boston in the Horror aisle, or at least I think it was Robert Ailes. He mumbled "Hello, McDonald" as he passed me by, holding Friday the 13th: Part 7 and a documentary on abortions in what I noticed were nicely manicured hands marred only by what looked to me like an imitation-gold Rolex.

Since pornography seems out of the question I browse through Light Comedy and, feeling ripped off, settle for a Woody Allen movie but I'm still not satisfied. I want something else. I pass through the Rock Musical section – nothing – then find myself in Horror Comedy – ditto – and suddenly I'm seized by a minor anxiety attack. There are too many fucking movies to choose from. I duck behind a promotional cardboard display for the new Dan Aykroyd comedy and take two five-milligram Valiums, washing them down with the Diet Pepsi. Then, almost by rote, as if I've been programmed, I reach for Body Double – a movie I have rented thirty-seven times – and walk up to the counter where I wait for twenty minutes to be checked out by a dumpy girl (five pounds overweight, dry frizzy hair). She's actually wearing a baggy, nondescript sweater – definitely not designer – probably to hide the fact that she has no tits, and even though she has nice eyes: so fucking what? Finally it's my turn. I hand her the empty boxes.

"Is this it?" she asks, taking my membership card from me. I'm wearing Mario Valentino Persian-black gloves. My VideoVisions membership costs only two hundred and fifty dollars annually.

"Do you have any Jami Gertz movies?" I ask her, trying to make direct eye contact.

"What?" she asks, distracted.

"Any movies that Jami Gertz is in?"

"Who?" She enters something into the computer and then says without looking at me, "How many nights?"

"Three," I say. "Don't you know who Jami Gertz is?"

"I don't think so." She actually sighs.

"Jami Gertz," I say. "She's an actress."

"I don't think I know who you mean," she says in a tone that suggests I'm harassing her, but hey, she works in a video rental store and since it's such a demanding high-powered profession her bitchy behavior is completely reasonable, right? The things I could do to this girl's body with a hammer, the words I could carve into her with an ice pick. She hands the guy behind her my boxes – and I pretend to ignore his horrified reaction as he recognizes me after he looks at the Body Double box – but he dutifully walks into some kind of vault in the back of the store to get the movies.

"Yeah. Sure you do," I say good-naturedly. "She's in those Diet Coke commercials. You know the ones."

"I really don't think so," she says in a monotone that almost cuts me off. She types the names of the movies and then my membership number into the computer.

"I like the part in Body Double where the woman… gets drilled by the… power driller in the movie… the best," I say, almost gasping. It seems very hot in the video store right now all of a sudden and after murmuring "oh my god" under my breath I place a gloved hand on the counter to settle it from shaking. "And the blood starts pouring out of the ceiling." I take a deep breath and while I'm saying this my head starts nodding of its own accord and I keep swallowing, thinking I have to see her shoes, and so as inconspicuously as possible I try to peer over the counter to check out what kind of shoes she's wearing, but maddeningly they're only sneakers – not K-Swiss, not Tretorn, not Adidas, not Reebok, just cheap ones.

"Sign here." She hands me the tapes without even looking at me, refusing to recognize who I am; and breathing in hard and exhaling, she motions for the next in line, a couple with a baby.

On the way back to my apartment I stop at D'Agostino's, where for dinner I buy two large bottles of Perrier, a six-pack of Coke Classic, a head of arugula, five medium-sized kiwis, a bottle of tarragon balsamic vinegar, a tin of crême fraiche, a carton of microwave tapas, a box of tofu and a white-chocolate candy bar I pick up at the checkout counter.

Once outside, ignoring the bum lounging below the Les Misérables poster and holding a sign that reads: I'VE LOST MY JOB I AM HUNGRY I HAVE NO MONEY PLEASE HELP, whose eyes tear after I pull the tease-the-bum-with-a-dollar trick and tell him, "Jesus, will you get a fucking shave, please," my eyes almost like they were guided by radar, focus in on a red Lamborghini Countach parked at the curb, gleaming beneath the streetlamps, and I have to stop moving, the Valium shockingly, unexpectedly kicking in, everything else becomes obliterated: the crying bum, the black kids on crack rapping along to the blaring beatbox, the clouds of pigeons flying overhead looking for space to roost, the ambulance sirens, the honking taxis, the decent-looking babe in the Betsey Johnson dress, all of that fades and in what seems like time-lapse photography but in slow motion, like a movie – the sun goes down, the city gets darker and all I can see is the red Lamborghini and all I can hear is my own even, steady panting. I'm still standing, drooling, in front of the store, staring, minutes later (I don't know how many).

Facial

I leave the office at four-thirty, head up to Xclusive where I work out with free weights for an hour, then taxi across the park to Gio's in the Pierre Hotel for a facial, a manicure and, if time permits, a pedicure. I'm lying on the elevated table in one of the private rooms waiting for Helga, the skin technician, to facialize me. My Brooks Brothers shirt and Garrick Anderson suit hang in the closet, my A. Testoni loafers sit on the floor, thirty-dollar socks from Barney's balled up in them, sixty-dollar boxer shorts from Comme des Garçons are the only article of clothing I'm still wearing. The smock I'm supposed to have on is crumpled next to the shower stall since I want Helga to check my body out, notice my chest, see how fucking buff my abdominals have gotten since the last time I was here, even though she's much older than I am – maybe thirty or thirty-five – and there's no way I'd ever fuck her. I'm sipping a Diet Pepsi that Mario, the valet, brought me, with crushed ice in a glass on the side that I asked for but don't want.

I pick up today's Post that hangs from a Smithly Watson glass magazine rack and scan the gossip columns, then my eye catches a story about recent sightings of these creatures that seem to be part bird, part rodent – essentially pigeons with the heads and tails of rats – found deep in the center of Harlem and now making their way steadily toward midtown. A grainy photograph of one of these things accompanies the article, but experts, the Post assures us, are fairly certain this new breed is a hoax. As usual this fails to soothe my fear, and it fills me with a nameless dread that someone out there has wasted the energy and time to think this up: to fake a photograph (and do a half-assed job at that, the thing looks like a fucking Big Mac) and send the photograph in to the Post, then for the Post to decide to run the story (meetings, debates, last-minute temptations to cancel the whole thing?), to print the photograph, to have someone write about the photo and interview the experts, finally to run this story on page three in today's edition and have it discussed over hundreds of thousands of lunches in the city this afternoon. I close the paper and lie back, exhausted.

The door to the private room opens and a girl I haven't seen before walks in and through half-closed eyes I can see that she's young, Italian, okay-looking. She smiles, sitting in a chair at my feet, and begins the pedicure. She switches off the ceiling light and except for strategically placed halogen bulbs shining down on my feet, hands and face, the room darkens, making it impossible to tell what kind of body she has, only that she's wearing gray suede and black leather buttoned ankle boots by Maud Frizon. The Patty Winters Show this morning was about UFOs That Kill. Helga arrives.

"Ah, Mr. Bateman," Helga says. "How are you?"

"Very good, Helga," I say, flexing the muscles in my stomach and chest. My eyes are closed so it looks casual, as, if the muscles are acting on their own accord and I can't help it. But Helga drapes the smock gently across my heaving chest and buttons it up, pretending to ignore the undulations beneath the tan, clean skin.

"You're back so soon," she says.

"I was only here two days ago," I say, confused.

"I know, but…" She stalls, washing her hands in the sink. "Never mind."

"Helga?" I ask.

"Yes, Mr. Bateman?"

"Walking in here I spotted a pair of men's gold-tasseled loafers from Bergdorf Goodman, waiting to be shined, outside the door of the next room. Who do they belong to?" I ask.

"That's Mr. Erlanger," she says.

"Mr. Erlanger from Lehman's?"

"No. Mr. Erlanger from Salomon Brothers," she says.

"Did I ever tell you that I want to wear a big yellow smiley-face mask and then put on the CD version of Bobby McFerrin's 'Don't Worry, Be Happy' and then take a girl and a dog – a collie, a chow, a sharpei, it doesn't really matter – and then hook up this transfusion pump, this IV set, and switch their blood, you know, pump the dog's blood into the hardbody and vice versa, did I ever tell you this?" While I'm speaking I can hear the girl working on my feet humming one of the songs from Les Misérables to herself, and then Helga runs a moistened cotton ball across my nose, leaning close to the face, inspecting the pores. I laugh maniacally, then take a deep breath and touch my chest – expecting a heart to be thumping quickly, impatiently, but there's nothing there, not even a beat.

"Shhh, Mr. Bateman," Helga says, running a warm loofah sponge over my face, which stings then cools the skin. "Relax."

"Okay." I say. "I'm relaxing."

"Oh Mr. Bateman," Helga croons, "you have such a nice complexion. How old are you? May I ask?"

"I'm twenty-six."

"Ah, that's why. It's so clean. So smooth." She sighs. "Just relax."

I drift, my eyes rolling back into my head, the Muzak version of "Don't Worry, Baby" drowning out all bad thoughts, and I start thinking only positive things – the reservations I have tonight with Marcus Halberstam's girlfriend, Cecelia Wagner, the mashed turnips at Union Square Café, skiing down Buttermilk Mountain in Aspen last Christmas, the new Huey Lewis and the News compact disc, dress shirts by Ike Behar, by Joseph Abboud, by Ralph Lauren, beautiful oiled hardbodies eating each other's pussies and assholes under harsh video lights, truckloads of arugula and cilantro, my tan line, the way the muscles in my back look when the lights in my bathroom fall on them at the right angle, Helga's hands caressing the smooth skin on my face, lathering and spreading cream and lotions and tonics into it admiringly, whispering, "Oh Mr. Bateman, your face is so clean and smooth, so clean," the fact that I don't live in a trailer park or work in a bowling alley or attend hockey games or eat barbecued ribs, the look of the AT&T building at midnight, only at midnight. Jeannie comes in and starts the manicure, first clipping and filing the nails, then brushing them with a sandpaper disk to smooth out the remaining edges.

"Next time I'd prefer them a bit longer, Jeannie," I warn her.

Silently she soaks them in warm lanolin cream, then dries both hands off and uses a cuticle moisturizer, then removes all the cuticles while cleaning under the nails with a cotton-on-wood stick. A heat vibrator massages the hand and forearm. The nails are buffed first with chamois and then with bung lotion.

Date with Evelyn

Evelyn comes in on the call waiting of my third line and I wasn't going to take it, but since I'm holding on the second line to find out if Bullock, the maître d' at the new Davis François restaurant on Central Park South, has any cancellations for tonight so Courtney (holding on the first line) and I might have dinner, I pick it up in the hope that it's my dry cleaners. But no, it's Evelyn and though it really isn't fair to Courtney, I take her call. I tell Evelyn I'm on the other line with my private trainer. I then tell Courtney I have to take Paul Owen's call and that I'll see her at Turtles at eight and then I cut myself off from Bullock, the maître d'. Evelyn's staying at the Carlyle since the woman who lives in the brownstone next to hers was found murdered last night, decapitated, and this is why Evelyn's all shook up. She couldn't deal with the office today so she spent the afternoon calming herself with facials at Elizabeth Arden. She demands that we have dinner tonight, and then says, before I can make up a plausible lie, an acceptable. excuse, "Where were you last night, Patrick?"

I pause. "Why? Where were you?" I ask, while guzzling from a liter of Evian, still slightly sweaty from this afternoon's workout.

"Arguing with the concierge at the Carlyle," she says, sounding rather pissed off. "Now tell me, Patrick, where were you?"

"Why were you arguing with him?" Lask.

"Patrick," she says – a declarative statement.

"I'm here," I say after a minute.

"Patrick. It doesn't matter. The phone in my room didn't have two lines and there was no call waiting," she says. "Where were you?"

"I was… fooling around renting videotapes," I say, pleased, giving myself high-five, the cordless phone cradled in my neck.

"I wanted to come over," she says in a whiny, little-girl tone. "I was scared. I still am. Can't you hear it in my voice?"

"Actually, you sound like anything but."

"No, Patrick, seriously. I'm quite terrified," she says. "I'm shaking. Just like a leaf I'm shaking. Ask Mia, my facialist. She said I was tense."

"Well," I say, "you couldn't have come over anyway."

"Honey, why not?" she whines, and then addresses someone who just entered her suite. "Oh wheel it over there near the window… no, that window… and can you tell me where that damn masseuse is?"

"Because your neighbor's head was in my freezer." I yawn, stretching. "Listen. Dinner? Where? Can you hear me?"

At eight-thirty, the two of us are sitting across from each other in Barcadia. Evelyn's wearing an Anne Klein rayon jacket, a wool-crepe skirt, a silk blouse from Bonwit's, antique gold and agate earrings from James Robinson that cost, roughly, four thousand dollars; and I'm wearing a double-breasted suit, a silk shirt with woven stripes, a patterned silk tie and leather slip-ons, all by Gianni Versace. I neither canceled the reservation at Turtles nor told Courtney not to meet me there, so she'll probably show up around eight-fifteen, completely confused, and if she hasn't taken any Elavil today she'll probably be furious and it's this fact – not the bottle of Cristal that Evelyn insists on ordering and then adds cassis to – that I laugh out loud about.

I spent most of the afternoon buying myself early Christmas presents – a large pair of scissors at a drugstore near City Hall, a letter opener from Hammacher Schlemmer, a cheese knife from Bloomingdale's to go along with the cheese board that Jean, my secretary who's in love with me, left on my desk before she went to lunch while I was in a meeting. The Patty Winters Show this morning was about the possibility of nuclear war, and according to the panel of experts the odds are pretty good it will happen sometime within the next month. Evelyn's face seems chalky to me right now, her mouth lined with a purple lipstick that gives off an almost startling effect, and I realize that she's belatedly taken Tim Price's advice to stop using her tanning lotion. Instead of mentioning this and have her bore me silly with inane denials, I ask about Tim's girlfriend, Meredith, whom Evelyn despises for reasons never made quite clear to me. And because of rumors about Courtney and myself, Courtney's also on Evelyn's shit list, for reasons that are a little clearer. I place a hand over the top of the champagne flute when the apprehensive waitress, at Evelyn's request, attempts to add some blueberry crisis into my Cristal.

"No thank you," I tell her. "Maybe later. In a separate glass."

"Party pooper." Evelyn giggles, then takes a sharp breath. "But you smell nice. What are you wearing – Obsession? You party pooper, is it Obsession?"

"No," I say grimly. "Paul Sebastian."

"Of course." She smiles, downs her second glass. She seems in a much better mood, boisterous almost, more than you'd expect of someone whose neighbor's head was sliced off in a matter of seconds while she was still conscious by an electric mini-chain saw. Evelyn's eyes momentarily glitter in the candlelight, then revert to their normal pallid gray.

"How is Meredith?" I ask, trying to mask my void of disinterest.

"Oh god She's dating Richard Cunningham." Evelyn moans. "He's at First Boston. If you can believe it."

"You know," I mention, "Tim was going to break it off with her. Call it quits."

"Why, for god's sake?" Evelyn asks, surprised, intrigued. "They had that fabulous place in the Hamptons."

"I remember him telling me that he was sick to death of watching her do nothing but her nails all weekend."

"Oh my god," Evelyn says, and then, genuinely confused, "You mean… wait, she didn't have someone do them for her?"

"Tim said, and he reiterated this fact quite often, that she had all the personality of a game-show host," I say dryly, sipping from the flute.

She smiles to herself, secretly. "Tim is a rascal."

Idly, I wonder if Evelyn would sleep with another woman if I brought one over to her brownstone and, if I insisted, whether they'd let me watch the two of them get it on. If they'd let me direct, tell them what to do, position them under hot halogen lamps. Probably not; the odds don't look good. But what if I forced her at gunpoint? Threatened to cut them both up, maybe, if they didn't comply? The thought doesn't seem unappealing and I can imagine the whole scenario quite clearly. I start counting the banquettes that encircle the room, then I start counting the people sitting in the banquettes.

She's asking me about Tim. "Where do you think that rascal has been? Rumor is he's at Sachs," she says ominously.

"Rumor is," I say, "he's in rehab. This champagne isn't cold enough." I'm distracted. "Doesn't he send you postcards?"

"Has he been sick?" she asks, with the slightest trepidation.

"Yes, I think so," I say. "I think that's what it is. You know, if you order a bottle of Cristal it should at least be, you know, cold."

"Oh my god," Evelyn says. "You think he might be sick?"

"Yes. He's in a hospital. In Arizona," I add. The word Arizona has a mysterious tinge to it and I say it again. "Arizona. I think."

"Oh my god," Evelyn exclaims, now truly alarmed, and she gulps down what little Cristal is left in her glass.

"Who knows?" I manage the slightest of shrugs.

"You don't think…" She breathes in and puts her glass down. "You don't think it's" – and now she looks around the restaurant before leaning in, whispering – "AIDS?"

"Oh no, nothing like that," I say, though immediately I wish I had paused long enough before answering to scare her. "Just… general… brain" – I bite the tip off an herbed breadstick and shrug – "injuries."

Evelyn sighs, relieved, and then says, "Is it warm in here?"

"All I can think about is this poster I saw in the subway station the other night before I killed those two black kids – a photo of a baby calf, its head turned toward the camera, its eyes caught wide and staring by the flash, and its body seemed like it was boxed into some kind of crate, and in big, black letters below the photo it read, 'Question: Why Can't This Veal Calf Walk?' Then, 'Answer: Because It Only Has Two Legs.' But then I saw another one, the same exact photo, the same exact calf, yet beneath it, this one read, 'Stay Out of Publishing.' " I pause, still fingering the breadstick, then ask, "Is any of this registering with you or would I get more of a response from, oh, an ice bucket?" I say all of this staring straight at Evelyn, enunciating precisely, trying to explain myself, and she opens her mouth and I finally expect her to acknowledge my character. And for the first time since I've known her she is straining to say something interesting and I pay very close attention and she asks, "Is that…"

"Yes?" This is the only moment of the evening where I feel any genuine interest toward what she has to say, and I urge her to go on. "Yes? Is that… ?"

"Is that… Ivana Trump?" she asks, peering over my shoulder.

I whirl around. "Where? Where's Ivana?"

"In the booth near the front, second in from" – Evelyn pauses – "Brooke Astor. See?"

I squint, put on my Oliver Peoples nonprescription glasses and realize that Evelyn, her vision clouded by the cassis-riddled Cristal, not only has mistaken Norris Powell for Ivana Trump but has mistaken Steve Rubell for Brooke Astor, and I can't help it, I almost explode.

"No, oh my god, oh my god, Evelyn," I moan, crushed, disappointed, my adrenaline rush turning sour, my head in my hands. "How could you mistake that wench for Ivana?"

"Sorry," I hear her chirp. "Girlish mistake?"

"That is infuriating," I hiss, both eyes clenched tight.

Our hardbody waitress, who has on satin high-backed pumps, sets down two new champagne flutes for the second bottle of Cristal Evelyn orders. The waitress pouts her lips at me when I reach for another breadstick and I lift my head toward her and pout mine back, then press my head again into the palms of my hands, and this happens again when she brings our appetizers. Dried peppers in a spicy pumpkin soup for me; dried corn and jalapeño pudding for Evelyn. I've kept my hands over both ears trying to block out Evelyn's voice during this whole interim between her mistaking Norris Powell for Ivana Trump and the arrival of our appetizers but now I'm hungry so I tentatively remove my right hand from my ear. Immediately the whine seems deafening.

"…Tandoori chicken and foie gras, and lots of jazz, and he adored the Savoy, but shad roe, the colors were gorgeous, aloe, shell, citrus, Morgan Stanley…"

I clasp my hands back where they were, pressing even tighter. Once again hunger overtakes me and so humming loudly to myself I reach again for the spoon, but it's hopeless: Evelyn's voice is at a particular pitch that cannot be ignored.

"Gregory's graduating from Saint Paul soon and will be attending Columbia in September," Evelyn is saying, carefully blowing on her pudding, which, by the way, is served cold. "And I've got to get him a graduation present and I'm at a total loss. Suggestions, hon?"

"A poster from Les Misérables?" I sigh, only half joldng.

"Perfect," she says, blowing on the pudding again, then after a sip of Cristal she makes a face.

"Yes, dear?" I ask, spitting a pumpkin seed that arches through.the air before gracefully hitting the dead center of the ashtray instead of Evelyn's dress, my original target. "Hmmm?"

"We need more cassis," she says. "Will you get our waitress?"

"Of course we do," I say good-naturedly and, still smiling, "I have no idea who Gregory is. You do know that, right?"

Evelyn puts her spoon down delicately next to the plate of pudding and looks into my eyes. "Mr. Bateman, I really like you. I adore your sense of humor." She gives my hand a soft squeeze and laughs, actually says, "Ha-ha-ha…," but she's serious, not joking. Evelyn really is paying me a compliment. She does admire my sense of humor. Our appetizers are removed and at the same time our entrées arrive, so Evelyn has to take her hand off mine to make room for the plates. She ordered quail stuffed into blue corn tortillas garnished with oysters in potato skins. I have the free-range rabbit with Oregon morels and herbed french fries .

"…He went to Deerfield then Harvard. She went to Hotchkiss then Radcliffe…"

Evelyn is talking but I'm not listening. Her dialogue overlaps her own dialogue. Her mouth is moving but I'm not hearing anything and I can't listen, I can't really concentrate, since my rabbit has been cut to look… just… like. . . a… star! Shoestring french fries surround it and chunky red salsa has been smeared across the top of the plate – which is white and porcelain and two feet wide – to give the appearance of a sunset but it looks like one big gunshot wound to me and shaking my head slowly in disbelief I press a finger into the meat, leaving the indentation of one finger, then another, and then I look for a napkin, not my own, to wipe my hand with. Evelyn hasn't broken her monologue – she talks and chews exquisitely – and smiling seductively at her I reach under the table and grab her thigh, wiping my hand off, and still talking she smiles naughtily at me and dips more champagne. I keep studying her face, bored by how beautiful it is, flawless really, and I think to myself how strange it is that Evelyn has pulled me through so much; how she's always been there when I needed her most. I look back at the plate, thoroughly unhungry, pick up my fork, study the plate hard for a minute or two, whimper to myself before sighing and putting the fork down. I pick up my champagne glass instead.

"…Groton, Lawrenceville, Milton, Exeter, Kent, Saint Paul's, Hotchkiss, Andover, Milton, Choate… oops, already said Milton…"

"If I'm not eating this tonight, and I'm not, I want some cocaine," I announce. But I haven't interrupted Evelyn – she's unstoppable, a machine – and she continues talking.

"Jayne Simpson's wedding was so beautiful," she sighs. "And the reception afterwards was wild. Club Chernoble, covered by Page Six. Billy covered it. WWD did a layout."

"I heard there was a two-drink minimum," I say warily, signaling for a nearby busboy to remove my plate.

"Weddings are so romantic. She had a diamond engagement ring. You know, Patrick, I won't settle for less," she says coyly. "It has to be diamond." Her eyes glaze over and she tries to recount the wedding in mind-numbing detail. "It was a sitdown dinner for five hundred… no, excuse me, seven hundred and fifty, followed by a sixteen-foot tiered Ben and Jerry's ice cream cake. The gown was by Ralph and it was white lace and low-cut and sleeveless. It was darling. Oh Patrick, what would you wear?" she sighs.

"I would demand to wear Ray-Ban sunglasses. Expensive Ray-Bans," I say carefully. "In fact I would demand that everyone would have to wear Ray-Ban sunglasses."

"I'd want, a zydeco band, Patrick. That's what I'd want. A zydeco band," she gushes breathlessly. "Or mariachi. Or reggae. Something ethnic to shock Daddy. Oh I can't decide."

"I'd want to bring a Harrison AK-47 assault rifle to the ceremony; " I say, bored, in a rush, "with a thirty-round magazine so after thoroughly blowing your fat mother's head off with it I could use it on that fag brother of yours. And though personally I don't like to use anything the Soviets designed, I don't know, the Harrison somehow reminds me of…" Stopping, confused, inspecting yesterday's manicure, I look back at Evelyn. "Stoli?"

"Oh, and lots of chocolate truffles. Godiva. And oysters. Oysters on the half shell. Marzipan. Pink tents. Hundreds, thousands of roses. Photographers. Annie Leibovitz. We'll get Annie Leibovitz," she says excitedly. "And we'll hire someone to videotape it!"

"Or an AR-15. You'd like it, Evelyn: it's the most expensive of guns, but worth every penny." I wink at her. But she's still talking; she doesn't hear a word; nothing registers. She does not fully grasp a word I'm saying. My essence is eluding her. She stops her onslaught and breathes in and looks at me in a way that can only be described as dewy-eyed. Touching my hand, my Rolex, she breathes in once more, this time expectantly, and says, "We should do it."

I'm trying to catch a glimpse of our hardbody waitress; she's bending over to pick up a dropped napkin. Without looking back at Evelyn, I ask, "Do… what?"

"Get married," she says, blinking. "Have a wedding."

"Evelyn?"

"Yes darling?"

"Is your kir… spiked?" I ask.

"We should do it," she says softly. "Patrick…"

"Are you proposing to me?" I laugh, trying to fathom this reasoning. I take the champagne glass away from her and sniff its rim.

"Patrick?" she asks, waiting for my answer.

"Jeez, Evelyn," I say, stuck. "I don't know."

"Why not?" she asks petulantly. "Give me one good reason we shouldn't."

"Because trying to fuck you is like trying to French-kiss a very… small and… lively gerbil?" I tell her. "I don't know."

"Yes?" she says. "And?"

"With braces?" I finish, shrugging.

"What are you going to do?" she asks. "Wait three years until you're thirty?"

"Four years," I say, glaring. "It's four years until I'm thirty."

"Four years. Three years. Three months. Oh god, what's the difference? You'll still be an old man." She takes her hand away from mine. "You know, you wouldn't be saying this if you'd been to Jayne Simpson's wedding. You'd take one look at it and want to marry me immediately."

"But I was at Jayne Simpson's wedding, Evelyn, love of my life," I say. "I was seated next to Sukhreet Gabel. Believe me, I was there."

"You're impossible," she whines. "You're a party pooper."

"Or maybe I didn't," I wonder aloud. "Maybe I… was it covered by MTV?"

"And their honeymoon was so romantic. Two hours later they were on the Concorde. To London. Oh, Claridge's." Evelyn sighs, her hand clasped under her chin, eyes tearing.

Ignoring her, I reach into my pocket for a cigar, pull it out and tap it against the table. Evelyn orders three flavors of sorbet: peanut, licorice and doughnut. I order a decaffeinated espresso. Evelyn sulks. I light a match.

"Patrick," she warns, staring at the flame.

"What?" I ask, my hand frozen in midair, about to light the tip of the cigar.

"You didn't ask permission," she says, unsmiling.

"Did I tell you I'm wearing sixty-dollar boxer shorts?" I ask, trying to appease her.

Tuesday

There's a black-tie party at the Puck Building tonight for a. new brand of computerized professional rowing machine, and after playing squash with Frederick Dibble I have drinks at Harry's with Jamie Conway, Kevin Wynn and Jason Gladwin, and we hop into the limousine Kevin rented for the night and take it uptown. I'm wearing a wing-collar jacquard waistcoat by Kilgour, French & Stanbury from Barney's, a silk bow tie from Sales, patent-leather slip-ons by Baker-Benjes, antique diamond studs from Kentshire Galleries and a gray wool silk-lined coat with drop sleeves and a button-down collar by Luciano Soprani. An ostrich wallet from Bosca carries four hundred dollars cash in the back pocket of my black wool trousers. Instead of my Rolex I'm wearing a fourteen-karat gold watch from H. Stern.

I wander aimlessly around the Puck Building's first-floor ballroom, bored, sipping bad champagne (could it be nonvintage Bollinger?) from plastic flutes, chewing on kiwi slices, each topped with a dollop of chèvre, vaguely looking around to score some cocaine. Instead of finding anyone who knows a dealer I bump into Courtney by the stairs. Wearing a silk and cotton stretch-tulle bodywrap with jeweled lace pants, she seems tense and warns me to stay away from Luis. She mentions that he suspects something. A cover band plays lame versions of old Motown hits from the sixties.

"Like what?" I ask, scanning the room. "That two plus two equals four? That you're secretly Nancy Reagan?"

"Don't have lunch with him next week at the Yale Club," she says, smiling for a photographer, the flash blinding us momentarily.

"You look… voluptuous tonight," I say, touching her neck, running a finger up over her chin until it reaches the bottom lip.

"I'm not joking, Patrick." Smiling, she waves to Luis, who is dancing clumsily with Jennifer Morgan. He's wearing a cream-colored wool dinner jacket, wool trousers, a cotton shirt, and a silk glen-plaid cummerbund, all from Hugo Boss, a bow tie from Sales and a pocket square from Paul Stuart. He waves back. I give him thumbs-up.

"What a dork," Courtney whispers sadly to herself.

"Listen, I'm leaving," I say, finishing the champagne. "Why don't you go dance with the… receptacle tip?"

"Where are you going?" she asks, gripping my arm.

"Courtney, I don't want to experience another one of your… emotional outbursts," I tell her. "Besides, the canapés are shitty."

"Where are you going?" she asks again. "Details, Mr. Bateman."

"Why are you so concerned?"

"Because I'd like to know," she says. "You're not going to Evelyn's, are you?"

"Maybe," I lie.

"Patrick," she says. "Don't leave me here. I don't want you to go."

"I have to return some videos," I lie again, handing her my empty champagne glass, just as another camera flashes somewhere. I walk away.

The band segues into a rousing version of "Life in the Fast Lane" and I start looking around for hardbodies. Charles Simpson – or someone who looks remarkably like him, slicked-back hair, suspenders, Oliver Peoples glasses – shakes my hand, shouts "Hey, Williams" and tells me to meet a group of people with Alexandra Craig at Nell's around midnight. I give him a reassuring squeeze on the shoulder and tell him I'll be there.

Outside, smoking a cigar, contemplating the sky, I spot Reed Thompson, who emerges from the Puck Building with his entourage – Jamie Conway, Kevin Wynn, Marcus Halberstam, no babes – and invites me along to dinner; and though I suspect they have drugs, I have misgivings about spending the evening with them and decide not to trek up to that Salvadorian bistro, especially since they don't have reservations and aren't guaranteed a table. I wave them off, then cross Houston, dodging other limos leaving the party, and start moving uptown. Walking along Broadway I stop at an automated teller where just for the hell of it I take out another hundred dollars, feeling better having an even five hundred in my wallet.

I find myself walking through the antique district below Fourteenth Street. My watch has stopped so I'm not sure what time it is, but probably ten-thirty or so. Black guys pass by offering crack or hustling tickets to a party at the Palladium. I walk by a newsstand, a dry cleaners, a church, a diner. The streets are empty; the only noise breaking up the silence is an occasional taxi cruising toward Union Square. A couple of skinny faggots walk by while I'm at a phone booth checking my messages, staring at my reflection in an antique store's window. One of them whistles at me, the other laughs: a high, fey, horrible sound A torn playbill from Les Misérables tumbles down the cracked, urine-stained sidewalk. A streetlamp burns out. Someone in a Jean-Paul Gaultier topcoat takes a piss in an alleyway. Steam rises from below the streets, billowing up in tendrils, evaporating. Bags of frozen garbage line the curbs. The moon, pale and low, hangs just above the tip of the Chrysler Building. Somewhere from over in the West Village the siren from an ambulance screams, the wind picks it up, it echoes then fades.

The bum, a black man, lies in the doorway of an abandoned antique store on Twelfth Street on top of an open grate, surrounded by bags of garbage and a shopping cart from Gristede's loaded with what I suppose are personal belongings: newspapers, bottles, aluminum cans. A handpainted cardboard sign attached to the front of the cart reads I AM HUNGRY AND HOMELESS PLEASE HELP ME. A dog, a small mutt, short-haired and rail thin, lies next to him, its makeshift leash tied to the handle of the grocery cart. I don't notice the dog the first time I pass by. It's only after I circle the block and come back that I see it lying on a pile of newspapers, guarding the bum, a collar around its neck with an oversize nameplate that reads GIZMO. The dog looks up at me wagging its skinny, pathetic excuse for a tail and when I hold out a gloved hand it licks at it hungrily. The stench of some kind of cheap alcohol mixed with excrement hangs here like a heavy, invisible cloud, and I have to hold my breath, before adjusting to the stink. The bum wakes up, opens his eyes, yawning, exposing remarkably stained teeth between cracked purple lips.

He's fortyish, heavyset, and when he attempts to sit up I can make out his features more clearly in the glare of the streetlamp: a few days' growth of beard, triple chin, a ruddy nose lined with thick brown veins. He's dressed in some kind of tacky-looking lime green polyester pantsuit with washed-out Sergio Valente jeans worn over it (this season's homeless person's fashion statement) along with a ripped orange and brown V-neck sweater stained with what looks like burgundy wine. It seems he's very drunk – either that or he's crazy or stupid. His eyes can't even focus when I stand over him, blocking out the light from a streetlamp, covering him in shadow. I kneel down.

"Hello," I say, offering thy hand, the one the dog licked. "Pat Baternan."

The bum stares at me, panting with the exertion it takes to sit up. He doesn't shake my hand.

"You want some money?" I ask gently. "Some… food?"

The bum nods and starts to cry, thankfully.

I reach into my pocket and pull out a ten-dollar bill, then change my mind and hold out a five instead. "Is this what you need?"

The bum nods again and looks away, shamefully, his nose running, and after clearing his throat says quietly, "I'm so hungry."

"It's cold out, too," I say. "Isn't it?"

"I'm so hungry." He convulses once, twice, a third time, then looks away, embarrassed.

"Why don't you get a job?" I ask, the bill still held in my hand but not within the bum's reach. "If you're so hungry, why don't you get a job?"

He breathes in, shivering, and between sobs admits, "I lost my job…"

"Why?" I ask, genuinely interested. "Were you drinking? Is that why you lost it? Insider trading? just joking. No, really – were you drinking on the job?"

He hugs himself, between sobs, chokes, "I was fired. I was laid off."

I take this in, nodding. "Gee, uh, that's too bad."

"I'm so hungry," he says, then starts crying hard, still holding himself. His dog, the thing called Gizmo, starts whimpering.

"Why don't you get another one?" I ask. "Why don't you get another job?"

"I'm not…" He coughs, holding himself, shaking miserably, violently, unable to finish the sentence.

"You're not what?" I ask softly. "Qualified for anything else?"

"Tm hungry," he whispers.

"I know that, I know that," I say. 'Jeez, you're like a broken record. I'm trying to help you…" My impatience rises.

"I'm hungry," he repeats.

"Listen. Do you think it's fair to take money from people who do have jobs? Who do work?"

His face crumples and he gasps, his voice raspy, "What am I gonna do?"

"Listen," I say. "What's your name?"

"Al," he says.

"Speak up," I tell him. "Come on."

"Al," he says, a little louder.

"Get a goddamn job, Al," I say earnestly. "You've got a negative attitude. That's what's stopping you. You've got to get your act together. I'll help you."

"You're so kind, mister. You're kind. You're a kind man," he blubbers. "I can tell."

"Shhh," I whisper. "It's okay." I start petting the dog.

"Please," he says, grabbing for my wrist. "I don't know what to do. I'm so cold."

"Do you know how bad you smell?" I whisper this soothingly, stroking his face. "The stench, my god…"

"I can't…" He chokes, then swallows. "I can't find a shelter."

"You reek," I tell him. "You reek of… shit." I'm still petting the dog, its eyes wide and wet and grateful. "Do you know that? Goddamnit, Al – look at me and stop crying like some kind of faggot," I shout. My rage builds, subsides, and I close my eyes,bringing my hand up to squeeze the bridge of my nose, then I sigh: "Al… I'm sorry. It's just that… I don't know. I don't have anything in common with you."

The bum's not listening. He's crying so hard he's incapable of a coherent answer. I put the bill slowly back into the pocket of my Luciano Soprani jacket and with the other hand stop petting the dog and reach into the other pocket. The bum stops sobbing abruptly and sits up, looking for the fiver or, I presume, his bottle of Thunderbird. I reach out and touch his face gently once more with compassion and whisper, "Do you know what a fucking loser you are?" He starts nodding helplessly and I pull out a long, thin knife with a serrated edge and, being very careful not to kill him, push maybe half an inch of the blade into his right eye, flicking the handle up, instantly popping the retina.

The bum is too surprised to say anything. He only opens his mouth in shock and moves a grubby, mittened hand slowly up to his face. I yank his pants down and in the passing headlights of a taxi can make out his flabby black thighs, rashed because of his constantly urinating in the pantsuit. The stench of shit rises quickly into my face and breathing through my mouth, down on my haunches, I start stabbing him in the stomach, lightly, above the dense matted patch of pubic hair. This sobers him up somewhat and instinctively he tries to cover himself with his hands and the dog starts yipping, really furiously, but it doesn't attack, and I keep stabbing at the bum now between his fingers, stabbing the backs of his hands. His eye, burst open, hangs out of its socket and runs down his face and he keeps blinking which causes what's left of it inside the wound to pour out like red, veiny egg yolk. I grab his head with one hand and push it back and then with my thumb and forefinger hold the other eye open and bring the knife up and push the tip of it into the socket, first breaking its protective film so the socket fills with blood, then slitting the eyeball open sideways, and he finally starts screaming once I slit his nose in two, lightly spraying me and the dog with blood, Gizmo blinking to get the blood out of his eyes. I quickly wipe the blade clean across the bum's face, breaking open the muscle above his cheek. Still kneeling, I throw a quarter in his face, which is slick and shiny with blood, both sockets hollowed out and filled with gore, what's left of his eyes literally oozing over his screaming lips in thick, webby strands. Calmly, I whisper, "There's a quarter. Go buy some gum, you crazy fucking nigger." Then I turn to the barking dog and when I get up, stomp on its front legs while it's crouched down ready to jump at me, its fangs bared, immediately shattering the bones in both its legs, and it falls on its side squealing in pain, front paws sticking up in the air at an obscene, satisfying angle. I can't help but start laughing and I linger at the scene, amused by this tableau. When I spot an approaching taxi, I slowly walk away.

Afterwards, two blocks west, I feel heady, ravenous, pumped up, as if I'd just worked out and endorphins are flooding my nervous system, or just embraced that first line of cocaine, inhaled the first puff of a fine cigar, sipped that first glass of Cristal. I'm starving and need something to eat, but I don't want to stop by Nell's, though I'm within walling distance and Indochine seems an unlikely place for a celebratory drink. So I decide to go somewhere Al would go, the McDonald's in Union Square. Standing in the line, I order a vanilla milk shake ("Extra-thick," I warn the guy, who just shakes his head and flips on a machine) and take it to a table up front, where Al would probably sit, my jacket, and its sleeves, lightly spattered with flecks of his blood. Two waitresses from the Cat Club walk in after me and sit in the booth across from mine, both smiling flirtatiously. I play it cool and ignore them. An old, crazy woman, wrinkled, chain-smoking, sits near us, nodding at no one. A police car passes by, and after two more milk shakes my high slowly dissolves, its intensity diminishing. I grow bored, tired; the evening seems horribly anticlimactic and I start cursing myself for not going to that Salvadorian bistro with Reed Thompson and the guys. The two girls linger, still interested. I check my watch. One of the Mexicans working behind the counter stares at me while smoking a cigarette and he studies the stains on the Soprani jacket in a way that suggests he's going to say something about it, but a customer comes in, one of the black guys who tried to sell me crack earlier, and he has to take the black guy's order. So the Mexican puts out his cigarette and that's what he does.

Genesis

p

I've been a big Genesis fan ever since the release of their 1980 album, Duke. Before that I didn't really understand any of their work, though on their last album of the 1970s, the concept-laden And Then There Were Three (a reference to band member Peter Gabriel, who left the group to start a lame solo career), I did enjoy the lovely "Follow You, Follow Me." Otherwise all the albums before Duke seemed too artsy, too intelleotual. It was Duke (Atlantic; 1980), where Phil Collins' presence became more apparent, and the music got more modern, the drum machine became more prevalent and the lyrics started getting less mystical and more specific (maybe because of Peter Gabriel's departure), and complex, ambiguous studies of loss became, instead, smashing first-rate pop songs that I gratefully embraced. The songs themselves seemed arranged more around Collins' drumming than Mike Rutherford's bass lines or Tony Banks' keyboard riffs. A classic example of this is "Misunderstanding," which not only was the group's first big hit of the eighties but also seemed to set the tone for the rest of theiralbums as the decade progressed. The other standout on Duke is "Turn It On Again," which is about the negative effects of television. On the other hand, "Heathaze" is a song I just don't understand, while "Please Don't Ask" is a touching love song written to a separated wife who regains custody of the couple's child. Has the negative aspect of divorce ever been rendered in more intimate terms by a rock 'n' roll group? I don't think so. "Duke Travels" and "Dukes End" might mean something but since the lyrics aren't printed it's hard to tell what Collins is singing about, though there is complex, gorgeous piano work by Tony Banks on the latter track. The only bummer about Duke is "Alone Tonight," which is way too reminiscent of "Tonight Tonight Tonight" from the group's later masterpiece Invisible Touch and the only example, really, of where Collins has plagiarized himself.

Abacab (Atlantic; 1981) was released almost immediately after Duke and it benefits from a new producer, Hugh Padgham, who gives the band a more eighties sound and though the songs seem fairly generic, there are still great bits throughout: the extended jam in the middle of the title track and the horns by some group called Earth, Wind and Fire on "No Reply at All" are just two examples. Again the songs reflect dark emotions and are about people who feel lost or who are in conflict, but the production and sound are gleaming and upbeat (even if the titles aren't: "No Reply at All," "Keep It Dark," "Who Dunnit?" "Like It or Not"). Mike Rutherford's bass is obscured somewhat in the mix but otherwise the band sounds tight and is once again propelled by Collins' truly amazing drumming. Even at its most despairing (like the song "Dodo," about extinction), Abacab musically is poppy and lighthearted.

My favorite track is "Man on the Corner," which is the only song credited solely to Collins, a moving ballad with a pretty synthesized melody plus a riveting drum machine in the background. Though it could easily come off any of Phil's solo albums, because the themes of loneliness, paranoia and alienation are overly familiar to Genesis it evokes the band's hopeful humanism. "Man on the Corner" profoundly equates a relationship with a solitary figure (a bum, perhaps a poor homeless person?), "that lonely man on the corner" who just stands around. "Who Dunnit?" profoundly expresses the theme of confusion against a funky groove, and what makes this song so exciting is that it ends with its narrator never finding anything out at all.

Hugh Padgham produced next an even less conceptual effort, simply called Genesis (Atlantic; 1983), and though it's a fine album a lot of it now seems too derivative for my tastes. 'That's All" sounds like "Misunderstanding," "Taking It All Too Hard" reminds me of "Throwing It All Away." It also seems less jazzy than its predecessors and more of an eighties pop album, more rock 'n' roll. Padgham does a brilliant job of producing, but the material is weaker than usual and you can sense the strain. It opens with the autobiographical "Mama," that's both strange and touching, though I couldn't tell if the singer was talking about his actual mother or to a girl he likes to call "Mama." 'That's All" is a lover's lament about being ignored and beaten down by an unreceptive partner; despite the despairing tone it's got a bright sing-along melody that makes the song less depressing than it probably needed to be. "That's All" is the best tune on the album, but Phil's voice is strongest on "House by the Sea," whose lyrics are, however, too stream-of-consciousness to make much sense. It might be about growing up and accepting adulthood but it's unclear; at any rate, its second instrumental part puts the song more in focus for me and Mike Banks gets to show off his virtuosic guitar skills while Tom Rutherford washes the tracks over with dreamy synthesizers, and when Phil repeats the song's third verse at the end it can give you chills.

"Illegal Alien" is the most explicitly political song the group has yet recorded and their funniest. The subject is supposed to be sad – a wetback trying to get across the border into the United States – but the details are highly comical: the bottle of tequila the Mexican holds, the new pair of shoes he's wearing (probably stolen); and it all seems totally accurate. Phil sings it in a brash, whiny pseudo-Mexican voice that makes it even funnier, and the rhyme of "fun" with "illegal alien" is inspired. "Just a Job to Do" is the album's funkiest song, with a killer bass line by Banks, and though it seems to be about a detective chasing a criminal, I think it could also be about a jealous lover tracking someone down. "Silver Rainbow" is the album's most lyrical song. The words are intense, complex and gorgeous. The album ends on a positive, upbeat note with "It's Gonna Get Better." Even if the lyrics seem a tiny bit generic to some, Phil's voice is so confident (heavily influenced by Peter Gabriel, who never made an album this polished and heartfelt himself) that he makes us believe in glorious possibilities.

Invisible Touch (Atlantic; 1986) is the group's undisputed masterpiece. It's an epic meditation on intangibility, at the same time it deepens and enriches the meaning of the preceding three albums. It has a resonance that keeps coming back at the listener, and the music is so beautiful that it's almost impossible to shake off because every song makes some connection about the unknown or the spaces between people ("Invisible Touch"), questioning authoritative control whether by domineering lovers or by government ("Land of Confusion") or by meaningless repetition ("Tonight Tonight Tonight'. All in all it ranks with the finest rock 'n' roll achievements of the decade and the mastermind behind this album, along of course with the brilliant ensemble playing of Banks, Collins and Rutherford, is Hugh Padgham, who has never found as clear and crisp and modern a sound as this. You can practically hear every nuance of every instrument.

In terms of lyrical craftsmanship and sheer songwriting skills this album hits a new peak of professionalism. Take the lyrics to "Land of Confusion," in which a singer addresses the problem of abusive political authority. This is laid down with a groove funkier and blacker than anything Prince or Michael Jackson – or any other black artist of recent years, for that matter – has come up with. Yet as danceable as the album is, it also has a stripped-down urgency that not even the overrated Bruce Springsteen can equal. As an observer of love's failings Collins beats out the Boss again and again, reaching new heights of emotional honesty on "In Too Deep"; yet it also showcases Collins' clowny, prankish, unpredictable side. It's the most moving pop song of the 1980s about monogamy and commitment. "Anything She Does" (which echoes the J. Geils Band's "Centerfold" but is more spirited and energetic) starts off side two and after that the album reaches its peak with "Domino," a two-part song. Part one, "In the Heat of the Night," is full of sharp, finely drawn images of despair and it's paired with "The Last Domino," which fights it with an expression of hope. This song is extremely uplifting. The lyrics are as positive and affirmative as anything I've heard in rock.

Phil Collins' solo efforts seem to be more commercial and therefore more satisfying in a narrower way, especially No Jacket Required and songs like "In the Air Tonight" and "Against All Odds" (though that song was overshadowed by the masterful movie from which it came) and "Take Me Home" and "Sussudio" (great, great song; a personal favorite) and his remake of "You Can't Hurry Love," which I'm not alone in thinking is better than the Supremes' original. But I also think that Phil Collins works better within the confines of the group than as a solo artist – and I stress the word artist. In fact it applies to all three of the guys, because Genesis is still the best, most exciting band to come out of England in the 1980s.

Lunch

I'm sitting in DuPlex, the new Tony McManus restaurant in Tribeca, with Christopher Armstrong, who also works at P & P. We went to Exeter together, then he went to the University of Pennsylvania and Wharton, before moving to Manhattan. We, inexplicably, could not get reservations at Subjects, so Armstrong suggested this place. Armstrong is wearing a four-button double-breasted chalk-striped spread-collar cotton shirt by Christian Dior and a large paisley-patterned silk tie by Givenchy Gentleman. His leather agenda and leather envelope, both by Bottega Veneta, lie on the third chair at our table, a good one, up front by the window. I'm wearing a nailhead-patterned worsted wool suit with overplaid from DeRigueur by Schoeneman, a cotton broadcloth shirt by Bill Blass, a Macclesfield silk tie by Savoy and a cotton handkerchief by Ashear Bros. A Muzak rendition of the score from Les Misérables plays lightly throughout the restaurant. Armstrong's girlfriend is Jody Stafford, who used to date Todd Hamlin, and this fact plus the TV monitors hanging from the ceilings with closed-circuit video of chefs working in the kitchen fills me with nameless dread. Armstrong just got back from the islands and has a very deep, very even tan, but so do I.

"So how were the Bahamas?" I ask after we order. "You just got back, right?"

"Well, Taylor," Armstrong begins, staring at a point somewhere behind me and slightly above my head – on the column that has been terra-cotta-ized or perhaps on the exposed pipe that runs the length of the ceiling. "Travelers looking for that perfect vacation this summer may do well to look south, as far south as the Bahamas and the Caribbean islands. There are at least five smart reasons for visiting the Caribbean including the weather and the festivals and events, the less crowded hotels and attractions, the price and the unique cultures. While many vacationers leave the cities in search of cooler climates during the summer months, few have realized that the Caribbean has a year-round climate of seventy-five to eighty-five degrees and that the islands are constantly cooled by the trade winds. It is frequently hotter north in…"

On The Patty Winters Show this morning the topic was Toddler-Murderers. In the studio audience were parents of children who'd been kidnapped, tortured and murdered, while on stage a panel of psychiatrists and pediatricians were trying to help them cope – somewhat futilely I might add, and much to my delight – with their confusion and anger. But what really cracked me up was – via satellite on a lone TV monitor – three convicted Toddler-Murderers on death row who due to fairly complicated legal loopholes were now seeking parole and would probably get it. But something kept distracting me while I watched the huge Sony TV over a breakfast of sliced kiwi and Japanese apple-pear, Evian water, oat-bran muffins, soy milk and cinnamon granola, ruining my enjoyment of the grieving mothers, and it wasn't until the show was almost over that I figured out what it was: the crack above my David Onica that I had asked the doorman to tell the superintendent to fix. On my way out this morning I stopped at the front desk, about to complain to the doorman, when I was confronted with a new doorman, my age but balding and homely and fat. Three glazed jelly doughnuts and two steaming cups of extra-dark hot chocolate lay on the desk in front of him beside a copy of the Post opened to the comics and it struck me that I was infinitely better-looking, more successful and richer than this poor bastard would ever be and so with a passing rush of sympathy I smiled and nodded a curt though not impolite good morning without lodging a complaint. "Oh really?" I find myself saying loudly, completely uninterested, to Armstrong.

"Like the United States it celebrates the summer months with festivals and special events including music concerts, art exhibits, street fairs and sporting tournaments, and because of the vast number of people traveling elsewhere, the islands are less crowded, allowing for better service and no lines when waiting to use that sailboat or dine in that restaurant. I mean I think most people go to sample the culture, the food, the history…"

On the way to Wall Street this morning, due to gridlock I had to get out of the company car and was walking down Fifth Avenue to find a subway station when I passed what I thought was a Halloween parade, which was disorienting since I was fairly sure this was May. When I stopped on the corner of Sixteenth Street and made a closer inspection it turned out to be something called a "Gay Pride Parade," which made my stomach turn. Homosexuals proudly marched down Fifth Avenue, pink triangles emblazoned on pastel-colored windbreakers, some even holding hands, most singing "Somewhere" out of key and in unison. I stood in front of Paul Smith and watched with a certain traumatized fascination, my mind reeling with the concept that a human being, a man, could feel pride over sodomizing another man, but when I began to receive fey catcalls from aging, overmuscled beachboys with walruslike mustaches in between the lines "There's a place for us, Somewhere a place for us," I sprinted over to Sixth Avenue, decided to be late for the office and took a cab back to my apartment where I put on a new suit (by Cerruti 1881), gave myself a pedicure and tortured to death a small dog I had bought earlier this week in a pet store on Lexington. Armstrong drones on.

"Water sports are of course the leading attraction. But golf courses and tennis courts are in excellent condition and the pros at many of the resorts are made more available during the summer. Many of the courts are lit for night playing as well…"

Fuck… yourself… Armstrong, I'm thinking while staring out the window at the gridlock and pacing bums on Church Street. Appetizers arrive: sun-dried-tomato brioche for Armstrong. Poblano chilies with an oniony orange-purple marmalade on the side for me. I hope Armstrong doesn't want to pay because I need to show the dim-witted bastard that I in fact do own a platinum American Express card. I feel very sad at this moment for some reason, listening to Armstrong, and a lump forms in my throat but I swallow and take a sip from my Corona and the emotion passes and during a pause while he's chewing, I ask, "The food? How's the food?" almost involuntarily, thinking about anything but.

"Good question. As for dining out, the Caribbean has become more attractive as the island cuisine has mixed well with the European culture. Many of the restaurants are owned and managed by Americans, British, French, Italian, even Dutch expatriates.. ." Mercifully, he pauses, taking a bite out of his brioche, which looks like a sponge drenched in blood – his brioche looks like a big bloody sponge – and he washes it down with a sip from his Corona. My turn.

"How about sightseeing?" I ask disinterestedly, concentrating on the blackened chilies, the yellowish marmalade circling the plate in an artful octagon, cilantro leaves circling the marmalade, chili seeds circling the cilantro leaves.

"Sightseeing is highlighted by the European culture which established many of the islands as regional fortresses in the seventeen hundreds. Visitors can see the various spots where Columbus landed and as we near the three hundredth anniversary of his first sailing in 1590 there is a heightened awareness in the islands as to the history and culture that is an integral part of island life…"

Armstrong: you are an… asshole. "Uh-huh." I nod. "Well…" Paisley ties, plaid suits, my aerobics class, returning videotapes, spices to pick up from Zabar's, beggars, white-chocolate truffles… The sickening scent of Drakkar Noir, which is what Christopher is wearing, floats over near my face, mingling with the scent of the marmalade and cilantro, the onions and the blackened chilies. "Uh-huh," I say, repeat.

"And for the active vacationer there is mountain climbing, cave exploring, sailing, horseback riding and white-water river rafting, and for the gamblers there are casinos on many of the islands…"

Fleetingly I imagine pulling out my knife, slicing a wrist, one of mine, aiming the spurting vein at Armstrong's head or better yet his suit, wondering if he would still continue to talk. I consider getting up without excusing myself, taking a cab to another restaurant, somewhere in SoHo, maybe farther uptown, having a drink, using the rest room, maybe even making a phone call to Evelyn, coming back to Duplex, and every molecule that makes up my body tells me that Armstrong would still be talking about not only his vacation but what seems like the world's vacation in the fucking Bahamas. Somewhere along the line the waiter removes half-eaten appetizers, brings fresh Coronas, free-range chicken with raspberry vinegar and guacamole, calf's liver with shad roe and leeks, and though I'm not sure who ordered what it doesn't really matter since both plates look exactly the same. I end up with the free-range chicken with extra tomatillo sauce, I think.

"Visitors to the Caribbean don't need a passport – just proof of U.S. citizenship – and even better, Taylor, is that language is no barrier. English is spoken everywhere, even on those islands where the local language is French or Spanish. Most of the islands are former British…"

"My life is a living hell," I mention off the cuff, while casually moving leeks around on my plate, which by the way is a porcelain triangle. "And there are many more people I, uh, want to… want to, well, I guess murder." I say this emphasizing the last word, staring straight into Armstrong's face.

"Service has improved to the islands as both American Airlines and Eastern Airlines have created hubs in San Juan where they have set up connecting flights to those islands they don't serve with direct flights. With additional service from BWIA, Pan Am, ALM, Air Jamaica, Bahamas Air and Cayman Airways, most islands are easy to reach. There are additional connections within the islands from LIAT and BWIA, which provide a series of scheduled island-hopping flights…"

Someone who I think is Charles Fletcher walks over while Armstrong keeps talking and he pats me on the shoulder and says "Hey Simpson" and "See you at Fluties" and then at the door meets up with a very attractive woman – big tits, blond, tight dress, not his secretary, not his wife – and they leave Duplex together in a black limousine. Armstrong is still eating, cutting into the perfectly square slices of calf's liver, and he keeps talking while I become increasingly mournful.

"Vacationers who can't take a full week away will find the Caribbean an ideal spot for the alternative weekend escape. Eastern Airlines has created its Weekender Club which includes many Caribbean destinations and enables members to visit many places at sharply reduced prices which I know doesn't matter but I still think people are going

Concert

Everyone is very uptight at the concert Carruthers drags us to in New Jersey this evening, an Irish band called U2 who were on the cover of Time magazine last week. The tickets were originally for a group of Japanese clients who canceled their trip to New York at the last minute, making it virtually impossible for Carruthers (or so he says) to sell these front-row seats. So it's Carruthers and Courtney, Paul Owen and Ashley Cromwell, and Evelyn and myself. Earlier, when I found out that Paul Owen was coming, I tried to call Cecilia Wagner, Marcus Halberstam's girlfriend, since Paul Owen seems fairly sure that I'm Marcus, and though she was flattered by my invitation (I always suspected I was one of her crushes) she had to attend a black-tie party for the opening of the new British musical Maggie! But she did mention something about lunch next week and I told her I would give her a call on Thursday. I was supposed to have dinner with Evelyn tonight, but the thought of sitting alone with her during a two-hour meal fills me with a nameless dread and so I call and reluctantly explain the schedule changes and she asks if Tim Price is coming and when I tell her no, there is the briefest hesitation before she accepts and then I cancel the reservation Jean made for us at H20, the new Clive Powell restaurant in Chelsea, and leave the office early for a quick aerobics class before the concert.

None of the girls are particularly excited about seeing the band and all have confided in me, separately, that they don't want to be here, and in the limousine heading toward somewhere called the Meadowlands, Carruthers keeps trying to placate everyone by telling us that Donald Trump is a big U2 fan and then, even more desperately, that John Gutfreund also buys their records. A bottle of Cristal is opened, then another. The TV is tuned to a press conference Reagan's giving but there's a lot of static and no one pays attention, except for me. The Patty Winters Show this morning was about Shark Attack Victims. Paul Owen has called me Marcus four times and Evelyn, much to my relief, Cecilia twice, but Evelyn doesn't notice since she's been glaring at Courtney the entire time we've been in the limousine. Anyway, no one has corrected Owen and it's unlikely that anyone will. I even called her Cecilia a couple of times myself when I was sure she wasn't listening, while she was staring hatefully at Courtney. Carruthers keeps telling me how nice I look and complimenting my suit.

Evelyn and I are by far the best-dressed couple. I'm wearing a lamb's wool topcoat, a wool jacket with wool flannel trousers, a cotton shirt, a cashmere V-neck sweater and a silk tie, all from Armani. Evelyn's wearing a cotton blouse by Dolce do Gabbana, suede shoes by Yves Saint Laurent, a stenciled calf skirt by Adrienne Landau with a suede belt by Jill Stuart, Calvin Klein tights, Venetian-glass earrings by Frances Patiky Stein, and clasped in her hand is a single white rose that I bought at a Korean deli before Carruthers' limousine picked me up. Carruthers is wearing a lamb's wool sport coat, a cashmere/vicuña cardigan sweater, cavalry twill trousers, a cotton shirt and a silk tie, all from Hermès. ("How tacky," Evelyn whispered to me; I silently agreed.) Courtney is wearing a triple-layered silk organdy top and a long velvet skirt with a fishtail hem, velvet-ribbon and enamel earrings by José and Maria Barrera, gloves by Portolano and shoes from Gucci. Paul and Ashley are, I think, a bit overdressed, and she has sunglasses on even though the windows in the limo are tinted and it's already dusk. She holds a small bouquet of flowers, daisies, Carruthers gave her, which failed to make Courtney jealous since she seems intent upon clawing Evelyn's face open, which right now, though it's the better-looking face, seems not a bad idea and one I wouldn't mind watching Courtney carry out. Courtney has a slightly better body, Evelyn nicer tits.

The concert has been dragging on now for maybe twenty minutes. I hate live music but everyone around us is standing, their screams of approval competing with the racket coming from the towering walls of speakers stacked over us. The only real pleasure I get from being here is seeing Scott and Anne Smiley ten rows behind us, in shittier though probably not less expensive seats. Carruthers changes seats with Evelyn to discuss business with me, but I can't hear a word so I change seats with Evelyn to talk to Courtney.

"Luis is a weasel," I shout. "He suspects nothing."

"The Edge is wearing Armani," she shouts, pointing at the bassist.

"That's not Armani," I shout back. "It's Emporio."

"No," she shouts. "Armani."

"The grays are too muted and so are the taupes and navies. Definite winged lapels, subtle plaids, polka dots and stripes are Armani. Not Emporio, " I shout, extremely irritated that she doesn't know this, can't differentiate, both my hands covering both ears. "There's a difference. Which one's The Ledge?"

"The drummer might be The Ledge," she shouts. "I think. I'm not sure. I need a cigarette. Where were you the other night? If you tell me with Evelyn I'm going to hit you."

"The drummer is not wearing anything by Armani," I scream. "Or Emporio for that matter. Nowhere."

"I don't know which one the drummer is," she shouts.

"Ask Ashley," I suggest, screaming.

"Ashley?" she screams, reaching over across Paul and tapping Ashley's leg. "Which one's The Ledge?" Ashley shouts something at her that I can't hear and then Courtney turns back to me, shrugging. "She said she can't believe she's in New Jersey."

Carruthers motions for Courtney to change seats with him. She waves the little twit away and grips my thigh, which I flex rock-hard, and her hand lingers admiringly. But Luis persists and she gets up, and screams at me, "I think we need drugs tonight!" I nod. The lead singer, Bono, is screeching out what sounds like "Where the Beat Sounds the Same." Evelyn and Ashley leave to buy cigarettes, use the ladies' room, find refreshments. Luis sits next to me.

"The girls are bored," Luis screams at me.

"Courtney wants us to find her some cocaine tonight," I shout.

"Oh, great." Luis looks sulky.

"Do we have reservations anywhere?"

"Brussels," he shouts, checking his Rolex. "But it's doubtful if we'll make it."

"If we don't make it," I warn him, "I'm not going anywhere else. You can drop me at my apartment."

"We'll make it," he shouts.

"If we don't, what about Japanese?" I suggest, relenting. 'There's a really top sushi bar on the Upper West Side. Blades. Chef used to be at Loito. It got a great rating in Zagat."

"Bateman, I hate the Japanese," Carruthers screams at me, one hand placed over an ear. "Little slanty-eyed bastards."

"What," I scream, "in the hell are you talking about?"

"Oh I know, I know," he screams, eyes bulging. "They save more than we do and they don't innovate much, but they sure in the fuck know how to take, steal, our innovations, improve on them, then ram them down our fucking throats!"

I stare at him, disbelieving for a moment, then look at the stage, at the guitarist running around in circles, Bono's arms outstretched as he runs back and forth across the length of its edge, and then back at Luis whose face is still crimson with fury and he's still staring at me, wide-eyed, spittle on his lips, not saying anything.

"What in the hell does that have to do with Blades?" I ask finally, genuinely confused. "Wipe your mouth."

'"That's why I hate Japanese food," he screams back. "Sashimi. California roll. Oh Jesus." He makes a gagging motion, with one finger going down his throat.

"Carruthers…" I stop, still looking at him, studying his face closely, slightly freaked out, unable to remember what I wanted to say.

"What, Bateman?" Carruthers asks, leaning in.

"Listen, I can't believe this shit," I scream. "I can't believe you didn't make the reservations for later. We're going to have to wait."

"What?" he screams, cupping his ear, as if it makes a difference.

"We are going to have to wait!" I scream louder.

"This is not a problem," he shouts.

The lead singer reaches out to us from the stage, his hand outstretched, and I wave him away. "It's okay? It's okay? No, Luis. You're wrong. It's not okay." I look over at Paul Owen, who seems equally bored, his hands clamped over both ears, but still managing to confer with Courtney about something.

"We won't have to wait," Luis screams. "I promise."

"Promise nothing, you geek," I scream, then, "Is Paul Owen still handling the Fisher account?"

"I don't want you to be mad at me, Patrick," Luis screams desperately. "It'll be all right."

"Oh Jesus, forget it," I scream. "Now listen to me: is Paul Owen still handling the Fisher account?"

Carruthers looks over at him and then back at me. "Yeah, I guess. I heard Ashley has chlamydia."

"I'm going to talk to him," I shout, getting up, taking the empty seat next to Owen.

But when I sit down something strange on the stage catches my eye. Bono has now moved across the stage, following me to my seat, and he's staring into my eyes, kneeling at the edge of the stage, wearing black jeans (maybe Gitano), sandals, a leather vest with no shirt beneath it. His body is white, covered with sweat, and it's not worked out enough, there's no muscle tone and what definition there might be is covered beneath a paltry amount of chest hair. He has a cowboy hat on and his hair is pulled back into a ponytail and he's moaning some dirge – I catch the lyric "A hero is an insect in this world" – and he has a faint, barely noticeable but nonetheless intense smirk on his face and it grows, spreading across it confidently, and while his eyes blaze, the backdrop of the stage turns red and suddenly I get this tremendous surge of feeling, this rush of knowledge and my own heart beats faster because of this and it's not impossible to believe that an invisible cord attached to Bono has now encircled me and now the audience disappears and the music slows down, gets softer, and it's just Bono onstage – the stadium's deserted, the band fades away…

And then everyone, the audience, the band, reappears and the music slowly swells up and Bono turns away and I'm left tingling, my face flushed, an aching erection pulsing against my thigh, my hands clenched in fists of tension. But suddenly everything stops, as if a switch has been turned off, the backdrop flashes back to white. Bono is on the other side of the stage now and everything, the feeling in my heart, the sensation combing my brain, vanishes and now more than ever I need to know about the Fisher account that Owen is handling and this information seems vital, more pertinent than the bond I feel I have with Bono, who is now dissolving and remote. I turn to Paul Owen.

"Hey," I shout. "How's it going?"

"Those guys over there…" He motions toward a group of stagehands standing by the edge of the far side of the front row, peering into the crowd, conferring with one another. "They were pointing over here at Evelyn and Courtney and Ashley."

"Who are they?" I shout. "Are they from Oppenheimer?"

"No," Owen shouts back. "I think they're roadies who look for chicks to go backstage and have sex with the band."

"Oh," I scream. "I thought maybe they worked at Barney's."

"No," he shouts. "They're called trim coordinators."

"How do you know that?"

"I have a cousin who manages All We Need of Hell," he shouts.

"It's irritating that you know this," I say.

"What?" he shouts.

"Are you still handling the Fisher account?" I shout back.

"Yeah," he screams. "Lucked out, huh, Marcus?"

"You sure did," I scream. "How did you get it?"

"Well, I had the Ransom account and things just fell into place." He shrugs helplessly, the smooth bastard. "You know?"

"Wow," I shout.

"Yeah," he shouts back, then turns around in his seat and shouts at two dumb-looking fat girls from New Jersey passing an oversize joint between them, one of the cows wrapped in what I'm guessing is the Irish flag. "Will you please put your skunk-weed away – it reeks."

"I want it," I shout, staring at his perfect, even part; even his scalp is tan.

"You want what?" he shouts back. "Marijuana?"

"No. Nothing," I scream, my throat raw, and I slump back into my seat, stare emptily at the stage, biting my thumbnail, ruining yesterday's manicure.

We leave after Evelyn and Ashley return and later, in the limousine racing back toward Manhattan to make the reservation at Brussels, another bottle of Cristal opened, Reagan still on the television set, Evelyn and Ashley tell us that two bouncers accosted them near the ladies' room and demanded they come backstage. I explain who they were and what purpose they serve.

"My god," Evelyn gasps. "Are you telling me I've been… trim-coordinated?"

"I bet Bono has a small dick," Owen says, staring out the tinted window. "Irish, you know."

"Do you think they had an automated teller back there?" Luis asks.

"Ashley," Evelyn shouts. "Did you hear that? We've been trim-coordinated!"

"How does my hair look?" I ask.

"More Cristal?" Courtney asks Luis.

A Glimpse of a Thursday Afternoon

and it's midafternoon and I find myself standing at a phone booth on a corner somewhere downtown, I don't know where, but I'm sweaty and a pounding migraine thumps dully in my head and I'm experiencing a major-league anxiety attack, searching my pockets for Valium, Xanax, a leftover Halcion, anything, and all I find are three faded Nuprin in a Gucci pillbox, so I pop all three into my mouth and swallow them down with a Diet Pepsi and I couldn't tell you where it came from if my life depended on it. I've forgotten who I had lunch with earlier and, even more important, where. Was it Robert Ailes at Beats? Or was it Todd Hendricks at Ursula's, the new Philip Duncan Holmes bistro in Tribeca? Or was it Ricky Worrall and were we at December's? Or would it have been Kevin Weber at Contra in NoHo? Did I order the partridge sandwich on brioche with green tomatoes, or a big plate of endive with clam sauce? "Oh god, I can't remember," I moan, my clothes – a linen and silk sport coat, a cotton shirt, pleated linen khald trousers, all by Matsuda, a silk tie with a Matsuda insignia, with a belt from Coach Leatherware – drenched with sweat, and I take off the jacket and wipe my face with it. The phone keeps ringing but I don't know who I've called and I just stand on the corner, Ray-Bans balanced on my forehead at what feels like an odd, crooked angle, and then I hear a faint familiar sound coming through the wires – Jean's soft voice competing with the endless gridlock stuck on Broadway. The Patty Winters Show this morning was Aspirin: Can It Save Your Life? "Jean?" I cry out. "Hello? Jean?" "Patrick? Is that you?" she calls back. "Hello?" "Jean, I need help," I shout. "Patrick?" "What?" "Jesse Forrest called," Jean says. "He has a reservation at Melrose tonight at eight, and Ted Madison and Jamie Conway want to meet you for drinks at Harry's. Patrick?" Jean asks. "Where are you?" "Jean?" I sigh, wiping my nose. "I'm not–" "Oh, and Todd Lauder called," Jean says, "no, I mean Chris – oh no, it was Todd Lauder. Yeah, Todd Lauder." "Oh god," I moan, loosening my tie, the August sun beating down on me, "what do you say, you dumb bitch?" "Not Bice, Patrick. The reservation is at Melrose. Not Bice." "What am I doing?" I cry out. "Where are you?" and then, "Patrick? What's wrong?" "I'm not going to make it, Jean," I say, then choke out, "to the office this afternoon." "Why?" She sounds depressed or maybe it's just simple confusion. "Just… say… no…," I scream. "What is it, Patrick? Are you all right?" she asks. "Stop sounding so fucking… sad. Jesus," I shout. "Patrick I'm sorry. I mean I meant to say just say no, but–" I hang up on her and lunge away from the phone booth and the Walkman around my neck suddenly feels like a boulder strapped around my throat (and the sounds blaring from it – early Dizzy Gillespie – deeply irritate) and I have to throw the Walkman, a cheap one, into the nearest trash can I stumble into and then I hang on to the rim of the can, breathing heavily, the cheap Matsuda jacket tied around my waist, staring at the still-functioning Walkman, the sun melting the mousse on my head and it mingles with the sweat pouring down my face and I can taste it when I lick my lips and it starts tasting good and I'm suddenly ravenous and I run my hand through my hair and lick greedily at the palm while moving up Broadway, ignoring the old ladies passing out fliers, past jeans stores, music blasting from inside, pouring out onto the streets, people's movements matching the beat of the song, a Madonna single, Madonna crying out, "life is a mystery, everyone must stand alone…," bike messengers whiz by and I'm standing on a corner scowling at them, but people pass, oblivious, no one pays attention, they don't even pretend to not pay attention, and this fact sobers me up long enough that I walk toward a nearby Conran's to buy a teapot, but just when I assume my normalcy has returned and I'm all straightened out, my stomach tightens and the cramps are so intense that I hobble into the nearest doorway and clutch my waist, doubling over with pain, and as suddenly as it appears it fades long enough for me to stand up straight and rush into the next hardware store I come across, and once inside I buy a set of butcher knives, an ax, a bottle of hydrochloric acid, and then, at the pet store down the block, a Habitrail and two white rats that I plan to torture with the knives and acid, but somewhere, later in the afternoon, I leave the package with the rats in it at the Pottery Barn while shopping for candles or did I finally buy the teapot? Now I'm lunging up Lafayette, sweating and moaning and pushing people out of my way, foam pouring out of my mouth, stomach contracting with horrendous abdominal cramps – they might be caused by the steroids but that's doubtful – and I calm myself down enough to walk into a Gristede's, rush up and down the aisles and shoplift a canned ham that I calmly walk out of the store with, hidden under the Matsuda jacket, and down the block, where I try to hide in the lobby of the American Felt Building, breaking the tin open with my keys, ignoring the doorman, who at first seems to recognize me, then, after I start stuffing handfuls of the ham into my mouth, scooping the lukewarm pink meat out of the can, getting it stuck beneath my nails, threatens to call the police. I'm outta there, outside, throwing up all the ham, leaning against a poster for Les Misérables at a bus stop and I kiss the drawing of Eponine's lovely face, her lips, leaving brown streaks of bile smeared across her soft, unassuming face and the word DYKE scrawled beneath it. Loosening my suspenders, ignoring beggars, beggars ignoring me, sweat-drenched, delirious, I find myself back downtown in Tower Records and I compose myself, muttering over and over to no one, "I've gotta return my videotapes, I've gotta return my videotapes," and I buy two copies of my favorite compact disc, Bruce Willis, The Return of Bruno, and then I'm stuck in the revolving door for five full spins and I trip out onto the street, bumping into Charles Murphy from Kidder Peabody or it could be Bruce Barker from Morgan Stanley, whoever, and he says "Hey, Kinsley" and I belch into his face, my eyes rolling back into my head, greenish bile dripping in strings from my bared fangs, and he suggests, unfazed, "See you at Fluties, okay? Severt too?" I screech and while backing away I bump into a fruit stand at a Korean deli, collapsing stacks of apples and oranges and lemons, that go rolling onto the sidewalk, over the curb and into the street where they're splattered by cabs and cars and buses and trucks and I'm apologizing, delirious, offering a screaming Korean my platinum AmEx accidentally, then a twenty, which he immediately takes, but still he grabs me by the lapels of the stained, wrinkled jacket I've forced myself back into and when I look up into his slanty-eyed round face he suddenly bursts into the chorus of Lou Christie's "Lightnin' Strikes." I pull away, horrified, stumbling uptown, toward home, but people, places, stores keep interrupting me, a drug, dealer on Thirteenth Street who offers me crack and blindly I wave a fifty at him and he says "Oh, man" gratefully and shakes my hand, pressing five vials into my palm which I proceed to eat whole and the crack dealer stares at me, trying to mask his deep disturbance with an amused glare, and I grab him by the neck and croak out, my breath reeking, "The best engine is in the BMW 750iL," and then I move on to a phone booth, where I babble gibberish at the operator until I finally spit out my credit card number and then I'm speaking to the front office of Xclusive, where I cancel a massage appointment that I never made. I'm able to compose myself by simply staring at my feet, actually at the A. Testoni loafers, kicking pigeons aside, and without even noticing, I enter a shabby delicatessen on Second Avenue and I'm still confused, mixed up, sweaty, and I walk over to a short, fat Jewish woman, old and hideously dressed. "Listen," I say. "I have a reservation. Bateman. Where's the maître d? I know Jackie Mason," and she sighs, "I can seat you. Don't need a reservation," as she reaches for a menu. She leads me to a horrible table in back near the rest rooms and I grab the menu away from her and rush to a booth up front and I'm appalled by the cheapness of the food – "Is this a goddamn joke?" – and sensing a waitress is near I order without looking up. "A cheeseburger. I'd like a cheeseburger and I'd like it medium rare." "I'm sorry, sir," the waitress says. "No cheese. Kosher," and I have no idea what the fuck she's talking about and I say, "Fine. A kosherburger but with cheese, Monterey Jack perhaps, and – oh god," I moan, sensing more cramps coming on. "No cheese, sir," she says. "Kosher…" "Oh god, is this a nightmare, you fucking Jew?" I mutter, and then, "Cottage cheese? Just bring it?" "I'll get the manager," she says. "Whatever. But bring me a beverage in the meanwhile," I hiss. "Yes?" she asks. "A… vanilla… milk shake…" "No milk shakes. Kosher," she says, then, "I'll get the manager." "No, wait." "Mister I'll get the manager." "What in the fuck is going on?" I ask, seething, my platinum AmEx already slapped on the greasy table. "No milk shake. Kosher," she says, thick-upped, just one of billions of people who have passed over this planet. "Then bring me a fucking… vanilla… malted!" I roar, spraying spit all over my open menu. She just stares. "Extra thick!" I add. She walks away to get the manager and when I see him approaching, a bald carbon copy of the waitress, I get up and scream, "Fuck yourself you retarded cocksucking kike," and I run out of the delicatessen and onto the street where this

Yale Club

"What are the rules for a sweater vest?" Van Patten asks the table.

"What do you mean?" McDermott furrows his brow, takes a sip of Absolut.

"Yes," I say, "Clarify."

"Well, is it strictly informal–"

"Or can it be worn with a suit?" I interrupt, finishing his sentence.

"Exactly." He smiles.

"Well, according to Bruce Boyer–" I begin.

"Wait." Van Patten stops me. "Is he with Morgan Stanley?"

"No." I smile. "He's not with Morgan Stanley."

"Wasn't he a serial killer?" McDermott asks suspiciously, then moans. "Don't tell me he was another serial killer, Bateman. Not another serial killer."

"No, McDufus, he wasn't a serial killer," I say, turning back to Van Patten, but before continuing turn back to McDermott. 'That really pisses me off."

"But you always bring them up," McDermott complains. "And always in this casual, educational sort of way. I mean, I don't want to know anything about Son of Sam or the fucking Hillside Strangler or Ted Bundy or Featherhead, for god sake."

"Featherhead?" Van Patten asks. "Who's Featherhead? He sounds exceptionally dangerous."

"He means Leatherface," I say, teeth tightly clenched.

"Leatherface. He was part of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre."