American psycho: a novel

"Yeah. In fact it's over," Caron says in a tone that's completely undecided. She blinks. "In fact it's… out." She blinks again. "In fact I think it came out… last year."

The two of them are looking over at the next booth disinterestedly, but when they turn back to our table, their eyes falling on the sleeping Taylor, Caron turns to Libby and sighs. "Should we go over and say hello?"

Libby nods slowly, her features quizzical in the candlelight, and stands up. "Excuse us." They leave. Daisy stays, sips Caron's champagne. I imagine her naked, murdered, maggots burrowing, feasting on her stomach, tits blackened by cigarette burns, Libby eating this corpse out, then I clear my throat. "So it was really hot out today, wasn't it?"

"It was," she agrees.

"Ask me a question," I tell her, feeling suddenly, well, spontaneous.

She inhales on the cigarette, then blows out. "So what do you do?"

"What do you think I do?" And frisky too.

"A model?" She shrugs. "An actor?"

"No," I say. "Flattering, but no."

"Well?"

"I'm into, oh, murders and executions mostly. It depends." I shrug.

"Do you like it?" she asks, unfazed.

"Um… It depends. Why?" I take a bite of sorbet.

"Well, most guys I know who work in mergers and acquisitions don't really like it," she says.

'That's not what I said," I say, adding a forced smile, finishing my J&B. "Oh, forget it."

"Ask me a question," she says.

"Okay. Where do you…" I stop for a moment, stuck, then, "summer?"

"Maine," she says. "Ask me something else."

"Where do you work out?"

"Private trainer," she says. "How about you?"

"Xclusive," I say. "On the Upper West Side."

"Really?" She smiles, then notices someone behind me, but her expression doesn't change, and her voice remains fiat. "Francesca. Oh my god. It's Francesca. Look."

"Daisy! And Patrick, you devil!" Francesca screeches. "Daisy, what in god's name are you doing with a stud like Batman?" She overtakes the booth, sliding in with this bored blond girl I don't recognize. Francesca is wearing a velvet dress by Saint Laurent Rive Gauche and the girl I don't recognize is wearing a wool dress by Geoffrey Beene. Both are wearing pearls.

"Hello, Francesca," I say.

"Daisy, oh my god, Ben and Jerry's here. I love Ben and Jerry," I think is what she says, all in a breathless rush, shouting over the light din – actually, drowning out the light din – of the jazz band. "Don't you love Ben and Jerry?" she asks, her eyes wide, and then she rasps out to a passing waitress, "Orange juice! I need orange juice! Jesus fucking Christ the help here has got to go. Where's Nell? I'll tell her," she mutters, looking around the room, then turns to Daisy. "How's my face? Bateman, Ben and Jerry are here. Don't sit there like an idiot. Oh god I'm kidding. I adore Patrick but come on, Batman, look lively, you stud, Ben and Jerry are here." She winks lasciviously then wets both lips with her tongue. Francesca writes for Vanity Fair.

"But I already…" I stop and look down at my sorbet, troubled. "I already ordered this grapefruit sorbet." Gloomily I point at the dish, confused. "I don't want any ice cream."

"For Christ sakes, Bateman, Jagger is here. Mick. Jerry. You know," Francesca says, talking to the booth but constantly scanning the room. Daisy's expression hasn't changed once all evening. "What a y-u-p-p-i-e," she spells to the blond girl, then Francesca's eyes land on my sorbet. I pull it toward me protectively.

"Oh yeah," I say. " 'Just another night, just another night with you…' " I sing, sort of. "I know who he is."

"You look thin, Daisy, you're making me sick. Anyway, this is Alison Poole, who is also too thin and makes me sick," Francesca says, lightly slapping my hands covering the sorbet, pulling the dish back toward her. "And this is Daisy Milton and Patrick–"

"We've met," Alison says, glaring at me.

"Hi, Alison. Pat Bateman," I say, holding out my hand.

"We've met," she says again, glaring harder.

"Uh… we have?" I ask.

Francesca screams, "God, look at that profile of Bateman's. Totally Roman. And those lashes!" she shrieks.

Daisy smiles approvingly. I play it cool, ignoring them.

I recognize Alison as a girl I did last spring while at the Kentucky Derby with Evelyn and her parents. I remember she screamed when I tried to push my entire arm, gloved and slathered with Vaseline, toothpaste, anything I could find, up into her vagina. She was drunk, wasted on coke, and I had tied her up with wire, slapped duct tape all over her mouth, her face, her breasts. Francesca has given me head before. I don't remember the place, or when, but she's given me head and liked it. I suddenly remember, painfully, that I would have liked to see Alison bleed to death that afternoon last spring but something stopped me. She was so high – "oh my god," she kept moaning during those hours, blood bubbling out of her nose – she never wept. Maybe that was the problem; maybe that was what saved her. I won a lot of money that weekend on a horse called Indecent Exposure.

"Well… Hi." I smile weakly but soon regain my confidence. Alison would never have told anyone that story. Not a soul could've possibly heard about that lovely, horrible afternoon. I grin at her in the darkness of Nell's. "Yeah, I remember you. You were a real…" I pause, then growl, "manhandler."

She says nothing, just looks at me like I'm the opposite of civilization or something.

"Jesus. Is Taylor sleeping or just dead?" Francesca asks while gobbling up what's left of my sorbet. "Oh my God, did anyone read Page Six today? I was in it, so was Daisy. And Taffy too."

Alison gets up without looking over at me. "I'm going to find Skip downstairs and dance." She walks away.

McDermott comes back and gives Alison, who's squeezing past him, the once-over before taking the seat next to mine.

"Any luck?" I ask.

"No dice," he says, wiping his nose. He lifts my drink to his face and sniffs it, then takes a sip and lights one of Daisy's cigarettes. He looks back at me while lighting it and introduces himself to Francesca before looking back at me. "Don't look so, you know, astounded, Bateman. It happens."

I pause, staring at him, before asking, "Are you, uh, like, shitting me, McDermott?"

"No," he says. "No luck."

I pause again, then look down at my lap and sigh. "Look, McDermott, I've pulled this act before. I know what you're doing."

"I fucked her." He sniffs again, pointing at some girl in one of the booths up front. McDermott's sweating profusely and reeks of Xeryus.

"You did? Wow. Now listen to me," I say, then notice something out of the corner of my eye. "Francesca…"

"What?" She looks up, a dribble of sorbet running down her chin.

"You're eating my sorbet?" I point at the dish.

She swallows, glaring at me. "Lighten up, Bateman. What do you want from me, you gorgeous stud? An AIDS test? Oh my god, speaking of which, that guy over there, Krafft? Yep. No loss."

The guy Francesca pointed out is sitting in a booth near the stage where the jazz band plays. His hair is slicked back over a very boyish face and he's wearing a suit with pleated trousers and a silk shirt with light gray polka dots by Comme des Garçons Homme and sipping a martini and it's not difficult to imagine him in someone's bedroom tonight, lying, probably to the girl he's sitting with: blonde, big tits, wearing a metal-studded dress by Giorgio di Sant'Angelo.

"Should we tell her?" someone asks.

"Oh no," Daisy says. "Don't. She looks like a real bitch."

"Listen to me, McDermott." I lean in toward him. "You have drugs. I can see it in your eyes. Not to mention that fucking sniffing."

"Nope. Negatif. Not tonight, honey." He wags his head.

Applause for the jazz band – the whole table claps, even Taylor, whom Francesca has inadvertently woken up, and I turn away from McDermott, heavily pissed, and bring my hands together like everyone else. Caron and Libby walk upto the table and Libby says, "Caron's got to go to Atlanta tomorrow. Vogue shoot. We have to leave." Someone gets the check and McDermott puts it on his gold AmEx card, which conclusively proves that he's high on coke since he's a famous tight-wad.

Outside it's muggy and there's a faint drizzle, almost like a mist, lightning but no thunder. I trail McDermott, hoping to confront him, almost bumping into someone in a wheelchair who I remember rolling up to the ropes when we first arrived and the guy's still sitting there, wheels moving up then backing away, up then back on the pavement, totally ignored by the doormen.

"McDermott," I call. "What are you doing? Give me your drugs."

He turns, facing me, and breaks into this weird jig, twirling around, then just as abruptly he stops and walks over to a black woman and child who are sitting in the doorway of the closed deli next to Nell's and predictably she's begging for food, a predictable cardboard sign at her feet. It's hard to tell if the kid, six or seven, is black or not, even if it's really hers, since the light outside Nells is too bright, really unflattering, and tends to make everyone's skin look the same yellowish, washed-out color.

"What are they doing?" I.ibby says, staring, transfixed. "Don't they know they need to stand closer to the ropes?"

"Libby, come on," Caron says, pulling her toward two taxis at the curb.

"McDermott?" I ask. "What in the hell are you doing?"

McDermott's eyes are glazed over and he's waving a dollar bill in front of the woman's face and she starts sobbing, pathetically trying to grab at it, but of course, typically, he doesn't give it to her. Instead he ignites the bill with matches from Canal Bar and relights the half-smoked cigar clenched between his straight white teeth – probably caps, the jerk.

"How… gentrifying of you, McDermott," I tell him.

Daisy is leaning against a white Mercedes parked next to the curb. Another Mercedes, this one a limo, black, is double-parked next to the white one. There's more lightning. An ambulance screams down Fourteenth Street. McDermott walks by Daisy and kisses her hand before hopping in the second cab.

I'm left standing in front of the crying black woman, Daisy staring.

"Jesus," I mutter, then, "Here…" I hand the black woman a book of matches from Lutèce before realizing the mistake, then find a book of matches from Tavern on the Green and toss them at the kid and pluck the other matchbook from her dirty, scabbed fingers.

"Jesus," I mutter again, walking over to Daisy.

"There are no more cabs," she says, hands on hips. Another flash of lightning causes her to jerk her head around, whining, "Where's the photographers? Who's taking the pictures?"

"Taxi!" I whistle, trying to wave down a passing cab.

Another bolt of lighting rips across the sky above Zeckendorf Towers and Daisy squeals, "Where is the photographer? Patrick. Tell them to stop." She's confused, her head moving left, right, behind, left, right She lowers her sunglasses.

"Oh my god," I mutter, my voice building to a shout. "It's lightning. Not a photographer. Lightning!"

"Oh right, I'm supposed to believe you. You said Gorbachev was downstairs," she says accusingly. "I don't believe you. I think the press is here."

"Jesus, here's a cab. Hey, taxi." I whistle at an oncoming cab that has just turned off Eighth Avenue, but someone taps my shoulder and when I turn around, Bethany, a girl I dated at Harvard and who I was subsequently dumped by, is standing in front of me wearing a lace-embroidered sweater and viscose-crepe trousers by Christian Lacroix, an open white umbrella in one hand. The cab I was trying to hail whizzes by.

"Bethany," I say, stunned.

"Patrick." She smiles.

"Bethany," I say again.

"How are you, Patrick?" she asks.

"Um, well, um, I'm fine," I stutter, after an awkward byte of silence. "And you?"

"Really well, thanks," she says.

"You know… well, were you in there?" I ask.

"Yeah, I was." She nods, then, "It's good to see you."

"Are you… living here?" I ask, gulping. "In Manhattan?"

"Yes." She smiles. "I'm working at Milbank Tweed."

"Oh, well… great." I look back over at Daisy and I'm suddenly angry, remembering the lunch in Cambridge, at Quarters, where Bethany, her arm in a sling, a faint bruise above her cheek, ended it all, then, just as suddenly, I'm thinking: My hair, oh god, my hair, and I can feel the drizzle ruining it. "Well, I gotta go."

"You're at P & P, right?" she asks, then, "You look great." Spotting another cab approaching, I back away. "Yeah, well, you know."

"Let's have lunch," she calls out.

"What could be more fun?" I say, unsure. The cab has noticed Daisy and stopped.

"I'll call you," she says.

"Whatever," I say.

Some black guy has opened the cab door for Daisy and she steps in daintily and the black guy holds it open for me too while I get in, waving, nodding to Bethany. "A tip, mister," the black guy asks, "from you and the pretty lady?"

"Yeah," I growl, trying to check my hair in the cabdriver's rearview mirror. "Here's a tip: get a real job, you dumb fucking nigger." Then I slam the door myself and tell the cabdriver to take us to the Upper West Side.

"Didn't you think it was interesting in that movie tonight how they were spies but they weren't spies?" Daisy asks.

"And you can drop her off in Harlem," I tell the driver.

I'm in my bathroom, shirtless in front of the Orobwener mirror, debating whether to take a shower and wash my hair since it looks shitty due to the rain. Tentatively I smooth some mousse into it then run a comb over the mousse. Daisy sits in the Louis Montoni brass and chrome chair by the futon, spooning Macadamia Brittle Häagen-Dazs ice cream into her mouth. She is wearing only a lace bra and a garter belt from Bloomingdale's.

"You know," she calls out, "my ex-boyfriend Fiddler, at the party earlier tonight, he couldn't understand what I was doing there with a yuppie."

I'm not really listening, but while staring at my hair, I manage, "Oh. Really?"

"He said…" She laughs. "He said you gave him bad vibes."

I sigh, then make a muscle. "That's… too bad."

She shrugs and offhandedly admits. "He used to do a lot of cocaine. He used to beat me up."

I suddenly start paying attention, until she says, "But he never touched my face."

I walk into the bedroom and start undressing.

"You think I'm dumb, don't you?" she asks, staring at me, her legs, tan and aerobicized, slung over one of the chair's arms.

"What?" I slip my shoes off, then bend down to pick them up.

"You think I'm dumb," she says. "You think all models are dumb."

"No," I say, trying to contain my laughter. "I really don't."

"You do," she insists. "I can tell."

"I think you are. . ." I stand there, my voice trailing off.

"Yes?" She's grinning, waiting.

"I think you are totally brilliant and incredibly… brilliant," I say in monotone.

"That's nice." She smiles serenely, licking the spoon "You have, well, a tender quality about you."

"Thanks." I take my pants off and fold them neatly, hanging them along with the shirt and tie over a black steel Philippe Stark clothes hanger. "You know, the other day I caught my maid stealing a piece of bran toast from my wastebasket in the kitchen."

Daisy takes this in, then asks, "Why?"

I pause, staring at her flat, well-defined stomach. Her torso is completely tan and muscular. So is mine. "Because she said she was hungry."

Daisy sighs and licks the spoon thoughtfully.

"You think my hair looks okay?" I'm still standing there, in just my Calvin Klein jockey shorts, hard-on bulging, and a fifty-dollar pair of Armani socks.

"Yeah." She shrugs. "Sure."

I sit on the edge of the futon and peel off the socks.

"I beat up a girl today who was asking people on the street for money." I pause, then measure each of the following words carefully. "She was young and seemed frightened and had a sign that explained she was lost in New York and had a child, though I didn't see it. And she needed money, for food or something. For a bus ticket to Iowa. Iowa. I think it was Iowa and…" I stop for a moment, balling the socks up, then unballing them.

Daisy stares at me blankly for a minute, before asking, "And then?"

I pause, distracted, and then stand up. Before walking into the bathroom I mutter, "And then? I beat the living shit out of her." I open the medicine cabinet for a condom and, as I re-enter the bedroom, say, "She had misspelled disabled. I mean, that's not the reason I did what I did but… you know." I shrug. "She was too ugly to rape."

Daisy stands up, placing the spoon next to the Häagen-Dazs carton on the Gilbert Rhode-designed nightstand.

I point. "No. Put it in the carton."

"Oh, sorry," she says.

She admires a Palazzetti vase while I slip on the condom. I get on top of her and we have sex and lying beneath me she is only a shape, even with all the halogen lamps burning. Later, we are lying on opposite sides of the bed. I touch her shoulder.

"I think you should go home," I say.

She opens her eyes, scratches her neck.

"I think I might… hurt you," I tell her. "I don't think I can control myself."

She looks over at me and shrugs. "Okay. Sure," then she starts to get dressed. "I don't want to get too involved anyway," she says.

"I think something bad is going to happen," I tell her.

She pulls her panties on, then checks her hair in the Nabolwev mirror and nods. "I understand."

After she's dressed and minutes of pure, hard silence have passed, I say, not unhopefully, "You don't want to get hurt, do you?"

She buttons up the top of her dress and sighs, without looking over at me. "That's why I'm leaving."

I say, "I think I'm losing it."

Paul Owen

I screened calls all morning long in my apartment, taking none of them, glaring tiredly at a cordless phone while sipping cup after cup of decaf herbal tea. Afterwards I went to the gym, where I worked out for two hours; then I had lunch at the Health Bar and could barely eat half of an endive-with-carrot-dressing salad I ordered. I stopped at Barney's on my way back from an abandoned loft building I had rented a unit in somewhere around Hell's Kitchen. I had a facial. I played squash with Brewster Whipple at the Yale Club and from there made reservations for eight o'clock under the name Marcus Halberstam at Texarkana, where I'm going to meet Paul Owen for dinner. I choose Texarkana because I know that a lot of people I have dealings with are not going to be eating there tonight. Plus I'm in the mood for their chili-wrapped pork and one or two Dixie beers. It's June and I'm wearing a two-button linen suit, a cotton shirt, a silk tie and leather wing-tips, all by Armani. Outside Texarkana a cheerful black bum motions for me, explaining that he's Bob Hope's younger brother, No Hope. He holds out a Styrofoam coffee cup. I think this is funny so I give him a quarter. I'm twenty minutes late. From an open window on Tenth Street I can hear the last strains of "A Day in the Life" by the Beetles.

The bar in.Texarkana is empty and in the dining area only four or five tables have people at them. Owen is at a booth in the back, complaining bitterly to the waiter, grilling him, demanding to know the exact reasons why they are out of the crawfish gumbo tonight. The waiter, a not-bad-looking faggot, is at a loss and helplessly lisps an excuse. Owen is in no mood for pleasantries, but then neither am I. As I sit down, the waiter apologizes once more and then takes my drink order. "J&B, straight," I stress. "And a Dixie beer." He smiles while writing this down – the bastard even bats his eyelashes – and when I'm about to warn him not to attempt small taut with me, Owen barks out his drink order, "Double Absolut martini," and the fairy splits.

'This is really a beehive of, uh, activity, Halberstam," Owen says, gesturing toward the near-empty room. "This place is hot, very hot."

"Listen, the mud soup and the charcoal arugula are outrageous here," I tell him.

"Yeah, well," he grumbles, staring into his martini glass. "You're late."

"Hey, I'm a child of divorce. Give me a break," I say, shrugging, thinking: Oh Halberstam you are an asshole. And then, after I've studied the menu, "Hmmm, I see they've omitted the pork loin with lime Jell-O."

Owen is wearing a double-breasted silk and linen suit, a cotton shirt and a silk tie, all by Joseph Abboud, and his tan is impeccable. But he's out of it tonight, surprisingly untalkative, and his dourness drizzles over my jovial, expectant mood, dampening it considerably, and I have suddenly resorted to making comments such as "Is that Ivana Trump over there?" then, laughing, " Jeez, Patrick, I mean Marcus, what are you thinking? Why would Ivana be at Texarkana?" But this doesn't make dinner any less monotonous. It doesn't help lessen the fact that Paul Owen is exactly my age, twenty-seven, or make this whole thing any less disconcerting to me.

What I've mistaken at first for pomposity on Owen's part is actually just drunkenness. When I press for information about the Fisher account he offers useless statistical data that I already knew about: how Rothschild was originally handling the account, how Owen came to acquire it. And though I had Jean gather this information for my files months ago, I keep nodding, pretending that this primitive info is revelatory and saying things like "This is enlightening" while at the same time telling him "I'm utterly insane" and "I like to dissect girls." Every time I attempt to steer the conversation back to the mysterious Fisher account, he infuriatingly changes the topic back to either tanning salons or brands of cigars or certain health clubs or the best places to jog in Manhattan and he keeps guffawing, which I find totally upsetting. I'm drinking Southern beer for the first part of the meal – pre entrée, post appetizer – then switch to Diet Pepsi midway through since I need to stay slightly sober. I'm about to tell Owen that Cecelia, Marcus Halberstam's girlfriend, has two vaginas and that we plan to wed next spring in East Hampton, but he interrupts.

"I'm feeling, er, slightly mellow," he admits, drunkenly squeezing a lime onto the table, completely missing his beer mug. .

"Uh-huh." I dip a stick of jicama sparingly into a rhubarb mustard sauce, pretending to ignore him.

He's so drunk by the time dinner is over that I (1) make him pay the check, which comes to two hundred and fifty dollars, (2a) make him admit what a dumb son-of a-bitch he really is, and (3) get him back to my place, where he makes himself another drink – he actually opens a bottle of Acacia I thought I had hidden, with a Mulazoni sterling silver wine opener that Peter Radloff bought me after we completed the Heatherberg deal. In my bathroom I take out the ax I'd stashed in the shower, pop two five-milligram Valium, washing them down with a tumblerful of Plax, and then I move into the foyer, where I put on a cheap raincoat I picked up at Brooks Brothers on Wednesday and move toward Owen, who is bent over near the stereo system in the living room looking through my CD collection – all the lights in the apartment on, the venetian blinds closed. He straightens up and walks slowly backward, sipping from his wineglass, taking in the apartment, until he seats himself in a white aluminum folding chair I bought at the Conran's Memorial Day sale weeks ago, and finally he notices the newspapers – copies of USA Today and W and The New York Times – spread out beneath him, covering the floor, to protect the polished white-stained oak from his blood. I move toward him with the ax in one hand, and with my other I button up the raincoat.

"Hey, Halberstam," he asks, managing to slur both words.

"Yes, Owen," I say, drawing near.

"Why are there, um, copies of the Style section all over the place?" he asks tiredly. "Do you have a dog? A chow or something?"

No, Owen." I move slowly around the chair until I'm facing him, standing directly in his line of vision, and he's so drunk he can't even focus in on the ax, he doesn't even notice once I've raised it high above my head. Or when I change my mind and lower it to my waist, almost holding it as if it's a baseball bat and I'm about to swing at an oncoming ball, which happens to be Owen's head.

Owen pauses, then says, "Anyway, I used to hate Iggy Pop but now that he's so commercial I like him a lot better than–"

The ax hits him midsentence, straight in the face, its thick blade chopping sideways into his open mouth, shutting him up. Paul's eyes look up at me, then involuntarily roll back into his head, then back at me, and suddenly his hands are trying to grab at the handle, but the shock of the blow has sapped his strength. There's no blood at first, no sound either except for the newspapers under Paul's kicking feet, rustling, tearing. Blood starts to slowly pour out of the sides of his mouth shortly after the first chop, and when I pull the ax out – almost yanking Owen out of the chair by his head – and strike him again in the face, splitting it open, his arms flailing at nothing, blood sprays out in twin brownish geysers, staining my raincoat. This is accompanied by a horrible momentary hissing noise actually coming from the wounds in Paul's skull, places where bone and flesh no longer connect, and this is followed by a rude farting noise caused by a section of his brain, which due to pressure forces itself out, pink and glistening, through the wounds in his face. He falls to the floor in agony, his face just gray and bloody, except for one of his eyes, which is blinking uncontrollably; his mouth is a twisted red-pink jumble of teeth and meat and jawbone, his tongue hangs out of an open gash on the side of his cheek, connected only by what looks like a thick purple string. I scream at him only once: "Fucking stupid bastard. Fucking bastard." I stand there waiting, staring up at the crack above the Onica that the superintendent hasn't fixed yet. It takes Paul five minutes to finally die. Another thirty to stop bleeding.

I take a cab to Owen's apartment on the Upper East Side and on the ride across Central Park in the dead of this stifling June night in the back of the taxi it hits me that I'm still wearing the bloody raincoat. At his apartment I let myself in with the keys I took from the corpse's pocket and once inside I douse the coat with lighter fluid and burn it in the fireplace. The living room is very spare, minimalist. The walls are white pigmented concrete, except for one wall, which is covered with a trendy large-scale scientific drawing, and the wall facing Fifth Avenue has a long strip of faux-cowhide paneling stretched across it. A black leather couch sits beneath it.

I switch on the wide-screen thirty-one-inch Panasonic to Late Night with David Letterman, then move over to the answering machine to change Owen's message. While erasing the current one (Owen giving all the numbers he can be reached at – including the Seaport, for god's sake – while Vivaldi's Four Seasons plays tastefully in the background) I wonder aloud where I should send Paul, and after a few minutes of intense debating decide: London. "I'll send the bastard to England," I cackle while turning the volume down on the TV and then I leave the new message. My voice sounds similar to Owen's and to someone hearing it over the phone probably identical. Tonight Letterman has on Stupid Pet Tricks. A German shepherd with a Mets cap on peels and eats an orange. This is replayed twice, in slow motion.

Into a hand-constructed bridle leather suitcase with a khaki-colored canvas cover, extra-heavy cap corners, gold straps and locks, by Ralph Lauren, I pack a wool six-button double-breasted peak-lapel chalk-striped suit and one wool flannel navy suit, both from Brooks Brothers, along with a Mitsubishi rechargeable electric shaver, a silver-plated shoehorn from Barney's, a Tag-Heuer sports watch, a black leather Prada currency holder, a Sharp Handy-Copier, a Sharp Dialmaster, his passport in its own black leather passport case and a Panasonic portable hair dryer. I also steal for myself a Toshiba portable compact disc player with one of the discs from the original cast recording of Les Misérables still in it. The bathroom is done completely in white except for the Dalmatian-spot wallpaper covering one wall. I throw any toiletry articles I might've missed into a plastic Hefty bag.

Back at my apartment his body is already in rigor mortis, and after wrapping it up in four cheap terry-cloth towels I also bought at the Conran's Memorial Day sale, I place Owen headfirst and fully dressed into a Canalino goose-down sleeping bag, which I zip up then drag easily into the elevator, then through the lobby, past the night doorman, down the block, where briefly I run into Arthur Crystal and Kitty Martin, who've just had dinner at Café Luxembourg. Luckily Kitty Martin is supposed to be dating Craig McDermott, who is in Houston for the night, so they don't linger, even though Crystal – the rude bastard – asks me what the general rules of wearing a white dinner jacket are. After answering him curtly I hail a taxi, effortlessly manage to swing the sleeping bag into the backseat, hop in and give the driver the address in Hell's Kitchen. Once there I carry the body up four flights of stairs until we're at the unit I own in the abandoned building and I place Owen's body into an oversize porcelain tub, strip off his Abboud suit and, after wetting the corpse down, pour two bags of lime over it.

Later, around two, in bed, I'm unable to sleep. Evelyn catches me on call waiting while I'm listening to messages on 976-TWAT and watching a tape on the VCR of this morning's Patty Winters Show which is about Deformed People.

"Patrick?" Evelyn asks.

I pause, then in a dull monotone calmly announce, "You have reached Patrick Bateman's number. He is unable to come to the phone right now. So please leave a message after the tone…" I pause, then add, "Have a nice day." I pause again, praying to god that she bought it, before emitting a pitiful "Beep."

"Oh stop it, Patrick," she says irritably. "I know it's you. What in god's name do you think you're doing?"

I hold the phone out in front of me then drop it on the floor and bang it against the nightstand. I keep pressing some of the numbers down, hoping that when I lift the receiver up to my ear I'll be greeted by a dial tone. "Hello? Hello?" I say. "Is anyone there? Yes?"

"Oh for god's sake stop it. Just stop it," Evelyn wails.

"Hi, Evelyn," I say cheerily, my face twisted into a grimace.

"Where have you been tonight?" she asks. "I thought we were supposed to have dinner. I thought we had reservations at Raw Space."

"No, Evelyn," I sigh, suddenly very tired. "We didn't. Why would you think that?"

"I thought I had it written down," she whines. "I thought my secretary had written it down for me."

"Well, one of you was wrong," I say, rewinding the tape by remote control from my bed. "Raw Space? Jesus. You… are… insane."

"Honey," she pouts. "Where were you tonight? I hope you didn't go to Raw Space without me."

"Oh my god," I moan. "I had to rent some videotapes. I mean I had to return some videos."

"What else did you do?" she asks, still whining.

"Well, I ran into Arthur Crystal and Kitty Martin," I say. 'They just had dinner at Café Luxembourg."

"Oh really?" Chillingly, her interest perks up. "What was Kitty wearing?"

"An off-the-shoulder ball gown with velvet bodice and a floral-patterned lace skirt by Laura Marolakos, I think."

"And Arthur?"

"Same thing."

"Oh Mr. Bateman." She giggles. "I adore your sense of humor."

"Listen, it's late. I'm tired." I fake a yawn.

"Did I wake you?" she asks worriedly. "I hope I didn't wake you."

"Yes," I say. "You did. But I took your call so it's my fault, not yours."

"Dinner, honey? Tomorrow?" she asks, coyly expecting an affirmative response.

"I can't. Work."

"You practically own that damn company," she moans. "What work? What work do you do? I don't understand."

"Evelyn," I sigh. "Please."

"Oh Patrick, lets go away this summer," she says wistfully. "Let's go to Edgartown or the Hamptons."

"I'll do that," I say. "Maybe I'll do that."

Paul Smith

I'm standing in Paul Smith talking to Nancy and Charles Hamilton and their two-year-old daughter, Glenn. Charles is wearing a four-button double-breasted linen suit by Redaelli, a cotton broadcloth shirt by Ascot Chang, a patterned silk tie by Eugenio Venanzi and loafers by Brooks Brothers. Nancy is wearing a silk blouse with mother-of-pearl sequins and a silk chiffon skirt by Valentino and silver earrings by Reena Pachochi. I'm wearing a six-button double-breasted chalk-striped wool suit and a patterned silk tie, both by Louis, Boston, and a cotton oxford cloth shirt by Luciano Barbera. Glenn is wearing silk Armani overalls and a tiny Mets cap. As the salesgirl rings up Charles's purchases, I'm playing with the baby while Nancy holds her, offering Glenn my platinum American Express card, and she grabs at it excitedly, and I'm shaking my head, talking in a high-pitched baby voice, squeezing her chin, waving the card in front of her face, cooing, "Yes I'm a total psychopathic murderer, oh yes I am, I like to kill people, oh yes I do, honey, little sweetie pie, yes I do…" After the office today I played squash with Ricky Hendricks, then had drinks with Stephen Jenkins at Fluties and I'm supposed to meet Bonnie Abbott for dinner at Pooncakes, the new Bishop Sullivan restaurant in Gramercy Park, at eight o'clock. The Patty Winters Show this morning was about Concentration Camp Survivors. I take out a Sony Watchman Pocket TV (the FD-270) that has a 2.7-inch black-and-white miniscreen and weighs only thirteen ounces, and hold it out to Glenn. Nancy asks, "How's the shad roe at Rafaeli's?" Right now, outside this store, it's not dark yet but it is getting there.

"It's terrific," I murmur, staring happily at Glenn.

Charles signs the slip and while placing his gold American Express card back into his wallet he turns to me and recognizes someone over my shoulder.

"Hey Luis," Charles says, smiling.

I turn around.

"Hi, Charles. Hi, Nancy." Luis Carruthers kisses Nancy's cheek, then shakes the baby's hand. "Oh hiya, Glenn. My my, you look so big."

"Luis, you know Robert Chanc–" Charles starts.

"Pat Bateman," I say, putting the Watchman back in my pocket. "Forget it. We've met."

"Oh, I'm sorry. That's right. Pat Bateman," Charles says. Luis is wearing a wool-crepe suit, a cotton broadcloth shirt and a silk tie, all by Ralph Lauren. Like me, like Charles, he wears his hair slicked back and he's wearing Oliver Peoples redwood-framed glasses. Mine, at least, are nonprescription.

"Well well," I say, shaking his hand. Luis's grip is overly firm, yet horribly sensuous at the same time. "Excuse me, I have to purchase a tie." I wave bye-bye to baby Glenn once more and move off to inspect the neckwear in the adjoining room, wiping my hand against a two-hundred-dollar bath towel that hangs on a marble rack.

Soon enough Luis wanders over and leans against the tie drawer, pretending to examine the ties like I'm doing.

"What are you doing here?" he whispers.

"Buying a tie for my brother. It's his birthday soon. Excuse me." I move down the rack, away from him.

"He must feel very lucky to have a brother like you," he says, sliding up next to me, grinning sincerely.

"Maybe, but I find him completely repellent," I say. "You might like him though."

"Patrick, why won't you look at me?" Luis asks, sounding anguished. "Look at me."

"Please, please leave me alone, Luis," I say, my eyes closed, both fists clenched in anger.

"Come on, let's have a drink at Sofi's and talk about this," he suggests, starting to plead.

"Talk about what?" I ask incredulously, opening my eyes.

"Well… about us." He shrugs.

"Did you follow me in here?" I ask.

"Into where?"

"Here. Paul Smith. Why?"

"Me? Follow you? Oh come on." He tries to laugh, scoffing at my remark. "Jesus."

"Luis," I say, forcing myself to make eye contact. "Please leave me alone. Go away."

"Patrick," he says. "I love you very much. I hope you realize this."

I moan, moving over to the shoes, smiling wanly at a salesperson.

Luis follows. "Patrick, what are we doing here?"

"Well, I'm trying to buy a tie for my brother and" – I pick up a loafer, then sigh – "and you're trying to give me head, figure it out. Jesus, I'm getting out of here."

I move back over to the tie rack, grab one without choosing and take it up to the register. Luis follows. Ignoring him, I hand the salesgirl the platinum AmEx card and tell her, "There's a bum outside the door." I point out the window at the crying homeless man with the bag of newspapers standing on a bench next to the store's entrance. "You should call the police or something." She nods thanks and runs my card through the computer. Luis just stands there, shyly staring at the ground. I sign the receipt, take the bag and inform the salesgirl, pointing at Luis, "He's not with me."

Outside I try to wave down a cab on Fifth Avenue. Luis hurries out of the store after me.

"Patrick, we've got to talk," he calls out over the roar of traffic. He runs up to me, grabbing my coat sleeve. I whirl around, my switchblade already open, and I jab it threateningly, warning Luis to stay back. People move out of our way, continue walking.

"Hey, whoa, Patrick," he says, holding his hands up, backing off. "Patrick…"

I hiss at him, still holding out the knife until a cab I flag down skids to a stop. Luis tries to get near me, his hands still up, and I keep the knife aimed at him, slicing the air with it, while I open the door to the cab and back in, still hissing, then I close the door and tell the driver to head over to Gramercy Park, to Pooncakes.

Birthday, Brothers

I spend all day thinking about what kind of table my brother Sean and I will be seated at tonight in the Quilted Giraffe. Since it's his birthday and he happens to be in the city, my father's accountant, Charles Conroy, and the trustee of his estate, Nicholas Leigh, both called last week and mutually suggested that it would be in everyone's best interest to use this date as an excuse to find out what Sean's doing with. his life and perhaps to ask a pertinent question or two. And tough both of these men know I despise Sean, and that the feeling is unambiguously reciprocated, it would be a good idea to get him to come to dinner, and as a lure, as bait in case he refuses, by mentioning, not lightly, that something bad has happened. I was on a conference call to Conroy and Leigh last Wednesday afternoon.

"Something bad? Like what?" I asked, trying to concentrate on the numbers sliding across my monitor while simultaneously waving Jean away, even though she was holding a sheaf of papers I was supposed to sign. "That all Michelob breweries in the Northeast are closing? That 976-BIMBO has stopped making house calls?"

"No," Charles said, then quietly mentioned, "Tell him your mother is… worse."

I mulled over this tactic, then said, "He might not care."

"Tell him…" Nicholas paused, then cleared his throat and rather delicately proposed, "it has to do with her estate."

I looked up from the monitor, lowering my Wayfarer aviator sunglasses, and stared at Jean, then lightly fingered the Zagat guide that sat next to the monitor. Pastels would be impossible. Ditto Dorsia. Last time I called Dorsia someone had actually hung up on me even before I asked, "Well, if not next month, how about January?" and though I have vowed to get a reservation at Dorsia one day (if not during this calendar year, then at least before I'm thirty), the energy I would spend attempting this feat isn't worth wasting on Sean. Besides, Dorsia's far too chic for him. I want to make him endure this dinner; to not be allowed the pleasure of being distracted by hardbodies on their way to Nell's; somewhere with a men's room attendant so he would have to be painfully subtle about what is now, I'm sure, his chronic cocaine usage. I handed the Zagat to Jean and asked her to find the most expensive restaurant in Manhattan. She made a nine o'clock reservation at the Quilted Giraffe.

"Things are worse at Sandstone," I tell Sean later this afternoon, around four o'clock. He's staying in our father's suite at the Carlyle. MTV is blasting in the background, other voices shout over its din. I can hear a shower running.

"Like what? Mom ate her pillow? What?"

"I think we should have dinner," I say.

"Dominique, cool it," he says, then places his hand over the phone and mutters something, muffled.

"Hello, Sean? What's going on?" I'm asking.

"I'll call back," he says, hanging up.

I happen to like the tie I bought Sean at Paul Smith last week and I've decided not to give it to him (though the idea of the asshole, say; hanging himself with it pleases me greatly). In fact I decide to wear it to the Quilted Giraffe tonight. Instead of the tie, I'm going to bring him a Casio QD-150 Quick-Dialer combination wristwatch, calculator and data bank. It dials touch-tone phones sonically when held up to a mouthpiece and it stores up to fifty names and numbers. I start laughing while putting this useless gift back into its box, thinking to myself that Sean doesn't even have fifty acquaintances. He couldn't even name fifty people. The Patty Winters Show this morning was about Salad Bars.

Sean calls at five from the Racquet Club and tells me to meet him at Dorsia tonight. He just talked to Brin, the owner, and reserved a table at nine. My mind is a mess. I don't know what to think or how to feel. The Patty Winters Show this morning was about Salad Bars.

Later. Dorsia, nine-thirty: Sean is half an hour late. The maître d' refuses to seat me until my brother arrives. My worst fear – a reality. A prime booth across from the bar sits there, empty, waiting for Sean to grace it with his presence. My rage is controlled, barely, by a Xanax and an Absolut on the rocks. While taking a piss in the men's room, I stare into a thin, weblike crack above the urinal's handle and think to myself that if I were to disappear into that crack, say somehow miniaturize and slip into it, the odds are good that no one would notice I was gone. No… one… would… care. In fact some, if they noticed my absence, might feel an odd, indefinable sense of relief. This is true: the world is better off with some people gone. Our lives are not all interconnected. That theory is a crock. Some people truly do not need to be here. In fact one of them, my brother, Sean, is sitting in the booth he reserved when I come out of the men's room after I've phoned the apartment and checked for messages (Evelyn's suicidal, Courtney wants to buy a chow, Luis suggests dinner on Thursday). Sean is already chain-smoking, and I'm thinking to myself. Damn, why didn't I request a table in the nonsmoking section? He's shaking hands with the maître d' as I walk over but doesn't even bother to introduce us. I sit down and nod. Sean nods too, having already ordered a bottle of Cristal, knowing that I'm paying; also knowing, I'm sure, that I know he doesn't drink champagne.

Sean, who is now twenty-three, went to Europe last fall, or at least this is what Charles Conroy said Sean told him, and though Charles did receive a substantial bill from the Plaza Athénée, the signature on the receipts didn't match Sean's and no one really seemed to know how long Sean was actually in France or even if he had spent real time there. Afterwards he bummed around, then reenrolled at Camden for about three weeks. Now he's in Manhattan before flying to either Palm Beach or New Orleans. Predictably, tonight he's alternately moody and insistently arrogant. He has also, I've just noticed, started to pluck his eyebrows. He no longer has only one. The overwhelming urge I have to mention this to him is quelled only by squeezing my hand into a fist so tightly that I break the skin on the palm of my hand and the biceps of my left arm bulges then rips through the cloth of the linen Armani shirt I have on.

"So you like this place?" he asks, grinning.

"My… favorite," I joke through clenched teeth.

"Let's order," he says, not looking at me, waving to a hardbody, who brings over two menus and a wine list while smiling appreciatively at Sean, who in turn ignores her totally. I open the menu and – damnit – it's not prix fixe, which means that Sean orders the lobster with caviar and peach ravioli as an appetizer and the blackened lobster with strawberry sauce as an entrée-the two most expensive items on the menu. I order the quail sashimi with grilled brioche and the baby soft-shell crabs with grape jelly. A hardbody opens the bottle of Cristal and pours it into crystal tumblers, which I guess is supposed to be cool. After she leaves, Sean notices me staring at him in a vaguely disapproving manner.

"What?" he asks.

"Nothing," I say.

"What… is… it… Patrick?" He spaces the words out, obnoxiously.

"Lobster to start with? And for an entrée?"

"What do you want me to order? The Pringle Potato Chip appetizer?"

"Two lobsters?"

"These matchbooks are slightly larger than the lobster they serve here," he says. "Besides, I'm not that hungry."

"Even more of a reason."

"I'll fax you an apology."

"Still, Sean."

"Rock 'n' roll–"

"I know, I know, rock 'n' roll, deal with it, right?" I say, holding up a hand while sipping the champagne. I wonder if it's not too late to ask one of the waitresses to bring a piece of cake over here with a candle in it just to embarrass the shit out of him, to put the little bastard in his place – but instead I put the glass down and ask, "Listen, so, oh Jesus." I breathe in, then force out, "What did you do today?"

"Played squash with Richard Lindquist." He shrugs contemptuously. "Bought a tuxedo."

"Nicholas Leigh and Charles Conroy want to know if you're going to the Hamptons this summer."

"Not if I can help it," he says, shrugging.

A blond girl close enough to physical perfection, with big tits and a Les Misérables playbill in one hand, wearing a long rayon matte-jersey evening dress by Michael Kors from Bergdorf Goodman, Manolo Blahnik shoes and gold-plated chandelier earrings by Ricardo Siberno, stops by to say hello to Sean and though I would fuck this girl, Sean ignores her flirtatious manner and refuses to introduce me. During this encounter Sean is completely rude, yet the girl leaves smiling, raising a gloved hand. "We'll be at Mortimer's. Later." He nods, staring at my water glass, then waves down a waiter and orders a Scotch, straight.

"Who was that?" I ask.

"Some babe who went to Stephens."

"Where did you meet her?"

"Playing pool at M.K." He shrugs.

"Is she a du Pont?" I ask.

"Why? Do you want her number?"

"No, I just wanted to know if she's a du Pont."

"She might be. I don't know." He lights another cigarette, a Parliament, with what looks like an eighteen-karat gold cigarette lighter from Tiffany's. "She might be a friend of one of the du Ponts."

I keep thinking of reasons why I'm sitting here, right now, tonight, with Sean, at Dorsia, but none come to mind. Just this infinitely recurring zero floats into view. After dinner – the food is small but very good; Sean touches nothing – I tell him that I have to meet Andrea Rothmere at Nell's and if he wants espresso or dessert, he should order it now since I have to be downtown by midnight.

"Why rush?" he asks. "Nell's isn't that hip anymore."

"Well." I falter, quickly regain composure. "We're just going to meet there. We're really going to" – my mind races, lands on something – "Chernoble." I take another sip of champagne from the tumbler.

"Big yawn. Really big yawn," he says, scanning the room.

"Or Contraclub East. I can't remember."

"Out. Stone Age. Prehistory." He laughs cynically.

Tense pause. "How would you know?"

"Rock 'n' roll." He shrugs. "Deal with it."

"Well, Sean where, do you go?"

Immediate answer. "Petty's."

"Oh yes," I murmur, having forgotten that it was already open.

He whistles something, smokes a cigarette.

"We're going to a party Donald Trump's having," I lie.

"Big fun. Very big fun."

"Donald's a nice guy. You should meet him," I say. "I'll… introduce you to him."

"Really?" Sean asks, maybe hopefully, maybe not.

"Yeah, sure." Oh, right.

Now, by the time I get the check… let's see… pay it, take a cab back to my place, it will be almost midnight, which doesn't give me enough time to return yesterday's videotapes, so if I don't stop by my place I can just go in and rent another videotape, though on my membership doesn't it say that you can only take out three at a time? So this means last night I took out two (Body Double and Blond, Hot, Dead) so I could rent one more, but I've forgotten I'm also part of the Gold Circle Membership Plan, which means that if I've spent one thousand dollars (at least) in the last six months then I'm allowed to rent as many videos on any given night as I want, but if I still have two out now that might mean I can't take any more out, Gold Circle Member or not, if the other ones haven't been returned, but–

"Damien. You're Damien," I think I hear Sean mutter.

"What did you say?" I ask, looking up. "I didn't hear you."

"Nice tan," he sighs. "I said nice tan."

"Oh," I say, still confused about the video thing. I look down – at what, my lap? "Uh, thanks."

"Rock'n' roll." He stamps his cigarette out. Fumes rise from the crystal ashtray, then die.

Sean knows I know he can probably get us into Petty's, which is the new Norman Prager club on Fifty-ninth, but I'm not going to ask him and he's not going to offer. I place my platinum American Express card over the check. Sean's eyes are glued to a hardbody by the bar in a Thierry Mugler wool jersey dress and a Claude Montana scarf, sipping from a champagne tumbler. When our waitress come by to pick up the check and the card, I shake my head no. Sean's eyes finally fall on it, for a second, maybe more, and I wave the waitress back over and allow her to take it.

Lunch with Bethany

Today I'm meeting Bethany for lunch at Vanities, the new Evan Kiley bistro in Tribeca, and though I worked out for nearly two hours this morning and even lifted weights in my office before noon, I'm still extremely nervous. The cause is hard to locate but I've narrowed it down to one of two reasons. It's either that I'm afraid of rejection (though I can't understand why: she called me, she wants to see me, she wants to have lunch with me, she wants to fuck me again) or, on the other hand, it could have something to do with this new Italian mousse I'm wearing, which, though it makes my hair look fuller and smells good, feels very sticky and uncomfortable, and it's something I could easily blame my nervousness on. So we wouldn't run out of things to talk about over lunch, I tried to read a trendy new short-story collection called Wok that I bought at Barnes & Noble last night and whose young author was recently profiled in the Fast Track section of New York magazine, but every story started off with the line "When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie" and I had to put this slim volume back into my bookshelf and drink a J&B on the rocks, followed by two Xanax, to recover from the effort. To make up for this, before I fell asleep I wrote Bethany a poem and it took a long time, which surprised me, since I used to write her poems, long dark ones, quite often when we were both at Harvard, before we broke up. God, I'm thinking to myself as I walk into Vanities, only fifteen minutes late, I hope she hasn't ended up with Robert Hall, that dumb asshole. I pass by a mirror hung over the bar as I'm led to our table and check out my reflection – the mousse looks good. The topic on The Patty Winters Show this morning was Has Patrick Swayze Become Cynical or Not?

I have to stop moving as I near the table, following the maître d' (this is all happening in slow motion). She isn't facing me and I can only catch the back of her neck, her brown hair pinned up into a bun, and when she turns to gaze out the window I see only part of her profile, briefly; she looks just like a model. Bethany's wearing a silk gazar blouse and a sills satin start with crinoline. A Paloma Picasso hunter green suede and wrought-iron handbag sits in front of her on the table, next to a bottle of San Pellegrino water. She checks her watch. The couple next to our table is smoking and after I lean in behind Bethany, surprising her, kissing her cheek, I coolly ask the maître d' to reseat us in the nonsmoking section. I'm suave but loud enough for the nicotine addicts to hear me and hopefully feel a slight twinge of embarrassment about their filthy habit.

"Well?" I ask, standing there, arms crossed, tapping my foot impatiently.

'I'm afraid there is no nonsmoking section, sir," the maître d' informs me.

I stop tapping my foot and slowly scan the restaurant, the bistro, wondering how my hair really looks, and suddenly I wish I had switched mousses because since I last saw my hair, seconds ago, it feels different, as if its shape was somehow altered on the walls from bar to table. A pang of nausea that I'm unable to stifle washes warmly over me, but since I'm really dreaming all this I'm able to ask, "So you say there's no nonsmoking section? Is this correct?"

"Yes sir." The maître d', younger than myself, faggy, innocent, an actor no doubt, adds, "I'm sorry."

"Well, this is… very interesting. I can accept this." I reach into my back pocket for my gazelleskin wallet and press a twenty into the maître d's uncertain fist. He looks at the bill, confused, then murmurs "Thank you" and walks away as if in a daze.

"No. Thank you," I call out and take my seat across from Bethany, nodding courteously to the couple next to us, and though I try to ignore her for as long as etiquette allows, I can't. Bethany looks absolutely stunning, just like a model. Everything's murky. I'm on edge. Feverish, romantic notions–

"Didn't you smoke at Harvard?" is the first thing she says.

"Cigars," I say. "Only cigars."

"Oh," she says.

"But I quit that," I lie, breathing in hard, squeezing my hands together.

"That's good." She nods.

"Listen, did you have any trouble getting reservations?" I ask, and I am fucking shaking. I put my hands on the table like a fool, hoping that under her watchful gaze they will stop trembling.

"You don't need reservations here, Patrick," she says soothingly, reaching out a hand, covering one of mine with hers. "Calm down. You look like a wild man."

"I'm clam, I mean calm," I say, breathing in hard, trying to smile, and then, involuntarily, unable to stop myself, ask, "How's my hair?"

"Your hair is fine," she says. "Shhh. It's okay."

"All right. I am all right." I try to smile again but I'm sure it looks just like a grimace.

After a short pause she comments, "That's a nice suit. Henry Stuart?"

"No," I say, insulted, touching its lapel. "Garrick Anderson."

.'It's very nice," she says and then, genuinely concerned, "Are you okay, Patrick? You just… twitched."

"Listen. I'm frazzled. I just got back from Washington. I took the Trump shuttle this morning," I tell her, unable to make eye contact, all in a rush. "It was delightful. The service – really fabulous. I need a drink."

She smiles, amused, studying me in a shrewd way. "Was it?" she asks, not totally, I sense, without smugness.

"Yes." I can't really look at her and it takes immense effort to unfold the napkin, lay it across my lap, reposition it correctly, busy myself with the wineglass, praying for a waiter, the ensuing silence causing the loudest possible sound. "So did you watch The Patty Winters Show this morning?"

"No, I was out jogging," she says, leaning in. "It was about Michael J. Fox, right?"

"No," I correct her. "It was about Patrick Swayze."

"Oh really?" she asks, then, "It's hard to keep.track. You're sure?"

"Yes. Patrick Swayze. I'm positive."

"How was it?"

"Well, it was very interesting," I tell her, breathing in air. "It was almost like a debate, about whether he's gotten cynical or not."

"Do you think he has?" she asks, still smiling.

"Well, no, I'm not sure," I start nervously. "It"s an interesting question. It wasn't explored fully enough. I mean after Dirty Dancing I wouldn't think so, but with Tiger Warsaw I don't know. I might be crazy, but I thought I detected some bitterness. I'm not sure."

She stares at me, her expression unchanged.

"Oh, I almost forgot," I say, reaching into my pocket. "I wrote you a poem." I hand her the slip of paper. "Here." I feel sick and broken, tortured, really on the brink.

"Oh Patrick." She smiles. "How sweet."

"Well, you know," I say, looking down shyly.

Bethany takes the slip of paper and unfolds it.

"Read it," I urge enthusiastically.

She looks it over quizzically, puzzled, squinting, then she turns the page over to see if there's anything on the back. Something in her understands it's short and she looks back at the words written, scrawled in red, on the front of the page.

"It's like haiku, you know?" I say. "Read it. Go on."

She clears her throat and hesitantly begins reading, slowly, stopping often. " 'The poor nigger on the wall. Look at him.' " She pauses and squints again at the paper, then hesitantly resumes. " 'Look at the poor nigger. Look at the poor nigger… on… the… wall.' " She stops again, faltering, looks at me, confused, then back at the paper.

"Go on," I say, looking around for a waiter. "Finish it."

She clears her throat and staring steadily at the paper tries to read the rest of it in a voice below a whisper. " 'Fuck him… Fuck the nigger on the wall…' " She falters again, then reads the last sentence, sighing. " 'Black man… is… de… debil?' "

The couple at the next table have slowly turned to gaze over at us. The man looks aghast, the woman has an equally horrified expression on her face. I stare her down, glaring, until she looks back at her fucking salad.

"Well, Patrick," Bethany says, clearing her throat, trying to smile, handing the paper back to me.

"Yes?" I ask. "Well?"

"I can see that" – she stops, thinking – "that your sense of… social injustice is" – she clears her throat again and looks down – "still intact."

I take the paper back from her and slip it in my pocket and smile, still trying to keep a straight face, holding my body upright so she won't suspect me of cringing. Our waiter comes over to the table and I ask him what kinds of beer they serve.

"Heineken, Budweiser, Amstel light," he recites.

"Yes?" I ask, staring at Bethany, gesturing for him to continue.

"That's, um, all, sir," he says.

"No Corona? No Kirin? No Grolsch? No Morretti?" I ask, confused, irate.

"I'm sorry, sir, but no," he says cautiously. "Only Heineken, Budweiser, Amstel Light."

"That's crazy," I sigh. "I'll have a J&B on the rocks. No, an Absolut martini. No, a J&B straight up."

"And I'll have another San Pellegrino," Bethany says.

"I'll have the same thing;" I quickly add, my leg jerking up then down uncontrollably beneath the table.

"Okay. Would you like to hear the specials?" he asks.

"By all means," I spit out, then, calming down, smile reassuringly at Bethany.

"You're sure?" He laughs.

"Please," I say, unamused, studying the menu.

"For appetizers I have the sun-dried tomatoes and golden caviar with poblano chilies and I also have a fresh endive soup–"

"Wait a minute, wait a minute," I say, holding up a hand, stopping him. "Hold on a minute."

"Yes sir?" the waiter asks, confused.

"You have? You mean the restaurant has," I correct him. "You don't have any sun-dried tomatoes. The restaurant does. You don't have the poblano chilies. The restaurant does. Just, you know, clarify."

The waiter, stunned, looks at Bethany, who handles the situation deftly by asking him, "So how is the endive soup served?"

"Er… cold," the waiter says, not fully recovered from my outburst, sensing he's dealing with someone very, very on edge.

He stops again, uncertain.

"Go on," I urge. "Please go on."

"It's served cold," he starts again. "And for entrées we have monkfish with mango slices and red snapper sandwich on brioche with maple syrup and" – he checks his pad again – "cotton."

"Mmmm, sounds delicious. Cotton, mmmm," I say, rubbing my hands together eagerly. "Bethany?"

"I'll have the ceviche with leeks and sorrel," Bethany says. "And the endive with… walnut dressing."

"Sir?" the waiter asks tentatively.

"I'll have… " I stop, scan the menu quickly. "I'll have the squid with pine nuts and can I have a slice of goat cheese, of chèvre" – I glance over at Bethany to see if she flinches at my mispronunciation – "with that and some… oh, some salsa on the side."

The waiter nods, leaves, we're left alone.

"Well." She smiles, then notices the table slightly shaking. "What's… wrong with your leg?"

"My leg? Oh." I look down at it, then back at her. "It's… the music. I like the music a lot. The music that's playing."

"What is it?" she asks, tilting her head, trying to catch a refrain of the New Age Muzak coming from the speakers hooked to the ceiling over the bar.

"It's… I think it's Belinda Carlisle," I guess. "I'm not sure."

"But…" she starts, then stops. "Oh, forget it."

"But what?"

"But I don't hear any singing." She smiles, looks down demurely.

I hold my leg still and pretend to listen. "But it's one of her songs," I say, then lamely add, "I think it's called 'Heaven Is a Place on Earth.' You know it."

"Listen," she says, "have you gone to any concerts lately?"

"No," I say, wishing she hadn't brought this, of all topics, up. "I don't like live music."

" music?" she asks, intrigued, sipping San Pellegrino water.

"Yeah. You know. Like a band," I explain, sensing from her expression that I'm saying totally the wrong things. "Oh, I forgot. I did see U2."

"How were they?" she asks. "I liked the new CD a lot."

"They were great, just totally great. Just totally…" I pause, unsure of what to say. Bethany raises her eyebrows quizzically, wanting to know more. "Just totally… Irish."

"I've heard they're quite good live," she says, and her own voice has a light, musical lilt to it. "Who else do you like?"

"Oh you know," I say, completely stuck. "The Kingsmen. 'Louie, Louie.' That sort of stuff."

"Gosh, Patrick," she says, looking at every part of my face.

"What?" I panic, immediately touching my hair. "Too much mousse? You don't like the Kingsmen?"

"No." She laughs. "I just don't remember you being so tan back at school."

"I had a tan then, didn't I?" I ask. "I mean I wasn't Casper the Ghost or anything, was I?" I put my elbow on the table and flex my biceps, asking her to squeeze the muscle. After she touches it, reluctantly, I resume my questions. "Was I really not that tan at Harvard?" I ask mock-worriedly, but worriedly.

"No, no." She laughs. "You were definitely the George Hamilton of the class of eighty-four."

"Thanks," I say, pleased.

The waiter brings our drinks – two bottles of San Pellegrino water. Scene Two.

"So you're at Mill… on the water? Taffeta? What is it?" I ask. Her body, her skin tone, seem firm and rosy.

"Milbank Tweed," she says. "That's where I am."

"Well," I say, squeezing a lime into my glass. "That's just wonderful. Law school really paid off."

"And you're at… P & P?" she asks.

"Yes," I say.

She nods, pauses, wants to say something, debates whether she should, then asks, all in a matter of seconds: "But doesn't your family own–"

"I don't want to talk about this," I say, cutting her off. "But yes, Bethany. Yes."

"And you still work at P & P?" she asks. Each syllable is spaced so that it bursts, booming sonically, into my head.

"Yes," I say, looking furtively around the room.

"But–" She's confused. "Didn't your father–"

"Yes, of course," I say, interrupting. "Have you had the focaccia at Pooncakes?"

"Patrick."

"Yes?"

"What's wrong?"

"I just don't want to talk about…" I stop. "About work."

"Why not?"

"Because I hate it," I say. "Now listen, have you tried Pooncakes yet? I think Miller underrated it."

"Patrick," she says slowly. "If you're so uptight about work, why don't you just quit? You don't have to work."

"Because," I say, staring directly at her, "I… want… to… fit. . . in."

After a long pause, she smiles. "I see." There's another pause.

This one I break. "Just look at it as, well, a new approach to business," I say.

"How" – she stalls – "sensible." She stalls again. "How, um, practical."

Lunch is alternately a burden, a puzzle that needs to be solved, an obstacle, and then it floats effortlessly into the realm of relief and I'm able to give a skillful performance – my overriding intelligence tunes in and lets me know that it can sense how much she wants me, but I hold back, uncommitted. She's also holding back, but flirting nonetheless. She has made a promise by asking me to lunch and I panic, once the squid is served, certain that I will never recover unless it's fulfilled. Other men notice her as they pass by our table. Sometimes I coolly bring my voice down to a whisper. I'm hearing things – noise, mysterious sounds, inside my head; her mouth opens, closes, swallows liquid, smiles, takes me in like a magnet covered with lipstick, mentions something involving fax machines, twice. I finally order a J&B on the rocks, then a cognac. She has mint-coconut sorbet. I touch, hold her hand across the table, more than a friend. Sun pours into Vanities, the restaurant empties out, it nears three. She orders a glass of chardonnay, then another, then the check. She has relaxed but something happens. My heartbeat rises and falls, momentarily stabilizes. I listen carefully. Possibilities once imagined plummet. She lowers her eyes and when she looks back at me I lower mine.

"So," she asks. "Are you seeing anyone?"

"My life is essentially uncomplicated," I say thoughtfully, caught off guard.

"What does that mean?" she asks.

I take a sip of cognac and smile secretly to myself, teasing her, dashing her hopes, her dreams of being reunited.

"Are you seeing anyone, Patrick?" she asks. "Come on, tell me.'

Thinking of Evelyn, I murmur to myself, "Yes."

"Who?" I hear her ask.

"A very large bottle of Desyrel," I say in a faraway voice, suddenly very sad.

"What?" she asks, smiling, but then she realizes something and shakes her head. "I shouldn't be drinking."

"No, I'm not really," I say, snapping out of it, then, not of my own accord, "I mean, does anyone really see anyone? Does anyone really see anyone else? Did you ever see me? See? What does that mean? Ha! See? Ha! I just don't get it. Ha!" I laugh.

After taking this in, she says, nodding; "That has a certain kind of tangled logic to it, I suppose."

Another long pause and I fearfully ask the next question. "Well, are you seeing anyone?"

She smiles, pleased with herself, and still looking down, admits, with incomparable clarity, "Well, yes, I have a boyfriend and–"

"Who?"

"What?" She looks up.

"Who is he? What's his name?"

"Robert Hall. Why?"

"With Salomon Brothers?"

"No, he's a chef."

"With Salomon Brothers?"

"Patrick, he's a chef. And co-owner of a restaurant."

"Which one?"

"Does it matter?"

"No, really, which one?" I ask, then under my breath, "I want to cross it out of my Zagat guide."

"Its called Dorsia," she says, then, "Patrick, are you okay?"

Yes, my brain does explode and my stomach bursts open inwardly – a spastic, acidic, gastric reaction; stars and planets, whole galaxies made up entirely of little white chef hats, race over the film of my vision. I choke out another question.

"Why Robert Hall?" I ask. "Why him?"

"Well, I don't know," she says, sounding a little tipsy. "I guess it has to do with being twenty-seven and–"

"Yeah? So am I. So is half of Manhattan. So what? That's no excuse to marry Robert Hall."

"Marry?" she asks, wide-eyed, defensive. "Did I say that?"

"Didn't you say marry?"

"No, I didn't, but who knows." She shrugs. "We might."

"Ter-rific."

"As I was saying, Patrick" – she glares at me, but in a playful way that makes me sick – "I think.you know that, well, time is running out. That biological clock just won't stop ticking," she says, and I'm thinking: My god, it took only two glasses of chardonnay to get her to admit this? Christ, what a lightweight. "I want to have children."

"With Robert Hall?" I ask, incredulous. "You might as well do it with Captain Lou Albano, for Christ sakes. I just don't get you. Bethany."

She touches her napkin, looking down and then out onto the sidewalk, where waiters are setting up tables for dinner. I watch them too. "Why do I sense hostility on your part, Patrick?" she asks softly, then sips her wine.

"Maybe because I'm hostile," I spit out. "Maybe because you sense this."

"Jesus, Patrick," she says, searching my face, genuinely upset. "I thought you and Robert were friends."

"What?" I ask. "I'm confused."

"Weren't you and Robert friends?"

I pause, doubtful. "Were we?"

"Yes, Patrick, you were."

"Robert Hall, Robert Hall, Robert Hall," I mutter to myself, trying to remember. "Scholarship student? President of our senior class?" I think about it a second longer, then add, "Weak chin?"

"No, Patrick," she says. "The other Robert Hall."

"I'm confusing him with the other Robert Hall?" I ask.

"Yes, Patrick," she says, exasperated.

Inwardly cringing, I close my eyes and sigh. "Robert Hall. Not the one whose parents own half of, like, Washington? Not the one who was" – I gulp – "captain of the crew team? Six feet?"

"Yes," she says. "That Robert Hall."

"But…" I stop.

"Yes? But what?" She seems prepared to wait for an answer.

"But he was a fag," I blurt out.

"No, he was not, Patrick," she says, clearly offended.

"I'm positive he was a fag." I start nodding my head.

"Why are you so positive?" she asks, not amused.

"Because he used to let frat guys – not the ones in my house – like, you know, gang bang him at parties and tie him up and stuff. At least, you know, that's what I've heard," I say sincerely, and then, more humiliated than I have ever been in my entire life, I confess, "Listen, Bethany, he offered me a… you know, a blow job once. In the, um, civics section of the library."

"Oh my god," she gasps, disgusted. "Where's the check?"

"Didn't Robert Hall get kicked out for doing his thesis on Babar? Or something like Babar?" I ask. "Babar the elephant? The, oh Jesus, French elephant?"

"What are you talking about?"

"Listen to me," I say. "Didn't he go to business school at Kellogg? At Northwestern, right?"

"He dropped out," she says without looking at me.

"Listen." I touch her hand.

She flinches and pulls back.

I try to smile. "Robert Hall's not a fag–"

"I can assure you of that," she says a tad too smugly. How can anyone get indignant over Robert Hall? Instead of saying "Oh yeah, you dumb sorry bitch" I say soothingly, "I'm sure you can," then, "Tell me about him. I want to know how things stand with the two of you," and then, smiling, furious, full of rage, I apologize. "I'm sorry."

It takes some time but she finally relents and smiles back at me and I ask her, once again, "Tell me more," and then, under my breath, smiling a rictus at her, "I'd like to slice open your beaver." The chardonnay has mellowed her, so she softens and talks freely.

I think about other things while she describes her recent past: air, water, sky, time, a moment, a point somewhere when I wanted to show her everything beautiful in the world. I have no patience for revelations, for new beginnings, for events that take place beyond the realm of my immediate vision. A young girl, a freshman, I met in a bar in Cambridge my junior year at Harvard told me early one fall that "Life is full of endless possibilities." I tried valiantly not to choke on the beer nuts I was chewing while she gushed this kidney stone of wisdom, and I calmly washed them down with the rest of a Heineken, smiled and concentrated on the dart game that was going on in the corner. Needless to say, she did not live to see her sophomore year. That winter, her body was found floating in the Charles River, decapitated, her head hung from a tree on the bank, her hair knotted around a low-hanging branch, three miles away. My rages at Harvard were less violent than the ones now and it's useless to hope that my disgust will vanish – there is just no way.

"Oh, Patrick," she's saying. "You're still the same. I don't know if that's good or bad."

"Say it's good."

"Why? Is it?" she asks, frowning. "Was it? Then?"

"You only knew one facet of my personality," I say. "Student."

"Lover?" she asks, her voice reminding me of someone human.

My eyes fall on her coldly, untouched. Out on the street, music that sounds like salsa blares. The waiter finally brings the check.

"I'll pay for it," I sigh.

"No," she says, opening her handbag. "I invited you."

"But I have a platinum American Express card," I tell her.

"But so do I," she says, smiling.

I pause, then watch her place the card on the tray the check came on. Violent convulsions seem close at hand if I do not get up. "The women's movement. Wow." I smile, unimpressed.

Outside, she waits on the sidewalk while I'm in the men's room throwing up my lunch, spitting out the squid, undigested and less purple than it was on my plate. When I come out of Vanities onto the street, putting on my Wayfarers, chewing a Cert, I murmur something to myself, and then I kiss her on the cheek and make up something else. "Sorry it took so long. Had to call my lawyer."

"Oh?" She acts concerned – the dumb bitch.

'Just a friend of mine." I shrug. "Bobby Chambers. He's in prison. Some friends of his, well, mainly me, are trying to remount his defense," I say with another shrug, then, changing the subject, "Listen."

"Yes?" she asks, smiling.

"It's late. I don't want to go back to the office," I say, checking my Rolex. The sun, setting, glints off it, momentarily blinding her. "Why don't you come up to my place?"

"What?" She laughs.

"Why don't you come up to my place?" I suggest again.

"Patrick." She laughs suggestively. "Are you serious?"

"I have a bottle of Pouilly-Fuissé, chilled, huh?" I say, arching my eyebrows.

"Listen, that line might've worked at Harvard but" – she laughs, then continues – "um, we're older now and. . ." She stops.

"And… what?" I ask.

"I shouldn't have had that wine at lunch," she says again.

We start walking. It's a hundred degrees outside, impossible to breathe. It's not day, it's not night. The sky seems yellow. I hand a beggar on the cornea of Duane and Greenwich a dollar just to impress her.

"Listen, come over," I say again, almost whining. "Come on over."

"I can t," she says. "The air-conditioning in my office is broken but I can't. I'd like to but I can't."

"Aw come on," I say, grabbing her shoulders, giving them a good-natured squeeze.

"Patrick, I have to be back at the office," she groans, protesting weakly.

"But you'll be sweltering in there," I point out.

"I have no choice."

"Come on." Then, trying to entice her, "I have a 1940s Durgin Gorham four-piece sterling silver tea and coffee set I'd like to show you."

"I can't." She laughs, putting on her sunglasses.

"Bethany," I say, warning her.

"Listen," she says, relenting. "I'll buy you a Dove Bar. Have a Dove Bar instead."

"I'm appalled. Do you know how many grams of fat, of sodium, are in the chocolate covering alone?" I gasp, mock horrified.

"Come on," she says. "You don't need to worry about that."

"No, you come on," I say, walking in front of her for a little while so she won't sense any aggressiveness on my part. "Listen, come by for a drink and then we'll walk over to Dorsia and I'll meet Robert, okay?" I turn around, still walking, but backward now. "Please?"

"Patrick," she says. "You're begging."

"I really want to show you that Durgin Gorham tea set." I pause. "Please?" I pause again. "It cost me three and a half thousand dollars."

She stops walking because I stop, looks down, and when she looks back up her brow, both cheeks, are damp with a layer of perspiration, a fine sheen. She's hot. She sighs, smiling to herself. She looks at her watch.

"Well?" I ask.

"If I did…," she starts.

"Ye-e-es?" I ask, stretching the word out.

"If I did, I have to make a phone call."

"No, negative," I say, waving down a cab. "Call from my place."

"Patrick," she protests. "There's a phone right over there."

"Let's go now," I say. "There's a taxi."

In the cab heading toward the Upper West Side, she says, "I shouldn't have had that wine."

"Are you drunk?"

"No," she says, fanning herself with a playbill from Les Misérables someone left in the backseat of the cab, which isn't air-conditioned and even with both windows open she keeps fanning herself. "Just slightly… tipsy.."

We both laugh for no reason and she leans into me, then realizes something and pulls back. "You have a doorman, right?" she asks suspiciously.

"Yes." I smile, turned on by her unawareness of just how close to peril she really is.

Inside my apartment. She moves into the living room area, nodding her head approvingly, murmuring, "Very nice, Mr. Bateman, very nice." Meanwhile I'm locking the door, making sure it's bolted shut, then I move over to the bar and pour some J&B into a glass while she runs her hand over the Wurlitzer jukebox, inspecting it. I've started growling to myself and my hands are shaking so badly I decide to forgo any ice and then I'm in the living room, standing behind her while she looks up at the David Onica that's hung above the fireplace. She cocks her head, studying it, then she starts giggling and looks at me, puzzled, then back at the Onica, still laughing. I don't ask what's wrong – I could care less. Downing the drink in a single gulp, I move over to the Anaholian white-oak armoire where I keep a brand-new nail gun I bought last week at a hardware store near my office in Wall Street. After I've slipped on a pair of black leather gloves, I make sure the nail gun is loaded.

"Patrick?" Bethany asks, still giggling.

"Yes?" I say, then, "Darling?"

"Who hung the Onica?" she asks.

"You like it?" I ask.

"It's fine, but…" She stops, then says, "I'm pretty sure it's hung upside down."

"What?"

"Who hung the Onica?"

"I did," I say, my back still to her.

"You've hung the Onica upside down." She laughs.

"Hmmm?" I'm standing at the armoire, squeezing the nail gun, getting used to its weight in my gloved fist.

"I can't believe it's upside down," she says. "How long has it been this way?"

"A millennium," I whisper, turning around, nearing her.

"What?" she asks, still studying the Onica.

"I said, what in the fuck are you doing with Robert Hall?" I whisper.

"What did you say?" As if in slow motion, like in a movie, she turns around.

I wait until she's seen the nail gun and the gloved hands to scream, "What the fuck are you doing with Robert Hall?"

Perhaps on instinct, perhaps from memory, she makes a futile dash for the front door, crying out. Though the chardonnay has dulled her reflexes, the Scotch I've drunk has sharpened mine, and effortlessly I'm leaping in front of her, blocking her escape, knocking her unconscious with four blows to the head from the nail gun. I drag her back into the living room, laying her across the floor over a white Voilacutro cotton sheet, and then I stretch her arms out, placing her hands flat on thick wooden boards, palms up, and nail three fingers on each hand, at random, to the wood by their tips. This causes her to regain consciousness and she starts screaming. After I've sprayed Mace into her eyes, mouth, into her nostrils, I place a camel-hair coat from Ralph Lauren over her head, which drowns out the screams, sort of. I keep shooting nails into her hands until they're both covered – nails bunched together, twisted over each other in places, making it impossible for her to try and sit up. I have to remove her shoes, which slightly disappoints me, but she's kicking at the floor violently, leaving black scuff marks on the stained white oak. During this period I keep shouting "You bitch" at her and then my voice drops to a raspy whisper and into her ear I drool the line "You fucking cunt."

Finally, in agony, after I've taken the coat off her face, she starts pleading, or at least tries to, the adrenaline momentarily overpowering the pain. "Patrick oh god stop it please oh god stop hurting me…" But, typically, the pain returns – it's too intense not to – and she passes out again and vomits, while unconscious, and I have to hold her head up so she doesn't choke on it and then I Mace her again. The fingers I haven't nailed I try to bite off, almost succeeding on her left thumb which I manage to chew all the flesh off of, leaving the bone exposed, and then I Mace her, needlessly, once more. I place the camel-hair coat back over her head in case she wakes up screaming, then set up the Sony palm-sized Handycam so I can film all of what follows. Once it's placed on its stand and running on automatic, with a pair of scissors I start to cut off her dress and when I get up to her chest I occasionally stab at her breasts, accidentally (not really) slicing off one of her nipples through the bra. She starts screaming again once I've ripped her dress off, leaving Bethany in only her bra, its right cup darkened with blood, and her panties, which are soaked with urine, saving them for later.

I lean in above her and shout, over her screams, "Try to scream, scream, keep screaming…" I've opened all the windows and the door to my terrace and when I stand over her, the mouth opens and not even screams come out anymore, just horrible, guttural, animal-like noises, sometimes interrupted by retching sounds. "Scream, honey," I urge, "keep screaming." I lean down, even closer, brushing her hair back. "No one cares. No one will help you…" She tries to cry out again but she's losing consciousness and she's capable of only a weak moan. I take advantage of her helpless state and, removing my gloves, force her mouth open and with the scissors cut out her tongue, which I pull easily from her mouth and hold in the palm of my hand, warm and still bleeding, seeming so much smaller than in her mouth, and I throw it against the wall, where it sticks for a moment, leaving a stain, before falling to the floor with a tiny wet slap. Blood gushes out of her mouth and I have to hold her head up so she won't choke. Then I fuck her in the mouth, and after I've ejaculated and pulled out, I Mace her some more.

Later, when she briefly regains consciousness, I put on a porkpie hat I was given by one of my girlfriends freshman year at Harvard.

"Remember this?" I shout, towering over her. "And look at this!" I scream triumphantly, holding up a cigar. "I still smoke cigars. Ha. See? A cigar." I light it with steady, bloodstained fingers, and her face, pale to the point of blueness, keeps contracting, twitching with pain, her eyes, dull with horror, close, then open halfway, her life reduced to nightmare.

"And another thing," I yell, pacing. "It's not Carrick Anderson either. The suit is by Armani! Giorgio Armani." I pause spitefully and, leaning into her, sneer, "And you thought it was Henry Stuart. Jesus." I slap her hard across the face and hiss the words "Dumb bitch," spraying her face with spit, but it's covered with so much Mace that she probably can't even feel it, so I Mace her again and then I try to fuck her in the mouth once more but I can't come so I stop.

Thursday

Later, the next night in fact, three of us, Craig McDermott, Courtney and myself, are in a cab heading toward Nell's and talking about Evian water. Courtney, in an Armani mink, has just admitted, giggling, that she uses Evian for ice cubes, which sparks a conversation about the differences in bottled water, and at Courtney's request we each try to list as many brands as we can.

Courtney starts, counting each name off on one of her fingers. "Well, there's Sparcal, Perrier, San Pellegrino, Poland Spring, Calistoga…" She stops, stuck, and looks over at McDermott for help.

He sighs, then lists, "Canadian Spring, Canadian Calm, Montclair, which is also from Canada, Vittel from France, Crodo, which is Italian…" He stops and rubs his chin thoughtfully, thinking of one more, then announces it as if surprised. "Elan." And though it seems he's on the verge of naming another one, Craig lapses into an unilluminating silence.

"Elan?" Courtney asks.

"It's from Switzerland," he says.

"Oh," she says, then turns to me. "It's your turn, Patrick."

Staring out the window of the cab, lost in thought, the silence I'm causing filling me with a nameless dread, numbly, by rote, I list the following. "You forgot Alpenwasser, Down Under, Schat, which is from Lebanon, Qubol and Cold Springs–"

"I said that one already," Courtney cuts in, accusingly.

"No," I say. "You said Poland Spring."

"Is that right?" Courtney murmurs, then tugging at McDermott's overcoat, "Is he right, Craig?"

"Probably." McDermott shrugs. "I guess."

"You must also remember that one should always buy mineral water in glass bottles. You shouldn't buy it in plastic ones," I say ominously, then wait for one of them to ask me why.

"Why?" Courtney's voice is tinged with actual interest.

"Because it oxidizes," I explain. "You want it to be crisp, with no aftertaste.."

After a long, confused, Courtney-like pause, McDermott admits, staring out the window, "He's right."

"I really don't understand the differences in water," Courtney murmurs. She's sitting between McDermott and myself in the back of the cab and under the mink has on a wool twill suit by Givenchy, tights by Calvin Klein and shoes by Warren Susan Allen Edmonds. Earlier, in this same cab, when I touched the mink suggestively, with no intent other than to check its quality and she could sense this, Courtney quietly asked me if I had a breath mint. I said nothing.

"What do you mean?" McDermott inquires solemnly:

"Well," she says, "I mean what's really the difference between something like spring water and natural water, for instance, or, I mean, is there one?"

"Courtney. Natural water is any water from an underground source," Craig sighs, still staring out the window. "Mineral content hasn't been changed, although the water may have been disinfected or filtered." McDermott is wearing a wool tuxedo with notched lapels by Cianni Versace, and he reeks of Xeryus.

I momentarily break out of my conscious inertia to explain further: "And in spring water, minerals may have been added or removed and it's usually filtered, not processed." I pause. "Seventy-five percent of all bottled water in America is actually spring water." I pause again, then ask the cab, "Did anyone know that?"

A long, soulless pause follows and then Courtney asks another question, this one only half finished. "The differences between distilled and purified water is…?"

I'm not really listening to any of this conversation, not even to myself, because I'm thinking of ways to get rid of Bethany's body, or at least debating whether or not I should keep it in my apartment another day or so. If I decide to get rid of it tonight, I can easily stuff what's left of her into a Hefty garbage bag and leave it in the stairwell; or I can exert the extra effort and drag it into the street, leaving it with the rest of the trash on the curb. I could even take it to the apartment in Hell's Kitchen and pour lime over it, smoke a cigar and watch it dissolve while listening to my Walkman, but I want to keep the men's bodies separate from the women's, and besides, I also want to watch Bloodhungry, the videotape I rented this afternoon – its ad line reads, "Some clowns make you laugh, but Bobo will make you die and then he'll eat your body" – and a midnight trip to Hell's Kitchen, even without a stop at Bellvue's for a small bite to eat, wouldn't give me enough time. Bethany's bones and most of her intestines and flesh will probably get dumped into the incinerator down the hall from my apartment.

Courtney, McDermott and I have just left a Morgan Stanley party that took place near the Seaport at the tip of Manhattan in a new club called Goldcard, which seemed like a vast city of its own and where I ran into Walter Rhodes, a total Canadian, whom I haven't seen since Exeter and who also, like McDermott, reeked of Xeryus, and I actually told him, "Listen, I'm trying to stay away from people. I'm avoiding even speaking to them," and then I asked to be excused. Only slightly stunned, Walter said, "Uh, sure, I, um, understand." I'm wearing a six-button double-breasted wool-crepe tuxedo with pleated trousers and a silk grosgrain bow tie, all by Valentino. Luis Carruthers is in Atlanta for the week. I did a line of coke with Herbert Gittes at Goldcard and before McDermott hailed this cab to head for Nell's I took a Halcion to get rid of the edge from the cocaine, but it hasn't sunk in yet. Courtney seems attracted to McDermott and since her Chembank card wasn't functioning tonight, at least not at the automated teller we stopped at (the reason being she uses it too often to cut lines of coke with, though she would never admit this; cocaine residue has, at various times, fucked up my card also) and McDermott's was working, she bypassed mine in favor of his, which means, knowing Courtney, that she wants to fuck McDermott. But it doesn't really matter. Even though I'm more handsome than Craig, we both look pretty much the same. Talking animals were the topic of this morning's Patty Winters Show. An octopus was floating in a makeshift aquarium with a microphone attached to one of its tentacles and it kept asking – or so its "trainer," who is positive that mollusks have vocal cords, assured us – for "cheese." I watched, vaguely transfixed, until I started to sob. A beggar dressed as a Hawaiian frets over a garbage can on the darkened corner of Eighth and Tenth.

"With distilled or purified water," McDermott is saying, "most of the minerals have been removed. The water has been boiled and the steam condensed into purified water."

"Wheras distilled water has a flat taste and it's usually not for drinking." I find myself yawning.

"And mineral water?" Courtney asks.

"It's not defined by the–" McDermott and I start simultaneously.

"Go ahead," I say, yawning again, causing Courtney to yawn also.

"No, you go ahead," he says apathetically.

"It's not defined by the FDA," I tell her. "It has no chemicals or salts or sugars or caffeine."

"And sparkling water gets its fizz from carbon dioxide, right?" she asks.

"Yes." Both McDermott and I nod, staring straight ahead.

"I knew that," she says hesitantly, and by the tone of her voice I can sense, without looking over, that she probably smiles when she says this.

"But only buy naturally sparkling water," I caution. "Because that means the carbon dioxide content is in the water at its source."

"Club soda and seltzer, for example, are artificially carbonated," McDermott explains.

"White Rock seltzer is an exception," I mention, nonplussed by McDermott's ridiculous, incessant one-upmanship. "Ramlösa sparkling mineral water is also very good."

The cab is about to turn onto Fourteenth street, but maybe four or five limousines are trying to make the same right so we miss the light. I curse the driver but an old Motown song from the sixties, maybe it's the Supremes, plays muted, up front, the sound blocked by the fiberglass partition. I try to open it but it's locked and won't slide across. Courtney asks, "What kind should you drink after exercising?"

"Well," I sigh. "Whatever it is, it should be really cold."

"Because?" she asks.

"Because it's absorbed faster than if it was at room temperature." Absently I check my Rolex. "It should probably be water. Evian. But not in plastic."

"My trainer says Gatorade's okay," McDermott counters.

"But don't you hunk water is the best fluid replacer since it enters the bloodstream faster than and other liquid?" I can't help but add, "Buddy?"

I check my watch again. If I have one J&B on the rocks at Nell's I can make it home in time to watch all of Bloodhungry by two. Again it's silent in the cab, which moves steadily toward the crowd outside the club, the limousines dropping off passengers then moving on, each of us concentrating on that, and also on the sky above the city, which is heavy, looming with dark clouds. The limousines keep blaring their horns at each other, solving nothing. My throat, because of the coke I did with Gittes, feels parched and I swallow, trying to wet it. Posters for a sale at Crabtree & Evelyn line the boarded windows of abandoned tenement. buildings on the other side of this street. Spell "mogul," Bateman. How do you spell mogul? M-o-g-u-l. Mo-gul. Mog-ul. Ice, ghosts, aliens–

"I don't like Evian," McDermott says somewhat sadly. "It's too sweet." He looks so miserable when he admits this that it moves me to agree.

Glancing over at him in the darkness of the cab, realizing he's probably going to end up in bed with Courtney tonight, I feel an instantaneous moment of pity for him.

"Yes. McDermott," I say slowly. "Evian is too sweet."

Earlier, there was so much of Bethany's blood pooled on the floor that I could make out my reflection in it while I reached for one of my cordless phones, and I watched myself make a haircut appointment at Gio's. Courtney breaks my trance by admitting, "I was afraid to try Pellegrino for the first time." She looks over at me nervously – expecting me to… what, agree? – then at McDermott, who offers her a wan, tight smile. "But once I did, it was… fine."

"How courageous," I murmur, yawning again, the cab inching its way toward Nell's, then, raising my voice, "Listen, does anyone know of a device you can hook up to your phone to simulate that call-waiting sound?"

Back at my place I stand over Bethany's body, sipping a drink contemplatively, studying its condition. Both eyelids are open halfway and her lower teeth look as if they're jutting out since her lips have been torn – actually bitten – off. Earlier in the day I had sawed off her left arm, which is what finally killed her, and right now I pick it up, holding it by the bone that protrudes from where her hand used to be (I have no idea where it is now: the freezer? the closet?), clenching it in my fist like a pipe, flesh and muscle still clinging to it though a lot of it has been hacked or gnawed off, and I bring it down on her head. It takes very few blows, five or six at most, to smash her jaw open completely, and only two more for her face to cave in on itself.

Whitney Houston

Whitney Houston burst onto the music scene in 1985 with her self-titled LP which had four number one hit singles on it, including "The Greatest Love of All," "You Give Good Love" and "Saving All My Love for You," plus it won a Grammy Award for best pop vocal performance by a female and two American Music Awards, one for best rhythm and blues single and another for best rhythm and blues video. She was also cited as best new artist of the year by Billboard and by Rolling Stone magazine. With all this hype one might expect the album to be an anticlimactic, lackluster affair, but the surprise is that Whitney Houston (Arista) is one of the warmest, most complex and altogether satisfying rhythm and blues records of the decade and Whitney herself has a voice that defies belief. From the elegant, beautiful photo of her on the cover of the album (in a gown by Giovanne De Maura) and its fairly sexy counterpart on the back (in a bathing suit by Norma Kaman) one knows that this isn't going to be a blandly professional affair; the record is smooth but intense and Whitney's voice leaps across so many boundaries and is so versatile (though she's mainly a jazz singer) that it's hard to take in the album on a first listening. But you won't want to. You'll want to savor it over many.

It opens with "You Give Good Love" and "Thinking About You," both produced and arranged by Kashif, and they emanate warm, lush jazz arrangements but with a contemporary synthesized beat and though they're both really good songs, the album doesn't get kicking until "Someone for Me" which was produced by Jermaine Jackson, where Whitney sings longingly against a jazz-disco background and the difference between her longing and the sprightliness of the song is very moving. The ballad "Saving All My Love for You" is the sexiest, most romantic song on the record. It also has a killer saxophone solo by Tom Scott and one can hear the influences of sixties girl-group pop in it (it was cowritten by Gerry Goffin) but the sixties girl groups were never this emotional or sexy (or as well produced) as this song is. "Nobody Loves Me Like You Do" is a glorious duet with Jermaine Jackson (who also produced it) and just one example of how sophisticated lyrically this album is. The last thing it suffers from is a paucity of decent lyrics which is what usually happens when a singer doesn't write her own material and has to have her producer choose it. But Whitney and company have picked well here.

The dance single "How Will I Know" (my vote for best dance song of the 1980s) is a joyous ode to a girl's nervousness about whether another guy is interested in her. It's got a great keyboard riff and it's the only track on the album produced by wunderkind producer Narada Michael Walden. My own personal favorite ballad (aside from 'The Greatest Love of All" – her crowning achievement) is "All at Once" which is about how a young woman realizes all at once her lover is fading away from her and it's accompanied by a gorgeous string arrangement. Even though nothing on the album sounds like filler, the only track that might come close is "Take Good Care of My Heart," another duet with Jermaine Jackson. The problem is that it strays from the album's jazz roots and seems too in. fluenced by 1980s dance music.

But Whitney's talent is restored with the overwhelming "The Greatest Love of All," one of the best, most powerful songs ever written about self-preservation and dignity. From the first line (Michael Masser and Linda Creed are credited as the writers) to the last, it's a state-of-the-art ballad about believing in yourself. It's a powerful statement and one that Whitney sings with a grandeur that approaches the sublime. Its universal message crosses all boundaries and instills one with the hope that it's not too late for us to better ourselves, to act kinder. Since it's impossible in the world we live in to empathize with others, we can always empathize with ourselves. It's an important message, crucial really, and it's beautifully stated on this album.

Her second effort, Whitney (Arista, 1987), had four number one singles, "I Wanna Dance with Somebody," "So Emotional," "Didn't We Almost Have It All?" and "Where Do Broken Hearts Go?" and was mostly produced by Narada Michael Walden and though it's not as serious an effort as Whitney Houston it's hardly a victim of Sophomore Slump. It starts off with the bouncy; danceable "I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)" which is in the same vein as the last album's irrepressible "How Will I Know." This is followed by the sensuous "Just the Lonely Talking Again" and it reflects the serious jazz influence that permeated the first album and one can also sense a newfound artistic maturity in Whitney's voice – she did all the vocal arrangements on this album – and this is all very evident on "Love Will Save the Day" which is the most ambitious song Whitney's yet performed. It was produced by Jellybean Benitez and it pulsates with an uptempo intensity and like most of the songs on this album it reflects a grownup's awareness of the world we all live in. She sings and we believe it. This is quite a change from the softer, little-girl-lost image that was so appealing on the first album.

She projects an even more adult image on the Michael Masser-produced "Didn't We Almost Have It All," a song about meeting up with a long-lost lover and letting him know your feelings about the past affair, and it's Whitney at her most poetic. And as on most of the ballads there's a gorgeous string arrangement. "So Emotional" is in the same vein as "How Will I Know" and "I Wanna Dance with Somebody" but it's even more rock-influenced and, like all the songs on Whitney, played by a terrific backup studio band with Narada on drum machine, Wolter Afanasieff on the synthesizer and synth bass, Corrado Rustici on synth guitar, and someone listed as Bongo Bob on percussion programming and drum sampling. "Where You Are" is the only song on the album produced by Kashif and it bears his indelible imprint of professionalism – it has a smooth, gleaming sound and sheen to it with a funky sax solo by Vincent Henry. It sounded like a hit single to me (but then all the songs on the album do) and I wondered why it wasn't released as one.

"Love Is a Contact Sport" is the album's real surprise – a big-sounding, bold, sexy number that, in terms of production, is the album's centerpiece, and it has great lyrics along with a good beat. It's one of my favorites. On "You're Still My Man" you can hear how clearly Whitney's voice is like an instrument – a flawless, warm machine that almost overpowers the sentiment of her music, but the lyrics and the melodies are too distinctive, too strong to let any singer, even one of Whitney's caliber, overshadow them. "For the Love of You" shows off Narada's brilliant drum programming capabilities and its jazzy modern feel harks back not only to purveyors of modern jazz like Michael Jackson and Sade but also to other artists, like Miles Davis, Paul Butterfield and Bobby McFerrin.

"Where Do Broken Hearts Go" is the album's most powerful emotional statement of innocence lost and trying to regain the safety of childhood. Her voice is as lovely and controlled as it ever has been and it leads up to "I Know Him So Well," the most moving moment on the record because it's first and foremost a duet with her mother, Cissy. It's a ballad about… who? – a lover shared? a long-lost father? – with a combination of longing, regret, determination and beauty that ends the album on a graceful, perfect note. We can expect new things from Whitney (she made a stunning gift to the 1988 Olympics with the ballad "One Moment in Time") but even if we didn't, she would remain the most exciting and original black jazz voice of her generation.

Dinner with Secretary

Monday night at eight o'clock. I'm in my office attempting yesterday's New York Times Sunday crossword puzzle, listening to rap music on the stereo, trying to fathom its popularity, since a little blonde hardbody I met at Au Bar two nights ago told me that rap is all she listens to, and though later I beat the living shit out of her at someone's apartment in the Dakota (she was almost decapitated; hardly a strange experience for me), earlier this morning her taste in music haunted my memory and I had to stop at Tower Records on the Upper West Side and buy ninety dollars' worth of rap CDs but, as expected, I'm at a loss: niggerish voices uttering ugly words like digit, pudding, chunk. Jean sits at her desk, which is piled high with reams of documents that I want her to go over. Today has not been bad: I worked out for two hours before the office; the new Robison Hirsch restaurant called Finna opened in Chelsea; Evelyn left two messages on my answering machine and another with Jean, letting me know that she'll be in Boston for most of the week; and best of all, The Patty Winters Show this morning was in two parts. The first was an exclusive interview with Donald Trump, the second was a report on women who've been tortured. I'm supposed to have dinner with Madison Grey and David Campion at Café Luxembourg, but at eight-fifteen I find out that Luis Carruthers is going to be dining with us so I call up Campion, the dumb bastard, and cancel, then spend minutes debating about what I should do with the rest of the evening. Looking out my window, I realize that within moments the sky above this city will be completely dark.

Jean peers into my office, knocking gently on the half-open door. I pretend not to acknowledge her presence, though I'm not sure why, since I'm kind of lonely. She moves up to the desk. I'm still staring at the crossword puzzle with my Wayfarers on, stunned but for no real reason.

She places a file on top of the desk before asking, "Doin' the crossword?" dropping the g in "doing" – a pathetic gesture of intimacy, an irritating stab at forced friendliness. I gag inwardly, then nod without looking up at her.

"Need help?" she asks, moving cautiously around the desk to where I sit, and she leans over my shoulder to offer assistance. I've already filled in every space with either the word meat or bone and she emits only a slight gasp when noticing this, and when she sees the pile of No. 2 pencils I've snapped in half lying on my desk she dutifully picks them up and walks out of the room.

"Jean?" I call.

"Yes, Patrick?" She reenters the office trying to downplay her eagerness.

"Would you like to accompany me to dinner?" I ask, still staring at the crossword, gingerly erasing the m in one of the many meats I've filled the puzzle with. "That is, if you're not… doing anything."

"Oh no," she answers too quickly and then, I think, realizing this quickness, says, "I have no plans."

"Well, isn't this a coincidence," I ask, looking up, lowering my Wayfarers.

She laughs lightly but there's a real urgency in it, something uncomfortable, and this does little in the way of making me feel less sick.

"I guess," she shrugs.

"I also have tickets to a… a Mills Vanilla concert, if you'd like to go," I tell her casually.

Confused, she asks, "Really? Who?"

"Milla… Vanilla," I repeat slowly.

"Milla… Vanilla?" she asks uncomfortably.

"Milla… Vanilla," I say. "I think that's what their name is."

She says, "I'm not sure."

"About going?"

"No… of the name." She concentrates, then says, "I think they're called… Milli Vanilli."

I pause for a long time before saying, "Oh."

She stands there, nods once.

"It doesn't matter," I say – I don't have any tickets to it anyway. "It's months from now."

"Oh," she says, nodding again. "Okay."

"Listen, where should we go?" I lean back and pull my Zagat from the desk's top drawer.

She pauses, afraid of what to say, taking my question as a test she needs to pass, and then, unsure she's chosen the right answer, offers, "Anywhere you want?"

"No, no, no." I smile, leafing through the booklet. "How about anywhere you want?"

"Oh Patrick," she sighs. "I can't make this decision."

"No, come on," I urge. "Anywhere you want."

"Oh I can't." Helplessly, she sighs again. "I don't know."

"Come on," I urge her, "where do you want to go? Anywhere you want. Just say it. I can get us in anywhere."

She thinks about it for a long time and then, sensing her time is running out, timidly asks, trying to impress me, "What about… Dorsia?"

I stop looking through the Zagat guide and without glancing up, smiling tightly, stomach dropping, I silently ask myself, Do I really want to say no? Do I really want to say I can't possibly get us in? Is that what I'm really prepared to do? Is that what I really want to do?

"So-o-o-o," I say; placing the book down, then nervously opening it up again to find the number. "Dorsia is where Jean wants to go…"

"Oh I don't know," she says, confused. "No, we'll go anywhere you want."

"Dorsia is… fine," I say casually, picking up the phone, and with a trembling finger very quickly dial the seven dreaded numbers, trying to remain cool. Instead of the busy signal I'm expecting, the phone actually rings at Dorsia and after two rings the same harassed voice I've grown accustomed to for the past free months answers, shouting out, "Dorsia, yes?" the room behind the voice a deafening hum.

"Yes, can you take two tonight, oh, let's say, in around twenty minutes?" I ask, checking my Rolex, offering Jean a wink. She seems impressed.

"We are totally booked," the maître d' shouts out smugly.

"Oh, really?" I say, trying to look pleased, on the verge of vomiting. "That's great."

"I said we are totally booked," he shouts.

"Two at nine?" I say. "Perfect."

"There are no tables available tonight," the maître d', unflappable, drones. "The waiting list is also totally booked." He hangs up.

"See you then." I hang up too, and with a smile that tries its best to express pleasure at her choice, I find myself fighting for breath, every muscle tensed sharply. Jean is wearing a wool jersey and flannel dress by Calvin Klein, an alligator belt with a silver buckle by Barry Kieselstein Cord, silver earrings and clear stockings also by Calvin Klein. She stands there in front of the desk, confused.

"Yes?" I ask, walking over to the coatrack. "You're dressed… okay."

She pauses. "You didn't give them a name," she says softly.

I think about this while putting on my Armani jacket and while reknotting my Armani silk tie, and without stammering I tell her, "They… know me."

While the maître d' seats a couple who I'm pretty sure are Kate Spencer and Jason Lauder, Jean and I move up to his podium, where the reservation book lies open, names absurdly legible, and leaning over it casually I spot the only name for two at nine without a line drawn through it, which happens to be – oh Jesus – Schrawtz. I sigh, and tapping my foot, my mind racing, I try to concoct some kind of feasible plan. Suddenly I turn to Jean and say, "Why don't you go to the women's room."

She's looking around the restaurant, taking it in. Chaos People are waiting ten deep at the bar. The maître d' seats the couple at a table in the middle of the room. Sylvester Stallone and a bimbo sit in the front booth that Sean and I sat in just weeks before, much to my sickened amazement, and his bodyguards are piled into the booth next to that, and the owner of Petty's, Norman Prager, lounges in the third. Jean turns her head to me and shouts "What?" over the din.

"Don't you want to use the ladies' room?" I ask. The maître d' nears us, picking his way through the packed restaurant, unsmiling.

"Why? I mean… do I?" she asks, totally confused.

'Just. . . go," I hiss, desperately squeezing her arm.

"But I don't need to go, Patrick," she protests.

"Oh Christ," I mutter. Now it's too late anyway.

The maître d' walks up to the podium and inspects the book, takes a phone call, hangs up in a matter of seconds, then looks us over, not exactly displeased. The maître d' is at least fifty and has a ponytail. I clear my throat twice to get his full attention, make some kind of lame eye contact.

"Yes?" he asks, as if harassed.

I give him a dignified expression before sighing inside. "Reservations at nine…" I gulp. "For two."

"Ye-e-es?" he asks suspiciously, drawing the word out. "Name?" he says, then turns to a passing waiter, eighteen and model handsome, who'd asked, "Where's da ice?" He's glaring and shouting, "Not… now. Okay? How many times do you need to be told?" The waiter shrugs, humbly, and then the maître d' points off toward the bar, "Da ice is over dere!" He turns back to us and I am genuinely frightened.

"Name," he commands.

And I'm thinking: Of all the fucking names, why this one? "Um, Schrawtz" – oh god – "Mr. and Mrs. Schrawtz." My face, I'm sure, is ashen and I say the name mechanically, but the maître d' is too busy to not buy it and I don't even bother to face Jean, who I'm sure is totally bewildered by my behavior as we're led to the Schrawtzes' table, which I'm sure probably sucks though I'm relieved anyway.

Menus already lie on the table but I'm so nervous the words and even the prices look like hieroglyphics and I'm completely at a loss. A waiter takes our drink order – the same one who couldn't locate the ice – and I find myself saying things, without listening to Jean, like "Protecting the ozone layer is a really cool idea" and telling knock-knock jokes. I smile, fixing it on my face, in another country, and it takes no time at all – minutes, really, the waiter doesn't even get a chance to tell us about the specials – for me to notice the tall, handsome couple by the podium conferring with the maître d', and after sighing very deeply, light-headed, stammering, I mention to Jean, "Something bad is happening."

She looks up from the menu and puts down the iceless drink

she's been sipping. "Why? What's wrong?"

The maître d' is glaring over at us, at me, from across the room as he leads the couple toward our table. If the couple had been short, dumpy, excessively Jewish, I could've kept this table, even without the aid of a fifty, but this couple looks like they've just strolled out of a Ralph Lauren ad, and though Jean and I do too (and so does the rest of the whole goddamn restaurant), the man is wearing a tuxedo and the girl – a totally fuckable babe – is covered with jewels. This is reality, and as my loathsome brother Sean would say, I have to deal with it. The maître d' now stands at the table, hands clasped behind his balk, unamused, and after a long pause asks, "Mr. and Mrs… Schrawtz?"

"Yes?" I play it cool.

He just stares. This is accompanied by an abnormal silence. His ponytail, gray and oily, hangs like some kind of malignancy below his collar.

"You know," I finally say, somewhat suavely, "I happen to know the chef."

He continues staring. So, no doubt, does the couple behind him.

After another long pause, for no real reason, I ask, "Is he… in Aspen?"

This is getting nowhere. I sigh and turn to Jean, who looks completely mystified. "Let's go, okay?" She nods dumbly. Humiliated, I take Jean's hand and we get up – she slower than I – brushing past the maître d' and the couple, and make our way back through the crowded restaurant and then we're outside and I'm utterly devastated and murmuring robotically to myself "I should have known better I should have known better I should," but Jean skips down the street laughing, pulling me along, and when I finally notice her unexpected mirth, between giggles she lets out "That was so funny" and then, squeezing my clenched fist, she lets me know "Your sense of humor is so spontaneous." Shaken, walking stiffly by her side, ignoring her, I ask myself "Where… to… now?" and in seconds come up with an answer – Arcadia, toward which I find myself guiding us.

After someone who I think is Hamilton Conway mistakes me for someone named Ted Owen and asks if I can get him into Petty's tonight – I tell him, "I'll see what I can do," then turn what's left of my attention to Jean, who sits across from me in the near-empty dining room of Arcadia – after he leaves, only five of the restaurant's tables have people at them. I've ordered a J&B on the rocks. Jean's sipping a glass of white wine and talking about how what she really wants to do is "get into merchant banking" and I'm thinking: Dare to dream. Someone else, Frederick Dibble, stops by and congratulates me on the Larson account and then has the nerve to say, "Talk to you later; Saul." But I'm in a daze, millions of miles away, and Jean doesn't notice; she's talking about a new novel she's been reading by some young author – its cover, I've seen, slathered with neon; its subject, lofty suffering. Accidentally I think she's talking about something else and I find myself saying, without really looking over at her, "You need a tough skin to survive in this city." She flushes, seems embarrassed and takes another sip of the wine, which is a nice sauvignon blanc.

"You seem distant," she says.

"What?" I ask, blinking.

"I said you seem distant," she says.

"No," I sigh. "I'm still my same kooky self."

"That's good." She smiles – am I dreaming this? – relieved.

"So listen," I say, trying to focus in on her, "what do you really want to do with your life?" Then, remembering how she was droning on about a career in merchant banking, I add, "Just briefly, you know, summarize." Then I add, "And don't tell me you enjoy working with children, okay?"

"Well, I'd like to travel," she says. "And maybe go back to school, but I really don't know…" She pauses thoughtfully and announces, sincerely, "I'm at a point in my life where there seems to be a lot of possibilities, but I'm so… I don't know… unsure."

"I think it's also important for people to realize their limitations." Then, out of the blue I ask, "Do you have a boyfriend?"

She smiles shyly, blushes, and then says, "No. Not really."

"Interesting," I murmur. I've opened my menu and I'm studying tonight's prix fixe dinner.

"Are you seeing anyone?" she ventures timidly. "I mean, seriously?"

I decide on the pilot fish with tulips and cinnamon, evading the question by sighing, "I just want to have a meaningful relationship with someone special," and before she's allowed to respond I ask her what she's going to order.

"I think the mahi-mahi," she says and then, squinting at the menu, "with ginger."

"I'm having the pilot fish," I say. "I'm developing a taste for them. For… pilot fish," I say, nodding.

Later, after a mediocre dinner, a bottle of expensive California cabernet sauvignon and a crime brûlée that we share, I order a glass of fifty-dollar port and Jean sips a decaffeinated espresso and when she asks where the restaurant got its name, I tell her, and I don't make anything ridiculous up – though I'm tempted, just to see if she'd believe it anyway. Sitting across from Jean right now in the darkness of Arcadia, it's very easy to believe that she would swallow any kind of misinformation I push her way – the crush she has on me rendering her powerless – and I find this lack of defense oddly unerotic. I could even explain my pro-apartheid stance and have her find reasons why she too should share them and invest large sums of money in racist corporations tha-

"Arcadia was an ancient region in Peloponnesus, Greece; which was founded in 370 Bs.C., and it was completely surrounded by mountains. Its chief city was… Megalopolis, which was also the center of political activity and the capital of the Arcadian confederacy…" I take a sip of the port, which is thick, strong, expensive. "It was destroyed during the Greek war of independence…" I pause again. "Pan was worshiped originally in Arcadia. Do you know who Pan was?"

Never taking her eyes off me, she nods.

"His revels were very similar to those of Bacchus," I tell her. "He frolicked with nymphs at night but he also liked to… frighten travelers during the day… Hence the word pan-ic." Blah blah blah. I'm amused that I've retained this knowledge and I look up from the port I've been staring thoughtfully into and smile at her. She's silent for a long time, confused, unsure of how to respond, but eventually she looks deeply into my eyes and says, haltingly, leaning across the table, "That's… so… interesting," which is all that comes out of her mouth, is all she has to say.

Eleven thirty-four. We stand on the sidewalk in front of Jean's apartment on the Upper East Side. Her doorman eyes us warily and fills me with a nameless dread, his gaze piercing me from the lobby. A curtain of stars, miles of them, are scattered, glowing, across the sky and their multitude humbles me, which I have a hard time tolerating. She shrugs and nods after I say something about forms of anxiety. It's as if her mind is having a hard time communicating with her mouth, as if she is searching for a rational analysis of who I am, which is, of course, an impossibility: there… is… no… key.

"Dinner was wonderful," she says. "Thank you very much."

"Actually, the food was mediocre, but you're welcome." I shrug.

"Do you want to come up for a drink?" she asks too casually, and even though I'm critical of her approach it doesn't necessarily mean that I don't want to go up – but something stops me, something quells the bloodlust: the doorman? the way the lobby is lit? her lipstick? Plus I'm beginning to think that pornography is so much less complicated than actual sex, and because of this lack of complication, so much more pleasurable.

"Do you have any peyote?" I ask.

She pauses, confused. "What?"

"Just a joke," I say, then, "Listen, I want to watch David Letterman so. . ." I pause, unsure as to why I'm lingering. "I should go."

"You can watch it…" She stops, then suggests, "at my place."

I pause before asking, "Do you have cable?"

"Yes." She nods. "I have cable."

Stuck, I pause again, then pretend to mull it over. "No, it's okay. I like to watch it… without cable."

She offers a sad, perplexed glance. "What?"

"I have to return some videotapes," I explain in a rush.

She pauses. "Now? It's" – she checks her witch – "almost midnight.

"Well, yeah," I say, considerably detached.

"Well, I guess… it's good night then," she says.

What kind of books does Jean read? Titles race through my mind: How to Make a Man Fall in Love with You. How to Keep a Man in Lone with You Forever. How to Close a Deal: Get Married. How to Be Married One Year from Today. Supplicant. In my overcoat pocket I finger the ostrich condom case from Luc Benoit I bought last week but, er, no.

After awkwardly shaking hands she asks, still holding mine, "Really? You don't have cable?"

And though it has been in no way a romantic evening, she embraces me and this time emanates a warmth I'm not familiar with. I am so used to imagining everything happening the way it occurs in movies, visualizing things falling somehow into the shape of events on a screen, that I almost hear the swelling of an orchestra, can almost hallucinate the camera panning low around us, fireworks bursting in slow motion overhead, the seventy-millimeter image of her lips parting and the subsequent murmur of "I want you" in Dolby sound. But my embrace is frozen and I realize, at first distantly and they with greater clarity, that the havoc raging inside me is gradually subsiding and she is kissing me on the mouth and this jars me back into some kind of reality and I lightly push her away. She glances up at me fearfully.

"Listen, I've got to go," I say, checking my Rolex. "I don't want to miss… Stupid Pet Tricks."

"Okay," she says, composing herself. "Bye."

"Night," I say.

We both head off in our separate directions, but suddenly she calls out something.

I turn around.

"Don't forget you have a breakfast meeting with Frederick Bennet and Charles Rust at '21,' " she says from the door, which the doorman is holding open for her.

"Thanks," I call out, waving. "It slipped my mind completely."

She waves back, disappearing into the lobby.

On my way over to Park Avenue to find a cab I pass an ugly, homeless bum – a member of the genetic underclass – and when he softly pleads for change, for "anything," I notice the Barnes & Noble book bag that sits next to him on the steps of the church he's begging on and I can't help but smirk, out loud, "Oh right, like you read…," and then, in the back of the cab on the way across town to my apartment, I imagine running around Central Park on a cool spring afternoon with Jean, laughing, holding hands. We buy balloons, we let them go.

Detective

May slides into June which slides into July which creeps toward August. Because of the heat I've had intense dreams the last four nights about vivisection and I'm doing nothing now, vegetating in my office with a sickening headache and a Walkman with a soothing Kenny G CD playing in it, but the bright midmorning sunlight floods the room, piercing my skull, causing my hangover to throb, and because of this, there's no workout this morning. Listening to the music I notice the second light on my phone blinking off and on, which means that Jean is buzzing me. I sigh and carefully remove the Walkman.

"What is it?" I ask in monotone.

"Um, Patrick?" she begins.

"Ye-es, Je-an?" I ask condescendingly, spacing the two words out.

"Patrick, a Mr. Donald Kimball is here to see you," she says nervously.

"Who?" I snap, distracted.

She emits a small sigh of worry, then, as if asking, lowers her voice. "Detective Donald Kimball?"

I pause, staring out the window into sky, then at my monitor, then at the headless woman I've been doodling on the back cover of this week's Sports Illustrated, and I run my hand over the glossy finish of the magazine once, twice, before tearing the cover off and crumpling it up. Finally I start. "Tell him…" Then, mulling it over, rethinking my options, I stop and begin again. "Tell him I'm at lunch."

Jean pauses, then whispers. "Patrick… I think he knows you're here." During my protracted silence, she adds, still hushed, "It's ten-thirty."

I sigh, stalling again, and in a contained panic tell Jean, "Send him in, I guess."

I stand up, walk over to the Jodi mirror that hangs next to the George Stubbs painting and check my hair, running an oxhorn comb through it, then, calmly, I pick up one of my cordless phones and, preparing myself for a tense scene, pretend to be talking with John Akers, and I start enunciating clearly into the phone before the detective enters the office.

"Now, John…" I clear my throat. "You've got to wear clothes in proportion to your physique," I begin, talking to nobody. "There are definitely dos and don'ts, good buddy, of wearing a bold-striped shirt. A bold-striped shirt calls for solid colored or discreetly patterned suits and ties.…"

The door to the office opens and I wave in the detective, who is surprisingly young, maybe my age, wearing a linen Armani suit not unlike mine, though his is slightly disheveled in a hip way, which worries me. I offer a reassuring smile.

"And a shirt with a high yarn count means it's more durable than one that doesn't… Yes, I know… But to determine this you've got to examine the material's weave…" I point to the Mark Schrager chrome and teak chair on the opposite side of my desk, silently urging him to sit.

"Tightly woven fabric is created not only by using a lot of yarn but by using yarn of high-quality fibers, both long and thin, which… yes… which are… which fabricate a close weave as opposed to short and stubbly fibers, like those found in tweed. And loosely woven fabrics such as knits are extremely delicate and should be treated with great care…" Because of the detective's arrival, it seems unlikely that this will be a good day and I eye him warily as he takes the seat and crosses his legs in a way that fills me with a nameless dread. I realize I've been quiet too long when he turns around to see if I'm off the phone.

"Right, and… Yes, John, right. And… yes, always tip the stylist fifteen percent…" I pause. "No, the owner of the salon shouldn't be tipped… . " I shrug at the detective hopelessly, rolling my eyes. He nods, smiles understandingly and recrosses his legs. Nice socks. Jesus. "The girl who washes the hair? It depends. I'd say a-dollar or two…" I laugh. "Depends on what she looks like…" I laugh harder. "And yeah, what else she washes…" I pause again, then say, "Listen, John, I've got to go. T. Boone Pickens just walked in…" I pause, grinning like an idiot, then laugh. "Just joking…" Another pause. "No, don't tip the owner of the salon." I laugh once more, then, finally, "Okay, John… right, got it." I hang up the phone, push its antenna down and then, uselessly stressing my normality, say, "Sorry about that."

"No, I'm sorry," he says, genuinely apologetic. "I should've made an appointment." Gesturing toward the cordless phone I'm placing back in its recharging cradle, he asks, "Was that, uh, anything important?"

"Oh that?" I ask, moving toward my desk, sinking into my chair. 'Just mulling over business problems. Examining opportunities… Exchanging rumors… Spreading gossip." We both laugh. The ice breaks.

"Hi," he says, sitting up, holding out his hand. "I'm Donald Kimball."

"Hi. Pat Bateman." I take it, squeezing it firmly. "Nice to meet you."

"I'm sorry," he says, "to barge in on you like this, but I was supposed to talk to Luis Carruthers and he wasn't in and… well, you're here, so…" He smiles, shrugs. "I know how busy you guys can get." He averts his eyes from the three copies of Sports Illustrated that lie open atop my desk, covering it, along with the Walkman. I notice them too, then close all three issues and slip them into the desk's top drawer along with the still-running Walkman.

"So," I start, trying to come off as friendly and conversational as possible. "What's the topic of discussion?"

"Well," he starts. "I've been hired by Meredith Powell to investigate the disappearance of Paul Owen."

I nod thoughtfully before asking, "You're not with the FBI or anything, are you?"

"No, no," he says. "Nothing like that. I'm just a private investigator."

"Ah, I see… Yes." I nod again, still not relieved. "Paul's disappearance… Yes."

"So it's nothing that official," he confides. "I just have some basic questions. About Paul Owen. About yourself–"

"Coffee?" I ask suddenly.

As if unsure, he says, "No, I'm okay."

"Perrier? San Pellegrino?" I offer.

"No, I'm okay," he says again, opening a small black notebook he's taken out of his pocket along with a gold Cross pen.

I buzz Jean.

"Yes, Patrick?"

"Jean can you bring Mr…" I stop, look up.

He looks up too. "Kimball."

"…Mr. Kimball a bottle of San Pelle–"

"Oh no, I'm okay," he protests.

"It's no problem," I tell him.

I get the feeling he's trying not to stare at me strangely. He turns back to his notebook and writes something down, then crosses something out. Jean walks in almost immediately and she places the bottle of San Pellegrino and a Steuben etched-glass tumbler on my desk in front of Kimball. She gives me a fretful, worried glance, which I scowl at. Kimball looks up, smiles and nods at Jean, who I notice is not wearing a bra today. Innocently, I watch her leave, then return my gaze to Kimball, clasping my hands together, sitting up. "Well, what's the topic of discussion?" I say again.

"The disappearance of Paul Owen," he says, reminding me.

"Oh right. Well, I haven't heard anything about the disappearance or anything…" I pause, then try to laugh. "Not on Page Six at least."

Kimball smiles politely. "I think his family wants this kept quiet."

"Understandable." I nod at the untouched glass and bottle, and then look up at him. "Lime?"

"No, really," he says. "I'm okay."

"You sure?" I ask. "I can always get you a lime."

He pauses briefly, then says, "Just some preliminary questions that I need for my own files, okay?"

"Shoot," I say.

"How old are you?" he asks.

'Twenty-seven," I say. "I'll be twenty-eight in October."

"Where did you go to school?" He scribbles something in his book.

"Harvard," I tell him. "Then Harvard Business School."

"Your address?" he asks, looking only at his book.

"Fifty-five West Eighty-first Street," I say. "The American Gardens Building."

"Nice." He looks up, impressed. "Very nice."

"Thanks." I smile, flattered.

"Doesn't Tom Cruise live there?" he asks.

"Yup." I squeeze the bridge of my nose. Suddenly I have to close my eyes tightly.

I hear him speak. "Pardon me, but are you okay?"

Opening my eyes, both of them tearing, I say, "Why do you ask?"

"You seem… nervous."

I reach into a drawer in my desk and bring out a bottle of aspirin.

"Nuprin?" I offer.

Kimball looks at the bottle strangely and then back at me before shaking his head. "Uh… no thanks." He's taken out a pack of Marlboros and absently lays it next to the San Pellegrino bottle while studying something in the book.

"Bad habit," I point out.

He looks up and, noticing my disapproval, smiles sheepishly. "I know. I'm sorry."

I stare at the box.

"Do you… would you rather I not smoke?" he asks, tentative.

I continue to stare at the cigarette packet, debating. "No… I guess it's okay."

"You sure?" he asks.

"No problem." I buzz Jean.

"Yes, Patrick?"

"Bring us an ashtray for Mr. Kimball, please," I say.

In a matter of seconds, she does.

"What can you tell me about Paul Owen?" he finally asks, after Jean leaves, having placed a Fortunoff crystal ashtray on the desk next to the untouched San Pellegrino.

"Well." I cough, swallowing two Nuprin, dry. "I didn't know him that well."

"How well did you know him?" he asks.

"I'm… at a loss," I tell him, somewhat truthfully. "He was part of that whole… Yale thing, you know."

"Yale thing?" he asks, confused.

I pause, having no idea what I'm talking about. "Yeah . . Yale thing."

"What do you mean… Yale thing?" Now he's intrigued.

I pause again – what do I mean? "Well, I think, for one, that he was probably a closet homosexual." I have no idea; doubt it, considering his taste in babes. "Who did a lot of cocaine…" I pause, then add, a bit shakily, "That Yale thing." I'm sure I say this bizarrely, but there's no other way to put it.

It's very quiet in the office right now. The room suddenly seems cramped and sweltering and even though the air-conditioning is on full blast, the air seems fake, recycled.

"So…" Kimball looks at his book helplessly. "There's nothing you can tell me about Paul Owen?"

"Well." I sigh. "He led what I suppose was an orderly life, I guess." Really stumped, I offer, "He… ate a balanced diet."

I'm sensing frustration on Kimball's part and he asks, "What kind of man was he? Besides" – he falters, tries to smile – "the information you've just given."

How could I describe Paul Owen to this guy? Boasting, arrogant, cheerful dickhead who constantly weaseled his way out of checks at Nell's? That I'm heir to the unfortunate information that his penis had a name and that name was Michael? No. Calmer, Bateman. I think that I'm smiling.

"I hope I'm not being cross-examined here," I manage to say.

"Do you feel that way?" he asks. The question sounds sinister but isn't.

"No," I say carefully. "Not really."

Maddeningly he writes something else down, then asks, without looking up, chewing on the tip of the pen, "Where did Paul hang out?"

"Hang… out?" I ask.

"Yeah," he says. "You know… hang out."

"Let me think," I say, tapping my fingers across my desk. "The Newport. Harry's. Fluties. Indochine. Nell's. Cornell Club. The New York Yacht Club. The regular places."

Kimball looks confused. "He had a yacht?"

Stuck, I casually say, "No. He just hung out there."

"And where did he go to school?" he asks.

I pause. "Don't you know this?"

"I just wanted to know if you know; ' he says without looking up.

"Er, Yale," I say slowly. "Right?"

"Right."

"And then to business school at Columbia," I add, "I think."

"Before all that?" he asks.

"If I remember correctly, Saint Paul's… I mean–"

"No, it's okay. That's not really pertinent," he apologizes. "I just have no other questions, I guess. I don't have a lot to go on."

"Listen, I just…" I start softly, tactfully. "I just want to help."

"I understand," he says.

Another long pause. He marks something down but it doesn't seem important.

"Anything else you can tell me about Owen?" he asks, sounding almost timid.

I think about it, then feebly announce, "We were both seven in 1969."

Kimball smiles. "So was I."

Pretending to be interested in the case, I ask, "Do you have any witnesses or fingerprints–"

He cuts me off, tiredly. "Well, there's a message on his answering machine saying he went to London."

"Well," I ask then, hopefully, "maybe he did, huh?"

"His girlfriend doesn't think so," Kimball says tonelessly.

Without even beginning to understand, I imagine, what a speck Paul Owen was in the overall enormity of things.

"But…" I stop. "Has anyone seen him in London?"

Kimball looks at his book, flips over a page and then, looking back at me, says, "Actually, yes."

"Hmmm," I say.

"Well, I've had a hard time getting an accurate verification," he admits. "A… Stephen Hughes says he saw him at a restaurant there, but I checked it out and what happened is, he mistook a Hubert Ainsworth for Paul, so…"

"Oh," I say.

"Do you remember where you were on the night of Paul's appearance?" He checks his book. "Which was on the twenty-fourth of June?"

"Gosh… I guess…" I think about it. "I was probably returning videotapes." I open my desk drawer, take out my datebook and looking through December announce, "I had a date with a girl named Veronica…" I'm completely lying, totally making this up.

"Wait," he says, confused, looking at his book. "That's . . not what I've got."

My thigh muscles tense. "What?"

"That's not the information I've received," he says.

"Well…" I'm suddenly confused and scared, the Nuprin bitter in my-stomach. "I… Wait… What information have you received?"

"Let's see…" He flips through his pad, finds something. "That you were with–"

"Wait." I laugh. "I could be wrong…" My spine feels damp.

"Well…" He stops. "When was the last time you were with Paul Owen?" he asks.

"We had" – oh my god, Bateman, think up something – "gone to a new musical that just opened, called… Oh Africa, Brave Africa." I gulp. "It was… a laugh riot… and that's about it. I think we had dinner at Orso's… no, Petaluma. No, Orso's."

I stop. "The… last time I physically saw him was… at an automated teller. I can't remember which… just one that was near, um, Nell's."

"But the night he disappeared?" Kimball asks.

"I'm not really sure," I say.

"I think maybe you've got your dates mixed up," he says, glancing at his book.

"But how?" I ask. "Where do you place Paul that night?"

"According to his datebook, and this was verified by his secretary, he had dinner with… Marcus Halberstam," he says.

"And?" I ask.

"I've questioned him."

"Marcus?"

"Yes. And he denies it," Kimball says. "Though at first he couldn't be sure."

"But Marcus denied it?"

"Yes."

"Well, does Marcus have an alibi?" I have a heightened receptivity to his answers now.

"Yes."

Pause.

"He does?" I ask. "You're sure?"

"I checked it out; " he says with an odd smile. "It's clean."

Pause.

"Now where were you?" He laughs.

I laugh too, though I'm not sure why. "Where was Marcus?" I'm almost giggling.

Kimball keeps smiling as he looks me over. "He wasn't with Paul Owen," he says enigmatically.

"So who was he with?" I'm laughing still, but I'm also very dizzy.

Kimball opens his book and for the first time gives me a slightly hostile look. "He was at Atlantis with Craig McDermott, Frederick Dibble, Harry Newman, George Butner and" – Kimball pauses, then looks up – "you."

In this office right now I am thinking about how long it would take a corpse to disintegrate right in this office. In this office these are the things I fantasize about while dreaming: Eating ribs at Red, Hot and Blue in Washington, D.C. If I should switch shampoos. What really is the best dry beer? Is Bill Robinson an overrated designer? What's wrong with IBM? Ultimate luxury. Is the term "playing hardball" an adverb? The fragile peace of Assisi. Electric light. The epitome of luxury. Of ultimate luxury. The bastard's wearing the same damn Armani linen suit I've got on. How easy it would be to scare the living wits out of this fucking guy. Kimball is utterly unaware of how truly vacant I am. There is no evidence of animate life in this office, yet still he takes notes. By the time you finish reading this sentence, a Boeing jetliner will take off or land somewhere in the world. I would like a Pilsner Urquell.

"Oh right," I say. "Of course… We had wanted Paul Owen to come," I say, nodding my head as if just realizing something. "But he said he had plans…" Then, lamely, "I guess I had dinner with Victoria the… following night."

"Listen, like I said, I was just hired by Meredith." He sighs, closing his book.

Tentatively, I ask, "Did you know that Meredith Powell is dating Brock Thompson?"

He shrugs, sighs. "I don't know about that. All I know is that Paul Owen owes her supposedly a lot of money."

"Oh?" I say, nodding. "Really?"

"Personally," he says, confiding, "I think the guy went a little nutso. Split town for a while. Maybe he did go to London. Sightseeing. Drinking. Whatever. Anyway, I'm pretty sure he'll turn up sooner or later."

I nod slowly, hoping to look suitably bewildered.

"Was he involved at all, do you think, in, say, occultism or Satan worship?" Kimball asks seriously.

"Er, what?"

"I know it sounds like a lame question but an New Jersey last month – I don't, know if you've heard about this, but a young stockbroker was recently arrested and charged with murdering a young Chicano girl and performing voodoo rituals with, well, various body parts–"

"Yikes!" I exclaim.

"And I mean…" He smiles sheepishly again. "Have you heard anything about this?"

"Did the guy deny doing it?" I ask, tingling.

"Right." Kimball nods.

"That was an interesting case," I manage to say.

"Even though the guy says he's innocent he still thinks he's Inca, the bird god, or something," Kimball says, scrunching his features up.

We both laugh out loud about this.

"No," I finally say. "Paul wasn't into that. He followed a balanced diet and–"

"Yeah, I know, and was into that whole Yale thing," Kimball finishes tiredly.

There is a long pause that, I think, might be the longest one so far.

"Have you consulted a psychic?" I ask.

"No." He shakes his head in a way that suggests he's considered it. Oh who cares?

"Had his apartment been burglarized?" I ask.

"No, it actually hadn't," he says. "Toiletries were missing. A suit was gone. So was some luggage. That's it."

"Do you suspect foul play?"

"Can't say," he says. "But like I told you, I wouldn't be surprised if he's just hiding out someplace."

"I mean no one's dealing with the homicide squad yet or anything, right?" I ask.

"No, not yet. As I said, we're not sure. But…" He stops, looks dejected. "Basically no one has seen or heard anything."

"That's so typical, isn't it?" I ask.

"It's just strange," he agrees, staring out the window, lost. "One day someone's walking around, going to work, alive, and then…" Kimball stops, fails to complete the sentence.

"Nothing," I sigh, nodding.

"People just… disappear," he says.

"The earth just opens up and swallows people," I say, somewhat sadly, checking my Rolex.

"Eerie." Kimball yawns, stretching. "Really eerie."

"Ominous." I nod my agreement.

"It's just" – he sighs, exasperated – "futile."

I pause, unsure of what to say, and come up with "Futility is… hard to deal with."

I am thinking about nothing. It's silent in the office. To break it, I point out a book on top of the desk, next to the San Pellegrino bottle. The Art of the Deal, by Donald Trump.

"Have you read it?" I ask Kimball.

"No," he sighs, but politely asks, "Is it any good?"

"It's very good," I say, nodding.

"Listen." He sighs again. "I've taken up enough of your time." He pockets the Marlboros.

"I have a lunch meeting with Cliff Huxtable at The Four Seasons in twenty minutes anyway," I lie, standing up. "I have to go too."

"Isn't The Four Seasons a little far uptown?" He looks concerned, also getting up. "I mean aren't you going to be late?"

"Uh, no," I stall. "There's one… down here."

"Oh really?" he asks. "I didn't know that."

"Yes," I say, leading him to the door. "It's very good."

"Listen," he says, turning to face me. "If anything occurs to you, any information at all…"

I hold up a hand. "Absolutely. I'm one hundred percent with you," I say solemnly.

"Great," the ineffectual one says, relieved. "And thanks for your, uh, time, Mr. Bateman."

Moving him toward the door, my legs wobbly, astronautlike, leading him out of the office, though I'm empty, devoid of feeling, I still sense – without deluding myself – that I've accomplished something and then, anticlimactically, we talk for a few minutes more about razor-burn balms and tattersall shirts. There was an odd general lack of urgency to the conversation that I found soothing – nothing happened at all – but when he smiles, hands me his card, leaves, the door closing sounds to me like a billion insects screaming, pounds of bacon sizzling, a vast emptiness. And after he leaves the building (I have Jean buzz Tom at Security to make sure) I call someone recommended by my lawyer, to make sure none of my phones are wiretapped, and after a Xanax I'm able to meet with my nutritionist at an expensive, upscale health-food restaurant called Cuisine de Soy in Tribeca and while sitting beneath the dolphin, stuffed and shellacked, that hangs over the tofu bar, its body bent into an arc, I'm able to ask the nutritionist questions like "Okay, so give me the muffin lowdown" without cringing. Back at the office two hours later, I find out that none of my phones are tapped.

I also run into Meredith Powell later this week, on Friday night, at Ereze with Brock Thompson, and though we talk for ten minutes, mostly about why neither one of us is in the Hamptons, with Brock glaring at me the entire time, she doesn't mention Paul Owen once. I'm having an excruciatingly slow dinner with my date, Jeannette. The restaurant is flashy and new and the meal inches along, drags by. The portions are meager. I grow increasingly agitated. Afterwards I want to bypass M.K., even though Jeanette complains because she wants to dance. I'm tired and I need to rest. At my apartment I lie in bed, too distracted to have sex with her, so she leaves, and after watching a tape of this morning's Patty Winters Show, which is about the best restaurants in the Middle East, I pick up my cordless phone and tentatively, reluctantly, call Evelyn.

Summer

Most of the summer I spent in a stupor, sitting either in my once or in new restaurants, in my apartment watching videotapes or in the backs of cabs, in nightclubs that just opened or in movie theaters, at the building in Hell's Kitchen or in new restaurants. There were four major air disasters this summer, the majority of them captured on videotape, almost as if these events had been planned, and repeated on television endlessly. The planes kept crashing in slow motion, followed by countless roaming shots of the wreckage and the same random views af the burned, bloody carnage, weeping rescue workers retrieving body parts. I started using Oscar de la Renta men's deodorant, which gave me a slight rash. A movie about a small talking bug was released to great fanfare and grossed over two hundred million dollars. The Mets were doing badly. Beggars and homeless seemed to have multiplied in August and the ranks of the unfortunate, weak and aged lined the streets everywhere. I found myself asking too many summer associates at too many dinners in flashy new restaurants before taking them to Les Misérables if anyone had seen The Toolbox Murders on HBO and silent tables would stare back at me, before I would cough politely and summon the waiter over for the check, or I'd ask for sorbet or, if this was earlier in the dinner, for another bottle of San Pellegrino, and then I'd ask the summer associates, "No?" and assure them, "It was quite good." My platinum American Express card had gone through so much use that it snapped in half, self-destructed, at one of those dinners, when I took two summer associates to Restless and Young, the new Pablo Lester restaurant in midtown, but I had enough cash in my gazelleskin wallet to pay for the meal. The Patty Winters Shows were all repeats. Life remained a blank canvas, a cliché, a soap opera. I felt lethal, on the verge of frenzy. My nightly bloodlust overflowed into my days and I had to leave the city. My mask of sanity was a victim of impending slippage. This was the bone season for me and I needed a vacation. I needed to go to the Hamptons.

I suggested this to Evelyn and, like a spider, she accepted.

The house we stayed at was actually Tim Price's, which Evelyn had the keys to for some reason, but in my stupefied state I refused to ask for specifics.

Tim's house was on the water in East Hampton and was adorned with many gable roofs and was four stories high, all connected by a galvanized-steel staircase, and had what at first I thought was a Southwestern motif but wasn't. The kitchen was one thousand square feet of pure minimalist design; one wall held everything: two huge ovens, massive cupboards, a walk-in freezer, a three-door refrigerator. An island of custom-crafted stainless steel divided the kitchen into three separate spaces. Four of the nine bathrooms contained trompe l'oeil paintings and five of them had antique lead ram's heads that hung over the sink, water spouting from their mouths. All the sinks and bathtubs and showers were antique marble and the floors were composed of tiny marble mosaics. A television was built into a wall alcove above the master bathtub. Every room had a stereo. The house also contained twelve Frank Lloyd Wright standing lamps, fourteen Josef Heffermann club chairs, two walls of floor-to-ceiling videocassette cases and another wall stacked solely with thousands of compact discs encased in glass cabinets. A chandelier by Eric Schmidt hung in the front entranceway, below it stood an Atomic Ironworks steel moose hatrack by a Young sculptor I'd never heard of. A round nineteenth-century Russian dining table sat in a room adjacent to the kitchen, but had no chairs. Spooky photographs by Cindy Sherman lined the walls everywhere. There was an exercise room. There were eight walk-in closets, five VCRs, a Noguchi glass and walnut dining table, a hall table by Marc Schaffer and a fax machine. There was a topiary tree in the master bedroom next to a Louis XVI window bench. An Eric Fischl painting hung over one of the marble fireplaces. There was a tennis court. There were two saunas and an indoor Jacuzzi in a small guesthouse that sat by the pool, which was black-bottomed. There were stone columns in odd places.

I really tried to make things work the weeks we were out there. Evelyn and I rode bicycles and jogged and played tennis. We talked about going to the south of France or to Scotland; we talked about driving through Germany and visiting unspoiled opera houses. We went windsurfing. We talked about only romantic things: the light on eastern Long Island, the moonrise in October over the hills of the Virginia hunt country. We took baths together in the big marble tubs. We had breakfast in bed, snuggling beneath cashmere blankets after I'd poured imported coffee from a Melior pot into Hermès cups. I woke her up with fresh flowers. I put notes in her Louis Vuitton carry bag before she left for her weekly facials in Manhattan. I bought her a puppy, a small black chow, which she named NutraSweet and fed dietetic chocolate trues to. I read long passages aloud from Doctor Zhivago and A Farewell to Arms (my favorite Hemingway). I rented movies in town that Price didn't own, mostly comedies from the 1930s, and played them on one of the many VCRs, our favorite being Roman Holiday, which we watched twice. We listened to Frank Sinatra (only his 1950s period) and Nat King Cole's After Midnight, which Tim had on CD. I bought her expensive lingerie, which sometimes she wore.

After skinny-dipping in the ocean late at night, we would come into the house, shivering, draped in huge Ralph Lauren towels, and we'd make omelets and noodles tossed with olive oil and truffles and porcini mushrooms; we'd make soufflés with poached pears and cinnamon fruit salads, grilled polenta with peppered salmon, apple and berry sorbet, mascarpone, red beans with arrozo wrapped in romaine lettuce, bowls of salsa and skate poached in balsamic vinegar, chilled tomato soup and risottos flavored with beets and lime and asparagus and mint, and we drank lemonade or champagne or well-aged bottles of Château Margaux. But soon we stopped lifting weights together and wing laps and Evelyn would eat only the dietetic chocolate trues that NutraSweet hadn't eaten, complaining about weight she hadn't gained. Some nights I would find my self roaming the beaches, digging up baby crabs and eating handfuls of sand – this was in the middle of the night when the sky was so clear I could see the entire solar system and the sand, lit by it, seemed almost lunar in scale. I even dragged a beached jellyfish back to the house and microwaved it early one morning, predawn, while Evelyn slept, and what I didn't eat of it I fed to the chow.

Sipping bourbon, then champagne, from cactus-etched highball glasses, which Evelyn would set on adobe coasters and into which she would stir raspberry cassis with papier-mâché jalapeño-shaped stirrers, I would lie around, fantasizing about killing someone with an Allsop Racer ski pole, or I would stare at the antique weather vane that hung above one of the fireplaces, wondering wild-eyed if I could stab anyone with it, then I'd complain aloud, whether Evelyn was in the room or not, that we should have made reservations at Dick Loudon's Stratford Inn instead. Evelyn soon started talking only about spas and cosmetic surgery and then she hired a masseur, some scary faggot who lived down the road with a famous book publisher and who flirted openly with me. Evelyn went back to the city three times that last week we were in the Hamptons, once for a manicure and a pedicure and a facial, the second time for a one-on-one training session at Stephanie Herman, and finally to meet with her astrologer.

"Why helicopter in?" I asked in a whisper.

"What do you want me to do?" she shrieked, popping another dietetic true into her mouth. "Rent a Volvo?"

While she was gone I would vomit – just to do it – into the rustic terra-cotta jars that lined the patio in front or I would drive into town with the scary masseur and collect razor blades. At night I'd place a faux-concrete and aluminum-wire sconce by Jerry Kott over Evelyn's head and since she'd be so knocked out on Halcion she wouldn't brush it off, and though I laughed at this, while the sconce rose evenly with her deep breathing, soon it made me sad and I stopped placing the sconce over Evelyn's head.

Everything failed to subdue me. Soon everything seemed dull: another sunrise, the lives of heroes, falling in love, war, the discoveries people made about each other. The only thing that didn't bore me, obviously enough, was how much money Tim Price made, and yet in its obviousness it did. There wasn't a clear, identifiable emotion within me, except for greed and, possibly, total disgust. I had all the characteristics of a human being – flesh, blood, skin, hair – but my depersonalization was so intense, had gone so deep, that the normal ability to feel compassion had been eradicated, the victim of a slow, purposeful erasure. I was simply imitating reality, a rough resemblance of a human being, with only a dim corner of my mind functioning. Something horrible was happening and yet I couldn't figure out why – I couldn't put my finger on it. The only thing that calmed me was the satisfying sound of ice being dropped into a glass of J&B. Eventually I drowned the chow, which Evelyn didn't miss; she didn't even notice its absence, not even when I threw it in the walk-in freezer, wrapped in one of her sweaters from Bergdorf Goodman. We had to leave the Hamptons because I would find myself standing over our bed in the hours before dawn, with an ice pick gripped in my fist, waiting for Evelyn to open her eyes. At my suggestion, one morning over breakfast, she agreed, and on the last Sunday before Labor Day we returned to Manhattan by helicopter.

Girls

"I thought the pinto beans with salmon and mint were really, really… you know," Elizabeth says, walking into the living room of my apartment and in one graceful movement kicking off both satin and suede Maud Frizon pumps and flopping onto the couch, "good, but Patrick, my god it was expensive and," then, bristling, she bitches, "it was only pseudo nouvelle."

"Was it my imagination or were there goldfish on the tables?" I ask, undoing my Brooks Brothers suspenders while searching the refrigerator for a bottle of sauvignon blanc. "Anyway, I thought it was hip."

Christie has taken a seat on the long, wide sofa, away from Elizabeth, who stretches out lazily.

"Hip, Patrick?" she calls out. "Donald Trump eats there."

I locate the bottle and stand it on the counter and, before finding a wine opener, stare at her blankly from across the room. "Yes? Is this a sarcastic comment?"

"Guess," she moans and follows it with a "Duh" so loud that Christie flinches.

"Where are you working now, Elizabeth?" I ask, closing drawers. "Polo outlet or something?"

Elizabeth cracks up at this and says blithely, while I uncork the Acacia, "I don't have to work, Bateman," and after a beat she adds, bored, "You of all people should know how that feels, Mr. Wall Street." She's checking her lipstick in a Gucci compact; predictably it looks perfect.

Changing the subject, I ask, "Who chose that place anyway?" I pour the two girls wine and then make myself a J&B on the rocks with a little water. "The restaurant, I mean."

"Carson did. Or maybe Robert." Elizabeth shrugs and then after snapping the compact shut, staring intently at Christie, asks, "You look really familiar. Did you go to Dalton?"

Christie shakes her head no. It's almost three in the morning. I'm grinding up a tab of Ecstasy and watching it dissolve in the wineglass I plan to hand Elizabeth. This morning's topic on The Patty Winters Show was People Who Weigh Over Seven Hundred Pounds – What Can We Do About Them? I switch on the kitchen lights, find two more tabs of the drug in the freezer, then shut the lights off.

Elizabeth is a twenty-year-old hardbody who sometimes models in Georges Marciano ads and who comes from an old Virginia banking family. We had dinner earlier tonight with two friends of hers, Robert Farrell, twenty-seven, a guy who's had a rather sketchy career as a financier, and Carson Whitall, who was Robert's date. Robert wore a wool suit by Belvest, a cotton shirt with French cuffs by Charvet, an abstract-patterned silk-crepe tie by Hugo Boss and sunglasses by Ray-Ban that he insisted on wearing during the meal. Carson wore a suit by Yves Saint Laurent Rive Gauche and a pearl necklace with matching pearl and diamond earrings by Harry Winston. We had dinner at Free Spin, the new Albert Lioman restaurant in the Flatiron district, then took the limousine to Nell's, where I excused myself, assuring an irate Elizabeth I'd be right back, and directed the chauffeur to the meat-packing district, where I picked up Christie. I made her wait in the back of the locked limousine while I reentered Nell's and had drinks with Elizabeth and Carson and Robert in one of the booths up front, empty since the place had no celebrities in it tonight – a bad sign. Finally, at two-thirty, while Carson bragged drunkenly about her monthly flower bill, Elizabeth and I split. She was so pissed off about something Carson told her was in the latest issue of W that she didn't even question Christie's presence.

In the ride back toward Nell's Christie had admitted that she was still upset about the last time we shared together, and that she had major reservations about tonight, but the money I've offered is simply too good to pass up and I promised her that nothing like last time will be repeated. Though she was still scared, a few shots of vodka in the back of the limo along with the money I'd given her so far, over sixteen hundred dollars, relaxed her like a tranquilizer. Her moodiness turned me on and she acted like a total sex kitten when I first handed her the cash amount – six bills attached to a Hughlans silver money clip – but after I urged her into the limo she told me that she might need surgery after what happened last time, or a lawyer, so I wrote out a check to cash in the amount of one thousand dollars, but since I knew it would never be cashed I didn't have a panic attack about it or anything. Looking over at Elizabeth right now, in my apartment, I'm noticing how well endowed she is in the chest area and I'm hoping that after the Ecstasy hits her system I can convince the two girls to have sex in front of me.

Elizabeth is asking Christie if she's ever met some asshole named Spicey or been to Au Bar. Christie is shaking her head I hand Elizabeth the Ecstasy-laden sauvignon blanc while she stares at Christie like she was from Neptune, and after recovering from Christie's admission she yawns. "Anyway, Au Bar sucks now. It's terrible. I went to a birthday party there for Malcolm Forbes. Oh my god, please." She downs the wine, facing. I take a seat in one of the chrome and oak Sottsass chairs and reach over to the ice bucket that sits on the glass-top coffee table, adjusting the bottle of wine in order to chill it better. Immediately Elizabeth makes a move for it, pouring herself another glass. I dissolve two more tabs of the Ecstasy in the bottle before bringing it into the living room. A sullen Christie sips her untainted wine cautiously and tries not to stare at the floor; she still seems scared, and finding the silence unbearable or incriminating she asks Elizabeth where she met me.

"Oh god," Elizabeth starts, moaning as if she falsely remembered something embarrassing. "I met Patrick at, oh god, the Kentucky Derby in '86 – no, '87, and…" She turns to me. "You were hanging out with that bimbo Alison something… Stoole?"

"Poole, honey," I reply calmly. "Alison Poole."

"Yeah, that was her name," she says, then with unmasked sarcasm, "Hot number."

"What do you mean by that?" I ask, offended. "She was a hot number."

Elizabeth turns to Christie and unfortunately says, "if you had an American Express card she'd give you a blow job," and I'm hoping to god that Christie doesn't look over at Elizabeth, confused, and say "But we don't take credit cards." To make sure this doesn't happen, I bellow "Oh, bullshit," but goodnaturedly.

"Listen," Elizabeth tells Christie, holding her hand out like a fag offering gossipy information. "This girl worked at a tanning salon, and" – and in the same sentence, without changing tone – "what do you do?"

After a long silence, Christie turning redder and even more scared, I say, "She's… my cousin."

Slowly, Elizabeth takes this in and says, "Uh-huh?"

After another long silence, I say, "She's… from France."

Elizabeth looks at me skeptically – like I'm completely crazy but chooses not to pursue this line of questioning and asks instead, "Where's your phone? I've got to call Harley."

I move over to the kitchen and bring the cordless phone to her, pulling up its antenna. She dials a number and, while waiting for someone to answer, stares at Christie. "Where do you summer?" she asks. "Southampton?"

Christie looks at me and then back at Elizabeth and quietly says, "No."

"Oh god," Elizabeth wails, "it's his machine."

"Elizabeth." I point at my Rolex. "It's three in the morning."

"He's a goddamn drug dealer," she says, exasperated "These are his peak hours."

"Don't tell him you're here," I warn.

"Why would I?" she asks. Distracted, she reaches for her wine and downs another full glass and makes a face. "This tastes weird." She checks the label, then shrugs. "Harley? It's me. I need your services. Translate that any way you'd like. I'm at–" She looks over at me.

"You're at Marcus Halberstam's," I whisper.

"Who?" Leaning in, she grins mischievously.

"Mar-cus Hal-ber-stam," I whisper again.

"I want the number, idiot." She waves me away and continues, "Anyway, I'm at Mark Hammerstein's and I'll try you later and if I don't see you at Canal Bar tomorrow night I'm going to sic my hairdresser on you. Bon voyage. How do I hang this thing up?" she asks, even though she expertly pushes the antenna down and presses the Off button, tossing the phone onto the Schrager chair that I've moved next to the jukebox.

"See." I smile. "You did it."

Twenty minutes later Elizabeth is squirming on the couch and I'm trying to coerce her into having sex with Christie in front of me. What started out as a casual suggestion is now at the forefront of my brain and I'm insistent. Christie stares impassively at a stain I hadn't noticed on the white-oak floor, her wine mostly untouched.

"But I'm not a lesbian," Elizabeth protests again, giggling. "I'm not into girls."

"Is this a firm no?" I ask, staring at her glass, then at the near-empty bottle of wine.

"Why'd you think I'd be into that?" she asks. Because of the Ecstasy, the question is flirtatious and she seems genuinely interested. Her foot is rubbing against my thigh. I've moved over to the couch, sitting between the two girls, and I'm massaging one of her calves.

"Well, you went to Sarah Lawrence for one thing," I tell her. "You never know."

"Those are Sarah Lawrence guys, Patrick," she points out, giggling rubbing harder, causing friction, heat, everything.

"Well, I'm sorry: " I admit. "I don't usually deal with a lot of guys who wear panty hose on the Street."

"Patrick, you went to Patrick, I mean, Harvard, oh god, I'm so drunk. Anyway, listen. I mean, wait–" She pauses, taken a deep breath, mumbles an unintelligible remark about feeling bizarre, then, after closing her eyes, opens them and asks, "Do you have any coke?"

I'm staring at her glass, noticing that the dissolved Ecstasy has slightly changed the color of the wine. She follows my gaze and takes a gulp of it as if it were some kind of elixir that could soothe her increasing agitation. She leans her head back, woozily, on one of the pillows on the couch. "Or Halcion. I'd take a Halcion."

"Listen, I would just like to see… the two of you… get it on," I say innocently. "What's wrong with that? It's totally disease-free."

"Patrick." She laughs. "You're a lunatic."

"Come on," I urge. "Don't you find Christie attractive?"

"Let's not get lewd," she says, but the drug is kicking in and I can sense that she's excited but doesn't want to be. "I'm in no mood to have lewd conversation."

"Come on," I say. "I think it would be a turn-on."

"Does he do this all the time?" Elizabeth asks Christie.

I look over at Christie.

Christie shrugs, noncommittal, and studies the back of a compact disc before setting it on the table next to the stereo.

"Are you telling me you've never gotten it on with a girl?" I ask, touching a black stocking, then, beneath it, a leg.

"But I'm not a lesbian," she stresses. "And no, I never have."

"Never?" I ask, arching my eyebrows. "Well, there's always a first time…"

"You're making me feel weird," Elizabeth moans, losing control of her facial features.

"I'm not," I say, shocked.

Elizabeth is making out with Christie, both of them naked on my bed, all the lights in the room burning, while I sit in the Louis Montoni chair by the side of the futon, watching them very closely, occasionally repositioning their bodies. Now I make Elizabeth lie on her back and hold both legs up, open, spreading them as wide as possible, and then I push Christie's head down and make her lap at her cunt – not suck on it but lap at it, like a thirsty dog – while fingering the clit, then, with her other hand, she sticks two fingers into the open, wet cunt, while her tongue replaces the fingers and then she takes the dripping fingers she's fucked Elizabeth's cunt with and forces them into Elizabeth's mouth, making her suck on them. Then I have Christie lie on top of Elizabeth and make her suck and bite at Elizabeth's full, swollen tits, which Elizabeth is also squeezing, and then I tell the two of them to kiss each other, hard, and Elizabeth takes the tongue that's been licking at her own small, pink cunt into her mouth hungrily, like an animal, and uncontrollably they start humping each other, pressing their cunts together, Elizabeth moaning loudly, wrapping her legs around Christie's hips, bucking up against her, Christie's legs spread in such a way that, from behind, I can see her cunt, wet and spread, and above it, her hairless pink asshole.

Christie sits up and turns herself around and while still on top of Elizabeth presses her cunt into Elizabeth's gasping face and soon, like in a movie, like animals, the two of them start feverishly licking and fingering each other's cunts. Elizabeth, totally red-faced, her neck muscles straining like a madwoman's, tries to bury her head in Christie's pussy and then spreads Christie's ass cheeks open and starts tonguing the hole there, making guttural sounds. "Yeah," I say in monotone. "Stick your tongue up that bitch's asshole."

While this is going on I'm greasing with Vaseline a large white dildo that's connected to a belt. I stand up and hoist Christie off Elizabeth, who is writhing mindlessly on the futon, and I attach the belt around Christie's waist, and then I turn Elizabeth around and position her on all fours and I make Christie fuck her with it doggy style, while I finger Christie's cunt, then her clit, then her asshole, which is so wet and loose from Elizabeth's saliva I'm able to force my index finger into it effortlessly and her sphincter tightens, relaxes, then contracts around it. I make Christie pull the dildo out of Elizabeth's cunt and have Elizabeth lie on her back while Christie fucks her in the missionary position. Elizabeth is fingering her clit while madly French-kissing Christie until, involuntarily, she brings her head back, legs wrapped around Christie's pumping hips, her face tense, her mouth open, her lipstick smeared by Christie's cunt juice, and she yells "oh god I'm coming I'm coming fuck me I'm coming" because I told both of them to let me know when they had orgasms and to be very vocal about it.

Soon it's Christie's turn and Elizabeth eagerly straps on the dildo and fucks Christie's cunt with it while I spread Elizabeth's asshole and tongue it and soon she pushes me away and starts fingering herself desperately. Then Christie puts the dildo on again and she fucks Elizabeth in the ass with it while Elizabeth fingers her clit, bucking her ass up against the dildo, grunting, until she has another orgasm. After pulling the dildo from her ass I make Elizabeth suck on it before she straps it on again and while Christie lies on her back Elizabeth pushes it easily into her cunt. During this I lick Christie's tits and suck hard on each nipple until both of them are red and stiff. I keep fingering them to make sure they stay that way. During this Christie has kept on a pair of thigh-high suede boots from Henri Bendel that I've made her wear.

Elizabeth, naked, running from the bedroom, blood already on her, is moving with difficulty and she screams out something garbled. My organ had been prolonged and its release was intense and my knees are weak. I'm naked too, shouting "You bitch, you piece of bitch trash" at her and since most of the blood is coming from her feet, she slips, manages to get up, and I strike out at her with the already wet butcher knife that I'm gripping in my right hand, clumsily, slashing her neck from behind, severing something, some veins. When I strike out a second time while she's trying to escape, heading for the door, blood shoots even into the living room, across the apartment, splattering against the tempered glass and the laminated oak panels in the kitchen. She tries to run forward but I've cut her jugular and it's spraying everywhere, blinding both of us momentarily, and I'm leaping at her in a final attempt to finish her off. She turns to face me, her features twisted in anguish, and her legs give out after I punch her in the stomach and she hits the floor and I slide in next to her. After I've stabbed her five or six times – the blood's spurting out in jets; I'm leaning over to inhale its perfume – her muscles stiffen, become rigid, and she goes into her death throes; her throat becomes flooded with dark-red blood and she thrashes around as if tied up, but she isn't and I have to hold her down. Her mouth fills with blood that cascades over the sides of her cheeks, over her chin. Her body, shaking spasmodically, resembles what I imagine an epileptic goes through in a fit and I hold down her head, rubbing my dick, stiff, covered with blood, across her choking face, until she's motionless.

Back in my bedroom, Christie lies on the futon, tied to the legs of the bed, bound up with rope, her arms above her head, ripped pages from last month's Vanity Fair stuffed into her mouth. Jumper cables hooked up to a battery are clipped to both breasts, turning them brown. I had been dropping lit matches from Le Relais onto her belly and Elizabeth, delirious and probably overdosing on the Ecstasy, had been helping before I turned on her and chewed at one of her nipples until I couldn't control myself and bit it off, swallowing. For the first time I notice just how small and delicately structured Christie is, was. I start kneading her breasts with a pair of pliers, then I'm mashing them up, things are moving fast, I'm making hissing noises, she spits out the pages from the magazine, tries to bite my hand, I laugh when she dies, before she does she starts crying, then her eyes roll back in some kind of horrible dream state.

In the morning, for some reason, Christie's battered hands are swollen to the size of footballs, the fingers are indistinguishable from the rest of her hand and the smell coming from her burnt corpse is jolting and I have to open the venetian blinds, which are spattered with burnt fat from when Christie's breasts burst apart, electrocuting her, and then the windows, to air out the room. Her eyes are wide open and glazed over and her mouth is lipless and black and there's also a black pit where her vagina should be (though I don't remember doing anything to it) and her lungs are visible beneath the charred ribs. What is left of Elizabeth's body lies crumpled in the corner of the living room. She's missing her right arm and chunks of her right leg. Her left hand, chopped off at the wrist, lies clenched on top of the stand in the kitchen, in its own small pool of blood. Her head sits on the kitchen table and its blood-soaked face – even with both eyes scooped out and a pair of Alain Mikli sunglasses over the holes – looks like it's frowning. I get very tired looking at it and though I didn't get any sleep last night and I'm utterly spent, I still have a lunch appointment at Odeon with Jem Davies and Alana Burton at one. That's very important to me and I have to debate whether I should cancel it or not.

Confronted by Faggot

Autumn: a Sunday around four o'clock in the afternoon. I'm at Barney's, buying cuff links. I had walked into the store at two-thirty, after a cold, tense brunch with Christie's corpse; rushed up to the front counter, told a salesclerk, "I need a whip. Really." In addition to the cuff links, I've bought an ostrich travel case with double-zippered openings and vinyl lining, an antique silver, crocodile and glass pill jar, an antique toothbrush container, a badger-bristle toothbrush and a faux-tortoiseshell nailbrush. Dinner last night? At Splash. Not much to remember: a watery Bellini, soggy arugula salad, a sullen waitress. Afterwards I watched a repeat of an old Patty Winters Show that I found on what I originally thought was a videotape of the torture and subsequent murder of two escort girls from last spring (the topic was Tips on How Your Pet Can Become a Movie Star). Right now I'm in the middle of purchasing a belt – not for myself – as well as three ninety-dollar ties, ten handkerchiefs, a four-hundred-dollar robe and two pairs of Ralph Lauren pajamas, and I'm having it all mailed to my apartment except for the handkerchiefs, which I'm having monogrammed then sent to P & P. I've already made somewhat of a scene in the ladies' shoe department and, embarrassingly, was chased out by a distressed salesperson. At first it's only a sense of vague uneasiness and I'm unsure of its cause, but then it feels, though I can't be positive, as if I'm being followed, as if someone has been tracking me throughout Barney's.

Luis Carruthers is, I suppose, incognito. He's wearing some kind of jaguar-print silk evening jacket, deerskin gloves, a felt hat, aviator sunglasses, and he's hiding behind a column, pretending to inspect a row of ties, and, gracelessly, he gives me a sidelong glance. Leaning down, I sign something, a bill I think, and fleetingly Luis's presence forces me to consider that maybe a life connected to this city, to Manhattan, to my job, is not a good idea, and suddenly I imagine Luis at some horrible party, drinking a nice dry rosé, fags clustered around a baby grand, show tunes, now he's holding a flower, now he has a feather boa draped around his neck, now the pianist bangs out something from Les Miz, darling.

"Patrick? Is that you?" I hear a tentative voice inquire.

Like a smash cut from a horror movie – a jump zoom – Luis Carruthers appears, suddenly, without warning, from behind his column, slinking and jumping at the same time, if that's' possible. I smile at the salesgirl, then awkwardly move away from him and over to a display case of suspenders, in dire need of a Xanax, a Valium, a Halcion, a Frozfruit, anything.

I don't, can't, look at him, but I sense he's moved closer to me. His voice confirms it.

"Patrick?… Hello?"

Closing my eyes, I move a hand up to my face and mutter, under my breath, "Don't make me say it, Luis."

"Patrick?" he says, feigning innocence. "What do you mean?"

A hideous pause, then, "Patrick… Why aren't you looking at me?"

"I'm ignoring you, Luis." I breathe in, calming myself by checking the price tag on an Armani button-up sweater. "Can't you tell? I'm ignoring you."

"Patrick, can't we just talk?" he asks, almost whining. "Patrick – look at me."

After another sharp intake of breath, sighing, I admit, "There is nothing, not-hing to talk–"

"We can't go on like this,' he impatiently cuts me off. "I can' go on like this."

I mutter. I start walking away from him. He follows, insistent.

"Anyway," he says, once we've reached the other side of the store, where I pretend to look through a row of silk ties but everything's blurry, "you'll be glad to know that I'm transferring… out of state."

Something rises off me and I'm able to ask, but still without looking at him, "Where?"

"Oh, a different branch," he says, sounding remarkably relaxed, probably due to the fact that I actually inquired about the move. "In Arizona."

"Ter-riffic," I murmur.

"Don't you want to know why?" he asks.

"No, not really."

"Because of you," he says.

"Don't say that," I plead.

"Because of you," he says again.

"You are sick," I tell him.

"If I'm sick it's because of you," he says too casually, checking his nails. "Because of you I am sick and I will not get better."

"You have distorted this obsession of yours way out of proportion. Way, way out of proportion," I say, then move over to another aisle.

"But I know you have the same feelings I do," Luis says, trailing me. "And I know that just because…" He lowers his voice and shrugs. "Just because you won't admit… certain feelings you have doesn't mean you don't have them."

"What are you trying to say?" I hiss.

'That I know you feel the same way I do." Dramatically, he whips off his sunglasses, as if to prove a point.

"You have reached… an inaccurate conclusion," I choke. "You are… obviously unsound."

"Why?" he asks. "Is it so wrong to love you, Patrick?"

"Oh… my… god."

"To want you? To want to be with you?" he asks. "Is that so wrong?"

I can feel him staring helplessly into me, that he's near total emotional collapse. After he finishes, except for a long silence I have no answer. Finally I counter this by hissing, "What is this continuing inability you have to evaluate this situation rationally?" I pause. "Huh?"

I lift my head up from the sweaters, the ties, whatever, and glance at Luis. In that instant he smiles, relieved that I'm acknowledging his presence, but the smile soon becomes fractured and in the dark inner recesses of his fag mind he realizes something and starts crying. When I calmly walk over to a column so I can hide behind it, he follows and roughly grabs my shoulder, spinning me around so I'm facing him: Luis blotting out reality.

At the same time I ask Luis to "Go away" he sobs, "Oh god, Patrick, why don't you like me?" and then, unfortunately, he falls to the floor at my feet.

"Get up," I mutter, standing there. "Get up."

"Why can't we be together?" he sobs, pounding his fist on the floor.

"Because I… don't" – I look around the store quickly to make sure no one is listening; he reaches for my knee, I brush his hand away – "find you… sexually attractive," I whisper loudly, staring down at him. "I can't believe I actually said that," I mumble to myself, to no one, and then shake my head, trying to clear it, things reaching a level of confusion that I'm incapable of registering. I tell Luis, "Leave me alone, please," and I start to walk away.

Unable to grasp this request, Luis grabs at the hem of my Armani silk-cloth trench coat and, still lying on the floor, cries out, "Please, Patrick, please don't leave me."

"Listen to me," I tell him, kneeling down, trying to haul Luis up off the floor. But this causes him to shout out something garbled, which turns into a wail that rises and reaches a crescendo that catches the attention of a Barney's security guard standing by the store's front entrance, who starts making his way over.

"Look what you've done," I whisper desperately. "Get up. Get up."

"Is everything okay?" The security guard, a big black guy, is looking down at us.

"Yes, thank you," I say, glaring at Luis. "Everything's fine."

"No-o-o-o," Luis wails, racked with sobs.