American Psycho (14 page)

“But what about vests?” Reeves asks Todd. “Aren’t they …
out
?”

“No, George,” Hamlin says. “Of
course
not.”

“No,” I agree. “Vests have
never
been out of fashion.”

“Well, the question really
is
—how should they be worn?” Hamlin inquires.

“They should fit—” Reeves and I start simultaneously.

“Oh sorry,” Reeves says. “Go ahead.”

“No, it’s okay,” I say. “You go ahead.”

“I insist,” George says.

“Well, they should fit trimly around the body and cover the waistline,” I say. “It should peek just above the waist button of the suit jacket. Now if too much of the vest appears, it’ll give the suit a tight, constricted look that you don’t want.”

“Uh-huh,” Reeves says, nearly mute, looking confused. “Right. I knew that.”

“I need another J&B,” I say, getting up. “Guys?”

“Beefeater on rocks with a twist.” Reeves, pointing at me.

Hamlin. “Martini.”

“Sure thing.” I walk over toward the bar and while waiting for Freddy to pour the drinks I hear some guy, I think it’s this Greek William Theodocropopolis, from First Boston, who’s wearing a sort of tacky wool jacket in a houndstooth check and an okay-looking shirt, but he also has on a super-looking cashmere tie from Paul Stuart that makes the suit look better than it deserves to, and he’s telling some guy, another Greek, drinking a Diet Coke, “So listen, Sting was at Chernoble—you know that place the guys who opened Tunnel opened—and so this was on Page Six and someone drives up in a Porsche 911 and in the car was Whitney and—”

Back at our table Reeves is telling Hamlin about how he taunts the homeless in the streets, about how he hands a dollar to them as he approaches and then yanks it away and pockets it right when he passes the bums.

“Listen, it
works
,” he insists. “They’re so shocked they shut
up.
”

“Just … say … no,” I tell him, setting the drinks on the table. “That’s
all
you have to say.”

“Just say no?” Hamlin smiles. “It works?”

“Well, actually only with pregnant homeless women,” I admit.

“I take it you haven’t tried the just-say-no approach with the seven-foot gorilla on Chambers Street?” Reeves asks. “The one with the crack pipe?”

“Listen, has
anyone
heard of this club called Nekenieh?” Reeves asks.

From my POV Paul Owen sits at a table across the room with someone who looks a lot like Trent Moore, or Roger Daley, and some other guy who looks like Frederick Connell. Moore’s grandfather owns the company he works at. Trent is wearing a mini-houndstooth-check worsted wool suit with multicolored overplaid.

“Nekenieh?” Hamlin asks. “What’s Nekenieh?”

“Guys, guys,” I say. “Who’s sitting with Paul Owen over there? Is that Trent Moore?”

“Where?” Reeves.

“They’re getting up. That table,” I say. “Those guys.”

“Isn’t that Madison? No, it’s Dibble,” Reeves says. He puts on his clear prescription eyeglasses just to make sure.

“No,” Hamlin says. “It’s Trent Moore.”

“Are you sure?” Reeves asks.

Paul Owen stops by our table on his way out. He’s wearing sunglasses by Persol and he’s carrying a briefcase by Coach Leatherware.

“Hello, men,” Owen says and he introduces the two guys he’s with, Trent Moore and someone named Paul Denton.

Reeves and Hamlin and I shake their hands without standing up. George and Todd start talking to Trent, who is from Los Angeles and knows where Nekenieh is located. Owen turns his attention my way, which makes me slightly nervous.

“How have you been?” Owen asks.

“I’ve been great,” I say. “And you?”

“Oh terrific,” he says. “How’s the Hawkins account going?”

“It’s …” I stall and then continue, faltering momentarily, “It’s … all right.”

“Really?” he asks, vaguely concerned. “That’s interesting,” he says, smiling, hands clasped together behind his back. “Not
great
?”

“Oh well,” I say. “You … know.”

“And how’s Marcia?” he asks, still smiling, looking over the room, not really listening to me. “She’s a
great
girl.”

“Oh yes,” I say, shaken. “I’m … lucky.”

Owen has mistaken me for Marcus Halberstam (even though Marcus is dating Cecelia Wagner) but for some reason it really doesn’t matter and it seems a logical faux pas since Marcus works at P & P also, in fact does the same exact thing I do, and he also has a penchant for Valentino suits and clear prescription glasses and we share the same barber at the same place, the Pierre Hotel, so it seems understandable; it doesn’t irk me. But Paul Denton keeps staring at me, or trying not to, as if he knows something, as if he’s not quite sure if he recognizes me or not, and it makes me wonder if maybe he was on that cruise a long time ago, one night last March. If that’s the case, I’m thinking, I should get his telephone number or, better yet, his address.

“Well, we should have drinks,” I tell Owen.

“
Great
,” he says. “Let’s. Here’s my card.”

“Thanks,” I say, looking at it closely, relieved by its crudeness, before slipping it into my jacket. “Maybe I’ll bring …” I pause, then carefully say, “Marcia?”

“That would be
great
,” he says. “Hey, have you been to that Salvadorian bistro on Eighty-third?” he asks. “We’re eating there tonight.”

“Yeah. I mean no,” I say. “But I’ve heard it’s quite good.” I smile weakly and take a sip of my drink.

“Yes, so have I.” He checks his Rolex. “Trent? Denton? Let’s split. Reservation’s in fifteen minutes.”

Goodbyes are said and on their way out of Harry’s they stop by the table Dibble and Hamilton are sitting at, or at least I
think
it’s Dibble and Hamilton. Before they leave, Denton looks over at our table, at me, one last time, and he seems panicked, convinced of something by my presence, as if he recognized me from somewhere, and this, in turn, freaks
me
out.

“The Fisher account,” Reeves says.

“Oh shit,” I say. “Don’t remind us.”

“Lucky bastard,” Hamlin says.

“Has anyone seen his girlfriend?” Reeves asks. “Laurie Kennedy? Total hardbody.”

“I know her,” I say, admit, “I knew her.”

“Why do you say it like that?” Hamlin asks, intrigued. “Why
does
he say it like that, Reeves?”

“Because he
dated
her,” Reeves says casually.

“How did you know that?” I ask, smiling.

“Girls dig Bateman.” Reeves sounds a little drunk. “He’s
GQ.
You’re
total GQ
, Bateman.”

“Thanks guy, but …” I can’t tell if he’s being sarcastic but it makes me feel proud in a way and I try to downplay my good looks by saying, “She’s got a
lousy
personality.”

“Oh Christ, Bateman,” Hamlin groans. “What does
that
mean?”

“What?” I say. “
She does.
”

“So what? It’s all
looks.
Laurie Kennedy is a
babe
,” Hamlin says, emphatically. “Don’t even pretend you were interested for
any
other reason.”

“If they have a good personality then … something is very wrong,” Reeves says, somehow confused by his own statement.

“If they have a good personality and they are
not
great-looking”—Reeves holds his hands up, signifying something—“who fucking
cares
?”

“Well, let’s just say hypo
thet
ically, okay? What
if
they have a good personality?” I ask, knowing full well what a hopeless, asinine question it is.

“Fine.
Hypo
thetically even better but—” Hamlin says.

“I know, I know.” I smile.

“There
are
no girls with good personalities,” we all say in unison, laughing, giving each other high-five.

“A good personality,” Reeves begins, “consists of a chick who has a little hardbody and who will satisfy all sexual demands without being too slutty about things and who will essentially keep her dumb fucking mouth
shut.
”

“Listen,” Hamlin says, nodding in agreement. “The only girls with good personalities who are smart or maybe funny or halfway intelligent or even talented—though god knows what the fuck
that
means—are
ugly
chicks.”

“
Absolutely.
” Reeves nods.

“And this is because they have to make up for how fucking
unattractive
they are,” Hamlin says, sitting back in his chair.

“Well, my theory’s always been,” I start, “men are only here to procreate, to carry on the species, you know?”

They both nod.

“And so the only way to do that,” I continue, choosing words carefully, “is … to get turned on by a little hardbody, but sometimes
money
or
fame
—”

“No
buts
,” Hamlin says, interrupting. “Bateman, are you telling me that you’re gonna make it with Oprah Winfrey—hey, she’s rich, she’s powerful—or go down on Nell Carter—hey, she’s got a show on Broadway, a great voice, residuals pouring in?”

“Wait,” Reeves says. “
Who
is Nell Carter?”

“I don’t know,” I say, confused by the name. “She owns Nell’s, I guess.”

“Listen to me, Bateman,” Hamlin says. “The only reason chicks exist is to get us turned on, like you said. Survival of the
species, right? It’s as simple”—he lifts an olive out of his drink and pops it into his mouth—“as that.”

After a deliberate pause I say, “Do you know what Ed Gein said about women?”

“
Ed Gein
?” one of them asks. “Maître d’ at Canal Bar?”

“No,” I say. “Serial killer, Wisconsin in the fifties. He was an interesting guy.”

“You’ve always been interested in stuff like that, Bateman,” Reeves says, and then to Hamlin, “Bateman reads these biographies all the time: Ted Bundy and Son of Sam and
Fatal Vision
and Charlie Manson. All of them.”

“So what did Ed say?” Hamlin asks, interested.

“He said,” I begin, “‘When I see a pretty girl walking down the street I think two things. One part of me wants to take her out and talk to her and be real nice and sweet and treat her right.’” I stop, finish my J&B in one swallow.

“What does the other part of him think?” Hamlin asks tentatively.

“What her head would look like on a stick,” I say.

Hamlin and Reeves look at each other and then back at me before I start laughing, and then the two of them uneasily join in.

“Listen, what about dinner?” I say, casually changing subjects.

“How about that Indian-Californian place on the Upper West Side?” Hamlin suggests.

“Fine with me,” I say.

“Sounds good,” Reeves says.

“Who’ll make the rez?” Hamlin asks.

Courtney Lawrence invites me out to dinner on Monday night and the invitation seems vaguely sexual so I accept, but part of the catch is that we have to endure dinner with two
Camden graduates, Scott and Anne Smiley, at a new restaurant they chose on Columbus called Deck Chairs, a place I had my secretary research so thoroughly that she presented me with three alternative menus of what I should order before I left the office today. The things that Courtney told me about Scott and Anne—he works at an advertising agency, she opens restaurants with her father’s money, most recently 1968 on the Upper East Side—on the interminable cab ride uptown was only slightly less interesting than hearing about Courtney’s day: facial at Elizabeth Arden, buying kitchen utensils at the Pottery Barn (all of this, by the way, on lithium) before coming down to Harry’s where we had drinks with Charles Murphy and Rusty Webster, and where Courtney forgot the bag of Pottery Barn utensils she’d put underneath our table. The only detail of Scott and Anne’s life that seems even remotely suggestive to me is that they adopted a Korean boy of thirteen the year after they married, named him Scott Jr. and sent him to Exeter, where Scott had gone to school four years before I attended.

“They better have reservations,” I warn Courtney in the cab.

“Just don’t smoke a cigar, Patrick,” she says slowly.

“Is that Donald Trump’s car?” I ask, looking over at the limousine stuck next to us in gridlock.

“Oh god, Patrick. Shut up,” she says, her voice thick and drugged.

“You know, Courtney, I have a Walkman in my Bottega Veneta briefcase I could easily put on,” I say. “You should take some more lithium. Or have a Diet Coke. Some caffeine might get you out of this slump.”

“I just want to have a child,” she says softly, staring out the window, to no one. “Just … two … perfect … children.”

“Are you talking to me or Shlomo here?” I sigh, but loudly enough for the Israeli driver to hear me, and predictably Courtney doesn’t say anything.

The Patty Winters Show
this morning was about Perfumes and Lipsticks and Makeups. Luis Carruthers, Courtney’s boyfriend, is out of town in Phoenix and will not be back in Manhattan until late Thursday. Courtney is wearing a wool jacket and vest, a wool jersey T-shirt and wool gabardine pants by Bill
Blass, crystal, enamel and gold-plated earrings by Gerard E. Yosca and silk-satin d’Orsay pumps from Manolo Blahnik. I am wearing a custom-made tweed jacket, pants and a cotton shirt from the Alan Flusser shop and a silk tie by Paul Stuart. There was a twenty-minute wait at the Stairmaster machine at my health club this morning. I wave to a beggar on the corner of Forty-ninth and Eighth, then give him the finger.