American Psycho (18 page)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Ah, Mr. Bateman,” Helga says. “How are you?”

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

“You’re back so soon,” she says.

“I was only here two days ago,” I say, confused.

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

“Helga?” I ask.

“Yes, Mr. Bateman?”

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

“That’s Mr. Erlanger,” she says.

“Mr. Erlanger from Lehman’s?”

“No. Mr. Erlanger from Salomon Brothers,” she says.

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

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

“Okay,” I say. “I’m relaxing.”

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

“I’m twenty-six.”

“Ah, that’s why. It’s so clean. So smooth.” She sighs. “Just relax.”

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

“Next time I’d prefer them a bit longer, Jeannie,” I warn her.

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

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

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

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

“Why were you arguing with him?” I ask.

“Patrick,” she says—a declarative statement.

“I’m here,” I say after a minute.

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

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

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

“Actually, you sound like anything but.”

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

“Well,” I say, “you couldn’t have come over anyway.”

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

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

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