American Psycho (61 page)

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

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

“You’ve, like, incorrectly identified me,” I’m saying.

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

“The watch. The Rolex,” he says simply.

I listen, silent, squirming in my seat.

He repeats, “The
watch.
”

“Is this some kind of prank?” I ask.

“Get out,” he spits. “Get the fuck out of the car.”

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

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

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

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

“I am innocent,” I shout with utter conviction.

“The watch.” He cocks the gun.

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

“Wallet.” He motions with his gun. “Just the cash.”

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

“What are you going to do?” I ask. “Isn’t there a reward of some kind?”

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

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

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

“Like
you
know,” I mutter angrily.

“The sunglasses.” He points again with the gun.

“How do you know I’m guilty?” I can’t believe I’m asking this patiently.

“Look what you’re doing, asshole,” he says. “The sunglasses.”

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

“The sunglasses. Give them now,” he grunts.

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

“You’re a dead man.” I smile grimly at him.

“And you’re a yuppie scumbag,” he says.

“You’re a dead man, Abdullah,” I repeat, no joke. “Count on it.”

“Yeah? And you’re a yuppie scumbag. Which is worse?”

He starts the cab up and pulls away from me.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Yeah, yeah, life sucks and then you die.”

“Low point of the night,” Farrell mutters.

“Weren’t you with Kyria the last time you were there?” Goodrich asks. “Wasn’t
that
the low point?”

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

“Caught him on call waiting.” McDermott nudges me, dubious.

“Shut up, McDermott,” Farrell says, snapping Craig’s suspenders. “Date a beggar.”

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

“How’s Courtney?” Farrell asks Craig, leering.

“Just say no.” Someone laughs.

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

“Bimbo, bimbo,” someone says. “Bypass, bypass.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“
Be
all that you can
be
,” someone adds.

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

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

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

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

“That’s, uh, a pretty good answer,” Price says, then adds, “You’re a real nut.”

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

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

“Very civilized.” Goodrich nods.

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