American Psycho (28 page)

… vases and felt fedoras with feather headbands and alligator toiletry cases with gilt-silver bottles and brushes and shoehorns that cost two hundred dollars and candlesticks and pillow covers and gloves and slippers and powder puffs and hand-knitted cotton snowflake sweaters and leather skates and Porsche-design ski goggles and antique apothecary bottles and diamond earrings and silk ties and boots and perfume bottles and diamond earrings and boots and vodka glasses and card cases and cameras and mahogany servers and scarves and aftershaves and photo albums and salt and pepper shakers and ceramic-toaster cookie jars and two-hundred-dollar shoehorns and backpacks and aluminum lunch pails and pillow covers …

Some kind of existential chasm opens before me while I’m browsing in Bloomingdale’s and causes me to first locate a phone and check my messages, then, near tears, after taking three Halcion (since my body has mutated and adapted to the drug it no longer causes sleep—it just seems to ward off total madness), I head toward the Clinique counter where with my platinum American Express card I buy six tubes of shaving cream while flirting nervously with the girls who work there and I decide this emptiness has, at least in part, some connection
with the way I treated Evelyn at Barcadia the other night, though there is always the possibility it could just as easily have something to do with the tracking device on my VCR, and while I make a mental note to put in an appearance at Evelyn’s Christmas party—I’m even tempted to ask one of the Clinique girls to escort me—I also remind myself to look through my VCR handbook and deal with the tracking device problem. I see a ten-year-old girl standing by her mother, who is buying a scarf, some jewelry, and I’m thinking: Not bad. I’m wearing a cashmere topcoat, a double-breasted plaid wool and alpaca sport coat, pleated wool trousers, patterned silk tie, all by Valentino Couture, and leather lace-ups by Allen-Edmonds.

I’m having drinks with Charles Murphy at Rusty’s to fortify myself before making an appearance at Evelyn’s Christmas party. I’m wearing a four-button double-breasted wool and silk suit, a cotton shirt with a button-down collar by Valentino Couture, a patterned silk tie by Armani and cap-toed leather slip-ons by Allen-Edmonds. Murphy is wearing a six-button double-breasted wool gabardine suit by Courrèges, a striped cotton shirt with a tab collar and a foulard-patterned silk-crepe tie, both by Hugo Boss. He’s on a tirade about the Japanese—“They’ve bought the Empire State Building and Nell’s.
Nell
’s, can you believe it, Bateman?” he exclaims over his second Absolut on the rocks—and it moves something in me, it sets something off, and after leaving Rusty’s, while wandering around the Upper West Side, I find myself crouched in the doorway of what used to be Carly Simon’s, a very hot J. Akail restaurant that closed last fall, and leaping out at a passing Japanese delivery boy, I knock him off his bicycle and drag him into the doorway, his legs tangled somehow in the Schwinn he was riding which works to my advantage since when I slit his throat—easily, effortlessly—the spasmodic kicking that usually accompanies
this routine is blocked by the bike, which he still manages to lift five, six times while he’s choking on his own hot blood. I open the cartons of Japanese food and dump their contents over him, but to my surprise instead of sushi and teriyaki and hand rolls and soba noodles, chicken with cashew nuts falls all over his gasping bloodied face and beef chow mein and shrimp fried rice and moo shu pork splatter onto his heaving chest, and this irritating setback—accidentally killing the wrong type of Asian—moves me to check where this order was going—Sally Rubinstein—and with my Mont Blanc pen to write
I’m gonna get you too … bitch
on the back of it, then place the order over the dead kid’s face and shrug apologetically, mumbling “Uh, sorry” and recall that
The Patty Winters Show
this morning was about Teenage Girls Who Trade Sex for Crack. I spent two hours at the gym today and can now complete two hundred abdominal crunches in less than three minutes. Near Evelyn’s brownstone I hand a freezing bum one of the fortune cookies I took from the delivery boy and he stuffs it, fortune and all, into his mouth, nodding thanks. “Fucking slob,” I mutter loud enough for him to hear. As I turn the corner and head for Evelyn’s, I notice the police lines are
still
up around the brownstone where her neighbor Victoria Bell was decapitated. Four limousines are parked in front, one still running.

I’m late. The living room and dining room are already crowded with people I don’t really want to talk to. Tall, full blue spruces covered with white twinkling lights stand on either side of the fireplace. Old Christmas songs from the sixties sung by the Ronettes are on the CD player. A bartender in a tuxedo pours champagne and eggnog, mixes Manhattans and martinis, opens bottles of Calera Jensen pinot noir and a Chappellet chardonnay. Twenty-year-old ports line a makeshift bar between vases of poinsettias. A long folding table has been covered with a red tablecloth and is jammed with pans and plates and bowls of roasted hazelnuts and lobster and oyster bisques and celery root soup with apples and Beluga caviar on toast points and creamed onions and roast goose with chestnut stuffing and caviar in puff pastry and vegetable tarts with tapenade, roast duck and roast rack of veal with shallots and gnocchi gratin and vegetable strudel and Waldorf salad and scallops and
bruschetta with mascarpone and white truffles and green chili souffle and roast partridge with sage, potatoes and onion and cranberry sauce, mincemeat pies and chocolate truffles and lemon soufflé tarts and pecan tarte Tatin. Candles have been lit everywhere, all of them in sterling silver Tiffany candleholders. And though I cannot be positive that I’m not hallucinating, there seem to be midgets dressed in green and red elf suits and felt hats walking around with trays of appetizers. I pretend not to have noticed and head straight for the bar where I gulp down a glass of not-bad champagne then move over to Donald Petersen, and as with most of the men here, someone has tied paper antlers to his head. On the other side of the room Maria and Darwin Hutton’s five-year-old daughter, Cassandra, is wearing a seven-hundred-dollar velvet dress and petticoat by Nancy Halser. After finishing a second glass of champagne I move to martinis—Absolut doubles—and after I’ve calmed down sufficiently I take a closer look around the room,
but the midgets are still there.

“Too much red,” I mutter to myself, trancing out. “It’s makin’ me nervous.”

“Hey McCloy,” Petersen says. “What do you say?”

I snap out of it and automatically ask, “Is this the British cast recording of
Les Misérables
or not?”

“Hey, have a holly jolly Christmas.” He points a finger at me, drunk.

“So what
is
this music?” I ask, thoroughly annoyed. “And by the way, sir, deck the halls with boughs of holly.”

“Bill Septor,” he says, shrugging. “I think Septor or Skeptor.”

“Why doesn’t she put on some Talking Heads for Christ
sakes
,” I complain bitterly.

Courtney is standing on the other side of the room, holding a champagne glass and ignoring me completely.

“Or
Les Miz
,” he suggests.

“American or British cast recording?” My eyes narrowing, I’m testing him.

“Er, British,” he says as a dwarf hands us each a plate of Waldorf salad.

“Definitely,” I murmur, staring at the dwarf as he waddles away.

Suddenly Evelyn rushes up to us wearing a sable jacket and velvet pants by Ralph Lauren and in one hand she’s holding a piece of mistletoe, which she places above my head, and in the other a candy cane.

“Mistletoe alert!” she shrieks, kissing me dryly on the cheek. “Merry Xmas, Patrick. Merry Xmas, Jimmy.”

“Merry … Xmas,” I say, unable to push her away since I’ve got a martini in one hand and a Waldorf salad in the other.

“You’re late, honey,” she says.

“I’m not late,” I say, barely protesting.

“Oh yes you are,” she says in singsong.

“I’ve been here the entire time,” I say, dismissing her. “You just didn’t see me.”

“Oh, stop scowling. You’re such a Grinch.” She turns to Petersen. “Did you know Patrick’s the Grinch?”

“Bah humbug,” I sigh, staring over at Courtney.

“Hell, we all know McCloy’s the Grinch,” Petersen bellows drunkenly. “How ya doin’, Mr. Grinch?”

“And what does Mr. Grinch want for Christmas?” Evelyn asks in a baby’s voice. “Has Mr. Grinchie been a good boy this year?”

I sigh. “The Grinch wants a Burberry raincoat, a Ralph Lauren cashmere sweater, a new Rolex, a car stereo—”

Evelyn stops sucking on the candy cane to interrupt. “But you don’t
have
a
car
, honey.”

“I want one anyway.” I sigh again. “The Grinch wants a car stereo anyway.”

“How’s the Waldorf salad?” Evelyn asks worriedly. “Do you think it tastes all right?”

“Delicious,” I murmur, craning my neck, spotting someone, suddenly impressed. “Hey, you didn’t tell me Laurence Tisch was invited to this party.”

She turns around. “What are you talking about?”

“Why,” I ask, “is Laurence Tisch passing around a tray of canapes?”

“Oh god, Patrick, that’s
not
Laurence Tisch,” she says. “That’s one of the Christmas elves.”

“One of the
what
? You mean the midgets.”

“They’re
elves
,” she stresses. “Santa’s helpers. God, what a sourpuss. Look at them. They’re adorable. That one over there
is Rudolph, the one passing out candy canes is Blitzen. The other one is Donner—”

“Wait a minute, Evelyn, wait,” I say, closing my eyes, holding up the hand with the Waldorf salad in it. I’m sweating, déjà vu, but why? Have I met these elves somewhere? Forget about it. “I … those are the names of reindeer. Not elves. Blitzen was a
reindeer.
”

“The only Jewish one,” Petersen reminds us.

“Oh …” Evelyn seems bewildered by this information and she looks over at Petersen to confirm this. “Is this true?”

He shrugs, thinks about it and looks confused. “Hey, baby—reindeer, elves, Grinches, brokers … Hell, what’s the difference long as the Cristal flows, hey?” He chuckles, nudging me in the ribs. “Ain’t that right, Mr. Grinch?”

“Don’t you think it’s Christmasy?” she asks hopefully.

“Oh yes, Evelyn,” I tell her. “It’s very Christmasy and I’m truthful, not lying.”

“But Mr. Sourpuss was late,” she pouts, shaking that damn piece of mistletoe at me accusingly. “And not a word about the Waldorf salad.”

“You know, Evelyn, there were a lot of other
Xmas
parties in this metropolis that I could have attended tonight yet I chose yours. Why? you might ask. Why? I asked myself. I didn’t come up with a feasible answer, yet I’m here, so be, you know, grateful, babe,” I say.

“Oh, so
this
is my Christmas present?” she asks, sarcastic. “How sweet, Patrick, how thoughtful.”

“No,
this
is.” I give her a noodle I just noticed was stuck on my shirt cuff. “Here.”

“Oh Patrick, I’m going to cry,” she says, dangling the noodle up to candlelight. “It’s gorgeous. Can I put it on now?”

“No. Feed it to one of the elves. That one over there looks pretty hungry. Excuse me but I need another drink.”

I hand Evelyn the plate of Waldorf salad and tweak one of Petersen’s antlers and head toward the bar humming “Silent Night,” vaguely depressed by what most of the women are wearing—pullover cashmere sweaters, blazers, long wool skirts, corduroy dresses, turtlenecks. Cold weather. No hardbodies.

Paul Owen is standing near the bar holding a champagne flute, studying his antique silver pocket watch (from Hammacher Schlemmer, no doubt), and I’m about to walk over and mention something about that damned Fisher account when Humphrey Rhinebeck bumps into me trying to avoid stepping on one of the elves and he’s still wearing a cashmere chesterfield overcoat by Crombie from Lord & Taylor, a peak-lapeled double-breasted wool tuxedo, a cotton shirt by Perry Ellis, a bow tie from Hugo Boss and paper antlers in a way that suggests he’s completely unaware, and as if by rote the twerp says, “Hey Bateman, last week I brought a new herringbone tweed jacket to my tailor for alterations.”

“Well, uh, congratulations seem in order,” I say, shaking his hand. “That’s …
nifty.
”

“Thanks.” He blushes, looking down. “Anyway, he noticed that the retailer had removed the original label and replaced it with one of his own. Now what I want to know is, is this
legal
?”

“It’s confusing, I know,” I say, still moving through the crowd. “Once a line of clothing has been purchased from its manufacturer, it’s perfectly legal for the retailer to replace the original label with his own. However, it’s
not
legal to replace it with
another
retailer’s label.”

“But wait, why
is
that?” he asks, trying to sip from his martini glass while attempting to follow me.

“Because details regarding fiber content and country of origin or the manufacturer’s registration number must remain
intact.
Label tampering is very hard to detect and rarely reported,” I shout over my shoulder. Courtney is kissing Paul Owen on the cheek, their hands already firmly clasped. I stiffen up and stop walking. Rhinebeck bumps into me. But she moves on, waving to someone across the room.